Ironfang Invasion Dilemma

[Cory Stafford 29]

I am currently running Ironfang Invasion, and the pc’s have decided to go off the rails a bit, and head straight to Tamran via makeshift rafts down the river. What would the realistic reception that the pc’s and refugees from Phaendar receive? How much help could they realistically get from officials in the town to help fight the invading hobgoblin army?

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

It's been a while since I read the AP and I'm AFB but the most likely scenario I can think of is that not much would happen. There would be a lot of local grousing about the large number of people swarming the city looking for food and shelter, people who hear of the invasion will disbelieve its seriousness and downplay the problem until they get a rude awakening later on, a lot of bureaucratic delays as the continuous pleadings from the refugees and possibly the PCs get the authorities to do something, and when the authorities finally send out some scouts they will have delayed enough that this happens at about the time other reports of just how serious the invasion is start coming in thus not affecting the general progression of the AP storyline much.

In short, the PCs, if they are generally kind-hearted and want to help the refugees and protect the country (i.e. go along with the concept of the AP), will likely get frustrated at how long everything is taking and head out on their own again pretty soon to try to do more to find out about and stop the Ironfang.

[Jenner2057]

There's a bit in the background you should consider as well. The timeline isn't spelled out exactly when it happens, but in Book 2 under "Meanwhile on the front..." it talks about how a scattering of survivors from western Nirmathas have already arrived at Tamran with the initial reports of monster attacks. Tamran sent an exploration force west along the Tamran Highway to investigate. This force ran into an ambush and was handily defeated by a force MUCH bigger than what they were expecting. With this level of defeat, the city of Tamran is panicking about setting up defenses of the city likely expecting an attack on the capital next (not realizing that the Ironfang Legion will be focusing on the west instead).

So, bottom line is that the city is probably going to be far too busy worried about their own defenses than helping those back in occupied territory at first. They've already lost a good chunk of their military power in the initial ambush on the Highway. Anything left they might be very conservative using and likely going to keep it for the capital's defense.

Those are just my own thoughts. Cheers!

[Cory Stafford 29]

Thanks. That is helpful.

[thorin001]

If you want to keep them on the rails then have some patrols already along the river looking for such escapees. Then make it obvious that some of them are warning others further down the river. Some noisy reinforcements could get them to run away in the desired direction.