Moths to a flame.

10FrFN

Baxter slumped down against the mud wall of the alcove he had found by following a dried riverbed utterly exhausted, the fire he had lit crackled as it consumed the kindling and began to take hold of the bigger pieces of wood that had been placed within its reach. Cuts and scrapes adorned his arms, his reward for an exhausting hour of digging in the dried riverbed for some water for the surprisingly swift horse he had stolen. The horse was currently grazing a few dozen paces away or so as the sun slowly crept towards the horizon ending a day of riding along flat dry planes of grass that held little sustenance. Those adventurers that came with the horses were a scary lot, something about them set him off ease. He had seen adventurers before, some in Sebluff, The others in the tavern seemed familiar but in the sense of how all people who choose that life seem to have the same characteristics and same sad story of why they became an adventurer in the first place.

He had escaped though, gotten away from it and on the morning he would head towards Lothgar, having found a map in the saddlebags of the stolen mare he was confident he would be able to make it back to the bustling city, hand over the cursed crystal and be on his way to a better life. Then they’ll see, all those doubters, everyone who had thought of him as nothing but trash or a waste of time and space.

His eyelids began to flutter, the shade growing a bit more as the sun set and the flames flickered higher, biting into the dry wood. He would show them all.

A whinny of a horse woke him, his dreams erratic and jolting as had been the norm since he had taken that crystal whilst the little man slept. Looking about the horse was standing not far from him and the fire, appearing to be sleeping or at least resting. He smiled, he had always been fond of horses, they reminded him of Sarah back in Sebluff. Standing up and stretching he put a bit more wood on the fire as it had crept down to being embers now, noting that he was almost out of wood he grabbed a strip of cloth and doused it in some hard liquor he had found, also in the saddlebags of the mare nestled amongst some incredibly bad poetry that he used as kindling for the fire, and made himself a torch, of sorts at least.

Walking around the outskirts of the little camp he had setup he began the search for more wood, and potential something to eat. He believed he had seen several large furry cactuses when he first approached this little alcove, the creek bed bit deep here, and had once obviously been a lot larger as it had carved out the alcove he had set up his camp in.

Finding some wood he brought it back to the fire and stacked it higher, sending sparks high into the night sky. With no cloud cover and just the light from the moons above and his makeshift torch he walked towards the direction of where he saw the cactuses before – not noticing that the animal life that were loud a few moments ago were now silent.

Approaching one of the large cactuses he saw he walked around the child-sized plant looking for any fruit. Unable to find any he brought out a knife from his belt and stabbed deep into the plant.

Immediately he was thrown backwards as the cactus he stabbed lashed outwards just as his knife pierced the skin of the desert plant. Eight large branches from the cactus thrashed outwards as the plant started to unfold, the large bulbous abdomen connected to the now apparent eight limbs as a large desert spider skittered away from the light and the source of its pain, letting out a high pitched trill the spider skittered around, shielding its glittering eyes as it crashed into several more of the same bulbous not-quite-cacti which triggered a chain reaction of spiders awakened and began to skitter at the edge of the light.

Running back to the camp as quickly as he could he didn’t dare look back to see the eleven spiders thundering after him, only pushed backwards briefly by the light of the torch. As he neared the campfire the addition of extra dry wood had caused it to grow in and it shed a bright light for quite some distance.

The spiders skittered at the edge of the light, occasionally daring to edge forward towards the campfire before skittering back when a flaming chunk of wood was waved at them enthusiastically by their potential prey.

In the distance, doubled lidded eyelids blinked as the hunters eyed their prey with great interested. It wasn’t often that their quarry would be so blatant in revealing their presence. It would be a good hunt tonight, looking towards the other members of his hunting pack he snarled as they slunk forward on padded toes.

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It would be shortly after this point that the party would notice the light and go to find it. Finding one of two options

1. 11 (1d4 of them wounded having suffered 2 damage from Baxter) wolf spiders, rushing in and out of the light from the campfire.
2. 7 lizardmen (2 would be hiding in ambush for the part, 2 would be cleaning up their kill of the wolf spiders and 3 would have cornered Baxter threatening him with spear or bow).

The fight or diplomacy encounter would occur around the embers, perhaps the lizardmen consider this part of the creek bed a sacred spot and will be happy with Baxter to just leave, or maybe they like the taste of humanoids.

Ambush at the platform

As the introduction to the village, in first person version (tangent – let me know how that was!), as the party approach the pulley operated platform they are to be ambushed by a bunch of goblins.

As a cop-out I will say that the writeup from yesterday describes them adequately enough but lets talk about mechanics.

According to kobold fight club we can have 1 CR 2 and 5 CR1/4 creatures before this gets a bit too strong for our party of adventurers. Speaking of which, for this I am assuming our group is level 4. Or we could mix it up and just have a horde (12-13) of goblins (keeping to my hard encounter mantra) or if we want something to just break the narrative of travelling through marshland let’s do 8 Goblins – just on the entry-point side of Medium.

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Not all green things in trees are leaves

09FrOr

As the party retire from the tavern for the night, having secured accommodation with one of the villagers after helping them out of one of the forgotten jungle temples and saving them from the guardians of the ruins, Mike, the human paladin, adjusts his armour and great sword strung between his shoulder blades; never quite feeling safe without the enchanted blade and battle tested plate.

“Well, I can safely say that was not rabbit,” barked the Dwarf, Dusk, a Cleric of the raven queen and reliable ally, “but it went well with the ale, pity she didn’t have any of those mushrooms that make your tongue go numb though.” the dwarf mused as he ferreted for his pipe, finding it next to his axe that even now thirsted for battle.

“Sir Dusk, I don’t believe that partaking in those contraband substances is fitting of the noble heroes such as us” said Zandar, a man of powerful magics who could literally summon a storm in a teacup. “Besides that was definitely rabbit”.

“Rabbit or not, we have a busy day ahead of us. If it wasn’t for saving lady Esmereld we would have found the hideout of these green-skins that are causing a ruckus in this town and persuaded them to leave” Said Ray, a paladin who believed that total conquest was the only way to truly find peace.

“I agree,” Mike declared, stifling a yawn, “Let us go rest, I am sure that we are all short on magical reserve after that battle with the animated guardians of that temple. Let us not dishonor Lady Esmereld with our tardiness to take up her kind and generous offer” he stuttered the last part, a blush covering his cheeks.

Dusk, his head tilted to the side slightly, his lips moving and eyes staring at vacant space slowly raised his hand and pointed across the rope bridges that allowed travel from one side of the town to the other.

“My lady says that the search is over, that the quarry we seek stalk us now with death and menace coating their blades. Pity I didn’t get any of that mushroom. It would have made this fight a bit fairer.” Dusk said shrugging his axe from his shoulder, the head seeming to burn with a menace that would fill a lesser being with dread.

“Your patron seems to have taken a stronger interest in our activities since we freed her from her prison, Dusk. Can she give us more advanced warning in the future. I would have insisted we have a more substantial rest before fighting again” Zandar stated stormily, electricity arcing across his outstretched fingers and a sudden breeze ruffled his hair.

As the Orcs slunk from the trunks of the tree, the light from the crescent moon above making their ivory coloured masks seem to glow amongst the gloom.

For a moment the orcs sized up the party, their movement semi-erratic as they seemed to bounce from foot to foot waiting for some arbitrary sign to be given that announced a fight.

“Well, let’s get this sorted so we can get to bed then.” Mike said, gripping the hilt of his sword, Sky Chariot, as Raynor called upon his Patron and his blade – Vines made of rust spreading from his longsword to bridge the gap between the two parties and commence the bloodshed.

I hope my party won’t mind me using their characters as inspiration for the write up (names changed as it didn’t feel right to use their characters names without forewarning). But let’s break it down. Our encounter balance book says that we can have up to 7 Orcs for this size and level party, but feel free to adjust. Given the location any ranged attacker will have an advantage as the bridges are narrow and you could easily block movement of one or another of the forces by just sitting in the middle of a bridge. So if your party has a lot of ranged capability (like mine….) then throwing another 1-3 Orcs wont matter..

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The bog drowned dead

09FrBDD

After the last Orc had fallen and the party had finally been able to make it to Esmereld’s house the party had no trouble almost instantly falling asleep.

Through scattered dreams from Zander, fitful nightmares riddled with undead from Mike and the vision ridden thoughts (as if Dusk could sleep with the raven queen invading his thoughts constantly) Ray was the only one to really get any form of sleep. So when the town guard knocked on their door and Esmereld ran around waking the party they had barely managed to get any sleep. But instantly they could all feel the dead were nearby, and en masse.

Led to a few weight balanced ropes and platforms of wood they were advised that several of the guard were already fighting off a large zombie horde, and rumors’ of a dark wizard hidden in the mists were coming through from the guardsmen that made it back to the town – but they were missing a unit of men and women who went into the mists.

The party each went to one of the strange rope contraptions before leaping down – feet on the wooden beams and the rope zipping them all the way down to the ground, all except Zander who had a thing with flare, who jumped through an opening – the guardsmen gasping and rushing to watch him fall only to see a spark of magic cross his body moments before he hit the ground, summoning a gust of wind to gentle place him on the ground. The party, boots on ground found themselves surrounded by the dead, zombies were in states of breaking apart, their magic spent, and several more were walking at the base of the trees – pulling and clawing at the wood, as if trying to bring the town down from the roots. Given enough time and not opposition they would be successful. Drawing weapons and magic the party strode forward, separating heads from the dead as they defended the trees. Mike, stopping for a moment to let his divine senses stretch outwards found a particularly foul energy as the party defeated the last of the zombies assaulting the trees.

“This way, I think I found the dark magics. I think its some form of lesser necromancer. Remember that Ghoul king we fought. Cake walk compared to this thing.” Mike wheezed, swinging his massive enchanted blade around still gave him a workout.

“Aye, my lady also confirms that’s what is waiting for us, and she wants us to kill it. For once I agree with the raven bitch” Dusk muttered darkly, spitting on the last zombie to feel his axe. He did not have a good relationship with his deity.

“Well, lets get to it then” Ray said, lifting his shield higher and flicking some dark ichor of Vexing thorns, ready to send the rusting blade through some more undead.

“Should I just blast them with magic? If we know where they are we don’t even need to get into the mists” Zander said – already charging up a spell.

“No, there may be injured guardsmen in there. Their safety is just as important as the death of the dead and their master.” Ray said. Mike and Dusk nodding their agreements.

“Fine – well let’s see if I can’t shift this mist then” Zander whispered – his breath now directed to muttering the incantation to a spell to blow the mist away.

A shorter one, got to leave some surprises for the weekend now don’t I.

As for stats the below can do – but if you want a more imposing fight I would consider really pumping up the necromancers abilities. Something like the Goblin-Bosses reaction (where a zombie can take the attack for him as a ‘willing’ living shield would make the fight something to remember.