Brother Maurice- Human Initiate of Avandra, the goddess of freedom and luck (141 points)
Sindri Blackshield - Tiefling Knight (267 points)
Virgil the Grim - Human Barbarian (283 points)
Player Absent:
Locke Landen - Human Bard (274 points)
Day 133 (Cont.):
Weather: Normal
Date: Peris 20th 2526
While the goristro demon charged towards the walls of Kral Narthis, the party readied themselves; Morgan removed everything but paut from his backpack, Sindri rallied the peasants, and Virgil took his gauntlets off, before they all headed out to meet the beast at the north gate.
Meanwhile, the Dragons of Carda mercenaries, led by Bertio, formed a rough three rank formation in front of the gate, with swordsmen in front, spears in the middle, and halberds in the rear. Luccio stood off to the side and limbered up in preparation to climb the demon, while the town guards and mercenary crossbowmen alike lined the wall and fired two volleys as the goristro approached, with minimal impact.
Sindri held back inside the walls with Maurice, while Locke, Morgan, and Virgil headed out to the right side of the mercenary formation. Virgil doused the elven blade Silmaris with holy water, and Morgan discovered that the Nightmantle's invisibility ended if he levitated and stayed on the ground instead. The 40' tall demon met the mercenaries head-on, eating another volley from the crossbows in the process.
The mercs struck the beast as it charged through their formation, but their (non-magical) weapons barely scratched it, while 6 unfortunate soldiers who failed to get out of the way were crushed. The demon slammed into the town wall, sending two crossbowmen plummeting 20' to the ground.
Virgil ran around behind the goristro but didn't attack, Locke moved in to try some spells, Morgan started using Mind Stab, which he would do for the rest of the battle, and Sindri continued to rally the peasants and and ordered them to attack. They did so with great enthusiasm, but only 5 of the 30 bottles of holy water found their mark. Still, the demon was badly burned, and the peasants began to ready their second volley, while Maurice set about healing the wounded crossbowmen.
Luccio began to climb the goristro's right leg from behind, and the rest of the surviving mercenaries regained their feet. The demon slammed one giant fist into the wall, knocking another crossbowman to the ground, and picked up a town guard with the other. Virgil swung his sword at the demon and easily hit, but barely managed to hurt it, even with the holy water on the blade.
The demon squeezed the guard until the poor dwarf's head popped off, and then threw the body at the guards on the wall, knocking two off, just in time for the rest to retaliate with another volley of crossbow bolts. It let out a terrible roar, and the peasants began to flee, but Sindri maintained cohesion, and they launched the second volley of holy water, again only hitting with one out of every five bottles.
Luccio, now about 10' up the beast, continued climbing, while Virgil chopped at its foot, attracted its attention, and (thanks to a Tactics reroll from Sindri) narrowly dodged a retaliatory stomp. The mercenaries on the ground continued to be ineffectual, while Locke tried, and failed, to cast Mental Stun. The demon picked up another dwarf and threw it into the peasants while they readied their final volley of throwing axes, crushing four, but Sindri's Leadership once again kept them together as he ran across the courtyard towards the stairs, while Maurice cast Haste on him.
With a mighty roar, the beast finally smashed through the wall, and a large chunk of stone crushed one of the mercenary crossbowmen, before it turned to face Virgil and tried to stomp on him some more. He dodged and ran to the left, hoping to circle around to its back, while Maurice made his way past the rubble, and cast Haste on Virgil, succeeding despite the distance.
The demon charged at Virgil, and he managed to dodged and dropped to the side at the last second, but he was now prone right beside a 40' tall demon that had bashed down a stone wall in a matter of seconds. The peasants threw their throwing axes, finally connecting with a decent amount, but almost all of them merely bounced off the goristro's armoured hide.
While the mercenaries, Locke, and Morgan followed the demon, Sindri arrived at the top of the wall and jumped majestically through the air towards the demon. However, thanks to his Tiefling Unluckiness, he misjudged the distance and landed on the ground 20' below, though he was able to stay standing. The demon moved to stomp Virgil into so much bloody pulp, only to slip and fall, nearly crushing Luccio, who Luckily evaded.
While Virgil and the goristro both tried to regain their feet, Luccio ran to the beast's head and plunged his rapier into its right eye. Locke tried using his Dissonant Strain to stun the demon, but failed, and Morgan continued to use Mind Stab to fatigue it. Sindri failed to make it to the demon's head before it stood up, but Luccio kept his grip, stayed on its shoulder, and stabbed it in the other eye twice, fully blinding it.
Sindri launched a series of five rapid blows, while Virgil regained his feet and continued his attack. The demon reared back in pain before charging to the right, crushing several of the wounded mercenaries to death, was shot by a final volley of crossbow bolts, and fell to the ground, dead. Luccio managed to tumble off and took only two damage from the fall.
The survivors let out a cheer, and Virgil used Butchery to make sure that the goristro was truly dead, rendering the entire thing into so much red goo within a single second. Maurice went about healing the survivors, Morgan went and retrieved the rest of the contents of his pack before a peasant could steal them, and Sindri removed some large, bejewelled metal rings from the goristro's nose.
For some reason, Virgil then went to the Temple of Moradin to insult the divine hammer they had offered, stating that both it and their god were weak and pointless, which unsurprisingly resulted in every single dwarf in Kral Narthis utterly hating him.
As the most obviously heroic, Luccio received heaps of praise, but everybody, other than the now-maligned Virgil, was invited to the victory celebration, where they drank, ate and mourned those who had been lost. Morgan reminded the rest of the party (mostly Locke) to not get too carried away, as they'd be taking the merchant Cathney back to Adusia first thing the next morning.
Day 134
Weather: Normal
A critical success on Weather Sense by Virgil and the higher speed of Eward's cart allowed them to make excellent time; it took only 4 hours to get to Cosium. Unfortunately, they failed to find another drover for the second cart, currently stored at the Merchant's Guild building, and would be forced to make two trips instead. Another 4 hours later, they arrived in Adusia.
They took Cathney to Gylium's spice shop, where the two spoke briefly, before dropping her off at her house in the Merchant's District, where her servants would take care of her. Although there was still some daylight left, the party decided to stay at the Crimson Boot Inn for the night, hoping to make the entire journey back to Cosium the next day.
Day 135
Weather: Windy
Poor weather and Sindri's move of 3 meant that the party only made it roughly 3/4 of the way to Cosium. Luckily, the lands between it and Adusia were settled with many farming villages, and the party were undisturbed overnight.
Day 136
Weather: Rainy
They made it to Cosium in the early morning, hooked up Eward's horses to the cart at the Merchant's Guild building, and started back towards Adusia, but they were about three hours short by nightfall. They decided to rest, and were once again undisturbed.
Day 137
Weather: Rainy
Date: Peris 24th, 2526
After three hours (and the fourth straight day of travel), the party finally made it to Gylium with a cart full of goods, and received their pay. The nose-rings (which were determined to be non-magical for a fee) were sold for a poor amount thanks to a botched Merchant roll by Locke.
Notes:
I learned today that neither Sindri nor Virgil had taken the divine hammer from the temple of Moradin last session (I thought that Sindri had it). It would have helped a lot, but whatever.
Sadly, nobody qualifies for the Hero power-up, because they received so much help.
The fight was fought on a whiteboard, instead of the usual hex-map. It worked out fine, for the most part, but it was helped by the terrain being mostly open, with only a wall in the way.
The crossbows were able to target the vitals once the goristro got in close, and did a ton of damage as a result.
By the end of the fight, the goristro was at -1FP thanks to Morgan's unceasing Mind Stab.
Casualties in the Goristro Fight:
- 5x Mercenary Spearmen Killed
- 1x Mercenary Crossbowmen Killed
- 2x Mercenary Swordsmen Wounded
- 1x Mercenary Crossbowmen Wounded
- 2x Town Guard Crossbowmen Killed
- 2x Town Guard Crossbowmen Wounded
- 4x Peasant Rabble Killed
Still no random encounters yet, even though there were 6 rolls this session alone.
The party is likely to take some downtime. Locke has armour being commissioned that's due in 50 or so days, and Virgil wants his normal sword upgraded.
Might change the Psi ability modifier from "Bad things happen on 6 or less" to "Disciplines of Faith (Psi Meditation)". We'll see.
After this session, the minimum value for loot XP will be raised to $1k from $200, because it's a bit too easy to get 2XP at the moment.
XP:
2 for general success
1 for combat (the goristro was a boss, but they had tons of allies)
1 for completing a minor quest
2 for loot
1 for Unluckiness to Sindri
MVP went to Morgan
No comments:
Post a Comment