Defenders Log Entry #1: The Beginning
Darellon, 1st level woodsman, 20 hp, played by Joel
Drew, 1st level ranger, 15 hp, played by Jack
Grison, 1st level fighter, 11 hp, played by Sean
Soldan, 1st level cleric of Silban, 9 hp, played by Alex
Quentin, 1st level druid, 6 hp, played by Jeremy
Annwvyn, 1st level thief, 4 hp, played by Alan
In the Stone Soules tradition, we met in the Blue Star Inn at Teft, on March 15, 2172. One interesting thing to note: Derek of the Knife was there. The next day we set off for Lendore Isle. After a six day boat ride, we arrived in the harbor of Barnacus.
We spent most of the first day touring Barnacus, exploring the various markets and shops, practically covering the entire part of the city on the western bank of the river. A few interesting shops, including for global Telvar interest, Warner's Bows. Warner had a cheap little number with a mere 16,000 gp on display.
Although Barnacus was colorful, it became clear that getting worthwhile information would be too expensive to comprehend, or far too unreliable (read: setup).
So we headed out the east gate, planning to head two days east to Garroten. We left town a half-hour before the gates closed.
Now, this being Lendore Isle, one expects a few random encounters out in the wilderness. But I figured, hey, we're on a public road, on the civilized southern part of the island. Maybe we'd run into something a day or two out into the wilderness, but we would just have a little travelling lull between towns.
Wrongo.
About FORTY MINUTES outside of Barnacus, CAPITAL OF THE KEYSTONE KINGDOM, and one of the most ancient cities of the New World, we were jumped by bandits.
Whee.
Random arrow fire rakes the party from both sides of the road, from archers hidden by the cornfields. The thief Anwvyn dropped to the dirt. The dwarf Grison charged into the cornstalks, Darellon following close behind. Drew scanned the cornstalks for people to shoot. The druid Quentin dropped down to heal the stable-zero Anwvyn. Unfortunately another barrage of arrows dropped Quentin neatly in a pile on top of Anwvyn. To make matters worse, a big guy in banded mail wielding a bastard sword burst out of the stalks straight at Drew.
Grison burst on top of a bandit in the process of drawing a sword, and skewered him. Seeing that the bandit was dead, and unaware that two party members were down and under heavy assault, Darellon went hunting for more bandits.
Meanwhile, the bastard swordsman sliced up Drew, wounding him. Drew sprinted back and shot down an archer through the bushes, still conscious through sheer strength. Fortunately for everyone, the cleric of Sylban, Solban, threw a command "die" spell on the bandit, who obediently dropped and was sliced up by the cleric.
Grison helped sweep the area clean, though one bandit who tried to backstab him got away. Meanwhile Darellon gave quite a long chase to two bandits who had run away. He burst into a small area to find the archer nocked, and another sword wielding bandit in front of him.
This is where we learn the difference between Darellon and Rangorn of yesteryear.
The nocked arrow missed, and Darellon badly injured the first bandit, who ran away. Unfortunately for his companion, the archer was still in the process of dropping his bow. The bow was split in half, along with his armor, chest, etc.
Seeing no more targets, Darellon turned around and strolled back to the party. Heading back he surprised another bandit, who he sliced apart, and then dodged a backstab (from the same bandit who had earlier escaped Grison) and cleaved him up. He then walked back to the party.
Interesting bit about that encounter: the only people not injured were the two front line fighters, Darellon and Grisson. Everyone else except Solban got knocked near zero.
Fortunately, with a few healing kit uses and Cure Light Wounds spells, the party was patched up enough to retrieve the loot. That included some gold, significant numbers of weapons, some repairable banded mail and interestingly, two vials of holy water.
Not bad for our first encounter.
We got back to town, sold the goods for a modest profit of about 30 gold pieces, and Darellon exchanged chain mail for the restored banded mail, while Grison exchanged his small helm for the recovered great helm.
Also, we found a silver dagger, a silvered short sword, perhaps 10 silver bolts and arrows, a couple crossbows, a long composite bow, studded leather armor, 2 bastard swords, 2 short swords, and some other useful mundane items.
The holy water gets entered as the first "party resource" that we will draw upon in future missions.
Well, three days later we set out on take 2-- the trip to Garroten. This went smoothly with one notable exception. On the early morning of the third day, rain soaked everyone. Upon rising for the morning, we discovered that our camp was at most forty minutes outside of Garroten. Arrrgh.
We explored Garroten, including the tavern and a few shops. We discovered that the Lord Mayor, who lives in a castle on a hill near town, is female. Finally, we set up an appointment with her, hoping perhaps for employment opportunities.
That concluded our first adventure. Hope everyone likes following the aimless wanderings of the Lendore group, and we're definitely open to questions, comments, or any other fun stuff about Telvar.
Overall, more successful than we'd hoped! Now, if we could only get a purpose... or a name...