(art from Reaper Miniatures: https://www.reapermini.com/search/orc%20stalker/latest/14640)
Bahanen Islands #2
Available from: this website, in our Homemade Adventures.
Format: On rails for sequences 1 & 2; hex map for sequence 3, on rails for sequences 4 and 5.
Theme: Where do you turn when you can't get back home?
One-Shot Session
Date in Real Life: Sunday 22 May 2022
In Game Day: Mid-Spring, 2 days
Adventure Master: Edward
Player Characters:
Philip the Overlord’s Guard (15th mission)
William the Bear Knight (with Bill the Bear) (15th mission)
Starflower the Lion Warrior (with Regulus the Lion) (14th mission)
Hector the Light Raider, on his 3rd mission.
While relaxing near the passage lakes, Mayor Exard (from the Bahanen Islands) suddenly comes out and says his village has been overrun by strange orcs. The entire population of the village ends up coming through the passage lakes. The Lightraiders escort them to Ras Telesar to make sure they are fed, then to help them settle in the forest and build a new village. Hector lingers behind, just as another person comes splashing through. He ends up being an Aladoth. Hector shares the Great Rescue with him.
The team heads to the passage lakes on a mission to deal with the orcs. An owl greets them, and gives them a gift of healing potions. As they step out of the hollow tree, they are ambushed almost immediately by the orcs. One orc throws a pouch of some strange powder at the hollow tree, and the portal collapses, cutting off their escape.
The orcs are each carrying not one, but two scimitars. There is a large chieftain with four arms, bearing four blades. Philip grapples with the chieftain, while the others fight the rest. Hector is almost killed. An orc knocks him out cold. He heaves the bleeding Hector onto his shoulder and tries to run for it. Bill and Regulus take the orc down. The other orcs are eventually defeated. They use the healing potions to revive everyone as best they can. They look at where the hollow tree used to be in dismay. They needed to find another way back home.
The team finds the hole that led to the hobbit cave. They climbed down and discovered the hobbit had left. They found a note saying he was leaving because of the orcs. They found some extra venison in the cupboards, and loaded up their sacks with some extra provisions. They found another note that said “The inn of the Candle of Fire Dadvn.” They didn’t know what to make of this, so they pocketed the note and moved on to the troll caverns, since they remembered seeing a boat there last time.
They grabbed the boat and made their way to the river. They rowed down the river. It was getting late, so before they took to the open sea, they stopped on the shore near the village to make camp for the night. They went into the village, but saw bodies of dead Aladoth in the streets. Hector was creeped out and didn’t want to spend the night. They backed away from the village and made camp somewhere between the village and the river. Hector slept under the boat, cuddling a paddle.
During the night watches, a cave spider came crawling up. Starflower yelped about the spider when she saw it. Philip quickly sat up and threw his battle axe, smiting the spider in one shot. Hector rolled out from underneath the boat, and got up, brandishing his paddle like a quarter staff. Bill got up and ate the spider. During another watch, an eagle came to visit. The eagle asked why there were still there if they had accomplished their mission already. They told it about how the original tree portal had collapsed. They asked about other hollow trees, and the eagle said he’d keep a look out for one. During another watch, a raccoon came to visit. They fed it some venison. Later, the eagle came back, saying there were no hollow trees on the island.
The next morning, Hector and Philip went to the village to bury the bodies and give them proper funerals. Then the team put out to sea. To the south, they could see the mist barrier. To the east, they could see nothing but open ocean. They elected to paddle north, following the coast of the island, but quickly discovered they were paddling against the current. They decided to turn and paddle south instead, following the shoreline.
On the southern tip of the island, they spotted orcs and goblins constructing a dragon gate. They used a wordrune to call for whirlwinds and storms to hinder the work. They also prayed for venomous snakes. The workers were hindered, but the Lighraiders knew it was only going to delay a dragon’s arrival. Not stop it. At least all the villagers had already fled. A black dot was spotted in the sky, and fog descended on the island.
Hector caught fish which he gave to Bill, and used his rations to make lunch and supper for everyone as they rowed and kept a sharp lookout for rocks and reefs. They paddled all day, following the coast, eventually turning north and coming up the west side of the island. As darkness came on, they saw a glow from the northern tip of the island and realized there was a moon bridge. They landed their craft, and decided to take it with them. They portaged their boat across the bridge. However, it was slow going, and after travelling all night with it, the sun was starting to rise, and they weren’t near they opposite side of the bridge. They could see a tree on a sandy beach.
As the moon bridge faded, they set the boat down and climbed into it. When the bridge completely disappeared, the boat fell out of the sky and landed in the water with a great splash. There was a surprised crew of goblins in a boat nearby. Hector, Philip and William pulled out their slings as the goblins readied crossbows.
Starflower decided to jump into the water to see if she could swim to the goblins and help out that way. As soon as she landed, however, a pod of valpaza surfaced. The goblins started firing arrows at the boat, damaging the hull. The slingers started firing rocks at the goblins, picking them off one by one. Regulus and Bill jumped into the water to help Starflower, but this rocked the boat, knocking William in. Starflower felt a blow from behind that felt like a valpaza, but when she turned, she only saw William splashing back to the boat.
The boat continued to take damage while Philip and Hector continued slinging at the goblins. Regulus took out a second valpaza while William climbed back into the boat. Bill found an invisible valpaza attacking Starflower. He mauled it, and a ring went flying into the air. Starflower instinctively caught it, and on a whim, put it on, vanishing. She felt the presence of evil from the ring, perhaps from the valpaza who recently had it. She continued fighting the other valpaza.
The three slingers managed to kill the last of the goblins, while the others took out the last of the valpaza. Hector was worried that Starflower had drowned, but she took the ring off and revealed herself. Hector was concerned that their boat wasn’t very seaworthy anymore, so they paddled over to the goblin boat, threw the dead goblins into the water, and climbed aboard. They paddled to the nearby shore and found a hollow tree. They could see a village in the distance, but decided to go home until the Overlord sent them there.
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