GACKS AAR: Session 7

GACKS AAR: Session 7

Let's see how the week went. Below is a compilation of SEEN posts, for the most part caused by faction players, and a session report.

Betrayal!

Chief Nyvor Stormrunner mustered an army to go against the orcs. Led by quasit scouts dispatched from Thyhalera, the army found an orcish camp that seemed abandoned. The truth was, however, that the orcs (and a dozen of ogres) were prepared for the attack. A brutal battle ensued, where the winner was difficult to determine. Near the end, when both forces were exhausted to their limit, reinforcements of the orcish forces arrived - the fainil along with their summoned demons crushed the barbarians, and chief Nyvor's heart was pierced by the treacherous fainil spear. This is what was told by one of the very few survivors who fled the battle.

Wolfhome Leadership Changes!

With the untimely death of Chief Nyvor Stormrunner the leadership of Wolfhome has shifted to a counsel of the 3 eldest shamans. The chief's mantle was rejected by the Chief's wife. Rumors are that she left for the mountains to commune with the spirits of lightning and thunder.

Spider Cult is No More

Vile spider cultists have been rooted out of Wolfhome. However, they were not immediately executed and were put to work on the Wheel of Pain, may the merciful wheel purge their heresy and weakness.

Steelwing Mercenaries Clear a Cavern

Steelwing Mercenaries were spotted heading to a cavern where boarmen had been seen. The mercenaries slew several inhabitants and were seen headed to Or-Tabram with loot and barbeque.

Gnoll Raid Repelled

The might of the barbarian horde was unleashed by a young, hot-headed commander. This prodigy of strategy and fighting prowess scattered the gnolls while leading from the front. Barely any losses were taken from the barbarians' side. 'Halcynnion Gnoll's Bane Dragon Runner' took a dozen gnoll heads himself, and has a crafted himself a cape from the beast's fur. The gnoll chieftain remains at large and the counsel has put out a reward ~$2,500 for his body, and $7,500 for his live capture.

Barbarian Chieftain is Alive?

Elder-chief Nyvor Stormrunner was seen visiting the outskirts, small villages and camps, and areas around Wolfhome making a shocking claim:

"The battle was a success, we managed to defeat the orcs but then we were betrayed! A cabal of shamans that now took power, betrayed and backstabbed me, killing everyone that came with me! I myself barely survived because of fainil help, it is not true what they said, the fainil are our friends and allies and the shamans are the corrupt usurpers."

The chieftain also proclaims that the Great Spider Spirit is a friend of barbarians and fainil and will help them root out evil within. He calls upon all who trust in him and the Correct Way to gather to fight the usurpers. Long live Wolfhome!

Spider Markings on the Barbarian Tents

Following the return of the true chieftain Elder-chief Nyvor Stormrunner people of Wolfhome declare for him! Around 100 households declare for the chieftain openly, in defiance of the counsel, bearing the mark of the Great Spider Spirit, the true and noble protector of Wolfhome.

Glimmerfolk among the Ashes

The new ash field near Shimmerleaf is abuzz with fuming glimmerfolk working to prevent further fires. They stop and question any and all parties passing by, even beyond the treelines, about recent past travelers. Few would dare holding out information when encircled by the hostile warriors.

Shimmerleaf Whispers

Somebody is spreading malicious rumors about Prince Eldith of Shimmerwood, claiming that he should be much more concerned about the well-being of his people. The glimmerfolk population remains loyal to the Prince, but it's unclear who attempted to influence the public opinion.

Mohrg Returns

The troglodyte mohrg who was terrorizing the dwarven peasants weeks ago, has returned. Avoiding militia patrols, it managed to sneak into a peasant home and kill an entire family. The monster was spotted hauling the bodies into the woods.

Assault on the Orc Fort

A combined army of dark dwarves and Wolfhome barbarians led by steward Baridmun Drakedigger assaulted an orc camp to the north of the lake. The defenders were falling left and right to dwarven gunfire and volleys of arrows, but steward Drakedigger was gravely injured in battle, where his hearth guard failed to protect him. The orcs eventually fled, losing almost half of their numbers.

Orcs Gather

Clan Uggrit is bloodied but not beaten! Even as dwarves and humans lick their wounds and celebrate their small victory orcs and ogres are called up from the entire region to join the clan in its war! Plunder and raiding promised, humans and dwarves beware!

Proclamation from Thyhalera

Thyhalera kindly informs all orcs, ogres, gnolls, bullywugs, humans, glimmerfolk, dwarves, gnomes and other sentient races to kindly avoid entering close proximity of the city with any armed forces to avoid incidents of military nature.

COMMENTS ON FACTION ACTIONS

This week was very action-packed on the faction level. I had to adjudicate three mass combats, which probably is more (by 3) than your typical GURPS GM does during his entire GMing career. All three of them were quite different.

The first one was that siege of the orc camp. This was a grind that took 9 or 10 rounds, when usually a mass combat ends in ~3 rounds or so. The battle also was very close, and the result of mutual annihilation was not only possible, but likely. As amusing as that would've been, the dice decided to favor the orcs in the last round, barely averting a deadly draw. The barbarian chieftain allegedly fell in combat.

The Wolfhome barbarians were assaulted by the gnolls from the south at almost the same time. At least that was the plan, but barbarian trappers managed to win the reconnaissance contest by a huge margin, achieving an ambush, not just surprise. The barbarians were led by a quickly generated new sub-chief character that got a very high Strategy skill due to sheer luck. Even though the forces were almost even, the ambush provided a massive advantage, and the gnolls were soon routed.

The final battle had a combined army of ~80 dark dwarves and ~110 barbarians siege the same orc fort where the barbarian chieftain fell. The forces weren't even, with the numbers advantage being on the dwarf+barbarian side, but the orcs prepared scorpions (ballistae, not arachnids). Led by a trio of bullywug shamans (where did they come from?) and their quasit familiars, they still had the strategical advantage over the attackers due to being fortified. However, the dice seemed to be in the mood to help the attackers, so the orcs decided to retreat to reduce casualties after 2 or 3 rounds. However, steward Baridmun Drakedigger became a casualty, so this fort caused death of not one, but two faction leaders.

Or did it? GURPS Mass Combat says that the troop casualty percentage does not affect the PCs or major NPCs. A PC reduced to 0 or fewer HP due to Misfortunes of War can be dead, dying, captured, left for dead, etc. - up to the GM. You know, there's a huge difference between "dead" and "dying" or "captured," and leaving it up to the GM's whim seems lame. If your force won the battle, then it's actually very difficult to die for the commander or other major characters due to Misfortues of War. Thus, I decided to look into ACKS II RR and adapt its officer/hero casualty rules. The basic version that I got looks like this:

A hero/commander casualty who hasn't died on the battlefield due to injury must make a HT roll at the end of the battle, at +3 if his army was victorious, and +1 if his army decided to hold the field instead of pursuing. On a success, he survives and becomes stable; on a tie, a random body part becomes crippled in addition to this. On a failure, he's dead.

Also, I have to say that I thought that the entire forest gnome faction would need to evacuate or perish due to the massive forest fire caused by the PCs during the previous session, but due to a very good Professional Skill (Forester) roll, the disaster was averted. The forest gnomes survived, but now it's obvious where their grove is, because everything else burned down. The glimmerfolk also became more proactive due to the forest fire, which is a very positive development.

SESSION #7

This time, the players created new characters for the glimmerfolk faction. Three of them were randomly generated and got insane attributes (I'm talking things like ST 14, DX 14, IQ 11, HT 13). There were two fighters with bills, one with a greatsword, an archer, and a "wizard" with a single spell - Ice Blast. The spell is actually quite powerful - a cold cone attack that ignores most DR and drains FP.

The faction leader didn't give them a quest or anything like that, so they were on their own. They were aware of a dragon lair in their forest (obviously, this is something they will not engage as fledgeling adventureres), a cave with five cyclopes, and some kind of shrine just north of the forest, near Thyhalera (the fainil fortress).

They went for what was the most sensible thing (in their minds), and that is to go find the cyclopes. They arrived into the hex, but as they didn't know where exactly that cave was, they had to wander around using my adapted ACKS procedure for that. On the very first attempt (a failed one), they rolled a random encounter - a patrol of five hobgoblins. They were rather quickly taken care of, with their sergeant fleeing the scene. One of the hobgoblins got a critical hit from an arrow to his eye, but his comrade smacked one of the PCs in the skull for 12 (or was it 16?) injury from behind. The man didn't even faint, merely fell and got back up.

Due to language barrier and poor IQ rolls, it was difficult to interrogate the surviving hobgoblins. One of them, however, was forced to lead the PCs to the camp on the outskirts of the forest. A die roll told us that there are 80 combat-capable hobgoblins in the camp. Basically, this random encounter manifested a new faction into being that (for now) is not player-controlled.

The players didn't see eye to eye on the cyclopes search, and after some arguing decided to abandon it in favor of taking a look at the shrine. The thing is that the dungeon under the shrine was already almost completely cleared out twice before them, but it got repopulated once again with some... interesting creatures, let's say. The PCs went inside, encountered a stuck door, and bashed it in with Forced Entry, finding themselves in the company of 12 naginata-wielding abeil warriors and 2 abeil workers. Abeils, if you do not remember these monsters, are industrious, non-evil beefolk with a hive mind. The reaction roll was Neutral, but the communication wasn't going well. The abeils used their drone ability to put some of the party to sleep, and then shooed them away.

Do you really think the party would give up and go away? No, they returned to the dungeon and went another way, encountering a guardian naga in a room with an altar and some loot in a bag. Now, the glimmerfolk are xenophobic, as in "intolerant of other races," but one of the players decided to take it literally and gave his character the Xenophobia disadvantage. Thus, he had to roll against it here, got spooked, and went berserk, attacking the naga. The naga didn't really expect this ferocity, and as the other PCs came in to help, it was killed in a single second. The loot was nothing special - just a couple thousand copper pieces and some cheap jewelry.

In another room, the PCs found a magic circle with a trapped (in stasis) an angelic-looking four-winged man with flaming swords for arms. For an inexplicable reason, they thought that it's a demon, so they decided that it wouldn't be a good idea to free him. Then, in another room, the PCs found another bunch of beefolk and a grey-skinned elf with black, pupilless eyes, and white hair. The reaction roll was Poor, so the elf told them to leave and not return. The players did the usual clownery that new players do, so the elf put an arrow through one of the PC's arms. They finally took the hint and allowed themselves to be escorted outside by the abeils.

They had a long trek home, and on a night random encounter, a trio of digesters snuck up on them. This could've been a TPK, but the PCs managed to prevail, with plenty of armor corroded away by the digesters' 4d corrosion spray attacks. One of the characters got his arm crippled for 6 weeks, and the others were severely corroded. Eventually, they managed to return to safety, where they found out that two of them caught a contagious, chronic urinary disease due to a "Dangerous Terrain" random encounter on the way. AD&D disease rules sure are fun. Oh, they also found [redacted] on the way back too.

Overall, this was a fun session that placed some interesting stuff on the map. The session was quite tame compared to the previous trainwrecks. Speaking of the map, it's getting quite crowded, so I'll probably have to expand it.