The group decides to continue to Fog Lake, despite it taking an extra day. But - they could just follow the river down to search for the shrine of St. Wort. Which, as none have any real ranger type skills, was probably faster as it was likely they would get lost. Especially the way we roll. From the Campaign Guide, they meet Duncan Mudmurloe:
A stiff, lanky human man in his mid-thirties, with dry, pallid skin and an anaemic moustache. Dresses in courtly breeches, jacket, and absurdly high, powdered wig, even when toiling besideFogLake. Mudmurloe is the “gentleman’s gentleman” of Jollie Oistace Pollard (p328), and hails from High-Hankle. His duties have, of late, tended more and more to the manufacture of Azoth at Fog Lake, which his master has been consuming and demanding in ever-increasing quantities.
We've determined that Azoth is really just crack as they have to smoke it and experience out of body experiences. But nothing much was going on around the lake, and the manservant of Jollie Oistace Pollard of High Hankle was just cooking his drugs by the lake. Camping that night after a meal of fish cooked over a campfire, the crew gets up, and along with Duncan head downstream. The only thing of note was a very loud owl that Elrod swore was sitting right outside his tent.
It is a nice day, and the river is a pretty easy walk. A but before lunch, though, they see a wagon with what seems to be a dead horse. Getting closer they see that the horse has been mauled, and there are bloody pawprints heading further south. Checking inside, Elrod finds that there are 2 young goblins, Snotnose and Rockbutt. Rockbutt was asking about his parents. Elrod said he was not sure where they were. When asked about the horse, well, I cannot recall now what he said.
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| no animals other than plastic ones were harmed in the filming of this scene |
Deciding to leave the crack dealer to watch the child goblins, they followed the tracks. Not too far along they came along upon a bloodied female goblin, Starrock. She was the mother and witnessed the father getting torn in half by the hell hounds or whatever they were. She was worried not only about her own children, but the goblin warrens ahead had a creche full of youngsters as well while most of the goblins were hunting for food.
Hurrying ahead, while Starrock hobbled back to her children, our heroes find the gates to the underground goblin warren open. Inside, there were torches, and a fairly large area acting as a foyer. Around the first bend they could smell the fetid odor a cesspit, and using a torch he grabbed off the wall, Elrod looks down. And sees several eyes looking up, glinting red in the torchlight. A battle against giant rats starts, and for a while no one hits anyone, but eventually the rats are vanquished, and despite one rat bite, no one caught some strange rat-born disease.
Moving fuether in, they see a carrion worm attacking a goblin. Friar Moon hurries up to slam the 9' work against the wall - the passage is narrow and only one person a can easily attack at a time. The goblin gets off a final shot, and escapes from the cul-de-sac he was trapped in. While Elrod fails more than once to boost Belle over Brother Moon, Kier starts shooting arrows. Eventually this beast is also slain, and they hurry on.
The come into the town hall of the warrens and upon a battle scene: goblins are fighting hell hounds, and somewhere along the way a giant weasel got in and was heading to the nursery. Weasels are both opportunistic and like fresh goblin apparently (that, and I found that mini while looking for things to add to the dungeon, and since I had painted it, it showed up).
Arrows, hammers and torches fly as the battle goes on. In a last try, Elrod's hoof got stepped on when trying to boost Belle again, Brother Moon managed to leap over one large hound and dart into goblin house, trying to draw the creature from the fight. They manage to kill the 3 hounds, but they just disappeared into grey smoke when killed. The last wolf was killed on the bridgeway to the nursery - that is when they saw the tail end of the giant weasel heading to the nursery. Next to them was a goblin shooting arrows, and blocking the entrance at the far end of the narrow passage was the nursemaid holding a small ax. Between Keir's arrows, the ax, and a successful magic spell from Elrod, the weasel was killed at the doorstep of the creche.
Pretty much where we ended the game. But what will happen is that Starrtock and her children get back along with the goblin hunters. There is both sadness and gratitude: while several goblins have been killed, more were saved and the youngsters were saved. I'll let the group decide it we want to roleplay the festivities - I see something like the Ewoks as there is a great cauldron of weasel stew, general celebrations, and perhaps some gifting for the heroes of the warren. And I need to name that goblin village: Geerk Underhill.
There was also some discussion, and the goblins had never seen these hell hounds before. But they think that perhaps someone in the human town of Hendenburgh may know something of this as they roam the woods even more than the goblins do.
Elrod earned the name Weasel Blaster, Kiera Hound Shooter, Belle Hound Hammer, and Brother Moon Hound Hopper. Goblins have a strange sense of humor.
I'll also note that the battle map is just a small area of the entire warren: there are caves and passages all over. But as those did not really factor into the session plan (and I only have so much space and so much plastic terrain!) that was the only part covered.
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| battle picture with annotations. I added the nursery after I took the picture. |
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