Actual Play: Heroes of the Ashford Valley Session 2

Ashford Valley Actual Play notes from November 2012:

IN WHICH: A party of adventurers fight a bandit gang and resolve the fate of prisoners

What happened before: Four adventurers, Quinn the warrior, Jim Baggins the magic-user, Orin Copperhead the dwarf, and Giles Corey the elf, were tasked with delivering a valuable Bugbear longsword to the Lord of Sooton. While on the Deep Forest Road, they encountered Yarkand the Great Stag and followed him into the Deep Forest to a manor owned by Orin’s uncle Linder. Linder feared trouble was about to come down upon him and welcomed his kin and the other adventurers to his side, hoping that they could save his valuable gold mine and lands.

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With only a few days before trouble came down upon them, Jim, Quinn, Orin and Giles helped Linder set up defenses for his manor. The capped and sealed the well, then disguised it’s location. They also placed barrels full of stones on the manor roof to drop on attackers. And the mine was trapped and camouflaged.

But the bandits arrived before they could retreat into the manor. Curran and his “Local Boys,” along with some humanoid allies that included orcs, gnolls and bugbears, stepped from the forest edge. At their heels were a half-dozen prisoners from earlier raids. Curran smiled as his crew fired upon Jim and Linder, who quickly retreated into the manor. While Orin took up a defensive position in the mine, Quinn and Giles watched from the ruined chapel but quickly skirted the enemy and made it to the manor.

A pair of gnolls set up a small camp to the north of the manor while Curran’s main force set up camp near the chapel. When the manor defenders started firing into the bandits, Orin shot as well, giving up his position. A group of three orcs headed for the mine but were slain by the adventurers before they could successfully attack Orin.

As darkness fell, the bandits set up mantlets made from farmhouse doors captured during their raids and built large bonfires. They traded arrows with the manor defenders, to little affect on either side.

Quinn and Orin, supported by Jim and Giles, attacked the smaller camp, succeeding in slaying the two gnolls, while Linder watched the other bandits. The party retreated to the manor after throwing the gnolls’ mantlets into a bonfire and managed to escape the other bandits.

A bugbear and three bandits took over the gnolls camp and again, Orin and Quinn sallied forth from the manor to do battle, with Jim and Giles supporting, striking hard against the bugbear and bandits. Jim cast a grease spell onto the bandit camp and lit one of the bandits on fire. The fight was fierce but Orin and Quinn prevailed, though Quinn received a nasty wound.

Two more bugbears, hidden in the darkness, sprang forward and the fight continued back to the manor while the other bandits attempted to join in. Giles cast a sleep spell on the bandits and succeeded in enchanting two of them. By the end of the night, the party had killed 4 bandits, 2 gnolls, four orcs and two bugbears while taking little damage themselves. Giles healed Quinn and Jim’s wounds and the group prepared for morning.

In the night, an argument among the bandits lead them to turn upon themselves and the manor defenders heard the remaining two orcs be killed by the bandits. Towards dawn, another argument started and then silence. It wasn’t until morning that the truth was learned.

With only 4 bandits left in his crew and an unhappy bugbear, Curran had little choice but to retreat. He gave his prisoners to the bugbear for payment and fled the other way, with the remains of his “Local Boys.”

The party, concerned with the prisoners and their soon-to-be gruesome fate at the hands of a monster, pursued the bugbear and slayed it. Returning to the manor, they soon lost the trail of Curran and his crew. Gathering up the weapons, equipment and gold of the slain, they left Linder and the now freed prisoners together to form a new community around Linder’s manor. The dwarf would continue to mine the gold and the humans would build anew with Linder as their lord.

The adventurers continue on to Sooton and to further adventure, knowing that at some point, they would meet up with Curran again!

Treasure: 67 GP, 12 SP, 2 gnoll longbows, 2 gnoll longswords, 3 bugbear longbows, 2 bugbear longswords (1d8+1, claimed by Orin and Giles), 1 + 1 bugbear longsword (1d8+2, claimed by Quinn), 4 longswords, 4 shields, 4 shortbows, silk hanky, bottle of cheap wine, book of recipes, iron key, sticks of chalk, one she-loves-me-not daisy.