ACKS Session 30: Real Dragon Heist

This session was played on 08/25/21 encompassing 5 days of adventuring. Needing one day of rest as per ACKS rules the PCs involved can make downtime requests and adventure on and after 09/01/21.

Foreword

If you are not using Patrons in your D&D campaign you are really missing out. This session was only possible due to the various machinations of MULTIPLE Patrons; including MONSTER PATRONS. Do you have those nerdy players who are like "why can't I play a dragon?!" Well now they can.

FERIGNO THE GREEN DRAGON IS A PATRON NPC. 

And he has been for months. Players had no idea! Until this session. How?

Ferigno (Patron NPC, Adult Green Dragon) and Dairin (Patron NPC, High Level Mage) have been teaming up behind the scenes. And on 08/25/21 they were able to get organized enough to gather their various forces of monsters for an assault on The Keep of Turos Tem.

Remember when the OSR snarkily declared the titular Keep from the Keep on the Borderlands is the real target of opportunity in the B2 module? "It has more treasure! Less danger! PCs should attack the Keep! lololol". Yet they never actually had any session reports about how their players, or even the monsters, attacked The Keep.

The BROSR, thanks to mine campaign, can now declare we've done this. We've attacked The Keep on the Borderlands.

The Monster Host attacked and overran Turos Tem on 08/25/21 in what has now been titled The Desolation of Turos Tem. I will have a future blog post about the details of the battle, assault, aftermath, PC involvement etc. I think such info will be very useful for aspiring Elite DMs.

But for this session, the assault was still in the works. Legate Valerian (Patron NPC, High Level Fighter and Domain ruler) took his garrison of soldiers to meet the monster host in the field rather than let them hit The Keep directly. He asked the PCs to participate. Some did... during downtime.

So what did the PCs do during Session 30 while The Keep was being assaulted by a Monster Host which included Ferigno the Green Dragon?

"Well... Dubs... this means Ferigno is busy and not at his lair, right...?"

"Yeah... of course..."

"Then we're going to go to Ferigno's lair and take all his treasure while it's unprotected."

What could go wrong?

Session Report

The Players carefully decided on which PCs they would bring to this session. They started out of Turos Tem while Legate Valerian was calling to arms and about to take the field with his army. There ended up being about 120ish men up against a similar number of monsters, undead, abominations, or whatever.

Some Players wanted a particular PC involved in the army battle which would leave him out of session play. I was prepared to let the players control the Legate's army and run Heroic Forays and such like I did back in Session 27 when the PCs attacked Ferigno's lair with a bunch of mercs. I've allowed PCs to run the tactics and attacks for forces unrelated to their PCs in my face2face game; my most notable example of when the PCs in that campaign tricked a Giant Roc into attacking a Lair of Red Dragons. I let those PCs run the tactics and attack rolls of the Giant Roc while their PCs watched from a distance.

The Players in this campaign, however, realized that would eliminate their ability to sneak off with some of their PCs to heist Ferigno's lair. Once PCs were chosen from the stable available in Turos Tem the PCs set off north into the Viaspen Forest and towards Ferigno's Lair.

They arrived pretty quickly because this group wasn't leading slow mercenaries as the PCs often do. About two days later they had crossed the forest without any random encounters and were looking upon the Dragon's Lair.

Ferigno is somewhere around the red X

It hadn't changed much in three weeks. It was a gnoll palisade built around a weird pile of thorny brambles and a teepee of felled trees going some 100 feet into the sky above. The palisade of gnolls appeared from a distance to be abandoned. PCs had eradicated the gnolls there three weeks ago and apparently no others returned.

The PCs approached very carefully, having BlackMoon (PC Assassin Level 1) sneak up and look things over. He found the palisade much as the party left it three weeks ago. Many dead gnoll and human bodies lying around. The northeastern section of the circular palisade was burned up from the PC's assault back then. But no gnolls were seen about the leather tents and teepees of the gnoll encampment. BlackMoon waved them forward. 

The party found a door on the eastern side of the bramble lair thing in the center of the palisade. The whole "structure" was about 100' in diameter. The door was stuck and not locked. While the PCs worked on unjamming the door they heard movement inside the bramble structure and were certain they were being attacked by some sorts of creatures inside through spear holes in the walls on either side of the PCs surrounding the front door. Neither side was surprised.

Garvin the Nutless Wonder (PC Mage Level 1) cast Wall of Smoke so the enemies inside the walls wouldn't be able to get a clear missile attack through the spear slits. The monsters got a couple of spear attacks off on the party before the spell went off and I don't recall the exact details. After Wall of Smoke was cast the PCs were safe from spears being thrown through the slits but some sort of weird spell took effect from the monsters or the area where vines grew up around the feet of the PCs, holding some of them in place.

One PC got close enough to the walls to look inside the large spear slits and saw a few dozen little goblin things covered with pulsing vines and with ghastly faces of death. Odrum (PC Explorer Level 1) eventually busted the door down and ran inside the structure. Upon seeing the few dozen viney goblins in powerful defense positions on either side of balconies overlooking the entry room, Odrum ran out of the structure. 

At this point the players debated trying to assault the structure head on. Odrum's player was advising the PCs all back out and regroup for another approach. Other Players were happy to assault directly into the entry room and take down the creatures who they figured wouldn't be too strong due to their small stature.

Eventually all PCs extricated themselves from the vines trapping their legs and retreated back to hide among the gnoll tents in the palisade and discuss options.

Xanthus (PC Cleric Level 2) Communed with his deity Istreus about what was inside the structure. The spell allows 3 questions. Istreus, the god of knowledge, is a bit of a know-it-all having seen the Logos and thus stabbed his own eyes out so he'd never need to look upon imperfection again. 

He informed the PCs there was a great deal of treasure in Ferigno's lair but that he also sensed great evil. He informed the Cleric there was only one other entry into the Lair and that was up at the top of the teepee where the PCs had once seen the dragon climb out of. Istreus lightly rebuked Xanthus for not sticking around Turos Tem to help defend the Keep from the monster host, as well. 

So now the PCs debated how to Heist the place. I went to get a drink and checked out tw1tter to see if any of my tweets had gone viral. I checked on my 3yo to see if he was sleeping ok. At a couple pretzels.

When I got back into things the PC's plan was to rip the doors off the palisade gates and use them as a ladder and bridge to go up the side of the bramble structure without getting ripped up by thorns. Then cross on TOP of the structure towards the felled tree teepee. Upon getting close to that BlackMoon would be able to use his thief climbing ability to go up the side of the teepee then rappel down from the top.

It took about an hour for the PCs to rip the doors off the palisade. While they were trying to create the ladder and bridge structure the weird creatures inside came to their side of the structure and tossed spears at them through spear slits on that side. Surerro (NPC Henchmen to Blackmoon) was killed by one such javelin while the PCs scrambled to climb up on top of the structure where the monsters would have no line of sight on them. 

As they were climbing up the side of the structure Odrum was also caught by a javelin coming from holes in the walls and fell to the ground dead full of holes.

On top of the structure things seemed safer. The surviving PCs waited as BlackMoon climbed the tree teepee then lowered himself down like Mission Impossible 1. When he reached the bottom he found that the trees had been leaned up against an old ruined stone tower. The bottom of the rope had a big pile of treasure and magic items on the floor in the base of the tower. 

The Players were hyped af. "Take it all! Lets go! Leave Odrum* to die and lets get tf out of here! haha!" 

*(Odrum's player said this.)

Blackmoon emptied a big crate of glass ware in the room so he could fill it with magic items and liquid treasure (GP etc). He tied the rope to the crate to be heaved up later.

Garvin the Nutless Wonder got impatient and attempted to climb up the teepee on the outside to see what was happening. He failed his Climb check (rolled a 1 iirc) and fell 20 feet down, landing on his crotch on a branch before flipping over and smashing his brains out on the top of the briar structure where the PCs had laid the palisade doors as a bridge. Ouch.

I was doing math on how many Turns Blackmoon's heist might take and rolling Random Encounter checks as appropriate. Blackmoon prioritized the magic items and I rolled "yes" on a random encounter about the time he had all of them in the crate.

*Badalamenti instrumental plays*

BOB from Twin Peaks came out of the eastern wall sporting a maniacal grin. Gaius (PC Fighter Level 4) made fun of me using such a seemingly nonsense comment/description. He often complains later that I forget to put his genius tier jokes in my session reports. So there it is.

BOB was angry and was coming at Blackmoon. The assassin won initative and threw holy water at the freakish creature which burned him up but not enough to kill him. BOB darted across the room and*i choked Blackmoon out leaving him apparently dead on the floor.

Gaius climbed the teepee on the outside easily (mogging on dead Garvin) and began to heave the rope up. The players with dead PCs were hollaring on the mic "YES! Take all the items and run! Heist!" This is the sort of thing that happens in Real D&D with real stakes.

Sadly before Gaius could heave the crate of magic items up to himself BOB came out from below Xanthus's feet and choked him out, the life drained from the cleric's eyes as his Levels were Drained, leaving him dead lying upon the roof of Ferigno's bramble structure lair thing.

Gaius was the only one left. Everything went wrong just like a good heist film. Could he pry victory from the jaws of defeat, also like a good heist film?

"So Dubs... how far down is it if Gaius just jumps to the ground and runs into the woods?"

"Forty feet down. So 4d6 damage."

"Ok so you'd have to roll max damage to kill Gaius with the fall. I'll jump and run."

I was agape. How could one PC be so based? 

It made sense that Gaius didn't want to take on the weirdly powerful BOB but here he was risking jumping to his death instead. Everyone held their breath and I rolled the damage.

It was alot but it wasn't enough to kill Gaius. He stumbled off into the woods while BOB howled angrily on the rooftops, too far away to close the distance before Gaius could attempt a Wilderness Evasion roll. Success. The fighter had shook pursuit.

Gaius had his horse and has successfully grabbed one of the other PC's horses to lead. He used the second horse so he could ride hard deep into the night.

Unfortunately Gaius got lost in the Viaspen Forest in the dead of night. He was on his was back to Turos Aster since Turos Tem was presumably fallen to the Monster Host. Being a fighter with no advanced wilderness skills to speak of Gaius prayed to The Seeker, to Mandonio (Deceased PC Fighter Level 3, Petty Hero of Turos Tem Legature) and Istreus to help guide his way out of the dangerous forest. His fatigued horses stumbled along ahead into the hot days and steamy forest nights with Gaius whispering desperate prayers to all forces who might hear him. Glowing eyes watched him from the bushes... or was it his imagination?

It's unclear of any of these figures helped the grizzled former Legionnaire in some way but Gaius did happen upon the edge of the forest some two days later, in the Turos Spen Legature. From there it was an easy trek to the Turos Spen Keep where he could rest and ponder his creeping survivors guilt.

Afterword

Some anti brosr nerds on tw1tter ask things like "how u can do real time when the game runs late and PCs still in the dungeon". Well this is how. The session had indeed run late. But it was clearly extremely important for me to run Gaiu's chance to get lost and random encounters. He was trekking home alone so a great deal of the encounters, if he couldn't Evade them, would be fatal. So even though it was late, I rolled it all. Every check. Players who had gotten tired logged off since their PCs were dead anyway.

This is how Real D&D is done. 

This poast has gotten long so I'm going to leave it there. The Desolation of Turos Tem and the PCs' responses to it will be outlined in a future blog post. God bless.

Surviving PCs Present

Gaius (10% XP Bonus) Fighter Level 4. 0 XP Gained. Total: 10,854

Deceased:

Dama (L1 Venturer) played by RR.  Current total xp: 75. DECEASED. Poison gas in Session 3.

Darius LeVay (L1 Assassin) played by JB. Current Total XP:451. DECEASED. Poison gas in Session 3.

Donald the Guardsman (L1 Fighter) played by MP. Current Total XP:570. DECEASED. Intra-party justice in Session 3.

Felix (L1 Thief) played by Nicholas. Current Total XP:431. DECEASED. Poison gas in Session 3.

Hektor (L1 Paladin) played by Moai. DECEASED. Cause of Death: goblin warg rider throat removal surgery in Session 2

Leonidas the Inquisitor (L1 Cleric) played by RR.Current Total XP:498  DECEASED. Frozen undead blistering cold aura left his skin frostbitten and broken in Session 6. Body not recovered.

Mard the Mage (L1 Mage) played by Nicholas. DECEASED. Frozen undead blistering cold aura left his skin frostbitten and broken in Session 6. Body not recovered.

Yolo Baggins "My friends call me Swaggins" (L1 Gnomish Trickster) played by J. DECEASED. Paralyzed and eaten by ghouls in Session 12. Body not recovered.

Jack Filcher (L1 Thief) played by C. DECEASED. Shot full of arrows by Inthorn's brigands in Session 12. Body not recovered.

Swoleous Maximus (L1 Paladin). DECEASED. Captured then drawn and quartered by Inthorn the Brigand warlord in Session 12. Posthumously named "Petty Hero of Turos Tem" by Legate Valerian. Ashes offered a place of pride in the Hospital.

Damianus (L1 Cleric). DECEASED. Captured and beheaded by Inthorn the Brigand warlord in Session 12. Posthumously named "Petty Hero of Turos Tem" by Legate Valerian. Ashes offered a place of pride in the Hospital.

Bucky (L1 Barbarian). DECEASED. Became a illegal pit fighter during his downtime. Had two bouts to the death, winning the first and losing the second. Was killed by Young Jack Sparrow who sashayed into the ring, drank rum, and mogged on Bucky before putting a dagger into his ribs, killing him. This happened during downtime between Session 17 and 18.

Broll Wolf-Eater (L1 Barbarian). Current total XP: 1079. DECEASED. Carried off by harpies after falling for their enchanting song in Session 19.

Brother Franklin (L1 Cleric). DECEASED. Decapitated by a mad cultist of a Lovecraftian slime thing in Session 19.

Felix the Elder (L1 Bard). Total XP 825. DECEASED. Captured by mad cultists and fed to a Lovecraftian slime monster in Session 19.

Templar Flavius Africanus (L1 Cleric). Total XP 7. Killed by the claws and beak of mad harpies in Session 19.

Xendi (L1 Explorer). Total XP 6. DECEASED. Carried off by harpies after falling for their enchanting song in Session 19.

Yllmeeton (L3 Shaman). Total XP 4,563. Bludgeoned by the corpse of a bowmen by Rosie Odonnel hag in Session 21.

Longinus (L2 Assassin). Total XP 2,036. Had his face ripped off by Rosie Odonnel hag in Session 21.

Mandonio (L3 Fighter). Total XP 4,779. Charred to a leprous crisp by diseased Dragon breath in Session 22.

Corydon (L1 Joker). Total XP: 0. Burnt to a crisp by chimera breath so thoroughly his corpse wasn't even fit for the crows. Died with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. that's life and as funny as it seems... some people get their kicks, stomping on a dream... In Session 25.

Donny Keebler (L1 Elven Spellsword). Total XP 2,238. Had his legs burned completely off by chimera fire breath in Session 25.

Marina (L2 Fighter). Total XP: 2,204. Burnt into ash by a chimera fire breath in Session 25.

Gundro (L2 Gnomish Trickster). Total XP: 2,575. Had his mouth and tongue bitten off by a lizardman ambusher in the dank sewers below Cyfaraun in Session 26.

Polydoros (L1 Fighter). Total XP: 0. Had his legs ripped off and eaten by Akira monsters in the dark canopy of the Viaspen Forest in Session 28.

Odrum (L1 Explorer). Total XP: 287. Javelin to the heart from the hands of weird vine goblins hidden in the walls of Ferigno's lair in Session 30.

Garvin the Nutless Wonder (L1 Mage). Total XP: 0. Fell off the side of Ferigno's lair 20 feet to his death in Session 30.

Blackmoon (L1 Assassin). Total XP: 768. Choked to death by BOB from Twin Peaks while stealing treasure from Ferigno's dragon horde in Session 30.

Xanthus (L2 Cleric). Total XP: 2,364. Choked to death by BOB from Twin Peaks while hanging out on the roof of Ferigno's lair in Session 30.

Alexa this is so sad play "The Lonely Man Theme" from "The Incredible Hulk" original television series.