Aboleth Group - "Fight, fight, fight!" - LMOP Session 11
4th Sep 2019, 7:45 – 11:15pm
In-game timeline: Start of session, day 9. End of session, day 9.
Our “Heroes” are resting in Quelline’s farmhouse after a tiring few hours of deception and negotiation with Redbrands and a nothic named Ishtar.
The initial battle plan of “So we just kill everything” was discussed at length, alternative plans of persuading, negotiating, threatening, rousing villagers into a pitchfork march and sneaking were all relatively quickly dismissed, and the original plan of “So we just kill everything” was the only option that remained. And so off they went.
Heading back to the secret entrance, the group spent some time hacking off the leg of the dead Bugbear, Giles, with a view to offering it as fresh food to placate him. Not sure why they took half of Quelline’s ham, and lugged it all this way, only to instead offer a hacked off Bugbear leg instead, but this group are very proficient at making things up as they go along.
There was no sign of any Redbrands at the entrance, which was lucky as their attempt at being stealthy was, to be honest, laughable. Mallorn pulled Geoffrey out of his little pouch – a statement which generated much mirth, especially as Geoffrey, being a summoned familiar, didn’t live in a pouch, but instead is dismissed and summoned to and from another plane entirely. Still, Mallorn obviously liked getting things out of his little pouch.
Geoffrey was sent in to scout ahead, and nothing untoward was seen, so the party headed back in. Ishtar was in his cavern, as evidenced when they heard his whispering voice in their heads. They offered him Giles’ leg to eat, and he seemed very pleased to receive it, and left them alone – though any suggestion that he would help them dispose of Redbrands was not met with enthusiasm. So the party left Ishtar feasting on a Bugbear leg and headed round to the cistern room.
A brief debate on whether to offer to spare the Redbrands took place. Derrick got bored and just headed for the door, intending to kick it open and just kill everything in sight. Esme managed to stop him and a vague plan was quickly knocked up between them.
The plan worked pretty well – Esme opened the door remotely with Thaumaturgy, Derrick threw an axe at the first thing he saw, who happened to be Byron, the Redbrand they spoke to earlier, but missed, and then was a little surprised when the Redbrand, Byron, took offence at that and the three Redbrands in there emerged, swords drawn.
Mallorn hit them with his Web spell, managing to catch two of them in its sticky strands. Unfortunately the web also caught Derrick too. The Redbrands had no ranged weapons though, so the ones that were stuck were pretty easy pickings for the ranged attacks of the group, though Derrick did get hit a couple of times, as he was stuck fast in melee range of the enemy. With only one Redbrand left, Derrick tried to intimidate him into surrendering, but his voice at that moment decided to go all high pitched and rather camp, and the Redbrand was torn between attacking Derrick and laughing at him. He didn’t last much longer, though.
With three dead Redbrands at their feet, the group decided to strip Byron naked for some reason (well, I think that was Derrick’s idea), and drag his naked dead body back to Ishtar to give him some more fresh food.
Unfortunately, when they got back to Ishtar’s cavern, a javelin came almost out of nowhere and smashed into the wall behind Esme. It seemed that the Bugbears had somehow been alerted to the group’s presence, and were attacking them from the other side of the chasm!
Whilst one of the Bugbears stayed behind and threw javelins at the group, generally badly, the other two headed up to the bridge to get across to them. Mallorn managed to fire off another Web spell, which successfully managed to stop them in their tracks, and the party had another round or two of ranged attacks at the bugbears while they frantically tried to escape the web. Eventually they did so, though not before the party had taken out the Bugbear across the cavern, with Mallorn striking the killing blow, and also not before one of the trapped Bugbears had bellowed out a warning – its shout echoing throughout the cellar system.
The two other Bugbears, now free from the web, moved in on the group, large morningstar weapons at the ready. Derrick bravely moved up to engage them, taking significant damage from a hefty swing, but allowing the others to slowly whittle down the health of the enemy.
Unfortunately, as the last two Bugbears were drawing their last breaths, some more Redbrands appeared, both in front of and behind the party. Weakened as they already were, the group managed to find inner strength and Esme and Pruni dispatched the Bugbears, with Esme cleaving their leader almost in two, causing his bejewelled eyepatch to fly off as her warhammer smashed his head.
The Redbrands managed to engage the weakened group, and did significant damage. Mallorn, Derrick and Pruni all took hits – Pruni unable to use her usual hiding tactic and was playing the price. Derrick went down, unconscious. Esme managed to cure Derrick remotely (due to an oversight from the DM forgetting that cure wounds is a touch-based spell!), allowing him to stand up just in time to get battered unconscious immediately by the Redbrands who had only just knocked him unconscious the first time! Still, it stopped them getting to the healer, Esme. When Pruni then got knocked unconscious too, leaving only Mallorn and Esme still standing, and they were looking rough, things were not looking good for the group. Esme and Mallorn absorbed a couple more hits from the Redbrands – luckily they didn’t do too much damage, while Mallorn, remembering his magic missile spell, managed to take out the last two of the Redbrands before they could bring down either himself or Esme, both of whom were probably one hit away from unconsciousness.
Derrick had managed to stop himself from bleeding out, but Pruni was very close to death (having failed two death saves). Esme used her Channel Divinity to distribute some health between them, reviving the whole group. Mallorn took advantage of her distraction and quickly grabbed the bejewelled eyepatch that was previously worn by one of the Bugbears, and the group retreated to the Bugbear room to catch their breath.
Finding Pob the Goblin cowering in the room, they first tried to persuade, then intimidate, him to stay with them and cooperate. Pob was terrified, but not intimidated, and made a run for it, but Esme managed to grab him, drag him back in the room, and plonk herself in front of the door, preventing his escape, while the group rested up for an hour.
And so we leave our “Heroes”, recovering from a couple of major battles in which two of them fell unconscious, one of them twice, and the remainder were not far from it too. Battle plans seemed to pay off, with Mallorn’s spells managing to stop the enemy and allow for some damage-dealing before the devastating melee attacks arrived. Derrick distracted the Bugbears and Redbrands long enough for the others to wear them down, and avoid being taken out themselves, whilst Pruni nipped in and out of hiding to cause decent damage. Esme kept the group alive, while scoring some good hits with her hammer too. An impressive group effort that managed to keep the group alive through a couple of tough battles. But what of Glasstaff? He has been nowhere to be seen so far. Does he have other Redbrands to call upon? Will he be able to pick off a weakened party? And who is he, anyway?
In-game timeline: Start of session, day 9. End of session, day 9.
Our “Heroes” are resting in Quelline’s farmhouse after a tiring few hours of deception and negotiation with Redbrands and a nothic named Ishtar.
The initial battle plan of “So we just kill everything” was discussed at length, alternative plans of persuading, negotiating, threatening, rousing villagers into a pitchfork march and sneaking were all relatively quickly dismissed, and the original plan of “So we just kill everything” was the only option that remained. And so off they went.
Heading back to the secret entrance, the group spent some time hacking off the leg of the dead Bugbear, Giles, with a view to offering it as fresh food to placate him. Not sure why they took half of Quelline’s ham, and lugged it all this way, only to instead offer a hacked off Bugbear leg instead, but this group are very proficient at making things up as they go along.
There was no sign of any Redbrands at the entrance, which was lucky as their attempt at being stealthy was, to be honest, laughable. Mallorn pulled Geoffrey out of his little pouch – a statement which generated much mirth, especially as Geoffrey, being a summoned familiar, didn’t live in a pouch, but instead is dismissed and summoned to and from another plane entirely. Still, Mallorn obviously liked getting things out of his little pouch.
Geoffrey was sent in to scout ahead, and nothing untoward was seen, so the party headed back in. Ishtar was in his cavern, as evidenced when they heard his whispering voice in their heads. They offered him Giles’ leg to eat, and he seemed very pleased to receive it, and left them alone – though any suggestion that he would help them dispose of Redbrands was not met with enthusiasm. So the party left Ishtar feasting on a Bugbear leg and headed round to the cistern room.
A brief debate on whether to offer to spare the Redbrands took place. Derrick got bored and just headed for the door, intending to kick it open and just kill everything in sight. Esme managed to stop him and a vague plan was quickly knocked up between them.
The plan worked pretty well – Esme opened the door remotely with Thaumaturgy, Derrick threw an axe at the first thing he saw, who happened to be Byron, the Redbrand they spoke to earlier, but missed, and then was a little surprised when the Redbrand, Byron, took offence at that and the three Redbrands in there emerged, swords drawn.
Mallorn hit them with his Web spell, managing to catch two of them in its sticky strands. Unfortunately the web also caught Derrick too. The Redbrands had no ranged weapons though, so the ones that were stuck were pretty easy pickings for the ranged attacks of the group, though Derrick did get hit a couple of times, as he was stuck fast in melee range of the enemy. With only one Redbrand left, Derrick tried to intimidate him into surrendering, but his voice at that moment decided to go all high pitched and rather camp, and the Redbrand was torn between attacking Derrick and laughing at him. He didn’t last much longer, though.
With three dead Redbrands at their feet, the group decided to strip Byron naked for some reason (well, I think that was Derrick’s idea), and drag his naked dead body back to Ishtar to give him some more fresh food.
Unfortunately, when they got back to Ishtar’s cavern, a javelin came almost out of nowhere and smashed into the wall behind Esme. It seemed that the Bugbears had somehow been alerted to the group’s presence, and were attacking them from the other side of the chasm!
Whilst one of the Bugbears stayed behind and threw javelins at the group, generally badly, the other two headed up to the bridge to get across to them. Mallorn managed to fire off another Web spell, which successfully managed to stop them in their tracks, and the party had another round or two of ranged attacks at the bugbears while they frantically tried to escape the web. Eventually they did so, though not before the party had taken out the Bugbear across the cavern, with Mallorn striking the killing blow, and also not before one of the trapped Bugbears had bellowed out a warning – its shout echoing throughout the cellar system.
The two other Bugbears, now free from the web, moved in on the group, large morningstar weapons at the ready. Derrick bravely moved up to engage them, taking significant damage from a hefty swing, but allowing the others to slowly whittle down the health of the enemy.
Unfortunately, as the last two Bugbears were drawing their last breaths, some more Redbrands appeared, both in front of and behind the party. Weakened as they already were, the group managed to find inner strength and Esme and Pruni dispatched the Bugbears, with Esme cleaving their leader almost in two, causing his bejewelled eyepatch to fly off as her warhammer smashed his head.
The Redbrands managed to engage the weakened group, and did significant damage. Mallorn, Derrick and Pruni all took hits – Pruni unable to use her usual hiding tactic and was playing the price. Derrick went down, unconscious. Esme managed to cure Derrick remotely (due to an oversight from the DM forgetting that cure wounds is a touch-based spell!), allowing him to stand up just in time to get battered unconscious immediately by the Redbrands who had only just knocked him unconscious the first time! Still, it stopped them getting to the healer, Esme. When Pruni then got knocked unconscious too, leaving only Mallorn and Esme still standing, and they were looking rough, things were not looking good for the group. Esme and Mallorn absorbed a couple more hits from the Redbrands – luckily they didn’t do too much damage, while Mallorn, remembering his magic missile spell, managed to take out the last two of the Redbrands before they could bring down either himself or Esme, both of whom were probably one hit away from unconsciousness.
Derrick had managed to stop himself from bleeding out, but Pruni was very close to death (having failed two death saves). Esme used her Channel Divinity to distribute some health between them, reviving the whole group. Mallorn took advantage of her distraction and quickly grabbed the bejewelled eyepatch that was previously worn by one of the Bugbears, and the group retreated to the Bugbear room to catch their breath.
Finding Pob the Goblin cowering in the room, they first tried to persuade, then intimidate, him to stay with them and cooperate. Pob was terrified, but not intimidated, and made a run for it, but Esme managed to grab him, drag him back in the room, and plonk herself in front of the door, preventing his escape, while the group rested up for an hour.
And so we leave our “Heroes”, recovering from a couple of major battles in which two of them fell unconscious, one of them twice, and the remainder were not far from it too. Battle plans seemed to pay off, with Mallorn’s spells managing to stop the enemy and allow for some damage-dealing before the devastating melee attacks arrived. Derrick distracted the Bugbears and Redbrands long enough for the others to wear them down, and avoid being taken out themselves, whilst Pruni nipped in and out of hiding to cause decent damage. Esme kept the group alive, while scoring some good hits with her hammer too. An impressive group effort that managed to keep the group alive through a couple of tough battles. But what of Glasstaff? He has been nowhere to be seen so far. Does he have other Redbrands to call upon? Will he be able to pick off a weakened party? And who is he, anyway?