Take heed, and read in awe, the deeds of our intrepid company.
During
the last session, our intrepid adventurers regrouped back at the Keep
before venturing out once again to thin out the menace lurking in the
Caves of Chaos. While in town, they were joined by the large, strapping
paladin Borios (and is slightly less-impressive squire, Lars), sent by
his order to help root out and end the threat of the undead. Hearing of
the Caves of Chaos, Borios was certain that he would be able to lend his
sword to good purpose.
Borios was honestly-gotten; after Rori died, the player rolled his stats and got a natural 18 for charisma. Lars was his second character. I recommended he have one in case Borios wouldn't be able to join the party on certain adventures, due to his quest.
Borios is dedicated to rooting out undead in the eastern marches. He's joining the party because his priest told him there have been rumours of occult worship and possibly necromancy at the Caves of Chaos.
Unfortunately the players didn't really pick up on that. Oh well.
Prior to departure, the adventurers shared meat and mead
at the tavern, and learned of the tragic destruction of a merchant
caravan at the hands of a gang of orcs and a hulking, monstrous ogre.
The merchant was the sole survivor. Surely there was some connection to
the increased activity at the caves. While at the tavern the heroes
welcomed into their company also a young noble of the house Steelclan, a
noted family of Dwarven metalsmiths. He spoke loudly, brashly, and
drunkenly of his deeds, and since the company of heroes sometimes does
the same, they brought him in.
After recruiting these new heroes to their cause, the
intrepid company set out once again for the caves to continue their
ill-advised spelunking, mostly due to poverty. First they stumbled upon a
cave long and dank, like a corridor before a great hall, piled high
with skulls and bones of animals, men, and elves. The cave ended in a
door, massive, wooden, and immovable, with a sign crudely scratched out
reading "We'd love to have you for dinner." Since none of the heroes were
particularly hungry, and since none of the skeletons stood up, wielded
rusty implements, and proclaimed fealty to their necromantic master,
Borios and the others thought it best to move on.
This was the hobgoblin cave, in case you didn't get that from the description. The players spent a good amount of time discussing whether or not they should break down the door after listening and hearing nothing and checking out the skulls to see if there was anything valuable or informative. Borios' player, who's fairly unassertive when directly asked questions but participates well in the discussions, brought up that there are other caves, and this one seems both difficult and dangerous. So they decided to go down the hill to another cave.
I really like my players.
In the next cave, they stumbled upon a
massive ogre, who, quickly outwitted by our elven mage Ellarion, was
soon fast and quite magically asleep. Juan Pendleton, helpful as always,
made sure he didn't wake up. He then shot a mattress he thought was a
bear, making certain everyone knew his predilection for wanton violence
was still strong.
The book is fairly clear: from a distance the ogre's mattress of bearskin and leaves looks like a sleeping bear. Nobody got close enough to tell the difference until after Juan shot it and the arrow just sunk in.
This was the ogre who was involved in the assault on the merchant caravan, along with the goblins who live next door.
The encounter with the ogre was actually quite amusing: he heard people rooting around in his other cave and came out for a look. He was suspicious, but didn't immediately attack, partly due to his mercenary inclinations and partly due to the fact that I rolled an effective 10 on his reaction roll. So Ellarion asked if he'd like to hear a song.
Sleep is a very powerful spell indeed.
Within the cave, our heroes discovered the fresh
remains of a retinue of men and elves, surely the merchants overtaken
on the road. A tragic end to good folk, though they were certainly not
the only to fall victim to such a gruesome fate. The ogre kept a vast
store of treasure. Coins silver and gold by the sackful, a mammoth wheel
of good, hard cheese, and a cask of fine brandy, for which Pious
Inebrius most certainly did not trip over the others to claim. Nestled
near (or, rather, firmly beneath) the remains of the poor souls who fell
victim to the ogre were also a magic scroll and several elegant arrows.
Ellarion claimed these, being the only one who knows anything about
runes or the proper way to use a bow.
While on the road, the intrepid company was
overtaken by a pack of orcs, and Borios, fluent in orc, invited them to
take the hard cheese the company found, and refrain from trying to kill
our heros. The leader of that filthy band graciously accepted, and left
under the slightly misguided notion that the cheese was somehow made
from ogre milk.
This was a random encounter on my table for the wilderness around the Keep. The players saw the orcs first, but given they were laden down with treasure and without a sleep spell, they felt it was best to parley. These are orcs from tribe B, though the players haven't taken the time to figure that out. Fortunately for them, with the cheese in the hands of an underling the boss orc of this little raiding party agreed to say he never saw the party if they left each other alone.
Shortly after setting camp, along came a band of
merchants, the chiefest of which was rather fussy, rotund, and not
particularly friendly. They also being bound for the Keep. The two
parties rested separately, and arrived within a short span of one
another the following morning.
The dice were hot for random encounters.
Upon returning triumphantly to the Keep, our heroes
conducted themselves in a properly heroic fashion. They deposited their
hard-earned monetary spoils at the local bank, learning to their dismay
that many of the coins were counterfeit hunks of lead in gold leaf. With
the remaining coin, they reserved rooms at the local inn. Borios spoke
with Theodoric, who commended him for his service, and offered lodging
to Borios and Lars both (and free stabling for Borios' monstrously large
steed). He encouraged Borios to continue to focus his efforts on the
cave.
There was some talk about not turning in the coins and trying to pass them as currency around the keep rather than taking the value of the gold. The banker pointed out as gently as he could that he already knew about these coins, and would be very, very upset if they showed up in circulation.
Theodoric is the curate of the church in the Keep.
The party also decided to rent one of the Keep's apartments for six months with some of their recent windfall. I ruled this would mean that staying in town for a week would cost 2 gold each, instead of 10, meaning it would pay itself off quickly. Minus incidental expenses, of course.
Ellarion learned from the clerics that the scroll is
indeed a divine one and promised to give it to Pious, who should be
able to make good use of it provided he's sober enough.
Celebrating, as always, at the tavern, our intrepid company
continued to gain in popularity with the locals. They wooed away from
the merchant his men-at-arms, John and Teddy, who offered a step
discount for their services and promised to recruit their comrades,
Otus, Langard, Sigurd, and Helga, to the cause of adventure. Pious
soothed the ego of the preening merchant, Edward, and promised to give
him first pick of any "liberated" dry goods the company may find amongst
the caves. Edward offered an 80% purchase price, far to generous. Pious
and Edward then shared in the holy rite of most-certainly-not-Bacchus,
and subsequently passed out.
Edward is the same merchant they met on the road, and out from under whom they rented the last apartment at the Keep. Originally he was seethingly upset that the party had done so, but Pious was so persuasive that that's smoothed over now. It helps that he's also a worshipper of Bacchus, so he considers Father Pious as one of his own.
Just as a side note, Langard is actually an old veteran hireling of the Caves of Chaos: he was hired by the first group I ever ran this module for. As such, he knows a thing or two about the caves.
There were quite a few hijinks in town with Pious getting very drunk and sharing coin and brandy all over the place, not to be outdone by Heinrich or Juan. This was the session I changed the house rules for XP: they had to spend their gold if they wanted to earn anything from it. The results were both amusing and entertaining.
Where will the adventure take our heroes next? To the
mysterious ruins to the south, setting up an expedition to explore and
collect artifacts of immense and arcane power? To the town of Hommlet,
to combat the growing threat of the Temple of Elemental Evil and its
pernicious influence on an otherwise peaceful village? Or will they once
again brave the Caves of Chaos, facing down evils both ancient and
contemporary, fighting for the honor of their fallen brethren? The world
is in need of their efforts, which they will happily lend in full
force. After, of course, they attend Mass.
After discussion, the players decided to stick to the Caves of Chaos. There was a good bit of interest in the ruins to the south (which happen to be the Caverns of Thracia), but they finally decided against it after tabulating the costs: they'd have to either set up a nearby base-camp and pay their day-laborers and men-at-arms to staff it, or risk walking both ways through the swamp and jungle each time they wanted to find the place again.
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