Seraphimpunk's Way of the Wicked

Game Master Seraphimpunk

Well we can set him free, but best remove his tongue and perhaps break his hands. Mostly to remove him as a caster for the immediate future, but also to remove his ability to communicate. He did do as he was bid, so perhaps we should reward him. Forsythe does need a Companion after all.

Out of earshot of our wizard (Victor will keep two creepy eyes on him):
I see 3 options:
1) Just kill him. All I promised him was a relatively swift and painless death, so this would be an honorable outcome.
2) Knock him out and set Victor as his guard while we go finish up the keep. If we don't come back, Victor will make him really sad that bad things happened to us. If we do succeed, then we can release him or kill him cleanly. Obviously we'll tell him this is what we're doing before we knock him out, so if he has told any falsehoods he has a chance to repent.
3) Release him now, following the "Neji doctrine" where we de-wizard him before doing so in a very gruesome way. I don't like that this is 1 regeneration spell away from a very angry higher-level wizard. It's also more questionably torture, so pushes on the amount we're holding up my bargain.

I recommend option 2. In addition to being an honorable outcome and giving our wizard friend some hope, there is the possibility of his later redemption AND we have a hostage if things go really badly in the keep. If that's to complex, I say option 1.

I agree with #2. there are too many magical ways to come back from 3, and 1 takes away a future advantage.

what are we going to do about the keep? Do we just assault it through the secret passage at night or are we going to try more trickery? most of the regular guard is dead, but those halberdiers still remain.

Yeah, two is fine.
We still need to sabotage, but in my opinion, if the secret passage is still secret, even if we don't sabotage, a significant portion of the horde can also use it to invade from within. If anything, the tower will put all their resources to defending the bridge and if the horde feigns attacking it and sending a significant force via the tunnel they could take the castle sooner while also lowering the bridge and raising the portcullis naturally. I say we send the flare and bring our friends. The goodies know they are fully under attack at this point and will defend weak points like the bridge and portcullis. So we can just go after the lord and priest or sit back. Honestly at this point, the dwarves are more worrisom as the Lord is looking for new ways to request re-inforcements. Being known, it would be better to get the horde here sooner than later.

And if we do sabotage the gates, the dwarves are the best way to fix it. I think we do need to take care of them, to limit the options for the Mitrans. If all we leave is the Lord and the Cleric, they can't hold that tower. so we need to clear out the minions, which should be fairly easy. hit and run tactics maybe? sneak in, kill several guards, mess up their sleep and make them edgy. Pyschological warfare.

We'd need to have several ways to get in to the keep though to maintain the secret passage's integrity.

I agree Loran, but don't forget the Horde will take a few days to a week to get here. I think we signal now to get them moving. I don't think we can do any more stealth missions at this point, but we can try, and yes I agree on weakening the force even more, be it troops or leaders, but we should be aware that they likely know we will return and are well aware of our strike and run tactics and thus have preparations or traps ready. If we go in, we should prepare to go in for good or not go in at all. At this point the passage is our most valuable weapon and we should work to maintain it as a secret at all costs.

I do like the idea of sleeping in keep's bedrooms rather than this hidden tunnel.

Would it be worthwhile at this point to start messing with the town? Maybe try to force the good Mitran commander to leave the keep or send out some troops that we can pick off? Our presence is know already and this town is full of tasty humans.

We asked that before. The Lord is more interested in holding the strategic value than defending the town. He may send some troops, but his charge is to defend the lands on the other side of that bridge. I think, considering our past actions and the additions of the dwarves, he will be hunkering down to hold the siege until support arrives.

we have access to silence spell yes? Could we simply take all of the supplies out of the supply room in a night? that would seriously damage their ability to hold up against a siege. they may not even notice for a while as well, until the horde approaches and they check on the supplies.

When is a good time to attack? nighttime? dusk or dawn? Best would be to know when the Lord is sleeping so it takes time for him to get ready and we can slaughter guards quickly

days or weeks would be too long for an effective assault. but it might take them a few hours to reach here from wherever they're hiding beyond sight of the keep.

Hey, since we're plotting again, I thought I'd share some of my notes I made earlier

Sakkarot pulls aside his great breast-plate, and reveals the holy symbol of Asmodeus burned into his chest.We all have our scars

There will be time for you to move. Just a few miles from here sits Aldencross, and less than a mile from there is the watchtower Balentyne.

I can give you a month. Tomorrow you must depart this camp. It will never truly be safe for you here. Over the next week, more tribes will rally to my banner. I will promise them blood and give them steel. Then at last i will be ready to march. A week after that - I will be poised to strike. I will move my horde to the valley just north of Balentyne. There we will wait for your signal. Fire this rocket into the air. Within the hour, we will attack. Make sure that the way is ready. Sakkarot hands you a signle, carefully wrapped, signal rocket.

We don't have maps or layouts for Balentyne. You'll have to look it over yourselves. Its a watchtower connected by a bridge.

After we gather, my horde will be idle and start to grow anxious. I can hold them together for another two weeks. After that, I expect desertions and squabbling. Get your work done before then. You have one month to infiltrate and destroy Balentyne.

Suddenly the bugbear warlord gets very serious, and stern. He stares straight into your eyes.Can you do this? In one month can you break the Watch Wall?

DEMOGRAPHICS

Government autocracy chosen by the monarchy in Matharyn
Population 1,800 (1,500 humans;150 dwarves; 50 halflings; 100
other)
Notable NPCs
Lord Thomas Havelyn, commander of Balentyne and Lord of
Aldencross (LG male human aristocrat 2/ paladin 7)
Father Donnagin, priest of Mitra (LG male human cleric 6)
Tacitus of Morimun, magister (LN male human wizard 7) [captured]
Bellam Barhold, owner of the Lord’s Dalliance (N male human
expert 3) [dead]

Varning - 10 rangers. (5 dead, 1 prisoner, 4 off duty)

Barhold - 30 men (infantry)
Eddarly - 30 men (archers/siege engineers)
Mott - 30 men (halberdiers)
Lord Havelyn - paladin
Father Donnagin - 5 acolytes
Tacitus - magister
Rookery

These are the notes I took. We killed most the rangers back in the day, have since killed all the captains, a handful of troops from our rookery attack (probably 10?) and a bunch of troops from our last attack (as many as 50). That still leaves a lot of troops garrisoned around the fort (40+ by my estimate), plus the dwarves and the paladin and priest and 4 acolytes. So we've chewed them down to less than half strength, but they are still strong.

Thanks Victor. Glad you spend your free time...taking notes.

I'd think that if they had <20 troops they'd be largely unable to post guards in all the key places: the battlements, the tower, the gate, the keep and various rooms in the main level. For now, they can't keep guards posted in all those places AND have them take rest breaks.

We are a few days into the 2 week period before Sakkarot loses control, so we have a little time but we shouldn't take too long. Maybe we can whittle them down a little further. I do think we need to focus on kills or very valuable sabotage (like forcing the gatehouse open). We need to be ready for the horde.

I think we should follow a similar tactic to last time. We go in through our secret entrance, sneak to another area, wreak havoc, then escape through a different exit. We should expect that we may get pinned down and have to finish the fight, as Neji/Loran said, they are expecting us and have plenty of time to lay down traps and plan contingencies.

I suspect the paladin and the priest are sticking together with most of the troops. So, I think it makes more sense for us to go after infrastructure and infantry with this assault than to storm the keep, full frontal assault style.

Plan A, we go in and try to sabotage the gate, forcing and jamming it open. There should be a crank that's used to lift the gate. If we utterly destroy it, after lowering the gate, they may be unable to raise it again. Sakkarot's horde, by my understanding, is on the North-East side of the Balentyne map, so needs the gate to be open and drawbridge lowered before they can cross that damned river and get into the fort to wreak havoc.

Since the Mitran's primary goal is to defend that gate, but their best place to plan and their most defensible location is the keep, I suspect they have a small contingent of guards at the gate ready to sound an alarm, but the bulk of their forces are in or below the keep.

I think that attacking the gate will force them to come to us across 2 narrow pathways (that can be greased, but not entangled). However, it does mean that our best means of escape is on the wrong side of that river. Swimming across the freezing cold river is *probably* something we can manage, but is fairly dangerous. We did after all have a boat with a very skilled captain to get us across the first time.

Plan B, we could clean out the barracks again. If there are some troops sleeping there after the last fight or between shifts, we can slaughter a handful more and escape again through the front door. They probably won't expect a repeat tactic and are unlikely to be overly ready. But it's also likely they've just abandoned everything under the castle and will keep guards posted only in the key places above ground and the bulk of the troops in the keep.

If Plan B fails but doesn't trigger an alarm, we can always transition to Plan C or even try to sneak up the kitchen entrance to the keep and see if we can cause some havoc in there.

Plan C, we could fire the signal, then make a run for the gate, try to open it as the horde arrives and let them be our meat shield as we take the keep. We'd have more chaos and more risk if we can't get the gate open. And we'd be unable to snipe and repeat to rest anymore. And we'd be less likely to get our hands on some of the better loot. So I'm not inclined to do this just yet. Maybe next trip. But I want to mention it.

Ideally we'd find the Lord of the Priest while doing one of these excursions and have a chance to wipe out another high level NPC. But at least we can hopefully kill off some of the grunts and maybe damage some infrastructure.

i think with expeditioius retreat, i could probably make the jump from the top murder bridge over to the keep. at the very least, we could get to the edge of the bridge of doom, and summon several beasts and a spawn to attack the men inside, and lower the bridge so the rest of us can get in there. then we can signal, and just have to hold against havelyn and the priest, on the bridge, which as Tempy said, can be greased and is a focused area, not like they'll be able to fly or come around at us at some other angle.

If i just prepare monsters, i can throw 8-12 monsters at them over 8 rounds. flying fiendish birds and spawn should be enough to overwhelm whatever troops are inside the gatehouse.

we just lack an escape route if we're on the other side of the chasm and this fails. its a 100 ft. gap, and none of us can exactly fly...

is this all out of earshot of the wizard? or is this after you knock him out and set victor to guard him ?

This would be out of earshot of an unconscious wizard. Or if I had my way, a dead wizard being turned into a skelly :)

I do need a new toy...
but he's awfully weak.
Now I want to make Havelyn my toy.
This one can be my chamber pot.

Does anyone know how to effectively break the gate? They have dwarves, so we'd need to break it in a way that can't be readily fixed, and I certainly don't know how to do that.

Would it be worthwhile to sneak into the wizard's room and steal his supplies? We do have invisibility now.

Is our boat even still there? We did, at one point, have a captain, then I killed him and dressed up as him. Think that would be just as good. Right?

If I were the Lord, and seeing the havoc being wreaked semi regularly and half my force gone, I would move troops to critical areas, and set them to rotated watches. No man alone, and everyone with a method of warning others. I would be surprised if they went back to their rooms and barracks to rest. Regardless of how we enter, they will be on watch. They may be in the barracks, but my bet is not. I bet they are fully mobilized and prepping for a siege.

My second guess is that they will be focused around critical areas such as the gatehouse, keep and walls. Assuming they do not know our secret, they will be fortifying entrances. Also, due to the dwarves and recent murders/robberies, may are likely to deduce we are based in the town if not the Inn, and may be wary of attacks from that direction.

Lastly, if I was them, I would send riders to report and request support immediately.

My problem with attacking the Gatehouse is that it is full of murder-holes for a reason. That path to the bridge is full of hurt best absorbed by the horde. There should be no fighting on a bridge defending by that many arrow slits. Plan A and C fail due to arrows, rocks and boiling oil in my opinion.

On the other hand the Gatehouse is also the forts greatest weakness, it is well supplied and separated from the fort. If we could get straight to Gatehouse Level 3, without being detected, we would control the river. It's weakness is there and there only. Perhaps, with Darkness, Silence and climbing gear we could get to the roof and kill our way down avoiding all the traps for armies expected to work their way up.

Outside of that, they may be so busy looking from without, that they may not be watching from within. So we may want to enter from the tunnel, and attack the Paladin and Priest directly. They may not expect that and may not be surrounded by troops as those troops will be busy defending the Gatehouse and Fort.

I do need a new toy...

but he's awfully weak.
Now I want to make Havelyn my toy.
This one can be my chamber pot.

Do we still have the Captain's body I took for you in the tunnel? He would only be a couple days old at this point.

if we can kill the Paladin, some good intimidation and his decapitated head might be enough to get the other troops to flee. I'm all for going straight to the top and taking him out, but I wan to know more information, like when he sleeps, when he is patrolling, how many minions he has with him. Killing the paladin, if not too risky is likely our best option.

yeah, because he's going to keep a tight schedule now and get his shuteye... he's under seige. he's going to be ready at any hour.

our best advantage is night, to limit their visibility and maximize our rocket signal's visibility.

I may be able to jam the gate once its down.

Agree with Neji's assessement that the bottom floor of the castle may just be empty. Also agree with Ash that while the paladin would make an excellent target, he is probably going to be surrounded by an entourage all the time. And he probably won't be sleeping. I also worry that any kind of scouting is pretty dangerous. They're going to be on the lookout for anything unusual, so it's pretty likely our spy would be discovered.

Also, I think if we're going for the gatehouse we're doing it from the inside. We should be able to get there pretty easily, but then might have to fight off a bunch of defenders that come rushing in while we're over there and then our retreat options aren't great. But we should be using the murder holes and stuff to our advantage, as Ash described, rather than being subjected to them.

That may be our best option. Short of just wandering around hoping to find stray guards to pick off.

If an invisible and expeditious Ash (or anyone else for that matter) wanted to set off a horn on the opposite end as we get started, that may provide enough distraction to make our attack and escape easier.

I'll prepare an invisibility and an expeditious retreat.
if we kill the wizard, victor can wait and use vanish himself and draw some attention then flee.
he's not good for much anyway.

by the way, level him up to 4 since i think he was 3rd.

I like the gatehouse plan the most personally. Also, perhaps as a secondary option, should invis prove not viable, one of us could mock as the Wizard, perhaps escaped and returned with our terms?

Perhaps another potion of moderate healing would be ideal too Ash

Hmm...that is compelling. I like the idea of having a wizard pet around to play with, but I'm sure there are plenty of arcanists around.

Tempy pauses for a second, her eyes flick toward Victor, she scrunches her face like she smells something unpleasant, then continues.
Plenty of competent arcanists. Hrm. Yes, I hate to throw away a potentially useful toy, but I agree, let's just slit his throat. Then we can have Victor do something more useful than babysit.

Done and Done
Neji skips up behind the wizard, pulls his head back by his hair and glides the silver dagger along his throat till it runs across bone.
Quick and clean. Now who want's breakfast?

Loran, sorry for the imprecision in my statement, seems like Neji took me literally. Do you need a goblet?

You people, wasting perfectly good treats. if we don't kill the priest outright, I expect to be allowed to ... play ... with him at my leisure.

Let us then signal the troops and prepare to take the gatehouse. Do we have a quick and functionally permanent way to break the gate, one that will take longer than the time for the horde to arrive to fix?

You hypocrites wont let me cut out his tongue or maim his hand as healing is too abundant to set 'em right, but I slit one little neck and suddenly all the milk is spilled and the cow is lost. Sup upon him or not, I care little. Play with your food as you see fit.

What better place to signal from than the roof of the Gatehouse?

the roof of the main tower? its 4 stories instead of two. and there's a catapult or ballistae or something up there too. might be good to destroy it if we can too...

will that be the next plan then? to go in through the secret entrance and try and take out the bridge, and then signal the attack? or is it to go after havelyn first and then go for the bridge ?

My suggestion was to take the Gatehouse first. The problem is, the main bridge will likely be guarded and if they are smart, will have the draw bridge up already. The second bridge is covered by the Gatehouse's arrow slits and likely a heavy door.
The best way to access the Gatehouse is via the roof, but I don't know the best way to access it in order to avoid falling rocks, boiling oil, arrows or ballistic, let alone alarms. If we could silently scale the thing that would be best, but baring that, I assume going across the troop bridge (24) without being detected and scaling to the roof would secondarily work? The keep roof and the catapult would also be good, if we could zip line down to the Gatehouse. Once we take the Gatehouse we should fire the flare.

My second suggestion was to go directly after the Lord and Priest. This would not be easy, but once defeated we would also own the fort and tower through keys and moral.

But that is Alan talking and not Neji...
Whatever, let's just get in there and take the place. The more we plan the more they prep.

its been mentioned a few times so i'll repeat it: yes, the bridge is kept up when not in use.. so there's a 20 ft gap where the end of the bridge is.

KEEP | 80 ft. BRIDGE | 20 ft. drawbridge | Gatehouse

when the drawbridge is up, it backs up the heavy iron portcullis that is left down by default.

above the bridge of doom, is the bridge of death, (24 on the map) a narrow span that goes over and connects to the gatehouse.

agreed, the more we plan, the longer they have to find our hiding spots and prepare themselves.

Thanks man, I forget, but at least my assumptions were correct this time.

no worries. hard to keep the relevant info organized here.
you're right that 24 will take you across too. but you won't need any scaling /climbing to do it, it'll take you over to the second story of the gatehouse. there's a door though.

Oh, I know that, I was saying as opposed to opening that door and being in a sandwich of defenses that we use the bridge (24) to climb to the roof (33), and then work our way down. Doing it that way may take some defensive value from the defenders. I assume it would be a 10' to 20' climb, depending on the roof height? I also assume it would be rough stone and not smooth, so shouldn't be too difficult?

I think we've got a plan. Head through the secret entrance. Make our way to the gatehouse (I recommend the Neji path of 32 -> battlements ->24 -> 33). Then fight our way down from the ceiling of the gatehouse, send the signal, bar the door between 24 and 25. Then we figure out how to disable the portcullis and gate permanently if we can (that would be ideal, because then we could retreat if necc).

Drop grease and death and pain on anyone that tries to cross the upper bridge, entangle the courtyard to slow reinforcements, keep the lower bridge inaccessible by keeping the gate up, and pick them off as we can. If the lord or priest try to come after us, I'll tell them a few of my best jokes while they're trying to wade through the carnage and we can wear them down with smite arrows and summoned monsters.

The problem is we have to hold it for at least an hour, which is a million years in game time. So, we'll have to make sure our resources are contributing to lots of important deaths.

It seems like the other hard part is quickly capturing the gatehouse and barring it from attack from the keep before we get overwhelmed by their defenders. The element of surprise will be huge here. I think disguises as soldiers and some invisibility could be key here (but there are a lot of us...so prob can't invis everyone).

Victor, can you scribe up another scroll of hold portal? I'll grab the one from our magic shop stash. Wait, do you even know hold portal? Surely it was in that scribe's spellbook.

I like that plan and path, and agree an hour is forever in game, but the Gatehouse is a small fort meant to keep out intruders and potential sieges, luckily that should work both ways. Should they choose to use their catapult against it and destroy it, more power to them right? Cut off your arm to spite you hand. If we hold the roof and story below (35) we control all lower floors and surrounding grounds. If we feel brave we can flare prior to our attack, and hope the tower doesn't take the sign as worrisome, but I'm not as much a fan of that plan.

Outside of game, this fort design is poor. They risk creating a perfect position to attack the main tower that controls the bridge and entry. If they were smart, they would have build two gatehouses on each side of the river to avoid such a flaw, but here we are. Let's hope they are not smart enough to make the bridges destructible. That's what I would do if the Gatehouse was lost.

Them firing the big catapult from the keep roof at the bridge would be a bad thing. I don't think the arc would work, but I'm hoping Vince/the mod aren't quite that malicious anyways. But I know Vince, so now I'm worried.

sounds good.
lets do it.

I could prepare 3 invisibility extracts. but that would be all i can do for 2nd level extracts.

i can also cast it, it's one of my lvl 2's, but I only have 5 total castings for lvl 2's and I'd like to have some left for Hideous Laughter. Maybe I'll cast 2 and you do 2? That's 4 of us.

Let's see, maybe we can do a mix of invisible and disguised. I can probably convince the guards in 25 that I'm someone on their side and they'll open the door for me. Then everyone else can sneak in and slaughter them. But I don't know who to act like, because odds are if I disguise myself like the Lord or the Priest, that person will be in the damned gatehouse. So maybe a scout gets in first, determines who is there, messages back and we come up with a quick disguise.

And if the gatehouse has the Lord/Priest, then we can just storm the keep instead.

Regardless, we can send Victor with the horn from the crazy raven guy and he can blow it somewhere away from us, then run and hide. Or if that sound was too distinctive (I think we've heard a few of them by now), he can cast ghost sound and make it sound like one of the other horns.

Scouting idea, spelled out a little more:
We all go in through our secret entrance, make sure there's nothing strange going on in the immediate vicinity. Then one of us goes invis and starts toward the higher bridge. They try and peek inside the gatehouse first. Then scale up onto 33 (so they'll need a climbing kit, most likely). From there they can listen to the troops below and even slowly open open one of the ceiling grates and peek into the room below. Relay back what they've learned. Then we can decide if we move forward with storming the gatehouse or if we try a different tack.

Good idea? If so, who wants to be the scout?

I figure I'll have a several hours to scribe in our downtime (we slept for 8 hours, should be late morning, we then have to sit around until dark), since it's 2 hours per scroll to scribe, thinking I'll have time to get 2-3 of them done.

I have the scribe's spellbook around here somewhere I think. I can scribe up a hold portal and an expeditious retreat. If I have time, I'll scribe another expeditious.

GoatMaster, I remember us going through all the magic shop scribe's stuff, but I don't see any record of her spellbook on our loot list. Did I miss it or did we just not find one?

Also, can't we use Ash's darkness ability to help with our stealth? It's far cheaper than everyone casting invisibility.

Is Invisibility on my spell list? cause then I can cast it too.

yes its on the summoner list too. you can read the scroll as long as you've deciphered it and understand it (aka spellcraft or read magic)

disguise may be impossible at this point. if they challenge anyone, and they likely will. the wizard said they suspected magical disguises. none of you can pass their challenge questions, so good luck bluffing through a door to get it open.

I missed that. Well, stealth it is, then.

Victor, I recommend you prepare a couple castings of vanish, it should help you evade capture while you run a diversion. Try to circle back to us if you can without being followed, otherwise get out of the castle, but avoid the secret entrance.

We should all still disguise as soldiers, that way when our invisibility drops we still will look like them and can cause confusion.

Yea, I'll prepare 2 vanishes, a hold portal and an expeditious retreat.

I'm taking my 4th level in wizard b/c the rogue thing is useless. Since I seem to be living longer than anyone suspected, I'll probably retrain those levels if I can't get myself conveniently killed.

Oh, and let's save the darkness until we end up locked down in a big fight or need an escape route. It's more conspicuous than just being invisible and requires less co-ordination.

I can cast on Neji and Leo. Ash can cast on himself and Loran. I will use this scroll we have lying around on myself. It will be a little shorter than the more powerful casts, but I can recast it on myself if I need to.

Victor will split off to make his distraction, we'll invis ourselves and make our way to the bridge. Then we can scale that wall to 33.

Let's do this!

disguise: 1d20 + 13 - 2 ⇒ (13) + 13 - 2 = 24
how do i look?