The New Old Campaign - Part 6 (July Sessions)

After 3 days of R&R at the keep our heroes return to the Caves of Chaos:

• Apollo the Elf
• Steven the Thief
• Thaddeus II the Fighter
• Horus the Dwarf
• Isidore the Cleric
• Skullduggery II the Magic-User

Deciding they needed to pay back the goblins the group heads into the same cave they exited previously. They quickly encounter goblin watchmen near the same room as before and battle is joined. Apollo the Elf is a beast during this fight as he strikes for max damage no less than 3 times during this epic ten-round fight. It becomes a epic fight when one of the goblins runs for reinforcements and comes back with 5 hobgoblins ready to assist. Horus the Dwarf fought valiantly but was laid out cold near the end of the battle but survived. 

After the battle they discovered (among other things) a potion a discussion started about how to identify them. Informed of the possible dangers, Apollo the Elf offered Horus 150 gp to taste it. This transaction was completed and when Hours' hand faded from view they had a moment of panic then realized it was an invisibility potion. Horus then offered Apollo 300 gp to buy the potion from him and this transaction was also completed. All of this happened on the way back to the Keep to recover from injury.

After another 3 days of recovery, the team arrives back at the Caves and enters the same cave entrance. This time too they encounter a goblin watch party and engage, only to find the goblin chief and his bodyguards coming up behind them. This turns into a brutal fight for survival as these new goblins are quite a bit tougher than what they are used to fighting, and when the chief is finally slain only Apollo and Isidore are left standing among the heroes. They gather up the bodies of their friends, throw them over the back of the horses and head back to the keep. 

Here, they are fortunate enough to meet Lord Swift, castellian of the Keep, and he is full of praise for ridding his lands of that ogre (see Part 4) and saddended to hear that so many have fallen. He commands his chief cleric to raise the fallen heroes in honor of the service they have already given, though they will owe him one more service which he will disclose at a later time. The cleric complies and the group is reunited at the chapel once again. 

DM Notes -

Yeah I wussed out there. I'm trying to keep most of the party intact while playing by the book as much as I can but 4 dead characters in one trip is a lot. Plus I'm thinking about having them fight a black dragon down in the swampy section as the climax of this adventure and that will be the mission they are given. So yeah, I admit it, I didn't like the way this went and decided to stick my hand in pretty blatantly. Basic is pretty unforgiving at low levels with o hp = dead, so I am considering making some changes. That said those were 2 good fights.

The funniest part of this session was the potion-haggling. Coins were being exchanged all through this conversation as this was the first one they had found and once they figured out the dwarf had the best saves then it got serious. There has been some tension over looting dead characters, so I was glad to see them work this out peacefully.

That pretty much finished off the goblins, so next time we will see them go into the Hobgoblin lair...