DF Whiterock 13: Orcs Can Be Alchemists and Barbarians and Giants

Date:

2018-07-20

Weather:

Warm, partly cloudy

Player Characters:

Durkerle (M.C. Warhammer), Dwarf Cleric, 193 (+10) points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 201 (+10) points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 192 (+6) points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 176 (+10) points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 216 points

Significant NPCs:

Quintus, Alchemist/Wizard in Cillamar

1 Orc Alchemist/Wizard of the White Roc tribe

4 Orc Lab Assistants of the White Roc tribe

1 Unknown Small Green-Skinned Water Creature
2 Orc Barbarians of the White Roc tribe
Drugila, Giant Orc Wizard of the White Roc tribe


Four of the PCs met at the Inn of the Slumbering Drake in Cillamar.  Polly was off in the woods somewhere, and nobody was quite sure where Bernard went.  Ibizaber was back, though, presumably from a prolonged bender.

The first order of business was figuring out what that rock-with-spines that attacked them last time was, and whether it was valuable.  Quintus figured out that it was a rasthnum, and that rasthnum spines were useful.  He also mentioned that he'd like more trollhound muscle.

Next, Seépravir went to the Temple of Justicia and brought the prayer book that they had found in the dungeon, in case someone there was interested in cleansing the altar under the castle.  Unfortunately, all of the Holy Warriors were busy smiting other enemies, so nobody was currently free for any dungeon expeditions.

At that point they ran out of things to do in town, so headed to Castle Whiterock.  It was a nice day for a hike, but a bit hot, so they didn't make great time.  Nothing attacked them on the way, so they went back down to the third level of the dungeon, where they'd met some orcs and bugbears last trip.

Seépravir decided to turn invisible and scout the nearby area.  She found that the passage to the south had two doors.  The one to the east had some noisy orcs behind it, with one yelling at someone.  The one to the west was silent.  And then the tunnel continued to the south a bit, before changing from a nice square well-constructed tunnel to a narrow twisty dingy dangerous-looking mine tunnel.  She went back and opened the door with no noise behind it, and found a storeroom, with a bunch of crates, a few picks and shovels, and some dead reptilian humanoid lying on a table, cut open.  She went back to her allies to report.

After some discussion, they decided to ambush the orcs behind the door.  They got in position, then Garreth kicked the door open.  Inside were 5 orcs in scale armor, an alchemy lab, and a big hearth.  Ibizaber snuck up behind one of the orcs and backstabbed, but didn't do enough damage to penetrate armor.  Garreth threw a sai at an orc, missed, and drew his katana.  Seépravir snuck in, still invisible.  And Durkerle started running toward the battle.

The orcs recovered pretty quickly, but didn't accomplish much.  Most of them pulled out flails and proceeded to miss Ibizaber and Garreth with them a lot.  Ibizaber stabbed one of them in the unarmored face and cut off a good chunk of its nose.  Garreth tried stabbling the apparent leader, but he threw his arm in front of the attack and blocked it, taking no damage.  A wizard!  Seépravir found an apparently safe place to stand, near Garreth, and started using her Rapier Wit ability and Stun spell to stun orcs.

One of the orcs actually managed to hurt Garreth, but it wasn't a major wound.  He took a turn to defend and recover, then resumed fighting.  The wizard tried a Command spell to make Garreth fall down, but it failed.  He tried Spasm spell to make Garreth drop his katana, but he did it wrong and Garreth's hand tightened instead of loosening.  Finally, the wizard gave up and pulled out his morningstar.

The PCs kept dodging everything the orcs threw at them.  One of the orcs got frustrated with Ibizaber and decided he was a cheating wizard.  Eventually Garreth started landing cuts, and then Polly came into the room, late as usual, and started shooting orcs with her over-strength bow.  Durkerle had finally reached attack position, but was distracted by Polly's entrance and went to talk to her instead of fighting.  It was over a few seconds later, with the alchemist and his lab assistants all dead.  A toad jumped out of the wizard's clothing, but Garreth killed that too, to Polly's chagrin.  Durkerle cast Major Healing to fix Garreth's flail-wound.

The shelves and tables contained a full alchemy lab, a few books in Orc, plus a bunch of ingredients.  The alchemist had a magical bag, which nobody had time to identify, other than seeing if things placed inside it got lighter.  (They did not.)   There were a books about alchemy, magic, and troglodytes, and a secret compartment with an apparent spellbook inside.  One of the books contained a flier in Gnome, which nobody could read, so they saved it for later.  The invaders grabbed the light and valuable-looking  stuff, and left the heavy and fragile lab equipment for later.

They went back to the room with the dead reptilian.  The crates were full of boring mining equipment.  There was a grappling hook and some rope, which might be useful.  There was also a paper, describing a process for removing scent glands from troglodytes and making stenchpots out of them.  They took the paper.

At that point Ibizaber wanted to scout ahead, so Seépravir cast both Invisibility and Hush on him.  He explored a bunch of dead-end mining tunnels.  One had a word on the floor in Orc, which he didn't read.  He continued until he found a tunnel with a large boulder blocking a hole in the end of it.  It looked deliberately placed.  He tried pushing the boulder out of the way, and was surprised to find that he could.  On the other side was a large cavern, much of it underwater.  Ibizaber saw some kind of small green-skinned green-haired humanoid in the water.  She started singing, and he ran away.

Ibizaber explored some more tunnels, and eventually came to a place where the tunnel led to a white-walled cylindrical tower, with two large orcs with crossbows standing guard outside.  They didn't see or hear him, thanks to the spells, so he snuck up to try to get a better view.  At that point the others were starting to worry about Ibizaber, though, and started trying to follow his tracks through the tunnels.  (Durkerle was left behind to stand guard.)  They came up behind Ibizaber.  Seépravir was invisible, but Garreth and Polly were visible, and the orcs spotted them, and started aiming crossbows and yelling "Drugila!"

Polly ran up and took a shot at an orc.  He dodged, but spoiled his aim.  Garreth ran up and threw a sai, missing.  Ibizaber and Seépravir, both invisible, snuck up.  As Seépravir moved forward, she could see farther into the tower, and saw a giant female orc, picking up boulders.  The orc that had had his aim spoiled aimed again.  The other one fired his (rather large) crossbow at Garreth.  He tried acrobatics to improve his dodge, failed, used his Luck to try again, and made it.  Then he successfully dodged the bolt.

Polly took another shot, but the orc dodged it again, ruining his aim again.  Garreth threw another sai, this one with daylight-bright Continual Light on it.  (It had been observed before that these orcs don't like bright light.)  The sai hit, doing a bit of damage and also spotlighting that orc.  Ibizaber and Seépravir kept creeping up invisibly.

At that point the orc that was trying to shoot Polly got tired of having his aim spoiled and just took a snap shot at her.  Unknown to the orc, Seépravir was in the line of fire.  She tried to dodge, failed, used Luck, and succeeded on the retry.  The bolt kept going and almost hit Polly, but she acrobatically dodged it.  The orc threw his crossbow to the ground in frustration.  (Reloading a crossbow takes a while, so he was about to switch to his flail anyway.)

Not knowing Seépravir was in the line of fire, Polly took another shot at the orc.  Fortunately, she missed Seépravir, hit the orc, and he failed to dodge.  The bodkin arrow went through the orc's mail and did big damage to his vitals.  He failed his knockdown roll for the major wound, and fell down, stunned, dropping his flail.  Meanwhile, back in the tower, Seépravir saw the female giant orc Concentrating on a spell.  She recognized it as one she also knew, Levitation.  Garreth advanced on the other orc that was still standing, and took two rapid swings at him, but he parried one with his flail and the other missed.

Still invisible, Seépravir picked up the stunned orc's dropped flail and threw it back a few yards, making it harder for him to arm himself.  The stunned orc stayed conscious and came out of stun, but was still down and unarmed.  Polly took a shot at the standing orc, but he dodged it.  The giant orc threw a boulder at Polly, but she dodged it.

And we broke there for the night-in mid-battle.  One barbarian orc down and badly hurt and disarmed, but not out.  The other barbarian orc still up and fighting.  And the giant orc (presumed) leader flying around throwing boulders.

GM's Comments:

We lost a player this session.  Durkerle's player wasn't very engaged in the game, and decided to drop out midway through this session.  I will NPC Durkerle until he gets back to town, then retire him.  An important lesson here is that you should pick voice or text before you start the campaign, rather than switching back and forth.  Durkerle's player strongly prefers voice, while most of the others like text, and we keep picking text when we vote every week.  The party is now down a very entertaining character, but also a frequent source of intra-party drama.  We'll invite another player from our waiting list next time the group returns to town.

The orc wizard/alchemist and apprentices weren't much of a match for the party.  Flails are good weapons because they're hard to block or parry, but most of the PCs are pretty good at dodging, and the orcs didn't have very good skill.  The wizard tried several spells, but they kept getting resisted.

Ibizaber probably made a smart tactical decision, running away from the singing water creature rather than staying to deal with her alone.  (He has Curious, and rolled to resist it before running away.)  But that means the mystery of that cave won't be revealed until next time.

The ongoing battle looks like a tough one.  Invisibility is a double-edged sword -- PCs who don't know exactly where their allies are risk shooting them, and Polly's arrows do enough damage to really ruin an ally's day if she hits one of them accidentally.  And all three orcs are either large (SM+1) or gigantic (SM+2).  Do they have the skills to match their obvious size and strength?  We'll find out next time.

We had some Roll20 difficulties, with Ibizaber unable to see anything for a while, despite his token having a light source and me being able to see through his token's eyes.  Eventually I deleted his token and made a new one, which worked.