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Just coming out of the back end of Drakthar's Way after having already killed the Vampire my party come across Xoden and his mercenary half-orcs.
So the party Bard decides to bluff his way out. Starts telling them about how they are here on behalf of Drakthar and are assiting him etc. etc.
He forgot that standing behind him was the party sorceress and her spoils of war, prompting Xoden to reply.
"Then why, prey tell, do you have Drakthar's head on a stick?"
I can't believe they forgot! Doh!
Thats pretty funny.
When my first group went through this part of the campaign they had a half-orc with them who had been lugging around several cases of strong drink with him(encumbrance be damned!) and when they saw the mercenaries he told the party he could handle it.
He went out with the ale and acted as if he was one of them, and was sent down by Drakthar to refresh the troops. Naturally, rather then just getting the rest drunk he got tanked right along with them, but by the time the rest of the party finally gave up and went to check on him he had pretty much taken care of the whole lot.
In my campaign, the whole Xoden episode went quite differently. The character party had some backstory connection to the Blue Duke because they served as mercenaries under him in the Sea Princes before the Scarlet Brotherhood invaded. The party always felt that the Blue Duke betrayed them somehow, though they have no proof. So when they ran into Xoden, one of the players recognized him as the guy who trained them when they were mercenaries. This led to a bit of tense discussion, but eventually the party backed away. Later, they saw Xoden up in Cauldron and gave him a warning to stay out of their way or this whole situation could blow up.
It will be interesting to see where this lead as we go through future chapters. :)
-Lisa
My players also Bluffed him, heh. They finished the fight against Drakthar, but during the fight the barbarian was dominated. They managed to get a Protection form Evil on the Barbarian and he left the caves as fast as he could. The rest of the group was not really in any condition to fight, but they decided to investigate further down the tunnels.
The scout heard some noise so he and the monk snuck down the tunnel and heard Chorlyndyr trying to convince Xoden to retreat because there was an adventuring party that was coming that killed the goblin troops and Drakthar, but Xoden said the Blue Duke would not be happy if they left.
Then the monk made a noise trying to move closer and Xoden sent some men to investigate. The men rounded the corner and the scout fired on them. The men rushed back to Xoden saying that they were under attack. The monk ran after the men and rounded the corner. Then she skidded to a halt as she faced eight armored warriors, she turned around and called "retreat!"
The spellthief ignored her (it's fun to be Chaotic Neutral in a Lawful Good party) and started taunting Xoden. The dwarf calmly walked out and said "Ok, this can go one of two ways." We can fight and kill you-"
"Or we could kill you," interupted the spellthief.
"True," Xoden replied. "Or we can both turn around and walk away. My men are hungry and tired and could use a rest at the moment."
So they agreed not to fight and the warriors left. They're going to be a bit surprised next session when I tell them that the men in Drakthar's Way they almost fought are now working to pile sandbags along the lake shore to prevent flooding, heh.