Game log 23 June 2019: If the Tiger Mom irks you, wait until you meet these cats

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

After the ordeal, the heroes start to heal up. Ash pours his healing potion down the throat of Kôštē, while Nikotsu goes into Kôštē’s pouches and grabs one of Kôštē’s potions and also pours this down Kôštē’s throat. Maquia casts Major Healing on Kôštē, which at last wakes her up, giving them two healers to try to heal Caleb.

Alas, once healer cancels out the other when Maquia fumbles on her Major Healing spell after Kôštē cast hers. This sends Caleb to the brink of death for a minute or so while Kôštē and Maquia each cast Minor Healing on him, then pour a potion down his throat. Mayhem tries looking for healing herbs but can find none, but at least the other spells had stopped Caleb from drooling blood.

After about an hour, everyone but Caleb is awake and mulling around, Josiah and Ash go into the lean-to hut next to the Abbey, and find twelve bedrolls in use and three smoking jackets. There are other bedrolls not in use, which they gather were once those of the dead bandits who are stacked on the other side of the Abbey. The humans’ bodies have big purple buboes all over them. They shows the bodies to Maquia, who recalls that the death god Ažbrátōr had cursed the Abbey to give a sickness to anyone who dared to go inside.

That is enough for Xóran, who hates Ažbrátōr. “I’m going in; it’s my duty.” He starts to walk inside the Abbey, and says, “If I go in there and I get cursed and the curse doesn’t get lifted I’m going to kill each and every one of you.” Josiah goes with him, and when they walk inside, purple buboes start to show up on Xóran’s body. Josiah itches a little, but no buboes show up on him.

The two keep walking to the middle of the Abbey, and see a big bronze font in the middle, with a pillar on each of four corners, making a square with the round font in the middle. Above the font, they see a big canvas which old nails hold to the rafters as it sags downwards. Both start to go near the font, and as they do, hot oil shoots out at them. Both get out of the way, and see there is no oil in the font.

Josiah climbs up a pillar. He takes out a nail and the corner falls, and he can see the glow of the painting on the canvas. Xóran calls out, “Hurry up, I’m turning into a frickin' blueberry here!” Josiah goes up the next pillar, and pulls out another nail, making the painting fall down. A bunch of gold coins falls into the font, as does a silver bracelet and a burlap sack. Josiah goes up the third pillar and again takes out a nail, but when he does this to a fourth, he leans too far forward and hot oil shoots on him. He grimaces, but doesn’t fall, and undoes the last nail.

When Josiah gets down, Xóran says that while he may not live much longer, he will now call Josiah by name as he has earned his respect. They bring the loot to the door, and, after trying to push over the font and finding himself unable to do so, Xóran asks Ash to bring him a dead rabbit. Ash quickly finds and kills a rabbit, and tosses it inside. Xóran cuts open the rabbit’s body and cuts it up, and throws the bits and blood all over the font. He then walks back to the doorway and lets Maquia try to cast Cure Disease on him.

Somehow, the buboes go away. Xóran walks outside and breathes the fresh air, glad to be still alive. Xóran opens the sack, but when the others try, they cannot open it. Again, Xóran opens it, thinking it only opens for him.

Ash, Josiah, Mayhem, and Xóran light fire to the Abbey, and as they start to walk away, they see two rakshasas and six bandits watching them. Xóran says, “Sorry, was this yours? I guess we lit it on fire.”

One rakshasa laughs. “Thank you stupid fools for getting our treasure for us!”

Xóran scowls. “Great. Well, if you want your treasure then I guess you had better come and take it.”

Taking on two rakshasas and six bandits.
That's Xoran out in front:
"Bring it on."

So begins the fight. First one rakshasa breathes fire, but everyone gets out of the way. Everyone else moves to engage until the other rakshasa breathes water, freezing Ash and knocking down Maquia. Xóran and Josiah start to fight the fire-breathing rakshasa, and Xóran tells Nikotsu and Mayhem to “Brace the left flank!” Josiah’s blow hits the rakshasa while Nikotsu starts to fight a bandit.

The rakshasa scoffs at his wounds and smacks Josiah, but doesn’t live long enough to enjoy his cut, as Xóran kills that rakshasa with his magic sword to the skull before stunning a nearby bandit with his roar. Josiah wounds two bandits with fast blows before Kôštē casts Minor Healing on Josiah. Two other bandits and Nikotsu trade misses, while the last bandit smacks Ash in the face, dropping him to the ground.

The still-living rakshasa misses Nikotsu. Mayhem plants axe into bandit’s skull: “My great axe is ready to talk to you!” The bandits miss Josiah and Nikotsu and a third bandit’s blow doesn’t get through Mayhem’s armor. Nikotsu takes out bandit with a sword blow. Kôštē casts an especially blessed Major Healing on Josiah, bringing him back to full health.

Xoran and Josiah flank the rakshasa.

The rakshasa and Nikotsu trade misses, but Josiah takes out one bandit, making the other bandits flee. However, Kôštē thumps a bandit in the back with her staff as he runs past. Yet again do the rakshasa and Nikotsu trade misses while everyone else starts moving into position to help take out the rakshasa.

Xoran killed the first rakshasa with his magic sword.

Josiah cleans up the right flank; Xoran charges the left flank.

Only Xoran's sword can kill the last rakshasa.

Xóran gets near the rakshasa who tries to hit him, but Xóran whacks him instead. Mayhem tries to get in on the fun, but hits his own leg with his axe, making him go nuts. Nikotsu, however, does get a hit on the rakshasa, which smacks down Mayhem trying to hit him from the ground.

The rakshasa's three remaining bandits bolt and run.
This creature is as good as dead

That’s the last deed of the rakshasa, as Xoran’s magic sword finds its mark in its fur. Mayhem snaps out of his berserk rage, while Kôštē gets off another especially blessed Major Healing, this time on Mayhem.

Res aliae

We were a little short today, as Steph (Mayhem) is working in the summer and Hannah (Nikotsu) had the flu (which we later found out was an ear infection). So Sophia (Maquia) handled Nikotsu in combat while Roman (Xóran) and John (Ash/Caleb) handled Mayhem. Sophie will likely handle Mayhem until Steph comes back, as Maquia in a fight mostly heals and shoots.

Oh goodness, were the critical hits and misses fun. Maquia’s botched Major Healing spell let to a miss by 1 on an HT roll, making us break out the moral wound rules until Brandon (Josiah) just had Kôštē try to heal Caleb again, which fixed the damage. Mayhem of course smacked his own leg, but Kôštē (Brandon was running her) had two straight critical successes on Major Healing spells.

Xóran defiling the font didn’t do anything that anyone could see, but was entertaining enough to earn him a couple extra CP. He took a few pictures. I'm including them, with his captions lightly edited for grammar and stuff.

Game log 9 June 2019: We want violence, we want guts, we want your team by the nuts!

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.