DF Whiterock Session 12: Bugbears?

Date:

2018-07-13

Weather:

Warm, clear

Player Characters:

Durkerle (M.C. Warhammer), Dwarf Cleric, 193 (+5) points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 201 (+5) points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 176 (+5) points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 206 (+5) points

Significant NPCs:

3 Bugbear mercenaries

6 Orcs of the White Roc tribe

1 Rock with spines

Play resumed in the same place we stopped last week, right after Garreth's Luck avoided a huge flail trap.  The group continued down that hallway to the west, in a clump, until Polly spotted a bugbear with a spear. lying in wait around a corner.  The bugbears had heard them coming (loud traps will do that) and had achieved surprise.  It threw its spear at Polly without taking more time to aim, and just missed her.

While the PCs were recovering from surprise, the bugbear readied his flail, and two other bugbears with throwing spears (one next to the first, to the south, and another down the hall to the west) started aiming.  Garreth fast-drew his knife, threw it at the bugbear down the hall, and missed.  Durkerle used Awaken on Polly to unstun her.  Polly started shooting at bugbears, but missed.  And Seépravir used Rapier Wit to try to stun a bugbear, which failed and made her Invisibility go away.

The annoyed bugbear swung his flail at the newly visible Seépravir, but Garreth used his sacrificial greatsword parry to stop the attack for her.  Polly shot a bugbear in the heart and knocked it out.  Durkerle kept running at the bugbears, very slowly.  The closer one threw his spear at Durkerle, who blocked it with his shield.  Seépravir cast Stun on that bugbear, successfully.

Polly shot the bugbear to the west twice, once in the vitals and then once in the torso, and killed it.  Garreth hit the closer bugbear with his greatsword, and it fell down trying to dodge, but the blow was surprisingly weak.  Durkerle finally reached melee range and smacked the downed bugbear with his mace, and it tried to surrender.  First it said something in Goblin, which nobody understood.  Then it said something in broken Orc, which enraged Polly, and she shot it through the heart.  It still wasn't quite dead, until Garreth hit it a couple more times while it was down.  Then he wandered over to the knocked-out bugbear and stabbed it in the eye.

The group looted the bugbear's bodies, just finding smelly leather armor and a key.  They then found the room the bugbears had come out of, which contained four (not three!) large beds, a table with some coins and dice on it, and a chest.  The chest had a lock that the bugbear's key opened, and contained a bunch more coins and a paper with writing in a language nobody could read.  It used dwarven runes, so they figured it was Goblin.  At the bottom were what looked like two signatures, one saying "Drugila" in Orc, and the other saying "X" in Illiterate.

After a bit of rest, the group followed the eager Polly down the hallway, then turned southwest at a fork.  A bit further down was a door to the southeast, which Garreth opened.  Inside was a big room containing an altar, three burning magical torches, four archery targets, and a crate.  Everyone checked out the altar, which had what appeared to be the remains of a sacrifice victim.  Further investigation showed that the victim had been human, but that the altar itself looked like something that would be found in a temple of Justicia, not an orcish temple.  At that point Durkerle lost it.  He was no fan of Justicia and decided he wasn't helping to fix her altar.  Polly and Seépravir started cleaning it up themselves, and then Polly decided to search behind it.  She found a secret compartment, which Seépravir figured out how to open.  There was a catch that needed a skinny knife or long lockpick, and she didn't have either, so used Apportation instead.  The compartment opened to reveal a shiny offering plate, a key, a book, and a magical bottle.

The book was entitled "Prayers to Justicia", and Durkerle decided to take it.  He wasn't allowed to, then decided to break the altar with his mace.  Seépravir countered with a Levitation spell on Durkerle, to move him away from the altar.  He failed to resist, and was floated out the door of the room.  Then Garreth held the door closed, and Seépravir read some blessings from the prayer book to attempt to restore the altar.  She then set Durkerle down on the ground, gently.

While fuming outside the door, Durkerle noticed a rock with spines on the ceiling over his head.  He jumped back as it tried to fall on him.  He tried to smack it with his mace, and it dodged.  The rock then started backing away from Durkerle.  The others came out the door, and Garreth ran the retreating rock down.  It tried to hit him, and he parried with his greatsword.  Then Polly took a while running shot at the rock and missed, losing her balance in the process.  The rock finally landed a blow on Garreth, but it didn't penetrate his scale armor.  Seépravir cast a Glue spell on the rock, sticking it securely to the floor, and at that point it was a sitting rock.  Polly shot it with a cutting arrow, and then Garreth chopped it in half, revealing some purple goo inside.

Polly tried to taste the purple filling, which was an impressively poor decision.  She hit the floor, unconscious.  Nobody had any way to cure poison, but Durkerle cast Awaken, and Seépravir tried First Aid to purge some of the poison.  Polly was still paralyzed for a few minutes, but eventually started moving again.  She was lucky that the purple paralysis poison was non-lethal.  The group looked for an empty vial and then gathered as much of the poison as they could.

After some more rest back in the bugbear barracks, they followed Polly down the hallway again, to another door.  This one opened to reveal a barracks with 6 orcs and a lot more than 6 beds.  The orcs were totally unprepared for invasion and were surprised.  Polly shot one, Garreth horribly missed one and dropped his sword, Durkerle ran slowly toward the battle, and Seépravir ran invisibly into the room.

Polly shot another orc, and yelled something about how they killed her sister.  Forgetting he had dropped his sword, Garreth charged into battle.  Fortunately, it was attached by a lanyard, so it followed him.  By the time he had his sword ready, Polly had shot another orc.  Another one was so surprised it turned out it was deeply asleep and would not wake up during this battle.  (Spoiler alert: it would not wake up after the battle either.)

The final two orcs broke out of stun and were brave enough to ready their flails and try to fight.  One yelled something about how Polly was too stupid to tell the White Talon orcs that killed her sister from the White Roc orcs.  (They looked the same: big, strong, milky-white skin, piggy noses.)   One tried to attack Garreth, and missed.  Seépravir used Rapier Wit to stun one, Polly shot one, and Garreth stabbed the other one.  Eventually both passed out.  Garreth then went on a stabbing spree to make sure none of the orcs would ever get up again, while Seépravir looked for loot.  These orcs didn't have much: their weapons, a couple of mail shirts, and a few coins.

At that, the group decided they had enough loot to go back to Cillamar.  They had explored three more rooms and fought bugbears, a rock with poison spines, and a new group of orcs.

GM's Comments:

The bugbears had a nice ambush set up, and achieved surprise, but there were only three of them and they were outclassed by the PCs.  Garreth used his Luck to give himself another chance to recover from mental stun, which turned out to be a good call.  Durkerle used Awaken to unstun Polly, another good call.  And then Polly and Garreth did a lot of damage.  The bugbears had surprisingly good treasure.

The temple was interesting mostly because of intra-party drama.  Seépravir and Polly wanted to un-desecrate the temple of Justicia and Durkerle wasn't having it.  Levitate is a pretty reasonable way to deal with an uncooperative cleric.  And finding a secret compartment in the altar with treasure was a pretty good deal, considering they didn't even have to fight anything for it.

All the yelling and pounding on the door earned a bonus wandering monster roll, which came up rock-with-poison-spines.  (The monster actually has a name, but the players don't know it yet, as none of the PCs recognized it.)  If it had managed to surprise Durkerle and achieve its goal of dropping on his head for impact damage and bonus poison damage, it could have gotten a nice meal.  But it failed to surprise him, and missed, and then it was a fair one-on-one fight on the ground.  And then Durkerle's comrades joined the battle, and four PCs against one rock was not a fair fight.  It was doing a pretty good job of dodging until it got Glued to the floor, and then that was that.  Polly then tried to even the odds by drinking the rock's poison. but fortunately for her it was non-lethal.

The group managed to ambush the group of orcs, and these orcs didn't have great IQ and so didn't recover from Mental Stun very quickly, and being stunned in a room with Polly is a good way to get filled with arrows.  That was a pretty quick and easy fight.

Overall, the group made a bit of progress through the third level of the dungeon, but there was some intra-party drama.