Posts
http://www.snorgtees.com/theonlythingwehavetofear-p-661.html?osCsid=4632fa1586bf933ca844ce63cd7a706e
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Amwise needs a T-shirt
Somehow I think this would be incredibly appropriate for Matt:
http://www.snorgtees.com/theonlythingwehavetofear-p-661.html?osCsid=4632fa1586bf933ca844ce63cd7a706e
http://www.snorgtees.com/theonlythingwehavetofear-p-661.html?osCsid=4632fa1586bf933ca844ce63cd7a706e
Welcome to the Campaign
As we are at this point welcoming a new player and new character to the group, I thought it prudent to summarize the party with some character bios of my own.
Mal: Malasion Attukha. Tall, thin, wiry, dark haired human academic. Youngest son of the house of a Merchant Prince in his homeland. His smooth, uncallused, inksmudged hands and the way that his thin rapier ride on his hip suggest that he has little practical experience in swordplay and much better educated than is probably prudent. He is "not subtle" like a three-bean-nacho fart in church.
Demeyo: Tall, lanky, woodsy half-elf archer-ranger (technically, he's called a "dabbler"). He's the Legolas of the group. If Legolas was a Ninja, he would be Demeyo. He is a defensive blur with his broadsword in a duel. Skilled tracker.
Winterloin: Tall, beefy, woodsy, half-elf warrior-ranger. He's the Aragorn of the group. I think he has a bow, but he is more lethal with his big "fat bastard" sword. Bears a title of lesser nobility. Skilled tracker.
Sigrin Ironfist: He's a dwarf. Seen Gimli? Seen 'em all. He is an accomplished blacksmith and weaponsmith who is nearly as well skilled with wielding his hammer in melee as he is at bleeding profusely without complaint. I think its fair to say he's stoic. He doesn't swim; not that he can't swim, but he bleeds so much that he attracts sharks.
Elise: female halfling scout. Cute little fireplug. Totally mute. No tongue. Don't ask. Seamstress, mapmaker, artist, tracker, and deadeye sniper with a sling. Do not cross her at less than 30 feet, and if you close to melee range expect to be bludgeoned to death with her martial arts expertise.
Amwise: male halfling scout. Annoying little cuss. Prone to leap into dangerous situations well beyond his ability level and require full scale rescue. But he's a good stealthy scouty thiefy type who really only gets in trouble due to his own impulsiveness. Ambidextrous dagger flinger and knee stabber.
Reuben: Farmer John in a cassock. He's a priest of the God of the Harvest, the Vicar of Nutrisystem, the Potentate of Protein Powder, the great provider of the vast majority of our meals in the wilderness whether we like it or not. And we're grateful, no doubt, because starvation sucks. When he isn't busy healing or feeding us, or summoning a lesser daemon to do his bidding, sometimes he swings his big axe halberd. Also a skilled tracker.
Mal: Malasion Attukha. Tall, thin, wiry, dark haired human academic. Youngest son of the house of a Merchant Prince in his homeland. His smooth, uncallused, inksmudged hands and the way that his thin rapier ride on his hip suggest that he has little practical experience in swordplay and much better educated than is probably prudent. He is "not subtle" like a three-bean-nacho fart in church.
Demeyo: Tall, lanky, woodsy half-elf archer-ranger (technically, he's called a "dabbler"). He's the Legolas of the group. If Legolas was a Ninja, he would be Demeyo. He is a defensive blur with his broadsword in a duel. Skilled tracker.
Winterloin: Tall, beefy, woodsy, half-elf warrior-ranger. He's the Aragorn of the group. I think he has a bow, but he is more lethal with his big "fat bastard" sword. Bears a title of lesser nobility. Skilled tracker.
Sigrin Ironfist: He's a dwarf. Seen Gimli? Seen 'em all. He is an accomplished blacksmith and weaponsmith who is nearly as well skilled with wielding his hammer in melee as he is at bleeding profusely without complaint. I think its fair to say he's stoic. He doesn't swim; not that he can't swim, but he bleeds so much that he attracts sharks.
Elise: female halfling scout. Cute little fireplug. Totally mute. No tongue. Don't ask. Seamstress, mapmaker, artist, tracker, and deadeye sniper with a sling. Do not cross her at less than 30 feet, and if you close to melee range expect to be bludgeoned to death with her martial arts expertise.
Amwise: male halfling scout. Annoying little cuss. Prone to leap into dangerous situations well beyond his ability level and require full scale rescue. But he's a good stealthy scouty thiefy type who really only gets in trouble due to his own impulsiveness. Ambidextrous dagger flinger and knee stabber.
Reuben: Farmer John in a cassock. He's a priest of the God of the Harvest, the Vicar of Nutrisystem, the Potentate of Protein Powder, the great provider of the vast majority of our meals in the wilderness whether we like it or not. And we're grateful, no doubt, because starvation sucks. When he isn't busy healing or feeding us, or summoning a lesser daemon to do his bidding, sometimes he swings his big axe halberd. Also a skilled tracker.
1025 Things Not To Do in a RPG
http://theglen.livejournal.com/16735.html
I'm in violation of:
367. No using excessive firepower to force the plot along.
396. I will refrain from using wildly inaccurate high explosive weapons in close quarters.
416. I will not substitute accuracy with enthusiasm.
608. The answer to 'who's got point?' is not the fireball.
718. Warnings given retroactively in battle aren't appreciated.
794. Pregen characters do not have cutesy nicknames, even if their real names are pretty lame.
902. Can't set the bad guy on fire until after I've blown the persuasion roll.
907. Can't use my attack bonus as a substitute for the skill: Hibachi Chef.
Multiple violations for Reuben:
602. Find Familiar scrolls are not a substitute for the hunting skill.
Something for us to keep in mind for the future:
709. Any plan is vetoed if it was obviously inspired by Boromir.
1143. Torching the forest doesn’t get me any XP for anything inside the forest.
1151. Our mission is to rescue the princess. Not to bring Sexy back.
1215. If I’m just a few XP from 16th level, I can’t just cast fireballs at random forests until I hit something.
Dagobert might consider:
788. "You take the scary one" is not our default battle strategy.
985. Even if it isn't in the rules, I have to use the same scale miniature as everybody else.
986. I cannot switch miniatures between each combat.
I should consider violating this:
821. My sorcerer will not take a level in druid just to make it easier to get to the flammable stuff.
I did not know this:
885. Halflings do not store food in their cheeks for winter.
1138. Fireballs don’t have a non-lethal option. I will ponder this after I’ve cast one at that guy we needed alive.
My personal favorite:
1281. The two primary types of Halfling are not flathead and Phillips.
And another thing not to do in a RPG:
I'm in violation of:
367. No using excessive firepower to force the plot along.
396. I will refrain from using wildly inaccurate high explosive weapons in close quarters.
416. I will not substitute accuracy with enthusiasm.
608. The answer to 'who's got point?' is not the fireball.
718. Warnings given retroactively in battle aren't appreciated.
794. Pregen characters do not have cutesy nicknames, even if their real names are pretty lame.
902. Can't set the bad guy on fire until after I've blown the persuasion roll.
907. Can't use my attack bonus as a substitute for the skill: Hibachi Chef.
Multiple violations for Reuben:
602. Find Familiar scrolls are not a substitute for the hunting skill.
Something for us to keep in mind for the future:
709. Any plan is vetoed if it was obviously inspired by Boromir.
1143. Torching the forest doesn’t get me any XP for anything inside the forest.
1151. Our mission is to rescue the princess. Not to bring Sexy back.
1215. If I’m just a few XP from 16th level, I can’t just cast fireballs at random forests until I hit something.
Dagobert might consider:
788. "You take the scary one" is not our default battle strategy.
985. Even if it isn't in the rules, I have to use the same scale miniature as everybody else.
986. I cannot switch miniatures between each combat.
I should consider violating this:
821. My sorcerer will not take a level in druid just to make it easier to get to the flammable stuff.
I did not know this:
885. Halflings do not store food in their cheeks for winter.
1138. Fireballs don’t have a non-lethal option. I will ponder this after I’ve cast one at that guy we needed alive.
My personal favorite:
1281. The two primary types of Halfling are not flathead and Phillips.
And another thing not to do in a RPG:
Vol 2 Issue 6: 28 Mar 2009
So much for storming the castle.
These guys are really quite annoying, and perhaps even a bit out of our league. Which is fine, as long as we don't insist on tangling with them directly on their own terms.
Here we are camped some distance outside of the castle, minding our own business, making plans for some over-the-wall direct raid complete with misdirection and obfuscation geared towards maximizing the dismemberment and punishment that could be inflicted BY us ON them when the inhabitants have the gall to call for reinforcements. Which wouldn't be nearly so troubling if it weren't for the fact that they were able to get their reinforcements via teleportation.
Decent high-level magic teleportation. Something akin to the 30th level Essence spell from Lofty Bridges called Mass Teleport. Not necessarily that one, could have been something else.
So here we're getting ready to attack when WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP magic alert, can't miss this one, someone whipping up a huge pile of Essence power and some 30 minutes later the gates start opening and out pour 3 boatloads of bad guys.
So we could have tried to meet them at the beaches. Except that we know that the beaches are still within spell and bow range of the walls, so unless we're willing to let them drop off a boat load and then send the boat back for more while we ambush some folks in the woods we're out of luck. And we're too cautious for that.
So we run like heck.
Actually its more of a case of Reuben pointing in a direction and saying "you go that way, don't stop, I'll find you later" and me taking off on foot with Elise and Master Dwarf for company. He has a name. Does anyone know the Dwarf's name?
Eventually he catches up with me, us, whatever, and I can fill in some backstory and make some approximations. Big spell cast, and then a bunch of guys come flooding out of the castle. They must have called for reinforcements, it smells like teleportation. Headcount is 24 guys chasing after us in two groups, but still full ranks of defenders at the castle (8 before, still 8 now), so presumably around 24 people summoned/teleported in. The 3 wizardly types are part of the chase party, but they were never really part of the castle wall defenders anyways, so a low end of 20-21 helpers summoned/teleported. They're broken into two packs, the big one goes east and the small one goes west. Pursuing the westerly group also has us heading closer to home, so we pursue and chase down the westerly group.
After a brief skirmish, Demeyo managed to drop the small group's wizardly-type with arrows after keeping him occupied for a while. Good job. Perfect timing. Just when the poor boy dropped, I was right there to light a little Shock Bolt through his central nervous system and ensure that he'd be down for the count for a while.
It felt just like playing Pikachu in Super Smash Brothers: just when Link gets finished plinking someone at range, I show up with Pikachu and unleash THUNDERBOLT! Pika-Pika-Pika-CHU!
Enough about that. Just as the main body of our group managed to engage this little knot of baddies, they broke and fled. Pansies. Left for dead their wizzzard and one of their archers. Who turned out to really be dead. Or at least unsalvagable. Unlike the wizzzard, who was salvagable by Reuben's standards and therefore we (meaning "everyone but me") had to help drag this comatose body through the woods for what seemed like a few hundred leagues of day-and-night forced marching to get back to the lake and the signal tower.
At which point it became obvious that we'd been pursued.
That left us with a brief skirmish on the beach as we waited for our pickup to get close enough to shore that I could shuttle everyone to safety with Flight spells. Meanwhile Demeyo discovered that the wizzzard had regained consciousness, could still cast Ice Bolt, was still a threat, and needed desperately to be bludgeoned back into a coma. Which he obliged.
So, back to Laketown and a report to the Margrave and his officers. We're now confirmed to be dealing with the Dread Lords, who are apparantly somewhat scarier than the Dread Pirate Roberts.
These guys are really quite annoying, and perhaps even a bit out of our league. Which is fine, as long as we don't insist on tangling with them directly on their own terms.
Here we are camped some distance outside of the castle, minding our own business, making plans for some over-the-wall direct raid complete with misdirection and obfuscation geared towards maximizing the dismemberment and punishment that could be inflicted BY us ON them when the inhabitants have the gall to call for reinforcements. Which wouldn't be nearly so troubling if it weren't for the fact that they were able to get their reinforcements via teleportation.
Decent high-level magic teleportation. Something akin to the 30th level Essence spell from Lofty Bridges called Mass Teleport. Not necessarily that one, could have been something else.
So here we're getting ready to attack when WOOP WOOP WOOP WOOP magic alert, can't miss this one, someone whipping up a huge pile of Essence power and some 30 minutes later the gates start opening and out pour 3 boatloads of bad guys.
So we could have tried to meet them at the beaches. Except that we know that the beaches are still within spell and bow range of the walls, so unless we're willing to let them drop off a boat load and then send the boat back for more while we ambush some folks in the woods we're out of luck. And we're too cautious for that.
So we run like heck.
Actually its more of a case of Reuben pointing in a direction and saying "you go that way, don't stop, I'll find you later" and me taking off on foot with Elise and Master Dwarf for company. He has a name. Does anyone know the Dwarf's name?
Eventually he catches up with me, us, whatever, and I can fill in some backstory and make some approximations. Big spell cast, and then a bunch of guys come flooding out of the castle. They must have called for reinforcements, it smells like teleportation. Headcount is 24 guys chasing after us in two groups, but still full ranks of defenders at the castle (8 before, still 8 now), so presumably around 24 people summoned/teleported in. The 3 wizardly types are part of the chase party, but they were never really part of the castle wall defenders anyways, so a low end of 20-21 helpers summoned/teleported. They're broken into two packs, the big one goes east and the small one goes west. Pursuing the westerly group also has us heading closer to home, so we pursue and chase down the westerly group.
After a brief skirmish, Demeyo managed to drop the small group's wizardly-type with arrows after keeping him occupied for a while. Good job. Perfect timing. Just when the poor boy dropped, I was right there to light a little Shock Bolt through his central nervous system and ensure that he'd be down for the count for a while.
It felt just like playing Pikachu in Super Smash Brothers: just when Link gets finished plinking someone at range, I show up with Pikachu and unleash THUNDERBOLT! Pika-Pika-Pika-CHU!
Enough about that. Just as the main body of our group managed to engage this little knot of baddies, they broke and fled. Pansies. Left for dead their wizzzard and one of their archers. Who turned out to really be dead. Or at least unsalvagable. Unlike the wizzzard, who was salvagable by Reuben's standards and therefore we (meaning "everyone but me") had to help drag this comatose body through the woods for what seemed like a few hundred leagues of day-and-night forced marching to get back to the lake and the signal tower.
At which point it became obvious that we'd been pursued.
That left us with a brief skirmish on the beach as we waited for our pickup to get close enough to shore that I could shuttle everyone to safety with Flight spells. Meanwhile Demeyo discovered that the wizzzard had regained consciousness, could still cast Ice Bolt, was still a threat, and needed desperately to be bludgeoned back into a coma. Which he obliged.
So, back to Laketown and a report to the Margrave and his officers. We're now confirmed to be dealing with the Dread Lords, who are apparantly somewhat scarier than the Dread Pirate Roberts.
Vol 2 Issue 5: 21 Feb 2009
Shipwrecked... up the river without a paddle... burned out on boating... that pretty much described the situation. Our boat was a total loss, as well as everything we'd left with it. No sense dragging everything we have up the hill to camp, right? So most of it was left behind with the boat. To burn. Nice barbeque.
But we did have some decent tracks heading downriver a ways: a trail to follow.
But it quickly disappeared. We followed our tormenters downriver for maybe a mile or three and then the trail just abruptly went poof. It was as if they just disappeared directly into the river. No clue where they actually went. Flying? Sailing? Swimming? Shapechanging? Its anyone's guess. So we continued in the same direction, downriver, on the logic that either we run into something or we hit the coast and continue with our primary mission. Either one would be good.
Several days trudging downriver. Along the way we find an awesome stretch of shallows that would make a good ford. But no tracks or trails. Until we're at least half a week downriver, and then Demeyo spots it: a weedy little trail heading due south away from the river and into the underbrush. A real "what the frack" moment for us. Naturally, we followed it.
Due south into the rolling hills and woods, mile after mile, the trail gets wider and more recognisable until it is clear we're on an obvious well-travelled path. When did that happen? Dunno, but lets get off it. We decided to dogleg out a few hundred yards to the southeast and then try to parallel the direction the trail seemed to head in before doglegging back to the southwest to maybe intersect it. Seemed like a bright idea, and nobody was keen on marching along blisfully unaware on a blazed trail that could be well travelled by individuals we'd prefer to encounter on our own terms.
But our new path offered us a new vantage into the woods, and up ahead in the distance we saw a shimmering light. No, wrong song. It was a thin wispy trail of smoke up into the sky, miles off, that just happened to catch the light or the shadow or something because almost all of us saw it. Now we had something to walk towards! Trudging through the underbrush, trying to close on this wisp of smoke in the distance, we ended up crossing a trail (perhaps the same one as before) obliquely. Lack of compass, GPS, and satnav really makes it tough to guesstimate this stuff.
Suddenly! The woods... DISAPPEARED! We entered... a clearing. We entered a dimension of sight and sound. A clearing, around a lake, with an island, and a castle filling 99.99% of the island right down to the water, and SMOKE coming from somewhere inside of the castle.
One wispy trail of smoke. For a decent sized castle.
I'm really not sure how we got talked into this, but for some odd reason our first reaction was to assume that the inhabitants would be friendly, receptive, habla ingles, and have hot food. So Reuben stood on the shore and waved his arms to get their attention. Demeyo disappeared around this time to do some swimming with a water-breathing spell.
For his efforts, they shot arrows at him and tried to turn him into a shish-kebob. I don't think he was amused. Then we heard drums, drums, drums from deep in the castle. Or maybe it was a horn. Yeah, I'm sure it was a horn not drums. The gate, a portcullis right down on the waterline, opened and a barge started heading out. Meanwhile we're hiding in the woods like rabbits.
Maybe this is all a big misunderstanding. Surely diplomacy and reason can rule!
We waited. The barge-people used magic to create a huge thick rolling fog. The barge got closer. The mist expanded. We retreated out of the mist, stood around, Reuben and I both buffed some defensive spells on me, and I tried to diplomatically explain that we came in peace.
LUUUCY! Youse gots some esplainin' to do!
I don't think my efforts were well recieved. I think we stumbled into the same back of idiots that torched the boat and tried to cripple Freddy. Come to think of it, did we ever head Freddy from last time? I think we just put him in my pack with some food and asked him to heal naturally. Just concussion damage, right?
It ended up a crazy fight in the woods. Piecing it together from after action reports we were on a north-south trail facing northwards, roughly, give or take a few points of of the compass, towards the lake. Our assailants disembarked from their barge and circled to attack us from the east out of the woods. There were 4 of them, described in hindsight as 2 mages and 2 warriors. Well, 2 who fought primarily with spells and 2 who fought primarily with melee. I never saw more than 1 warrior and 1 mage, maybe 2. Hard to tell.
It was a rough fight, but not too bad. Winterlion was really carving up one of the warriors with his eversharp ginsu bastard sword. I got started on a bit of a wizards' duel with one of the mages, but then abruptly they broke off the fight and ran like scared little children. Thats a tactic I wish we'd have used more often in the past.
While Reuben was busy chasing them down through the woods, I spent about a minute repetetively casting 'Dispe Essence" with no effect. Until finally, I dispelled the fog. Woot! But just as I dispelled the fog, Reuben had bluffed his way onto the boat as everyone was escaping and had fooled them, at least temporarily, as accepting him as a crewman. He was busy infiltrating like a spy when my dispel ruined his cover. Sorry, Reuben. Didn't know. That looked to get ugly. I tried to fireball the boat, but couldn't heft the range and the spell fizzled. I tried to cover his escape with a firewall, but again I couldn't heft the range and had to cancel the spell mid-cast. It was a bad day to be a fire elementalist. Demeyo was able to rescue Reuben because his waterbreathing spell was still in effect. Pretty cool stuff.
Night, we camped. Elise & Demeyo went back to scout a bit. Matt the Knife had swam to the castle earlier and was holed up outside of the wall. The three of them had a little side adventure with some scouting, and returned with some bleeding. Matt apparantly almost died, but this all happened while I was supposedly on watch back at camp and I didn't even catch a whiff of them leaving.
So I'm thinking now as we ponder attacking these people...
We're linking the attack back at the hillfort and this attack on the basis of:
1. the signal flare spell
2. the icebolts
Is there a link between these fellows and the necromancer(s) who made the zombies we fought? Is there a link between these fellows and the demonologists who formed that ritual and sent 21 disguised demons into the Margrave's court? Are all three incidents from the same source? They don't have to be.
Obviously this crowd is attracted to spellcasting. We attracted their attention at the hillfort by our magic, we attracted their attention outside their castle with our magic, the demon summoning or the zombifying could also have attracted their attention. That seems pretty obvious. So we could be dealing with 2-3 seperate groups. Or this might be all the same group.
As we broke off last time we were starting to formulate an awesome master plan for an assault on this keep. But I can't help but think that maybe, just maybe, this is all one group. They can do some direct damage elemental spells, we've seen zombies, and we've seen demon summoning. Could we be walking into a viper-pit of all three inside the castle? We have a rough count of 11-12 defenders. Living defenders. Thats all we've seen, and the one wispy smoke trail from a cookfire or kitchen seems consistent with that. A dozen defenders. But what about defenders that don't eat, like undead or demons? What else could we be getting ourselves in for.
Maybe instead what we need is a plan to lure them out in the open, away from the keep, and then go back into the keep to find the demons and zombies.
But we did have some decent tracks heading downriver a ways: a trail to follow.
But it quickly disappeared. We followed our tormenters downriver for maybe a mile or three and then the trail just abruptly went poof. It was as if they just disappeared directly into the river. No clue where they actually went. Flying? Sailing? Swimming? Shapechanging? Its anyone's guess. So we continued in the same direction, downriver, on the logic that either we run into something or we hit the coast and continue with our primary mission. Either one would be good.
Several days trudging downriver. Along the way we find an awesome stretch of shallows that would make a good ford. But no tracks or trails. Until we're at least half a week downriver, and then Demeyo spots it: a weedy little trail heading due south away from the river and into the underbrush. A real "what the frack" moment for us. Naturally, we followed it.
Due south into the rolling hills and woods, mile after mile, the trail gets wider and more recognisable until it is clear we're on an obvious well-travelled path. When did that happen? Dunno, but lets get off it. We decided to dogleg out a few hundred yards to the southeast and then try to parallel the direction the trail seemed to head in before doglegging back to the southwest to maybe intersect it. Seemed like a bright idea, and nobody was keen on marching along blisfully unaware on a blazed trail that could be well travelled by individuals we'd prefer to encounter on our own terms.
But our new path offered us a new vantage into the woods, and up ahead in the distance we saw a shimmering light. No, wrong song. It was a thin wispy trail of smoke up into the sky, miles off, that just happened to catch the light or the shadow or something because almost all of us saw it. Now we had something to walk towards! Trudging through the underbrush, trying to close on this wisp of smoke in the distance, we ended up crossing a trail (perhaps the same one as before) obliquely. Lack of compass, GPS, and satnav really makes it tough to guesstimate this stuff.
Suddenly! The woods... DISAPPEARED! We entered... a clearing. We entered a dimension of sight and sound. A clearing, around a lake, with an island, and a castle filling 99.99% of the island right down to the water, and SMOKE coming from somewhere inside of the castle.
One wispy trail of smoke. For a decent sized castle.
I'm really not sure how we got talked into this, but for some odd reason our first reaction was to assume that the inhabitants would be friendly, receptive, habla ingles, and have hot food. So Reuben stood on the shore and waved his arms to get their attention. Demeyo disappeared around this time to do some swimming with a water-breathing spell.
For his efforts, they shot arrows at him and tried to turn him into a shish-kebob. I don't think he was amused. Then we heard drums, drums, drums from deep in the castle. Or maybe it was a horn. Yeah, I'm sure it was a horn not drums. The gate, a portcullis right down on the waterline, opened and a barge started heading out. Meanwhile we're hiding in the woods like rabbits.
Maybe this is all a big misunderstanding. Surely diplomacy and reason can rule!
We waited. The barge-people used magic to create a huge thick rolling fog. The barge got closer. The mist expanded. We retreated out of the mist, stood around, Reuben and I both buffed some defensive spells on me, and I tried to diplomatically explain that we came in peace.
LUUUCY! Youse gots some esplainin' to do!
I don't think my efforts were well recieved. I think we stumbled into the same back of idiots that torched the boat and tried to cripple Freddy. Come to think of it, did we ever head Freddy from last time? I think we just put him in my pack with some food and asked him to heal naturally. Just concussion damage, right?
It ended up a crazy fight in the woods. Piecing it together from after action reports we were on a north-south trail facing northwards, roughly, give or take a few points of of the compass, towards the lake. Our assailants disembarked from their barge and circled to attack us from the east out of the woods. There were 4 of them, described in hindsight as 2 mages and 2 warriors. Well, 2 who fought primarily with spells and 2 who fought primarily with melee. I never saw more than 1 warrior and 1 mage, maybe 2. Hard to tell.
It was a rough fight, but not too bad. Winterlion was really carving up one of the warriors with his eversharp ginsu bastard sword. I got started on a bit of a wizards' duel with one of the mages, but then abruptly they broke off the fight and ran like scared little children. Thats a tactic I wish we'd have used more often in the past.
While Reuben was busy chasing them down through the woods, I spent about a minute repetetively casting 'Dispe Essence" with no effect. Until finally, I dispelled the fog. Woot! But just as I dispelled the fog, Reuben had bluffed his way onto the boat as everyone was escaping and had fooled them, at least temporarily, as accepting him as a crewman. He was busy infiltrating like a spy when my dispel ruined his cover. Sorry, Reuben. Didn't know. That looked to get ugly. I tried to fireball the boat, but couldn't heft the range and the spell fizzled. I tried to cover his escape with a firewall, but again I couldn't heft the range and had to cancel the spell mid-cast. It was a bad day to be a fire elementalist. Demeyo was able to rescue Reuben because his waterbreathing spell was still in effect. Pretty cool stuff.
Night, we camped. Elise & Demeyo went back to scout a bit. Matt the Knife had swam to the castle earlier and was holed up outside of the wall. The three of them had a little side adventure with some scouting, and returned with some bleeding. Matt apparantly almost died, but this all happened while I was supposedly on watch back at camp and I didn't even catch a whiff of them leaving.
So I'm thinking now as we ponder attacking these people...
We're linking the attack back at the hillfort and this attack on the basis of:
1. the signal flare spell
2. the icebolts
Is there a link between these fellows and the necromancer(s) who made the zombies we fought? Is there a link between these fellows and the demonologists who formed that ritual and sent 21 disguised demons into the Margrave's court? Are all three incidents from the same source? They don't have to be.
Obviously this crowd is attracted to spellcasting. We attracted their attention at the hillfort by our magic, we attracted their attention outside their castle with our magic, the demon summoning or the zombifying could also have attracted their attention. That seems pretty obvious. So we could be dealing with 2-3 seperate groups. Or this might be all the same group.
As we broke off last time we were starting to formulate an awesome master plan for an assault on this keep. But I can't help but think that maybe, just maybe, this is all one group. They can do some direct damage elemental spells, we've seen zombies, and we've seen demon summoning. Could we be walking into a viper-pit of all three inside the castle? We have a rough count of 11-12 defenders. Living defenders. Thats all we've seen, and the one wispy smoke trail from a cookfire or kitchen seems consistent with that. A dozen defenders. But what about defenders that don't eat, like undead or demons? What else could we be getting ourselves in for.
Maybe instead what we need is a plan to lure them out in the open, away from the keep, and then go back into the keep to find the demons and zombies.
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