GACKS AAR: Week 12/Session 10

GACKS AAR: Week 12/Session 10

Now that was an intense week with lots of activity on the faction level. Let's see the SEEN posts first.

Barbarian Refugees

Large numbers of barbarians were seen fleeing northeast into the mountains instead of taking their chances with the mercy of the dwarves.

Wolfman Activity

Wolfmen gathering construction materials have been spotted in the north of Shimmerleaf Forest. They seemed to be preparing for something.

Glimmerfolk Attacked

Last night, flashes of fire and sounds of battle were seen and heard in the woods to the west of Or-Tabram. Word is that the glimmerfolk were attacked, and many were dragged away in nets or bound in chains.

Gunshots at the Gate of Or-Tabram

Gunfire was heard near the gate of Or-Tabram, but it's unclear who was the target. Rumor is that the priest who was vetting the visitors got gravely injured as a result of this.

Quasit Hunt

A placard outside the Beer Beard tavern promises 100 silver coins for the confirmed capture or killing of a quasit, includes an artists rendition of a quasit, and notes they can also come in the shape of wolves, bats or toads.

Additionally, Beer Beard offers a fine selection of cold iron weapons for the discerning hunter, said to be remarkably potent against the quasit.

Bone Ooze is Loose

Deep halflings that have recently settled in [101.048] near Or-Tabram have arrived to the dwarven town with dire news. A massive bone ooze is rolling through the tunnels and wreaking havoc on anything alive. Unfortunately for the halflings, it rolled into their new settlement and absorbed most of those who lived there. The only surviving ten families took refuge in Or-Tabram. Underground travel around Or-Tabram has become dangerous until the bone ooze is dealt with, or until it slithers far enough away.

Quasit Slayer

A barbarian has presented to Beer Beard Tavern, Or-Tabram, with proof of killing not one, not two, but four quasits, and is spending his time drinking the spoils of his victory.

Or-Tabram Mining Company

Or-Tabram - the capital of the region? With wave of migration after wave of migration the ever growing city of Or-Tabram now also attracts business. Or-Tabram Mining Company has been founded by a mix of human and dwarven investors. Rumor says OTMC has found rich veins of metals to exploit in the area and will soon dwarf (heh) the competition. For now OTMC has opened offices, leased warehouses and given employment to many of the city inhabitants.

Beastmen in the Woods

Large warbands of boarmen and wolfmen have been spotted in the untouched forests to the southeast. It seems the beastfolk are gathering an army. Whether they bring order or death and destruction - only time will tell.

Ogre Activity!

A band of ogres was spotted in the scorched part of the forest. They looked mean and well-armed - no one dared get close enough to find out what they want.

Krognak "Humanslayer" becomes Krognak "Dragonbane"

A mighty dragon ROUTED in terror by the forces of Clan Uggrit! Great chief Krognak "Humanslayer" now also claims the title of "Dragonbane" as Clan Uggrit forces lay their claim to the lands of northeast. Anyone that would dare approach the clan territory better be prepared.

Dragon Lands Near Or-Tabram

A dragon was seen arriving from the northeast and landing near Or-Tabram, but it vanished from sight shortly after. Those who caught a glimpse from afar claimed the beast bore fresh wounds.

Wolves and Beefolk

A strange coalition of forces has been spotted lately north of Shimmerleaf. A group of wolves were travelling alongside a party of abeil warriors. They looked on friendly terms.

Beastman Tension

Tension is rising in the eastern woods. Boarmen and wolfmen have been seen circling each other. No big fight yet, but it's only a matter of time. A few travellers have already turned back, saying the trails feel unsafe.

Archon Sighting

A four-winged figure with flaming blades in place of forearms was sighted above the shrine to the west of Thyhalera. Some say that it's a heavenly portent of a battle to come, and some say that the sword archon came to destroy the demonic fainil.

Another Victory for Moroshi!

The famed monster slayer arrived in Or-Tabram to report a completed contract. The giant rats that terrorized the western reaches have finally been wiped out. The ogre also spoke of putting down some kind of undead that had been spreading corruption across the nearby lands.

Wolfmen on the Move

A large party of armed wolfmen and foxmen were spotted in the northwest. They were whistling some kind of battle song while heading east.

Spiderhome Labor Force

Wolfhome refugees leave Or-Tabram and go back? Around 60 of those brave souls didn't feel at home in the dwarven city and decided instead to move east. On the way there they were convinced by fainil to instead rejoin Spiderhome labor force. Seems like they all found a new home and gainful employment!

Cyclopes Slain

Victorious howl of foxmen is heard in the northwestern forests. Curious travellers say that bodies of cyclopes are found lying in the woods.

[088.037] Great Betrayal

A combined force of ogres, glimmerfolk, and anuchu set out to siege a hobgoblin camp that was revealed to be complemented by fainil and demonic troops. During the battle, a portal appeared, from which glimmerfolk zombies spilled out, attacking their living counterparts. Taking advantage of the chaos of battle, the ogres turned against their allies, smashing both beastmen and glimmerfolk alike. Only few of the latter managed to flee, some back to the anuchu camp, and some back to Shimmerleaf.

Comments on Faction Actions

Now that's a sudden influx of the various beastmen. Only one of their kind is a player controlled faction, but the rest are a result of the random tables (temporarily) turning this region into a furry convention. The convention didn't last long with some of these new lairs basically becoming collateral damage in a conflict of a larger scale. These SEEN posts conceal some ridiculous convergences that organically happened this week, but as always, I cannot divulge information that isn't public, even though I really want to share the fun.

Session 10

As you may recall, two of the surviving barbarian PCs are a month in the future, the rest of them are in Or-Tabram with the other refugees. Now that a coalition of different races has formed (dark dwarves, forest gnomes, humans, deep halflings, glimmerfolk), the players could make a mixed-race party as opposed to monoracial ones at the start of this campaign. Alternatively, they could come back to their glimmerfolk characters that have been inactive for quite some time. In any case, there were multiple leads available to different things they could do,  and all of them came into being organically from the interactions of different factions. As the referee who knows more about what's going on, I was elated because every single one of the leads could lead to a clownshow of a session.

The players settled on helping the anuchu. Who are the anuchu? That's a new minor faction in the northern parts of the glimmerfolk forest. The anuchu are strange fox-wolf-men from Dragon Magazine #119 who may be distantly related to the gnolls. It seems that this campaign is a compilation of obscure Dragon Magazine races that probably have barely seen any play in their systems of origin. The Steelwing Company offered $10,000 reward to those who will help the anuchu assault a hobgoblin camp (the one that manifested into being due to a random encounter during the previous glimmerfolk session). The Steelwing leader also sent a band of ogres with their purple-skinned ogre mage leader (another player-controlled faction) as help. The glimmerfolk leader, of course, sent 60 warriors to help as well. Thus, there were ~30 anuchu warriors, ~30 armored ogres, ~60 glimmerfolk warriors, and 5 PCs against a camp with some ~80 hobgoblin warriors. Seems like the hobgoblins are about to get steamrolled.

You wish! During the assault, it became apparent that the hobgoblin camp was also hiding flying fainil lancers, archers, and even four vrocks. Thus, things didn't seem as one-sided as they seemed at first. Since this is the first time mass combat came up during a session, I decided to use "detailed significant actions" with the PCs trying to perform some daring deed to provide a bonus to the commander's Strategy skill. GURPS Mass Combat said that this deed should have a time limit, so I rolled 3d and got 9 seconds. The players wanted to deal with the fainil lancers, so I turned this into something of a random encounter by rolling the number of fainil lancers and adding a vrock to them. Thus, it was 5 PCs versus 5 fainil lancers and 1 vrock. To be honest, this is a quite dire matchup, and I thought that the PCs might just die there. However, they managed to kill the vrock and  three lancers and force the other two to flee. One of the PCs took two heavy spear stabs in the vitals from behind, dropping to -40 HP, and was still standing and fighting. Another one was brought into negative HP.

Then, something disrupted the battle. A portal appeared on the battlefield, and a score of glimmerfolk zombies poured out, attacking the living. The ogres started bashing the glimmerfolk and the anuchu - this was a trap! (However, it's unclear whether this is something the ogres planned or the Steelwing Company that sent them there.) Now, the fight was utterly one-sided. The PCs decided to flee the battlefield to save their lives. I decided to engage the Misfortunes of War rules to see if they got injured/captured during their retreat. The -40 HP character was brought down to -48 HP and killed, and the other PC in the negatives got captured. The rest managed to flee, with only one of them getting injured. I quickly resolved the rest of the battle, and it was an utter stomp, with 90% of the attackers becoming casualties, and the defender taking only 10%.

The PCs headed for Shimmerleaf to notify the glimmerfolk authorities of the danger (smart decision), and on their way they found a portal to the Quasielemental Plane of Radiance that appeared there near the start of the campaign. The portal had some glimmerfolk guards stationed there, and the PCs told them about the battle and asked to relay this information in case they don't make it to Shimmerleaf. Thus, they made sure that their account of the battle became public knowledge (otherwise, this AAR would've been much more brief.) However, on the way to Shimmerleaf, the party got a random encounter at night against a hobgoblin patron (they somehow got this far away from their camp). The patrol consisted of five warriors and one sergeant. One of the PCs got his leg crippled, but the rest barely managed to win this fight. The PC wizard was spamming ice blast all the time and almost brought himself into negative FP as a result. However, this is what made the victory possible. The PC made it back to Shimmerleaf and relayed all the information to the assistant deputy backup prince who was ruling in the absence of the actual prince. (Where did he go?) This is where we ended the session.

Final Thoughts

I felt bad for the players. I knew that they had zero (barring a miracle) chances to win there, and that it didn't really depend on them. However, they managed to take part in a rather major faction-level event, and their efforts weren't for naught - the fainil lancers and the vrock they killed isn't an irrelevant accomplishment. It's a miracle that merely two of the PCs died there, as the odds were rigged against them from the start. In a conventional game, this campaign would probably earn me the reputation of a "killed DM", but I had to allow this to transpire to preserve player agency and cohesion of the campaign.

I admit that I wasn't sure about the way of incorporating non-commander PCs into a mass combat, but treating significant actions as a battlefield "random encounter" seems to have worked fine in retrospect. Speaking of random encounters, it seems that this region of the map is already densely packed with various creatures. Initially, I used the generic random encounter tables because I didn't really know what was there. This was akin to seeding the world with life. Now that I have a clearer idea of who lives in the region, it seems that it would make sense to create a regional random table.

Things are heating up, and it seems that the campaign might reach an organic conclusion (not a collapse!) soon, as the major conflict of this region will come to an end. Should that be the case, I will reflect on what worked and what did not, write some procedures to make things go smoother, and definitely run another campaign.

Also, I noticed that some players seem to create basically the same character over and over again regardless of race and faction. This makes me think that I should reduce the player input during character generation and polish my random character generation tables. But that'll have to wait until after this campaign is over. I already have some ideas brewing in my head.