GACKS AAR: Session 6

GACKS AAR: Session 6

We've reached the point where statistically most of the conventional games fall apart - session #6. We had a short hiatus in terms of in-person sessions due to lack of free time, but after two weeks we gathered again for a session. These two weeks between the sessions were dense with faction-level events, so let's dive into what happened there first. Note that only public events are posted below - there was a lot of secrecy behind the scenes.

Goblins Seen Near Or-Tabram

Squads of goblins are seen in the lands surrounding Or-Tabram. It seems that they're looking for an entrance to the Underdark, but some of them had combat encounters with the dwarven militia.

Gnomish Cavalry Enters Or-Tabram

Locals of Or-Tabram report seeing a group of 13 dog-mounted gnomes, flanked by 12 boars, entering the city of Or-Tabram. Stopped briefly at the city walls, the party processed through the city. Onlookers describe the party as ornately dressed in fine, clearly only ceremonial armor made of wood bark and plant matter, with their leader donning a wooden hat carved from a single log, with a live sparrow perched on top. A few of the dogs carried covered wicker baskets in their mouths. The gnomes headed through the city and headed to the Great Hall.

Barbarians Attacked Near Or-Tabram

The Sky Rider delegation has left Or-Tabram accompanied by several mercenaries from the Steelwing Company. A few miles away, they found out that an entire goblin army was waiting for them in the hills. About 200 strong, assisted by a dozen of fearsome fainil lancers in the sky, they descended on the barbarians like an avalanche. Sky Riders tried to retreat while fighting off the goblin menace, but the retreat quickly turned into a full rout when conjured hail of stones, clouds of toxic green mist, and lightning pummelled the barbarians. Every three out of ten warriors were dead or captured, and even elder-chieftain Nyvor Stormrunner suffered a major wound from a fainil lance. The remainder of the forces managed to reach Or-Tabram.

Goblin Celebration

Great victory feast celebrated in the goblin camp over the battle with humies. Deep into the night goblin singing and merriment can be heard. Shamans perform disgusting rituals over the defaced corpses while warchiefs gloat: humies weak! dwarves weak! goblins STRONG!. Such a feat happens only rarely!!! Some goblins are unhappy about fainil mercenaries receiving their pay and flying away tho. Diminishes the victory!

Goblin Camp Razed

The combined forces of dwarves, gnomes, and Steelwing mercenaries advanced on the goblin encampment from both sides - surface and tunnels. The goblins definitely were aware of the attack, as the hawk scouts reported seeing quasits flying in the sky. However, the most unexpected part was that there also was a long, sinous dragon of bronze color flying above the encampment alongside a wyvern. The wyvern didn't participate in the battle, but the dragon occasionally descended to pour streams of acid on the goblins or snatch some of them off the defensive positions. The caves under the camp were abandoned, and the entrance to the surface barricaded and trapped.

Volleys of arrows met the attackers, and the most perceptive ones could spot a couple of Steelwing archers manning the goblin walls. Why are they attacking their own? Underground, some dwarves fell to the traps, but the others began burning and demolishing the barricades, when something they did not expect happened. A pair of deformed giants with misshapen features and limbs came out from behind, swinging their clubs around, easily smashing the armored dwarves into walls. Under their gazes, others began experiencing terrible pain as their own bodies started to deform and spasm. While the attacking force managed to deal significant damage, they took more casualties than expected.

The combined army pressed the attack, with the goblins defending desperately from three directions. Acid, claws, arrows, gunfire filled the air, and eventually the goblin chieftain took a mortal wound alongside one of his shamans. In the tunnels, the dwarves managed to kill the two giants, but all three dark dwarf firebringers perished during the operation. The camp was looted, with large chests of various coin being seen among the attackers.

Fainil Fortify Tunnels

Reports of big activity coming in from Thyhalera as fainil fortify the entrance to the cave system under the city. Some talk of orcs and ogres having been seen in the tunnels but also rats. No doubt recent events and dwarven assault on goblins coming from under the ground have influenced this.

Another Dwarven Watchtower

The dwarves of Or-Tabram are building yet another tower. This one overlooking the lake to the north.

Gnomish ambassador arrives in Shimmerleaf

A small gnomish group has been sighted arriving in Shimmerleaf, riding on dogs, accompanied by boar, and carrying baskets of local goods. A truly unusual sight within Shimmerleaf. For some in the kingdom, this may well be the first sighting of an outsider.

    Before I talk about what happened during the session, I'd like to comment on some faction stuff. As you can see, the faction of forest gnomes now appeared as if out of nowhere - in reality, it's been there from the beginning, but their interaction with the others was limited. We had two mass battles that were resolved with GURPS Mass Combat rules - first, when the barbarians were ambushed by the goblins and fainil, and the second, when the coalition of human mercenaries, barbarians, forest gnomes, and dark dwarves put an end to the goblin menace.

    What surprised me here is just how easily convergences happen, and that sometimes actions that may seem inconsequential have significant effects. For example, during the first fight of goblins and barbarians, the fainil lancers and warmage that were assisting the goblins from the skies, played a pivotal role - without them, it would've been much closer. But then, the fainil player simply recalled his troops from the goblin camp, and this did skew the odds against the goblins.

    Also, the goblins always knew what to expect, where the fortifications, traps, and dwarven patrols are, and always enjoyed a Recon superiority bonus, which allowed them to win the initiative? How? The reason was uncovered (partially), but it hasn't been made fully public.

    What about the dragon (and wyvern) and fomorians that appeared out of nowhere? When the coalition found out about it, their players said "Wait, how come we have a dragon on our side? Also, I had no idea the goblins have giant allies." When the goblin player saw that, he said "Wait, how come I have giants on my side? Also, I had no idea the dwarves had a dragon ally." Once the battle was over (both fomorians got killed), the dragon circled above the razed camp until the coalition forces looted everything, then sent in a wyvern to snatch the chest with the most valuable loot, ignored attempts at communication, and flew away. The players still have no idea what happened there, but that was one very serendipituous convergence. The details cannot be disclosed yet, but some players speculate that the dragon is an ally of the barbarians, as they have dragon shamans who venerate bronze dragons.

    What I like is that in this sort of game, things that are practically unused in conventional game are used. For example, the appearance of the dragon made two faction leaders do a dive into the siege weapon chapter and get some ballistae. In a conventional game, the GM won't use ballistae against the players, as those would just one-shot them and waste the stack of paper used to print their backstories, and the players won't use them because they are stationary weapons, and because they won't be useful unless the GM introduces a fight where they will be useful (and even if he does, the main target probably will always dodge or miraculously survive to make the fight less anticlimactic - what's the point of "big guns" then?)

    Speaking of barbarians, their leader, who was initiatlly with the coalition in Or-Tabram, the dark dwarven town, mysteriously disappeared, leaving the troops by themselves in the dwarven town. Nobody knows what happened.

SESSION #6

We made the mistake of not deciding what the players are going to do beforehand again. Thus, I arrived to the session without preparing anything, and we discussed what the players want to do. The players had 8 PCs stationed in Or-Tabram, the dark dwarven town. Remember the disappeared barbarian leader and abandoned barbarian troops? These troops decided to come back to Wolfhome by themselves. Three most injured PCs went with them, while the five remaining ones decided that it'd be a good idea to come back to the dungeon they found in the woods to the west of Or-Tabram, where they had a fight with some tall mouthers before retreating to recover.

Weather, however, decided to be very windy, hot, and dry. Wind speed of 40 mph halved overland movement speed, and hills halved it again. The players decided not to wait and went to the dungeon slowly. As they entered the woods and set camp, they had a random encounter at night (closer to the morning) - a trio of hungry and aggressive terror birds.

Now, let's have a short interlude. If you've ever played GURPS, you probably know that low-tech armor is very underwhelming, as swing damage scales so fast that armor becomes irrelevant. The online character optimizers always say that the best GURPS fighter is one that doesn't get hit, so staying at no encumbrance and relying on active defenses is the preferrable way to fight. My players are new GURPS players, and they haven't been tainted by this. They go the other way - they get as much armor as possible, often in two layers. Thus, they usually have somewhere between 5 and 9 DR almost everywhere. However, I am using No School Grognard's reduced swing damage, which in my opinion is one of the most important houserules that greatly improves low-tech games. Thus, my players' approach of armoring themselves is actually viable.

Back to the birds. They can't hurt the PCs, unless they use All-Out Attack (Strong). So, what happens when two terror birds assault the most heavily armored character of the group? Their dragon shaman casts Hellfire - an area effect fire spell with an armor divisor of (3), centered on the birds and his ally, and rolls maximum 12 damage. Due to retreating successfully, the PC took only 3 points of injury, but the birds were dead.

Did they douse the flames on the grass and bush? Of course not, they decided to bolt for the dungeon, as it wasn't far away. I rolled weather for the new day, hoping the wind would subside, but it increased to 55 mph instead. So, the PCs go into the dungeon, and begin wandering the Appendix A-generated hallways and empty rooms, until they found a staircase to a lower level, where they finally manage to find a non-empty roll full of treasure - coin, bundles of fur, bags of clothes, vegetables, iron ingots, and even a potion. The players thought that this must be a stash of some bandits or smugglers. As they discuss how to split the weight of the treasure, I read online about the speed of forest fire spread. Apparently, the rule of thumb is ~10% of wind speed.

So, the characters haul the treasure back to the starting room and see that everything outside the dungeon is engulfed in flames and that it's safer to stay inside. I have no idea how long it would take for the flames to burn through everything outside, so I roll 1d6 and say that it will take 2 hours. The second hour finally triggers a wandering monster check. One of the player jokes "What, are we going to get eaten by a death worm?" So, I roll and actually get a purple worm. I roll some dice to determine where it is going to emerge and whom it's going to notice with tremorsense and, of course, the dice decide that the worm emerges right where the joking player's character stands (that's that pyromaniac shaman). He fails to dodge and gets swallowed whole. The worm was just passing through, so it ignores the rest of the party. I guess that was the punishment for burning down the forest.

The rest of the party goes outside into the burnt down forest and hauls the supposed bandit stash to Or-Tabram. (There actually was a bandit camp nearby, but not anymore due to obvious reasons.) But here's the thing - the player that controls the dark dwarf faction introduced a tax on adventurers bringing loot. They don't want to pay, so they camp outside, while one of them goes inside to purchase a donkey and a cart. Then, they go eastward toward Wolfhome, the barbarian hometown. All's good, but they find that there's a large gnoll warband blocking the only bridge across the river. Five characters and a donkey can't handle more than a hundred gnolls, that's for certain, so they turn around and take the long way around the lake.

Miraculously, they avoid the majority of random encounters (including glimmerfolk patrols) - the only one they got was a boar that ran away. In the glimmerfolk woods, they found [made you look], and as they passed Thyhalera, the fainil fort, they also found [redacted]. Somehow, they managed to avoid the fainil patrols as well. Finally, they arrived to Wolfhome, where they find out that apparently the barbarians are not only beset by orcs in the north, whom their chieftain is already fighting with his army (yes, the same chieftain that mysteriously vanished from Or-Tabram), but the gnolls raid their southern lands. In addition, there's a new shaman in town that claims that ancestral spirits talk to him in his dreams, telling him to refuse the dragon totem and instead worship the Great Spider Spirit who will protect their lands from invasion. This nascent cult already has followers, and the other shamans are trying to avoid an open confrontation because it's better to focus on the outside threats right now.

The other shaman PC, however, confronts the spider shaman, who promptly tells him to go pound sand. The PC shaman casts a lightning bolt at the spider shaman and misses. The shaman T-poses and tells him to do it again, he won't be dodging. The PC shaman casts a lightning again and misses again. Then, he smacks the spider shaman with a stick, after which the spider followers pull them apart. The players decided that they will handle the new cult later, and for now they will help out with the gnolls, so they went south to find some kind of gnoll raiding party to kill.

They do find a gnoll party of six. The gnolls came in three varieties - warriors (axe + shield), barbarians (two-handed axe), and slave-takers (shortsword + net). Nets were thrown, and one hit the mark. If you've ever used nets in GURPS, you probably know that the rules in GURPS Basic Set are quite dysfunctional, so instead with used the rules from DFRPG Exploits. I'll drop the details, but the PCs won, one gnoll escaped, and two PCs got severely wounded (don't do All-Out Attacks if the foe can retaliate). There were broken skulls, severed limbs, and an estoc broken due to a critical failure. That's where we ended the session.

The loot that the PCs hauled out of the dungeon was immense for your conventional GURPS game (~$39k), but for this sort of game it wasn't that big. This is the first time there was enough loot recovered to have the PCs earn an extra character point via Gold-as-XP. Next time, the players probably will play a glimmerfolk party. And now I have to notify some faction players that they lands burned down (or maybe they'll find out about it from this report.)