OAWYM: Not Our Finest Hour

Game Date: 8/27/2016
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: OAWYM, Session 9
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Corbin (Daniel) - Human Cleric/Wizard
Byzun (Gary) - Human Sorcerer
Malcer (Graham) - Human Warlock
Val Ravensword (Matt) - Half-Orc Paladin

NPC Companions:
Dene Ledford - Val's Companion
Robb - Corbin's Companion
Tatio - Malcer's Companion

The Session:
We began the session still at war.  The Iron Circle have been advancing on Albridge, and last week we fought a couple of skirmishes.  Today we took a short rest and kept on going.  Since their players weren't present, Marcella and Tamir headed for town to help the fight there, while the rest of us proceeded to a more active battlefield.

This group was led by a Champion, local leader of the Iron Circle.  We also faced several of his Rabble minions, a Brigand (who was ordered to protect the Champion's horse), and a pair of Tar Devils.  We won initiative, but didn't manage to get much accomplished in the first round.  On the Champion's first round, he hit Val hard and she went down.  Bad omen.  Corbin revived Val with a healing potion on his turn, but next round she went right back down again, along with Corbin.  Finally Dene revived Val, who revived Corbin.

We discovered the Champion was more powerful when adjacent to his teammates, so we decided to take out those weaker minions as quickly as possible.  Malcer dropped three Rabble at once with Burning Hands, and we gradually picked off a couple more.  The final Rabble did an impressive job of surviving, taking multiple hits and nearly escaping before going down. Val tried using her Channel Divinity to turn the Tar Devils, but they both made their saving throws.

Corbin concentrated his attacks on the Brigand, who was too busy protecting the horse to fight back much.  Once Corbin managed to get a good hit in, and used that opportunity to hop on the horse and ride away.  His companion Robb also disengaged and fled.  The rest of us were unconscious by this point.  Having won the battle, the evil Champion stabilized us and took us prisoner.  Corbin and Robb returned to Albridge, where the battle was almost over.

With their leader distracted by us, the people of Albridge had managed to drive away their foes.  The Iron Circle returned to their keep (Harkenwold), with their prisoners. We ended the session there.

Coming up:
Val, Byzun, Malcer, Dene, and Tatio are now prisoners being held in the keep. Either they will try to escape from within, or Corbin, Robb, Tamir, and Marcella will try to break them out.  Or perhaps both will happen at the same time. On the bright side, we've received the benefits of an extended rest.

Will they try to sneak into the keep or go for a frontal assault?  Will the people of Albridge help us in our rescue attempts?  Will the now-fired Brigand change sides and help us out?  Tune in next week!

Sneak preview of the keep.

OAWYM: War!

Game Date: 8/20/2016
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: OAWYM, Session 8
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

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

NPC Companions:
Dene Ledford - Val's Companion
Robb - Corbin's Companion
Tatio - Malcer's Companion

The Session:
Last week we killed an undead wizard.  Today we took a long rest, then returned to our Elven questgivers.  This secured our relationship with the Elves, who agreed to send fifty archers to aid our war with the Iron Circle.  Having sealed this agreement, we returned to our Druid questgiver.  The Druid told us to head back to town to see the Dar, the leader of the resistance.

The Iron Circle's army was marching towards the town.  We had two days to plan before they got here.  The resistance had gathered fighters from various nearby farms and towns.  We discussed various traps, making the bridge into a chokepoint, where to put barricades, and combat tactics.  When we finally felt we were ready, we skipped forward to the battle itself. 

We hard our first skirmish in a farmhouse before the bridge.  As several soldiers marched by, we caught their attention and rolled initiative.  We faced twelve foes, including an acid-spitting drake.  The drake won initiative, taking off half of Val's hit points with his lethal loogie.  We had a decent opening round - Tamir killed one right off, and Marcella and Malcer each hit multiple targets with Shatter. 

But the drake kept using his acid spit, which would harm several of us at once with its splash damage.  And the head soldier had a sweeping blow move that could hit all adjacent targets.  So we did well, but we took a lot of damage.  It finally came down to the boss, one soldier, and the drake.  Val took out the boss, and the remaining soldier tried to make a run for it.  Corbin's companion Rob ended up finishing off both the soldier and the drake.

We managed to squeeze in a short rest while we traveled to the next battle point.  One of the resistance rode up to us and told us Dar needed our help.  He pointed us in the right direction, and warned us that some of our enemies weren't human.  We caught up to the fight, and faced nine enemies.  It was a mix of cutthroats, rabble, a cleric, and two "Tar Devils" (which we dubbed "Tarduckens"). 

The Tar Devils were particularly vicious.  They could restrain us in flaming nets, pulling us to them where there was a zone of flaming tar.  They were also resistant to our weapons.  Several of us went down multiple times in this fight, and we used up almost all of our healing resources.  The evil cleric kept hitting Val with "Inflict Wounds" which took her down to zero twice.  Eventually Val delivered the killing blow to the cleric. 

Rob killed the last cutthroat, leaving us with just the two Tar Devils.  It was especially stressful because whenever a Tar Devil brought one of us down to zero, that meant the unconscious body was adjacent to them in their damage-inducing zone.  This meant our death saves would auto fail, so we had to try to rescue downed party members as quickly as possible.  The zone also slowed us down, so it was that much harder to get away from them.  We kept our distance as best we could, but not all of us could do ranged damage.  Finally we finished them off - Tamir killing one, and Rob dropping the other.

We got in one more short rest after this battle, and ended the session.  Unfortunately, we still have at least one more battle before we'll have the chance to take a long rest, and it looks like it will be a doozy.  With so many of us out of spells and healing options, it is mathematically improbable that we'll be able to survive the next fight.  But no guts, no glory, right?  Wish us luck.

OAWYM: ElfQuest

Game Date: 8/13/2016
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: OAWYM, Session 7
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Corbin (Daniel) - Human Cleric/Wizard
Byzun (Gary) - Human Sorcerer
Malcer (Gary, subbing for Graham) - Human Warlock
Marcella (Lanessa) - Human Bard
Tamir (Other Matt) - Human Fighter Archer
Val Ravensword (Matt) - Half-Orc Paladin

NPC Companions:
Dene Ledford - Val's Companion
Robb - Corbin's Companion
Tatio - Malcer's Companion

The Session:
Last week we picked a fight with a town full of goblins - not the best idea - and barely avoided a TPK.  Today we continued our actual quest (well, subquest) of seeking out the "Woodsingers", a tribe of Elves who might help us defeat the Iron Circle.  We picked up a new party member, Corbin the Cleric/Wizard, and his companion, Robb the Rogue.

We headed into the forest, making a few survival chec - ...wait a minute, the rogue's name is Robb?  How did I miss that during the session? Anyway, we kept tromping through the forest, and of course with the noise we were making, it was the Elves who found us.  They told us to halt, and we explained our mission.  They took us to see their leader, Ariel. 

The Elves agreed to consider our request, but only if we would help them first.  Not far away was a ruined Elven sanctuary, now controlled by an undead wizard.  We were to cleanse the sanctuary of the wizard's presence.  Ariel gave us a vial of green dragon's blood, which would be required to teleport to the sanctuary.  The Elves gave us directions and sent us on our way.

After some travel, we saw our destination - a stone structure that looked suspiciously similar to the sundail we fought near a few sessions ago.  We could see the teleportation pedestal we needed to use, but unfortunately we could also see some goblins and giant spiders.  And worse, they saw us first. Most of our party members were surprised, and there were horrible initiative rolls on both sides.

The spiders skittered right up to us while the goblins fired at us from a distance.  Marcella killed all three goblins early on with a well-placed Shatter spell.  The spiders kept gumming us up with web attacks, but we kept at it and finished them off.  Once everything was dead, we poured the dragon blood on the pedestal, spoke some magic words, and teleported to the Elven sanctuary.

We appeared in a wizard's laboratory, surrounded by goblins.  There were also some caged rage drakes, and the leader was a goblin mage.  In the first round, the boss ordered his minions to release the drakes.  We used our area effect spells early to clear out the goblins.  Malcer and Byzun both took out multiple goblins with Shatter spells, and Corbin hit a couple with Thunderwave.  Tamir killed two goblins in the first round by using an action surge. 

Very soon we were down to the goblin leader and the drakes, but those drakes had a lot of hit points.  Then the leader jumped up on the table and cast a mass charm spell.  Roughly half the party was calmed.  They didn't turn on their friends, but they declined to spend any more time fighting.  But we dealt with it, and it looked like the battle wouldn't last much longer.

...And then the goblin leader cast Cloudkill.  For a few rounds we dealt with this large damaging zone.  Corbin and Robb went down at different times, but were healed within a round.  Then Val went down while inside the zone, which was nerve wracking because she could have died of massive damage if she started a turn in the cloud.  Some of the other party members tried rushing into the zone to pull her out, but then the the zone dropped when the boss lost his concentration.

Corbin finished off the boss with Booming Blade, only rolling 3 damage on the final blow.   At this point there was only one drake left, which was soon executed by Robb.  We took a short rest in the goblin mage's office, then investigated the doors to the next room.  There were two sets of doors, and both were locked.  Robb unlocked the left set of doors.

The next room contained a giant spider, two skeletons, and an undead wizard.  We could also see a partially assembled dragon skeleton.  Tamir tried firing off a shot at the wizard, who immediately hit him back with a Ray of Frost, before turning invisible.  We rolled initiative, and tried to wait for them to come to us.  Unfortunately they were uncooperative.  Tamir ran through the left doors to get a better shot, and fell into a pit trap. 

While Val helped Tamir out of the pit, some of the party members listened at the other set of doors.  They could barely hear some chanting, and with an arcana check determined that it was an attempt to reanimate the dragon skeleton.  We decided we couldn't risk waiting any longer, and had Robb unlock those doors as well.  Once opened, Corbin rushed through the right doorway... and fell into a pit trap. 

As soon as Corbin climbed out of his pit, the giant spider knocked him unconscious with a powerful poison attack.  Byzun killed one the skeletons with a single blow.  Then the undead wizard hit four of us with a Fireball spell, hurting us badly and taking Tamir down.  The giant spider leaped through the doorway, and attacked Dene, Malcer, and Robb with sticky webbing.  Dene spent several rounds trying to get the webbing off his face.

Malcer dealt a killing blow on the spider.  At this point the undead wizard was all that was left.  The wizard brought Byzun down to zero with a Magic Missile.  We kept attacking the wizard, but found that he was immune to non-magical weapons.  We kept at it, healing our wounded and using whatever attacks would damage the boss.  Finally the wizard used one last Fireball, but included himself in the zone.  This spell brought three of us down to zero, but killed the wizard as well.

We used up our remaining healing resources getting everyone back on their feet.  We searched the room, found some jewels and gold in a treasure chest, and took a long rest.  We ended the session there.

We each received 1118 xp, and 20 gp.  We also picked up some jewels and a nice ring that we'll sell/split later.

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.