Welcome back to the series of Session reports regarding a (currently) nameless road-trip campaign, where I do reports of my D&D games with the LJF crew…more or less in character ^^ Let’s continue with the second module used: Forge of Fury. This part will treat the sessions up to the first log I saved.

Dramatis personæ

Same as Sunless Citadel’s, with the following differences:

• Vasco is definitely out.
• Irina passes main tank.
• Naesala becomes more physical damage dealer than tank…when RNGod agrees…and sneak attacks are possible ^^ He definitely passes main scout though.

Report

N.B. : This report was unfortunately done a fair amount of time after the fact and without the benefit of the logs, so errors are to be expected.

We decided to leave Oakhurst for Knurl, accompanied by Dessia who decided to do her pilgrimage with us, in order to look into that letter we found speaking of Durgeddin’s group: from what Dain told us, that group was very orcophobe — not that I blamed them much…at the time — and very dead. So we packed some provisions for the trip across Adri Forest, to Knurl. Once arrived there, I got thrown into the role of “face of the group”, owing to being the only Goblin-speaker and there being no Orcish-speaker. After asking around, we learnt where Durgeddin’s Forge was and realised that there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Phlegethos that the ruling council would pay for or reward expeditions to Durgeddin’s Forge unless its denizens are either on the war path or heavily perturbing trade. So we had to go at it alone, hoping we would pay ourselves with the forge’s riches or find a noble willing to finance our expedition. We finally ended up deciding to go at it alone and wing it.

On approaching the stronghold’s entrance, we met a priestess and a couple of guards who enquired of our reasons for coming there. After getting told that I came to seek a smithing apprenticeship — and that the group at large came by curiosity — they decided to kill us all and use our bodies for target practice for unknown reasons. We thwarted that particularly ill-thought attempt which prompted Dain to comment that his fellow dwarves were lacking in hospitality. After rushing across the courtyard (uselessly because there were no archers or crossbowdwarves stationed at the murder-holes we spied on the walls), we entered the hold and met the guards we expected to be changing us in pincushions to be chilling out behind the door. Two of them tried to block us while two others tried to cut the rope bridge crossing a chasm just behind the door and the last one fled, presumably to warn his colleagues of our survival. Dain intercepted the two on our side which allowed Irina and I to rush the bridge and take care of the two on the other side, who spent their time calling us greenskin lovers, for reasons that reason ignore.

Once inside, we quickly found holding cells containing people who ran afould of this hold’s denizens: in the first, a couple of halflings merchants we swiftly escorted outside. In the second though, we found Grack, a orc scout from a tribe living there before the dwarves came back and unwilling to just up and leave their home. Apparently he was sent a few days ago to gather information on the dwarves’ defences and got captured: he would be more than willing to bring us to his chief to broker an alliance. Our group being cross at being welcomed with arrows to the face, we agreed to accompany him to the orc-held areas.

Arriving there, after dealing with the priestess and a couple of adepts by a shrine to Clangeddin, we met with Zuhgan, chief of the orcish tribe…who made a point of speaking only Orcish during our meeting. Using Grack as our translator, we got a mission to clear the area from a group of xenophobic dwarves led by one Ulf who decided to revive Durgeddin’s legacy. We were to be paid on killing the leader of these dwarves, paid extra per dwarf killed — to be confirmed by bringing back their beards — and warned by our mission-givers that the dwarf leader had a gong allowing him to call to his side all of his folllowers and got his hands on a magical item allowing him to use some techniques of the Sublime Way. That item could serve as confirmation that we slew him, but we’d get to keep it. So, first port of call, the front of the complex: the Mountain Door!

After looting the dead priestess, we decided to seek the Mountain Door’s guard room, fought a few guards in a hidden room overlooking the entrance — now, why didn’t they shoot us I have no Oerthly idea —, found an abandoned cupboard on our way…and I got hit by poisonous gas for my troubles. Then, after we found and cleaned up the guard room — fight during which I just ran interference, due to being weakened —, we found the barracks, barricaded them and called it a night. We woke up to some sound in the hall…and an ambush on the other side. After fending off the ambush — and confirming that these were the last hostile dwarves in the Mountain Door — we went off to the forge proper.

And here my saved logs begin. So, next time, part 1 of the Forge of Fury session reports!