Friday, July 23, 2010

When Kobolds Attack

Having dispatched the last of the kobold guards - not least the tenacious Dragonshield who would not wilfully leave the magic circle - Argent walks up to the waterfall, pokes his head through, and immediately jumps back aghast! From the other side of the cascade, the kobolds, already forewarned by the Slinger, are spurred into action by the large goblin, Irontooth. "Attack them! Orcus will have much blood this day!"

Ten Minions, three Dragonshields, three Skirmishers, a Slinger, a Wyrmpriest, and Irontooth himself all lunge forward, throwing themselves through the waterfall and surrounding Argent and Zahig. Realising that discretion is the better part of valour, Zahig retreats and the kobolds swarm further to flank Argent and Vogir.

Cutting around themselves, Argent and Vogir manage to thin the crowd of Minions while Zahig and Bayern support their attempts and Daelagor begins to sneak around the back of the kobold lair. Alas, the weight of numbers tells against Argent and he is felled by overwhelming blows from Irontooth's battle axe, the Skirmisher's spears, and the Dragontooth swords.

In an effort to save Argent, Zahig and Bayern combine forces. Zahig creates a huge ball of fire which clears a path through to Argent which the Cleric takes, and he manages to stabilise and revive the fallen Barbarian. Still with the upper hand, however, the surrounding kobolds attack again and knock the prone Dragonborn unconscious once more.

In a bid to save his fallen comrade from a final death blow, Bayern stands over him - protecting him - but is himself ruthlessly brought down by the mob. Vogir too leaps to put himself between the kobolds and his dying comrades. Fighting valiantly, he and Zahig manage to kill the majority of the Kobolds; but Irontooth and a Dragonshield finally overwhelm him. Vogir crumples to the mound already comprising Argent and Bayern.

Daelagor maneouvres his way around the back of the Wyrmpriest and sneakily strikes him from behind. Clutching desperately at any opportunity to send a death sacrifice to his Demon Lord, however, the kobold ignores his attacker and instead unleashes an orb of reh hot fire at the prone Argent. Whilst an unlikely shot, he makes it. Trying to staunch their own wounds, Vogir and Bayern hear the Dragonborn sigh softly as he slips into Oblivion; "Killed by Kobolds... I shall wait by the gates of Hell itself to have my revenge... Rawr..."

Irontooth and the one remaining Dragonshield fling themselves at Zahig who defends himself effectively with his armour of blades and his blazing fireball. The Dragonshield is soon incinerated, but Irontooth shows no sign of stopping - in fact he seems to have become stronger and entered a blood-maddened state.

Dalaegor finally gains the upper hand against the Wyrmpriest - stealth and finesse eventually winning out against magic. He turns his attention to the beleaguered Zahig, and sending off a flurry of shurikens, drops Irontooth finally to the ground. Clutching a crude tattoo in the form of a ram's head on his charred and smouldering arm, Irontooth screams in defiance "KALAREL, PREPARE MY WAY THROUGH THE PORTAL! ORCUS, MY SOUL COMES TO MEET THEE!" and tumbles to the ground - fire still burning his clothing and flesh.

In anger and revenge the young magician stamps on the dead goblin's head - smashing the face into a bloody mess of bone and ligament. He wrenches the iron tooth that gave the goblin his name from his jaw and looks at it ruefully. The tooth symbolises a reward of 100gp from Lord Padraig, back in Winterhaven.

As Daelagor stalks silently off into the lair and Bayern and Vogir come round, Zahig sighs out loud.

"100gp. No consolation for the loss of a friend..."

16 comments:

  1. A fitting account of an epic battle!

    The balance of power was perfect, tipping precariously between certain victory and ignominious defeat.

    In the end we won, but at what cost?

    Scott, you can now add yourself to that rare breed: Killer DMs. Congratulations!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kirk had to try for a lot longer before making it to that level ;-) And how did you know Daelagor would immediately sneak into the cavern? What do I find? I'm very careful, you never know how many sneaky kobolds are left in there. And I make sure the dwarf is not with me so I can kill any remaining children.....

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Killed by Kobolds... I shall wait by the gates of Hell itself to have my revenge... Rawr..."
    LOL!
    :)
    Well Argent and I followed our much discussed game plan to its ultimate end.
    The only surprising result was that only one of us died.
    :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Once we started, I realized too late that we probably shouldn't have gone up to an entrance large enough to allow lots of enemies to swarm around and flank us. Also, this is why we need Defenders!

    ReplyDelete
  5. True. I suspect that Scott took wry delight that the absent Ghanash would have altered that battle significantly.
    :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Well, I suppose who we were really missing was that elusive paladin. So elusive I can't even remember his name ... but he is a proper defender, no?

    ReplyDelete
  7. *Insight Check: You (all) recall that the Priestess of Avandra knows the 'Raise Dead' ritual...

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anyone got 700gp?
    Vogir's can contribute around 30gp...
    :(

    ReplyDelete
  9. Wow, I don't think we can afford that even if we all chip in our savings. And it's not that the cost of the ritual is so high - it's that we're still a bunch of 2nd-level punks! You know, even if we scraped together the money to raise Argent, we would have finished another adventure or two by then, meaning that we would be at level 4 or so while Argent would still be at level 2. Christoph, this is your call.

    ReplyDelete
  10. 700GP is not so much.
    I thought it was going to be thousands.

    I would think that we had about 300 amongst us, and the rest we can get from the bank. :P

    In all honesty I would say it was better for Christoph to design a new character, say called Aurum ;-) and play that next time.

    None of us will mind, and he can be a little less "shouty" than good old Argent.

    ReplyDelete
  11. We can't afford it. Sorry Argent.
    The Heraldic equivalent of Gold is called: Or.
    :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. You may well be able to afford it, if you sell some items. Keep in mind you haven't had all the treasure from last session's encounters yet - and there'll be some goodies from this one too.

    Also, being resurrected is a bit different in 4th ed. You come back at the same level as when you died, but you take a -2 to quite a few things until you reach three milestones. After that you're all back to normal!

    It costs more in the higher tiers. An epic tier character costs 50,000gp to bring back...

    ReplyDelete
  13. Leaving the practicalities aside, I think this is a death Argent would have liked. His last words were a little less poetic that one could wish for, but he fought valiantly, and he died against an overwhelming force, defending his friends, with a smile on his face. Ever since you have met him, Argent has longed for such a death; he was stuck in the past, longing for glory not attainable in this time. There was nothing there for him in this world, anymore.

    And most importantly, he died, proudly wearing his father armor into battle. I dont think he waits to long at the gates of hell, he might have already gone on to meet his family and old friends, for the one gathering that lasts forever. I dont think he will be coming back ...

    ReplyDelete
  14. Vogir reaches down and unclips the golden amulet from Argent's neck.
    :(

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hinteresting :)

    Not a level down is good. Us all being poor is not good. Having Argent back is good.

    On balance, I think we should at least have a go at scraping the money together. We can even ask lord harrington to help us.

    However, there is a game playing aspect that needs to be considered. To sell stuff and then get Argent resurrected will require that we abandon the search of the Kobold lair. otherwise Christoph sits around waiting while we search and fight for potentially most of a session.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Don't worry about the Kobold lair. Daelagor is already in there to check that you are save and they are all dead. Daelagor starts thinking about the dead when he can be sure the perimeter is secured and all enemies gone. Showing emotions for the fallen and forgetting about the dangers still lurking in the dark has killed many good men. Daelagor knows. He usually is those shadows.

    ReplyDelete