Scenario 3 - Pit of Ghouls

For the past two weeks, the soldiers of Alladore have lost nearly every battle and skirmish they have fought against the forces of the Jungle Deep. The army has been forced to fall back along nearly the entire front and almost every beacon tower has been lost. While giant spiders, Hu-Mans, and undead continue to pour up out of the shadows, it is not their number or their fighting prowess that has caused these defeats, it is something else. There is dark sorcery at work that is sapping the strength and the will of the soldiers.

In all of these battles, soldiers have reported a few creatures carrying ‘shields’ of polished glass. These creatures stay behind the front lines, slowly waving these shields back and forth. Thankfully, after one skirmish, a brave group of rangers recovered one of these shields and sent it back for study. 

Eventually, the answer was found deep in the library of The Cascades. The shields were ‘spell mirrors’. Somewhere within the Jungle Deep, an evil mage used these mirrors to see and cast his spells during the battle. Although the wizards of The Cascades could find no way to counteract these mirrors, they did discover a spell that could track the evil sorcery back to its original location.

The next time the forces of Alladore and the Jungle Deep met in battle, a conjuror stood nearby and waited. As soon as she saw a cultist carrying one of the mirrors she cast her spell, and received a vision of a long, dark road, leading to an earthen mound with a dark cave entrance. Inside the cave, everything was madness and confusion and the conjuror could understand nothing more. Still, before exhaustion overwhelmed her, she wrote down everything she had seen and drew a rough map of the road. 

This precious map has just been given to you. Your captains have tasked you with taking a small team down in the Jungle Deep in an effort to find this mound and to locate and destroy the sorcerer who must dwell within. Your mission is crucial to the war. If you fail, then there is little doubt that the forces of Alladore will continue to suffer defeat after defeat.

 

Scenario 3 - Pit of Ghouls

Despite your wounds and fatigue, you must move quickly, as the noise of battle has probably alerted the entire mound to your presence. Still carrying your lanterns, you advance down a long tunnel that slopes ever downward. Then, up ahead, you see the glow of a light, and suddenly you are standing on a high ledge, overlooking a chamber filled with stone statues. The entire room is illuminated by a massive, wooden chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and several heavy ropes angle down from the chandelier and are tied to the wall nearby. Across the chamber is another ledge, similar to the one you are standing on. On the wall behind this ledge is a large metal door and four metal wheels. As you watch, all four of these wheels slowly begin to turn. You hear the clink and rasp of unseen chains, and watch as four trapdoors open up in the floor of the chamber below.

Then, before you have decided what to do, a pack of ghouls crawls up out of the trapdoors, and more descend from the ceiling. The only obvious way forward out of the chamber is the metal door on the other side, but with ghouls closing in on all sides, how are you going to get there?

I added a Challenge Level to the scenario : 2 additional Ghouls at random trapdoors, and an initial 6" move for the Ghouls instead of only 3".

 

The first thing that Aka Morumotto did, was to scoop up Shika, Angadrême's cat, grab one of the chandelier ropes, and swing across to the opposite ledge.  Angadrême then used her Transpose spell to switch Shika and Kruxakhor.  Pretty nifty, huh ?

 

The hulking warrior was too dazed by the transition to be able to spin one of the wheels, but he must really hate ghouls, as he recovered in time to crush one between his huge hands.

On the opposite ledge, Nicolan fought to protect Angadrême, pushing a ghoul over the ledge to its doom.  It smashed into the floor a short distance away from Ruairidh and Edguin, who preferred to take to the floor rather than attempt the swing.

Unfortunately, neither the hedgehog nor the mouse survived very long, overwhelmed by ghouls and, in particular, by a ghoul fiend that had just emerged from below ground.

This meant trouble for Angadrême, Nicolan and Shika, as the ghouls on the lower level began to swarm up the stairs to drag them all to their death.

Aka Morumotto had spun a wheel and gotten the heavy metal door open, but refused to abandon his companions.  He moved down onto the stairs and let out a ringing battle yell, that drew away the ghouls and had them swarming towards him instead.

At this point, Kruxakhor managed to spin a second wheel, which activated one of the statues.  Surreally, a song echoed throughout the cavern, and Nicolan recognised it as an old Lorenthian ballad.  Such beautiful and haunting music in such a dark place galvanised the soldier into action, and in quick succession he threw two ghouls over the ledge, where their bodies broke against the stone floor.

On the opposite ledge, the battle was not going as well.  Kruxakhor was brought low by the terrifying ghoul fiend.  Angadrême cast her Enchanted Steel spell on Aka's katana, allowing him to hurl (Heroic Ability : Shove) one ghoul over the ledge, and hack another's head from its rotting shoulders.

This was not quite enough, unfortunately, to save him from being overwhelmed and the guinea pig went down to a savage blow from the Ghoul Fiend.

With two trapdoors having been closed, the flood of reinforcements had slowed to a trickle, allowing Angadrême and Nicolan to run across the stone floor to assist Aka.  They did not quite arrive in time, and it now fell to the two of them to face off with the dreaded Ghoul Fiend.

In the ensuing struggle, which two ghoul "rotters" reinforced, Angadrême collapsed unconscious to the ground, and Nicolan was badly bitten by a "rotter" and infected.  He did however manage to slay one, and push back, each in turn, his two remaining foes...giving him just enough time to dash through the metal door to safety !

Everybody except Nicolan had their Health reduced to 0 !

Aka, Ruairidh and Edguin made a Full Recovery, Shika had a Close Call...but both Kruxakhor and Angadrême suffered a permanent injury and the same one : a Crushed Arm (-1 Fight).

During this mission, health gained is limited to +8 points.  Bearing in mind Nicolan was down to only 1 Health when he made his escape, and that is he is Diseased for the next scenario, and it is obvious that the company is in pretty bad shape !

The Ranger adds up his XP (our special rules for this do not apply, as there is only 1 Ranger on this mission).

Aka Morumotto and his companions took out eleven Ghouls and one Ghoul Rotter, turned two wheels and got one person through the door.  Nicolan understanding the words of the old song also helped the company.  All in all, Aka gains 52 XP, bringing him up to 282 XP.  There is no change of level, hence no swapping out any spells.

All Companions gain only 1 PP, except Nicolan (2 PP).  We also have another House Rule : for each 5 XP (FRD) a Companion brings in for his Ranger, he receives an additional 1 PP.  This benefitted only Kruxakhor (+1 PP) and Ruairidh (+1 PP)...and of course the hero of the day, Nicolan (+5 PP, for having slain 6 Ghouls, making it out, and understanding the song).

Kruxakhor and Nicolan reaches Level 1, gaining +1 Health.  Angadrême does too, but as a magic-user, also gets to swap out a spell [a House Rule, to make magic-user companions more fun].  She replaces Weakness, which has been of little use so far, with Armour.

All Heroic Abilities and Spells used are regained.

The company did not acquire any treasure.

The company did not redistribute any gains from the scenario or previously.

This is the end of a scenario, so no reorganisation is allowed.