DF Whiterock Session 86: Deeper into Narborg

Date:

2020-03-06

Weather:

Cold, light snow, session entirely underground

Player Characters:

Elias, Wood Elf Cleric, 409 points

Garreth, Half-Orc Fighter, 470 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 470 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 464 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 475 points

Significant NPCs:

Lance Corporal Wolfrik, Possessed duergar guard

Hutgreth, Charmed Duergar watch captain

Controlled Zombie Ettin

6 Zombie Ettins

Lots of Duergar guards

We resumed in mid-battle, with the PCs attacking the underground Duergar fortress of Narborg.

Progress of the assault on Narborg at the start of this session

Three of the PCs, along with the Charmed duergar watch captain Hutgreth and a zombie ettin that Hutgreth had given Seépravir the Key of Corpse Command for, were just north of the gate into Narborg.  Seépravir, still in the possessed body of the duergar guard Wolfrik, was in a room just to the west of the others, where she had flipped some levers to raise some portcullises.  Meanwhile, Zaber had turned invisible and squeezed through an arrow slit into the firing deck overlooking the causeway, and was sneaking around amidst the duergar guards, east of the others.

Seépravir Blinked back from the room with the levers to rejoin the others.  The group headed north a bit, as Zaber spied on the duergar running out of the barracks to respond to the alarm.  Then, without warning, secret doors opened on both sides of the passage, and 6 more zombie ettins, each holding two flails, poured out to ambush them.  Fortunately for the PCs, the zombies failed to achieve total surprise.

One of the zombie ettins pounded on Elias with both flails.  He blocked the first, but the second hit for enough damage to penetrate his heavy armor and knock him back a hex, into Seépravir.  Seépravir Blinked away.  Another zombie tried hitting Elias.  Garreth managed to sacrificially parry the first flail, but the second got past Garreth's parry.  Elias used his Luck to reroll a failed dodge, and rolled a critical success, making the zombie flail itself in the leg.  A third zombie went for Elias.  Once again, Garreth parried the first attack, and Elias critically dodged the second, this time resulting in a dropped flail.  The fourth zombie also chose Elias, and this time he critically failed his dodge, falling down, but was lucky that the zombie rolled poor damage that failed to penetrate this armor.  He dodged the second flail.  The fifth zombie went after Garreth, but missed its first attack and had its weapon turn in its hand on his second.  The last zombie also attacked Garreth, who retreated and dodged both attacks.

Elias spun back to his feet (with Flight I allow any Change Position as a step) and rapidly struck one of the zombies with his own flail, hitting both times (despite Shock penalty), with one being a critical hit for a  Major Wound.  The zombie was tough, though, and wasn't even stunned.  Polly shot the zombie that Elias had just badly wounded, destroying it.  She then shot two more arrows at another zombie, which dodged the first and took the second in the eye for a redeath.  Seépravir tried using the Key of Corpse Command to make the surviving zombies stop attacking and go north, but they ignored it.  She also tried Rapier Wit on the nearest zombie, which ignored it.  Garreth used Kiai to stun a zombie.  Seépravir's pet zombie ran north toward the battle, as ordered.

Ambushed by Ettin Zombies

A zombie attacked Hutgreth, who blocked it.  The stunned zombie recovered.  Another zombie tried attacking Seépravir, who Blinked further away.  Another went for Hutgreth, who parried both attacks.  Elias attacked a zombie in the back, hurting it badly with his first attack, then critically failing his second attack and losing his balance.  Unfortunately it was Seépravir's zombie.  (Ettin zombies all look alike.)  Hutgreth used the axe end of his combination axe-hammer to rapid strike a zombie, critically hitting once and missing once.  Polly fired three times at a zombie.  It dodged the first two arrows and took the third one in the eye for enough damage to kill it.  

Seépravir tried taunting a zombie, which had no obvious effect.  Garreth Kiaied a zombie to stun it, then cut its leg off with his katana.  A zombie ran at Seépravir and attempted a Slam, but she retreated and dodged.  The last zombie managed to hit Hutgreth hard after he critically failed a block, losing his grip on his shield.  Elias pounded on a zombie with is flail twice for serious damage, but didn't knock it out.  Polly, flying up near the ceiling and holding her bow sideways Assassin Style to avoid any chance of hitting her friends, shot two more zombies in the eye, killing them.  Seépravir took advantage of Wolfrik's crossbow skill and shot the nearby zombie in the vitals.  Garreth cut one of a zombie's heads off, killing it.  The last zombie rolled a critical hit on Seépravir, who used Luck to make it reroll, but still took a solid blow.  Polly shot and killed it, and the fight against the zombies was over.

Meanwhile, Zaber was invisibly spying on the duergar.  A group of 5 ran past him to the west, toward the battle.  Two stragglers remained in the barracks for a while, adjusting their armor and weapons.  Eventually, he headed west toward his friends.  He spotted them through an arrow slit, and said "Beer!" in dwarven to alert them to his presence.

Polly pulled some rust monster antennae out of the Bag of Holding, and tried using them on a portcullis to the north, but they had no effect.  Some duergar guards came over near Zaber.  One started flailing around with his mace, looking for the invisible enemy he had heard.  Zaber got away from him.  Polly heard the noise, looked through the arrow slit from the wrong side, saw the duergar's back, and shot him in the back of the skull, knocking him out.   Meanwhile Garreth passed the wineskin of healing potions to Seépravir, who drank enough to get out of danger of passing out.

Zaber repeated his trick of squeezing through an arrow slit, and again made his Escape-6 roll (though it required Luck), rejoining his friends.  He picked a lock on a door and found an empty room behind it.  Polly tried another door to the west, and found it was locked.  When Zaber approached, she pointed out the locked door, and he picked it.  Now they had two choices: west through the door, or north through some more portcullises.  They chose north.  Polly tried rust monster antennae again, and they failed again.

The passage had lots of arrow slits on both sides.  When Polly went forward to play with the portcullis, six duergar with crossbows who had been waiting behind the arrow slits shot bolts at her.  She dodged all six, though needed to use her Luck to do so.  They then backed away from the arrow slits to reload.  Some more duergar came up to arrow slits, and Polly shot at them.  They managed to dodge and drop out of her line of sight.

Eventually the duergar finished reloading and showed their faces at the arrow slits.  Polly shot at three of them.  Two of them managed to drop and dodge, spoiling their aim.  The third wasn't fast enough and took an arrow in the skull for a knockout.  Meanwhile the others moved north toward the portcullis.  Hutgreth commanded the duergar inside to open the portcullis, and they called him a coward and reminded him of the standing order not to open the doors when under attack.  

Garreth asked Hutgreth how to get to those duergar.  He replied that there was a door on the east side after the next portcullis.   Seépravir noticed three more levers behind some arrow slits to the west, so she turned invisible, then Blinked over there.  When she reached the levers, she pulled them all down, opening all three portcullises.

The PCs continued advancing, with Polly shooting any duergar that showed themselves, and occasional crossbow bolts either getting dodged, or parried by Garreth's katana.  Eventually Garreth failed to dodge one, and took some minor damage, not enough to really inconvenience him.  Garreth asked Hutgreth if the door was trapped.  Hutgreth said that door was safe, but there was a trap on one of the doors behind it.  Garreth waited for Hutgreth to open the second door, but it turned out to not be trapped either.  Garreth, Hutgreth, and Elias penetrated into the room on the other side of the arrow slits, where the duergar were reloading their crossbows.  Garreth slammed one against the wall, hard enough to wedge him into an arrow slit.

We were out of time, so we stopped for the evening at that point, with most of the duergar in the immediate area down but a few still standing.  The PCs had survived an ettin zombie ambush, opened some more doors and portcullises, and put down several more duergar guards.  But it appeared there were more duergar in the vicinity.

State at the end of the session

GM's Comments:

The ettin zombies had a lot of ST and HP, but they had Unnatural, which caused them to automatically die at -HP, rather than getting to roll death checks.  This sped things up a bit, as a really solid hit to the eye or skull tended to automatically knock them out of the fight, rather than have me make death checks and stun rolls for them.

The duergar with crossbows had the advantage of numbers, and being on the right side of the arrow slits.  Polly had the advantage of good Dodge and high rate of fire.  Advantage mostly to Polly.

Narborg is a pretty well-designed fortress, but the PCs have used both Blink spells and squeezing through arrow slits to go where they're not supposed to.  The Thane might want to consider putting No Mana Zones in the walls and making the arrow slits narrower, if he lives long enough.