Saturday, October 31, 2015

Dungeons and Dragons Part 12



We played DnD last week and this is what happened, to the best of my memory.

So, when last we left off, the Party was sleeping outside of the inn Ulfgar burned down.  In the morning, they continued on down the road, heading towards Gnome village of Barrelhelm.  On the way, they encountered a marching band of Orcs, but made short work of them, especially since most of them were clustered closely enough together that Ulfgar was able to take most of them out with one Fireball.  For once, Ulfgar managed to use a fireball without causing property damage or the loss of innocent life!  Hurrah!

Eventually they came to an outpost alongside the road that was being attacked by orcs, though it seemed to be held off by a valiant warrior dude of some sort.  They gave aid to this lone guardian, and defeating this band of orcs, the guy there, who turned out to be a human, gave them directions for a fork coming up in the road.  To reach Barrelhelm, they needed to take the right.

They continued on, and took the right in the road when they came to it.  Traveling down the road they eventually came to a place where the road was blocked off by several tree trunks.  It not being possible to navigate their cart around it, the strong members of the party started working at hacking away at the trunks. 

But while they were doing this, the party was soon beset by a pack of sprites, firing poisoned arrows at them, and a tall faerie woman, who excoriated the party for hacking at the trees (which really doesn’t make any sense when you think about it, because the trees were already dead). Fortunately, none of the party fell victim to the effects of the sprites arrow poison, and the sorceress fey failed to take control of Nory’s mind.  Then Nory killed her, like, right away.  Like it wasn’t nothing.  No one puts voices in Nory’s head except Cthulu!

The party succeeded in hacking through the rest of the trees, and continued on their way.  They soon came to a village, but it was a mostly human village, with little sign of Gnomes.  The party soon learned that this village had set up the road blocks, and the party kind of let slip that they had maybe sort of destroyed them.  They also quickly learned that they had gone the wrong way at the fork, that the gnome village would be reached by going the other way, and that the fellow they met at the outpost fighting orcs fit the description of someone with family in the village who had actually been beheaded by Orcs.  Curious!

Trying to be helpful and feeling a little bad about destroying the village’s roadblock, the party met with the village elders, who appeared to be kind of druidy types.  The Elders let them know that, to defend themselves from the bands of orcs roving from Barrelhelm, they had entreated the local spirits of the forest, who seemed to be the same poison-arrow-firing jerks they met on the road, and who gave the Elders a spell to cast to gain protection.  The Elders cast the spell, and one of their lot, a man named Swiller, turned into a bear covered in runes, then slashed and killed one of the acolytes of the village religion, and ran off into the woods.  The council asked the party to go off and bring him back.  The Elders weren’t angry with him or nothing, they just wanted him back.  All was forgiven.  No one deals well with being turned into a bear.  

The party set off for the nearby woods, accompanied by the second and last remaining acolyte, who guided them through the woods.  Eventually they came to a cave, from which they heard moaning.  The party ventured into the cave, leaving the acolyte outside so he would be safe.  Certain members journeyed ahead of others, and the stragglers looked behind them just in time to see a bipedal bear carrying an axe cut the acolyte in two.  Because the party can never safely protect innocents anymore, can they?

Most of the party rushed forward to do battle with the bear, who was not covered in runes, while the Bard and Ulfgar continued through the cave, coming to a room where they saw a man turning into a bear covered in runes, who then attacked them. 

Ulfgar moved back to hurl minor spells at the bear, not wanting to kill him with his magic.  The bear then knocked out the Bard in short order.  Meanwhile, the rest of the party managed to kill the first bear.  Then, joining with Ulfgar, they managed to subdue the rune covered bear, who then turned back into Swiller.  The other bear, after some time, turned back into a man, and the party deduced that he must be the first slain acolyte. 

The  party tied the knocked-out Swiller up and returned to the village.  There, they informed them that the spell granted by the spirits of the forest had turned Swiller into a werebear, so, they were going to have to deal with that, and maybe not trust the spirits of the forest anymore, on account of them being two-faced dicks.