We played the ninth session of our Dungeon Module B1: In Search of Unknown AD&D 2e game last night. You can read past play reports here.
The roster for this session was as follows:
- Llombaerth, CG elf thief 2 (Adam)
- Robbernar, CG elf cleric 1 (Nael)
- Rory the Small, LN human fighter 1 (David)
- Armstrong, human man-at-arms (NPC)
- Bronson, human porter (NPC)
- Walgretor, half-elf porter (NPC)
The last time we played, the party enlisted the help of three goblins (Numbnuts, Lumpknuckles, and Slug) in disassembling an antique bedframe. They paid Slug - the goblin who was good at counting - a gold piece to tell them how many orcs were in the dungeon, to which he said seven. They tested his counting ability by laying fourteen copper pieces on the floor, but stiffed him on payment for this service when he got the count wrong.
Things escalated, and a fight erupted. Numbnuts fled from the room, screaming. Lumpknuckles was badly wounded by the mage Malkara, but came back and delivered a fatal blow to her with his mace, then fled after Numbnuts. Slug alone stood and fought, and was killed by the party's man-at-arms, Armstrong.
The party fled the scene, with goblins screaming and orcish drums pounding in the deep. As they reached the secret door leading back to the dungeon's entrance, they found a pair of orcs lying in wait down the corridor. The orcs loosed arrows at them, but missed, and the party charged. Rory slew one orc and the other fled back to orcish territory. The party dragged the dead orc back through the secret door and began planning an ambush.
We picked up from there. Llombaerth spiked the secret door half shut so that it would provide the party with partial cover from missiles and force any attackers to come through the breach one at a time. He also scattered caltrops on the floor on the party's side of the door. Grilk, his goblins, and the party's porter, Bronson (who had befriended the goblins and was staying with them) were nearby, so they coordinated with the party to defend their own territory from the enemy orcs.
Rekk, the goblin chef, manned a barricade at the top of a short flight of stairs at the end of the hall to the left of the party's position, 60 feet away, ready to fire arrows at any orcs that breached the doorway. Narka, the goblin ratcatcher, manned a second barricade 30 feet to the left of Rekk, allowing her to cover the intersection just outside of the secret door. Grilk, his "squire" Viss, and Bronson (wielding a rusted cleaver and wearing a cooking pot helm) would loop around a long back hallway to catch the orcs in the rear.
The trap was laid, so all they had to do was wait. The drums had gone silent for some time, so the characters could hear their own hearts beating. They heard footsteps from the corridor to the left of the intersection beyond the secret door, straight ahead of Narka's position, along with the crack of a whip and commands bellowed in orcish. Narka screamed out in goblin, and Rekk informed the party that the orcs were sending in the goblins first. Rekk pleaded with the party not to kill his misguided friends.
The party saw Lumpknuckles and Numbnuts rounding the corner, charging through the secret door. Lumpknuckles looked out of it, dried blood caked to the side of his head from the wound Malkara had dealt him. Numbnuts looked terrified. The party wanted revenge on Lumpknuckles for Malkara's death. Knowing that Numbnuts was a coward, they yelled at him to throw down his arms and surrender.
As the goblins charged through the breach, they ran over the caltrops, stumbling and hopping and shrieking in pain. Armstrong easily cut down the off balance Lumpknuckles with his longsword. Numbnuts clearly did not want to fight. He threw down his mace and Robbernar stood aside to let him pass. Numbuts threw himself to the floor at Llombaerth's feet, picking caltrops out of his feet with one hand and clinging to Llombaerth's leg with the other.
As the goblins occupied the party, they watched as a pair of orcs armed with long bows moved quickly past the secret door, advancing on Narka's position. They heard arrows fly on both sides, followed by an orcish grunt of pain and a goblin's shriek from a substantial wound.
Rekk moved to reinforce Narka, and Robbernar followed. Robbernar tried to rally Numbnuts to come with him, but Numbnuts stayed clinging to Llombaerth's leg. Llombaerth saw Bronson, Grilk, and Viss emerge from the corridor at the edge of the light shed by Walgretor's lantern, and heard orcish battle cries just beyond that. The orcs waiting in the shadows fell upon the party. Bronson turned and fled immediately through the secret door, stumbling over caltrops and hiding behind Llombaerth along with Numbnuts. Grilk and Viss were trapped in melee with the second group of orcs.
Robbernar found Narka nursing an arrow wound to the shoulder, and swapped places with her just as the orcs came crashing into the barricade with their flails. Llombaerth kicked Numbnuts off of him and advanced into the corridor beyond the secret door. He lit a flask of oil and flung it at the back of the orcs storming the barricade. He missed, but aimed low, smashing the flask on the floor just behind the orcs. The orcs were splashed by fire, now trapped between the barricade and the flames.
The second group of orcs and goblins battled at the edge of the lantern's light. Grilk let out a blood-curdling shriek as an orcish flail smashed him in the head, and Llombaerth heard a small body hit the floor. Rory and Armstrong left their fortified position to join the fray. Rory led with a deadly slice of his halberd, standing astride Grilk's corpse, but the blade was just barely deflected off an orc's shield. Armstrong pulled Viss out of the way and cut at the other orc with his longsword, delivering a serious blow.
Back at the barricade, Rekk struck with his "mace" (a meat tenderizer) and smashed an orc in the face. The orc fell back onto the flames, its corpse burning and filling the hall with the stink of cooked flesh. Robbernar slashed the second orc with his longsword, but it was only a glancing blow. Llombaerth fired a pair of arrows into the orc's back. One was a direct hit, the arrowhead protruding from the orc's chest right before Robbernar's eyes. The orc slumped forward onto the barricade, dead.
The melee in the second corridor was a series of frantic swings and misses, but the orcs' morale broke. They turned and fled back down the corridor and through the door into orcish territory. The party considered a pursuit, but chose to regroup instead.
In the lull that followed, the party and their goblin allies gathered the dead - Lumpknuckles, Grilk, and the three orcs. The party found fourteen electrum pieces and five platinum pieces on the orcs' bodies. Narka insisted that the party share the loot. Instead, Llombaerth showed Narka how to open the secret door to the room filled with barrels and casks of provisions, where the party had first encountered the rats which Narka was so intent on catching. This was a true treasure trove to the goblins, so they agreed to let the party keep the coinage, and the Grilk Memorial Goblin Larder was founded.
The goblins and the party used one of the barrels of lard to lay grease traps in front of the barricades in case of a future attack. Robbernar used a cure light wounds spell to heal Rory (who hadn't actually taken any damage in the battle, but had been burned by flaming oil a few sessions ago in the fight against the carrion crawler). The party planned to launch a counterattack into the heart of orcish territory next session, and we concluded there.
This was a really fun one! This was one of those combats that you kind of just let take up the session. We had been building to this for a while, and while it didn't exactly occur on the players' terms, they had plenty of time to make a game plan and set up. It was cool to watch that plan unfold, even if it didn't go as expected, and to see how the players responded to the twists and turns.
Speaking of twists and turns, while the Quasqueton map is hilariously nonsensical with all of its long, winding, narrow corridors, it is really fun to play out a dungeon skirmish in an environment like that. The narrow corridors meant that the orcs couldn't bring their full strength to the fight, while the party and their goblin allies could set up strategic choke points. At the same time, the multiple avenues of approach allowed the orcs to set up counter-ambushes that caught the party and their allies off guard more than once.
The whole combat was maybe four or five rounds at most, meaning it was over in five minutes in game time. Low hit point totals on both sides meant that every blow struck felt significant. While the player characters themselves took no wounds, if they had gotten just a bit less lucky they might have, and any such wound could have killed them instantly.
It was a lot to track at first, with three player characters, a man-at-arms, four goblins, and an unskilled NPC on one side, and two goblins and four orcs on the other. I used individual initiative, which certainly didn't simplify things, but the individual approach affects the ebb and flow of the battle in an interesting way, and prevents one side from easily overwhelming the other with an alpha strike-type round. Combatants quickly die, surrender, or are wounded and must retreat, and the aforementioned narrow corridors limit the number of active combatants at a time, which keeps things manageable.
Do not underestimate the power of naming your monster NPCs! It was super satisfying to me that the players were able to recognize Lumpknuckles and Numbnuts when they came running around the corner. They wanted revenge on Lumpknuckles for killing Malkara, and they knew that Numbnuts was a coward and would probably surrender if given the opportunity. They were distraught that it was Narka specifically that took the arrow wound, and her life-threatening injury instilled a sense of urgency in Robbernar as he moved to reinforce the barricade. Rekk, the goblin chef, is now a known badass with a meat tenderizer. It's meaningful that it was Grilk, the goblin leader, who died fighting the orcs, rather than some other generic goblin. It was much more interesting knowing that these specific goblins were putting their lives on the line fighting alongside the party, not just four generic, unnamed goblins.
The orcs all had names too. While the players don't know which is which, I do. I know that the orc who died in the initial attack last session was Muv, the friendly orc who was considering defecting to the heretical orcs in the lower level. I know that the orcs who died in this session were Brubar the drunk and Rheev, the orc with an interest in barbarian history. I also know which two orcs survived and how they are likely to respond now that they've survived the initial bloodbath. It's a little extra work, but it goes a long way!
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