Campaign Journal - VI July MMII

Notes from Willo's campaign.

Another player joined our group. Welcome back Garyth, lets hope you stay a while. Strange how a while back, if one player couldn't make it, the whole session was cancelled due to too few players in the group. Now suddenly we have Willo, Carol, Graham, Adri, Barbara, Natalie, Garyth and myself. Lets hope things keep on going so well.

Anyway, the campaign update: We followed the pylons for a distance and were soon in the grassy foothills of the great southern peaks. The Orc (Urgad) and Cryss continued to scout ahead and soon sighted wood smoke and a small encampment. An elaborate schema, involving most of the party circling around the encampment whilst Defy and Fagan Abrash approached directly by horse, was soon put into play. Gnosh, the trollkin was left in charge of the horses, ponies, chariot and wagon. Much effort in skulking and camouflaging was wasted when Fagan Abrash recognized the camper as the scribe Orfius (from previous adventures with Logar of the Light foot and Valentia). Introductions were made and explanations as to why a scribe may be by himself in the middle of nowhere were offered. After a while, the party returned to where they left their wagons and other gear, only to find Gnosh the trollkin missing along with the horses and ponies. Large bite marks, and pooled blood soon established that a cave troll had taken a horse and the trollkin.

The rest of the horses had bolted and were soon rounded up, but no sign of Gnosh and the trail soon faded amongst a rocky river bed. Rather than tarry until the troll returned, possibly with reinforcements, we left, heading south along the pylon trail. After some time we came to farmlands and a small village. The party needed to stop there to fix the troll damaged wagon wheel and visit the tavern. unfortunately the yokel country folk took exception to allowing an orc within their walls and Urgad was forced to take the chariot and head out of town. Peeved at missing the merrymaking in the tavern, he foolishly took it out on a local teenager with his whip A lynch mob was formed but some deft running away soon thwarted their ideas of stringing him up. The rest of the party was made to feel a little less welcome, hurry up their trading (yes, Dantowax's trading route was established, posthumously) and leave town.

The party rendezvoused with Urgad the next day and traveled further south, soon finding the pylon trail. A day later,, they came upon a burning homestead, being attacked by scorpionmen. (#$%^ Dorastor Land of Doom book, should never have bought it!). After lots of talk of running away, we decided to take them on. Big mistake, the only thing that saved us was some clever tree climbing with large rocks by certain party members and a critical hit in a scorpionmans head by Valencia with her long spear. It turns out that a large rock dropped on a scorpionmans leg does more damage that a well shot arrow against their chest armour. We killed one, wounded another and the rest decided to leave. Whew! Highlights of the battle were the orc losing control of his chariot due to a befuddle spell, Defy having no idea what was going on due to player inebriation and Zarah falling out of the tree while trying to throw a boomerang. In Rune Quest, superior numbers do count!