slaughterj
Mongoose
I ran The Lost Garrison adventure last night, and thought I'd post the results 
It was run directly after last session, which I ran The Black Stones of Kovag-Re, which affected the session a little bit. Several things below might be of interest for others to include when running the adventure.
****WARNING - DOUBLE SPOILER ALERT!****
The party was already in Zamora, having finished the Black Stones of Kovag-Re adventure, where they animated the black monoliths and caused Oleksa the governor to be smashed by them. [The following I summed up in a narrative before they started.] They tried to return to town, but were spotted by guards the governor had put on duty, and had to flee the scene. They reached the Yezud area, low on cash, and hired on for some mercenary work. One of the party is a Zamorian, BTW.
As described in the adventure, the adventure started with the party being told they were being sent to the village of Stencovar in the mountains with other mercenaries (the Zamoran party member was put in charge) to check on the missing garrison. They headed out, and met up with the Turanian party, realized they shouldn't be there, had a heated discussion with the Khan including finding out that some Turanians had gone missing (important at the end), and got a natural 20 on an Intimidate check to send him packing! He headed off sort of back the way he came to search for the kozaks.
The party encountered the madman near town, who ran a wide circle around the party, being kicked by a party member on horseback in the process and sent sprawling, and finished his circle, and darted back into the hills. The party didn't want to mess with a madman, but was concerned they were cursed (e.g., a hedge wizard), so I made them make Will saves (That night when they went to sleep, the low rolling party member had nightmarish dreams of cackling, and the sky ripping open with toads dropping from above - this confirmed the curse for him, as well as set up some nice foreshadowing )
The party reached town, spotted the missing items but for the feedbacks, and set about investigating the disappearance, including talking with the "prospectors" (the party didn't believe that for a second ), and noticed the "degenerate" nature of the townsfolk and eventually the odd language. At the inn where the "prospectors" were at, the bar was reasonably occupied, but described as pretty subdued, and they saw the barkeep, the cleaning woman Hunda, the prospectors, and other townsfolk. They also encountered the Spider priest (who told them that the "prospectors" got the garrison) and dancing girl, and tried to get a blessing to remove the "curse", and were told also to come back for the evening session. They went to stake out the bandits in the early morning (who told them the kozaks must have got the garrison), but they had already left, so they missed them, and then went to rough up some goatherders they heard talking in the funny language, where they found out about the black monolith, but the goatherders told them that the bandit prospectors kill the garrison there.
The party went to investigate the monolith with great trepidation, since this was directly after the Black Stones of Kovag-Re, and ended up failing terror checks They did see blood stains in the dirt in the area from previous sacrifices though. The party returned to the town to the Temple, about when the evening session was to be over, only to find the door partly open no one apparently there. One went inside, and the door slammed shut behind him! Another ran up and found it barred, while the one inside leaped for a hiding place, but then heard a frightened low voice call out - it was Julia, the dancing girl, who had hid when the Spider priest was abducted, and told them of the rituals at the monolith and that the people didn't really worship at the Temple. The party returned to the inn, where one party member was met secretly by Hunda and given the note to meet the Spider priest at the chasm. Though he was taken, they decided to follow up on this, but also wrote a note to give to Hunda to have taken back to Yezud to warn of what was happening here?!?!?! LOL! (important later)
The party went to the chasm, saw the robed figure, and approached, only to be attacked by the 2 man-apes. One mauled the far-circling party member's horse, while the rest of the party & NPCs were heading directly toward the priest on foot and one NPC was mauled to death by the other man-ape. They ranged-attacked the "priest" who died, falling into the chasm, but that didn't disrupt the man-ape attacks! They battled the apes, with another falling to the man-ape, and each man-ape was "To the Hilted," which ended up being the damage which slew each! (I ruled that the "To the Hilt" damage kicked in when an action was decided on, so in each case, the man-apes raised up their mightly limbs to strike, and just at that moment, keeled over, before able to consummate the swing - made for good dramatic action!)
The party then spotted the campfires back toward the monolith area, and decided to head there and see what was up, only to see the ritual underway and the townsfolk chanting and bent over in a truly beastial position. They saw Hunda as the high priestess (doh, they gave her the note earlier!), with a couple of Turanian captives (connects with the early meeting with the Turanian patrol), and Julia the nice looking dancing girl! Hunda then slew a Turanian, lightning was crashing, the sky was rumbling and swirling, and a party member shot an arrow at Hunda only to strike another townsfolk, who fell over dead into the monolith at which time the sky ripped open and the Toad God roared and grotesquely leaped forward, smasing some townsfolk in ecstacy! The archer ended up killing Hunda, another went to rescue Julia, and the Toad God proceeded to smash those around and gobble them down by lashing out with its sickly pink-purple tongue (I added that for dramatic effect!), which the townsfolk either fled screaming, battled the rescuer, or writhed in ecstacy. The NPCs fled back to the chasm to retrieve the party horses (and I made the Zamoran leader roll a diplomacy check to see if they would bring them back or just take off, and he rolled a natural 20! - he didn't know what the roll was for until I told him when they later got to the NPCs). The party regrouped with Julia in tow and fled toward the chasm, with the Toad God giving chase, violently shaking the ground with each landing. They met up with the NPCs, and set out back toward the chasm, getting the idea of luring the Toad God into it (note, the rescuer Turanians did not show - I made them deal with the situation ). They had to roll ride rolls, and the lowest roll fell behind (ended up being an NPC mercenary) and was gobbled up horse and all by the tongue-lash and maw of the Toad God. (Note, the man-apes killed 2 men, and 1 horse, so they were up 1 horse, and thus had just the right number once they got Julia ) The party road around the chasm, got Julia onto the Zamoran's horse, and left the other horse just on the other side as Toad God bait. The Toad God arrived and leaped after the horse as bait, when the party archer rapid shot for basically max damage, resulting in the Toad God barely reaching the other side, with its front legs scrambling to pull it up - two more arrows from the archer (again, rolling about max damage!) caused it to lose its grip, and its tongue lashed out and grabbed the horse bait and both the Toad God and horse plummed into the chasm below, presumably dead The party they fled the scene, widely around the town, and never did discover the garrison's dead bodies, but the next night's sleep was a peaceful one, with no dreams of frogs from the sky
Note, the curse & foreshadowing dream, the Turanian captives, the townsfolk dead by the arrow and falling into the monolith to complete the sacrifice ritual, and the toad's tongue were just spontaneous developments I threw in on the fly
Overall quite a fun adventure, and clever of the party to lure the Toad God to the chasm
It was run directly after last session, which I ran The Black Stones of Kovag-Re, which affected the session a little bit. Several things below might be of interest for others to include when running the adventure.****WARNING - DOUBLE SPOILER ALERT!****
The party was already in Zamora, having finished the Black Stones of Kovag-Re adventure, where they animated the black monoliths and caused Oleksa the governor to be smashed by them. [The following I summed up in a narrative before they started.] They tried to return to town, but were spotted by guards the governor had put on duty, and had to flee the scene. They reached the Yezud area, low on cash, and hired on for some mercenary work. One of the party is a Zamorian, BTW.
As described in the adventure, the adventure started with the party being told they were being sent to the village of Stencovar in the mountains with other mercenaries (the Zamoran party member was put in charge) to check on the missing garrison. They headed out, and met up with the Turanian party, realized they shouldn't be there, had a heated discussion with the Khan including finding out that some Turanians had gone missing (important at the end), and got a natural 20 on an Intimidate check to send him packing! He headed off sort of back the way he came to search for the kozaks.
The party encountered the madman near town, who ran a wide circle around the party, being kicked by a party member on horseback in the process and sent sprawling, and finished his circle, and darted back into the hills. The party didn't want to mess with a madman, but was concerned they were cursed (e.g., a hedge wizard), so I made them make Will saves
(That night when they went to sleep, the low rolling party member had nightmarish dreams of cackling, and the sky ripping open with toads dropping from above - this confirmed the curse for him, as well as set up some nice foreshadowing )The party reached town, spotted the missing items but for the feedbacks, and set about investigating the disappearance, including talking with the "prospectors" (the party didn't believe that for a second
), and noticed the "degenerate" nature of the townsfolk and eventually the odd language. At the inn where the "prospectors" were at, the bar was reasonably occupied, but described as pretty subdued, and they saw the barkeep, the cleaning woman Hunda, the prospectors, and other townsfolk. They also encountered the Spider priest (who told them that the "prospectors" got the garrison) and dancing girl, and tried to get a blessing to remove the "curse", and were told also to come back for the evening session. They went to stake out the bandits in the early morning (who told them the kozaks must have got the garrison), but they had already left, so they missed them, and then went to rough up some goatherders they heard talking in the funny language, where they found out about the black monolith, but the goatherders told them that the bandit prospectors kill the garrison there.The party went to investigate the monolith with great trepidation, since this was directly after the Black Stones of Kovag-Re, and ended up failing terror checks
They did see blood stains in the dirt in the area from previous sacrifices though. The party returned to the town to the Temple, about when the evening session was to be over, only to find the door partly open no one apparently there. One went inside, and the door slammed shut behind him! Another ran up and found it barred, while the one inside leaped for a hiding place, but then heard a frightened low voice call out - it was Julia, the dancing girl, who had hid when the Spider priest was abducted, and told them of the rituals at the monolith and that the people didn't really worship at the Temple. The party returned to the inn, where one party member was met secretly by Hunda and given the note to meet the Spider priest at the chasm. Though he was taken, they decided to follow up on this, but also wrote a note to give to Hunda to have taken back to Yezud to warn of what was happening here?!?!?! LOL! (important later)The party went to the chasm, saw the robed figure, and approached, only to be attacked by the 2 man-apes. One mauled the far-circling party member's horse, while the rest of the party & NPCs were heading directly toward the priest on foot and one NPC was mauled to death by the other man-ape. They ranged-attacked the "priest" who died, falling into the chasm, but that didn't disrupt the man-ape attacks! They battled the apes, with another falling to the man-ape, and each man-ape was "To the Hilted," which ended up being the damage which slew each! (I ruled that the "To the Hilt" damage kicked in when an action was decided on, so in each case, the man-apes raised up their mightly limbs to strike, and just at that moment, keeled over, before able to consummate the swing - made for good dramatic action!)
The party then spotted the campfires back toward the monolith area, and decided to head there and see what was up, only to see the ritual underway and the townsfolk chanting and bent over in a truly beastial position. They saw Hunda as the high priestess (doh, they gave her the note earlier!), with a couple of Turanian captives (connects with the early meeting with the Turanian patrol), and Julia the nice looking dancing girl! Hunda then slew a Turanian, lightning was crashing, the sky was rumbling and swirling, and a party member shot an arrow at Hunda only to strike another townsfolk, who fell over dead into the monolith at which time the sky ripped open and the Toad God roared and grotesquely leaped forward, smasing some townsfolk in ecstacy! The archer ended up killing Hunda, another went to rescue Julia, and the Toad God proceeded to smash those around and gobble them down by lashing out with its sickly pink-purple tongue (I added that for dramatic effect!), which the townsfolk either fled screaming, battled the rescuer, or writhed in ecstacy. The NPCs fled back to the chasm to retrieve the party horses (and I made the Zamoran leader roll a diplomacy check to see if they would bring them back or just take off, and he rolled a natural 20! - he didn't know what the roll was for until I told him when they later got to the NPCs). The party regrouped with Julia in tow and fled toward the chasm, with the Toad God giving chase, violently shaking the ground with each landing. They met up with the NPCs, and set out back toward the chasm, getting the idea of luring the Toad God into it (note, the rescuer Turanians did not show - I made them deal with the situation
). They had to roll ride rolls, and the lowest roll fell behind (ended up being an NPC mercenary) and was gobbled up horse and all by the tongue-lash and maw of the Toad God. (Note, the man-apes killed 2 men, and 1 horse, so they were up 1 horse, and thus had just the right number once they got Julia ) The party road around the chasm, got Julia onto the Zamoran's horse, and left the other horse just on the other side as Toad God bait. The Toad God arrived and leaped after the horse as bait, when the party archer rapid shot for basically max damage, resulting in the Toad God barely reaching the other side, with its front legs scrambling to pull it up - two more arrows from the archer (again, rolling about max damage!) caused it to lose its grip, and its tongue lashed out and grabbed the horse bait and both the Toad God and horse plummed into the chasm below, presumably dead The party they fled the scene, widely around the town, and never did discover the garrison's dead bodies, but the next night's sleep was a peaceful one, with no dreams of frogs from the sky Note, the curse & foreshadowing dream, the Turanian captives, the townsfolk dead by the arrow and falling into the monolith to complete the sacrifice ritual, and the toad's tongue were just spontaneous developments I threw in on the fly
Overall quite a fun adventure, and clever of the party to lure the Toad God to the chasm
