Campaign Game 4: Herding Rangifers

Seems like forever since we last played.  Unfortunately we would be short three of our regular members.  The scenario would be Run of the Rangifers.  And it would be David's last game before he moves.  You can read Quail's report here: Borough of the Beastmen

A view of the table

A Rangifer looking for a victim

Bemis and Agarn were unable to successfully cast any of their preparatory spells except for one - Bemis did manage to cast Reveal Secret.  The other spells - two x Write Scroll and two x Familiar - all failed.  Unbeknownst to Bemis, this foretold a day of reduced magic energy surrounding the two.

While focusing on the revealed treasure location, Bemis ascertained that it would be found at the base of a large ruined bridge.  It would be in an area of the frozen city he had not explored yet.

Starting position for Bemis

As the warband made preparations to go exploring, Bemis gave Niko what he thought was a Potion of Invisibility and a scroll of Leap to Agarn.  He then split his band into two groups and moved out. 
As the party reaches the top of the ruined bridge, Nigel and Niko see an antlered creature to their immediate front.  It doesn't look happy.


Bemis and friends

Nigel signals to move up and surround the beast.  So Niko decided to drink his potion of invisibility.  He took a sip, immediately spit the foul substance out, and threw the bottle to the ground.  The bottle shattered and an unnatural darkness spread across the area greatly reducing visibility (Bottle of Darkness, visibility reduced to 12 inches).  Bemis had given him the wrong potion.  The darkness would hamper his warband's search but it would provide protection from ranged weapons and spells.  However, the noise of the breaking glass caused the creature to turn towards them.  Nigel pushed Niko forward and quickly followed him into contact with the beast.  Nigel was able to to slightly wound the beast. 

Hatch moved off to the right to explore a ruined building.

Over in Agarn's group, Kleppo sees a small runic stone on the base of a nearby statue and moves to pick it up.  While he was up there, he spotted another stone off to the left.  Shadow was already trotting off in that direction

Bemis and Agarn both tried to cast Drain Word but were unsuccessful.

Nigel and the lads fighting a Rangifer

Nigel was quickly joined by 9Toe and Diesel Vin while Vale skirted the combat and moved further along the old stone bridge.  While the others kept it busy, Nigel managed to strike it down with a single well placed thrust.  After the creature fell, Bemis told Diesel and Niko to go join up with Agarn's group, so he scurried down the side of the bridge.  Niko looked down and spotted a strange runic object half covered with snow.  He picked it up and stuck it in his bag.  He then followed Diesel.

Rangifer down

Bemis once again failed to cast Drain Word.  Was the darkness affecting his magicial abilities?  Something seemed to be wrong.

Agarn decided to use a scroll to Leap Piko to the top of a nearby tower.  The view would allow him to vector the warband to likely locations to search for treasure. Of course Agarn did not factor in the fact that visibility was greatly reduced.

Kleppo moves past Agarn towards the stone he had spotted earlier.  Shadow III is sniffing around the stone when an arrow causes him to jump.  He looks around and sees some of Quail's henchmen.  With a growl, he takes off running towards them.

Vale is attacked by another of the strange creatures sporting antlers.  At the same time, a third creature climbs up the ruined bridge right in front of 9Toe. 

After a series of blows and parries, Vale is cut down and falls from the walkway onto the rocks below.

Vale falls to a Rangifer

Not far away, Nigel finds himself outfought by one of the antlered beings.  He receives a slight wound from one of the creature's antlers.  But then, with a series of lightning thrusts and ripostes, Nigel beats his way through the creature's defenses and drops it to the ground.  Yelling a dwarven battle cry, 9Toe then moves around Nigel to engage the beast that took down Vale.  9Toe went in hard and straight and takes the creature down with a single blow.

9Toe avenges Vale

Bemis and Agarn again find their attempt to cast spells thwarted by some unnatural force.  Both experience burns from magical blow back (Bemis 1 damage, Agarn 2 damage).

Shadow jumps on Quails archer but is quickly whacked in the head and knocked senseless.

Kleppo picks up the runic stone and adds it to one in his pack.  Hopefully Master Bemis will know what to do with them.  Just as he puts the rune in his pack, he has to quickly draw his axe to fend off Quail's mutt.

And again Bemis is unable to muster the magic needed to cast a spell.

Agarn was watching Kleppo's progress when something struck the ground beside him.  He jumped and squealed in surprise.  Quail's archer had attempted.  He glanced down and noticed the arrow was fletched with quail feathers; they never fly straight.


Piko on top of the tower

Up on top of the tower, Piko had picked up a rune stone.  He moved to the edge and dropped the rune into the snow below.  Niko moves over and grabs it.

Seeing Kleppo in trouble, Agarn tries to cast Transpose on Kleppo and Diesel Vin.  The near miss by the arrow must have unsettled him as he has to really push hard to get the spell off (sacrifices six health).  Quail's dog was surprised to see he now faced a more formidable foe.  The dog manages to push Diesel back and with its tail between its legs, runs for home. 

Diesel teaching Quail's archer a lesson

Diesel spots the archer that shot at Agarn and moves to extract some payback. He quickly charged the young archer.  As he closed he shout "This is for shooting at the lad".  And with a fierce volley of attacks, he smacks her on the side of her head with the flat side of his axe.  Diesel then scans the area - he sees Quail apprentice to his front and contemplates getting back at Quail's warband again.  But there are sounds of a fight above him on a walkway.  Looking up, he sees a wraith kill one of the horned creatures.  And in a wink of the eye, the wraith is blown off the walkway and off into the darkness.  Then Diesel spots a rune stone laying on the walkway.  He starts to climb up to retrieve it.  As he does so, Piko is climbing down with the same goal in mind.  One of them has to get there before Quail's team.  Agarn solved that problem by successfully casting Telekinesis and moving the rune to Diesel (One of the three successfully cast spells all game).

Meanwhile, back on the bridge..... As 9Toe is celebrating his kill, he has to duck as an arrow flies by narrowly missing him.  He spies one of Alfred the Unready's archers on the far side of the walkways.  But before the archer can shoot again, Bemis finally manages to cast a spell.  A wall of Fog appears blocking the archer's line of sight.

Bemis casts Fog to protect his warband

Suddenly Bemis sees a ball of elemental power explode on the walkway between 9Toe and Nigel .  When the smoke clears, he breathes a sigh of relief - both men were completely unharmed (Alfred cast Elemental Ball but then rolled poorly, or rolled well, depending on your point of view).  Nigel looked across and spotted Alfred the Unready chuckling as he faded into the darkness.  And with that, Bemis called to his band to start to withdraw.  He glanced down at Vale laying on the rocks below and hoped he would be okay.  Then he suddenly remembered the other treasure.  Bemis shouted down to Kleppo, "Search the base of the bridge before you pull out".  Fortunately, in the first place Kleppo searched, he found a bundle covered in several layers of whale-skin.  He quickly stuffed it in his pack and hurried to catch up with the others.

As the group moved out of the ruins, Bemis kept glancing back to look for Vale.  He hoped he would be able to make it back.  Nigel put his hand on Bemis' shoulder, "Don't worry boss, he'll make it".  Bemis nodded and trudged homeward.

End game photo

Once back at the library, Bemis examined the day's haul.  One small chest with two potions and 50 gold coins, the whale skin package containing a grimoire of Brew Potion (Maybe Bemis needed to learn a bit more about potions), and five runic stones.  The stones were meaningless but that didn't stop Agarn and the boys from trying to make a word out them - with no success.  About this time the door opened and in staggered Vale.  There was much rejoicing and the mead flowed freely.  As the lads were celebrating, Bemis turned his nose to his books, always looking for more knowledge to absorb (Successfully cast Absorb Knowledge but failed his Library roll to find a scroll or grimoire).

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Another good game only marred by the fact that David would be leaving our gaming group and heading northward in search of fame and fortune.  His absence will be noticed. 

The Bottle of Darkness changed the game by reducing the line of sight to 12 inches.  I think it reduced the number of casualties and limited the usefulness of certain spells - mostly spells Bemis doesn't have, so Yay!!

I also failed to take many pictures, must have been because of the Bottle of Darkness - that's my story.....

Well, I need to get this posted, our next campaign game is just three days away.