Villainous Hoard's page

Shaggar takes Jayse's words to heart. With a feral growl, he dodges forward and drives his battleaxe at the Whipcord's skull... Sparks fly as his blade slides off the doorframe, the Whipcord dodging the blow easily.

Shaggar's Initiative 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (10) + 3 = 13

Shaggar snarls and leaps up as the paralysis in his muscle yields. He shakes himself like a dog, spraying mud across the room.

Initiative 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (5) + 3 = 8

The gnoll growls. "Look like Dooher. Taken during alone hunting days ago. Found spear and lots prints of humans."

Hmmm.... I guess we should throw Ushari into the bushes and let her cut her way out?

"Shaggar approve dis message."

Her look said plainly: Do not seek to cross me here. I allowed you your free will and I can remove it again.

Shaggar sees the small woman eyeing him in a manner that suggests a challenge to his place in the hierarchy. His canines flash. "You not my pack, not leader. Fight you want? Call out me. I give fight." He looks at her dismissively, "Is dumb, before find peoples - not save tribe, not think like leader." He concludes with a snarl and a snap of his oversized jaws and then follows the ranger.

Under the baleful eyes of Shaggar, Ushari considers her folly. Her charm spell wore off of the gnoll in the middle of the night. And while the tall brute looks less favorably on her now... it seems that he is maintaining your loose alliance for the sake of justice and revenge. It doesn't sit well with the gnoll that his people had been decimated by this Striper or that he set the companions and the gnoll band on a collision course that would cost the lives of the nearly all of his littermates. No, that didn't sit well with Shaggar at all.

The gnoll lets out an unconscious growl and hefts his massive axe experimentally.

"By light day, tracks easier to track, yes. TrackMaster will find... then justice."

Perception 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (12) + 6 = 18

Shaggar nods. "OK, that is right. What now? Does ShinyHair is a BoneTalker?"

Shaggar stops no grapple needed despite being clearly enraged by the skeleton. "This is your pack, your hunt. OK. BUT that gets brokened - now or later. Right? You... promise."

The massive gnoll spins on her. "ShinyHair, this not sacred to gnoll peoples. You want answers? OK. I ask questions to walking bones for you." He puts away his axe and pops his knuckles flexing his meaty, clawed fists.

It looks as if Shaggar's intention is to throttle answers from the skeleton as he slowly stalks over to it.

It appears to be a plain old skeleton.

A deep growl emerges from Shaggar's throat as he sees what has been done to one of his littermates. He hefts his massive battleaxe and starts to stride over to the creature. "This is NOT be."

Shaggar plows through the water without complaint, his gnoll aversion to bathing keeps him upright despite the current. He fords the river and shakes the water off his haunches.

Dex Check v DC:10 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (16) + 3 = 19

He points to the ranger, "SongMakerTrackMaster follows trail of death. Is not clear? He stalks it."

Hand o Fate 1d100 ⇒ 92

"Could steal, yes. Would steal, why? Gnolls raid... would not take one. Would not take just children." He thinks a moment and scratches his ear. "Only other Tribe is North where I sent my littermates. This area was for our Tribe. Our smell on it. Get it?"

"It is here. Other side of water, think. Before here - death only in wind."

Shaggar tries on the word for size, "Parfoom?"

Shaggar chuffs again in frustration. "Don't have word. No, is not human. Smell like smelly stuff city-women have on skin... to confuse city-men. Fake flowers."

Shaggar chuffs again. "Know your smells, ShinyHair. Not you, not person... is smell... errrr... smell on city-woman, like clothes. Get it?"

Shaggar, who seems to have taken on some odd mantle of authority since donning his predecessor's armor, makes a throaty chuffing sound which you take as a 'no'. "Know smells. Sometimes can scent prey if close. But not follow tracks, no, and smells here are strange - city-women smells."

The Sergeant watches his people go with an inscrutable look. He raises a furry paw as they disappear into the treeline. He doesn't look away from the treeline as he answers Jayse, "Name me Shaggar." He picks up his blade and quickly strips the better armor from his dead commander. "Ready go."

Ushari cuts the gnoll sergeant loose and he rises to his full 6'6" height, shaking his limbs loose. He looks at the two unconscious gnolls.

"My littermates can't not lay here. Not safe. But they will find hard to know we are not fight. I am lead of them. I tell them to find sister-tribe and they go. This is safer. Our tribe is gone. I will stay with ShinyHair until justice happens."

The gnoll snaps off the count of the missing like a bone, "Thirty and three." He chews on the other half of the question before answering. "Of days, maybe three times that many."

"Wolf? No wolfs walk into camp. They are delicious."

He indicates his bindings with a sniff. "You untie me now and wake my pack?"

"...where have your kind been getting stolen from? Is this human sneaking into your den and taking them? Or has it happened out in the surrounding areas?"

"Many taken while foraging near or far... while hunters hunt away. Later, close to camp. Some taken outside fence. No man-smell inside fence."

"Since the humans think you took their young, they are pretty much willing to torture and kill any of your kind who come near their home. Would you be willing to come with us to try to identify this person? I will try my best to keep you alive, but I can make no guarantees."

The gnolls cocks his head to the left, like a dog that is looking at something strange. "Not understand... you do not control your pack? They will kill when you say 'no'?" He seems to find this puzzling but irrelevant. "I will help for ShinyHair and for vengeance."

"The only promise I can make is that if you can help us identify this crafty child-stealer, I will make it my goal to see them brought to justice. Is this something you're willing to help us with?"

The hair on the gnoll's muzzle and back bristles. "Gnoll justice - tear flesh from bones; gnaw on entrails; crack skull; eat brain. Then let CunningOne die. What is your justice?"

He considers Jayse's words about Straehan, regards the gnome with whom he is now eye-to-eye, and surveys the fire damage and charred bodies through the drifting smoke... and thinks better of his words. "Sorrying, Sh!tsized. No insult from heart. You are just.... small."

Jayse narrows his eyes at the gnoll, "You said you've seen him once. Do you remember any specifics? What was his hair look like?" He points to his own hair to make sure the thing knows what he's asking for. "Is his skin..." and he touches some of the open skin on his forearm, ".. lighter or darker than mine? What does it look like?"

He pauses for a second, then realizes he's asking specifics while giving the creature context may shed some light, "it seems like your... pack... is experiencing something the humans are. Children are being stolen from them, too. Do you know anything about this?"

The gnoll puzzles over the barrage of questions. "Seen him once in woods at night over long distance. Can't say color-color. Didn't see long hair. He not built like fighting man - smaller and narrow?"

"We do not cross tracks with human pack in long time. We move around their riverlands." Jayse is convinced that the gnoll is being entirely candid.

Ushari keeps her voice neutral, and asks carefully "If you smelled him again, you could recognize who he is right?"

The gnoll snaps his jaws decisively, anger instantly visible. "I know him smell, ShinyHair."

Bluff 1d20 - 1 ⇒ (8) - 1 = 7

The gnoll regards the question from the man who beat him senseless and weighs it against Ushari's words of friendship...

"Yes, HardHands. One human we have smelled. Seen only a bit; his cunning. One after one he takes from us - our pups, our females, our old, our less-strong. One after one, then more. Now, we guard all night. Watch and wait to kill. Then you come."

"What did he look like?"

The gnoll gives an ugly but humor-laden grin. "He is small like all human. I see him once maybe. Smaller than HardHands and SongMaker. Maybe bigger than ShinyHair..." He says with a nod at Ushari. Then he looks to the gnome. "Much bigger than Sh!tsized." His laughter is a hyena bark.

The gnoll sits up with difficulty in his bindings and gives a confused shake of his shaggy head. "We defense from human attacks." He sniffs the air, taking in your various scents. "Maybe not you-humans but the other human. Yes, we smelled him."

Ushari could ask her new buddy to answer everyone's questions and that way you guys could all talk.

The gnoll sputters water and comes to snarling until Ushari's touch calms him tremendously. He shows her a mouthful of plaque-ridden and crooked canines. You think it is a gnoll 'smile'. His Common is passable. "I don't like to bath. Water is drinking for."

Will 1d20 + 0 ⇒ (12) + 0 = 12 v DC:16

The ferocity of the gnolls ebb with the death of all of their leaders. They continue to fight... but more cautiously and seeking every advantage - sliding among their enemies to flank for their companions. No more Power Attacks

Again their strikes are largely in vain, easily turned by our heroes skills and magic. But, isolated from the rest of her team, Ushari finds herself prey to the large desperate gnoll as its rusty spear slashes open her thigh.

Round: 6

ORDER: Jofram, Jayse, Straehan, Ushari, Gnolls & Friends

Gnollapalooza

Ja's HPs: 30|62
Jo's HPs: 37|68
Us's HPs: 23|45
St's HPs: 53|53

Last round for Haste. Be afraid... these gnolls are about to get in your grill. :)

Losing their leader takes the heart from most of the tribe. Their blows smack of desperation not ferocity and are turned by your blades, hands, and armor. Only Ushari, distracted by the hyena sneaking up on her rear, is caught out. She finds herself skewered on a boarspear.

Round: 5

ORDER: Jofram, Jayse, Straehan, Ushari, Gnolls & Friends

Gnollapalooza

Ja's HPs: 30|62
Jo's HPs: 37|68
Us's HPs: 32|45
St's HPs: 53|53

The enemy swarms around you, seeking to kill with fang or spear. But such is the strength of your magic and skill that no weapon penetrates your defenses except for one cunning hyena that clamps down on the Ushari's wrist as she is slow in recovering from a lunge with her rapier.

As the troops from the palisade rush to clash with your team, two figures remain a few steps back - a massive gnoll in full chainmail and an oversized hyena in chain barding with a steel snout protector. With a snarl, the gnoll leader orders a couple of his troops out of the way - both near Jayse. They practically trip over themselves getting out of the way as the massive war leader jogs into place drawing a rough, blackened greatsword off his back. The barded hyena rushes to the other spot and awaits its masters attack.

The gnoll leader regards your group as he approaches. Having heard Ushari call upon her deity, he declares his own allegiance in his growling version of the common tongue. "Flesh, bones, and SOULS for Yeenoghu!" Without further comment, and far faster than you'd think possible, he whips the black blade in a horizontal arc. Hemmed in by gnoll spears and hyena jaws, Jayse can't evade the ravening blade that shears brutally through the bottom of his rib-cage, almost eviscerating the monk. The blade barely slows down as it slashes through his body and cuts deeply into Jofram's side. The ranger can feel his ribs flex as the gnoll wrenches the massive blade free and readies it for another blowing - looking to fell both men like young saplings.

Jayse staggers to one side and feels the crushing jaws of the barded hyena take a bite out of his thigh.

Round: 4

ORDER: Jofram, Jayse, Straehan, Ushari, Gnolls & Friends

Gnollapalooza

Ja's HPs: 11|62
Jo's HPs: 28|68
Us's HPs: 42|45
St's HPs: 53|53

Happy Turkey Day, heroes. While you stuff your faces with bird, we'll be stuffing our faces with you.

Nom nom... Love me a Hero sandwich!

Axes, arrows, spears, and fangs seek the heroes' blood... and yet the foursome prevails. Only Jayse has his skull creased by the well-aimed blow of a mail-clad gnoll bearing a battleaxe. But the noose tightens around them.

The magenta halo indicates those effected by Prayer.

Round: 3

ORDER: Jofram, Jayse, Straehan, Ushari, Gnolls & Friends

Gnollapalooza

Ja's HPs: 48|62
Jo's HPs: 48|68
Us's HPs: 45|45
St's HPs: 53|53

On-Going Effects:
Cumulative:
Allies: +5 to HIT; +3 to DAM ; +3 v Fear/Charm ; +2 Reflex ; +1 all other Saves ; +1 on Skills/Checks ; +30' move
Select Enemies: -1 HIT/DAM/Skills/Saves/Checks

Haste Rnd 3 / 6
--> 1 extra Attack, +1 ATT, +1 Reflex Save, +30'
Bless
--> +1 ATT, +1 Fear Save (morale)
Inspire
-->+2 ATT/DAM (competence), +2 Charm/Fear Saves (morale)
Prayer Rnd 2 / 6
--> +1 ATT/DAM, Saves, Skills, Checks (luck)
--> -1 to opponents

Gnolls and hyenas streak through the forest from both sides while a legion pours forth from the palisade.

Like thunder, the gnolls roll towards you. Unfortunately, thunder isn't as quick as lightning... and the hyenas are lightning. Released from their chains, they hurl themselves at your small group with unmatched ferocity. They outdistance all but the fastest gnolls. They greet you with slavering teeth and filthy claws as the spears of more distant gnolls rain from the sky...

But, like many storms, there is more sound and fury than damage. Spears slam into the ground harmlessly. Slavering hyena jaws snap air. You all hold your positions, no worse for wear - save Jofram. The ranger at the forefront takes the brunt of the assault - a bloody wound on his thigh from a hyena bite. He kicks the foul beast away when it tries to tumble him to the ground. As he rights himself, he catches a red-fletched, dirty, clothyard shaft in his chest.

Jofram - just a reminder, you haven't deployed armor.

Round: 2

ORDER: Jofram, Jayse, Straehan, Ushari, Gnolls & Friends

Gnollapalooza

Ja's HPs: 64|64
Jo's HPs: 48|68
U's HPs: 45|45
S's HPs: 53|53

On-Going Effects:
Haste Rnd 2 / 6
--> 1 extra Attack, +1 ATT, +1 Reflex Save, +30'
Bless
--> +1 ATT, +1 Fear Save