The Thugs Strike Back!

Here is the write-up from our eighth session with our Beginner Box Hack (from Todd).

Spoiler Alert: Even though the party has largely finished the module and we’ve gone off the rails, there are still spoilers for Fangs from the Past, published by 0one Games, below. My GM comments, as always, are in [italics and brackets] as usual.

[When we last left the party, they had just fought a tough battle with a group of kobolds and a rather young black dragon named Syphilaxisisss. The kobold chief, in fact, was responsible for dropping the dragon by dropping one of the many kobold hanging traps upon it. With his victory, the kobold hissed at the party but none were sure if this was just to celebrate his victory over Syphilaxisisss or intended as aggression towards the party (or maybe both).]

After the kobold chief hissed at us, he ran to the dragon and climbed up on it. Raising his sword high above his head, the chief plunged it deep into the dragon’s chest.

[Much to the chagrin of Dent the Dragon Slayer but the short, stubby dwarven legs just couldn’t keep up with the kobold.]

As Shadow moved forward, she saw two kobolds, in the vault, holding ropes, and said as much. Aurora hurried through the vault doors. The kobolds pulled the ropes and sprung another trap on us. Dent and Shadow went down beneath the weight of the falling debris. I was seriously injured. Aurora called upon the power of her goddess and healed us.

The kobold chief cut out the dragon’s heart. He ate the heart and transformed into something different!?!

[I must give credit where credit is due! One of our honorary Ratlings, Evelyn, gave me the idea for this transformation. Evelyn is Rachel’s sister and lives out in Berkeley so she can’t actually play in the games but she is active on our forums, often providing limericks related to what she reads about our campaigns (come to think of it, I should probably start posting some of those here). After our last session, she was speculating about why the kobold might have killed Syphilaxisisss given that kobolds were known for serving and worshipping dragons. She made a comment about dragonborn in Elder Scrolls and, while I’m not familiar with Elder Scrolls, she was kind enough to provide a wiki link about the dragonborn gaining power by slaying dragons.

So Kurzuss, that’s the name of the kobold chieftain, ate Syphilaxisisss’ heart and transformed into something bigger and more powerful. He grew to the size of about seven feet tall, his scales took on a darker…nearly black…sheen, his snout grew longer, his teeth sharper, his muscles bulging, and his voice deepened and became quite menacing. All in all, a much better conclusion to this battle than what I had original thought of…just having the party talk with Kurzuss and eventually having to kill him since he would not back down about the silver being his.]

Aurora and I finished off the kobolds in the vault.

Dent engaged the kobold chief dragon thing. The rest of us moved to aid Dent. Dent took a nasty hit and dropped to the floor. Aurora and I moved up to attack but the chief circled around and blasted us with a breath of acid. I saw Aurora go down just before everything went dark.

What happened next was explained to me by Shadow. The chief picked up my sword, Bleydeleka, and proceeded to slash at Lemer. With Lemer out of the fight, Shadow kept her distance and shot arrows at the chief until she killed him.

There had been one potion left in our possession. Shadow fed it to Aurora, reviving her. Aurora, in turn, healed the rest of us.

[Not only did Kurzuss pick up Bleydeleka, he also activated it. In fact, he seemed to be quite knowledgeable about the blade and quite pleased that he had obtained it. Come to think of it, it does seem like the kobolds knew quite a bit about the sage, the silver, and now Bleydeleka. I wonder why that be the case. Hmmm…

The fight with the transformed Kurzuss was a bit more dramatic than the above would suggest. The party barely survived their encounter with him. Shadow was one hit away from being dropped herself when she finally put Kurzuss down. If I recall correctly, she also cut his head off after she saw to Aurora.

Like I said earlier, it was a much better–and satisfying–conclusion to that little chapter of the campaign.]

We checked out the vault, finding that all of the dragon bones had been removed and used in the traps. The silver scales had been moved to a corner. It seemed that the black dragon had been laying on it, claiming it as his hoard.

We packed up as many of the silver scales as we could carry, which was not very much. Aurora suggested that we encase the rest in the crystal that had originally held Bledeleka. It took a long time but we got three quarters of the silver scales secured.

[Brilliant idea, by the way. Now they just have to hope that no one else can figure out how to use sunlight to melt the crystal to get at the coins. I don’t know if the author of the module had intended for the cystal to permanently melt away when Bleydeleka was freed but we had played it as though the crystal grew back when sunlight wasn’t on it.]

We rested for the night in the vault. In the morning, we left to return to Willoweed. As we neared the gnoll encampment, Shadow scouted ahead. The gnolls were still setup the same as when we had come through the first time. Dent was the only one that wanted to attack them, saying we had surprise on our side. I wanted to skirt around them like we had done before. Aurora agreed with me, thinking that they might be a good deterent to keep the silver safe from the likes of Nik and his thugs.

[When the party had initially shared the tale of their adventure at the sage’s with the mayor, Lucent, and Father Edor in the jail, Shadow had noticed that someone had been listening from one of the barred windows in the jail cells. I think everyone is assuming that it was one of Nik’s men or, at least, someone that might have reported back to him. So the hope is that the gnolls can serve as guards, albeit unknowing ones, for the silver until the party gets back. Of course, that assumes that the gnolls are just going to sit around for who knows how long.]

Camping that night in the mountains showed the real reason why Dent wanted to attack the gnolls. Dent is afraid of mountain wisps. As I got ready for my watch, I saw Dent sleeping with his head in his backpack. In the morning, it was obvious that sleeping with a bag over his head did not work for Dent. Another night like that and Dent’s face would be as smooth as a baby’s butt, an ugly one at that.

[Quite a few mountain wisps had shown up that night during, I believe, Shadow’s watch. Just as Lemer had earlier mentioned to everyone, they were completely harmless. They flew around and a few even sat on Shadow’s shoulders. When Dent learned the “beard bugs” were back, he emptied his pack and put it on his head, tying it tight around his neck in the hopes it would keep them out. What Dent didn’t notice–but Shadow did–is that one of the wisps had snuck in the pack from behind Dent’s head as he pulled the pack on. Why didn’t Dent see it glowing inside the pack? Because it turned its glow off!

A few more were able to wiggle their way in while Dent slept as well and had a little snack. Like Lemer said, totally harmless.]

Eventually, we met up with Benliam. He came limping out of the woods, looking not so good. He had some run-ins with some goblins. One of the horses was lost to the goblins.

We made it back to Willoweed after dark. [After a couple more day of travel.] Something was amiss. There were no signs of any of the townspeople. All of the building were dark and boarded up. We went to the jail first. Lucent didn’t answer our knock and the door was locked. It was the same with the mayor’s house. Benliam says that in case of an emergency, everybody is to go to the inn. The inn was just like the other buildings.

Benliam headed off into the town, saying he was going to check on his family. We accompanied him. His home was also dark and boarded up. He opened the door with his key. His family was not there. Nothing looked disturbed or missing. Next, went to Aurora’s home. It too was dark and boarded up. She opened the door and went in. She ducked as a frying pan swung at her head. Her mom said she thought it was the bear thing coming for them. Them being some of the other townsfolk, including Kilt.

A giant bear had killed Lucent and the mayor, two weeks ago. [I believe it was a week ago…they party hadn’t even been gone from Willoweed for two weeks.] It had been coming back every night, early in the mornings, and attacking people in their homes. The townsfolk had split up into groups and hid in different houses each night.

We set out on a patrol of the town to see if we can kill it. Kilt and Benliam came with us. We figured it was more than just a bear, as it seems to hunt down people and leave the livestock alone. [It had also entered homes to seek out people and had killed not just the mayor and Lucent but a few folks that were friends of Aurora’s family. Aurora was quite suspicious of the “choice” of victims as it seemed that the targets were not just random.] I asked about the possibility of a werewolf but in bear form. Kilt said that the first settlers of this region did have trouble with were-creatures. All we would need is some silver weapons, which might be found in the mayor’s house or in the temple. [If it was as easy as just having silver weapons, lycanthropes wouldn’t be much of a threat, would they? ;)]

Aurora saw a large shape move quickly through the darkness. Shadow found the tracks and we followed them. About the time we realized that the tracks were going back into the woods, we heard a scream. It sounded like it had come from across the town.

We headed back to the townsquare. Unsure of where the scream came from, we spread out to search among the buildings. A female voice called out Aurora’s name. It was one of the women that had been staying at her mom’s home. The woman said that Nik took Aurora’s mother. She explained that a giant bear broke down the door and then turned into Nik. Two other creatures [men…not creatures] grabbed Aurora’s mother and dragged her out of the house. Nik said he would send a messenger in the morning.

The next morning, instead of waiting on Nik, we go looking for some his gang. We saw two of the thugs in the square. They saw us and took off running. Shadow and Lemer were the only ones able to keep pace, the rest of us were weighed down with armor, or just too short. The two runners split up. Shadow followed one, Lemer the other.

Shadow yelled for her thug to stop and shot an arrow, warning him that next one would not miss. The man stopped and put his hands in the air. Shadow escorted him back to the square.

Lemer’s thug ran around the corner of a building. When Lemer came around the corner, he met the thug’s fist with his face. Lemer drew his sword and told the man to stop. Instead, the man drew his axe and Lemer stabbed him, killing the man.

I caught up with Lemer, to find him standing over the dead man with a bloody sword in his hand. Lemer admitted to drawing his weapon first and striking the first blow. His reasoning seemed weak, but with no authority in town, it seems that he will get away with murder. I tried to explain to him how it looked and that killing the man was taking it too far. He started going on about how I wasn’t there and didn’t know how it was. I turned and walked away.

[Yep, Lemer essentially murdered the thug. While it is true that thug threw the first punch, he had not drawn any weapon. When Lemer drew his sword and told the thug to “stop,” he instead drew an axe. Instead of saying anything else, Lemer immediately attacked (RJ had the initiative) and killed the thug in one blow. Lemer basically told Aaron that the thug would not stop when he told him too and so he stabbed him. He then also went on about how he, Lemer, was the one that was hurt…with the thug lying dead at his feet. I lost it at that and bust out laughing.]

Back at the square, Aurora and Shadow were questioning the living thug. It seems the two men are…were…brothers. He admitted that he had been hanging out with Nic, but confesses that he did not know about any connection between Nic and the giant bear. When he saw Lemer and Dent carrying his brother’s body, he asked why we killed him. Lemer said he was defending himself. The man challenged Lemer to a fight, saying he would kill Lemer. [Kill him for killing his brother, of course.]

The priest [Father Edor] showed up, overhearing what had transpired. He said he thought we were the good guys. I agreed with his sentiment.

[I’m not sure that Edor put it quite that simply. He definitely did not approve of the murder.]

Aurora and Shadow did not believe that the brothers knew nothing about what is going on with Nik or where he is. According to Shadow, running makes them guilty and they were lying. Not believing the man is a saint, I tried to explain to Shadow that just because he ran doesn’t mean he is in cahoots with Nik. Shadow didn’t like this and felt that I was taking the thug’s side. I’m going to have to pay closer attention to my companions motivations.

[Things were getting a bit heated not just between the characters but between the players as well. Almost to the point that I may have needed to step in to but a stop to it. Aurora and Shadow also learned a number of important things. Nik had left with a few of his closest friends about a week ago. The other men in Nik’s little band who remained in town were instructed to be ready to take over the town when Nik made his move AND to keep an eye out for the return of Aurora and her little band. The thug didn’t know where they had gone but a messenger would come back to town each day to keep in touch. When asked why he would go along with all this, the thug said that Nik promised them a lot of money and that Nik was kind of a bully to all of them too.]

In the end, since we have no authority in the town, we couldn’t arrest the man. The man left stating again that he was going to kill Lemer for killing his brother. I followed the thug, as the others went to the inn.

The man went to a house and came back out with an axe. I confronted him, saying that I understood his desire for vengeance. I asked him to wait before killing Lemer, at least until we could handle the situation with Nik and his being a werebear. I followed him to the inn.

[The thug, who has remained nameless this whole time, agreed to hold off on killing Lemer…at least for a little while. Most of the residents of the little town had shown up by now. Apparently, it was safe to move about during the daytime…not just at night. Many had already heard about the “murder” and a crowd was forming both in and outside of the inn.]

A man forced his way through the inn’s door and called for Aurora.

[Presumably this would be Nik’s messenger. And so, of course, that is where we stopped. It seemed like a good “season finale” point…not knowing what sort of missive had been brought about Aurora’s mother or what Nik wanted, the town in terror and creeping towards anarchy, goblins still active in the area, the silver mostly stashed in a “safe” place but with a lot of uncertainty about that, the gnolls still camped in the gorge (or are they?), the mystery of who took that item from the Yellow Cave and what sort of mischief might he/she/it be causing with something taken from a necromancer’s cave.

I say season finale because it’ll be a few weeks before we get back to the campaign. This week we’re going to do a Christmas one-shot and then we’re going to have at least one, maybe two weeks off for Christmas and folks family commitments and travel.

Oh, and here’s Evelyn’s limerick after she got to read the session write up…

When kobolds consume dragons’ hearts,
They become very good at war’s arts.
Though the vict’ry was narrow,
Chief fell to an arrow;
Our heroes all played their own parts.]