Race to save Murmel!

Another looooooong and unresolved all combat session, but you’re painfully close to victory.

Will ‘is-he-or-isn’t-he-there’ Banaal be able to save his own stubborn ass?

Will ‘I’m the door!’ Fortu continue ‘Great cleaving’ through whoever/whatever advances toward him.

Will Liga Bur ever sacrifice the warm and cuddly protective cover of his nigh indestructible hound and risk actually getting injured?

Will Rifkin’s ‘Alarm stone’ ever stop its annoying shrieking?

Will Locket ever manage to hit anything with his crossbow?

Did his brothers; Ringo and Chape, go overboard by over boarding up the first floor windows?

Is Deo being a good doggy and comforting poor frightened Rebecca in the attic?

With vast area spells, freakishly high Armour classes, massive damage output and incredibly high Hit points, you may just pull through…

Below are all my currently available dates over the next two months.

Check your diaries and let me know when you’re free to resolve this bloody mess of an encounter. Next session will hopefully be more talky-talky, less choppy-choppy.

October

24th  Saturday 

25th Sunday

November

7th Saturday

8th Sunday

21st Saturday 

22nd Sunday 

28th Saturday

29th Sunday 

Cometh the Darkness

Grott-Warren is much as you’d expect of a mining town, even a silver mining town, other than the fact that it’s (almost) completely deserted.

Despite following his parents into the clergy, Banaal was still a Dwarf and all Dwarves knew mining, deep, deep in their bones. These mines are obviously still paying out and this town should be bustling with life.

The town is small though, with the miners generally living beside their current ‘live’  mines and only coming into town for entertainment and supplies.

Now though, from what the evidence shows, everyone, other than the little girl; Rebecca, is likely dead. The coal in the blacksmith’s forge has cooled to warm ash, showing that it’s not been tended in days and almost every ground floor door and window is smashed in. And, most obviously, despite the absence of bodies, there’s blood literally everywhere! 

From the gruesome half-eaten hand you found on the first of the Red-eyes Orc, you suspect what vile purpose the Human and Dwarven corpses are being used for.

It’s still two hours before sunset though, giving you all plenty of time to roughly re-secure the lower floor of the ‘Silver Cave inn’. There’s piles of fresh timber in the general store supply shed, plus hammers and plenty of nails. 

After all the broken furniture is cleared away, everyone could easily fit within the stone walls of the, could be re-fortified, tavern, even Banaal’s faithful mule; Murmel could squeeze in.

There’s also coins in the till and two locked safes in the general store and empty guard house. There’s even several abandoned crates loaded up with silver ore!

Banaal can’t help feel the pull of the silver in his Dwarven soul.

The only other obvious option left open to them is to follow the multiple drag tracks leading away from the town. After a brief search, it becomes apparent that they all converge together into just four bigger trails, each one, presumably, leading to a separate mine

It’s hard to guess the total numbers involved but it’s likely scores… Possibly even  a hundred of them. A daunting number, especially considering the soon to come darkness.

Before she falls asleep beside him, the town’s lone survivor; Rebecca answers all the questions Banaal asks of her, but she’s just six-years-old and a lot of what’s happened is beyond her experience and understanding. It’s obvious though, that her parents locked her in the tavern attic, before they were killed, in a desperate attempt to save her.

Now her tiny, traumatised life is in the hands of the adventurers and, even if they survive this night, it’s still four more nights and days to Chaval; fortified mountaintop capital city of Agentia.

Banaal's Diary : Entry #430

 Another entry from Banaal's secret diary exposed ... 

Well, that was an absolute whirlwind. Turns out these guys are amazing, even if they do hang-out  with ex-henchmen of Briafedel.  Happening upon them at the Lightning Tree was lucky, but Murmel was luckier still. He would have been gone if it wasn't for the quick-thinking big man Fortu, that is for sure!

Then before you know it, we are ambushed by the strangest cats I've ever seen. These fey woods are a lot more dangerous than I could have believed. Moradin struck his faithful hammer to guide my hand and we were victorious.

Mule or Fuel?

The strange group of fleshy creatures had long departed with a few of its root-retrieved trinkets, but the Lightning tree still finds itself mulling over their last baffling encounter.

The heavily armoured Human had been gone for considerably longer than the sentient tree had initially anticipated but Fortu had finally returned to keep his word.

The concept of time is relative though, especially to one as long lived as the Lightning tree. One week, one month, one year; what does it matter, as long as the promise was eventually fulfilled?

Fortu’s timing had been extremely fortuitous though. Arriving with a considerable amount of ‘gift meat’ just when it’d been arguing with a Dwarf about the very definition of food and that ‘meat wasn’t murder’ unless the animal could speak.

The Dwarf; Banaal had vehemently disagreed, claiming that his mule wasn’t food but actually his trusted steed and companion. This made little sense though as the Halfling, Liga Bur had previously gone to great lengths to explain the difference during their previous meeting. 

‘Intelligent meaty creatures are not food but, simple minded, grazing animals and scavengers were. If it can talk, it’s not food but instead a potential friend or ally.’

This would make the braying creature, that it had scooped up in its branches, definitely fall into the category of ‘morally edible’, so why did the Dwarf object so fiercely?

Perhaps because the Mule had been taught a few tricks and was being used to carry Banaal’s equipment?

Ultimately, it didn’t really matter though. Fortu had honoured his promise to return with meat and so consuming the mule had become unnecessary. The four deer carcasses, now interred deeply beneath it, would rot slowly and provide sustenance for months to come. 

Alone again, the Lightning tree begins to absorb the slowly releasing nutrients through its tendril-like roots and considers the conundrum.

Perhaps it’s simply that unintelligent creatures, like the Dwarf’s mule; Murmul or the Halfling’s hound; Mir Hundur, are not to be considered to be merely food, if they’d been given an actual name?

Risk free Goodies

Considering you got nothing from the six Displacer beast pack, it only seems fair that I was generous in other areas.

From Rifkin’s satchel:

Mir Hundur got a collar (medallion) of Natural attack +3

Liga Bur got a scroll of Heat metal  

From the Lightning tree:

Murmul goat a full set of Horseshoes of speed.

Fortu got a pair of Gauntlets of Ogre power +2

From Magritte:

Potions of 

4 x Cure Light Wounds 1d8+1 

2 x Cure Medium Wounds 2d8+3

1 x Cure Serious Wounds 3d8+5

2 x Delay Poison

2 x Barkskin +2AC (10 minutes)

1 x Bear’s Endurance +4 con (1 minute)

1 x Bull’s Strength +4 str (1 minute)

1 x Cat’s Grace +4 Dex (1 minute)

2 x Lesser Restoration 

(Although we’ve suddenly got a situation where two of the three characters can cast these spells themselves, we can argue who takes what potion next session, but up until then, Rifkin puts them in his satchel for safe keeping.

Update your character sheets and Scott, take this opportunity to un-disable poor Liga Bur and fix Dijonn.

Banaal - A life more ordinary

Growing up in a place nobody has ever heard of, would drive anyone to leave. But young Banaal was happy there.  He had the familiarity of the grey walls and the love of some other very similar looking dwarvish folk. Early on he knew he had a deep connection with the mountains and hills and the understanding that the world had purpose. Just not a very interesting one.

Becoming a cleric of Moradin was sort of inevitable as his parents were both priests and Banaal new little else. He learned his craft studiously, before one day, his simple life came crashing to a halt. The high priest was caught without his axe and a young acolyte at his feet, and Banal, having witnessed the whole horrific thing, had to flee.

So, he found himself on the edge of dwarvish lands, his only companion Murmel his mule.  In fact, without Murmel, he might never have survived the first night.  The mule fought off a pair of hungry wolves, and Banal realised he needed to learn how to protect himself.

But learn, he did. And the dwarven armourer that took him in taught him all he knew and more.

When he left his care he found himself to be a magnet for bad luck. Falling into a mine full of spiders, chasing an orc pack that he had thought had killed Murmel (who he later found hiding in a bush), being a mercenary for some human scum that never paid him, and so on.  Scrape after scrape, but what always saved him was his devotion to Moradin who seemed to lend strength to his Waraxe.

So, Banaal and Murmel, find themselves on a path that led directly to our heroes. And so, the story of an ordinary dwarf and his obstinate steed continues.