DF Whiterock Session 2: Whiterock Gatehouse

Date:
2018-05-04

Weather:
Cool, cloudy

Player Characters:

Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 150 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 150 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger) Human Thief, 150 points
Bernard (threethreethree) Human Fighter, 150 points

Mostly-Inactive Player Characters:

Durkerle (M.C. Warhammer) Dwarf Cleric, 150 points
The Redcap (Humabout), Gnome Bard, 150 points

Significant NPCs:

Dodger, Cat Familiar
Quintus, Human Wizard and Alchemist
Lady Chauntessa, Human Sorceress and Inn Owner
Lyssa, Human Apprentice Wizard
"Monk" #1, Human Slaver
"Monk" #2, Human Slaver
Ikenvar, Half-Orc Slaver Leader


Ibizaber and Bernard came into the Inn of the Slumbering Drake in Cillamar for dinner, and saw Quintus the aged Alchemist pacing and yelling. It turns out he'd just sent a party of four hired mercenaries and a cat out toward Castle Whiterock to rescue his kidnapped apprentice Lyssa, but he was worried they weren't tough enough. Ibizaber was more interested in beer than rescue missions, but Bernard caught the hint of a decent reward, and agreed to go. Lady Chauntessa gave them a quick sketch map to the Castle, a note of introduction to the other would-be rescuers (written in beautiful calligraphy with silver ink, obviously, because that's how Chauntessa rolls), and some food, and sent them off into the wilderness. They managed to avoid any problems on the way, and made pretty good time.

Seépravir, Garreth, Durkerle, and Redcap, who had been ambushed on the way to the castle and made much worse time, had just entered the castle's unguarded gatehouse when they heard the others coming up behind them. They disengaged from the gatehouse, went back up the entrance tunnel and ran into the approaching reinforcements. The letter convinced them that they were all on the same team, and six adventurers and a cat snuck back toward the gatehouse.

When they got there, it was no longer unoccupied. The small conversation door in the gatehouse door opened, and behind it stood a human male in monk's robes, with a staff and a holy symbol. He explained that the ruins of Castle Whiterock were occupied by the reformed Monks of the Dawning Sun, who were seeking to restart the good works of an ancient order that had once dwelled in the castle. He was guarded but somewhat friendly.

Garreth wasn't buying the whole monk act at all, and pushed the door (the lock to which he had bashed open previously) open and attempted to hold his knife to the monk's throat. The monk was quicker than he looked and jumped back, holding a staff. When the door opened, a previously unseen second monk in the gatehouse was also revealed. A combat quickly ensued, and while six (plus a cat) versus two didn't seem like a fair fight, the monks fought hard and well, while Garreth couldn't make a die roll to save his life. Garreth fought one monk, critically failed, burned his Luck to avoid the fumble roll, got his attacks parried a lot, and got smacked hard several times with a staff. Ibizaber circled around with his knife, looking for an opening, but couldn't really get a hit in. Seépravir cast Grease on the floor under the two monks, hoping to cause them to slip and fall, and warned her allies (and thus accidentally also her enemies) of the spell. Bernard set his heavy spear and waited for a monk to come within range. Durkerle was kept busy healing Garreth. And Redcap mostly held up a light source and watched.

Garreth eventually fell back under the onslaught of the staff, and when the monks followed, Bernard's spear finally got a chance to strike. His first stab to the torso did a bit of damage, but revealed armor underneath the robes. His next stab, to the unarmored face, knocked the second monk to the ground, stunned. Unfortunately, Bernard got a bit cocky and took an All-Out Attack at the first monk, ineffectively. The return staff blow to the skull knocked Bernard unconscious, leaving the heroes with only one (theoretically) effective melee fighter, Garreth.

Garreth and Durkerle backed the standing monk into the corner, while Seépravir cast Glue to keep the stunned monk on the ground. The standing monk critically failed an attack and dropped his staff. Rather than trying to pick it up from the floor, he pulled a glass potion vial out of his robes. At that point some quick negotations ensued, with the monk wanting to escape the gatehouse up a ladder without getting stabbed and threatening to throw the potion at anyone who made any threatening moves, and most of the heroes seeming to be okay with that. Not Garreth though. He stabbed at the monk, the monk threw the potion, and the room got very stinky. Fortunately everyone in range made their resistance rolls against the noxious stink bomb, and proceeded to make short work of the now-unarmed monk. Not wanting to take any chances, Garreth chopped at the downed monk until very sure he was never getting up again.

The monk who had been Glued to the floor eventually passed out struggling to get up, the spell was allowed to expire, and the party dragged the surviving monk back into the tunnel, further from the stench and also from any possible reinforcements.  Durkerle healed Bernard, and then when the monk woke up, the group rather amateurishly interrogated him.  It took a while, but they eventually came to an agreement -- the monk got to leave alive, in exchange for telling the party everything he knew about the area, and drawing a crude map of the castle area.  He revealed that the monks were actually slavers, in league with some orcs who lived underneath the castle, that the monk act was a ruse to have an excuse to use the castle ruins, that the leader was a big half-orc named Ikenvar, and that the stairs down to the orcs were behind a secret door in the center of the castle.  The map was indeed crude:

(The slaver explained that the G was the gatehouse, the T to the east was a tower on top of the bluff, the S was stables, the R was ruins, and the T to the south was a fallen tower.  The central part was the intact central hall of the castle ruins, and the downward pointing arrow was about where the secret stairs down were.  Obviously, he lacked Cartography skill.)

The monk was allowed to go, after his mail shirt and monk's robe were confiscated, but with some surplus light leather armor to keep him from freezing.  Garreth upgraded to a mail shirt, and Seépravir and Ibizaber donned monk's robes and holy symbols as a disguise.

The double doors leaving the gatehouse were barred from the other side, so the party went up the ladder and through the trap door to the roof of the gatehouse, then Ibizaber acrobatically jumped down (it was about ten feet, low enough for a skillful jumper to avoid injury) and unbarred the doors.  Seépravir spotted a trail leading up to the tower, but decided there was no benefit to going that way.  Ibizaber opened the stable door and confirmed it was indeed a stable, with several horses and at least one slave wagon (with a cage and manacles) inside.  Redcap was asked to wait in the stable with the horses and prepare some for an escape.  The rest of the group slowly crept to the west then the south, following Dodger the cat, who seemed to know the way.

They walked past some canvas tents, but the one they examined was unoccupied, and Seépravir urged the group to keep moving while they still had the cover of darkness, rather than slowing to search.  They moved south a bit and found a gap in the inner castle wall.  A bit east of there, they found some stout wooden double doors.  The hinges squeaked, but Seépravir cast a Grease spell, which seemed to help.  The group proceeded into what was left of a great hall of a castle, with no roof, a couple of intact doors to the north, and a couple of gaps in the wall to the south.  Dodger seemed to prefer the northeastern door, so the group went that way and opened it.  The two disguised as monks took the lead, while the others stayed outside.

Inside, they saw a big half-orc lying on a bed.  He had heard the door opening and jumped up.  Thinking quickly, the fake fake monks pretending to be fake monks told the leader that he castle was under attack.  He bought it, scooped up his broadsword, and ran toward the door.  When he got there, he got backstabbed by Ibizaber, left-side neck-chopped by Garreth, and right-side skewered in the vitals by Bernard.  The backstab did no damage, but the other two did very serious damage, and Ikenvar was rolling death checks.  He was a tough guy and rolled very well, though, and somehow didn't go down.  Seépravir, rather than attacking, cast Hush on Ikenvar, and he failed to resist.  His tactic of screaming for help was thus completely ineffective.  He ran a few steps toward the northwest door, but then passed out from his wounds.

We broke for the night at that point, out of time for the session.  The party had stealthily infiltrated the castle under cover of darkness, defeated two guards in the gatehouse, and found and taken down the slavers' apparent leader.  So far so good, but had the fight alerted any others?  Check back next time to find out.

GM's comments:

Garreth rolled hilariously badly during the first fight.  Critical fail on an attack (averted by Luck, meaning no Luck remaining for an hour), then several misses on pretty easy defense rolls.  The fake monks were pretty strong, skillful, and lucky.  And they had mail armor on underneath their robes.  But numbers eventually made the difference.

Redcap's player couldn't make the session, so Redcap guarded the rear then hung out with the horses.  Durkerle's player had to leave early in the session, but the party would have been totally hosed without him, so I NPC'd him as a heal-bot for the rest of the session.  He got in two Major Healings on Garreth (one a critical success that I ruled healed 10 HP instead of 8), and one more on Bernard.  Without that healing, I think the PCs probably would have lost.  Everyone rested up to full FP, but, after all that healing, Durkerle's power item is empty.

Bernard All-Out Attacked once, and it got him knocked out on the next turn.  Major wound to the skull, roll vs. stun at -10, with failure by 5 or more meaning knockout.  Fortunately the staff rolled lousy damage, so it was just a knockout, not a death check.

Taking a couple of monks' robes and holy symbols to impersonate the monks wasn't much of a disguise, but, combined with a plausible story, a sleepy victim, and favorable die rolls, it was good enough to get the drop on the big half-orc.  He was tough, but three on one is just unfair.  And the Hush spell to keep him from screaming for help was a nice touch.  We were out of time, so I decided to avoid normal combat turns and just rolled several consciousness checks in a row for him to see if we could call the battle.  I decided his best tactic was to run for help rather than stand and fight, so I rolled consciousness checks to see if he had any chance of getting anywhere useful.  Two passes then a failure, so he got two Move maneuvers (assuming nobody killed him first), but at half speed due to his severe wounds, so basically one full Move of distance.  That wasn't far enough to reach any reinforcements, and the Hush meant nobody could hear him scream, so I just fast-forwarded the end of the fight against him as "he tries to run toward the northwest door and then passes out."  Then stopped the game there, still in combat time.

Some more Roll20 problems this session: the two new PCs' tokens wouldn't show up in the turn order.  Neither would the monks.  And there were some more darkness issues that had me considering dropping dynamic lighting in favor of just using manual fog of war.

We used voice this session, after going text-only the previous time.  Discord voice seemed to work okay, though there were some echoes and background noise sneaking through.  One player could listen but not talk.  After two sessions I think I'm leaning toward text only, but we'll vote on voice or text again next time.