Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Play report: Fun times in Quyen Valley


"Sir" Donnal
You go to sleep in an army tent in the Hill Cantons and wake up on a barge in the heart of Fantasy Fucking Vietnam, as run by the Calithena Gildenclaw, the fellow who coined the term.  That's life in the FLAILSNAILS multiverse.  Donnal MacDonnal, haphazard adventurer and darling of the first FLAILSNAILS jousting tournament, and his henchweenies Stanislav the World's Dumbest Magic-User and Polg the Nigh-Useless joined a party of hardbitten mercenaries consisting of Seńor Silver, Sigbert the Saxon Soccer Hooligan, Androx the Ambivalent and Grimepaw the Acolyte of St. Bast.  The mission was to clear a small stone keep of its hobgoblish occupiers, for which the local princeling promised us each a sack of gold.

The DM initially described our landing in Quyen as akin to stepping off the boat for the first time in Tekumel.  That had me worried we would all end the session on some sort of local impalement device, but instead we ended up a feast designed to induce us into fighting these dang hobgobbos.  So we end up trekking ten miles through brush and forest, leading our horses and clearing a path with machetes.  We routed around a group of five blue-skinned gigantos with mouths full of tusks, as they seemed to be wandering monsters of either ogrish or giantish strength.  That was a smart move because it turns out we can barely handle hobgoblins.

Sure, the first encounter is with a lone hobgoblin guard who gets a crossbow bolt through the eye before he can raise a hue and cry.  But the second fight with half a dozen of them is pretty intense, even with a party member taking out one of them with some poison slipped into their wine.  Polg proved less useless than usual by successfully back-stabbing one of the hobgoblins.  Then we fought a berserk hobgoblin leader and his orc anti-cleric buddy.  That turned out to be a helluva a fight.  For a couple three rounds in a roll none of the numerous fighters in the party were able to hit jack or squat, but the cleric Grimepaw kept whupping on the bad guys making the rest of us look like chumps.  My favorite part of the fight had to be when one of the badguys tried to escape and Stanislav cast Hold Portal to block him.  At the beginning of the session I asked "Are there any other MUs in the party? I ask because Hold Portal is the closest thing my guy has to an offensive spell."  In fact, it is his only spell besides Read Magic.

I like Stanislav because he is literally the worst MU I have ever seen.  Sure, my buddy Joe once ran a first level MU with Hold Portal as his spell, but at least that dude had reasonable stats.  Poor, stupid Stanislav isn't even a legal character in some editions of D&D, because his Intelligence score is only a five.

Anyway, once these two leader-types are kaput we put their heads on pikes and tell the rest of the hobgoblins to clear on out of the place.  It would have been hilarious to only then discover that these badasses were not the local leadership, but we were right in our guess.  The demoralized remnants of the hobgoblin tribe head for greener pastures and we return to the local lord to claim our reward.



4 comments:

  1. I'm just amazed that someone else is using the name Stanislav. My current Dark Dungeons character is so named because I've started pulling names from my local hockey team's past and present rosters.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous2:56 PM

    Wow! I got wrote up on Jeff's Gameblog! I have arrived!

    Glad you enjoyed the adventure. That was the best of the three sessions so far although they have all been at least pretty good. But we had a ton of fun and your group kicked ass. I think it's going to be a regular Tuesday fixture from now on from noon to 3 eastern, so I hope you'll come back - maybe some Gameblog readers will join us! I don't mind if you have to get up once or twice during the game.

    With a 5 intelligence Donall is going to have to dictate illusions to Stanislav precisely when he uses that new wand! In today's game they found where the tunnels under the Quyen Giang Brewery in Pak Xe hook up to tunnels under the Formerly Hobgoblin-Infested Keep, as well as further tunnels to a Dark Lake, where no less than five NPCs were murdered by wraiths.

    Raggi did originally get off on that shtick responding to old-tyme posts of mine on Dragonsfoot and rpg.net.

    If you're on G+ and you want to play in my games, gentle Jeff's Gameblog reader, add Calithena to your circles!

    Best,

    Cal

    ReplyDelete
  3. Favorite moment: Grimepaw magically compels the orc witch-doctor to surrender, a very fleeting effect, giving just enough time for Sigbert to abscond w/the orc's mace and shield, Silver to remove his shabbily affixed chestplate and Androx to pull the revealed Green Lantern Underoos around his ankles. That the shaman could pull himself together to fight on(!) for another couple of rounds speaks well of orcish stoicism.
    Least favorite moment: Barry informing me that my character's name (Androx) just so happens to be a brand of U.K. bathroom tissue. Turns out he was in error, Andrex is the product in question. I'm happy to report that Androx is, as I had secretly hoped, a male-enhancement product of some sort.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hello i am michal

    the topic on you talking about is just awesome very nice.

    Sunmaker

    ReplyDelete