The Investiture and Siege of Freegate - A Summation

So at this point in the campaign, I had written myself into a corner.  The next stage of the arc would be the Horde arriving at Freegate and besieging it.  I had no idea what this would look like nor how to run something like that.

So I punted.

I spoke with the players and explained I needed to skip over the Siege and narrate the key events because I really had no idea how to run something that large with the Fantasy Hero system.  Thankfully they were amenable to this.  So here is roughly what I told them.  It is only a rough approximation as none of my notes on it seem to have survived, at least nothing in electronic format.  I might have some hand-written notes buried somewhere and there might still be something in my pile of rescued but unnamed files from the hard drive crash I suffered in 2014, but right now all I have is my memory.

The Investiture of Freegate

The Goblinoid Horde North [named to separate it from a second Horde besieging the City of Riverbight and rampaging in the lands surrounding it in the southern part of the Crendian Empire] split in two when it reached the southern end of the chasm in which Freegate sat.  Both halves numbered over 20,000 warriors, with the eastern half being the slightly larger of the two.  Each half marched up its side of the chasm for three days until both reached the points where the two adamantine bridges connected the city on the mesa in the center with the opposing rims.  There they arranged themselves to besiege the city, cutting off its escape.

So why did none of the Horde march up inside the chasm or anyone in Freegate escape that way?  The bottom of the chasm is over a half mile deep and filled with a dense jungle that appears to be warmer and more humid than the surrounding plains.  Unusual roars and cries are occasionally heard from the jungle and large reptilian flying beasts, known as "clakkers" glide in the air above the jungle.  The people of Freegate occasionally feed the clakkers, who have learned not to attack people on the bridges.  The jungle is extremely dangerous and no one entering the jungle has ever returned.  The Horde seemed to be aware of this and avoided the area.

The Siege

Once in place, the Horde attacked the relatively weak Rim Defenses, easily smashing through the fortifications there.  [Those were there mostly as access control to the bridges and not defenses strong enough to stop what they were facing.]  Then a series of attacks were initiated, with groups of warriors marching the length of the bridges to start attacking the actual city gates.

This is where the Wizards of Outlands University shone.  Combined attacks by units of wizards either killed the attacking warriors or pushed them off the bridges and let gravity do the dirty work.  This heavily bolstered the morale of the city.  Unfortunately, the Wizards knew this was unsustainable - eventually they would run out of reagents for their magics and then the Horde would have the numbers to break one or both sets of gates.

This gave rise to a plan of desperation - the Arch Chancellor of the University authorized the mass distillation of Tim's Double Distilled.  This consumed all of the alcohol inside the city [at least all that could be found].  The mass of Double Distilled was used to fill as many glass or ceramic bottles and jugs as the University could procure.  While this happened, scrolls of extended telekinesis were mass produced as delivery systems.

The Flight of the Bottles

Four days later, in the early morning before the daily assault along the bridges by the Horde, while their warriors gathered near the entrance to the eastern bridge, tens of Wizards along the eastern walls of the city cast the extended telekinesis spell from the scrolls and as one, each lifted and sent bottles of Tim's Double Distilled across the gap between the city and the rim until the bottle floated over the massed goblinoids.  Then one Wizard launched a fireball at the massed bottles, triggering a chain-reaction detonation of all the bottles over the eastern half of the Horde.

The resulting airburst was devastating.

Hundreds if not thousands of goblinoid warriors were killed outright [plus an unfortunate number of the enslaved population of the Bayern District and other places south].  Squadrons of batriders were swatted out of the sky.  Many of the immense rolling buildings the Horde had brought all the way from the Great Swamp were damaged or destroyed.  The stone fortifications on the rim were heavily damaged, portions blown over into the chasm below.  Eastern-facing windows in the city [over a mile away] were damaged or destroyed.  Few of the defenders along the wall were injured because they had been warned to hide.  [But of course some didn't heed the warning because they thought they knew better than wizards and self-selected themselves out of the gene pool.]  Fire, smoke, and dust rose over the eastern rim of the chasm.

An hour later, from the western walls of Freegate, another flight of bottles rose and started its way across the chasm, towards the besiegers on the western rim.  Many of the warlords on that side took one look at the approaching bottles and said, "Nope."

Ignoring [and occasionally killing] the shaman leadership of the Horde trying to get them to stay, the warlords turned their troops west and fled the area at best speed.  Nearly 50% of the Horde on this side of the chasm broke and ran, heading for the mountains to the west-southwest of the city [an extension of the Worldspine Mountains known as The Spur].  The remainder, barely held together by the religious leadership, flooded onto the bridge, hoping to close with the city and escape the deadly explosion that was immanent.

Seeing this, the Wizard in charge of the attack cast his fire spell early, detonating the bottles before they were all over the rim.  This airburst killed thousands of warriors and gouged a huge chunk out of the rim wall itself.  Those goblinoids on the bridge were blasted clean off, their bodies falling  down into the chasm below, where the things down there ate well.

This second attack broke the morale of the warlords of the Horde.  Those on the eastern rim organized their troops and headed northwest, towards the next target on their Grand Quest, the city of Crendia, capital of the Crendian Empire.  Any shaman that objected to the Horde leaving Freegate suddenly found themselves on the wrong end of multiple spears or pincushioned by many arrows.  The smart ones kept silent, accepting the defeat.  They could regain control over the Horde later.  Those goblinoids on the western rim still loyal to the Grand Quest [a significantly reduced number] packed up and headed north to march around the northern end of the chasm and eventually meet up with the eastern half of the Horde.  The rest fled to the mountains.

The Wizards breathed a sigh of relief.  They could not have done a third wave, having used up 90% of the alcohol in the city in these two attacks and virtually all the bottles available. The resulting celebrations in the city consumed the remaining 10% of alcohol [very well hidden away until then] until more could be brewed or distilled.

Tim's Outlanders Landing Page

Against the Horde

Session 5

Mansion of Illusions

Session 1 [Not Yet Posted]

Tim's Outlanders: Against the Horde, Session 5 - August 25, 17 IC

[And we are back to my notes not tracking the date played again.  That said, this session likely happened in September of 1999 as we played once a month.  As it turned out, Mikal's player was able to join us for one last session and Mikal nearly achieved a glorious death.  Twice.]

Player Characters

Tim, a Wizard - male human from the Free City of Freegate, student at Outlands University
Dangar Stonekleaver - male dwarf from the Northern Dwarven Kingdom
Mikal Torvaldsson - human male, of the Uplander Clans
Darian Kyle - human male, formerly of the Imperial 7th Legion [deserter]
Aureme Anginsan - human female, formerly an Imperial Navy sailor (retired)

NPCs

Casvia - elf female from the Free City of Freegate, student at Outlands University

Session Begins, August 25, 17 IC

After Dusk

Deciding that the bats would spot them [see end of Session 4], the Outlanders decided to attempt to escape detection and make it to the river.  Tim levitated a bottle of his Double Distilled, first away from the PCs, then up towards a bat-rider patrol.  He then detonated it amongst them, hoping to distract them long enough for the adventurers to escape.  While this successfully distracted the bat-riders, Tim and Aureme’s horses both panicked.  The panicked horses bolted and ran uncontrolled for 15 minutes, until they were too tired to run farther.  [This was due to neither Tim nor Aureme having the Riding skill.  The Fantasy Hero rules assume anyone can ride a horse in calm situations, but must have the Riding skill for anything outside that, like when your horses panic after a tremendous, nearby, explosion.]  The adventurers eventually regrouped and headed as fast as they dared to the river, following a hedgerow for cover.

Some 300 yards from the river, the hedgerow, and the road, ended.  At first the PCs thought they were in a freshly turned field.  When they looked closer, they realized this was where the Horde had marched past, flattening anything in its path and churning the soil.  Then the adventurers noticed that the batriders were regrouping in numbers and preparing to resume their search, this time knowing there were hostiles in the area.

The Outlanders dismounted and hid as best they could at the end of the hedgerow.  Tim, using his levitation spell, sent a lit bottle of Double Distilled with a long fuse floating along the backside of the hedgerow.  When it was close to both detonating and the bats, he brought it swooping up into the bat swarm, where it detonated.  The resulting explosion killed several of the giant bats, many of the riders, was seen back in Freegate, and spooked the horses again.  Panicked, two of the horses bolted to the river and went over the edge of the embankment.  One of those horses was Tim’s and carried the six remaining bottles of Tim’s Double Distilled.  Tim's horse stumbled and rolled over the bottles, detonating all of them.

Earlier, Back in Freegate

The Freegate City Militia interrupted Mikal’s component-gathering training.  They needed him to gather information on the Horde instead.  The Horde’s magical protection was currently uncrackable and Mikal had the only flying mount in the city that could infiltrate the skies over the Horde.  Seeing no choice, Mikal agreed to scout out the Horde.

At first being cautious on his approach to the Horde, Mikal noticed that all the Horde’s bat-riders were searching an area in the Horde’s rear.  Taking advantage of this and the setting sun, Mikal flew directly over the Horde's camp, low and fast.  He saw several buildings on rollers, some of which appeared to be giant mobile bat roosts.  He also saw several holding pens for unknown creatures and a creature that met the legendary description of a dragon!  It appeared the dragon was wearing a collar of some sort, but Mikal couldn’t tell why.

As Mikal finished his scouting run over the Horde, a tremendous aerial explosion occurred among the bat-riders to the rear of the Horde.  Recognizing the harsh white of the explosion as Tim’s handiwork, Mikal steered Meep towards the area.  When a second explosion happened near the river, Mikal steered Meep lower and over that area and spotted the rest of the Outlanders.  They spotted him as well, but thought he was a an enemy bat-rider!  After a short exchange of crossbow bolts (from Dangar) and words (from Mikal), the Outlanders reunited and moved to find a hiding place from the Horde.

The Outlanders located a small cave in the rocky sides of the riverbank and took shelter within it, along with their mounts.  Tim and Dangar quickly brought Mikal up to date and he told them what he saw in his fly-over on the Horde.  The adventurers then started a lengthy discussion as to what plan of action to take [because Players].  This lead to the development of a plans to drop the Horde, or at least a large portion of it, into the Tabor River.  Many of these grandiose plans involved caves or tunnels and Tim’s Double Distilled in large quantity.  Mikal was given a bottle of T.D.D. for later use against the goblins.  Tim placed a fire spell on the bottle's cap that would trigger when a goblinoid was within 30 feet of the bottle, detonating the bottle.  Both Tim and Mikal believed this would help Mikal when fleeing other bat-riders.

During the debate, Aureme heard scrabbling noises outside on the rocks.  The adventurers prepared their weapons and Mikal hopped on Meep and flew out of the cave.  As Meep exited the cave a man-sized lizard with large, sharp talons leapt at him and missed.  [To be clear, these are hunting lizards the size of a human, not lizardmen.]  Seven others then charged the cave.  In the ensuing ferocious fight at the cave's mouth, the adventurers took a number of serious wounds and Tim was knocked unconscious due to a spell misfire.  At one point in the fight, Mikal leapt from Meep’s back into one of the lizards to finish it off.  [Potentially Heroic death missed, number one.]

After the fight [and using the Healing Rock on several of his companions], Mikal went to find Meep, who had not yet returned.  Darian followed shortly thereafter to help search.  At the top of the riverbank, Mikal found Meep being dog-piled by another pack of the man-sized lizards.  Thinking only of his mount, Mikal leapt into the pile holding out the Healing Rock.  Making contact with Meep, Mikal used the last charge of the Rock for the day to heal Meep.  Meep was then able to shrug off several of the lizards and get airborne.  The lizards then turned on Mikal.  The lizard's goblin handler also closed in.

Just as Darian arrived at the top of the riverbank, the bottle of T.D.D. at Mikal’s waist detonated due to the proximity of the goblin handler.  The resulting explosion killed all the lizards and their handler, knocked Meep out of the sky and killed him, knocked Darian unconscious and blew him 20 meters back into the river, knocked out Aureme (who had just exited the cave and was caught in the fireball), nearly collapsed the cave on Tim and Dangar, but, miraculously, did not instantly kill Mikal.  [Potentially Heroic death missed, number two.  But only just.]

Tim, realizing the source of the explosion, scrambled out of the cave and to the top of the riverbank.  Tim first saw Meep’s charred and broken corpse where it had fallen back to earth, next to the crater that was ground zero for the explosion.  Inside the crater, Tim found the partial body of Mikal, mortally wounded but still alive.  Casting his minor healing spell on Mikal to buy some time, Tim frantically searched the debris for the Healing Rock.  Using his Glow Stone as a magical lodestone, he found and recharged the Healing Rock [a little dramatic license here on my part as it had used up its charges for the day].  He then used up the Healing Rock again on Mikal.  The Healing Rock was able to bring Mikal back from death’s door, but little else.  Between his knees and ribs, Mikal was little more than a skeleton with a flesh covering.

At the same time, Dangar looked for Darian, slowly at first, then with increasing urgency.  When Aureme finally became coherent, Dangar learned that she had seen Darrian at the top of the riverbank fighting more of the lizards just before being outlined and engulfed by an incredibly bright light.

Suspecting that Darian had been blown into the river, the group (minus Mikal) spread out along the riverbank looking for him.  After an hour of searching, they finally found his body.  He had landed in the river nearby but was tragically weighed down by his armor and obscured by the mud he had stirred up.  He had never regained consciousness and drowned.

Worried about the Horde following up on the explosions, the group headed down river [away from the Horde] to another cave Dangar had discovered while looking for Darrian.  They carried Mikal and Darrian’s body with them.  Tim used the teleportation scroll to carry Mikal back to Freegate for further medical treatment.  While Tim was there, Dangar prepared the new cave as a proper burial chamber for Darian.  Considering how much they had argued, this was somewhat surprising and touching.

In Freegate, Tim requested serious medical attention for Mikal.  At first people would ask why and Tim would show them Mikal.  As word spread and the custodial staff complained about the mess, people stopped asking why and scrambled to get him medical attention.  Mikal was moved to a private room to await the attention of a priest, preferably for healing and not last rites.

Tim was taken to the Debriefing Officer where he reported everything that had happened and included what Mikal had seen while flying over the Horde.  Tim also requested a replacement team member, preferably one with healing ability.  Tim’s report greatly disturbed the Debriefing Officer, especially the part about the dragon.  Tim was questioned for what details he could provide.

When the four hours of the teleportation spell was nearly up, Tim was taken back to the transport room.  There he was introduced to Max Lucas, a young ranger and the newest member of Tim’s Outlanders.  After a short introduction, both magically returned to the sending circle by the river, where the rest of the Outlanders were waiting.  Max Lucas was given brief introductions to Aureme and Dangar, who was putting the finishing touches to what became Darian’s tomb.

End of Session.

DM Discussions

[OK, this session's notes reminded me how the teleportation scroll worked, so I'm going to discuss it here.  The scroll is a focus for a teleportation ritual that requires a ritual circle be drawn on a flat surface.  When the ritual is complete, anyone inside the circle with the scroll is teleported to a matching circle back in Freegate, specifically in a large room on the campus of Outlands University, a fixed location by the game rules.  The effect only lasts for four hour and sends whomever is holding the scroll back to the original circle.  If the holder is inside the receiving circle when this call-back is triggered, anyone else with them is also transported.  This is why the group had to march back to the city when recalled and did not teleport.  It also only works once per day.  So it can be used to send reports back and deliver additional people or supplies the returning people can carry, but not be used for bulk transportation.]

Tim's Outlanders Landing Page

Against the Horde

Session 4

The Investiture and Siege of Freegate - A Summation

Tim's Outlanders: Against the Horde, Session 4 - August 17 to August 25, 17 IC

[My notes suggest this session took place in August of 1999.  It would have been on a Saturday, but my notes did not say which Saturday.  This is the first time I made any note as to when the game was played.]

Player Characters

Tim, a Wizard - male human from the Free City of Freegate, student at Outlands University
Dangar Stonekleaver - male dwarf from the Northern Dwarven Kingdom
Mikal Torvaldsson - human male, of the Uplander Clans
Darian Kyle - human male, formerly of the Imperial 7th Legion [deserter]
Aureme Anginsan - human female, formerly an Imperial Navy sailor (retired)

NPCs

Casvia - elf female from the Free City of Freegate, student at Outlands University

Session 4 Begins, August 17-20, 17 IC

The group was recalled to Freegate shortly after the beheadings were reported.  The trip took four days and Casvia left the group in disgust once they returned to Freegate.  Mikal also left, accepting a request to secure rare components for a ritual to destroy the orb from Dangar's vision.  His ability to ride Meep made him ideal for this mission.  [Mikal's player was moving to a different state to take a new job and would no longer be available to play as this was long before Discord or Roll20 existed and playing face-to-face was the only option.]

August 21

Rumors about the goblin impaling incident started circulating through the university and then out into the city at this point.  The University officials weren't certain what to do with the Outlanders.  On one hand, they were clearly performing atrocities, but on the other, Tim had discovered a very volatile substance that had great potential in the war against the Horde.  They finally decided to table the decision until after the war.

The militia unit, along with the other  Outland University Militia (OUM) teams, were being boarded in one of the on-campus dormitories.  Tim spent the night of the 21th at the High-Energy Thaumatics building with several of the grad students preparing more of what becomes known as “Tim’s Double Distilled”.

[A side note on the geography of the City of Freegate.  The city is located atop a mesa in the middle of a two-mile wide chasm.  The chasm itself is over 125 miles in length, with the greater Tabor River running through the bottom, nearly a mile down at the point where Freegate stands.  Two adamantine bridges link the city to the canyon rims, where there are minor fortifications and some accumulated out buildings.  Outlands University is on a separate branch of the mesa and connected to the main part of the city by a shorter adamantine bridge.  The city is very old.]  

August 22

As a result of his all-nighter, Tim was late to a meeting of the surviving OUM groupleaders.  His sleep deprivation caused him to barely remember the details of what he’s supposed to discuss with his team.  Once back with the Outlanders. he told the party two of the options available (guarding the humanoids in Outtown [one of the districts inside the city walls] and checking out the Sewers) but could not remember the remaining options.  He designated Aureme as his deputy, told her to attend the follow-up meeting at 3pm, and then fell into a deep sleep, snoring noisily.

When Aureme arrived at the 3pm meeting, clearly not knowing what was going on, the Militia Commander was angered by this lack of discipline and respect.  He deliberately misheard Aureme volunteer her group for any duty but sewer duty and assigned sewer duty to them as a punishment.  This sparked an unusually violent reaction from Aureme and Darian, who took some of their displeasure with Tim out on Tim.

August 23

The morning of the 23rd, a very unhappy group headed to the main office of the Sewer Workers Guild to report for duty.  While being briefed by the Guild Master, the room they were in was lowered from the street level down to the sewer level [it was essentially an elevator].  When the doors opened back up and Aureme discovered she was far underground, she had a very violent reaction to "being tricked underground" [she apparently was very claustrophobic].  Rather than subdue her, the Guild Master returned the room to the surface and sent the party back to the University for re-assignment.  

The Militia Commander re-assigned them to Ambush duty against the Horde.

August 24

In the morning, Tim's Outlanders, down to 4 members, gathered supplies and headed out of Freegate.  They traveled a full day in a curving arc down stream and then started their approach to the Horde.  They spent the night hiding a half day's ride from the river in a copse of trees.  Careful observation of the Horde's approach allowed the Outlanders to establish the patrol pattern for the bat riders.  

August 25

They spent the morning judging the Hordes movement rate by how fast the bat patrols advanced their patrol patterns.

Shortly after Noon the party started moving towards the river.  Using gaps in the patrol pattern of the bat riders, they moved in behind the Horde.  

About an hour before nightfall, they came across the remains of a farmhouse the Horde had ransacked and stripped.  While investigating this, they spotted a fire elemental that was spreading fires on the Horde’s flank.  Tim used a telekinesis spell to move a bottle of his Double Distilled towards the elemental.  The elemental noticed the bottle once it was within thirty feet and shot a fireball at it.  

The resulting explosion knocked Tim off his feet, 70 yards away, and nearly killed the elemental.  Tim immediately sent a second bottle at the elemental.  The elemental missed it several times before Tim slammed the bottle into the ground at the elemental’s feet.  The explosion, while powerful, was nowhere near as devastating as the first bottle.  Despite this, it was enough to kill the elemental.  

The party immediately rushed out of the vicinity and towards the river before the bat patrols started swarming the area.  They hid among some rocks, hoping the widening search pattern of the bat riders would miss them.

Session Ends.

Happening Off-Stage

Rumors about “Tim’s Outlanders” and their barbarity start spreading in Freegate, mingling with other rumors about Tim himself.  Some are appalled, some approve, but most cannot fully believe the rumors.  The Rare Art Brotherhood (RAB) decides to be a little more cautious about dealing with Tim.

The goggle fragments Dangar sent back from the Bat Meat Incident have been fused into wearable lenses.  Unfortunately, they are still full of fractures and give a penalty to PER when Dangar's head makes rapid movements, like when he is in combat.

Tim's Outlanders Landing Page

Against the Horde

Session 3

Session 5 [Not Yet Posted]

Tim's Outlanders: Against the Horde, Session 3 - August 15 to August 16, 17 IC

Player Characters

Tim, a Wizard - male human from the Free City of Freegate, student at Outlands University
Dangar Stonekleaver - male dwarf from the Northern Dwarven Kingdom
Mikal Torvaldsson - human male, of the Uplander Clans
Darian Kyle - human male, formerly of the Imperial 7th Legion [deserter]
Aureme Anginsan - human female, formerly an Imperial Navy sailor (retired)

NPCs

Casvia - elf female from the Free City of Freegate, student at Outlands University

Session 3 Begins, August 15, 17 IC

Casvia returned from Freegate via her teleportation spell and brought back new orders for the group: find out the make up of the Horde and get the information back to Freegate.  Mikal headed out on Meep that night to try and count camp fires.  He saw that the Horde was advancing on both sides of the Greater Tabor River and apparently torching the countryside as it went.  To investigate, he flew Meep low and fast over one of the burning areas and found what appeared to be a fire elemental was the source of the fires.  Before he could see more he was chased away by a goblin batrider patrol.  He returned to the Outlanders after losing the patrol.

Later that night, while the party was camping, they were spotted by a bat patrol.  This patrol attacked fanatically, power diving at Mikal and Meep.  After a mid‑air collision with the leader, Mikal and Meep were driven into the ground and seriously injured.  Only Mikal’s possession of the Healing Rock [a magical healing stone] saved Meep from death.  Dangar spent time looking through the remains of the patrol for their nightvision goggles and secured enough fragments for a pair.  This becomes known as the Bat Meat episode.  [Because players can be "witty".]

Mikal flew out on Meep again that night with Aureme to verify the party’s next campsite was still safe and to track the Horde's movements.  Mikal told the remaining adventurers to meet him at the next campsite if he didn't return to this one in two hours.  The rest of the Outlanders promptly forgot/ignored this plan and send Casvia back to Freegate.

August 16, 17 IC

Just before Noon, after waiting several hours at their campsite [while Casvia was back at Freegate making a gory spectacle of the battle scene and Mikal was at the next campsite wondering where they were], the Outlanders noticed dust trails heading in their direction.  Judging that Casvia would return about the same time the goblin patrol(s) would arrive, Tim, Dangar, and Darian set up a hidden ambush and waited.

When the goblins arrived, they appeared to be a concerted effort to locate what was killing the bat patrols in this area.  The "patrol" was made up of thirty goblin lizardriders and 20-30 batriders.  The batriders spotted the party’s horses, signaled the lizard riders, and then flew high, to watch the battle.

Through the use of explosive spells and arrow fire, the PCs killed the lizard riders with light damage to themselves (except Dangar, who nearly died).  Casvia, returning near the end of the fight saved Darian, who was watching her return point.  At this point the adventurers remembered the back up site.  Dangar and Tim started decapitated the 30 goblins and sticking their heads on pikes as a warning.  [I was recently reminded they also used the goblin entrails to spell out, in goblin, "Go Away" in large letters on the landscape.  These were the war crimes I was remembering previously.]  Casvia was sickened and repulsed by the display.  She and Darian headed to the next campsite where Mikal and Aureme were waiting, wondering what was taking the rest of the team so long.  Once they finished their atrocities, Tim and Dangar cleaned up themselves and went to the next campsite.

Session Ends.

Happening Off-Stage

The Rare Art Brotherhood (RAB), a thieves' guild specializing in high-end luxury goods, is looking for the wizard who supplied them a fake gold ingot [one of the items the player characters kept from the El Djem Collection and sold later].  They learned the wizard's name is "Tim" by torturing Stefan the Red, Tim’s contact who brokered the deal.  The RAB also learned Tim is currently out of the city on University business and decide to wait for him to return.  The guild wants to find out how Tim made magical gold that did not detect as magical until it reverted to lead.  Then they will make an example out of him, wizard or not.  They also want lost revenues from both ingots as they don’t know if the other ingot is real or not.

DM Discussions

[Busy week during the Day Job this week and I did not have any spare time to edit this post and publish it until this weekend.  To make up for it, I am working on the next post now (Session 4) and will have it queued up to publish on Tuesday, October 21.]

Tim's Outlanders Landing Page

Against the Horde

Session 2

Session 4

Tim's Outlanders: Against the Horde, Session 2 - August 10 to August 15, 17 IC

Player Characters

Tim, a Wizard - male human from the Free City of Freegate, student at Outlands University
Dangar Stonekleaver - male dwarf from the Northern Dwarven Kingdom
Mikal Torvaldsson - human male, of the Uplander Clans
Darian Kyle - human male, formerly of the Imperial 7th Legion [deserter]
Aureme Anginsan - human female, formerly an Imperial Navy sailor (retired)

NPCs

Casvia - elf female from the Free City of Freegate, student at Outlands University

Session 2 Begins, August 10, 17 IC

After two days of flight, Mikal arrived at Ingolstadt riding Meep.  There he observed the goblinoid horde breaching the walls and storming the city.  He was discovered and turned back by a goblin bat patrol, which then pursued him.  In a long chase, he killed some of the goblins and lost the rest.   After losing the goblins, Mikal returned to the rendezvous campsite to meet up with the rest of the Outlanders.

August 12

The next morning, the group started marching to another abandoned farmhouse three days away.  On the way there, a trio of goblins on riding lizards rounding up lizards running wild [due to earlier actions by the Outlanders] spotted the adventurers.

Tim hid in a tree while the rest of the Outlanders faced-off against the three lizard riders.  The goblins charged.  The Outlanders killed two of the goblin lizardriders and seriously wounded the third [who escaped] in the ensuing fight.  Darian was run down [and stepped on] by one of the lizards but survived.

August 15

At their new base of operations, the team had Casvia teleport back to Freegate to report their findings.

While waiting for Casvia’s return, Darian and Aureme attempted to track down the remaining goblin lizardrider.  They stumbled across the lizard but not the goblin rider.  Darian surprise punched the lizard and knocked it out.  As a side effect, he also knocked over Aureme, who started laughing so hard at the expressions of surprise on Darian's and the lizard's faces that she fell over.

When the two returned and reported what hap happened, the rest of the Outlanders [including Casvia, who had returned] did not believe their story and instead wondered "what really happened".

Session Ends.

Happening Off-Stage

The goblinoid horde spent two days ransacking the city of Ingolstadt before resuming their march toward Freegate.  They have effectively wiped out all leadership for the Bayern District at this point and enslaved the remaining population of Ingolstadt.  

As word spread north of the sack of Ingolstadt, every citizen of Bayern who hadn't already fled started heading towards Freegate as refugees, abandoning anything they couldn't carry or would slow them down.  As the Bayern refugees headed to Freegate, the farmers and townsfolk of Freegate's southern domain joined them.  This will lead to a tripling of the population inside Freegate's city walls once they arrive.  The Faceless Five [Freegate's leaders] worked hard to keep people from panicking.

Tim's Outlanders Landing Page

Against the Horde

Session 1

Session 3