This game happened some two months ago, but the posting of this was delayed by my house move. I hope to slowly return to more regular updates.
All indented text is copyright/property Wizards of the Coast.
We left off just outside of combat. Mendas had opened a door and had immediately been spotted by guard hyenas. We rolled for initiative! Mendas actually went last in order to give Marcus a few more minutes to arrive.
Hermiad got the first initiative, and he rushed into the room. This revealed the rest of the set-up. Down the length of the room were three gnoll archers. They were all set up to fire... apparently they had been using the Macetail for target practice. But now that there were vikings, the gnolls were retargetting! Around them was some junk... boxes of arrows and spare weapons, and behind them a pile of furs. Hermiad parked himself midway down the room and twin-striked my new Gnoll Huntmaster miniature!
Varin and Erik went next. They moved into the mid-room and fired at the hyenas. Oddny charged in and hit the nearest hyena, finishing it off pretty much down to the hit point. The encounter as written had four hyenas, but those Level 2 brutes were boring for my level 6 players. So I cut as many as I could and used the points for something else. What else, you say? Not this dinosaur, he was a non-combatant.
Edgar didn't want to risk the arrows, and then to have to laboriously cross the barrier, so he ran down the hallway. He got most of the way there during his turn. This hallway wasn't in the encounter writeup, but it was shown in the wide-view map of the whole dungeon. I put it back in, as it added a new element to the fight.
The gnolls peppered the ranger with arrows, and I think one hit. It's getting hard to scare my players unless I take a healing surge-sized chunk out of them during a turn. The remaining hyena ran around the side and charged Oddny, but that wasn't going to work. Finally, Mendas's artificially-delayed initiative came up. He ran down the room and dropped prone in front of the barrier. It was a pretty good tactic to avoid being shot. But now Hermiad's Prime Shot was being disrupted!
Hermiad, Varin, and Erik fired over the barrier at the gnolls. With their cover, they were difficult to hit, but a few shots connected. Everyone was concentrating on Mr. Yellow, the new mini from Dangerous Delves. Man, I thought this mini was going to be lame, but the scale of the sculpt saved it. Gnolls are what, 8 feet tall? Awesome.
Oddny used an encounter to finish off the last hyena, but the rest of the party was leaving her behind. Edgar charged through the door and connected with Mr. Yellow. He had taking a major drubbing already, and this killed him.
"Oh crap!" the gnolls yelled. "We've got to wake it up!" The far gnoll hastily fired an arrow into the pile of furs, then tried to shoot Edgar. After the archers had feebly tried to deal with an armored greatsword-wielding warforged in their midst, it was time for some fun. An enraged howl came from the furs, and an owlbear burst out! The old "Backup Owlbear" trick!
A party's first owlbear has to be special, so I'm glad we met it now when they're still weak enough to be scared of it. The owlbear charged Edgar and hit him with both claws, doing serious damage and grabbing him!
A note about owlbears: it's hard to capture both owl and bear at the same time. I have three miniatures, and decided to use the most recent one from the Demonweb set. It's a good bear, but it has the head of a hawk or an eagle or something. The Owlbear Rager, which is a year or two old, has a great owl head, but it's on a body of a gorilla or something. Plus he's too big to have plausibly hidden under the furs like I wanted him too. I had wanted to use the oldest Owlbear, but he's a tad small and doesn't really dominate a large base like he should. Obviously I've done a lot of thinking about both owlbears and miniatures.
The sudden appearance of an iconic D&D monster made everyone focus up. Mendas sprang from the ground, ran across the barrier, and dropped down adjacent to the three remaining threats. Then he performed a Downward Spiral, hitting everyone and knocking them prone! Damn it, that was my special monster! Oh, and Edgar was released.
The vikings took advantage of the knockdown and massed on the creatures. Hermiad and Erik crossed the barrier and took the fight hand-to-hand. Actually, Erik's support was a combination of hand-to-hand and magic weapon, his summoned floating hammer that continually whacked the owlbear.
Varin and Oddny offered missile support... this took out the two gnolls.
Edgar stuck the fallen owlbear, but it then stood up and laid into him again! The fighter was now bloodied and grabbed!
At this point the battle was pretty much decided, but I wanted the owlbear to bite someone. He just barely survived the onslaught coming at him from the party throughout four player turns. Most devious was Varin's Phantom Projection, which would make it miss it's next attack. I had it spend an action point to get rid of the distraction, then bite Edgar's head off! The warforged fell down unconscious. But Mendas was able to finish the creature off at the end of the round. Hooray!
And before Edgar could properly begin dying, Erik used his new Cure Major Wounds daily and gave him two healing surges. Everyone lives! But everyone was exhausted. The group made a decision to take a long rest before moving on.
The party was fascinated by the caged macetail behemoth, and went to investigate. The beast was disturbed, but they calmed and healed him to be safe. Edgar took a liking to him, and named him Fluffy! Mendas then searched the pen and found a trampled, detached name plate for his collar. It read, "Frisky," but the party liked Fluffy better.
The vikings decided to rest just where they were, taking the crates and blockading off the hallways around them. Then it was off to sleep. On the second watch, Mendas and Oddny were up. Mendas was near the south door, and heard gnoll footsteps approaching. The thief hid behind the crates, but everything... seemed to be okay! The gnoll muttered to himself, saying, "Goddamn slobs of course there are crates everywhere..."
The crates moved in towards the room, seemingly supported by shadowy tendrils! Mendas hid in the corridor, seemingly in plain site but he had aced the roll... and the gnoll strode past him. This creature was huge, a foot taller than a normal gnoll, and studded with bone. It appeared to have much more demonic heritage than a normal specimen.
Mendas followed closely behind the gnoll as he cleared the other crates and walked towards the dungeon opening. The gnoll welcomed two mysterious voices (the halfing could hear, but not see, from his vantage point) into the dungeon, then brought them back to the room that he had come from. From the overheard dialogue, the vikings figured out that the new figures were there for some kind of business dealing. They appeared to represent a merchant guild that wanted some of the artifacts found in the dungeon. The group finished their rest as soon as they could and charged in behind them!
The corridor, hewn from black rock, connects three different areas. Ahead, the passage opens into a chamber, while along the eastern wall, closed doors can be seen. The doors are made of black wood, and each has an iron knocker carved in the shape of a minotaur’s snarling face. One is a single door, while the other is a set of double doors. The flagstones on the floor each have the symbol of a bull’s horned skull worked into them in blood red stone.
In the next room, Mendas listened at the first door and heard quiet chanting. He tried the second door and opened it carefully. The room had an alter to Baphomet and two braziers, but no inhabitants. From the far room, Draconic conversation floated out. The group decided to gang-rush the first room. We rolled initiative!
Inside the room, the gnoll was communing with Yehounga, but he turned around to meet the vikings. But the initiative was beaten by Hermiad, Oddny, Erik, and Edgar... everyone but Mendas. They all piled on, and the gnoll was taking serious damage. He responded by hitting Edgar with his heavy flail. It did decent damage and knocked the fighter prone!
Varin stayed in the hallway and watched the third room. As the din of the battle drifted down, two figures poked their heads out and looked up at the warlock. They were shifters, one of which noted, "Oh crap, check it out, somebody's killing the gnoll." They didn't move, though, so Varin let them watch.
Mendas tried to slip into the room and get behind the gnoll, but it involved taking an opportunity attack. The gnoll hit, knocking him prone and freezing him in place! Bad-ass.
Edgar stood up, and everyone took another whack. The gnoll was now bloodied, as Erik hit him with a divine burst of power. But as he grimaced from the power of Thor, he said, "I feel your god... but mine is stronger... and mine is here!"
From out of the second room came an infernal bellow! The doors were thrown open, and a great Balgura demon charged out! He connected twice with Varin, battering the warlock.
Following in his wake were two Canoloth demons. Their tongues snaked around the hulking Balgura, hitting, stunning, and bloodying the viking!
So, awesome, that worked out. Hermiad had previously been firing arrows into the gnoll, but now he charged to help with the Balgura. It was pretty easy to hit, but a ranger couldn't keep up with the demon for long. Oddny, Edgar, Mendas, and Erik all dug in and took out the gnoll, but it meant leaving the leather armor-clad party members facing the demons.
Varin had one action left, and had to use it to teleport back to the doorway.
The balgura pounded on Hermiad, and then the tongues snaked forward. One stunned the ranger, and the other grabbed him, pulling him through the large demon and away from the party!
The shifters saw a bloodied warlock fleeing, a tongue-encircled ranger, and said, "Hey, these guys aren't so tough. Let's stab them, get some bonus points from our business partners." They charged, their short swords glinting in the torchlight!
This set off a truly impressive set of immediate interrupts. Hermiad was hit, but he hit back, hit back again on the other one, then teleported away due to his Cloak of Displacement. He was still stuck on the bad side of the balgura, but he was a bit safer, up the second hallway.
Okay, what else happened. This is as far as I wrote the week of the game, and now everything is a hazy house move away. Here are the highlights:
Edgar, Oddny, and Mendas all bravely engaged the Balgura. It went down quick. It looked so impressive, taking up all of its 2x2 base, and all of the width of the hallway. But it was a normal creature, not an elite, and it had less than half the hit points of the owlbear.
The shifters charged forward to take the Balgura's place. They didn't know the gnoll was dead, and the only escape path was blocked by murderous vikings (and beyond that, a dinosaur). But they were overmatched.
Erik went to Varin's side and got him out of Bloodied status. Varin then popped out in the hall and laid down a Hunger of Hadar.
The canoloths retreated down the hall, to try and use their tongues through the Hunger Zone. Varin's effect blocked Line of Fire, but this was technically a melee attack with Reach 4. I had them take a penalty to hit, but figured that they were tasting their way to a target anyway. But they missed with a 1 and an insufficient.
And eventually everyone was dead! Hooray!
Searching the rooms revealed 400 gold in the gnoll's bedroom. Each of the shifters had 50 on 'em. Which is why they had to die.
The party had had two people near dead this combat, and had explored a major wing of the dungeon. The halls were silent, and the group figured they had wiped out the Blackfang Tribe, more or less. So they took six hours to mend their wounds and recover... but they didn't like it.
Next game is in the new house!
Casualties:
2 hyenas
3 Gnoll huntmasters
1 Owlbear
1 Gnoll Demonic Scourge
1 Balgura
2 Canoloths
2 Shifter Hexblades
15 beers? But most of them were Hard Lemonade
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