Game log 20 November 2016: Back into the swamp

Dramatis personae

Caleb, wizard
Mayhem, barbarian
Kim, thief
Ash, squire
Kôštē, cleric (NPC)
Villûdē, guide (NPC)

Quid occurrit

After leaving camp outside Vēristés Castle for the night of 3 Brugés, the gang set forth to the swamp. After trekking for a few hours in good weather, they reached the swamp, and there they chopped down a few trees and made a raft.

Late afternoon, Caleb spotted a big flyer in the sky. No sooner did he see it did that flyer fly towards Mayhem and try to stick its proboscis into Mayhem's armor. Ash and Mayhem smacked the flyer, which Caleb realized was a giant assassin bug, to death with one smack each. Kim was less helpful: she took a shot and hit Kôštē instead. Caleb bound the wounds of the cleric, who scowled at Kim.

That night, they camped in the swamp. In the middle of the night, Villûdē saw an onlooker: an alligator. She sounded the hue and cry, and the alligator made for the horses. Everyone streamed out of the tent, and saw the alligator, which flickered oddly. Villûdē turned white when she saw the alligator up close, while the flickering alligator so shook Ash that he ever after will have trouble sleeping in the swamp.

Kim and Mayhem, however, had no issue with the alligator, and both hit it hard enough that it fled into the swamp instead of chasing after the fleeing horses. Ash, already having trouble sleeping, spent three hours getting the horses back.

Ash slept on the raft much of the morning. Not long after he woke up, Villûdē hit a spot of land with the raft. Not at all odd, but before she could push away, many rat swarms started coming onto the raft, which had hit their nest. Kim, Ash, and Mayhem hacked away at them, while Caleb cast Create Acid to scald the lot of them. That afternoon, they spotted the alligator again, no longer flickering, but it swam away.

They made camp on a patch of land, and it rained that night. Not too long before daybreak, Kim spotted thirteen orcs coming for the camp. She yelled for the others, and aimed for the orcs. Once the others were out of the tent, the orc bowmen took their shots at the heroes, and Kim took an arrow to her chest. Not knowing what else to do, she dropped to the ground, dropped her bow, and played dead.

Six orcs came to the tent. Two of them tried to steal the pony, which gave them all kinds of trouble. Two of them went to the back of the tent and felled Caleb, who was trying to get a Blast Ball ready. The orcs then started to drag away Caleb.

Mayhem, seeing the orcs drag Caleb, ran over to them, and started hacking at them. Two of the bigger orc bowmen took shots at Mayhem, and one hurt Mayhem enough to maybe make him mad. He kept his cool, but chose to lose it to help his friend.

Ash, meanwhile, held off the orcs by the tent. The bowmen, after a few seconds of watching Mayhem and Ash take out their fellows, dropped their bows and rushed forward to help. (They also didn't have many good targets. The orcs who were still standing blocked the heroes, and they didn't want to shoot the horses, which would be tough to ride away dead, as well as drag away and eat back at their camp.)

Villûdē took a blow from an orc twice, but Kôštē stepped forward and healed her both times. She kept parrying the blows of the orc until first his sword broke, then the straps on his shield. At this time, Villûdē and Kôštē struck the orc, felling him. They did a high-five. "Girl power!"

Mayhem kept moving through the orcs, shrugging off their blows. Ash took down two orcs himself, and held against their leader. Still, the orcs kept coming. Kim had crawled away, as no orcs were near her, but then stood up after a few seconds and shot the orc leader from behind, though did not wound him at all. However, Ash wounded the leader so much that he chose to break off the strike, bidding the others to flee.

Res aliae

We chatted a bit about future character upgrades. I told them what skills were on the 250-point versions of their templates, and suggested social skills for them since they're mostly lacking them (Kim has Streetwise). John, who plays Ash and Kim, learned in the fray that Ash needs High Pain Threshold, though he should also use his Luck some as well.

We got John using Deceptive Attack with Ash for the first time, though just a point, while Chris hit upon the combination of All-Out Attack (Determined) and Deceptive Attack 4 (Mayhem has Two-Handed Axe/Mace-20). As the orcs had good defenses (11 for Parry and Block), this let him move through them with ease. I'll try to think of some easy attack options for Ash; Kim will be trickier.