Dramatis Personae

Previously . . .

It’s been several years since the group has gotten together. Crow, the previous mascot of the group has grown up alongside them, though more in the jail than outside it, and has joined into their shenanigans. About a year prior a wizard joined up, Alabaster, though he has to sleep on the floor in the common area due to lack of bed space. Rashi has adopted a rather large fire badger out of loneliness.

Back At the Hideout

Alabaster, Crow, Keel-Breaker, and Rashi
Karsh (Ninth Month), 11th, 986 F.R., 6th Hour of the Moon (12:00 pm)
Illitude County, Northern Veneficia, Sicatra 

Crow, true to her name, picks up some shiny coins from the pockets of others and buys a snack on her way home before donating the rest to group before taking it back out and following Rashi, Keel-Breaker, and the badger to a bar. They overhear a rumor about some strange occurrences happening around Dead-Stone Keep. A large amount of Imperial Soldiers came around and burnt the place to the ground years ago. It’s said that it’s possibly haunted, but still contains the wealth of all those that have died there. The man telling the tale is a rather okay lumberjack that was felling wood by the area. When questioned about how he heard about it, he claimed he saw dark shadows and wasn’t brave enough to travel further. Keel-Breaker, on the other hand, claims to be brave enough and asks for the location.

Trekking and Tree-Trolls

Alabaster, Crow, Keel-Breaker, and Rashi
Karsh (Ninth Month), 19th, 986 F.R., 6th Hour of the Sun (6:00 pm)
The Wilds, Northern Veneficia, Sicatra 

It’s about 140 miles from their location forcing them to plan logistics. Hauling everything they need in their trusty sledge. The weather is quite horrible, but they’re still able to take the road for better time. Heading out, Alabaster hunts with Ice Dagger while Worrell, the fire badger, takes down some prey for himself and Rashi. Crow manages to net some squirrels while Keel-Breaker gets their own food figured out. The next day, slowly but surely, they walk along the road in a downpour. They encounter various travelers that keep trying to buy their fancy yurt. Trying to keep going, they cut cross country with Keel-Breaker leading the way (who makes successful Navigation (Land) and Weather Sense rolls to cut down travel time). Sticking to the road for a while they march 3.5 miles per hour, but soon as they start crossing country it goes down to 1.625 miles per hour and is slow going.

Stopping for the night, they’re in the process of starting camp when they hear something crashing through trees. Crow disappears into the shadows while Alabaster moves back away from the noise while Keel-Breaker stands his ground. Out of the darkness lumber two large trees screaming about things being defiled. Worrell charges from the shadows and latches onto one of the tree’s limbs, gnawing its way through, lightly burning. Keel-Breaker fells one of them and hacks into one of them. Trying to get back to its feet, Rashi then hits the felled tree in the kneecap with his Holy Bolt doing 7 points of crushing damage.

Alabaster charges up a 4d Acid Ball while Crow stays in the trees keeping silent and going branch to branch keeping in stealth. Worrell continues to worry the tree, getting close to setting it on fire (doing 8 points of burning damage). Keel-Breaker attacks the Tree-Troll, slamming through it with his boat anchor while another attempts to stomp Worrell. Rashi throws out a Holy Bolt, missing the Tree-Troll. Alabaster aims for the Tree-Troll’s nuts causing it to try to fall over avoiding it and taking 24 points of corrosion damage. The bark on its nuts is stripped away and it screams in pain.

Crow remains in the trees while Worrell chews on the Tree-Troll. Keel-Breaker smashes into the prone tree with his boat anchor again. The Tree-Troll manages to smash into the badger doing 12 points of damage, burning itself in the process but causing Rashi great pain. Despite the pain, Rashi still sends a Holy Bolt straight into his familiar’s opponent. Alabaster charges up a 1d Acid Ball while Crow throws a knife towards the fallen Tree-Troll. It’s ineffective.

Worrell gives his Tree-Troll one last gnaw before running off. Keel-Breaker goes into wood chipper mode and slashes at it with his boat anchor for 21 points of cutting damage. The singed Tree-Troll charges towards the rest of the group. Alabaster throws his 1d Acid Ball at the charging monster, eroding bark from its legs while  Crow draws some more knives and then throws at the prone Tree-Troll doing 2 points of impaling damage.

Worrell bites and runs from the Tree-Troll while Keel-Breaker does a double attack on the singed Tree-Troll, hooking its leg with Death’s Reaper. Tree-Troll gets into crouching while the singed one swings at Keel-Breaker, its blow being blocked by his shield. Rashi, deciding to buff Worrell, casts Fast Fire on the strange familiar, causing it to explode into flames and vibrate. Alabaster steps closer to the back of Keel-Breaker and charges up another Acid Ball (2d this time) while Crow throws another dagger at the Tree-Troll doing 2 points of impaling damage.

Worrell, now super-speeded, gnaws at the singed Tree-Troll’s limbs for 7 points of cutting damage and 12 points of burning damage before backing off and preparing to dodge. Keel-Breaker attempts to pull the singed Tree-Troll’s out from under, but it’s far stronger than the minotaur. The fallen Tree-Troll finally finds its feet and the singed Tree-Troll whacks at Keel-Breaker, his shield taking the blow. Alabaster’s Acid Ball sizzles off the singed Tree-Troll’s bark while Crow keeps position. Knives aren’t needed here, axes and torches are.

Worrell does another bite and attack while Keel-Breaker smashes the Tree-Troll’s face with his boat anchor, finally smashing it into firewood before turning to the fallen one and screaming, adding Intimidating a Tree-Troll to his list of accomplishments. Crow carves into the heart wood, barely managing to scratch it and doing only a single point o cutting damage.

Worrell runs up and bites at it, singing the other Tree-Troll, while Keel-Breaker attacks what looks like a neck. Crow barely gets out of the way of the Tree-Troll smashing at her. Rashi throws another Holy Bolt while Alabaster charges up an Acid Ball. Crow moves in close and stabs it. Worrell continues his tree terror campaign while Keel-Breaker attacks the tree’s neck again, this time cutting its head off. As it falls, Crow comments they won’t need to cut down any firewood tonight.

Rashi heals his badger familiar and then rests for five minutes to recuperate the health he transferred to Worrell. In the meantime, Keel-Breaker harvests the trees, getting two Tree-Shen Hearts worth a considerable amount of energy and worth. Using up his excess energy, Worrell tracks down dinner for that night, exploding through several rabbit dens, bringing home some home-cooked meals which Rashi enhances with Essential Food.

Assault on Deadstone Keep

Alabaster, Crow, Keel-Breaker, and Rashi
Karsh (Ninth Month), 21st, 986 F.R., 9th Hour of the Sun (9:00 pm)
Redstone Keep, Northern Veneficia, Sicatra 

They’re making good time across the country, almost marathon times every day. On the 10^th day, they stumble on the Deadstone Keep towards dusk. Seeing a goblin in the dark, Crow heads off for some fun stabbing while Alabaster tends towards looking around, noticing that the walls look like they used to be magical. Casting Sound Vision on Crow lets her move around in the darkness, climbing onto the broken wall and targets the throat of the goblin sentry, slitting it. It knows that they’re there but without vocal cords it cannot say anything much when Crow stabs it in the vitals.

With Rashi having the equivalent of a torch for a mask, he’s not moving up fast with the rest of the group. Crow gives a thumbs up which Keel-Breaker misinterprets before Crow moves back towards her next target: a goblin munching on some cooked lamb. Another throat slit, another panicking goblin, and then two stabs to the vitals, taking the goblin down before proceeding down stairs. She can see the sound of someone talking and eating, blocked by a barred door. Peeking through a keyhole, she sees a goblin that looks like a mage, one with a funky blade, and one that is wielding a rather large sword. Crow barely manages to get back and convinces them to follow her back towards the stairs, though Rashi expresses some doubt towards the fact that he and the badger tends to glow in the dark.

The first thing that people with noses smell is the fact that it’s a rather foul abattoir. As soon as they leave the staircase, they can hear a laugh from the north behind the barred door and then a large stone falls and drops onto the staircase blocking their way back up. From the west is a hallway from which a rather loud and large mosquito looking creature flies out. Keel-Breaker and Crow identify them as striges. They drink blood and they always show up in groups, Keel-Breaker is able to detect that there’s 30 distinct scents as they flood into the room the group is in.

The first strix moves to grapple Crow who dodges out of their way while Keel-Breaker gets grappled. One attempts to grapple the badger, but Worrell’s Fire Aura scares it off. Keel-Breaker moves to squish it but it dodges away. The one attached to Worrell pops like popcorn under the badger’s heat. Rashi, seeing what’s going on, turns on his Fire Aura as well to match his Familiar. Alabaster throws a Mana Bolt which gets dodged along with Crow’s knives, and instead she gets grappled by one.

Keel-Breaker, having been grappled, gets bitten by the bug burrowing through his tough skin. Worrell charges forwards to wait at the entrance to the hallway, the first bug coming through will get gnawed on. Keel-Breaker jumps backwards into the wall to smash the bug. To keep more bugs from coming in, Rashi fills the hallway with fire while Alabaster Mana Bolts the skull of the one grappling Crow, killing it. Despite the fancy knifework, Crow misses the bug which proceeds to grapple him.

Keel-Breaker, not liking the situation, moves forwards to pop the bug via Wrestling, but misses along with Rashi’s Holy Bolt. Alabaster’s Mana Bolt kills it. With the hallway filled with fire, Rashi moves it forwards with Shape Fire and then casts Fire Cloud to create more room for them, driving them off with fire. Coordinating with Alabaster to create a Wall of Lightning, Rashi moves in the fire and cooks them all, trapped between a fire and a zapper. With the bodies gone, they drop the spells and recuperate real quick while Keel-Breaker searches the nests and the eggs.

Aftermath

There’s plenty there and the wings on the bugs go rather well as wizard ingredients. Searching the nest, they find some gloves, a vial of liquid, and a really freaky looking knife that looks like it’s made out of darkness. Alabaster’s wizard eyes see that the knife is obviously enchanted, Alabaster can tell that it has the ability to strike blind the targets, which Crow immediately grabs. The vial of liquid is an Oil of Penetration which Crow also claims. The gloves found are Graceful Gloves which refit to the wearer and increases their wearer’s dexterity and helps people from fumbling which then gets grabbed by Crow as well. The session ends with Crow holding her hands over the badger to sterilize the gloves.

After Action Report (GM)

Back to Aersalus after a trip through multiple other campaigns. Dungeon Fantasy is the most basic of games, but it’s also the most fun. Playing GURPS through the lens of your years playing Dungeons and Dragons is a heady tonic and one in which I’ll always go back to in the end. I left this campaign in a bit of a hurry last time and instead of trying to find the threads of the story I opted to just shift 5 years into the future. It was easier that way. The PCs are still part of a delving company and have been for some time. One of the NPCs they picked up (Crow) ended up becoming a PC after one of my players opted to play her instead of his previous character (Nergui) who died in the basement of the Tarrel country estate.

Travis is having to sit out the game for a bit, and we miss him, but Will is doing well and was very helpful in dealing with the small horde of striges I threw at the PCs for a nasty surprise.

Other Notes

None.