This week’s update!
The party has a captured orcs named Hits-Hard. Interogating him yields the information that something lives in the tunnels beneath the keep, something the orcs feed bodies to. Also, there are tunnels beneath the keep they could sneak in through.
The party, after much debate, decides that 600 orcs may be more than they can reasonably fight, even if they sneak in, particularly since the tunnels might be filled with shoggoths or vampires or worse. They send henches to the kingdom’s capital of Tidewater to hire mercenary forces. In the meantime, Magnar decides to pay a visit to the NPC’s henchman who accidentally looted his magical shield after he was killed by mummies (it was a new shield he’d just picked up on a solo adventure, so none of the party members who rescued him knew it wasn’t just loot).
The squire in question proves reasonable, but maintains his claim to the shield. He suggests letting the gods decide via a trial by combat, which magnar accepts. They joust! As the henchman of a baron, he’s about Magnar’s level, and the fight ends up being extremely close. They both incap each other at the same time, but ultimately Magnar manages to hit harder, reuniting him with a +3 shield. The brutal fight leaves the squire with some wicked scars, and Magnar looses some teeth. (Which I allow him to replace for a few hundred gold as he has false teeth made- he immediately commissions silver teeth “to bite werewolves”)
The party then decides to return to Lastfall and attempt to use summoned warriors to convince the orcs there that there are ghosts. On the way, they encounter a single medusa, who stones a PC and several henches. Its defeat, however, yields considerable treasure, including a stone sword which, when unstoned, turns out to be +3! The loot generator is very kind today. The party briefly debates whether to give the sword to Magnar, as stacking all the magic items on the strongest PC will yield tremendous force, or to Toni, Killian’s assassin henchman that cannot roll above 7. They give it to Magnar.
Since they had to travel to Tidewater to get Dom de-petrified anyway, they reunite with their henches and recruit 30 crossbowmen and 120 heavy infantry, plus a handful of veteran heavy cavalry. Magnar is very enthusiastic about creating the Red Riders, a legendary (at least, once they get into some legends) cavalry unit. This brings their total army up to nearly 180! They march on Lastfall.
The orc forces march out with about half their garrison, so the PCs are outnumbered almost 2:1, plus the enemy general is a wizard. They plan an ambush, but one of their soldiers is captured. They debate over what to do, eventually deciding to continue their current plan of “Recreate Teutoburg Forest” by ambushing the enemy army from two sides. A fantastically poor recon roll, combined with the prison refusing to talk, means their ambush succeeds. In the early rounds of the combat they’re able to deal enough damage that even a wizard can’t reverse the tides of war, and the orc force is routed without any causalities on their side.
The wizard escapes in the chaos of the aftermath, but with their leader missing and their forces routed, the remaining orcs flee the castle with their children. The PCs opt not to ride them down, though they do execute all the captured beastmen. The castle yields much loot, including two tons of salt bricks. Now that they own a keep, they’ve taken a significant step out of Adventurer and toward the domains-phase of Conquerer.
Tyr, the mage, finally reaches level 4.