The party continues pt.4

Thedric described  it to them something like this...

So the last session finished off with the gang back in town and blowing through some of their hard earned lootz.  After the party, they got down to replacing some of the items they lost with the cart and looking into things like spell transcription and healing potions and the amount of silver in their pockets looked decidedly smaller than it had before.  Thedric decided to advocate that they should journey into the forest to the east and search for  rumored mage's tower and the speculative lootz therein.  Naturally this decision was based on a chance comment out of the blue and not on any of the numerous maps or rumors I had planted already, and so wasn't one of the adventure hooks that I had followup material for. Fortunately I had downloaded some material I could make suitable for this as well as a copy of my area map on my iPad.  We also had a new character join the group, Calvin the fighter*.  So after a bit more shopping and paying a town wine crier** to spread notice that Henril was looking for a wife, off they went in search of adventure.

I had rewritten the random encounter tables out from 6 spots with blanks to a full 10 items*** so I was well prepared for the overland trek through the forest.  For a most of the day they didn't meet anything but in the evening they ran into a small band of hobgoblins which they dispatched.  A careful search of the hobgoblin trail showed that they were apparently tracking a wounded bear and so the party began following the trail.  They camped over night and in the morning they continued following the bear tracks across a river and up to a ridge where the wounded bear surprised them and attacked.  I think the bear did pretty well with a claw and a bite attack and she gave out some decent whacks being a d12 creature - had she been at full hp someone might have been taken down.  As it was they killed the bear but had to make camp early in the day to rest.  Towards evening while they were still resting up, another band of hobgoblins came across their camp and they fought another short battle, this time in the dark.

It actually wound up looking more like this.

The party was sure that these events all pointed to a hobgoblin encampment and so when they finally climbed a tree on a high ridge and sighted a partly rebuilt stone fortress they were sure they had found it.  These were all random encounters threaded into the narrative which just goes to show you how well that can work.  Not wanting to disappoint, I placed a number of hobgoblins by the gates and on the walls.  The group wisely decided to look for another way in.  Searching near a stream mouth they found a cave entrance and inside they came face to face with two juvenile bears.  A short nasty fight later and they were licking their many wounds and discussing the price of bearskins.  They searched the cave and found that it was an ancient dwarven forge, long since abandoned and now the lair of bears, however the cave continued and so too the adventurers.  Further in the caves, they fought a giant spider and Calvin got bit but made his save against the poison.  They came across a still pool and saw something shining in the water, Calvin went in for it and came back out covered in huge gross leeches that had to be burned off.  They recovered it and it was an old Dwarven helm with a big hole in the top and a skull still in it.  Thedric tossed the skull and put the helmet on anyway (these guys like their headgear, they wanted to make a hat out of a bear head too).

Beyond the pond they journeyed on and came across a strange room filled with fetishes and symbols painted on the cave walls all surrounding a large bone idol.  They filched the idol and moved along, noticing the floor slanting upwards and more and more bones lying around till they came across a  large natural cavern with a huge pile of bones and a very large skeleton sitting beside it.  It was obviously the remains of a lair and in the bone pile they found a variety of ancient bones from bear and other large game, as well as humanoids. Creeped out by the large skeleton, they decided to break it to pieces when they noticed that the the bone idol seemed to be heating up, that and the bone pile was stirring.  Colin and Henril managed to smash the skeleton's legs, but as they did, three large bear skeletons rose up from he bone pile.  The skeletons started moving towards the bone idol, the large skeleton with the smashed legs dragging itself along by it's arms.  A game of toss the idol ensued as the party tried to keep it away from the skeletons.  Noticing that the skeletons were growing skin and hair and that the idol was growing hotter and brighter they decided to smash it before more horrible events came to pass.  Once it was smashed the skeletons turned upon them and they made a fighting into a series of narrow caves to the north where they managed to dispatch the skeletons one by one.  They took rest in one such narrow cavern and found that they could hear voices, and so surmised that they were under the ruined tower.  After recovering somewhat, they began searching for hidden passages but found none.
They decided that they would try to do some excavation work on a collapsed tunnel at which point a small gang of hobgoblins arrived though their secret door to investigate the noise the party was making.  They dispatched two of the hobgoblins and Thedric rolled a critical on his charm spell so his new best friend showed them the secret door to the tower cellar.  Once in the cellar they dispatched the hobgoblins who were in there and the charmed hobgoblin happily showed them the secret stash of silver coins in the cistern well.  Then we had to call it for the evening.

It turned out to be a good session and the party had a welcome addition of force with Calvin as an additional fighter.  Lots of damage dealt and taken but no one was incapacitated this time.  We decided to use d6 for initiative each round of combat instead of having each player roll once per fight and I think it went faster and there was a little more back and forth so I think we'll keep doing that for a while.  There was a remark that the bear only did claw+bite instead of the more traditional claw/claw/bite but I had dropped the third attack because of the d12 hd/damage.  None of the bears were full hp, (one wounded and two young ones) and I found that with the d12 damage they did pretty well beating on the party even with only the two attacks.  A full strength bear would have probably made a good account of itself.


* We've had a few folks drop out and a couple new folks join our game group this summer - I'm no longer the newb.
**"Attend Attend, Seven Stones Tavern has today a rare and excellent vintage highly suitable for all thirsts. Today only this fine spirit is offered for an astoundingly low sum of 3 pennies.  It is also of interest that the esteemed adventurer Henril of Butterbridge is holding auditions for a wife upon his return.  She must be sturdy and inexperienced."
*** Yes, I kept the woodcutter on the forest chart in #5 position.