Have fun stormin' the castle!

12 Jan 06-

This week saw us better, thanks to some healing spells from our new mage: eMike the Pixie (Ellyllon, but none of us can pronounce that consistently, so what the heck). eMike's pixie has stepped in through a bit of revisionist history, replacing Kevin for the time being, since he seems to be on an extended hiatus, and has thus been with us since leaving Grog's inn a few weeks back.

After the duct tape and the chanting, we set about the business of finding the castle that the orcs we tortured said was the headquarters for them and their elf-eating bug they called "Mindbreaker". While we don't know if that's a creature, a job description, or a CB handle, we guess that it must be behind the success of the orcs in raiding this elven forest, since the orcs have met with, well, success.

Once we found the castle, we Dazed (and then killed) the guards and snuck onto the grounds, where we discovered a big hole leading down into the foundations. Next week we go in, and discover whether this is a stand-up fight, or some kind of bug hunt.

Orcs? Schmorks! How bad could they- Ow! Hey! Leggo!

Every once in a while, there comes a rude reminder that almost all of us (you newbies excepted) started gaming with D&D, where orcs were the common cannon fodder of every evil wizard, bandit lord, or gang leader. As such, we all knew that orcs were only minor threats, and could be slain by the dozen by even low-level parties of adventurers (especially ones with a Sleep or Fireball spell handy). It has occasionally occured, then, that we are surprised by the discovery that they can fight in some newer systems, such as GURPS. We re-learned that lesson this week, as we continued our scouring of the elf-woods.

This week, we were all still fresh from our very one-sided fight from the previous week, and our characters pushed on into the forest of the elves, looking to kick some more orc butts. After some walking, we came upon an orc/worg hunting party, and discovered that they were hunting us. You could almost hear the contempt and overconfidence in the party as we advanced to close range, blithely assuming that "we [could] take 'em". It ended up that they had some footmen (footorcs?) and some archers, and a leader-type with his own pet worg, and they were just as happy as we were to get in some action. Our centaur deliberately drew their initial attention, and got mauled for her trouble. Our bard, who was relying on her to hold the front, quickly became the front line. If not for quick work from Dave's reptile man and Jeff's giant-kin merc, it might have gone badly for our heroes. The best moment of the night was Craig's elf flicking a magical dagger into the eye of the orc leader and then following on with a deadly thrust to the vitals in a daring but crazy all-out attack.

Next week, we reassess our tactics, and I plan to whine about how they never swing at a centaur's legs in Narnia.

Thanks for coming to town, boys.

1/2/06: It's holiday gaming! On a Monday! eBill's family had not yet left Columbus, so we even had Analog Bill! But back to the story.

During the trip away from Bigot-Town, we came upon the corpse of an elvish warrior who had required several arrows to reach his demise, and who had apparently taken a number of his enemies with him for the trip. He had written a warning on his arm (in his own blood, natch) saying that his townspeople were being held in an old castle somewhere.

We followed his trail back to (we assume) his village, which had been emptied of elves but which had a good number of dead orcs scattered around. An orcish patrol made enough noise on approach for us to take cover in plenty of time. Their leader, having made the tactical error of actually being in front, then received the first shot of pretty much every PC. The other five grunts soon followed.

Under very open threat of torture, one orc filled in some details: the old castle is inhabited by some sort of huge psychic bug, who has taken control of the orcish clan and who has a taste for elfmeat. Time to stock up on Potions of Raid.

Self-Loathing Elves (or Elf-Loathing Selves)

12/29/05: Moments after we emerged from the secret underground passageway into the basement of the town's least suspicious inn, we engaged a couple of invisible foes, only to discover that they were -- the elves who worked there. The he-elf and she-elf professed their innocence and claimed they knew nothing of the secret tunnels -- claims that were undercut by the presence on the wall of a map of the passageways. Inconvenient little detail there.

Turned out the elves had been helping the inn's owner to increase suspicions in the town in a bid to weed out competition. And they had been doing it for nothing more than money, which is rather inexplicable motivation for an elf, especially since the job involved working with half-orcs.

The inn's owner tried to make a getaway, but while his horse was fast, Bill's arrow was a good bit faster. (It's a shame that dog got shot when the bystanders turned against us, though.)