I'm running my group through TSG now. They're pretty new to dungeon-crawling, so this is their introduction to it.
I've scaled down some of the encounters because these guys are only 2nd level with 1 NPC level.
Spoilers Below! (for several DCCs)
The Heroes of Ander's Farm vs. The Scaly God, report I
Having bested Toth-Ror, the minotaur bandit lord (#35, Hall of the Minotaur), the peasants-turned-heroes of Ander's Farm are journeying south to Hath Hall to return the body of Sir Galwaith to his ancestral home.
Thanks to their new horses, gifts from the mayor of Ander's Farm, the going is smooth at first, but one night a purple, bearded star streaks by overhead (#10, The Sunless Garden), spooking the horses. They run off, leaving our heroes on foot with a cart containing the dead body of the knight.
The next few days, it rains heavily and non-stop, coming in from the coast, BUT they know that about a day's travel ahead is Whitefang Keep, where Her Ladyship maintains a garrison of troops to guard Aurora Pass (relocated for our game) and to levy taxes on road traffic.
Approaching Whitefang Keep, the party ignores the clues I give them about there being no watchfires or interior lights of any kind, and march right up. Then the resident halfling rogue manages to Spot (in the dark, through the rain, from pretty far away...I couldn't believe it) a goblin lounging in the ruined portcullis. She hails them in Goblin, and they open fire on her through the conveniently-placed arrow slits. The human fighter moves in, hugging the wall, and ends up RIGHT NEXT TO a slit. He takes a bolt in the chest. The tax assessor/hireling cowers behind the cart and the heroes move in.
Elf ranger makes a lucky shot and makes the first kill. Now the goblins are shouting for help. Human fighter gets through the portcullis and stumbles into a bugbear (called into the fighting from the captain's room). The party figures out where the other arrow slits are, and manage to avoid them on the approach.
The party clears the courtyard, and the human cleric casts a light spell so they can see enough to loot. He gets peppered by crossbow bolts from goblins lurking in a open doorway that leads into the keep (the guys from the guardroom). Then one riding a worg runs into the courtyard, and the fight continues!
At the end of the day, the party had to fight the entire 1st level at once because they used no stealth. Still, they survived, and managed to drop the goblin who broke to warn the 2nd level.
They examine the courtyard a bit, and notice that some of the Keep's damage seems to have been inflicted by lightning (ah, but it's been raining heavily lately! a double-bluff on my part, as you'll soon see!). They loot the first floor, and are really curious about the small, heavily-fortified room that was apparently broken into.
In the lieutenant's room, they find a small ledger that talks about caravans that have passed through here and when others are due to arrive. They learn that the Rensman caravan is due to arrive in two days (this is an inside joke...in another campaign, the party pretty famously failed to save the Rensman caravan, who were wiped out).
They again make enough noise shuffling crates and yelling at their hireling that they alert the bugbears at the top of the stairs to their presence. Up they go and down come the molotov cocktails (a bit of deviation from the actual module here). The front two ranks take some fire damage, then they charge. More great fighting and the human fighter almost bites the big one, but the bugbears go down.
Afterward, they hear arguing voices and harsh laughter coming from behind a door. Boldly, they throw it open and see the dining hall. Like I said, this party was way below level, so I cut down this area to just the ogre and one goblin. It didn't matter. Somehow, strangely, the ogre won initiative. He moved in and swung his axe through the doorway at human fighter. Even accounting for cover, he rolls a natural 20, which I confirm. With an axe. Ouch. One disembowled human fighter later, things look grim. Elf ranger is running low on arrows, and halfling rogue isn't much of a fighter. Still, they cleverly keep the ogre on the other side of the doorway, and my dice go cold.
(I roll my dice in my home game like I do in the tournament...all rolls are public so my players know I don't fudge for them one way or the other.)
Elf archer fires a poisoned arrow recovered from their last adventure, but the ogre makes his Fort save. Eventually, however, the ogre goes down, and then they rush the goblin sniping at them from behind an overturned chair. The bugbear cook actually puts up a pretty good fight, and the dwarf bard takes some pepper to the face. Halfling rogue eats some goblin food and gets sick.
The party is really, really confused by both the crude, broken axe they found on level 1 and the dead trog body they find on level 2 (I removed the rot grubs). "Where are the trogs?" they think. "Ha-ha!" I quietly cackle to myself.
Since the human fighter was killed (and we were still at the early part of the weekend) I took that player aside we quickly came up with a new character. More on him in a bit.
Looting the room, they manage to find the hidden ring. Heading upstairs, they remember to Listen at the door to the captain's office, where they hear the bugbear leader interrogating someone. They try the door, the captain hears them, and the halfling rogue (who speaks Goblin, we've determined) tells him that dinner is ready (remember the cook?). Her Bluff beats his Sense Motive, so he unlock the door and the party JUMPS HIM.
The captain quickly backs out of the ambush and puts his back to a wall, and it looks like he may take the party out on his own, when the captive (who is a warlock) shatters his weapon.
I forget he's got a javelin, so he withdraws up the tower, chased by the party. In the next, he hangs out and tries to topple a bookcase on the party as they move after him, but he fails his Strength check. On the top level, he grabs a rock to use as an improvised weapon, but by this time he's done for.
And thus the party conquers Whitefang Keep!
To be continued...
_________________ Co-Author: The Almanac of the Endless Traders, DCC #13, DCC #29, DCC #49, DCC #51, DCC #52, DCC #63
Author: DCC #55: Isle of the Sea Drake, DCC #61: Citadel of the Corruptor, more to come....
Last edited by Jengenritz on Mon Oct 30, 2006 11:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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