Accompanied by Brogallo's surprisingly faithful mercenaries, the party makes their way from Fort Rackham to the Serpent Shrine. No encounters occur during the trek, so the party dismounts and prepares to make their entrance to the shrine. Ominously, the ancient shrine's entranceway seems to have been recently cleared so the murder hobos prepare themselves for some sort of resistance.
They notice that every square inch of the shrine is covered with bizarre serpentine decorations and glyphs, some of which are legible while others have faded with the passage of unknown centuries. They all emit a faint phosphorescent deep green glow that occasionally changes to a deep mauve before reverting. The effect is unsettling and makes them nauseous if they stare at the glyphs for more than a few moments.
Making their way down the ancient stone stairs, they enter room 1 and decide to head east. They check for secret doors at both ends of the intersecting corridors and fail to find the secret door in the northern wall (so they're unaware of room 9). They proceed to the eastern door. Lightfingers Louie fails his Hear Noise check and the rest of the party fails their listen checks so they hear nothing beyond the thick age darkened door. Brogallo successfully forces the door, revealing the passage beyond.
Lightfingers Louie decides to scout the passage, using Move Silently and Find/Remove Traps to make sure no nasty surprises await. He fails both checks with no effect since there aren't any dangers. He sees the door at the end of the corridor, succeeds on his Hear Noise check and can make out an odd sibilant grunting being made by something large in the room. He quickly makes his way back to the party and informs them of his findings. They decide to force the door and swarm whatever is in the room in a blitz attack. Brogallo and Mighty Redneck will close to melee with Brother Fitzy and Brother Sully providing support. Bro-thazarr will provide missile support while Lightfingers Louie and Slicer move to rear and attempt backstabs.
The party makes their way back to the door and Brogallo successfully forces it to reveal the Ogre chieftain within. Neither side is surprised. Per DMG pg 62, they are within striking distance so we roll for initiative:
Round 1 Initiative: Ogre (24hp) 6 party 3
Ogre picks Brother Sully and hits with a 13 for 7, leaving him with 2 (ouch!)
Brogallo: miss
Mighty Redheck: hits for 11+1hp (ranger bonus) rocking the ogre
Brother Fitzy: miss
Brother Sully: miss
Lightfingers Louie: rear attack at +2 hits for 5hp
Slicer: rear attack at +2 hits for 4hp
Bro-thazarr: DMG pg 63 throws 2 daggers and hits for 4hp, dropping the ogre
Post combat Brother Sully CLW on himself for 6hp, bringing him back to near full strength. They loot the body and move back to room 1. They know ogres seldom travel solo and begin looking for the rest of the group (and the loot!).
In room 1, they open the northern door and Louie again decides to scout ahead, following the same procedure. Louie's Move Silently and Find/Remove Traps both succeed (15% and 22%) so he disables the pit trap. He moves to the stairs and sees the empty room and decides to scout the room. Unfortunately, Louie moves into the room and FMT fails. He triggers the trap (1 on d6) and 2 spears launch; luckily each comes up with a 1 so Louie is hanging on with 1hp. The situation is desperate, but not hopeless!
I check for wandering monsters and it check comes up positive (1 on d6). It looks like the 2 Ogres (17hp, 20hp) from from room 6 have decided to see why the Chief from room 1 has not checked in and they stumble across the party.
Encounter distance is 8" so party sees Ogres as the exist the room. The encounter reaction comes up 68% (Uncertain but 55% prone toward positive). Since Mighty Redneck is the only PC that speaks ogre, we're going to use his stats to determine results. He gets a 38% to the ogres aren't immediately hostile; he decides to trick them and attack them from the rear. He tells them in ogrish that the chief is being attacked by some filthy elves and sent the party to get help from the subchiefs. The ogres, not being particularly bright even by ogre standards, fall for the ruse. The party decides to split their attacks between the two and repeat the winning strategy from the combat with the chief. Mighty Redneck and Brogallo will attack ogre1 and others will attack ogre2. Louie will move into combat and won't reach until next round.
Round 1 Initiative: Ogre (17hp, 20hp) 1 party 4
The ogres move past the party who then springs their attack (at +2 to hit since
they're attacking from the rear of the ogres)
Brogallo: hits ogre1 with 16+2 for 9hp
Mighty Redneck: hits ogre1 with 18+2 for 8+1hp (ranger bonus) dropping ogre1
Brother Fitzy: hits ogre2 with 13+2 for 5hp
Brother Sully: miss
Lightfingers Louie: moving into melee range and out of combat this round
Slicer: misses
Bro-thazarr: DMG pg 63 throws 2 daggers for 6+2 and 17+2 and hits ogre2
with 1 for 4hp
Round 2 Initiative: Ogre2 (11hp) 5 party 6
Brogallo: miss
Mighty Redheck: miss
Brother Fitzy: hit with 15 for 5hp
Brother Sully: miss
Lightfingers Louie: rear attack at +2 misses
Slicer: rear attack at 20+2 hits for 4hp
Bro-thazarr: DMG pg 63 throws 2 daggers and hits for 6hp, dropping the ogre
The party loots the bodies and the moves into room 6 where they clear the hoard. Suspecting the door to the right might lead to a hidden room behind the dead end in the opening room 1, they open that door and find the prisoners in room 5; I rule that they know about the ogre females and bugbears in the remaining rooms and tell the
players in exchange for their freedom. The players check room 4 and find it empty.
The players free the prisoners and tell them to stay with the merc guards at the dungeon entrance. I'll figure out what to do with these wretches in downtime...
Players have used up 8 turns worth of torches. They've got plenty left, but they'll need to keep an eye on their supply.
Louie proceeds down the corridor towards room 7 with Move Silently/Hear Noise and Find/Remove Traps all failing. He reports back to the party that the corridor looks clear but the door to room 7 is too thick for him to hear anything. They assume the remaining ogres are in the room behind and prepare to attack.
Brogallo will force the door, Bro-thazarr will cast Sleep, Louie will protect him with missile fire and stay out of melee since he's down to 1hp. Everyone else will attack whatever is inside. Brogallo rolls 1 on d6 and successfully forces the door.
Both sides roll 6 for surprise, so no surprise
Encounter distance is within striking distance again and the females are on the western side of the room, with the younglings opposite.
6 female ogres (14hp, 13hp, 13hp, 14hp, 13hp, 10hp); 5 young ogres (as goblins; 4hp, 1hp, 3hp, 2hp, 5hp)
Round 1 Initiative: Ogres 2 party 6
Brogallo: miss ogress1
Mighty Redheck: miss ogress2
Brother Fitzy: miss ogress3
Brother Sully: hits ogress4 with a 17 for 5hp
Slicer: hits ogress5 with a 19 for 5hp
Lightfingers Louie: miss ogress6
Bro-thazarr: Casts Sleep on ogre cubs (rolls a 9 on 4d4); all cubs are out of the fight
ogress1: miss Brogallo
ogress2: miss Mighty Redheck
ogress3: miss Brother Fitzy
ogress4: miss Brother Sully
ogress5: hits Slicer with a 17 for 5hp, killing him. Slicer has been diced...
ogress6: miss Lightfingers Louie
Bro-thazarr
Round 2 Initiative: Ogres 1 party 6
Brogallo: hits ogress1 with 19 for 3+3hp
Mighty Redheck: hits ogress2 with 14 for 12+1hp, killing her
Brother Fitzy: miss ogress3
Brother Sully: miss ogress4
Slicer: DEAD
Lightfingers Louie: miss ogress6
Bro-thazarr: hit ogress5 with 18 for 3+3hp taking her to 2hp
ogress1: DEAD
ogress2: DEAD
ogress3: miss Brother Fitzy
ogress4: miss Brother Sully
ogress5: miss Bro-thazarr
ogress6: miss Lightfingers Louie
Round 3 Initiative: Ogres 1 party 2
Brogallo: hits ogress5 with 16 for 5+3hp killing her
Mighty Redheck: miss ogress6
Brother Fitzy: miss ogress3
Brother Sully: miss ogress4
Slicer: DEAD
Lightfingers Louie: miss ogress6
Bro-thazarr: miss ogress6
ogress1: DEAD
ogress2: DEAD
ogress3: hits Brother Fitzy for 7hp taking him to 1hp
ogress4: hits Brother Sully for 4hp taking him to 5hp
ogress5: DEAD
ogress6: miss Lightfingers Louie
Round 4 Initiative: Ogres 5 party 3
Ogre morale check (66% -10% for dead Slicer +30% for 3 dead ogresses = 76%) I roll an 86 and fail it by 10 so fall back fighting towards the bugbears in room 8
Brogallo: miss ogress3
Mighty Redheck: hits ogress4 with a 20 for 8+1+1hp killing her
Brother Fitzy: hits ogress3 for 2hp
Brother Sully: hits ogress4 but already dead
Slicer: DEAD
Lightfingers Louie: DEAD
Bro-thazarr: miss ogress6
ogress1: DEAD
ogress2: DEAD
ogress3: miss Brother Fitzy
ogress4: DEAD
ogress5: DEAD
ogress6: hits Bro-thazarr with a 17 for 6hp, killing him. Alas poor Bro-Thazarr!!
Round 5 Initiative: Ogres 3 party 1
Ogresses make it to the door and flee towards the bugbears
Mighty Redheck and Brother Fitzy slam the door shut and spike it
Brogallo slits the throats of the ogrelings
The party is weak and has lost two members, so they decide to flee with the loot before the ogresses return with bugbear reinforcements. They grab the loot in the coffers and strip their dead comrades, before beating a hasty retreat to the surface and quickly saddle up for a return to Fort Rackham with the liberated ogre prisoners in tow.
Wandering monster checks come up blank as they travel through the hexes so they make it safely back to town, easily outrunning the angry humanoids.
Experience
9 Ogres: 1500xp
5 Ogre young: 65xp
Treasure: 33,381gp= 33,381xp
Total: 34,946xp (8,737xp each of the four surviving party members plus 10% XP bonus for 9,611xp where appropriate)
Book of the Dead:
The fallen heroes will be listed in The Book of the Dead at https://easternarchon.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-book-of-dead.html
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