DF Khoramandu Sea, Sessions 99 through 103 - Let me sum up

      It has been several sessions since my last update. Here is brief recap. 

Party roster:

Miao Miao, cat-folk swashbuckler, 525 points (PC)

- Jenkins, human servant, 249 points (NPC Ally)

- Father Warian, human priest, 261 points (NPC Ally)

- Alacus, human slinger, ~62 points (NPC volunteer)
Sir Yvor Gryffyn, human knight, 450 points (PC)

- Manuta, human sergeant, 177 points (NPC Ally)

Childerbert "Bert" Ingoberger, halfling thief-bard, 415 points (PC)

Hemmu Gahrol, half-orc knight, 385 points (PC)

- Guurtsnik, goblin messenger, unknown points (NPC volunteer)

Adam Aesalor, half-orc wizard, 349 points (PC)

Session Date:    Thursday 26 August 2021

    The remaining orcs were routed after the party defeated most of their number, including two ogres, and the rear of the convoy was successfully defended by the NPC allies and companions. The party suffered mostly minor wounds. The most serious injury was a blow which crippled Yvor's shield hand, but thankfully this recovered as soon as Yvor was back to full HP. Sir Yvor sensed that Manuta was concerned about something, but she wouldn't tell him what.

Session Date:    Tuesday 31 August 2021

    The next 2 days of journey was uneventful, and the party arrived at the port city of Zenna with the wagon. They found an inn to stay, and Miao proceeded to drink while other party members made arrangements for the next stage of their journey (cat-folk have a phobia of water). Four days later they were on a bireme merchant galley heading to the capital. Hemmu's player was absent, and so her PC spent most of the trip sleeping off seasickness.

    The merchant galley followed the coastline, and on the second day another galley was spotted approaching from the open Sea of Khoramandu. It was a warship crewed by half-orcs, and the trireme was both larger and faster than the merchant ship. The bireme fled, but could not outrun the warship. After a bit of manoeuvring, the warship tried to come alongside the merchant in an oar sheering attack. This failed, but resulted in a hull-to-hull collision between the two ships. Damage from the impact was negligible for the warship and only minor for the merchant galley.

Session Date:    Thursday 2 September 2021

    In the aftermath of the impact, the ships were drifting apart. The bireme rowers were trying to push away from the warship, while the warship was trying to reposition for the next stage of attack. Before the half-orc marines could throw their hooks, Miao buried her fear and jumped across the gap onto the prow of the trireme. Now faced with a swashbuckling cat-girl, the marines dropped their ropes and attacked her with swords. Sir Yvor, seeing the gap between the galleys widening, and with his fiancé on the wrong ship, leapt across after her and only just made it.

    While the swashbuckler and knight outclassed their half-orc opponents, they were in a disadvantageous position, fighting against marines who were used to ship combat, without all their gear, with no means to return to their merchant ship, and with only Adam able to offer any real fire support. The half-orcs also had their own wizard amongst their crew. The battle was bloody.

Session Date:    Thursday 9 September 2021

    The situation from the previous session exacerbated as Miao and Yvor, were trapped on the enemy ship with nowhere to go. They couldn't reach the enemy wizard, and they were surrounded by half-orc marines. Although they killed the marines, they were badly wounded in the process and in imminent danger of collapse. At this point some of the half-orc rowers climbed up and attacked. Miao parried a slam with her rapier, and the sword almost broke.

Session Date:    Thursday 16 September 2021

    Miao, surrounded by half-orc sailors, succumbed to her wounds and collapsed unconscious, falling overboard. Sir Yvor picking up his longsword, slashed the arm of one of the sailors grabbing at him, but the other two were able to grapple him. Despite his immense strength (Yvor has ST20) the knight was not able to break free from the half-orcs' hold on him, and they then pushed him overboard.

    At this point Hemmu was awoken by her companions telling her that their ship was arriving in Phessio. The whole sea battle had been a feverish dream.*

    Relieved to be back on terra firma, the PCs made for the first inn they saw, and Miao booked 7 rooms for the party and all their companions. They only intended to stay long enough in the capital for their companions Maggio and Sir Glorm to conclude their delivery mission (Sir Yvor was requested by Baron Stirling to accompany them to the capital and ensure their safety). Then the party intends to rush off again, heading north to the borderlands to assist Guurtsnik's tribe of goblins and hobgoblins against the kobolds and their allies.

    In the middle of the night the party is awoken by screams. There is a commotion downstairs, and outside the inn. Miao rushes downstairs to find one of the inn servant girls is dead. Yvor checks first on Maggio and Glorm, and tells Maggio they should stay in their room. Adam looks out the window and hears commotion in the streets, both near to the inn and further away. Bert decides to climb out the window.

    As he heads downstairs to join Miao, Yvor realises that Sir Glorm had been standing silently in the room with Maggio, in full armour, in the middle of the night. Yvor mentions this to Miao, who said yes, Sir Glorm is probably an armour-golem: he wears a full-face helm, is never seen outside his armour, barely speaks, is monosyllabic when he does, they've not seen him eat or drink once during the journey, and Baron Octavius (the lord of Maggio and Glorm) is believed to be a wizard.

------

*The sea battle had been somewhat hurriedly setup by me in attempt to playtest for a new book (GURPS Vehicles: Biremes and Triremes). The successfulness of the attempt was hampered by the fact that I've never run a vehicular combat in GURPS before. Hopefully the feedback will be of some use to the authors.

Under those circumstances, it seemed fairest not to kill off two of the longest running PCs for what had been an experiment. It does go to show that even 400-500 point DF characters can die if they are foolhardy enough. I expect it was a good learning experience for the players that Yvor and Miao are not completely invincible.