DF Whiterock Session 5: Jailbreak

Date:

2018-05-25


Weather:

Cool, cloudy


Player Characters:

Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 150 (+20) points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 158 (+12) points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger) Human Thief, 150 (+15) points
Durkerle (M.C. Warhammer) Dwarf Cleric, 150 (+17) points
The Redcap (Humabout), Gnome Bard, 150 (+10) points
Bernard (threethreethree) Human Fighter, 150 (+5) points


Significant NPCs:

Dodger, Cat Familiar
Lyssa, Human Wizard's Apprentice
Hugin, Human Caravan Guard
Katanya, Gnome Wizard
Sapphira, half-elf ranger
14 other prisoners
One-horned minotaur
8 Orcs of the White Talon Tribe


The PCs were in the White Talon Orcs' guardroom at the bottom of the stairs, surrounded by 6 dead orcs.  They'd made it past the previous fight mostly unscathed, and decided to press on to the south, where a prisoner had said the slaves were kept.  But first they needed to rest a bit, and search for treasure, and remove scale armor from orcs, and while all that was happening, the door to the south flew open, revealing a human-sized, one-horned minotaur with a long spear.

The minotaur was as surprised to see the intruders as they were to see him.  He checked his spear at Bernard, who dodged it.  Garreth returned the favor with a thrown knife, which stuck in the minotaur, doing significant but not major damage.  Redcap hurled a brutal insult, which seemed to enrage the minotaur into ineffectiveness for a few seconds.  Ibizaber slowly crept through the shadows, try to get behind the minotaur.  Durkerle ran right up to it and tried to smash it with his mace, but missed.  Eventually the minotaur realized it had thrown away its only decent-sized weapon, and clomped away to the south at high speed.

By the time the PCs caught up to it again, the minotaur had found a two-handed flail, and turned to fight.  Garreth got in a great swing that crippled one of its arms, turning the two-handed flail into an oversized, clumsy, one-handed flail.  But the minotaur was so strong it was able to swing the huge weapon in one hand, and landed a solid blow on Garreth, knocking him out.  Redcap taunted the minotaur into running past all the others to get at him, but the minotaur was heavily wounded and running slowly.  As it ran by, Bernard landed a vicious spear stab to its vital organs, killing it instantly.  While extracting his spear, Bernard noticed a key around the minotaur's neck, and took it.

Durkerle used the scroll of Major Healing that the group had found earlier to heal Garreth to the point where he was no longer likely to pass out, but he still wasn't moving very well.  While waiting for Garreth to wake up, the group searched the minotaur's room.  They found a pile of hay, a two-handed axe, a small urn with a few silver coins hidden under the hay, two levers on the wall, and a peephole looking to the south.  Shining a light through the peephole, Redcap saw a large room to the south, featuring a huge pit subdivided into open-topped cells by vertical wooden bars, with horizontal wooden rails running along the top.  There was also a passage alongside the pit to the south, with open portcullises at the north and south ends of the package.

Bernard tried the minotaur's key, and found that it opened the door to the south.  As the PCs entered the large room, they were seen by some of the prisoners in the cells, who shushed them and asked to be rescued.  One prisoner, a beefy young man named human, bore heavy wounds, but asked to be thrown a weapon.  Garreth tossed him a broadsword.  Meanwhile Durkerle got out some rope and started lifting the nearest prisoners out of the pit to freedom.  Dodger the cat apparently knew where his mistress was, and ran across the narrow beams toward the southeastern corner of the room.

But Ibizaber couldn't resist playing with the levers, and when he pulled the south lever down, the south portcullis came down with a loud crash.  A few seconds later, an orc guard appeared in the south end of the room.  He yelled in orcish for reinforcements with crossbows.

Seépravir then came up with a plan: cast Missile Shield, Levitation, and Infravision on Ibizaber, then send him flying toward Lyssa to rescue her.  Redcap went running back to the guard room to fetch crossbows.  Bernard and Gerreth took cover.

Eventually, a squad of eight orcs appeared in the south of the room, six with long hooked polearms and two with crossbows.  Both orcs with crossbows fired at Ibizaber, the nearest target, and both missed thanks to Missile Shield.  Ibizaber flew down into Lyssa's cell and picked her manacles, while Dodger ripped out her gag.  Lyssa rose to her feet and cast a Light spell on one of the orcs, spotlighting the group for the PCs.  Then Ibizaber helped Lyssa to the top of the cells, and steadied her as she ran north toward freedom.

Both orcs with crossbows got off second shots at Ibizaber, and both missed again because of Missile Shield.  Bernard loosed a bolt at one of the other orcs, and got a solid hit.  Two orcs tried to give chase across the beams, but both fell, one into an empty cell, the other into a group of five prisoners.  Hugin, in the adjacent cell, passed the broadsword over to one of the prisoners, and they dispatched the orc.

The remaining six orcs decided the battle wasn't going their way, and ran out the door in the southeastern part of the room.  Seépravir started levitating Ibizaber toward a manacled female gnome prisoner who might be another wizard.  At that point most of the PCs decided it was time to run, with just Lyssa and the two other prisoners that had been roped up, leaving the remaining prisoners behind.  Lyssa wasn't having it, though.  She knew where the orcs kept ladders, in a storeroom to the west, and asked that the portcullises be raised so she could get to them.  A female elf prisoner managed to climb out of her cage and help, and they got some ladders and started herding the other prisoners out.  The PCs grudgingly helped, and managed to get all 18 prisoners out.

At that point they heard the sound of pursuit, so the group ran up the stairs, dodging tripwires, with Garreth dragging one orc corpse behind because he really wanted its scale armor.  Ibizaber used his lockpicks to lock the door at the top of the stairs, and then the group headed for the stables.  They rounded up 13 horses and two slave wagons (with cages and manacles), then headed for Cillamar.  The orcs didn't pursue.

When the ragged band of prisoners and rescuers reached the King's Gate, the guards were a bit thrown off.  They recognized some of the horses and some of the prisoners, and called for their Lantern Guard captain, who in turn had the whole group brought to the Lord's Gate Citadel for questioning.  At that point we broke for the night.


GM's Comments:

We got all 6 players today.  Which is great, but also difficult, because it's that much more talking and that much less screen time for everyone.

This session started okay, with a many-on-one fight against the minotaur, but once the PCs found the prisoners, everything went off the rails.  Ibizaber's curiosity got the better of him and he couldn't resist playing with levers, which dropped a portcullis, which made noise, which alerted the orcish guards.  At that point a 6-on-8 battle, with a bunch of prisoners in the middle, was inevitable.  The PCs were very fortunate that the orcs only had two crossbows, and that they weren't smart enough to catch on to Missile Shield very quickly, or agile enough to run across the tops of the cells reliably.

The 6 PCs had about 8 different plans between then, and then the 14 prisoners added a few more, so that scene was total chaos.  I figured that playing it out one second at a time with that many characters involved would take multiple sessions, and some of the players wouldn't stand for that, so I did some 5- and 10-second turns and some fast-forwarding, but I fear this confused some of the players.  Plus, only two of the PCs (the ones with Infravision) could see the whole room.  The PCs were lucky that the orcs rolled a critical failure on a morale check and went for reinforcements.

At the end of the session, there was a lot of whining about the trip home, the scene at the gate, being taken to the citadel for interrogation, etc. so I cut things a bit short.  So, rather than the PCs getting a chance to roleplay their return, I'll just dictate what happened offscreen between sessions.  I don't like that, but I don't think all of the players want to spend the first hour of next week's session doing that stuff either.

Intra-party conflict and dissatisfaction with the game's style cost us a player after this session.  But we recruited a new player from our waiting list.  So, next week we'll be starting in town, with PCs being able to spend the character points and money they've accumulated over the first five sessions.  And then, with their initial rescue mission completed, the PCs will have to figure out what they want to do next.