Lacking Natural Simplicity

Attending

Clockwise round the table, starting with the Labyrinth Lord:

• T.A. — Labyrinth Lord

• M.A.

  • Gustavio, a Gnome. HP 4, AC 5.

  • Karl, a Dwarf. HP 4, AC 6.

• T.K.B.

  • Orm, a human Cleric. HP 5, AC 3.

  • Skeggi, a human Cleric. HP 6, AC 4 (3 with shield).

• E.A.

  • Semiriah, an Elf. HP 3, AC 5 (4 with shield).

  • Maury, a human Thief. HP 5, AC 6.

Actual Play

For some reason, Skeggi thinks Gustavio is a dressed up goblin. Semiriah is only too glad to fall in with this notion.

We started off by getting some rumors in town about the area.

Gustavio heard that a beautiful elf of great power is trapped beneath the Sacern Hills.

Orm heard that mad lords of the Sacern Hills left great treasures.

Skeggi heard that there is an underground shrine in the the Sacerns.

Semiriah heard that the orcs were lead by an intelligent ogre.

Maury heard that there is a place where one can walk through walls.

We found some hirelings: a guide, Gustaff (no weapons and armor), and some willing to fight: Dwalin (3 HP, Chain, 2 darts, longsword), Balin (4 HP), Gloin (6 HP), and Oin (4 HP). No, not Dwarves, though that's where we got the names, when T.A. didn't some names pre-planned. Unless otherwise noted, each hireling has a short sword, leather armor, a spear, and two darts.

Gustaff was willing to lead us to the clearing near the entrance to the caves, and was willing to stay with our beasts and stuff, but wasn't willing to fight.

Gustaff tells us that the caves were natural, used by many folks, Gezn worshippers, Orcs, all down through the ages.

Episode 1: we approach the cave mouth, and are attacked by 4 war wolves (wargs by any other name). In 4 rounds the war wolves were dead, but we'd lost Balin and Oin and had been seriously wounded ourselves. So, we head back to town, healed up, and hired nine more hirelings: Symna (6 HP), Zenith (6 HP), Ragnar (5 HP), Roger (6 HP), Pergold (3 HP), Poviteh (3 HP), Matil (3 HP) Murgar (3 HP), Zathar (1 HP).

Several days pass.

Episode 2: we enter through the cave mouth. 16 orcs. Sleeping area, guard quarters. 24 sp 7 gp, knuckle bone dice. Wolf kennel is empty, thanks to our earlier attack. Arsenal: take all — 25 spears, 6 daggers, 5 shortbows, 10 quivers (5 filled), 8 shortswords, 8 pole-arms. Another guard room: silver plate (50 gp), 2 carving knives. (We leave the rather dubious roast.)