DF Whiterock Session 6: Second Trip to the Castle

Date:

2018-06-01


Weather:

Warm, thunderstorms brewing


Player Characters:

Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 176 (+2) points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 178 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 150 (+23) points
Durkerle (M.C. Warhammer), Dwarf Cleric, 175 points
Holly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 160 points


Significant NPCs:

Hugin, Human Caravan Guard
Kat, Gnome Wizard
Quintus, Human Wizard
Lyssa, Human Wizard's Apprentice
Chauntessa, Human Innkeeper
Rust Spider
4 Orcs of the White Talon Tribe


The heroes had made it back to Cillamar with Lyssa, the wizard's apprentice they had rescued from orc slavers, along with 16 other prisoners, 13 horses, and two slave wagons.  They had been given a reward of $500 each from Quintus for returning Lyssa, plus another $100 per stolen horse for its recovery.  Redcap the gnome took his share of the money and left Cillamar in a huff.  The others spent a week in town, healing and training and shopping.

Kat, the gnome wizard they had rescued, told them that her brother Findle was still a prisoner of the orcs, pressed into service cutting gems for them, and asked that they rescue him as well.  Hugin, the beaten-up caravan guard they had rescued, expressed an interest in going back with them, to kill the orcs and recover the gear they had taken from him and his friend Sapphira.  The party agreed, with the stipulation that they got the remainder of the treasure.  He also mentioned a price on the head of Kaernga, the leader of the White Talon orcs, and that he planned to earn it.

Bernard was out of town, and Ibizaber was off drinking somewhere, so even with Hugin the group was a bit short of firepower.  They met a wood elf archer named Holly in the Inn of the Slumbering Drake, and she agreed to come along to plink orcs.  Hugin suggested bringing a lot of food along in case they managed to rescue more underfed prisoners, so the party loaded up a wheelbarrow and started hiking.

They made much better speed this time, with their knowledge of the route ,and the wheelbarrow helping to shift some of the heavy gear.  They made it to Castle Whiterock without significant incident, and carefully made their way back to the room behind Ikenvar's quarters.  The room had a door leading to the stairs down to the orcs, but also featured an unopened secret door, an unopened pair of doors, an unsearched pile of rubble, and a twice-dead owlbear skeleton.

After some debate, the group decided to try the secret door first.  Seépravir finally found the hidden button to open the secret door, before they had to resort to just smashing it.  Beyond, they found a large rectangular meeting room, with a pile of wood in the middle (probably the remnants of a great table), and a completely faded tapestry on the wall.  Searching behind the tapestry found nothing, but Hugin spotted another secret door in the northeast corner of the room.  Opening that one revealed a circular room with a trapdoor on the ceiling, reachable by a rotting, rickety ladder.  The PCs figured out that it was the basement of a tower, and, after some debate, decided to climb up.  ("Up is finite" was someone's logic.)

Garreth and Holly climbed up first, Seépravir cast Silence so that Garreth could smash the trap door silently, and when Garreth bashed the stuck trap door open, they found a room containing a door, some arrow slits, some stairs up to another trapdoor, some hard-to-spot webs, and a man-sized spider trying to spring at Garreth.  Garreth spotted the spider in time to avoid surprise, and a fight ensued.  Garreth missed, the spider missed, Holly plinked the spider in the thorax with an arrow (that was actually intended for its brain but missed by a wee bit), Garreth chopped the wounded spider in half, and that was that.  Seépravir Levitated herself up, Durkerle eventually figured out how to stand on the wheelbarrow to get past some broken ladder rungs, and the group started looking for loot.  Seépravir thought it looked like a rust spider, and warned everyone not to touch it or its webs with metal.  Holly spotted a lump encased in webs about 15' up, and climbed up to check it out.  It turned out to be a dead halfling, holding a very rusty shortsword with a red gem in its pommel.  They extracted the gem.  They also tried extracting the spider's rust gland, but nobody was very good at surgery, and they batched the job.  While all this was happening, a rather drunk Ibizaber called from below.  He had finished his tour of Cillamar's drinking establishments, with the last one, the Inn of the Slumbering Drake, kicking him out in the general direction of his friends.  Fortunately he hadn't been attacked, wandering drunk and alone through the wilderness.

Garreth went up the steps and tried the next trap door up, which was also stuck.  Once again, Seépravir Silenced it and Garreth bashed it.  The next level of the tower was full of nests, but no birds were home.  A quick search of the nests revealed some eggs, which the elves thought were those of some kind of eagle or hawk.  There was a quick debate about taking them, but the group wasn't confident they could keep the eggs alive, so they left them for the time being.  There was another ladder up to another trap door.

Repeating the silent trap door bashing drill, they found the top level of the tower, which was much cleaner than the others, and contained a bedroll, a bird cage, and a chest.  The chest contained writing equipment, some small strips of parchment, and a little pouch that looked designed to attach a message to a bird.  There was also a rope ladder going down the side of the tower.  Seépravir levitated up to the roof and drew a map of the aerial view of the castle, then the group went back down to ground level.  They unbarred and opened the ground-level exit from the tower, saw a trail running down the bluff back toward the castle entrance, decided that was boring, and figured it was time to go after the orcs again.

While the group was discussing tactics, Ibizaber decided to search the pile of rubble, and found a chest.  Some digging extricated it from the rubble and revealed the chest had a lock on it.  Rather than waiting for Ibizaber to search the chest for traps, Durkerle just smashed the lock with his mace.  This was surprisingly effective: it revealed a poison needle trap on the lock, which had no effect since maces are immune to poison.  Durkerle smashed it some more, and opened the chest, revealing some coins, some jewelry, and a key.  Durkerle and Ibizaber then had a treasure-grabbing contest while the other PCs pointed out that it was all going to be split evenly regardless.  The key in the chest fit the door heading down to the orcs, though Ibizaber had easily picked that lock before so it probably didn't matter much.

Rather than charging down the stairs into a probable orc ambush again, the heroes decided to try to taunt the orcs in their guard room at the bottom of the stairs up the steps into a counter ambush.  Hugin volunteered, as the orcs recognized him as a former prisoner, hated him for trying to escape several times, and he figured he could outrun them since they wore heavy armor and he didn't have any.  Nobody objected to this foolhardy plan, and Hugin ran down the steps, holding a dagger with Continual Light on it, yelling various mean things in Orc.  There were four orcs in the room at the bottom of the steps, two with crossbows and two with polearms.  One of the crossbow shots missed Hugin, he dodged the other one, and he ran back up the stairs with the two glaive-wielding orcs chasing close behind.  His friends at the top of the stairs achieved total surprise, and the two orcs were knocked out of the fight with greatsword and arrow.  The other two at the bottom didn't come up, though, so eventually the group headed down the stairs carefully.  When they got there, the room was dark, so they had a hard time seeing the two orcs with crossbows waiting.  One of them shot at Holly and missed.  The other one nailed Hugin, fortunately not in a vital area, so not fatally.  Crossbows take a few seconds to reload, and the remaining PCs finished off the crossbow orcs quickly.

Durkerle healed Hugin to the point where he was no longer in danger of passing out, and could walk at reasonable speed.  At this point the group decided to go back to Cillamar, rather than pressing further into the orc lair.  They looted the four dead orcs of their armor and weapons, went back up the stairs to their wheelbarrow, and walked back to town.


GM's Comments

This session introduced a new PC, gave the group some time to explore some areas they had previously bypassed, and finally let them take out another group of orcs in their guard room.  Ibizaber's decision to search the rubble, combined with a good roll, let them find a chest containing Ikenvar's loot, so there was a reasonable haul this time.  But the time taken exploring the tower meant they didn't get any further into the orc level than before.

Holly was quite effective against both the spider and the orcs, as Heroic Archers tend to be against anything vulnerable to impaling damage.  The lack of ranged damage was probably the group's biggest weakness before, so I think they're more effective now.  Bernard didn't come, so they only had one dedicated melee fighter this time, but Garreth was enough.

They had a choice whether to go back to town or stay in the orc level, and they chose town.  I would have been fine with either choice.  Town meant an easy way to rest, spend points, and buy gear.  (And, for next session, an easy way to bring in other characters.)  Staying in the dungeon would have kept the pressure on the orcs, rather than letting them notice the dead sentries and rearrange their defenses again.

The idea to map the castle from above was a good one for the players, a mildly annoying one for the GM, as now I have to draw another map.  Because of limited time per session, I've decided that if PCs attempt Cartography rolls, I'll give them maps, between sessions.  (Of course they won't necessarily be good maps.)

I thought the low disadvantage total for this game would result in less silly PCs, and I think it has, but we've definitely seen disadvantages come into play.  Curious caused some unwise lever-flipping last time, and Greed is causing periodic squabbles over treasure.  So far the players seem to be mostly pulling in the same direction, though.