OAWYM: Goblins, Goblins Everywhere!

Game Date: 8/6/2016
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: OAWYM, Session 6
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Byzun (Gary) - Human Sorcerer
Malcer (Graham) - Human Warlock
Marcella (Lanessa) - Human Bard
Tamir (Other Matt) - Human Fighter Archer
Thokk (Daniel) - Half-Orc Barbarian
Val Ravensword (Matt) - Half-Orc Paladin

The Session:
Last week we ended the session mid-battle, so today we just jumped right into things.  Thokk was down and making death saves, and Marcella had recently come running to his aid.  The rest of us were over by the cart, debating on whether to keep fighting or start running.  Meanwhile, the enemies ventured ever closer. 

We kept fighting.  Marcella healed Thokk, and Val ran up to drag him back to the cart.  Then she went down herself.  The enemy Adept critted on Tamir with an Inflict Wounds spell, doing a ton of damage.  We healed everyone as best we could, and kept going.  Every round we discussed running off, but it just never worked out.  We refused to leave anyone behind, and some of us (*cough* Thokk *cough*) just wouldn't flee. 

But things got better.  Thokk finished off the Defender (mechanical doggie), and Val brought down the Adept with a Divine Smite.  Byzun Thunderwaved a couple of enemies off the bridge, and the remaining foes started to flee.  Tamir drove the cart towards the fleeing enemies, running over one of them.  Val killed the final enemy with a javelin, and we rode back to town.

Back in Albridge, we went directly to the resistance, who weren't too happy with us.  Riding straight to their hideout in our battle-worn, arrow-strewn cart might not have been as inconspicuous as they would have liked.  Still, they gratefully took the weapons and armor we'd gathered from our fallen enemies.  To throw off suspicion, we had them mock-chase us out of town.  Next we headed for the Druid's grove.

The Druid let us take a long rest in her care.  Then she told us about some Elves called the "Woodsingers", in a forest not too far away.  She wanted us to head there to recruit them to help fight the Iron Circle. She suggested we not take the cart, as it would draw too much attention.  She gave us directions to the forest, and we were on our way.

During the journey there, we passed through a camp of survivors from the destroyed town of Marl.  The Marlites (if that's not what they're called, it should be) told us their town had been razed when they had refused to submit to the Iron Circle.  We asked them if they wanted help getting their town back, but there wasn't much town left to salvage.  They told us that some goblins had moved in to the ruins, so we decided to go check that out.

We marched straight into Marl, and were immediately greeted by a metric crapload of goblins.  In all, I counted 38 opponents, a wide mix of goblins including hexers, riders, and cutthroats, as well as some giant rats, guard drakes, a rage drake, and a swarm of monkeys (conjoined at the tail).  Thokk tried talking first, asking them if they would help us defeat the Iron Circle.  It's hard to say if they even understood him, as they just attacked right off.  The fight was on.

Thokk took the first hits, getting rushed by the giant rats.  This set off his Berserker Axe's curse, sending him into an uncontrollable rage.  Byzun managed to hit five enemies with Shatter in the first round, killing three.  Malcer hit another five with a spell called "Arms of Hadar", but rolled low on damage.  Next round Byzun Shattered a few more.  Unfortunately we ran out of area spells pretty early on.

At first our fire wasn't very focused, with each of us concentrating on our own little groups of goblins.  It seemed like most of them were easy kills, going down with just a few hits.  But then we realized that one of our opponents was a true monster.  One of the drakes was a rage drake, which must have been many levels higher than the rest of the crowd.  At one point Val managed to do 40 damage to it, after which it still wasn't bloodied.

Val and Byzun both got hit by crits, but per our house rules, we allowed our shields to break instead of taking the extra damage.  As the goblin ranks dwindled, a few of them started to flee.  We kept hacking away round after round, healing our wounded, picking off the weakest foes, and pounding on the rage drake.  At one point the monkey swarm ran past several of us, and our combined opportunity attacks finished it off.

More goblins died, and even more fled.  Thokk went down several times during the battle, and we kept healing him back up.  Val finished off the rage drake with a Divine Smite, and at this point we were just mopping up.  Which is why it was such a surprise when Thokk failed his final death save.  Dene and Malcer each finished off a guard drake, as the final goblins fled, screaming for reinforcements.  We gathered up our injured and ran.

We went back to the survivor camp.  They allowed us to take a long rest there, where we healed up and ended the session.