The death of the Duke of Sland following the party's killing of the devil witch Helsja prompted a moot to decide the new Duke. The session could have gone several ways, including a braunstein, but the party chose to get back after the Temple of the Jotun.
They earned a little cash gambling on the fighter Bjorn to win a wrestling match, but lost the good will of the ringmaster since he felt Wooderson duped him into increasing the odds against Bjorn. Silverhand the Magic User implied that he'd be grateful to learn about a dungeon within Sir Marko's domain and even more grateful of evidence that the dour nobleman was complicit in it's activities. The players filed that away for later and off they went.
Rune was the only one that had been here before and led the show, driving straight for the room where they fought the spiders last time. There were still spiders. Bjorn and a wardog were poisoned in the fight but the party won. Bjorn, feeling death upon him, charged off to another room to find a way to die blade in hand. The rest of the group searched around and found a sekrit door.
The high priest's chambers were well-appointed and maybe had some treasure in them, but they heard the roar of combat from an adjacent room and rushed to "help". Bjorn vs. six (6) ogres had the lower level party backpeddling pretty fast. Bjorn died valiantly to buy them time to escape is how they'll tell the story in the taverns at Sland.
Much chatter and planning and such. We had a different lineup of PCs and players so it was fun to see more of the quieter guys get involved. I deliberately ignore player chatter so I don't subconsciously counter their plans. The plan was sneak in, steal spider corpses, and sneak out. Oh ok easy.
The group succeeded in that and bounced back to Sland, hiring a medicine woman to harvest the spider's venom based on a plan to poison the ogres. WeatherReport has a way with NPCs apparently cuz this lady loved him. Back to the dungeon with poison arrows to kill ogres and avenge Bjorn.
They set an elaborate trap at the stairwells, weakening one by chopping at the supports with the intent to draw the heavy creatures onto it and trapping the other with oil to help funnel. Wooderson had the poison arrows and Rune was going to lure them out while the rest ambushed them. Chopping at the supports was going to take 1d3 turns with 2d6-1 chance of being heard in the large building. 3 turns, support was weakened, and they were only heard on the last one.
Rune hollered and bolted, avoiding falling through the weak stairs by 1. The ogres chased, their first rank crashing through and taking quite a bit of falling damage. The second rank leapt over to the landing beyond, the third rank tried to go around the other stairs but oh no, FIRE! Floki set off some oil and fled.
The ogres couldn't roll to hit to save their lives, literally, missing most of their attacks against the dangerous members of the party. The fire delayed but didn't stop the flanking group, who eventually bonked Floki unconscious and murdered Camberlain. Poisoned arrows were actually working, even with only a 10 or 15% chance to fail their saves, but the ogres were all killed before the poison could take affect. Two dead, one comatose, 6 dead ogres, and a decent treasure haul.
Poison use is pretty subjective in AD&D. Availability and application are the big obstacles, then the morality of the thing. A paladin or non-evil cleric will not abide the dishonor of it. Basically everyone else is "?". The ranger was afk while the talk was had and came back mid-execution of the plan. For his part he was clear that he was challenging them in Thor's honor. The only one that used poison was Wooderson the fighter. Is poison use explicitly evil? Chaotic? There's a whole host of restrictions suggested by Gary about poison and their use. For my part, assassins are the poisoners, weirdo classes like thieves, MUs, and druids who aren't Good aligned have some wiggle, but Good aligned fighters are taking a risk with their honor.
Grading:
Bjorn: Excellent. RIP
Tadg: Excellent. Druid re-roll, nothing aberrant
Rune: Excellent. Led, risked, fought, won.
Wooderson: Superior: Risked, fought, won. Poison is a coward's weapon but a force multiplier. Dishonorabu.
Impius: Excellent. Risked, fought, won.
Floki: Excellent. Schemed, helped as he could, shame about his face.
Camberlain. Excellent. RIP
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