Three Worlds #6

At long last the Castellan of Belton, representative of the Duke, arrived at Fort Davelmag, accompanied by six bodyguards and a couple of servants. He had met the four orc mercenaries who had left the fort along the way, and come across the half-eaten body of the guard sent from the fort a few days prior, but nevertheless asked our heroes for their accounts.

After unsuccessfully trying to persuade the Castellan to abandon the fort, our heroes proposed a plan to weaken the orcs by sending out a fake caravan laden with poisoned food to lure them to attack. By means of a poisonous fruit collected by Arwin during his travels, our heroes laced some dried beans, and Arwin, Enree, Kargen, and Mala (see PC profiles here), accompanied by Gad and one of the Castellan's bodyguards set out in a mule train.

The journey to Stoneglow Draw campsite was uneventful, but a few hours before dawn the manticore swooped down from the night sky to attack the party. Enree attempted to control the mind of the manticore, but was instead commanded by it to attack Mala. The rest of the party was able to break the spell of the manticore by wounding it, and thereafter they were able to drive it off. Afterwards they left the campsite with the mules, leaving behind their stores, to give the impression of hurried flight, and doubled back to the campsite off the track to observe.

Sure enough, shortly after sunrise a party of orcs arrived at the campsite and took the abandoned goods before setting off south. Our heroes followed the orcs unseen down to the river, where they rested in the shade of the trees and waited.

As the sun began to set our heroes made their way to the orc tower. It was beginning to get dark when they arrived. The approach to the tower was unguarded, and our heroes entered the cave at the base of the tower to find some twenty orcs lying on the ground, weakened and groaning - they had taken the poisoned food. A tunnel led from the main cave; uncertain of the duration of the poison and unwilling to risk having enemies in their rear as they explored further, Kargen and Mala slew the helpless orcs as they laid on the ground.

Exploring further into the cave complex inside the tower, our heroes came upon a large cave where the orc chieftain and two of his guards laid, also ill from the poison. Enree employed his magic to probe the mind of the orc chieftain, but found that the chief was in fact under the control of the manticore, who was nearby.

The party tied the chief and his guards up, set Gad to watch over them, and explored further. In a long cave they found wall paintings that seemed to tell the tale of the manticore attacking the orcs, and how an orc received a magical bow from a masked character and with that was able to slay the manticore. At the end of that long cave the tunnel led to where the rock guardian kept vigil.

Returning to the chieftain, Enree once more interrogated him and learned that the cave paintings depicted the tale of how the orc hero Atoko received a magical weapon from the sun god and slew the manticore that attacked the canyon orcs, and how his body was entombed within the cave complex. Satisfied that they now had all the information they required, our heroes slew the chieftain and his guards.

They party located the tomb of Atoko, which was sealed by a stone slab which bore three niches upon it, each the size of the stone orbs which activated the teleport portals. Our heroes placed their stone orbs into the niches, whereupon the stone slab split and opened to reveal the tomb of Atoko.

The body of an orc laid upon a stone plinth within the tomb. Grave goods in the form of pottery and jewellery made from precious stones, silver, and gold were placed around the plinth, and next to the body of Atoko on the plinth were the remains of a bow and three arrows; the bow and arrow shafts had long decayed, but three arrowheads, which Kargen recognised to be made from star metal, remained untarnished.

Arwin affixed the three arrowheads to his crossbow bolts, and they party devised a plan to provoke the manticore into attacking them. Recognising that the manticore was nearby, but too large to fit inside the tunnels of the cave, our heroes surmised that it must be lairing at the top of the tower. The party split up, with Arwin and Kargen climbing up the side of the tower (which was about 100 feet tall) to reach its top, Gad and Mala waiting just within the entrance of the tower unseen, and Enree stepped out of the cave and shouted a challenge to the manticore.

Sure enough, the manticore peered over the side of the top of the tower to see who had challenged it. At the same moment, Arwin and Kargen reached the top of the tower.

The manticore dived off the top of the tower and pounced on Enree, knocking him unconscious. From the entrance of the cave Mala and Gad taunted the manticore, which moved to attack them. Arwin loosed a bolt at the manticore but missed, and the crossbow bolt landed on the ground. But his second shot found its mark, and pierced the side of the manticore.

It seemed then that the manticore would once more take flight and flee, but just then Kargen leapt off the top of the tower and landed on the back of the manticore - the impact knocked the wind out of the dwarf, but also caused the manticore's legs to give way. At that moment Enree came to, and seeing the crossbow bolt near his body, he seized it, and stabbed the manticore in its face. The monster stopped moving. 

The party rested for a while, and then Kargen returned to the cave to loot Atoko's treasure and retrieve the stone orbs, while the rest took the head of the manticore as trophy and proof, and afterwards they retreated once more to the river before more orcs could arrive.

Prepping and Running the Game

This session concluded the first of three modules which I have planned for our campaign. I had imagined that they players will enter the tower by overcoming the stone guardian, but they had a different idea, and I broke my rule of not allowing them to use poison to overcome enemies because, frankly, it was a reasonable one.

As a result of their plan I had to improvise much of the session, and instead of fighting orcs and the manticore, they ended up fighting the manticore twice. The first fight was "instructive" as it established that the manticore could control minds, while the second fight was interesting tactically due to the terrain, and the way the players devised their strategy.

I was a little surprised by the players' decision to kill the helpless orcs, but I suppose it fit the theme of the campaign. For the next arc of the campaign I will be running The Scourge of Northland by the same author; whether they will treat the orcs they encounter in the next arc remains to be seen.