Dramatis personae
Xoran, fox-man ("rúskwē") swordsman
Mayhem, pint-sized barbarian
Josiah, a wandering minstrel he
Ash, knight
Nikotsu, mercenary
Caleb, wizard
Maquia, huntress cleric
Kôštē, NPC cleric
Quid occurrit
It is easy going from camp near the river. On the second day, they see the man who told them about the slave rebellion a few months earlier, but they doesn’t go near him nor he near them. On the fourth day, they make it a mile or so from the ogres’ old cave, and Mayhem finds a trail going to the west, which they follow the next morning.
About the middle of that morning, they see a cross of sticks near the trail, and Maquia looks and spots an old building with overgrown vines all over it. This, they guess, is the Abbey of the Respectful Warrior. They walk the last half-mile, then make a scouting group of Xóran, Josiah, Mayhem, and Nikotsu.
From a ways away, they see three goons wearing tattered crimson sashes—one woman and two men. Josiah roughs up his looks and walks up to the woman, telling her that he is trying to get to town from his farm, and that he is lost and has coins. The woman says that Josiah has indeed had a bad time, but, “You know town is a long ways away, right?” She then asks him for the rest of his money and waves the other two goons to come up to them. “Let’s relieve him of the rest of his stuff.”
Xóran hears this, and shoots the woman in the chest. She falls, and yells, “Help!” Josiah pulls out his sword and tries hitting the two other goons, but doesn’t hit. Nikotsu, however, does with the arrow she lets loose into a goon, dropping him. The goon rushes forward (Josiah’s bastard sword makes it easier for him to hit them than for them to hit him), and Mayhem and Nikotsu also rush forward. Josiah easily takes out the other goon, with him passing out in Josiah’s arms after he cuts off the goon’s leg.
The other heroes dash to link up to their fellows. Mayhem makes the sound of a dragon, thinking that there are more foes in the lean-to and hoping to buy some time. However, little Mayhem cannot make the big blot-out-the-sky shadow of a dragon, and three more goons in tattered crimson sashes burst out, along with a tiger walking on two legs: a rakshasa. Maquia tells Xóran that only magic weapons or spells could kill the rakshasa, so Xóran turns his eyes and magic sword towards it.
The rakshasa, however, leans forward and out of its mouth comes a mighty wind. Kôštē, Caleb, and Ash all are unable to get out of the way, with Caleb falling over. Josiah blocks the wind from hitting him with the passed out, one-legged bandit who is bleeding to death. The wind blows off the poor bandit’s skin and flesh, leaving him a bunch of bloody bones.
Everyone standing then moves to fight other than Maquia. Caleb casts an Exploding Fireball through his pain, Kôštē heals Caleb through her pain, and Maquia heals Kôštē.
Josiah gets the first blow, hitting the rakshasa while everyone else is still getting ready. Kôštē heals Caleb, who starts to stand while holding a big ball of fire in his hand. Even Maquia moves forward, hoping to get near enough to cast Might on Xóran without failing. The tiger-man, however, gets a hit on Xóran that the fox-man never sees coming and into a chink in his armor, and he falls, seeing his own blood on the ground.
Xóran, however, is able to see through his daze, and his non-magical sword hits the cat on its rump. Josiah also smacks the rakshasa on the leg, which doesn’t bother it as much as it would have a man. The bandits and Ash make it to the fray, trading misses, but Nikotsu reaches over with her big sword and cuts a bandit. Kôštē again heals Caleb, who now is standing.
Xóran misses the rakshasa from the ground and the rakshasa misses Ash with its sword. Mayhem, however, cuts the head off of one bandit, while the other two bandits miss Josiah and Nikotsu. Josiah drops his shield and tries to hit one of the two living bandits but fails, as does Nikotsu. Ash hits the rakshasa, though its wounds still don’t bother it much.
And now Caleb leans back to throw his Explosive Fireball. Which he drops at his feet.
Kaboom.
Both Caleb and Kôštē take the full blast and Kôštē passes out. The ground under Caleb opens up into a 10-foot pit, into which Caleb falls.
Maquia, however, doesn’t stop, but steps nearer the fray and casts Major Healing on Xóran, healing him from a few yards away. The rakshasa tries to hit Ash, who parries, while Xóran stabs it twice with his magic sword through the lung, making it fall dead onto Ash's shield. Mayhem and Josiah try to take out the bandits but miss. One bandit misses Mayhem, but the second cuts Xóran on his neck. Both Ash's and Nikotsu's swords don’t land on bandits, Caleb passes out while trying to sit up, and Maquia's spell fizzles while trying to heal Xóran. A bandit's shield again blocks Mayhem's axe, but that is his last deed, as both Josiah and Ash fell them both.
Res aliae
Going through the log, I see that we didn't have folks stunned after failing major wound checks. This helped the players a bit, mostly Xóran, though he passed the HT roll on the blow to his neck right before killing the rakshasa.
Caleb's critical failure on trying to lob his spell was the highlight of the afternoon. At first, I was being kind and didn't think dropping his spell would do anything, but one or both of Roman (Xóran) or Brandon (Josiah) said that should totally be nasty, and you know what? They were right. Then one of the same two guys said that was Caleb's Weirdness Magnet going off and I pointed out that it wasn't, so had the ground open up under Caleb to have his Weirdness Magnet go off. The moral of this tale is that other players are nastier than the GM, who mostly cares about keeping the fight moving.
I think it was Roman or Steph (Mayhem) who said that this session was gorier than usual. My 11-year-old wasn’t bothered, and was proud of the crit she scored playing her sister’s fighter shooting the goon. As for me, I deemed the extra gore “perfect.”
Getting to the Abbey went quickly, as I had prerolled a whole bunch of random encounter checks. As I excel at this kind of prep instead of running at the table, this was a good idea.
My youngest daughter ran both Maquia and Nikotsu, the latter for her sister. She was bored as is her wont.
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