GURPS DF Session 198, Brotherhood Complex 6 - Gnolls & Doors

Real Date: 9/15/2024
Game Date: 9/18/2024

Weather: Sunny, warm.

Characters Chop, human cleric (301 points)
     Harold, human guard
     Samual, human guard
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (300 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (316 points)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (306 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf martial artist (266 points)

The PCs gathered in Stericksburg, lacking, sadly, even concepts of a plan. After gathering rumors they decided their best bet was to take on the dragon near the beholder's lair in Felltower. That quickly became "let's send Invisible Flying Vlad down to steal a scoop of treasure and get out" and then back to "but fight the dragon." Thor pointed out that dragons fly, they don't have tactical combat flight, and then they'll all die fighting the dragon. So they decided to head to the Brotherhood Complex and raid it, sure they could at least score some loot from the guards.

There had been some recent discussion about going to the complex, and it was agreed that fighting intelligent, active foes in what would be an assault, not a normal dungeon crawl, would take some specialized gear (like Magebane grenades) and fighting support (as in, a large number of combat-capable hirelings.) All of that went out the window for an imediately delve.* Instead they just bought 10 days of rations and set out.

Around midday on day 3 they reached the valley where the cave to the Brotherhood Complex is. They watched it while chowing down on rations, saw nothing going on, and headed in. The cave concealed a long, meandering and narrow hall that eventually ended up in a large room with a pair of giant metal doors. They spoke the passphrase and went through. Relying on the notes of previous delvers, they avoided the obvious exit and found an illusionary wall with stairs beyond. They dumped all of their spare rations in a corner in the room and sent Vlad ahead, with Dark Vision and Invisibility. He headed down the stairs, quietly, and heard some suppressed breathing and a low rumbling growl. He moved around the corner and saw a half-dozen gnolls, with a mix of longbows and morningstars, all clearly waiting for action. A triger padded out of a crack in the wall and started howling. Vlad backed off and shot the triger, and whistled for help.

The PCs rushed down and formed a rough line. The triger had run off, but the gnolls advanced. Vlad kept shooting the gnolls, trying to wound as many as he could to limit their ability to run for help. The gnolls yelled and barked and the triger roared a triple-throated roar from the crack in the wall.

The PCs moved up and attacked. Chop used Command on one of the gnolls, Thor started cutting them up, and Vlad kept shooting them. The triger rushed out and clawed up Samual and hurt Harold before going down until a lot of sword swings, arrows, stabs, and axes from Hannari. Duncan hit the triger and one of the gnolls with Stone Missile, but otherwise it was mostly Thor and Vlad killing them with Hannari crippling a couple on top of that. In about 15 seconds or so of fighting, they'd managed to kill them all. This was before any could run for help, but the gnolls and triger had put up a loud racket before going down.

They made sure the gnolls were dead, healed up their hirelings, and started to search around. They wanted to move quickly. They did, going from door to door to door in the area east of the entrance stairs (which are in the NW.) Amongst the oddities they found was an acidic water pit. They stayed clear - good choice, as it burbled and bubbled and exploded like a geyser after a few minutes. They put Resist Fire for the heat and Resist Acid for the acid and sent Vlad in to investigate. He fished around in the acid a bit but there wasn't anything in it they could see. They took a path around it and went on, exploring further and opening more doors.

In one, they saw a flickering light at the end of a hallway - from a crack in the floor. It was hot, too, so they all backed off and sent in Vlad with Resist Fire. As he headed down the hallway, the entire floor crumbled, revealing a bed of superheated coals. He fell, getting badly injured but not crippled. With help from Duncan - who also put Resist Fire on himself - he was brought out with Walk on Air. First, he spent some time searching the coals for loot before giving up. They headed out.

From there, they circled around and eventually found a hallway that led to a locked door. They tried to force it, but it was barred. Apportation couldn't shift the bar - it was locked down - and forcing the door failed. Hannari unlocked it, but that didn't help with the bar. So they decided to hack the door down, with Thor using Hannari's axe.

After bashing it a bit, Vlad - on lookout - saw a gnoll and shot it. He called to them.

The PCs stopped what they were doing and ran to Vlad. He saw more gnolls, and some humans in armor and a number of robe-wearing figures.

Vlad kept sending arrows down the hallway, wounding gnolls and trying - and missing - against the robed guys. Thor and Samuel and Harold rushed forward, and Hannari moved forward with him. Two of the robed guys throw spells - an Explosive Fireball and an Explosive Acid Ball, both 6d. They did a solid amount of damage - 24 for the fireball, 27 for the acid. In the narrow hallway there wasn't really anywhere to jump aside. Thor was fine, although his armor was corroded a bit on the back and he's got some burning gear. Samual is engulfed in flames, Harold burning and badly hurt. Hannari was hurt as well, and is also burned.

The PCs have the gnolls, robed cultists, and guards moving to engage them and also north . . . and are effectively between the PCs and the exit, now with two hirelings badly hurt and unable to outrun anyone (if they can stay up.)

And that's where we called it, for time.


* Because hiring NPCs means I need to generate them, make tokens for them, and put the in the VTT, which is time consuming . . . and that time would come out of our playing time.

Notes:

- I like having the whole map open so people can manually move around. Much easier on me.

- The plan was a hit-and-run raid - I think - but in the end a lot of time was spent clearing empty rooms and doubling over areas. They didn't map, because that would take far too long (and would have meant a response much earlier). But they also spent a good amount of time trying to hack down a door in a dead end. We'll see how it goes from here.

- So far, the loot is a triger pelt and some weapons from the gnolls they'll loot on the way out. Unless they can defeat the enemies they face now and hold the field, of course. The pelt is damaged - I'll roll to see how much, but since they took the Triger to -91 HP from 19, aka between -4x and -5xHP, it's going to be less valuable. Sorry . . . best way to get a triger pelt isn't to hack the triger to death.

MVP was Vlad for valuable and effective missile fire. My vote, which doesn't count, was for Hannari's player, who suggested a monster that I'll write up the next time I need a post with a silly monster.