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I'm glad I was able to do the endure elements on everyone. Cool.
At the sight of the dire wolves Nalia reaches out to Malphas as Turngut is yelling warning to the party and his blessing fills the entire group. She then turns to stand with him, sword drawn, trying to slow the wolves. (five foot step)
As the burly warriors get ready for a bloody fight and stand their ground, the little halfling vanishes and scurries up the path, running in between Turngut and Nalia.
Turngut readies an attack on the incoming wolves while Poppo disappears from sight.
Jespar runs up and prepares attack next Nalia and Turngut nodding to each them as he draws his daggers. From the platform next to the gate you hear the dwarf yell Get inside quick! I'll cover you! you then see the dwarf fire his heavy crossbow right into the eye of dire wolf closest to the wall . Mac and Pearson begin to run with the donkey up towards the gate drawing their weapons as they go. Bobie casts magic fang on Beatrip as Beatrip also floats into the line of combatants. Nalia then lines up with the rest and readies her power attack. The cyan dire wolf moves up to Beatrip, unfortunately unable to charge due to the difficult terrain of the snow. Turngut stabs into the wolf as it moves up wounding it heavily . Beatrip narrowly misses her slam attack on the cyan wolf. The blue wolf has to double move to get to the group but both Jespar and Nalia miss as it draws close. The magenta wolf goes after MacGuire but Mac is nimbly able to kick the wolf in the face and block its attack.
Initiative Order Round 2
Turngut
Poppo
NPC's
Bobie
Nalia
Dire Wolves (Magenta: 6 Damage, Cyan: 17 Damage)
Turngut and Poppo you guys are up!
Poppo suddenly flashes back into focus. Arcane energy rushes down his arm and into his boarding axe, which he spins onto it's spiked side. Poppo leaps into the air and attempts to drive the axe into the wolves side.
Ahhhh! The halfling roars putting everything he has into the attack.
Poppo slashes the animals side creating a massive deep gash in the creature .
Turngut grunts as the enormous wolf slams into his spear, causing his feet to slide back on the icy ground. With a flash, he spins the longspear around as the wolves close in, slashing at both of them before attempting to ram the spear into the wolf threatened only by the creepy spectral ally.
AoO on Teal
AoO on Blue
Regular attack on Teal
As the blue and teal dire wolves move up to the group Turngut stabs into both of them, but they are both upright still. However with his standard attack he is unable to hit the teal dire wolf.
The dwarf by the gate reloads his heavy crossbow as a full round action and shouts Garlan open the gate quickly!.
Attack me you mangy mut! you hear MacGuire call out as he tries to distract the dire wolf from the donkey and Pearson. And it appears to work as the dire wolf does not attack the donkey or Pearson as they move forward and past the now open gate.
Jespar stabs into the blue wolf with one of his daggers killing it. He then moves up to try to assist MacGuire. Bobie moves up and stabs into the cyan wolf with his longspear penetrating the side of the wolf and stabbing it through the heart Beatrip will move up to the final wolf.
Nalia you're up!
The dire wolf seeing that the rest of his pack are dead will attempt to flee invoking an AOO from Beatrip and MacGuire.
MacGuire slashes at the wolf cutting it deep but its still able to quickly dart away from the fight.
Out of combat.
The dwarven watchmen and a human watchmen with a crossbow slung over his back quickly usher you inside. The human gestures to a few civilians sending them outside to retrieve the wolves quickly. The dwarven man walks down the steps and looks at each of you closely. I reckon their fine Garlan. The human watchmen nods before walking over to a gate on the other side of town. The dwarf looks down at the wolf corpses Welcome to Crowhall. With that brief greeting the dwarf walks back up the stairs to his post.
You can tell as you walk through the town the villagers aren't to keen on visitors and many crooked looks are shot your way. To the South you see what looks to be a mine. The largest building in town is what appears to be an inn, the sign is of a headless wolf with words that read "The Wolves Head". In the center of town is a large ten by ten well surrounded by six houses and a stone watchtower. As you look around you see a beautiful dark haired woman approach you flanked by two villagers armed with pickaxes. She wears clothes equally dark to her hair and wears a silver necklace with an ice blue gem around her neck. She talks in a thick Slavic accent What brings you to Crowhall travelers?
Well we are headed to Ark from Riverville, and this was on the way, a safe place to stop. Hopefully within the walls anyway.
Poppo gives the dark haired woman a smile and tries to keep eye contact, but he's a bit entranced by ice blue gem.
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These mountains are fierce, what with the snow and those giant wolves! How does your small town survive up here?
Are you the leader in these parts? We just seek shelter on our way to Ark and would love to make it to your local inn, I think it was called the Wolves Head, for a warm bed and hot meal. And a pint or two if you would care to join us.
Turngut remains quiet and subdued in the back, but his eyes dart about, keeping a lookout for danger. The distrustful looks from the villagers are things he is used to, but he rememberers that they are frequently followed by violence or hatred.
He edges closer to Poppo while trying to avoid the dark woman's gaze. He leans over to whisper in Poppo's ear. Hoppo, Turngut not think lady want us here. Maybe go to next town?
Yes, within the walls is safer than out there. The giant wolves are relatively normal however the snow, well their is something off about it. My name is Ela Renfroth, I'm sort of the unofficial mayor of Crowhall. Yes lets continue this conversation indoors don't want to get frostbite. She motions for the villagers flanking her to leave.
You enter the Wolves Head Inn a smaller establishment than the Drunken Bee in Riverville. Apart from a few miners eating stew and biscuits the inn is empty as it is only mid day. Behind the bar is well endowed red haired halfling woman. She talks with a very west country English accent Oi Ela we got a few weary travelers come in to town?
Yes, this is Sally Smallburrow the proprietor of the Wolves Head.
Pleasure to meet you all! the halfling woman says eyeing up Poppo and giving him a sly wink.
Please take a seat Ela continues Let me be the first to apologize for the cold reception from the townsfolk. They aren't fond of outsiders, living in the mountains the people you come across are less friendly. She takes a seat Surviving in these parts isn't easy, but we mainly rely on shipments from Ark. As for protection the Ice Fangs of Fogwatch act as our town guard. Let me give you a brief history of Crowhall. Hundreds of years ago when they building the path through these mountains they discovered a large deposit of iron beneath are very feet. It didn't take long for a settlement to spring up here and for people to start mining and selling the minerals. However the town quickly realized that they would need more protection than just villagers with pickaxes and pitchforks. Wild animals, bandits, and the occasional wandering undead from Anor Colair. Usually if a town had these problems they would get hung out to dry and eventually everyone there would die or move on. But because of the mineral deposits under the town Crowhall was deemed important enough to have protection. She gestures out the frosted window toward Castle Fogwatch That's when they made Fogwatch. But regular guards wouldn't do, the city folk weren't hearty enough to survive up here and many guards deserted their post. One noble had an idea, when convicting criminals they would get a choice spend half of their sentence at Fogwatch, or their whole sentence in prison. As such most of those at Fogwatch are former criminals, their current captain is a former Ark guardsmen called Torell. But enough of our history I've actually been waiting a while for able bodied adventurers to come through this town I... Ela is cut off by the sounding of a horn. It blows once, Ela has a slightly annoyed look on her face. Twice her expression gets a bit more serious and she glances out the window shaking her head. A third time and utter terror crosses her face Undead... I know you don't owe this town anything but if they blow that horn three times its not good. Would you please help us?
Guess that hot meal will have to wait! Of course we'll help! Poppo gives Sally a wink. I'm Poppo by the way, hope I don't die before we can become more acquainted.
With that Poppo draws his boarding axe and heads outside.
Hearing that they are not going to be driven out of town, or worse, Turngut leaps to his feet at the invitation to help. He knocks over his chair and almost tips over the table in his rush to stand.
Turngut good at helping. Turngut will fight bad things
He grabs his longspear and rushes to keep up with Poppo.
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I'm Nalia. What can you tell us about the undead? Do they have a leader? Or do they just shamble out of the woods with cold blue eyes?
With that, Nalia tosses back her freshly poured pint in one long swallow, loosens her sword in its scabbard and says, Turngut, look for me to try and sneak a blessing on you if we get the chance.
Ela looks to Nalia They come from Anor Colair to destroy the town. I know not why, but it has happened for hundreds if years. Ela quickly rushes outside, your group as well as Pearson, MacGuire, and Jespar quickly follow her.
As you exit the Wolves Head you see chaos all around. People running and trying to get indoors, the rush of several armed villagers running to the town gates. You see in the distance crawling its way up the wall of Fogwatch a large mound of rotting undead. The guards of the castle desperately fire their bows at the mound but it's clear that the Ice Fangs are preoccupied. You hear loud screams coming from the mine to the south Tunnelers! Tunnelers! the voices cry out. In the town square you see several tiny humanoids with bat wings flying around and going after unarmed villagers. Shambling toward the East gate you can see squad of eight skeletons, frozen to the bone with shotswords frozen to their arms. Coming towards the West gate is the largest creature you've ever seen, the creature wears nothing but a large torn loincloth its fat belly spills over the cloth. The creature is unmistakably a zombified hill giant. You have only a moment to decide where to defend the town the mine, the square, the East gate, or the West gate? Jespar's group accompanied by Ela are ready to rush to another area to help defend.
In Turngut's mind, the bigger threat is always, well, the bigger threat...
Rushing out into the cold weather and standing next to Poppo, Turngut grips his spear tightly as he looks around at the chaos. When he sees the undead giant, he lets out a roaring challenge - his jaw and tusks jutting forward and his roar echoing off the buildings. Although he would normally rush into combat, he delays for either Poppo or Nalia to direct him where to go.
You guys notice that each gate has a watchmen at it and one armed villager. You only see one armed villager in the square desperately trying to hit the flying creatures. You dont see what's going on at the mine.
Nalia knows a little bit about the giant, she knows this is a zombified Hill giant one question. She knows a lot about the bat like creatures these are vampire spawn you get three questions on them. You dont know anything about the skeletons and tunnelers.
As you would expect a zombified hill giant is just a hill giant who has died and been turned into a zombie. Since you know a little bit about a zombified hill giant it would make sense that you'd know a little bit about alive ones as well. You know that in Enderal hill giants live in the Western Cliff region, very close to where you are now. But hill giants live in the lower part of the mountains.
Vampire spawn are the children of a female and male vampire. The female vampire essentially lays an egg containing the spawn. However this egg is fleshy and mushy . These creatures never grow to become full vampires instead they more resemble malformed hummanoid bats.
Let's kill this bat things real quick, and then drop the giant! Poppo calls out.
Vampiric Bite: When the vampire spawn bites into a creature it drains their life force. A person bit must make a Fortitude Save or take 1d10 damage, save for half.
It doesn't have any special defenses but I will give you its immunities and resistances.
Energy Resistance, Cold (5) You have the specified Energy Resistance against Cold attacks.
Energy Resistance, Electricity (5) You have the specified Energy Resistance against Electricity attacks.
Immunity to Ability Drain Immunity to ability drain
Immunity to Bleed You are immune to bleed.
Immunity to Death Effects You are immune to death effects.
Immunity to Disease You are immune to diseases.
Immunity to Energy Drain Immune to energy drain
Immunity to Exhausted You are immune to the exhausted condition.
Immunity to Fatigue You are immune to the fatigued condition.
Immunity to Mind-Affecting effects You are immune to Mind-Affecting effects.
Immunity to Nonlethal Damage You are immune to Nonlethal Damage
Immunity to Paralysis You are immune to paralysis.
Immunity to Physical Ability Damage Immune to ability damage to your physical abilities.
Immunity to Poison You are immune to poison.
Immunity to Sleep You are immune to sleep effects.
Immunity to Stunning You are immune to being stunned.
Undead Traits Undead have many immunities.
The hill giant has DR 5 Slashing.
You all rush to help defend the town square ten villagers who have no weapons run about desperately trying to dodge and get away from the vampiric creatures You look in amazement as a man with one arm swings his pickaxe wildly at the spawn In total their are six vampire spawn flying about the town square, luckily once upon a time Nalia read about vampire spawn in a book about undead. Note that moving through a villagers square is difficult terrain.
Initiative Order Round 1
Nalia
Poppo
Turngut
Bobie
Vampire Spawn
Villagers
You all spring into action looking to protect the innocent mountain folk. You all can go!
Poppo runs up and yells, Come here you dead flying monkey! He then casts acid splash.
Turngut's glare remains on the giant as it smashes houses and villagers alike. He lets out another guttural bark and snort. Turngut taag okak next! he snaps at the giant and then turns to run after Poppo.
Once at the square, he sizes up the combat and charges over to the Red spawn.
Poppo moves up and casts an acid splash at one of the vampire spawn, but the small quick creature is able to avoid the attack. Turngut charges destroys the vampire spawn leaving a pile of vile mush. Beatrip moves forward as Bobie misses with his crossbow. Nalia double moves to get into the fight. The vampire spawn begin mercilessly draining the life out of several villagers. The only vampire spawn to attack the party is cyan vampire spawn who bites into Beatrip The only villager who has weapon and also only has one arm swings wildly at the blue vampire spawn but misses.
Initiative Order Round 2
Nalia
Poppo
Turngut
Bobie (Beatrip: 2 Damage)
Vampire Spawn (Red: Dead)
Villagers
You now see the corpses of several villagers scattering the floor. But more villagers were able to make it inside than die. Everyone can go!
Turngut shakes the undead ooze from his spear. His head and eyes dart back and forth across the square. Seeing Poppo and his other friends appear safe, he lets out a feral roar and charges the Yellow spawn.
Poppo slides in, in front of bobie. He's small and won't bother bobie as he takes aim with his big long spear. Poppo's magical energy enhances his weapon once more and then he swings his boarding axe with reckless abandon.
Turngut charges forward only managing to hit the vampire spawn because of his charge. Bobie misses his attack with his spear but his phantom is able to slam into the creature killing it. Nalia misses her attack on the blue vampire spawn.
You watch as the blue vampire spawn bites into the neck of the one armed villagers and just drains all the blood from the mans now shriveled body. The orange and magenta creatures quickly fly off.
Initiative Order Round 3
Nalia
Poppo
Turngut
Bobie (Beatrip: 2 Damage)
Vampire Spawn (Red: Dead, Cyan: Dead, Yellow: Dead, Magenta: Fleeing, Orange: Fleeing)
Villagers (5 Dead, 6 Alive)
Only one of the spawn still fights. Everyone can go!
Poppo rush toward the last remaining monster and waits for Nalia to arrive for a flank OR for Turngut just to skewer it.
Turngut leaps into the flank with Beatrip, his teeth grinding, tusks jutting and a string of spittle hanging from his mouth. His battlelust causes him to rush his attack.
Bobie notices that Ela and Jespar's group ran off toward the mines.
Turngut has trouble landing a precise spear attack because of the vampire spawns quick movements.
Nalia's attack is able to finish off the remaining vampire spawn.
Several bodies now lie on the ground but the battle is not yet won. You can see that the dwarven watchmen at the East gate is managing to keep the zombie hill giant at bay, but its a stalemate. The West gate is completely overrun, the gate has been destroyed and the watchmen as well as several villagers lie slain by the frozen zombies. The can hear the fighting has stopped down by the mine and see that Jespar, Mac, Pearson and Ela are ready to take on whatever fight you guys don't go to. Where will you go to defend?
Then a much squeakier voice rises after bobie's, Jespar you take the fallen gate, we'll fight the gi-ant! Poppo voices has some extra squeak when he calls out the word giant. He looks around to see if the rest of the group is up for fighting the hulking undead!
You guys rush to the East gate it appears the giant has nearly broken through the gate, you spring into action.
Initiative Round 1
Poppo
Nalia
Turngut
Bobie
Thraduik Brune
Zombie Hill Giant
The gate has not yet been breached, the dwarf fires down at the giant from an elevated position. You can all go!