B-Team S&W Light, Session 2 - Grimmsgate 1

We played the second session of our small-group S&W Light game last night.

Characters
Moldleaf, Elf Magic-User 1 (me)
Bertrum Blackbutter, Battle Hobbit Fighter 1 (Tim Shorts)
Doug's Ranger, Elf Ranger 1 (Douglas Cole)


Last time we'd solve an ogre's problems. As a reward, the mayor of the town gave us some cash and a special "thank you" present - the deed to a piece of property. Great! Except that it was conveniently located 5 miles away, in the town of Grimmsgate.

Great, we can take a hint. We took the hint and left for our new digs.

On the road near town, two bandits leaped out at us. We got initiative, so I cast Charm Person on one of them. He rolled a 1 on his save, as is wont to happen. I said, "We're looking for Grimmsgate, how do we get there?" and my new friend, Fred, started to answer. Unfortunately, five more bandits emerged including their mail-clad leader. He yelled at Fred and ran Fred through with a sword for not stabbing us. Geez, ruthless. I yelled, "You killed Fred!" as melee broke out. In a short melee, I got stabbed and dropped, dying. Bertram and the Ranger killed another bandit (I think) and badly wounded the leader. He said, "Let's get out of here!" and they ran, seeing we weren't such easy pickings. The Ranger shot him in the back, killing him, as his men scattered. Two healing potions got poured down Moldleaf's through to revive him. We looted him of some cash (150 gp), his sword, and his mail, and a silver amulet (non-magical).

We reached the town and saw it was mostly deserted, or at least many farms were. We chatted with a wary guard, met the head of the Temple of Law. There we got healed, along with a quest to clear out an old temple infested with goblins, two potions of healing, and a scroll with Magic Missile and Sleep.

We also got set up with rooms at the inn, collected rumors (like a missing farm couple), and got settled in. The next morning we visited the smithy and bought some gear (daggers for Moldleaf, for one), and the Emporium. There we got a lot of fun stuff - banded armor for Bertrum, a nice bow for our Ranger, a scroll with Strength and Invisibility on it for Moldleaf, a costume jewelry-bestudded silvered dagger we dubbed the Dagger of Liberace, some healing salve (Battle-tine), and some other stuff.

Eventually we headed out to the old temple. It turned out to be more like a ruined structure near three caves in a wooded hill, arrayed like a triangle with one at the top and at each point. We went right up to and into the topmost of the three. We headed straight then left and found a crypt room with niches with skeletons in it, and two dog statues.

Naturally, one of the statues animated and attacked us. We broke it up into pieces, including via a hit from the Dagger of Liberace, but not before someone got hurt. We healed that with Battle-tine and moved into the next room. More niches. In this one, skeletons started to slowly animate, rise, and attack us. There were 15 niches and thus 15 skeletons.

We fought the good fight for a while, taking out five skeletons (the Dagger of Liberace proved effective here again), but eventually their growing numbers told. Bertrum and then the Ranger dropped. Moldleaf fled, then ran back in to drag out the fighters one by one and heal them up. That done, we retreated to town.

The next day, healed up and now with Moldleaf memorizing Sleep (more useful, less fun), we peered into the right cave. We saw a carved face on the wall. Our Rangers said, "Left cave." So we did that, going in and finding a storeroom with old crates and new rats.

Five giant rats swarmed us, biting and wounding Moldleaf. We killed two, and then Moldleaf threw Sleep. Actually since it was down to 3 vs. 3 giant rats, Tenkar asked me if I wanted to do that - I'd declared it, but it was possible to roll back. I didn't want to risk the inevitable "we got eaten by rats because we rolled 1s the rest of the fight."

After that we found some minor loot, and a secret passage. The end of the passage was quite hot, and the secret door at the end was hot to the touch. Betrum opened it up, despite every warning in elementary school during fire prevention week, and went in. Into a fireplace. Past it was a half-dozen weird cursed humans devouring raw rats. We attacked. Long story short, we took out one guy but both fighters got mauled and we dragged them back to safety and closed the door. Once more, we went back to town, this time for the duration as it was close to quitting time.

We hit level 2 after two solid delves.

Notes:

Tim didn't roll many ones. Doug rolled a LOT of ones. I rolled poorly on initiate for us pretty much all the time.

I have a lot more fun with Charm Person than Sleep, despite it not really being clear what I'm buying for my spell slot and a failed save. A slave? A friend? A slightly positive reaction bonus? I'll cast until I'm sure.

Overall a fun session although it took us a bit of setting up to get it rolling, mostly thanks to my wonky schedule issues (it wasn't clear I could play until basically playtime.)

S&WL is a lot of fun.