Wilderlands: Session 6

 

This is part of an ongoing campaign. You can find the other sessions over on the sidebar.

This session was run on May 23, 2022.

 

2 Sweetrain 4433 B.C.C.C.

 

This session picked up right where Session 5 left off. The party had just escaped from the dire bear with a goblin prisoner. Once they put some distance between themselves and the bear by crossing the river (hex 2111), they stopped to heal up and interrogate the prisoner. 

As Uggmar, the half-orc monk/rogue, is the only party member that speaks goblin, he took the lead in the interrogation. As his Charisma is 3, he decided to go the intimidation route instead of trying for a charm offensive. The goblin responded exceptionally well to this approach, and immediately began spilling his guts to Uggmar.

Creng, the goblin, was a member of the Purple Mushroom Tribe, which makes its home in hex 2009 (just north of hex 2010 on the map above). They live in caves and raise mushrooms for food. They also capture vicious mushroom men and use them in battle. While they often fight with the other goblin tribes in their hex, the Wasp Swarmers and the Hemogoblins, they have friendly relations with the White Worm Tribe in hex 2010. 

The White Worm Tribe raises giant worms, which they eat and milk. They also construct their homes out of worm secretions. Creng considers the worm milk to be disturbing and reveals that it can cause a goblin to not feel any pain.  

Recently, the Purple Mushroom Tribe chief agreed to a joint raid of Filmoth village with the White Worm Tribe. Filmoth is the last fortified village before the mountains in hex 2111. The various goblin tribes raid the villages outside of Byrny in hopes of getting loot and finding house goblins (more on house goblins on Friday), the villages closest to the mountains are the easiest to reach, but tend to be fortified. 

Creng explained that the attack against Filmoth did not go well because the townspeople seemed to be much better archers than they were the last time the village was raided. The goblins took heavy casualties during the initial assault and had to settle in for a siege. 

As they were unprepared for a siege, they did not have enough food and found the early spring night to be too cold. The shaman of the Purple Fungus goblins learned the location of the bear's den by reading the entrails of a dog they killed. The shaman prepared a bear charm for them that would keep the bear from attacking and a group of 15 goblins was sent to kill the near for food and furs. 

Creng estimated that there was still 40-50 goblins alive when he left the siege. As they left cover to head for the bear den, the goblins took heavy fire from the village. Creng and four others were hit, which is why they were lying injured in the hollowed tree trunk.

Uggmar did such a good job intimidating Creng, and his own tribe had done such a poor job of keeping him alive, that he decided that Uggmar was now his chief and agreed to accompany the party. They decided to rest for the night before heading to Filmoth.

3 Sweetrain 4433

As the party approached Filmoth on the road from the south, they could see archers on the wall and small groups of goblins around the outside of the town huddled behind cover. They could also see the burnt ruins of a tower rising from the center of the town. Sir Duycken immediately announced that they were there to break the siege which instigated an attack from the two nearest goblin groups. One group was crouched in a low area to the east, and the other was hiding behind a small hill and some rocks to the west. 

Most of the party headed to engage the goblins to the east and found them to be a group of White Worm goblins with a shaman. The shaman summoned a giant worm to attack Vargr as the warrior goblins charged out of the low area to attack. Uggmar, Stranger, and Creng tried to flank the low area from the south while Duycken moved into position to deal with the shaman.

To the west, the Purple Mushroom group started charging across the open space and firing on the party with bows. The Purple Mushroom shaman let two vicious mushroom men loose from their leashes and they charged to attack as well. 

The villagers began picking off the goblins that had charged into the open. The villagers had been deployed all around the wall to keep the various goblin groups down, but started moving to the south wall to shoot at the goblins in the open. As they did this, some of the other goblins charged out of cover and set part of the east wall on fire.

As the villagers destroyed the goblin group charging from the west, the party managed to surround the goblin shaman and kill him. Vargr and Duycken ran through the gate into the village and Duycken yelled for the villagers not involved in the defense of the wall to form bucket brigades. By now, goblins had set fire to several areas of the wall in a final push on the town.

Outside of the walls, Creng got shot trying to enter the village with Uggmar. Stranger hopped up onto the rock to the east of the gate and used create water to put out the fire to his north. He then made an impressive leap onto the top of the wall and safety. Uggmar, Creng, and Vargr stood on the east wall trying to defeat the group of goblins there before they could set another fire. Meanwhile, one of the fires set on the north wall burned through, allowing goblins to steam in to the village.

 The bucket brigades started working on the fires, and manage to put one out and get another under control, but the remaining fire on the north wall caused another breach. Duycken and Stranger charged to stop the goblins entering from the north and protect the bucket brigades. The guards on the walls, with help from Vargr, Uggmar, and Creng, started to thin out the goblins that remained outside of the walls, and some groups retreated. Meanwhile, severl guards found themselves fighting for their lives on the walls in hand to hand combat.  In the market place, Duycken and Stranger found themselves back to back in what looked to be a last stand against the breaching goblins.

As the goblin forces outside the walls crumbled, and Vargr and the guards on the walls started to clear the goblins that had gained the top of the wall, the guards started to shift to aid Duycken and Stranger in the market. As Uggmar charged in to join them, the goblins morale finally broke and many were cut down trying to flee. The siege of Filmoth had been lifted.