A sense of grim victory suffuses the room as the host assembles. All are present: Chuck (Morgan Sangaree) stands beneath the standard of the Twisted Beard. Chris (Tonk Sangaree) crouches in the corner and savages the innards of the weasel he slew in the night. Bruce (Longfellow Yost) girds himself in his bright armor and takes up his ashen spear. Mike (Grod Sangaree) boasts of his bright high helm and its crest of horsehair. Tim (Anpago Yost) tells all of his long journey across the wine-dark sea. Paul groans and compliments Tim upon his ability to act as if he isn't hung over. Tim indicates that the job is less difficult than Paul thinks, as he isn't hung over.
The characters are drinking at the Dancing Badger. The others at the bar are a depressing crowd: some bleary soldiers, a dwarf gnome and a halfling arguing about real estate, and four middle-aged guys discussing how many fifteen-year-old virgins each of them has slept with. The only women in the place are the barmaids. Twonder Badgin stands behind the bar, serving drinks and pondering strategies for creating multi-level marketing schemes in the town of Crobin's Crossing.
The local bard Sparrow very tentatively approaches Morgan Sangaree and explains that he very much would like to learn from him. Morgan is a bit touchy about this request, particularly given the unhealthily adoring look in Sparrow's eyes, but eventually agrees to show him what he can.
The characters continue to drink and enjoy much decadent talk. They watch the way the customers treat the barmaids and speculate that Twonder Badgin has to hose them off at the end of the night. And then Longfellow Yost eats a louse that Grod Sangaree caught. He crunches and tells the others, "Circle of life, dudes." Tonk is horrified. He gasps out, "I'll have to think about that time I caught my parents having sex to take that image out of my mind."
The characters notice that one of the soldiers is looking at the characters very angrily. Tonk Sangaree walks over to see what the problem is. He quickly discovers that the soldier is Tomas Silverleaf's father. The older Silverleaf is very angry about the lies the characters have been telling about his boy. Tonk tells him, "We'd have to care about him to feel like lying about him." Things go downhill surprisingly swiftly. They accelerate when Tonk continues on, "Your son is a murderous psychopath, and he soiled himself when we fought." Captain Silverleaf's face contorts into hideous, berserk rage. He spits back, "Liar!"
Anpago Yost notices that things are going badly, and casts Tasha's Hideous Laughter at Captain Silverleaf. The magician crows out, "Will DC 19! Take that!" Characteristically, Captain Silverleaf has a pretty bad Will save. He sags into helpless raging laughter. Tonk muses, "Yep, us fighters are Nature's walking Mind Control victims." Morgan adds, "It figures that the most dangerous guy with a weapon in the party will be the easiest to mind control."
The other soldiers at the table interpret Anpago's behaviour as a clear provocation. They stand as one, three officers and five soldiers strong. The officers are clad in strong plate armor. The soldiers draw blades and step forward. Anpago throws Sleep and most of them sit down again. Longfellow congratulates him, "Wow! That's got to be the first time that spell has ever been useful!" Anpago explains that he used a cricket as his material component, a cricket that he plucked off one of the barmaids.
In the background, Morgan picks up an inspiring little song, giving the characters a +1 bonus to hit and damage. Sparrow practically cries with joy at the prospect of hearing his hero perform in battle.
Longfellow steps up and delivers a roundhouse into one of the officers. Despite a strong attack, he still fails to do anything. He suddenly remembers that the officer is clad in plate mail. He asks the others, "Why the hell am I punching a man in plate mail?" Nobody has an answer except for Tonk, who steps up and hits a soldier square in the nose. The soldier sags to the ground.
Anpago steps back and prepares to cast Hypnotism. Tonk snipes, "You're going to cast Nepotism? Baboogah! Hire my cousin!" Anpago replies, "Yeah, something like that." Tonk turns and asks the others, "Won't it be funnier if this is the most effective Anpago has ever been?" Anpago grouses, "Yeah, that'd be a scream." The spell fails. An officer steps up in front of Anpago and does quite an impression of a brick wall. He looks down at Anpago and sneers, "Fuckin' mages. They don't have any fuckin' hit points, he'll be easy to take out." Anpago takes a punch in the guts, but has plenty more where those came from.
The characters hear a terrible snorting bellow from outside as Yellow-Tusk takes out a fleeing bar patron.
An officer breaks a nail trying to slug Tonk. And then Captain Silverleaf staggers back to his feet and smashes Tonk some more. Tonk reports, "I'm still conscious! But I wish those bells would stop ringing." Then Captain Silverleaf slugs him with a chair, and Silverleaf's good friend Lieutenant Godot belts him from the other side. Tonk describes himself as "shaken".
Anpago pipes up, "I'm simmered!" then notices that he's taking a lot of damage from the Lieutenant who is hitting him. He throws another Tasha's Hideous Laughter and shuts the guy down.
Grod trips Captain Silverleaf and sends him crashing to the ground. Longfellow asks, "If you can't hit a guy when he's down, when can you hit him?" Longfellow kicks the Captain. The Captain stands and belts Tonk again. By this time Tonk is only barely standing. Grod takes off the kid gloves and demonstrates that he's wearing spiked gauntlets underneath them. He unleashes two gloves-worth of whupass on Captain Silverleaf.
Tonk turns to congratulate Grod on his newfound brutality when Lieutenant Roxborough belts him in return. Tonk sinks to the ground, unconscious. Then springs up again an instant later after Longfellow heals him. He attempts to follow Grod's lead by tripping Captain Silverleaf agin, but botches the job. Morgan steps up to boast, "I'm gonna show you how it's done," and fails to trip Lieutenant Godot. Then Tonk gets hit some more. So does Grod. Tonk blearily announces, "I'm still conscious! And I can still remember my name! I'm Onk!" He steps in to trip Captain Silverleaf one more time, yelling, "This is the time when it's gonna pay off! This time I'm gonna do it!" The others are amazed to see the Captain fall to the ground. Tonk tells them, "Now we need to kick the snot out of him!"
Recognizes that he can use some of his gnarly Druid tricks on humans, Longfellow whaps Grod with a quick Magic Fang. Grod proceeds to kick as hard as he can. Grod finally manages to pound Captain Silverleaf hard enough in the head to persuade him to sag to the ground. Then he attempts to intimidate Lieutenant Godot by making wakka-wakka-wakka noises. Lieutenant Godot ignores him. Morgan applies his dodge to Lieutenant Godot, screaming "Not the face!" Tonk also applies his dodge to Lieutenant Godot, howling, "Not the body!" Lieutenant Godot hits Tonk in the head and sends him down. Then Grod knocks Lieutenant Godot out.
Longfellow finds himself fighting Lieutenant Roxborough all by himself. He gets a couple of good hits in, until Grod shows up and starts pounding Roxborough mercilessly. And then Longfellow takes him down! Longfellow, "Don't mess with me! I'm a druid!" Grod chuckles and offers, "I'm not arm-wrestling you."
With all the soldiers asleep or unconscious, an eerie sense of quiet pervades the Dancing Badger. The characters notice that the paladin in the corner is still drinking as if nothing had happened. Tonk offers, "I bet he's thinking 'I wonder if any laws are being broken here...'". The four middle-aged guys are clearly horrified, apparently because the characters just beat up a Captain, two Lieutenants and five soldiers from the local garrison.
After some debate on how to be mean to the soldiers, Longfellow finally suggests that the characters lay them out all comfortable like and buy them a round of drinks. Longfellow lays out 1 gold and 8 silver for the drinks and the broken chair.
A little bit later, the Constable shows up. He isn't actually all that upset about the goings-on, largely because Twonder Badgin tells him that the soldiers clearly started the fight. He tells the characters that they can go on their way.
In the morning, the characters are preparing to depart, except for Tonk. He is sitting off in the corner moaning, "Oooh... this owlbear steak is really good against my bruises..." Anpago walks up and asks, "Could I have some of that?" Tonk: "Sure... there's a couple more over there that aren't quite green yet."
One of the local merchants approaches the characters as they load stuff onto their cart. He asks to talk to them in private. He says, "I have leather bondage gear I need shipped to another town, but there are fetishist orcs in the way." Anpago, "Oh good! At least it isn't clown porn this time." Seriously, the merchant produces a gold coin and says, "You paid for some of your purchases with this. Where did you get it?" The coin has an orcish face stamped on one side, and some writing. The characters put their heads together and tell the merchant that they got it from the gnoll Kr'garsh. Morgan looks at the writing and deciphers it to mean, "For the glory of Gruumsh our empire will expand forever!" The merchant explains that coins of this type were originally minted by the long-destroyed Tusk Empire. They are very rare, both because the empire is long gone and because there is a legend that Tusk Empire gold carries a curse: merchants and explorers who find Tusk Empire coins will often simply melt them down to avoid the problem.
Tonk tells the merchant that it came from the Haunted Woods, from a gnoll they killed. The merchant asks, "From the Haunted Woods?" Tonk reassures him, "They aren't really all that haunted, they just have a lot of insane druids, gnolls and owlbears. Hey, check out my keen owlbear-hide cloak!" The merchant remains undaunted. He asks Tonk, "Seriously, you don't know about the treasure cache? Like the group that went out last week?" Tonk, "Lemme guess, they don't come back."
The merchant goes on to explain that most of the explorers do come back, but with stories about the trees moving and getting lost and so on. Most of them don't even manage to reach Sir Melkun's Castle. Apparently, Sir Melkun was a hero of the Orcish Crusades in the time of King Brand. He brought back a sizable fortune in gold from the treasuries of the Tusk Empire. Much of it was used to construct his castle, and he converted the rest to other coins to avoid the Curse of the Tusk Empire Gold. But there is a rumor that he had a secret cache of coins underneath his castle that is still there. These rumors are enough to attract an intermittent swarm of treasure-seekers to the Haunted Woods.
The characters explain that they explored the castle and found no sign of secret caches. But then, there are a lot of places they didn't check. The merchant suggests that the gnolls might have found the gold. He also points out that nobody would have any problem if the characters chopped up a bunch of gnolls. Nobody has treaties with them, because they bargain with their stomachs: as soon as they get hungry, all agreements go out the window. And they're slavers. He very pointedly avoids saying similar bad things about Grod's orcish relatives. Tonk pats him on the shoulder and tells him, "Oh don't worry. They're not slavers, they just fuck the dead." The merchant's pale skin gets two shades paler.
The next morning, the characters head towards the Forbidding Forest. Tonk wakes up feeling very stiff, but well enough to be willing to untie the owlbear steak from his head.
The characters wander through the forest for a day. Then they camp. Soon after they have heated up their owlbear stew a bearded man with an axe approaches the camp. The characters watch him carefully, suspicious that he might be some kind of gnoll infiltrator, possibly a dwarf gnoll wearing a cast-off human skin. Eventually, they decide that he isn't a gnoll and probably isn't hostile and offer him a seat at the fire and a bowl of stew.
He tells them that the gnolls moved in here recently, four or five dozen warriors plus a gaggle of children. Tonk introduces the characters as members of the Sangaree-Yost family, traders bound for Highthrone but interested in seeing the sights along the way. The bearded man says he is Robert. Tonk indicates that the characters plan on going in and stirring the gnolls up some, and would appreciate any information Robert can give him on how to find them. Robert explains that the creatures took over a settlement of forest gnomes nearby. They took the surviving forest gnomes as slaves, and have probably already eaten the casualties. This is the first time the characters have heard that forest gnomes live in the area, which is probably just what the forest gnomes wanted until the gnolls showed up.
The characters continue to explain their plans, including their idea of mounting a frontal assault upon the gnoll stronghold. Robert is doubtful, "I'm not sure you want to just go rolling up into their main encampment unless you're really strong." Morgan reassures him, "We might not be strong, but we're really stupid." Tonk shushes his relative and tells Robert, "Seriously, we weren't planning on a frontal assault. We were thinking about hitting some of their patrols first to weaken them."
The conversation turns towards druids, particularly the evil kind who seem to be so common around these parts. Robert indicates (when asked) that he has philosophical differences with Tomas Silverleaf. First off, he is a follower of Ehlonna, while Tomas follows Obai-Hai. He wants to off the evil creatures of the forest, while Tomas thinks that the strong can dominate the weak.
Robert takes the characters to a place where gnoll patrols often come through. He asks, "Are you accomplished at stealthcraft?" Grod gestures at Longfellow, "He is..." Anpago points out, "I can hide at default!"
The characters organize an ambush, with Grod and Tonk acting as decoys because they can't possibly hide. Fortunately, the gnolls aren't particularly quiet as they approach to investigate the idiots who are camping in the woods. There are ten of them, preceded by two hyenas.
Longfellow leads out by Entangling the entire gnoll array, binding up four of them, then casting Shillelagh on his walking stick. Anpago pops up and casts Sleep, knocking down three more gnolls. The two hyenas rush ahead and attack Tonk, knocking him down. In response, he and Morgan chop a hyena to pieces. And then Robert shows up in the shape of a bear. Specifically, the shape of a were-bear. The characters are really quite impressed by the gnolls' bravery, as they proceed to charge a raging werebear.
Anpago unleashes another Sleep and finds the gnolls have very poor Will saves. He knocks out two more of them. Tonk, "That means we can sell them liquor for anything we want! Like their land!" Anpago answers him, "I don't think they really have land. They might have some buffalo, though."
Grod slams the surviving hyena so hard it sees stars. Morgan finishes it, "rescuing" the two fighters. Robert the werebear stands around, waiting for a gnoll to break out of the entangling zone.
One gnoll finally manages to get out of the entangle zone only to run into Grod, who chops him practically in half. Only barely able to stand due to blood loss, it staggers. And then Robert the werebear shows up to finish it off. Tonk observes, "That thing's claws atomize on contact..." Anpago whispers to the others, "Let's never fight the werebear..."
Tonk moves around to the opposite edge of the Entangle area to prevent the escape of the surviving gnolls. He engages one escaping gnoll and endlessly fences with him, taking a couple of solid hits in the process. Grod finally tires of watching this charade and steps in to finish the creature. Longfellow and Morgan pepper one trapped gnoll with darts. They accomplish little, until Anpago shoots the gnoll dead with his crossbow. They are disturbed by the magician's proficiency with an actual weapon. Morgan redeems himself by scoring a critical hit on a gnoll with a dart and kill it, long before Longfellow even manages to connect with his second dart.
Tonk looks around the battlefield and says, "You know, this is the single most successful combat we've had."
The characters walk around killing sleeping gnolls (except for one that they keep as a captive), looting change purses and boots as they go. The werebear Robert is all about killing the gnolls, but isn't so good on Longfellow's idea of forcing them to fight each other for our amusement. The characters end the discussion by laying out all the loot on a tarp for distribution:
Longfellow asks, "So we've got a piece of rose quartz that's worth 80 gold? How big is this thing?" (makes gestures suggesting something the size of a man...). Anpago is all over the scroll of arcane spells and the acid. Robert gets the three gems. Everyone gets a share of the money. This amounts to 6 platinum, 58 gold, 183 silver and 666 copper. Plus eight more gold as a remainder.
The one gnoll the characters took prisoner isn't very happy. The characters relocate and let Grod ask the questions (because he can talk to gnolls).
At this point, Grod wants to start chopping the prisoner's hands off. Tonk and Anpago stop him, with Anpago pointing out that in a day he can cast all sorts of spells like Charm Person and Hypnotism. Grod complains that Tonk never lets him have any fun. Tonk defends himself by pointing out that back when Grod was unconscious from too much drink and those half-orcs wanted to have their way with him, Tonk let them. And when Grod was passed out from too much opium and that painter wanted to draw him, Tonk said okay, but only if the painter portrayed Grod sleeping with a goat.
The next morning, Anpago casts Charm Person on the gnoll, which makes the second interrogation session go a lot more smoothly. Grod starts up with another battery of questions:
The characters know that the Spider Woods are far to the South, South even of Highthrone. The goblins were driven there 300 years ago after a disastrous war. It is anybody's guess how many goblins there might be in there. Even better, the Spider Woods are inhabited by large numbers of spiders, particularly the large, hostile kind. According to legend, the goblins are led by a giant spider that has the power to see through the eyes of all the spiders in the Spider Woods. Finally, all the trees in the Spider Woods have black leaves.
The characters set up another ambush, but this time the gnolls are expecting trouble. They show up with two leaders in half-plate, two hyenas, and short bows. Half of them sneak right past Longfellow and attack Yellow-tusk en masse. Hoping to save his pet, Longfellow attempts to sneak attack the lead gnoll. He fails miserably. And then the leader slaughters Yellow-Tusk. Longfellow is beside himself with rage and sorrow.
Tonk and Robert find themselves attacked by hyenas and swarmed by arrows. Tonk chops down one hyena. Anpago unleashes a Sleep and drops one of the leaders. Robert takes on his werebear shape and eviscerates the other hyena.
Longfellow casts an Obscuring Mist around himself to avoid getting slaughtered by three gnolls. Half of the gnolls disappear into mist. Tonk quickly calls the war dogs back and charges the gnoll archers.
Robert does a remarkable job of snapping a gnoll's neck with a single swipe of his paw. Tonk comments, "You know, it looks like he's getting a +8 bonus to his attacks. I wish I were a werebear."
Tonk finds himself flanked by three gnolls. Morgan tells him, "Don't worry! I'm coming to save you!" About this time, the Boss Gnoll who killed Yellow-tusk comes charging out of the obscuring mist in a frenzy, foam pouring from his mouth and steam spewing from his nostrils. He charges directly into Morgan. Morgan goes down with a dislocated brain.
Longfellow moves to the edge of the mist and casts Shillelagh. The three war dogs crowd onto the Boss Gnoll, whom the characters have decided is some kind of berserking barbarian. They inflict quite a bit of damage, but not so much as to really make the Boss Gnoll notice. And then they knock him down. And then Anpago hits him with Tasha's Hideous Laughter.
Back in the mist cloud, Longfellow rages, "I'm gonna backstab that gnoll barbarian muthafucka! Now where is he...? Oh crap..." His attack is utterly worthless.
Tonk, Robert and Grod fight to get past the gnolls so they can help Morgan. Tonk strikes down another gnoll, but it isn't enough. A few feet away, beyond any help from the other characters, Morgan expires.
Anpago casts the most powerful Sleep he's ever cast. Two gnolls get flattened, as does one of the war dogs. Amazingly, one dog manages to make his save.
Robert finishes severely mauling his wounded gnoll. A cloud of blood rises up from the gnoll's shattered body. Tonk, "That was a severe misapplication of killing power."
Two gnolls, including one of the lieutenants, start to escape. Longfellow moves up and casts Entangle at them, catching the Boss Gnoll.
The dogs continue to worry away at the berserk barbarian laughing Boss Gnoll. Anpago suspects that he might be about to stop laughing, and fortifies him with another Tasha's Hideous Laughter.
Robert the Werebear turns around and slaughters the gnoll who was fighting Tonk. Tonk is splashed with gnoll juice. Tonk turns to run after the escaping gnolls, readying his short bow. Anpago manages to stop the un-entangled gnoll with his last Sleep spell.
Longfellow turns around and finally beats the berserk barbarian laughing Boss Gnoll with his shillelagh. Robert and the war dogs finish the creature off. One of the war dogs has chewed off a leg and dragged it off.
The two escaping gnolls are finished off with darts and crossbows.
The characters investigate the body of the gnoll barbarian. They deduce that he must have been Khorr'ghorr. Longfellow takes Morgan's wand of Cure Light Wounds and uses it to heal Tonk. Longfellow also takes Morgan's Potion of Cure Light Wounds. The characters agree that Morgan's other goods will go to his relatives. The loot taken from the gnolls includes:
Longfellow makes a Detect Magic to verify that the potions really are magical (they are). The characters are not able to get the necklace appraised because the group's appraiser was just killed by gnolls.
The money is split four ways - Morgan doesn't get a share because he's dead. Each share is 2 platinum, 207 gold, 150 silver, and 750 copper. Anpago gets the scroll of Identify. Tonk takes the half-plate and resolves to get it modified in town on the next opportunity. The characters all agree that the masterwork great axe and the mighty composite longbow will go to Grod. The masterwork breastplate will go to either Grod or whoever replaces Morgan. Tonk takes the masterwork arrows. This fight is worth 930 experience to Anpago, Tonk and Longfellow and whoever follows Morgan.
Ten gnolls and two hyenas were killed in this battle. The running total of gnolls killed is now twenty, plus four hyenas. If the gnoll prisoner's count is accurate, there are another twenty-five gnolls back in the camp, though the leader and one lieutenant might not be counted in the total.
The initial bar fight was worth a total of 840 experience. The gnoll encounter is worth 700 experience. The second encounter is worth 930 experience, but only to those characters that were present (Tonk, Anpago, Longfellow and Morgan).
| Character | Bar Fight | First Gnoll Ambush | Second Gnoll Ambush | Total Gained |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anpago | 840 | 700 | 930 | 2470 |
| Grod | 840 | 700 | 1540 | |
| Longfellow | 840 | 700 | 930 | 2470 |
| Morgan | 840 | 700 | 930 | 2470 |
| Tonk | 840 | 700 | 930 | 2470 |
Longfellow moves to 4th level, taking another level of Druid and boosting his WIS by +1. Unfortunately, he only gains 3 hp. Bleah. Tonk becomes a 4th level Fighter. He chooses to increase his STR by +1 to 16.