We had the sixth session of Bloodfall and it was a doozy. The rangers located a camp in downtime. It was empty but had a fresh campfire and vague humanoid footprints nearby. They immediately imprinted orcs on it which was interesting. Planning was all based around killing some orcs. Broderick the Paladin had a goat sacrificed for their good fortune, Kirk offering it to Forseti, the god of Justice. Maybe it worked.
Off they went, scouts in the lead. Held off, located the empty camp, investigated better in session to learn it was truly empty with no sign of habitation. The rangers found some tracks leading away and the scout team followed. Mutual surprise of a bugbear ambush sent them running.
Tense, the party waited at the decoy camp for the bugbears to chase them. The monsters did not. After the second hour, some ogres bumbled in and were surprised to find the group there. In a short, bloody fight the party demolished them, their shield wall and advantageous initiative rolls too powerful for the big dumb idiots.
The call was made to fall back, find another position to lure the bugbears to. The rangers located a defensible position, essentially a dungeon room in the rocks with three narrow paths or "hallways" leading to it. They were satisfied and set up.
Bugbears are tricksome and sneaky. Rangers and elves are, too. The bugbears chose late at night to attack, hoping to gain advantage of infravision over the humans. For the second time that night, the rangers were surprised. The bugbears attacked from all three sides but focused on the east. They outnumbered the humans 2:1 and had them on HD 3:1. It was, uh, not good.
Raylan and Thorgal plugged their holes. Leif the elf made a bold play to try and execute one of the bugbears on his side and intimidate the others to flee. Raylan took a beating on a bad surprise round, Leif was killed, and Thorgal held the line with his dogs while the sleeping party woke and armed themselves.
You can't sleep in armor. It was tossed out that they could try, I assessed a likely too light penalty, and they decided against it. Good and proper play. Anyway, most of their party was unarmored for the fight of their lives. Tactically, they had three choke points and were holding. The next move changed their lives forever.
Dramatic pause.
We didn't really have a caller for the session, so Broderick had stepped in late. He pulled everyone back to focus around the fight where Raylan, Gunnbjorn, and Aevarr were holding their bottleneck and making ground. It immediately looked like an awful decision from my end, allowing the enemy to flood into the clearing and potentially overwhelm them. But the goal was a morale check by defeating their leader. The clerics suggested they could use magic to help but they couldn't get after the cowardly bugbear chief that was leading from the rear.
It was a huge gamble. The bugbear chief filled in and Broderick and Gunnbjorn led the charge to make space for the clerics who needed to be close. The Command spells worked, the chief and subchief groveled and surrendered respectively, and the warriors crashed into them, killing the groveling chief and forcing that morale check. It was *awful* and the bugbears that weren't engaged fled into the darkness. Those who were surrendered in confusion and the subchief was subdued before the magic wore off.
Had initiative gone differently, had attack rolls gone differently, had basically *anything* not gone their way in that moment they were doomed. But Forseti had their backs and they collected a bunch of prisoners and treasure, including a magic axe with the head of a stop sign. Aevarr sacrificed a captive to Tyr, the god of battle, in thanks for their victory.
Lots of math and such for encumbrance and they walked back to town. A cluster of goblins watched them pass from a cave in the side of a hill hundreds of yards off and definitely won't be a problem for later, but they sacrificed one of the prisoners as a threat to them just in case. Jarl Fost of Odin was *super* pleased with their results and will feast them in the week to come.
Musings:
Surprise was the mechanic of the day. The bugbears modified the ranger surprise bonus and evened the playing field, but the ogres were dopes and stumbled right into the trap. Leif the elf made a wild play that could have really changed things, but he only had 1 hp. RIP. Shieldwall vs the ogres was clutch, too.
From the DM perspective, the primary ruling of the night was allowing the charging warriors to target the bugbear chief specifically during that final melee. I ruled that way because he was groveling despite the general assumption that melee is a chaotic scrum where targets can't be chosen. The shock of the turning tide was enough for me to justify it.
Grades:
- Raylan the Ranger: Excellent. Scouted, held the line, bold. Bearer of "Heartstopper"
- Kirk the Cleric: Excellent. Sacrificed to Forseti, cast much magic
- Thorgal the Ranger: Excellent. Scouted, held the line
- Broderick the Paladin: Excellent. Bold, caller, pushed milieu well
- Ævarr the Cleric: Excellent. Sacrificed to Tyr, cast much magic
- Gunnbjorn the Fighter: Excellent. Bold, shield wall
- Leif the Assassin: Excellent. Risky murder attempt. RIP.