Session/Game: ACKS Gatavia3 #4 Date: October 13, 2013
Episode 4: Stop Dying, You Cowards!
Campaign Date: April, AY 1430
Characters:
Rotwang the Battle-lover, neutral, barbarian-2 (Bob)
Brother Punchy the Norrisite, neutral, mystic-2 (Chuck)
Murderface Jack, neutral, dwarven fury-2 (Jason)
Nameless Lizard 1, neutral, lizardman gladiator-1 (Robert)
Split-tongue, elf, enchanter-2, neutral (Marlon).
Henchmen
Cassandra the Miscellaneous, human, level-0 (works for Rotwang)
Wilhelm the Chiurgeon, human, level-0 (worst healer ever) (works for Brother Punchy)
Miller the Torchboy, human, level-0 (works for Brother Punchy)
Jebbly the Pack Hauler, human, level-0 (works for Rotwang)
Judge: Dave
Prologue: As the Skull Collectors divide the treasure from the wizard Presfen’s lair, Decius the Explorer discovers a note in his backpack. He reads it and exclaims “I was supposed to meet my sister days ago!” He gathers his treasure, makes a few jottings in his memory book and takes off into the wilderness.
Log:
Encounter 1 April 1, 2013
The Skull Collectors, minus Decius, begin a thorough search of the remaining sections of the “Eye Level”, formerly Presfen’s lair, of Skull Mountain. Near the wizard’s rooms, they find an old comrade named Split-tongue, locked in a cell with 2 young children—Eddie and Teddie Osbertson—all of whom had been kidnapped by the wizard’s bandit allies for ransom. They also discovered One-Eyed Max, a bandit-emissary from Lucius Bastardo, who had been sent to get Marco and his bandits to betray Presfen and join the Bastardville bunch. He was locked in the next cell. The Skull Collectors freed him and asked him to join them in exploring the lair.
Making a sweep of the level, they found Presfen’s pantry (filled with delicious hams), the hobgoblin supply room and armory, the bandits’ tool shed, filled with useful stuff, the Blade Dancer’s room, with some treasure, and Presfen’s spare chaos monkey storage room, where they had to kill another 7 chaos monkeys. They then made camp in the stables and rested for a good two days.
Encounter 2: April 4
As their second day of rest drew to a close, the crew was nearly healed up (despite Wilhelm’s terrible healing power). However, they heard a dozen men approaching, and then a strange set of code words. One-Eyed Max then answered the code words with some of his own, saying that it was okay and these were his friends approaching. He called in the bandit Lieutenant, a heavily-armed thug named Murkley, and he came in to parley. Murkley took and immediate dislike to the party and told them if they handed over the wizard’s treasure, he’d let them live.
Taking offense, Murderface began to attack Murkley, who was aided by One-Eyed Max. Rotwang, fearing that the bandits would defeat them, murdered Princess Athalwyn, so that no one else would gain ransom or reward for her. After an initial failure, Split-tongue managed to throw a Charm Spell on Murkley, who began to withdraw, ordering his men back. However, Murderface was in a berserk rage and continued to attack Murkley. Brother Punchy, meanwhile, finished off One-Eyed Max and tried, with the help of Nameless Lizard Guy to subdue Murderface, so the Charmed Murkley would take away his men. Finally, Rotwang and Murderface gave up and decided just to kill Murkley and began to attack him again in earnest. However, Murkley proved to be stronger and hacks down both Rotwang and Murderface. Although pelted by arrows from the other bandits, Brother Punchy and Nameless Lizard Guy finally kill Murkley, causing his 12 allies to flee, rejoin the larger party at the base of the mountain to withdraw.
Rotwang is badly cut up, suffering from ghostly visions of his ancestors, and requires a week to rest up. Murdeface had a leg chopped clean off by Murkley and requires 12 days of rest.