Rylian Knights

It’s inspiring to see Garret taking so well to his transformation.

He really is the wind beneath my wings.

ROFL

Between Session Update: Tensions rise in the party; low level PCs don’t want to risk death in the deeper dungeons, high level PCs don’t want to risk not being able to pay their henches/mercs because of low-value adventures in the shallow dungeons.

My group has had similar issues…though usually it’s PC with huge number of retainers doesn’t want downtime while other pc’s do…still tense though

In this case they’re synonymous- the higher level characters are the ones with the most henches.

On an interesting note, since Magnar died to clear Killian’s hex (but did ultimately get that land cleared), Killian is now the proud owner of a manor in the swamp! He’s left his monk hench behind to administrate the new domain from a monastery (I ruled that there’s a strict domain/hideout divide, and thieves cannot be lords, but they CAN have henches who are lords, and vice versa, in keeping with the time honored tradition of the city mayor who is only a pawn of the mafia dons.)

Quick update on our last session from one of the players (I run Tyr the mage). We all headed up to lastfall since the old mine was not yielding much treasure and we wanted to clear the castle so Magnar could start building his stronghold there. We got there with no encounters and sent the spy owl to see what was in there. We saw a huge orc village set up in the castle (our best guess after the session is that theres around 400-500 orcs in the castle maybe more, how do they even move?) We knew we couldn’t take them in a frontal assault so we had both mages summon up some heroes and some berserkers and assaulted the castle with them while we hid from a safe distance and watched with the owl. They managed to cleave their way surprisingly deep into the castle eventually waking up one of their ogres. Once they died the owl came back and we booked it to a different hex. A huge orc force followed us but we set up an ambush. Killian easily earned mvp of the fight by killing the shaman, the ogre, and one of the orc champions in the surprise round, leaving the army to just have a whole ton of orcs. After that we blew a bunch of sleep spells and the parties entire collection of military oil in the surprise round. When battle was actually joined it looked a little tenuous at first, our southern line was getting hit hard, wed lost a few mercenaries and were not hitting back particularly well. However the northern flank was completely destroyed by the red riders (Magnars mercenary calvary) charges. The south managed to hold out long enough however for the red riders to come in and save the day. In the end we managed to take out over 100 orcs with no actual deaths (although a few mercenaries and Killian’s hench were badly hurt, lamed legs, gouged eyes etc…). We than interrogated two of the orcs and found out some tunnels into the castle along with the fact that the orcs are being supported by something called the masters. Thats where we had to end the session but our current plan is to try the summoning hero plan again but this time have them bring in the shamans skull and scream that they have offended the spirits of this place and need to leave or the attacks will continue.

Everyone Magnar hires gets brutally beaten at some point, and without fail they become more loyal as a result. Baptized by fire indeed.

What a splendid campaign this is! Love the write-ups.

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.

Almost equally important Magnar spends the majority of his keep budget on a battlecat. A decision the rest of the party heartilt endorses

heartily*

Wow but this thread has been neglected! My PCs were SUPPOSED to take it upon themselves to write the log after each game. [guiltshaming intensifies] Three sessions later, that seems to not be a thing.

So:

In “cleaning up” Lastfall, the party discovers a handful of prisoners and a magically locked door. The wizard (Whose player is conveniently absent for most of that session) devotes his full energies to solving the riddle of the door.

Upon questioning, most of the prisoners are ordinary humans and demihumans who’ve been tortured as part of the wizard’s dark experiments- The party lets them all go, except for the elves, who the PCs suspect may be the hated High Elves. Upon further questioning, they admit to being an advance sabotage team that was attempting to soften the keep up for an elven assault. The party puts them back in the dungeon while they go hex-clearing around the fort.

They end up almost exclusively encountering the lairs of intelligent beings, so they’re able to get the Stone Giants to agree not to murder anyone, be respectful to the hot springs/shrine inhabited to the Salamanders, intimidate+bribe the Hill Giants to move north and raid the orc tribes there instead, and killed a handful of Caecalaiths (the gray worms, however they’re spelled.) Hex-clearing is thus resolved with almost no combat!

When they return, most of the elves are dead, except for the smallest and most cowardly of them. He reveals that they were spies of an entirely different kind- They’d been sent from the High Elves to try to convince the elves of Rylia to turn on their lords and reclaim their freedom, and the others killed themselves to protect this secret. This last elf did not have the strength.

At this point, Tyr’s player returns, and I explain to him the puzzle of the magic door. The puzzle is (loosely paraphrased) that there are six runes embedded in the door, each acting as a node for mystic energy. In total, they’ll require power equivalent to a first level spell, with each rune receiving a fraction of that charge. Identical runes are identical; there are two kinds, with three of each, arranged as so:

AABABB

The nature of the lock is such that the last four combined will require three times as much energy as the first two combined.

I’m out of writing time now; I’ll post how the players handled this in the next update

So, Tyr’s player immediately settles down and tries to algebra it. It’s actually not a particularly tricky algebra once you realize that’s what it is, so I’m a little worried he’ll solve it quickly. Then the Rogue joins him in the math and I think this is where their problems arise- they’re just sitting there tripping over each other, pointing and going “No, that one goes there, THAT ONE goes here!”

Periodically they’d come up to me and declare the problem literally impossible. After about two hours, they come up with the right answer, but only after admitting that they gave up and went to a “Solve math problems for you” website. (Note: Contrary to what I may have implied, much of this took place simultaneously with Magnar’s hex-clearing; he talked to the stone giants and whatnot while Tyr struggled against the Math Door, as the party came to revile it by)

I think Bioware would be proud.

So, having secured Lastfall and rechristened it Redgate (after Magnar’s Red Riders) they move on, retake the ruins of Moorton (clearing out a single giant ferret by just sending Summoned Heroes into its lair until one comes out.) and then make plans to head to Tidewater, the major port city. Before they leave, Magnar receives a letter from his father, asking him to investigate the Black Ships of the Solanum Empire, and whether the Empire is a viable trading partner. The party needs to go to Tidewater anyway to get Garret-unRoc’d, so they’re happy to. They decide while they’re travelling, they’ll take a boat up to Northdwarf, the dwarf trading post in the north, (It has a much longer name in Dwarven, but most people use the Rylian name, since it’s short and accurate, much like the dwarves) and then loop back around to hit the Lair of Erasmus, a dungeon they have a treasure map to.

In Tidewater, things get… interesting.

OOps, forgot to mention what was BEHIND the Math Door:

The players find a small arcane laboratory/torture chamber, with numerous letters in a strange language and a mysterious bone artifact. They also find tunnels underneath that open up into the countryside, along with a single ghoul, who they slay.

En route to Tidewater, they stop to show the bone artifact to Rosh, the naive, heroism-focused cleric of the Singer that saved their corpses from the mummy’s tomb. He destroys it and says “It was probably bad.” and then rides north to try to find the Master. The party isn’t sure whether to worry that he’s secretly evil, or worry that he’s dumb and heading directly towards evil. They shrug and move on.

En route to Tidewater, they stop at Nobridge, the city they saved at the beginning of the campaign, and talk to Lord Bightsword, since he’s holding court. In fact, Magnar insists they wait politely in line, as their issues are no more important than any peasant’s. Brightsword tells them that the elf is problematic, but not to worry, as he’s talked to the Princess of the Mountain (the nickname for the local ruler) and she’s hired a specialist to help with the ensuing diplomacy/intrigue. The party interprets specialist to mean torturer, and are upset.

En route to Tidewater, Magnar convinces Killian that the best way to investigate the Black Ships would be to don disguises. Killian will go as Magnar, and Magnar will pretend to be his servant. Since Magnar has been reincarnated since the last time he was in the city, no one will recognize him. Killian agrees to the plan, only to forget what exactly this achieves.

They put on their disguises and go to find a captain from the black ships. After asking around, they locate the tavern where he is meeting various merchant lords. Killian, as Magnar, puts on his metaphorical Arrogance Hat and strides to the front of the line, demanding entrance, because Killian knows that’s what Magnar would do. Several insults later, this escalates into a tavern fight, or would’ve, if Tyr didn’t just Sleep most of the occupants. They threaten the various merchant-lords and throw them out.

The Black Captain laughs heartily and introduces himself as Vladimir. He tells them about the Glorious and Eternal Empire for a bit, and the PCs realize that whoever wrote the letters to the Master that they found in Lastfall’s basement was from the Solanum Empire, since the letters use their dating system. (Note that this is their third idea, after “The fact that the numbers are bigger means the letters are from the distant past! That they refer to current events means time is cyclical and history is repeating itself! There’s going to be a great cataclysm that knocks society back a thousand years!” The PCs leave very suspicious and confident that the Black Ships are not to be trusted.

Angering many of the city’s merchant powers attracts attention, and the next day the PCs are grabbed by the High Steward’s men. High Steward Piter de Vries (my rule is to only steal from things my players haven’t read or read so long ago they’ll never remember) offers them an alternative to being murdered in the present tense: Go and put down an assassin’s guild that’s not complying with city regulations, because if the Sisterhood (the kingdom’s bene-gesserit inspired priestess/assassins) get around to doing something about it there could be splash damage.

The Party investigates, picks out a merchant who probably hired the newcomer assassins, and ambush him at his house, then force him to arrange a meeting. When he explains that there’s never a real ‘meeting’ just a dead drop of money and a name, they have him do that, and then wait for someone to claim the money. It’s a close thing, but their thief manages to stay hidden and observe the assassin and trail him home. Upon confrontation, it’s…

Has’skein, the assassin with some of Magnar’s blood! What a twist! They’re all surprised and cheerful to see each other again because he’s a very friendly murderer. Has’skein is also surprised to see Magnar because he wasn’t expecting to visit for another month- it’s revealed he is the specialist that will deal with the elf problem! The party’s suspicions that torture will be involved multiply tenfold. They tell him to hold off another month before visiting because they’ll be out running errands.

With an opinion on the Black Ships and a mayor who has promised not to murder them in the short term, they find a wizard who is willing to reincarnate Garret as not a giant bird. He agrees, but only on the condition that he gets to cast Disintegrate on him, because he never gets to cast that spell. The party agree before Garret can react.

Business concluded in Tidewater, the party moves on to Northdwarf, where they acquire a few henchmen, and then attempt to pierce the wilderness and enter the Vampire’s treasure-vault.

They have the insane misfortune to roll a flock of Chimeras, but luck out with a high Reaction Roll; the Chimeras aren’t hungry today. The subsequent flock of gryphons are though, and the party sees a handful of Magnar’s beloved Heavy Cavalry, the Red Riders, maimed, although the Mortal Wounds table only claims one life. The party spends a couple extra days to track down the grypon nest and receives 30k treasure for it, more than they expected from the dungeon!

They arrive at the dungeon and find only an old man, who, upon questioning, is clearly too infirm to hunt, but has a dead deer outside. This and some other evidence leads them to conclude he’s befriended the dungeon dwellers, and further interrogation reveals the dungeon to be at the bottom of the well, underneath the water. (Magic!)

Inside the dungeon, they fight a series of low-level encounters, including some giant rats and centipedes that make Dochi the Mystic and one of the dwarves sick. They also encounter a group of low level adventurers, whom they intimidate and then offer some money as a consolation prize, since they’re planning on taking the entire dungeon and the low-level dudes would just die anyway they assume. The adventuring party is Chaotic, but knows they can’t win a fight, so they take the money and wander off.

While discovering a spiked pit trap, Torque suffers a brain injury (Brutal, for a dwarf engineer!) and… someone else gets hurt too? Anyway, the wounded start to accumulate, so the party decide to head back. They encounter the Chaotic Adventurers again, and ask them if they’d kindly escort the wounded out. They tell the adventurers about the secret well entrance, and the password to get past the Red Riders.

The Chaotic Adventurers wait for the party to leave and then murder all the wounded comrades, although at the cost of two of their own when Dochi puts up a fight while sick.

Meanwhile, the party continues to explore, fighting some ghouls, a gargoyle, some yellow mold, some giant bats, etc. When they return to find their comrades murdered, they use Ulfric, Mike’s Barbarian with Tracking, to track down one of the escapees and execute him. The other escapes.

Oh my. Did I read that correctly, that the party encountered another NPC party, asked the NPCs to escort the wounded, and the NPCs butchered them all?

Pretty much. That’s what happens when you entrust vulnerable people to Chaotic NPCs looking to make a quick buck.

In our defence all the people ended up ok after spellage and we didnt know they were chaotic.

“OK”

he he he he

Wounded in tow, the party rushes back to Northdwarf and has the dead revived and the newly-alive and the wounded are set to enjoy bedrest together. Magnar leaves behind his trusted hench Emile with orders to watch over them, as well as to find a wizard to research a magical sword the party found.

The party then ventures out again with intentions of conquering the dungeon for real this time, but after encountering, in quick succession, a hydra, a pair of purple worms, a nest of vipers, and a trio of crocodiles that consume a number of their horses and slay several Red Riders, they’re just about done with this swamp, and turn back just after reaching the dungeon.

They return to find that Torque, newly revived, has been slain! Also, Todd, Emile’s new henchman, was nearly fatally wounded! He explains “I was guarding the wounded like I was supposed to. They were very friendly and it was good work. Then the inside of my throat was suddenly on the outside. That was the worst part of the job. Next thing I remember is the dwarves healing me.” On an unrelated note, the party learns that pumpkin kebabs are something dwarves eat, and Dochi the mystic enjoys them, and that’s just weird.

The party goes through a precursory brainstorming period: I’ve learned over the course of this game that my PCs actually do go through the basic steps of coming up with possible answers, checking for evidence to eliminate/confirm those answers, and thus gradually narrowing it down, they just phrase it as though they’re leaping to conclusions. So when Tyr shouts “I AM 99% CERTAIN IT WAS TODD” he actually means “As he was one of the few people present at the time, it is reasonable to suspect Todd. I propose we go over his story and ask further questions to fully ascertain his guilt or lack thereof.”

Also sometimes they like to do “Trial” style brainstorming, where each person picks an explanation and rigorously proposes it, that the strongest case may win out. The real question is: Will they find the killer before he, or she, or it, strikes again?

Also, will Torque’s reincarnate stick, or will his soul be eternally destroyed? Will he come back as some kind of hilarious non-speaking animal?