Play Report: KotB/Barrier March, Session 78 (Rooting Out Ogres)

On March 14th, having defeated the kobold sally force and charmed their leader, the party prepares to go into the structure and one of their companions catches up with them, ready to join in just in time:

• Kilterson (MaC): Level 2 Human Druid
  • Meddle, Level 1 Halfling Scoundrel
• Rimuru (HuS): Level 1 Human Fighter
• Ingrid Corvinsdatter (MaD): Level 1 Human Barbarian
• Leonard (JoF): Level 1/1 Elf Cleric/Mage

Their charmed kobold (Stelk) is happy to lead the way and introduce them to his tribe. He points out a trapped step for them to avoid as he leads them down the tight, spiral stairs to the bottom where he is confronted by the tribe.

The tribe tries to convince Stelk that something is wrong with his mind and that his new friends are enemies who have ensorcelled him. They listen (Rimuru translating) while he argues with them and Rimuru encourages him to go and join the others. While he does, they charge and crash through the choke point to engage the kobolds.

With Ingrid, Rimuru, and Kilterson absorbing kobold attacks and javelins in front, they are having trouble cutting through them, but are receiving little damage in return, which Leonard is on hand to heal. The javelineers run out of javelins and fall back and with everyone in good shape, Leonard joins the front line and with a couple more kobolds falling, they fail a morale check enough to start retreating carefully.

The party stays engaged with them, pushing them back while Leonard and Meddle hold back to throw darts. The battle is turning their way as Kilterson and Meddle identify the chief and start to target him in the press. However, when the javelineers return for one more cast, one lands an incredibly lucky javelin in Leonard and he goes down like a sack of potatoes. Not long after, Meddle slays the chief and the kobolds start to break and run. They tell the Stelk to go with them and prepare the tribe for them to return in peace and gather up Leonard to flee the underground.

They make it safely back to Warded Cross and spend the afternoon and the 15th recovering spells to heal the party and recovering from the ordeal. By the 16th, they are ready to head back to the kobolds and see if Stelk managed to get control of the tribe in the absence of the chief.

They make it safely to the overlook to the kobold tower and see that there are still kobolds on watch there, so they approach and hail them, asking them to tell Stelk they are there. They send a kobold to get him and when Stelk emerges he has another, more commanding kobold with him who sends two kobolds out to flank the party on each side and leaves several in the tower.

The new kobold, Kilt, is frank with them that Stelk isn’t trusted because the other kobolds think that he has a spell on him. He wants to understand the proposed relationship with the Kobold King and the Green Dragon himself. They explain the fictional relationship and the glory of the fictional distant rulers again, but Kilt is focused on what next actions are in the plan. “What is the Kobold King going to do for us and what do we have to do for him?”

Recall that Kilt returned from patrol to a tribe whose chief these men had killed and routed and to find his peer in the tribe calling these men representatives of the powerful Kobold King who are offering them something better. He knows that even if this Kobold King thing sounds super fishy, if he plays along he can probably find an outcome better than the whole tribe being wiped out.

The party’s explanation of what the transaction they are proposing here is unclear to Kilt, who isn’t sure about moving the tribe somewhere else for an unknown situation. When the party proposes they could stay and contribute in other ways, Kilt is hesitant about it as well. Still, he is willing to test the relationship out, offering to go get their map of the tunnels to allow them to deal with some threats to the kobolds as a first demonstration of the value the Kobold King offers.

However, while he goes, Kilterson prepares to cast charm on him when he returns and hits him with it immediately when he emerges again. Kilt eagerly turns over the map and explains all of the marked locations, including their hunting traps. He accepts their proposal to go down and deal with the ogres.

The kobolds in the buried stone structure are wary and afraid as they walk through and out into the rough tunnels cut through slate with patches of cut granite blocks visible behind the slate. They pass by a strong door in a granite wall, but are single-minded in their ogre pursuit. Through a room that looks like a petrified log cabin, they come to a cut granite room that has been chiseled into and get the jump on two ogres.

Their surprise yields less damage than they would have hoped for and the ogres charge. Kilterson and Rimuru receive their charge, bringing down the smaller one that led the attack, but it simultaneously crushes Rimuru, collapsing onto him as they both go down. While Leonard hits Rimuru with healing spells to try to get him back up, Meddle keeps throwing darts while Ingrid joins Kilterson on the front line. Leonard finally manages to get Rimuru back up, but Kilterson goes down as well. Fortunately, Rimuru’s return to the fight gets enough damage in that Meddle’s next throw is a 50/50 to finish the ogre before it has a chance to drop someone else. Meddle lands it and they are free to get Kilterson back up and go grab the treasure from the granite brick room they were in: bags of gold coins and a pouch of gems.

They withdraw past the kobolds, worried they might engage, but they don’t. The ogre heads probably help to intimidate and appease them. They limp back to Warded Cross and on the 17th on the Larkbridge to sell the gems and seek trainers. The whole party levels.

Charm going a long way here, but there is still a kobold tribe living within a stone’s throw of several villages. The party is trying to figure out what to do about that.