Defenders Summary #44: Defenders 7, Ogres 0
Party Roster:
Felix, 6th level fighter, 59 hp, played by Alex
Balinor, 6th level fighter, 56 hp, played by Joel
Kodo, 4th level woodsman, 47 hp, played by Rob
Morgan, 6th level fighter, 35 hp, played by Alan
Quentin, 7th level druid, 31 hp, played by Jeremy
Kain, 4th level cleric, 27 hp, played by Jeff
Donald, 5th level mage, 27 hp, NPC (played by Katherine this game)
Nakumanu, 3rd level fighter, 25 hp, henchman
Alduin, 5th level thief, 19 hp, played by Vic
The party began, as is its wont, by arguing about a plan. Having come up with one, we executed with a style and grace previously unheard of in party history. Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating, but it actually worked!
First, Alduin was made invisible by Invisibility, 10’ Radius (a spell that is at least as good as Invisibility, with other benefits as well) and he moved through the camp. Dodging ogres working on the palisade, he reached the doorway to the great hall, which was covered by two skins that parted in the middle. He looked inside, but could see little except for a roaring fire and a couple of curtains hiding the back corner of the building from view. There were tools for building lying around.
The next night we followed the five ogres after they left camp, an invisible Alduin following closely with animals for communication with the main group. When the ogres stopped to bang an opossum against a tree repeatedly, the party caught up, and when the ogres noticed us coming they yelled, “What are THOSE things?”
On cue, Alduin hurled a Continual Light stone at the area of the ogres, but due to great skill/luck actually struck one in the face and hurt it a little. That was the signal for Quentin to Entangle the ogres, which he did with two spells. Once they were stuck, the fighters encircled the area while Donald tried to Sleep one, which failed. Then Kain yelled Die in ogre, having learned it from Donald. He garbled it the first time, but the second time the ogre fell over. Then Quentin released the Entangle, and Kodo, Balinor, Morgan, and Felix each faced off with an ogre. Every ogre missed, and they were all down before they got a second swing, Kodo particularly goring his.
The last ogre woke up to see us staring at him. Donald cast ESP and questioned the ogre, who was still cross-eyed and rather confused. We got images of a very tall creature with black skin and weird black armor with symbols on it. In addition there was a black serpent, and an image of an ogre being hanged, and finally a giant weasel.
We rememorized spells, put the ogre out of his misery, and marched back to the camp. All of us were made invisible and we went, hands-on-shoulders, to the doorway of the great hall completely unnoticed. It was already somewhat light outside. We had brought a Silence stone with us, which we left at the doorway.
We started to move forward when we apparently tripped the weasel alarm, as a giant weasel appeared and began hissing at us and making noise. The curtains were still closed, so we backed up, and Quentin began to cast Hold Animal, making him visible. Meanwhile, the fighters moved to attack whoever was behind the curtain. Alduin was the target of the invisibility spell, so all of the non-fighters were still invisible.
Kodo ripped open the curtain and found himself facing a very large ogre with a two-handed sword. In addition there was a huge creature, black skinned, picking up a club the size of a small tree. The ogre swunghis sword at Kodo, but missed, and Kodo moved in and badly gashed his opponent.
Felix was next through the curtain and he headed straight for the big guy. Unfortunately, the big guy said, “Die!” in Common, and Felix fell over. Balinor moved over Felix, but was also dropped by a Command. Finally, Morgan moved to engage the big guy.
The big guy made his first mistake, and swung at Morgan. After the inevitable miss, Morgan grinned and moved in, Thunderstrucking the guy powerfully for two wounds and some stun time. Balinor and Felix continued to get their beauty rest.
Quentin Held the weasel and began a Faerie Fire. Alduin moved into position for a backstab. Donald drew back the curtain in dramatic fashion, allowing Kain to target the big guy with his Silence spell.
Nakumanu moved in and began to slash the big guy with his falchion. The creature was not regenerating, eliminating any possibility of it being an ogre mage. Meanwhile, Kodo’s axes sank into the ogre again, who swung angrily… and shattered his weapon. Kodo then put an axe in his face, and down he went. Kodo turned to engage the big guy.
The big guy’s only target was Kodo, and he made it count. The club connected full force (32 damage and a double wound). Kodo fell back, downing Goodberries and receiving a Cure Light from Quentin.
Morgan and Nakumanu continued to poke at the creature. Felix rose from his stupor and moved to engage, but was bashed down by the club (32 damage and a single wound) and fell back to down his Goodberries. Balinor rose, and moved in to smash the big guy.
Donald threw his Web spell, catching the big guy’s upper body and slowing him down for long enough for the fighters to start smashing him. Balinor hit him 3 times, but fumbled, allowing the giant to kick him (13 damage and a single wound). Morgan and Nakumanu finished him off, and he collapsed.
Spittle had a feast of eyeballs, and complained that we left before he could finish.
We searched the hut, and found a mithril belt buckle (4 cw), two vials of unholy water (2 doses each) and an unidentified double dose potion. The big guy was clearly a fire giant, and was wearing symbols on his breastplate that we later determined were from the Fire Giant Central Government.
This of course made us rest easier (refer to Stone Soules Rule #1). There were no dead Nevronians there.
The fire giant was in fact a priest of a chaotic evil hill giant religion. Weird. The club was magical (type one), so we assumed it was an unholy symbol of some sort and burned it. There was also a couple hundred fire giant gp.
We stepped outside, and Donald said to three stunned ogres standing there, “Your leader is dead. You are now free.” The ogres ran away screaming, and we strolled out of camp.
We arrived uneventfully back at the Druidic Court, but decided almost immediately to take on another mission. We set out to defeat the malicious faun-like creature. The creature is known to have some control over plants, though not animals, and has Charm abilities (Quentin is immune to those). The thing probably lives in a particular tree, which we may be forced to cut down or burn. Quentin may actually Plant Door after it.
The current plan is to ask the faun to negotiate with us, and then beat it up when it shows up. Ok, so it’s not a plan a cavalier would approve of. So sue us.
There were two encounters of note on the way there. On Balinor’s watch, a weird glowing light started moving around the camp about 100 feet way. Tyveris, Quentin’s owl, claimed nothing was there, which was weird since the light kept going out whenever the owl approached it. It eventually disappeared.
The next day, we were suddenly aware of a huge herd of animals apparently stampeding by. They must have gone somewhere off to our left, and the noise died down. We went to investigate, and there was a huge ripped up section of forest just missing. It was a swathe about ten to fifteen feet wide and stretched as far as the eye could see. Tracking revealed that about 50 or so reptilian creatures had moved through the area, with footprints about five or six feet long.
The current party theory was maybe that some sort of giant lizard creatures, like dinosaurs had passed through from the Indicara Jungle, apparently heading toward Sark or Dunador.
We did NOT walk along the path whistling or whatever.
Next time, a diplomatic summit goes sour….
Joel/Balinor