Bows don't kill people....Arrows do!!

A bit more D&D Thursday night and it was an all action session with plenty of high quality biscuit action to boot.

Previously we had done a bit of research / book work and that having secured the Mage's College. Well I hadn't, I'd tried stirring up a local workers revolt, following failed payment negotiations with said mages, only to find out that the workers were more than happy with their T&C's. BAH!

Working a few things out we placed the ANCIENT TALISMAN over the local map to identify three locations of ANCIENT POWER which we'd need to go and extensively re-model.

One of said sites just happened to be the island next door so after a quick ferry ride we stood outside and old tumble-down tower.

Going a bit Skyrim we ignored it and scouted around for the hidden goblin burrows and decided that we'd much rather take that route in. Flush with over confidence following a brief scuffle at the entrance we continued to go all Skyrim scouting about as much as possible before actually doing anything revealing a fair sized cavern system in the process.

Top left is the main chamber with the Gobbo Lord and his bodygaurd being entertained by a Bard strangling a bag of carts, possibly literally. The resultant screeching gave us plenty of cover to go for the flank whilst the Palaldin and Elven Ranger of Ultimate Bow Death (plus wolf) stood ready.

As such we quickly found ourselves heavily outnumbered with a side dormitory of snoring greenskins to contend with and plenty of passageways leading to who knew where. Those of us on the side mission decided to go for the sneakily killing them in their beds approach. Even the Dwarven Cleric was convinced as Goblins are evil aren't they?

Admittedly we hadn't stopped to converse with any of them at any point but with the green skin and piggy red eyes we couldn't possibly be wrong.

Possibly it was his struggle with the moral compass that caused the Dwarf to crash to the floor waking the Goblins whilst we all tried to look friendly and innocent.......at least until the Warlock unleashed a round from his Staff of Fireball!

Much to our chagrin said barbecuing caused zero greenskin deaths at which point a general melee ensued cavern wide. The Ranger lined up the Gobbo Lord with a double double-loaded shot just to watch them splinter an inch from his nose. Oh dear, being kept honest on this one then are we?

Bull Rush-ed to max the Paladin shouted loudly to attract attention (he must have some serious faith in his god....or the drugs!) of most of the Lord's Samurai bodygaurd who acted as the well oiled machine that they soon proved to be and we were soon in a proper scrap bereft of our normal formations and battle-schemes.

Fighting as two groups we did our best to re-group. Ranger-boy quickly plugged the Goblin Mage before he caused too much grief but the star of the show was the stunted god-botherer who could utilise his hurting anyone not googly-aligned miracles. This was a new thing as many of the party are a darker shade of neutral...ahem!

Taking on the Lord and a couple of his best boyz el Paladino was confident in his full plate / Bull Rush  combo until it became clear that these were no ordinary goblins. Their samurai skills and weaponry soon had him checking and re-checking both his character sheet and the rule-book for any edge available.

"I can lay on hands!" "I can cast miracles? Which ones!!" and so on. As a learning curve it was steep but incredibly instructive. Unfortunately for one not quite instructive enough. Dumb Paladin Down, we got a Dumb Paladin Down!!

Meanwhile, unable to take down the Elven Uzi, he manged to take down the Gobbo Lord with one critically hitting set of double arrows doing 104 points of damage!!, the DM took revenge on Wolfie his faithful companion. Not sure which loss was more mourned ;)

A bit of Cleric-ing later everyone was back on their feet / paws and we cleared up a touch as the session timed out. Somewhat bloodied and bruised we need to regroup and push on, though next time maybe a little less blase!