PC: Blair, Bigtoe, Braxton
Hench: Selena, -Andi, Goda, Plat, Jahanaray, Kissere, Isabel
We were in danger of having one of those hapless sessions with no plan or stated goal, but the group came together begrudgingly to aid Bigtoe in trying to find more of what he’s calling “purple cake”, a mysterious rock-like substance that appears to have electrical and combustible properties. The Machinist had put in the work in downtime to reverse engineer the revolver and ammunition that they had found on their first trip to the center of the earth and he wanted more.
Not really having a good source for the extremely rare material, they did recall that there was a generator that seemed to use it as a fuel source from their first adventure there that they just couldn’t escape with the first time. So off they went cake hunting.
The first bit of the session was setting a proper Order of Battle for Bigtoe’s MASSIVE ARMY (6 platoons). If they ran into anything overland they were almost certainly going to engage it. Again much frustration was expressed over how in ACKS the General of the Army dictates how rewards are split, but them’s the breaks. I reiterated that if they’re going to get into the mass combat stuff, they gotta get on board with how it works. These are growing pains that I think anyone who’s made that Tier transition in ACKS can attest to.
Unfortunately, they didn’t encounter anything hostile on their way to the wide gash in the plains northwest of Teutch’s domain. They descended down into the canyon along a wide ramp in the northern side, eventually curling into the earth and continuing miles and miles down. They finally reached the entryway to the small dungeon that they recalled from their previous trip, still without an encounter.
They formed up their principals and made entry through heavily verdigrised bronze doors where the gravity promptly reversed and dropped them to the ceiling. Some of the PCs had experienced this already and were prepared (since they reminded me that it was a thing. Listen it’s been months, shut up) but others had to get situated before they could continue.
I had rolled restocking for this place after it had been empty for ages and stopped at an ogre lair that was just gonna squat here and hold it against most other threats. The big bronze doors in the place were notoriously loud and/or difficult to open due to weight and time so I rolled whether or not the guards in the first room had heard the groaning hinges and grinding. They did and the reaction wasn’t particularly hostile, so the ogres gathered a welcoming force of like 5 or 6 and waited in their barricaded room like they’d probably done many times before.
The group did their best to creep up on the door and listen and check for traps and all the things that PCs do. Once convinced that there were no traps, Bigtoe tried the door but it didn’t budge. After a moment a bang on the other side was followed by a poorly voiced, “Go ‘way” from the DM.
Blair tracked around while Bigtoe offered some gold for the inhabitants to retrieve the items that they came for and bring them to him. The ogres were keen on getting gold but not so much with fetching things that they didn’t understand. They opened the door to discuss in earnest and it boiled down to them demanding to see the gold before they let the party through to wherever.
Negotiations devolved due to a mutual distrust which was just tragic, eventually leading to combat. The ogre champion to the rear identified that these conditions were not to the ogres’ advantage and called to pull back to a much larger chamber behind them. Several of them did, but three didn’t follow orders and kept attacking, convinced they could squash the little annoying dwarf in the doorway.
Some military oil was thrown, arrows were fired, and a lot of swings were missed against Bigtoe’s obnoxious ac, but eventually the party got a foothold in the smallish entry chamber. A theme throughout this walking battle was my leniency with firing missiles through doorways, over heads, to back ranks, etc. Looking back it was a little ridiculous BUT had the enemy had any ranged weapons they’d have done the same thing so I guess it’s a wash.
The ogres had pulled back to their primary chamber, the old throne room where Bigtoe found the original pistol. The party formed up to follow, again trying to offer gold to go get the things from underneath. The ogre chief beyond demanded that they leave the gold and once satisfied that it was enough, would allow the party to go get whatever small-people things were so important.
The party threw a torch down the wider entry hall to the throne room, revealing many more ogres than they had previously seen. One of the ogres threw the torch back at the party but now they knew they were facing a much heavier threat. They didn’t have a map from their previous visit here but they had a surprisingly good take on the place. They knew there was a way around the flank to a side passage but the group decided on a frontal assault and the fight was on since they clearly weren’t just going to leave thousands of gold to the whims of stupid and greedy beastmen. Again the DM poorly voiced the ogre chieftain, this time apparently I sounded like a vampire.
Here is where I had to determine how the ogres were going to react. I love the 2d6 gradient for quick decision making. They rolled in their own favor so the chief used his big brain to send a flanking force around the same side tunnel that the party had thought about using. I tracked how long it would take with a penalty for some smaller doors/hallways that they’d have to squeeze through.
Meanwhile, the double doors and larger entry way to the throne put the ogres in ranks of two as they charged in under a hail of fire and magic from the party. The fight took a long time, mostly due to the ogres’ large pools of HP and the party’s front line having high AC. I missed so many attack rolls by 1 point that I started to consider having shields start breaking but I’m a big softy and gave in to “but it’s magic!” when I told Bigtoe his shield and shoulder were about to give out.
The ogres did down one of the henchmen and landed a few good blows on Bigtoe and Braxton who filled the gap briefly, but otherwise the bottleneck was working and the party was slowly dwindling them down. The enemy made each of their morale rolls even after the chieftain was slain which wasn’t helping matters.
We joke at our table a lot about Summon Berserkers being extremely useful for a first level spell and this fight was no different, using them to hold a breach in the line and get some much needed damage on target. Coincidentally, of the friendlies that were in position to hear the flanking ogres burst through a door down an adjoining hallway, only the berserkers heard it and immediately rushed off to engage. This would prove to be critical to the party’s survival as they still had several ogres on the front line and their high AC members engaged.
Berserkers have like 2 ac and 1+1 HD. There’s no reasonable explanation why three of them could hold a hallway for more than a round against an ogre subchief. But after the first was immediately crushed, the second and third stood their ground for rounds and rounds of single digit attack rolls by the ogre, giving the party enough time to try to react by closing the double doors leading to the hallway and hammering spikes in and barring door handles and whatever else they could think of.
Finally the berserkers were killed and the subchief, backed by another champion, charged the braced door and slammed into it but was unable to burst it open. The ACKS forcing doors rules are pretty cool, a simple +/- for various modifiers giving you a throw that’s quick to calculate and super tense in the moment. After the third try, the subchief burst in, but the party had positioned and prepared for it as best they could and wore him out. Blair the Nightblade had some absurd strikes, one as a backstab due to clever positioning, before being swatted down. The cleave into Plat the bard was very low damage so the chain stopped there and really it was mopping up time.
Before all was said and done, Blair, Andi, and Goda were downed by ogres with a fate point and luck saving Blair and Goda respectively. Andi the cleric needed too much healing to recover and expired. Braxton was out of arrows, Jahanaray’s staff of healing was smoking from overuse, and the crew was discussing their next steps. They were sure there was a score here but they were worried about going straight at it. Someone commented about there being tiers of rooms so the next one would have even MORE ogres. I don’t think they were joking.
The wounded were left with the mercs outside and the party went the flanking route to see what they could discover. They found a trail of coins and goods leading into a natural cavern mouth in one room and were convinced all of their loot had been stolen! They followed the trail easily through a few winding tunnels, eventually cornering some ogre females and young with armloads of food, clothing, and some small treasure.
Gestures were made about murdering them but I pointed out that ogre noncombatants can still fight and would when cornered, so given their extreme lack of resources Bigtoe and Braxton convinced them to just give them the treasure that they had and they’d let them live. The ogres gladly did so and the party looted the remaining lair treasure from the chamber behind the throne room.
Once convinced that the level of the dungeon was clear of threats, the mercs were able to assist in loading the party’s wagons while Bigtoe and Braxton went down the spiral stairs to the next level to retrieve the ultimate goal of the session, a generator, fusebox, and core of “purple cake” material that powered it all. The generator and fusebox had apparently been bashed and mangled, but the core was intact so they called it a win and exfiltrated with their weird items.
Again there were no random encounters on the way back which was a little disappointing as I wanted them to get a taste of mass combat now that they had it organized properly. But that’s alright, we’ll see it next time.
Musings:
Writing session reports is relatively new to me as a gamer. I’ve been playing for decades but only in the last year or so have I started recording anything. I suppose it’s kind of like journaling in that you revisit what’s happened and what it means. I’ve never journaled either but maybe I should?
This session’s only encounter was many pieces of the party’s makeup fitting together well to keep from being obliterated by a superior force. The decision to attack the ogres head on was interesting, but it worked out ok. The flanking subchief would have absolutely killed most of the party’s squishier members without the delaying sacrifice of the berserkers. Maybe I should have only rolled for the PCs and henches to hear the ogres, but once summoned I treat the berserkers like essentially unruly henchmen.
Braxton lamented the lack of a frontliner that can actually do damage. They’re light in fighters right now so I wouldn’t be surprised if some efforts were made to correct that in downtime.
I love memeing things into play from feedback from the players. When they said my masterfully delivered ogre dialogue sounded like a vampire, I considered making the chieftain a vampire ogre. I draw the line at spontaneously feeding into things that will likely kill the party from a one off joke about a bad accent. Ogre chief is tough enough, adding vampirism was a wrinkle too far. Maybe. Probably. But it seemed dirty at the time so I stand by it. Maybe Ug von Borglstad will make an appearance later.
I don’t know what the ogres would have done if offered the gold that was discussed. 2d6 would have driven that for sure. Distrust played a huge role in this session for sure.
Bigtoe got more material to experiment with so I expect a rocketship or a cannon or something here soon. There’s no telling what automatons will pop up soon, although 1:1 time will eat into the bigger ones I’m sure.
Stay tuned for more exciting action from Oberholt, with vampire ogres, mad dwarven scientists, and an all-threatening demonic presence lurking in the shadows.
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