Session 1
From my perspective, playing Fingol the Navgarine Keeper (custom race for the Illiras setting, closest analogue would be an elven mage).
Party:
Fingol Innes, Navgarine Keeper of the Stars 1
Jarett, Navgarine Urchin 1
Ambrosio, Venturer 1
Draeo, Assassin 1
Greg, Paladin 1
April 10, 427
Arrived outside Amtalosz, where there was a wagon being inspected at the gate.
A guard approached the wagon, and a brigand stabbed him, shouting “Tarvon has a message!”
5 brigands leapt from the wagon and attacked the guards. Fingol tried to help, along with some other bystanders. Fingol’s two hunting dogs, Godwin and Fion, were slain in the fight, but the brigands were killed without any other human casualties.
After the fight, the party received no reward and little thanks from the guards, but only some information. Tarvon is a brigand leader, for whom there is a 1000 gp reward offered by the Earl of Amtolosz.
At the mercenary guild in town there were two other postings. One to investigate beastmen attacks in the north, and another to investigate disappearances.
Banding together with the other adventurers from the gate, Fingol agreed to go after Tarvon in a few days. In the meantime, Fingol (who has Alchemy 3) took on some work with the local alchemist, earned some gold and bought 2 new hunting dogs.
Session 2
From my perspective, playing Fingol the Navgarine Keeper.
Party:
Fingol Innes, Navgarine Keeper of the Stars 1
Jarett, Navgarine Urchin 1
Ambrosio, Venturer 1 (in absentia, played by Jarett)
Draeo, Assassin 1
Greg, Paladin 1 (in absentia, played by me)
April 13, 427
The party set out with the five adventurers, 2 hunting dogs, 1 war dog and a cart, searching the road to the south for evidence of brigands. In the morning there was an encounter with a merchant train that amounted to nothing. But in the evening, we encountered brigands.
25 brigands came out of the hills, and we failed our surprise roll so they were 2 rounds from engaging us before we could even think about fleeing. Not wanting to lose our cart and supplies, and knowing that Fingol had a big AoE spell, we started shooting and casting.
Fingol got the perfect casting of the spell Falter Creatures, which is a lightning spell that does damage in a cone similar to Fan of Flames. Bigger cone, smaller damage, and creatures who fail the save falter for a round. The cone covered EVERY brigand. It was glorious.
With elementalism I had a d6+1 of damage… and I rolled a 1. 4 out of 25 brigands went down. At this point we all figured we’d be switching to our backup characters.
Draeo shot down the brigand leader, but they charged in and surrounded us. Fingol fled to his riding mule, Greg got wrestled to the ground immediately, and the 2 new hunting dogs were butchered (that’s 4 dogs in 2 sessions I’ve lost). The three remaining PCs were all Charisma guys, and they negotiated a surrender.
As the party was dragged away, Fingol followed the trail.
After force-marching, the brigands had an encounter very similar to the one we’d had earlier in the day - a merchant caravan of 20 wagons. Now the CHA characters went to work again, and before long the wounded brigands were convinced to greedily attack the caravan, and our assassin was going in with them. Six brigands were left with the prisoners, and of course as soon as the others were gone, the prisoners rose up to attack, and Fingol came out of the woods to help. Jarett’s war dog had a field day and the brigands were slaughtered.
On the other end, it was 10 brigands against a merchant and 4 guards, but the merchant was a 5th level venturer. Between him cleaving and Draeo backstabbing, the brigands were crushed and scattered. We chased them down and left only one alive, to answer questions.
We learned a lot from the prisoner. We got the rough location of Tarvon’s hideout in an old fort, learned that he has about 50 more men, including 20 cavalry and 2 Navgarine practitioners. We got the tip that local village women had been visiting the brigands, and Jarett followed this up the next day on the road, speaking to a farmer, then a village priest, then a disgruntled father, then finally a young woman who had run off with a brigand. Miriam gave us some further details of the fort and Tarvon’s routines.
Finally, we returned to Amtalosz to sell our cartful of brigand equipment. Loot included a potion, two magic scrolls and a map, as well as 25 sets of bandit gear.
