Beholder Group - "Declare Yourselves!" - Fallen Fortress Session 1

Beholder Group – Fallen Fortress Session 1 summary

29^th April 2019, 7:30 – 10:30pm

In-game timeline: Start of session, Midsummer’s day +1. End of session, Midsummer’s day +3.

Devon, Alwaith, Drogan and Dwarrowsteel met for the first time in the Ol’ Boar Inn in Oakhurst, just after the Midsummer festival. They all seemed to have their own reasons for being there – Devon the Halfling was looking for something or someone called Gripe, who supposedly had a white fruit Devon wanted. Dwarrowsteel the dwarven cleric was looking for a red fruit, reputed to have magical healing properties, whilst Alwaith the half-elf and Drogan the dwarf barbarian both knew members of another adventuring party, The Righteous Brotherhood, and were searching for their whereabouts.

Garon, the barkeep, let them sample his delicious ale, Goblin Brew (Drogan, upon hearing its name and source, spat it out, despite secretly loving the taste!), and mentioned that he buys it from the goblins, though they charge him a lot for it, and have very limited quantities – he would love to find the recipe for it.

In the morning, they pursued their individual quests, though generally stuck together in the town, as for the most part they wanted to see the same people, though Drogan, they discover at this point, is a law unto himself and definitely does his own thing. He also seems to dislike anyone who is not a dwarf. And especially hates goblins.

Visiting Dem “Corkie” Nackle, the gnomish priest at the shrine who was just blessing a couple of human nobles when they arrived, Alwaith was distraught to hear, and see, that his half-brother, Boris, is in a coma, from which neither Corkie, nor Dwarrowsteel, can revive him. He was found with two other members of The Righteous Brotherhood in a camp outside town. Unfortunately Sir Woderick was found dead at the camp, and Gwen, who was also in a coma when found, passed away a couple of days ago. No one saw any sign of Karakas, who Drogan was searching for, and who was the fourth member of the Brotherhood.

Corkie emphasised that they had tried everything to revive Boris, but nothing she had would work. She told Dwarrowsteel, who, unlike SOME members of the party, was polite to her, and who seemed to have some skills in the healing arts, that she has a few special mushrooms, that she is sometimes able to buy from goblins or kobolds, yellow, with some light purple spots, which have some healing properties, but even they haven’t worked. She is running out of them, so asked if you find any in the wilds, she would like to buy them off you as she may be able to make some healing salves from them. When asked about a magical, healing fruit, she admitted to have heard rumours about such a thing, and vaguely remembers the goblins, or maybe it was kobolds, offering a supposedly magical red fruit for sale a couple of years ago, but the asking price was so high it wasn’t sold in town.

Rurik, the dwarven blacksmith who was just finishing a trade with a halfling, was more to Drogan’s liking. Rough, ready, and to the point, he said he remembered the other adventurers visiting him to get some armour repairs done, and they had asked about a magical weapon, Dragonsboon, that they seemed to be looking for. Rurik hadn’t heard of it, and hadn’t seen the adventurers since. He mentioned that he may be able to get them (mainly looking at Drogan and Dwarrowsteel) a good deal on weapons or armour, but not to tell Kerowyn at the store, as he had a deal with her to sell via her shop. He also said he was able to identify some magical items, though you wonder if his skill in this area matches his boasting.

Felosial, the half-elvish leader of the guards at Oakhurst, related the story of finding the three bodies (two in a coma, one dead) a couple of weeks or so ago, at their camp outside the town. There was no sign of a scuffle, though Helga, the scout who discovered them, did say that kobold tracks lead to and from the camp – but as this was fairly close to the kobold den, they didn’t think this was unusual. There was no sign of Karakas at the camp. Helga offered to show you where the camp is.

They visited Kerowyn at the general store before leaving – she was just completing a deal with a druidic human, who seemed to have a giant frog as a pet – not something you see every day! Kerowyn was very friendly, until she spoke to Drogan who was as off with her as with most other residents of Oakhurst, so she focussed on talking to the others. She mentioned that she does get trade visits from both goblins and kobolds every now and again, and, when prompted, did remember that a group of kobolds tried to trade a supposedly magical white fruit with her a couple of weeks back. She wasn’t interested, but was intrigued, as it is not something the kobolds usually trade. Her shop looks well-stocked, though doesn’t have anything very expensive.

The party headed out to the camp. Drogan, having failed dismally at making a pass at Helga, found, in the tent, a journal from Gwen (view that here) which hinted at what it was that killed Woderick and Gwen, and put Boris in a coma. Dwarrowsteel investigated a dead wolf at the edge of the camp and was promptly attacked by 4 bushes. For a bunch of twigs, they were surprisingly tough to deal with, and Dwarrowsteel wasn’t looking too healthy by the time the twig-creatures were dispatched, with help from Devon and Alwaith’s magical Green Flame Blade, which took out two creatures in one hit. Whilst the others were recovering from the short, but damaging, battle, Drogan emerged from the tent, reading Gwen’s journal.

After much studying of the wolf’s body by the medical ‘expert’ Dwarrowsteel, to no avail, Devon the brewer takes a brief look and confidently states that the twig ‘blights’ didn’t kill the wolf – it was poisoned.

Drogan finds some dwarven prints leading from the camp and the party follow them, eventually coming upon 3 dead kobolds. Two had been shot by arrows in the back. The third had his throat cut. A set of kobold tracks is all they can find leading out of this area – they head south east.

Following these tracks for a couple of hours the party come upon a group of hobgoblins carrying a covered palanquin, with about 6 other goblins, soon to be followed by a group of 4 kobolds who engage some of the goblins in a fight whilst the hobgoblins with the palanquin, and the rest of goblins, continue to run off, heading north.

Drogan’s “Leeroy Jenkins” moment, that he seemed to have been building up to, occurs at this moment. Stepping out from the trees, he loudly shouts “Declare Yourselves!”, while the rest of the party face-palm in the background. The party are blatantly spotted, but the hobgoblins keep running, so Devon decides to shoot one with an arrow. A critical hit! In a display of inspired bowmanship, “One-hit-Bottlebanks” brings down a hobgoblin with one carefully aimed arrow. At this point, quite a lot happened. To the party, it seemed to all happen in slow motion.

With one hobgoblin down, the other three dropped the palanquin. The blanket covering it came off, revealing it to be covering a sturdy wooden cage – not sturdy enough to survive being dropped however. Inside the now-broken cage was what looked like a small, white dragon. Not much else could be worked out at this distance, but the party did see the hobgoblins take one look at the now-almost-free creature and run off. The goblins who were running after them also fled, but into the trees. The other goblins and kobolds were still fighting each other and didn’t seem to know what had happened.

Regaining, or maybe just discovering, some semblance of common sense, the party ran into the woods to hide, and to chase the goblins. They lost sight of the white creature, but did manage to take out both goblins with ranged attacks. Their plan to question one of them didn’t quite work out, what with them having arrows protruding from their vital organs.

The previous goblin-kobold battleground was now empty. No sign of hobgoblins, or white dragons. One dead goblin and three dead kobolds lay on the floor. The party waited in the woods for a while to see if anything else would happen, and when nothing else appeared, they followed the tracks back to the kobold den.

It being quite late in the evening, the party decided to rest up overnight and tackle the den in the morning. Their first attempt at creeping into the kobold lair failed when instead they went into a cave CLEARLY LABELLED with keep out (well, sort of), only to find it contained a load of giant fire beetles. Drogan went into a rage. At some large insects. He has anger issues. But did manage to take one of them out, and, after being joined by Devon – the only other member of the party who could fit in the cave – they managed to take the rest of the bugs down, helped by Devon’s sneak attacks, but not before the beetles got a couple of bites out of Devon, requiring a healing spell from Dwarrowsteel.

Now realising that the entrance to the den is probably the path by the side of the stream, we leave our “heroes” as they are about to enter the tunnel....