Players: Chandra Mrs. Gogangles the Flamey, goblin sorcerer
Ben Mogmurch, goblin alchemist
Lucas Chuffy Lickwound, goblin rogue
Richard Poog of Zarongel, goblin cleric
Erica Reta Bigbad, goblin fighter
The adventure was run mostly as written, with some minor changes to the backstory and ending. The mention of the failed raid on Sandpoint was removed to make this a viable prequel to Burnt Offerings. An additional dare was also added so that every PC was able to participate in one.
The players read each other’s’ songs while I got set up. Once I was ready, I sang the Licktoad’s song, and read the adventure background to them, changing the bit about the failed raid on Sandpoint to rumors of an upcoming raid.
The PC’s met with the chief, were given their mission, and the feast began. Everyone partook in the fermented apples, and Chuffy failed his save, becoming very intoxicated (luckily due to his Pustular trait, he wasn’t actually sickened). Shortly after this, the party received their first dare, “dance with Squeely Nord”. Chuffy, in his drunkenness, was more than eager to oblige. He failed his first ride check, but rolled a natural 20 on his reflex save, so I ruled that he was not thrown from the piglet. He made the rest of his checks without any failures.
The next dare was my custom made one, “hop across the stumps”. I said there was a small bog lying immediately next to the village, and that there were several stumps jutting up out of it. There was green slime growing on the surface. I did not use the same slime in the CRB; this one would simply cause 1d6 damage per round if the participant fell in, and damage would stop if they escaped by making a DC 10 swim check. To make it across the stumps required a series of 3 DC 15 acrobatics checks. Mogmurch was the participant, and made all checks without fail thanks to downing his jump extract before attempting the challenge. He received a skyrocket from the chief as his reward. This was the same skyrocket that would usually be provided to the PCs before the journey’s start, but I decided to make it the final dare reward instead since there was an extra PC and I didn’t adjust the encounters accordingly.
The next dare was “eat a big bag of slugs real quick”, and Mrs. Gogangles was the participant. She had several failures, as she was attempting to spit out the poison bladders, and it came down to the last slug and the last attempt. She decided to just go ahead and swallow it whole, and was able to get it down. Unfortunately, she failed the save to resist the poison, ending up sickened. The other 2 challenges were completed with no failures, Reta participating in “hide or get clubbed”, and Poog partaking in “the rusty earbiter”.
The party headed out the next morning with Chuffy about 15 feet ahead of the party as a “scout”. He failed his perception check to see Lotslegs Eats Goblin Babies Many, and was nearly ambushed as a result. Luckily, Mogmurch, who was next in line, saw the spider. Mogmurch rolled 1st in initiative, and threw a bomb at the tree the spider was hiding in. He critted on his roll, causing the tree to fall, and nearly crushed Lotslegs in one attack. The spider was pinned, at 3 hp, and was quickly finished off by Reta.
When the party found Lotslegs nest, things got interesting. They split the gold evenly ( threw an extra gp in so this wouldn’t be an issue), and agreed that Reta could have the crossbow, but fought over the rest of the gear. Mogmurch successfully appraised the pearl, and attempted to bluff on how much it was worth. He failed.
Now, at this point, Chuffy was standing behind Mogmurch, and Mrs. Gogangles was behind Chuffy. Poog and Reta were about 10 feet in front of Mogmurch. Chuffy wanted to sneak attack Mogmurch, and Mrs. Gogangles wanted to cast burning hands. I had Mogmurch roll a perception check to see if he heard them about to attack (and therefore not be flat-footed), but he failed. I had everyone roll initiative, and Mrs. Gogangles came out on top, followed by Chuffy, Poog, Reta, and finally Mogmurch. She cast burning hands, and hurt Chuffy quite a bit thanks to him failing his reflex save. Mogmurch saved for half damage, but his pouch containing his fireworks and bombs caught fire. Chuffy ran over to where the as-of-yet unclaimed potions were lying on the ground, about 20 feet away. Poog and Reta spent their turns running as far away as they could from Mogmurch, as they saw that his pouch where he kept his explosives was on fire. Mogmurch threw his flaming pouch backwards towards Mrs. Gogangles, who kicked it back at him on her turn. Chuffy chugged a random potion, hoping for a cure potion, but instead got the bear’s endurance potion. Poog and Reta each rolled perception checks to see if they could spot the pearl that Mogmurch dropped, but failed. Mogmurch finally put out the flaming pouch before the explosives went off, but the pouch itself was ruined. At this point everyone agreed to stop attacking one in other, so I let them act in whatever order they wanted. Chuffy chugged another random potion, this time getting a cure moderate wounds which brought him up to full health, and held on to the 2 remaining potions. Reta and Mrs. Gogangles started searching for the dropped pearl, and spotted it at the same time. I had them roll initiative to see who got to it 1st and Mrs. Gogangles won. Mogmurch went over and claimed the bag of candy. Overall, this killed about 45 minutes of game time. An hour, adding in the time for me to set up the tiles for the next encounters (we use Heroscape tiles). Usually, I wouldn’t allow things to get this out of hand over treasure, but everyone was having fun with it. They all also assured me that this was because of their alignment being NE, so hopefully I won’t have these problems once we get the actual campaign rolling (this also makes it clear that I will definitely be banning evil alignments for this campaign).
Moving on, they came across the ship, and saw Stomp the horse at the same time as he saw them. Poog got 1st in initiative and threw a javelin. He critted, dropping Stomp to 1 hp. Reta finished the horse off with her crossbow. Chuffy was the first to go up the ramp, and saw the wasp nest trap. However, he jumped over the tripwire instead of disabling it. Everyone else did this as well, except for Mrs. Gogangles. She failed her perception check to see the trap, and also failed a sense motive check to determine why everyone else was jumping. She triggered the trap, but everyone made all saves, so no one was affected.
Minor note here: it seems I inadvertently mixed up the rooms of the ship. I had the galley as Vorka’s cabin, and vice versa.
Once they were all aboard the ship, Reta let everyone know that there were dogs about, thanks to her Dog-Sniff-Hate feat. Before they went any farther, Chuffy downed his Dragon Brew Gourd, and everyone prepared themselves for a fight. I went ahead and had them roll initiative, and Chuffy went first. He moved up a few feet, spotted Tickletooth near the railing on the second deck, and used his 1st breath attack, dropping the dog instantly. Poog was next, and he rounded the main cabin, saw Scabtongue, and used a fire bolt, dropping that dog as well. With the fight over, Poog’s player Richard had to stop to get some sleep. Poor guy had been up for 36 hours and was falling asleep while we were playing, so I took over as Poog.
At this point, the party decided to bypass the lower cabin, and move on to the upper deck. Mogmurch and Chuffy stopped to snack on the remains of Tickletooth, while Reta, Mrs. Gogangles, and Poog went to look in the upper cabin. There, they found Vorka in the middle of a meal (she was munching on Scribbleface’s arm). I don’t recall the exact details of the battle, but early on Mogmurch joined the fight, and Chuffy looked in the small room, saw how crowded it was, and went to explore the lower cabin, where he torched Cuddles with his breath weapon, dropping the pooch in one hit. At some point, Vorka was shrank via Mogmurch’s reduce person extract (it was getting late, and I didn’t want to take the time to explain extracts don’t work like that). Poog was eventually swallowed by Lord Licktongue, whom Poog fire bolted from the inside. Reta and Mrs. Gogangles finished off Vorka with their dogslicers (Mrs. Gogangles had the Gorge of Gluttons). Mogmurch lit his skyrocket, and shoved it into Lord Licktongue’s moutn, and the frog exploded with Poog still inside. Poog was amazingly still standing at 2 hp.
The group gathered the treasure, and headed back to the village. Upon arriving, they saw “a pointy-eared longshank” (Tsuto Kaijitsu) leaving the moot hut, escorted by Slorb. Slorb waved them on into the hut, where they gave the chief the fireworks. He gladly accepted them, and told the group he had a new mission for them. The longshank was asking for assistance in a raid on Sandpoint, which members from all the local goblin tribes were taking part in.
