DF Novices, Session 3 - Erizax's Log

     Here is a report from the player of Erizax, the group's young human wizard.  I am giving a bonus point of Beginner's Luck* to any player who writes a cool summary for me to post. The following story stops before the caprinids arrived. The player assures me he will pick up the tale if the party survives the next session; we shall see!

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Baris sent us out to help Fenn hunt and kill a large predator along the road, he ended up finding it, or maybe it found us. Turns out it was an Owlbear, that thing was scary. I prepped the biggest ball of fire I ever had. Lucky for us, Eleanor got off a trick shot and hit it in the eye before it killed and ate anyone. Mission accomplished with only minor injuries, or so we thought. Nothing of value on the Owlbear, sadly. I could really use some cash. We were getting ourselves sorted out for the return to the caravan when Borgergorg heard someone coming up the road from ahead. Guess I'll keep holding this big ball of flaming death, just in case. Turns out it was a group of goblins. He was able to speak with them and discovered they "owned" the road. They wanted us to pay a toll, that wasn't going to happen. I'm pretty sure that Baris wasn't going to want to pay a toll or have to deal with them himself either. What was he paying us for? Deal with the minor distractions so he doesn't have to. Maybe we can knock a few of them down quick and scare the others into paying us a toll for the use of "our" road. If I was going to run a shakedown of travellers on a road, I would have some big guys in reserve and a few flankers in the woods to either side of the road. After all, most travellers are going to object to being robbed and I'd prepare a little surprise for them. Agis and Doran charged the three in the road and found they did have backup, a lot of backup. Guess I'll get into the woods on the left and see what I find. Borgergorg joined Agis and Doran holding the center of the road. Sure enough, Fenn discovered a few sneaky goblins in the woods to the right side of the road. Fenn put an arrow into one that was trying to hide. I didn't see it myself, but Fenn says Eleanor doesn't miss when she shoots that crossbow. Shame that it takes so long to get a shot ready. Between them, they were able to push the goblins in the woods back and they shifted to backing up the guys in the road. What I found in the woods was several goblin archers. Time to pay my “toll” by teaching the goblins my one valuable skill, throwing balls of fire around. I threw my fireball at the first one. It really wasn't as impressive as I thought it would be, but the goblin dropped none the less. I was a bit nervous and miscast the Missile Shield I wanted. One of the goblins got a lucky shot, dang that arrow hurt. Second time I got it, I was starting to feel a bit tired. Fortunately, the masters at the guild had worked us until we dropped so I was able to go on. Time to put all that time drilling with the staff to good use. Meanwhile, the fight in the road was not working out as well as expected. The reinforcements were some armored swordsmen, a lot of spearmen, and some big hobgoblins. Turns out, goblins are sneaky and smart. These ones had this ambush set up like pros, unlike those bandits we fought yesterday. Our warriors were having a bad day, not knocking their foes down with the usual efficiency. The goblins, and their many reinfocements, were having a good day and getting a lot of lucky hits on Agis and Borgergorg. Agis was injured badly. Our line in the road started to falter and fall back, but they did knock down all the hobgoblins. If we could knock out a few of those spearmen we might have a chance. With the archers in front of me held at bay, I turned my staff strikes on the spearmen trying to flank Borgergorg. It felt good to be hitting something hard, not like in training where I had to hold back and not permanently injure a fellow student. Fenn, Eleanor, and I were helping to distract some of the goblins by hitting them as they focused on Borgergorg, Doran, and Agis. The three warriors had reformed their line and were starting to cut into the goblins. Agis put some kind of armor boosting magic on Borgergorg. Suddenly, the goblins were thrown into confusion. Something in the woods to the right was upsetting them. Borgergorg yelled something about beast-men, whatever that means. The goblins were pulling back and starting to run. If we pushed we could get a few of them while they were vulnerable, but maybe we should be retreating from this new threat. I shouted for us to regroup at the Owlbear corpse and took off running. Doran charged the retreating goblins. Borgergorg went to help Doran. Fenn and Eleanor pulled back a little and fired parting shots at the fleeing goblins. Whatever this new threat was, it had the goblins in a panic.

- Erizax Ofaris. 

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    * Beginner's Luck is what I am calling a one-use point of "Buying Success" (p.B347). The intended purpose is to help keep their rookies alive, e.g. converting a missed defence roll into a possibly life-saving parry. Does not normally include crit successes or fails, so it's not all-powerful. I gave everyone 1 point of this at the start of the adventure to get them all through the first session alive. This offer of earning further uses is blatant bribery on my part to encourage player write-ups in order to get more.