Bloodfall 21

The Blackjack session had a B team of misfits and cutpurses running amok in the occupied city of Svartalfheim. They were unwelcome as travelers and suspected by the local dwarves of being elven sympathizers and nosy neighbors. This friction led to the action in the session as racial tensions boiled over into a near brawl and then vow of vengeance.

The planned murder and robbery of the dwarven tax collector was essentially flawless, aside from the two dead and one unconscious PCs. Using illusory magic to divert the tax cart into an alley didn't work, so they started blasting. A heroic charge by the fighter/thief Treeman was met by the leveled dwarf, who cut him down to exactly zero. The powerful illusion was inflicting heavy damage so the dwarves finally did run into the alley where an assassin and druid waited to strike. In a frankly miraculous 1v1, Tonga Lua nearly defeated the very tough dwarf but was slain, joined shortly thereafter by Cathbad the druid as bloody footnotes in the gutter. RIP valiant highwaymen.

A final arrow from Aelrond the elf killed the wounded dwarf leader and the one survivor didn't last long. The escape from town hinged on their wisely forethought exit strategy of "find elves, be elves." A frivolous and petty sentry squad taxed Skelbroj the human illusionist for being human but let Aelrond go, aided by groveling and swallowing of ego.

The score was real, but heavy, and the boys opted to hot foot it all the way Bloodfall before passing out for three days due to the exhaustion. This type of session is always electrifying, with PCs that have less player investment willing to take bigger risks and the zero prep nature of looking for trouble in the city being extremely swingy.

Grading:

Tonga: Excellent. Scouted and planned an ambush, struck when he could. Unfortunately outmatched. RIP.
Aelrond: Excellent. Annoyingly good theatrekid funny voice RP, planning and executing a heist.
Cathbad: Excellent. Nobly persuaded the dwarf mule to seek freedom. Funded the expedition. RIP
Skelbroj: Excellent. Smart use of his one spell, smart RP to escape, integral to planning, proper care of the dead.
Treeman: Excellent. Bold in the face of danger, sneaky part of the planning, scout.

Combat
Total XP:	558
Cuts:	6
PC:	186.00

#FuckCassian

We had a few treasure maps from our last score that we were going to hunt down, hopefully to destroy some evil and get some loot. They weren't terribly far away and we opted to tackle the most lucrative one first, a note from some Egyptian sounding mfer we found in the dragon's hoard. On the way, our park rangers of Yogi and Smokey received their uniforms and informed us that they were making progress with the territory around their lair. June of Ehlonna was spearheading that operation and would soon have picnic tables and hiking trails and other park services available for the peasants of Horizon.

We ran across some likely bandits who didn't want the smoke and a weird obelisk formation that led us to a secret treasure trove. So far so good. We camped near the trove to give us the most time in the following day for searching the treasure map location out, which was just a hex over. Fresh off of a good rest, we searched. And searched. And searched.

We failed to find the location by the end of the day and needed to rest again. We considered the danger of camping in the hex of our target, but if it was that hard to locate, surely the terrain was rough enough it'd be easy to hide in. We were wrong.

Essentially every randomly determined roll that could be rolled went against us, resulting in crusader Fr. Cassian Dominated by a Mummy Lord and 100+ HD worth of mummies, zombies, and greater hell hounds ambushing us while we slept. Without the ability to turn undead, fighting in our underwear, and having a powerful PC added to the enemy as a force multiplier, we basically got our asses kicked after a slog of a battle.

Zimon was able to pull June and Fife the henchman out while Percival and his henchman Abraham escaped on some horses. Everyone else was dead while Fr. Cassian, the Bishop of Horizon was Dominated by a Mummy Lord. We were able to heal up thanks to some consumables and equip ourselves but we were still pretty outclassed. Unfortunately, I couldn't abide surrendering Cassian to the Domination. I was going back in.

We buffed as best we could and returned with the intent to strike hard at the Mummy Lord and maybe break his hold on Cassian, the other undead, etc. After another brutal, bloody fight, only June, Zimon, Percival, and of course Cassian remained standing. We won, but at what cost? 

Garth the Bard PC was dead, along with the small roc mount Sam the Regal, Zimon's ethereal mount Springer, June's monstrous cat Fiddlesticks, and all of our henchmen. We were not particularly close to home and our mobility was seriously hampered. If we were going to recover our many levels of henchmen with any hope of success we needed to do it ASAP, but we were already two hours over session time so we broke there.

Our next priorities are finding the den of evil to make sure any sinkhole related to it is destroyed and escaping the wilderness with our asses. We'll have to see what we can salvage from the disaster. Ultimately, if you want to make an omelette, you gotta break some eggs. It wasn't a TPK and I didn't hear no bell, so I'm calling it a win.

Bloodfall 20

The boys were hard up for a ruby, lamenting their failure to secure any real scores for several sessions. They dance around big hauls by bad luck and when they do bring home the bacon they split it among a million PCs. There are hooks out there, but everything outside of "go delve the dungeon" is intimidating because it's dragons or bandit forts or some other dungeon or region altering events. Treasure tables have produced a lot of magic items too and less liquid wealth, impacting the early level training/upkeep loop.

Clever use of the crystal ball made them think the dragon glacier was ripe for looting and/or whittling down the gnoll guardians. The dragons were out hunting. The group gambled that the big lizards wouldn't return and made their way to the glacier.

Through a sekrit tunnel and into combat with the off duty gnolls in their barracks. Oregano and Rune went down, but the party killed a couple dozen gnolls. They were tying up the subchief when another patrol came down the hallway. The party beat them too, but not without some fleeing to warn the rest of the complex. Time to go.

They carried out the subdued subchief and charmed him. He told them all about the complex. Broderick the Paladin was very sneaky in duping the gnoll into a feint to draw out the tribe while the PCs could loot the joint and free the prisoner Thorgal and Wooderson encountered many sessions ago. Paladins have to be careful about being sneaky. It would have been much more on role to actually challenge the gnoll chief to single combat or actually meet them in the field. Oops.

The chief bought the ruse and drew the clan out to go fight the humans, except the humans weren't there. They were busy liberating the captive man and treasure from the lair. Did they get it all? No, but they got enough, and they were happy about that. They also freed Thor, the God of Thunder, from chains binding him by his word. He thanked them, summoned Mjolnir, and flew off to go beat Loki's ass.

When generating the region however many months ago, this lair came up with a captive. Ok what's that mean? 2d6 and a 12 says it's a very important captive. Thor's always gettin' himself in trouble. Bam dropped him in there and forgot about it until Thorgal and Wooderson got captured in downtime and imprisoned beside him. Dropped a bunch of Thor-themed campaign events pointing at hooks and threats. 

Then they decide to use their palantir to scry the white dragons. 2d6 and 11 says the dragons are in an advantageous position. They aren't asleep and helpless, but maybe they aren't there. That's enough to draw the players in and off they went. I don't like dictating or preparing moving parts, and parts that move without interaction or observation from a player simply don't matter anyway, so I'm content to determine what's happened with X faction at Y interval. If I think they should be doing something, I'll do it in downtime, but the dragons have been mostly idle while their gnolls [redacted].

They free Thor who's been there for ages. 2d6 and 10 says he's super thankful and remembers Thorgal's name, shakes his one remaining hand. How thankful? 2d6 says 2 oh shit he's just gonna run off and thank them later maybe gods are fickle. I polled some of the URF refs after for ideas and quite liked that the thanks the party got was more adventure. Thor's legendary equipment was scattered by Loki cuz he's an asshole and the PCs are tasked with getting it back.

I'm happy with how this session turned out, especially with threads coming together and explaining some of the other regional nonsense like the weird temple they found and the storms. The dragon hoard, while substantial, was more magic items than liquid loot which I know they were disappointed in. This party is what I'm calling "adventurer poor". Covered up in magic items, hooks, and experiences but desperate for a payday of hard cash. Also, robbing the two big dragons will definitely not be a problem.

Grading:

Broderick: Superior. Bold, frontline destroyer of evil. Pursued the liberation of the captive. The means do not justify the ends and takes a hit for his plan of luring the gnolls out and sneaking in behind them. Pretty Norse thing to do tbh and had it been one of the fighters or rangers it could slide. But paladins are held to a different standard in exchange for being so bloody powerful.
Raylan: Excellent. Bold, frontline, scout, Gnollsbane indeed.
Thorgal: Excellent. Bold, frontline, scout, tie in with Thor.
Rune: Excellent. Bold, frontline. Got his bell rung but hung in there and survived.
Ojisan: Excellent. Clever use of spells and items. Crystal ball MVP
Oregano: RIP, KIA.

Combat
Total XP:	1678
Cuts:	10
PC:	335.60

Sparkystan the Dragon

Another week, another victory for the Holy Rollers.

Our goal this session was to explore west of our domain and scout the route to a valuable treasure map that we had from way back. Historically, these types of things are plagued by distractions and various other adventure hooks and we rarely actually make it to where we want to be. This was not that.

The party of June, Cassian, Garth, and Percival struck west through the Dreadwood, missing our mage Sanji and assassin/bounty hunter Zimon. I was not confident in our ability to really engage with anything super tough so we aimed to scout, maybe pick off some smaller lairs, and develop a plan to engage with whatever uber guardian there was to this hoard.

We met some elves and offered them safety at our fire. Cassian healed their ailments and sent them off with a prayer and blessing of Pelor. My insistence that elves aren't people just does not hold water in this campaign that's heavily influenced by Tolkien. DM loves elves so elves are just awesome all the time. I've seen this show before and will adjust play accordingly. They are now uber allies in the battle against Chaos and we're gonna win.

The land near to our target was inhabited by enormous celestial or divine or otherwise blessed feline creatures with long reptilian tails. They guarded an ancient monument to Ehlonna, Lawful goddess of the woodlands and nature, so we felt safe to stage the rest of our activity out of there. The creatures recognized our intention and welcomed us in their way, responding well to Garth's songs and our offerings at the altar there. June even converted to Law, finally.

Our treasure map indicated a central location and a hidden trail or route around it. It bore the lines, "_____ on the mountain, lightning in the air, gold in them hills and it's waiting for me there." June spotted a scorched part on a nearby peak and we narrowed our search to that location. Garth communicated with some of the local critters and found a sealed sekrit door. I suggested that he sing the song, which opened the door, and in we went down the stairs.

We had no details from the map and the DM dropped on us that oh yeah it's a big blue dragon that lives here. Ok great timing. We'll scope it out and fall back with the real party later. We overheard some gnolls planning a revenge raid against elves and figured we could take some beastmen. Charge!

Unfortunately the dragon was leading them in an inspiring speech disguised as a Viking warrior, planning to kill elves and get revenge for you know, something. It was too late to change our minds so we started blasting. The gnolls were cleared out pretty easily by a Seismic Horn (Horn of Blasting) and June's basilisk mask. The dragon was much tougher but we weathered a few breath weapons and were able to put him down after some serious magical buffing from Cassian.

We freed some captive elves who led us further west into the territory of the elven empire. We renewed our relationship with the Emperor, sold off some goods, and took his offer of teleportation home where we start our downtime after about a week. It was a good session, surprisingly successful given our habit of "ooh squirrel" moments in the wilderness. The dice were with us.

Bloodfall 18

Grading:

Thorgal: Excellent, pathfinding, scouting, bold.

Raylan: Excellent, pathfinding, scouting, bold.

Ojisan: Excellent, spells, "sage advice"

Broderick: Excellent, bold, virtuous, honored the gods

Kirk: Excellent, warrior priest combat medic hybrid role, spells, bold, honored the gods

Gunnbjorn: Excellent, bold, leader of men

Combat
Total XP:	9117
Cuts:	12
PC:	1,519.50