Campaign Journal: A Question of Tactics, or, Questionable Tactics?

We're on the march with:

• Frederick - Revived thief
• Jax and Goober - Barbarian and reliable sidekick
• And a player to be named at a later time.

Rondel and Slick were off due to work commitments, and Fulvus was doing halfling things.

The party, along with their contingent from Chirath and Lenscrafters(tm) started at Ashryn Tower, with some more lens maintenance. That night, as they prepared to head north, Jax (likely via Faith Perpetual) received another vision, that of an old knight, who let the party know that challenges lay ahead (like we didn't know that), and that those who went before were waiting for them when the time came. Nothing foreboding about that.

Anyway - off they went northbound. While scouting ahead, Fred and Jax came on a small Chaos mutant raiding party, which they dispatched with minor difficulty. Fred finally upgraded to +1 leather. 

They paused at the Vansho Reliquary to reactivate that stronghold's lens and check in with its NPC party (and the undead knights in the crypts). (*Author's note - we skipped this location because the DM borked up his notes.)

Slowed by the entourage, the party snaked north. Another encounter, this time zombies.

howdy

Surprisingly (positive die roll) these were "friendly" zombies, undead remnants of the old battles of the western lands. Or "lawful undead" as they were christened.

The more the merrier.

As the column approached the location of the Vansho Reliquary, Benedikt and Gerhard flew ahead, scouting. And rapidly returned with a ballista bolt hole in their flying carpet. Clearly unfriendlies. The two reported it defended, and areas surrounding the ruins flooded by dammed creeks. Needing more intel, Frederick slipped ahead, and found breaches in the ruins barricaded and abatis filling other gaps between fortifications.

source

Back to strategize. Damn having no spellcaster tonight...

Benedikt figured his troops could storm the area, but they would need either distraction or support to not take too many losses to disable the siege weapons. Hey! We have zombies! As well as a few leftover "Hugo Special" smoke bombs found in the bottom of packs. Well, it's almost like magic. 

A couple of smoke bombs were fired at the barricades to create cover as the zombies lumbered forward to push the barricades back and take out the dams. And find several pit traps. Very helpful. 

At this moment, another brewery regular, Tristan, stopped by to check on progress. And was roped into playing Bendikt. "You have a flying carpet, a magic sword, and a bad Austrian accent. Go." I handed him a spare bag of random dice. We completed a couple of combat rounds as he rolled two 1's in a row. Now I'm used to playing with Tim and his sorry rolls, but this was unusual. Especially when we noticed  that the d20 also had multiple 20s. Huh.

The culprit 

Turns out my gallon bag o' random dice included one "high variance" d20. Saved for later shenanigans... 

Back to the regularly-scheduled battle with a correct d20.

Some improvised mass battle rolls, and the troops took the fortifications with significant losses, including from flung green slime. But what can you do?

As the party breached the tower containing the lens mounting, they were deafened by a blast from within. The lens had been functioning, erratically, when they originally found it, and apparently it had become more unpredictable.

Thankfully, the rumbling from below didn't need hearing, and a chimera burst out. Flying, bear head, lots of legs. The usual. More brief, chaotic battle, as they were then counterattacked by an escaping vivimancer. Everyone survived a potentially fatal spore blast spell and bumrushed the bad guy. What's he got? Ooo... flying broom. I can't see that creating a nuisance...

Time to pause and replace the damaged lens, consider how to garrison this hardpoint, and prepare to assault the next point north, the Keep of Madruel.  

Artist's rendition

DM Notes:

As always, run for who shows. I plan my sessions with some flexibility for challenges and encounters, and tend to flex things to be challenging for the PCs, depending on number and capabilities. So it remained engaging. And having a cooperative passerby didn't hurt, either. (Benedikt's character sheet prepared in case of a repeat showing.)

Yeah, I missed a 'node' in our network. Doh. It's manned by an NPC party, so I can retro some info or events next session, but it's not really critical.

That said, the End is Nigh. Quite a bit of noodling around in the background with notes and potentials. Moving of elements, or changing some conditions to keep myself from getting too painted into a corner, as well as giving the PCs some opportunity to plan and get that hero thing going...