World of Prime: Campaign Journal #57

Against the Giants, part II

The party contemplates their options.

1. Advance deeper into the mountains, forcing a confrontation with the giant king's army. The party will have three rounds to prepare spells, gain initiative for the battle, and choose the engagement distance.

2. Conduct a fighting withdrawal through the forest. The giant's army will attack in four successive waves, each stronger than the last, at an initial encounter range of 100'. In addition, the party gets to camp and renew spells once during the campaign.

3. Retreat to Kek and hire help. The party can get one of Kek's work gangs as mercenaries and fight the giant army in the desert, at an encounter range of 500'. But not for free; Kek will claim half the booty from the battle.

4. Flee home. The giant army will eventually find them, but now they can choose the encounter distance from 100' to 300' and use their household troops in the battle, or even choose to fight from their castle. Their vassals will contribute two troops of knights, two lancers, and four longbowmen as well.

After considerable discussion, the party opts for #2. (This was the GM's way of abstracting out tactical advances and retreats in some manageable way.)

The first wave is a charging herd of aurochs. The Druid uses stone spikes to slow the herd and then hides from animals, while the Cleric uses a powerful command spell to tell the herd to flee. While this cannot redirect the herd (as the spell only lasts one round) it does mean that the initial charge is mostly entirely negated as the beasts attempt to avoid the party. Mostly but not entirely; the Bard is almost trampled to death by two aurochs that didn't get the memo.

The Cleric retreats to air walking to escape the beasts. However, after three charges slowed by entangles and constant arrow fire, half the herd is dead and the rest flee.

The second wave consists of six dire bears. The Druid makes everyone invisible to animals, thus granting the party a full round of initiative against the poor bears. Despite their strength, the bears soon fall to the Barbarian's sword and the Druid-Bear.

The third wave is fifteen giant peasants. Again the Druid slows them with spikes. However, these foes can throw rocks, and they chuck them hard. The Ranger is almost pasted and has to be healed. One entire squad of giants is trapped by a wall of blades and a wall of fire. For several rounds they ignore the fire, simply throwing rocks; but as the Bard and Barbarian begin to employ various tricks to make themselves hard targets, the giants finally force their way through the barrier, suffering considerable damage. Still, there are a lot of giants, and both the Barbarian and the Ranger are knocked into negatives before the fight is over.

After this the party takes their rest option, renewing all their spells and health. The previous encounters were not actually quite sufficient to weaken them into the next day. Still, they are wary, as the giants almost killed several of them.

The fourth and final wave is Chieftain Hodux and eight giant warriors. This time the Cleric blocks the giants between a wall of blades and the Druid's spike field. Several rounds go by in uncharacteristic passivity as the Chieftain tries in vain to dispel the blades. Finally he gives up and orders his soldiers to march through it, causing the Cleric to roll absolute fistfuls of dice.

The giants are advancing in a line, their Chieftain behind, when the Druid causes a sleet storm. Again the action pauses, taking on a bit of a comical aspect when the Druid realizes he can't un-cast the sleet storm at will. But the Chieftain can undo this magic, and soon his troops are advancing and hurtling rocks again.

These warriors are tough. The Cleric and Druid are throwing around pillars of fire, the Ranger is firing like a machine gun, and the Bard bravely flanks the giant line with a summoned lion and his trusty halberd. This is, ironically, the Bard's fight; between his mirror images and displacement effect, the smashing power of the giants is almost negated. It doesn't matter that they never miss if all they are hitting is illusions or air.

The Barbarian and Ranger, on the other hand, are taking consistent and heavy damage. The party is genuinely concerned as the giants are slow to fall. Both Barbarian and Ranger have to be healed to remain in the fight, while the Druid flanks the giant line and attempts to dispel the powerful enchantments on the Chieftain. For once he fails to utterly strip the foe of all their best defenses, and is forced to turn into a bear and join the Bard in melee combat.

The Cleric goes down from one too many thrown rocks, and waits for an opportune time to heal himself. The Barbarian and Bard are now standing back to back, surrounded by giants, when the Bard's luck runs out and he goes down. The Cleric, back on his feet, cures the Ranger, who starts shooting again; the Druid-Bear battles to save the unconscious Bard. The Chieftain clobbers the Ranger, knocking him out again.

Slowly the battle tilts to the party, though many of them are periously close to death, having been healed and brought back into battle several times. Finally the Druid-Bear gets lucky and cuts through the Chieftain's spells and rends the monster to death. The last four giants try to get revenge, but are slowly cut down.

When only two giants remain, one deploys a secret weapon. He prays loudly to the gods for aid, begging them to bypass the Bard's many magical defenses. Much to everyone's surprise, it works! (The Bard gets unlucky and fails both his displacement and image check!) And now the Bard is down, literally a single hit point from final death.

As if to cement this late development, the other giant knocks the Barbarian into next week with a critical blow. Now the Cleric must race against the clock to save him before he bleeds out. The Ranger kills one giant, and the bear claws, bites, and grapples the other to death. Victory at last!

This has been the hardest fight of the party's career. But it was against a truly puissant foe, a contender for the title of Domain Lord. The skin of the Chieftain will provide a truly epic Belt of +8 Strength, and the tael from the army will level another member of the party.

Now they are deciding how many corpses to return to Kek, desirous of the reward but also concerned about providing the mummy lord with such powerful frames for animated dead. They are also deciding whether to attack the remaining giants in their castle and end the giant threat for good, or simply parade the dead Chieftain's head in front of the gates and extort a ransom for not attacking.

World of Prime: Campaign Journal #56

Against the Giants

All is quiet in the kingdoms, thanks to the party's efforts at exterminating external threats. The party looks over the job Earl Theodorick is doing and quickly becomes bored with accounting procedures. Handing off a couple magic swords for good behavior, they march south to answer Kek's call.

By the time they get to City of Twilight, they're second-guessing their efforts. How will they bring home enough bodies to make it worth their while? Because a hundred pounds of gold is just not what it used to be.

Kek tries to convince them by letting them know that this tribe have not paid tribute in some time, and may need to be reminded of his authority. The party is authorized to take whatever measures they deem necessary, and of course the spoils of battle are theirs to keep. When this does not prove convincing, he reminds them that 5,000 tael per corpse is certainly a worthy prize.

The Ranger quickly catches on that the currency has changed, and is now fully onboard with the plan. When they try to recruit some golems for transport, however, Kek demures; better they should arrange transport out of the local supplies.

As will soon become apparent, Kek has rather downplayed the size of the problem.

After days in the wilderness, the party enters mountainous terrain. Very quickly they stumble upon a herd of aurochs, cattle the size of elephants. While they debate whether or not to murder these poor livestock for the scraps of tael they would yield, a voice comes out of nowhere.

"What are you lot doing here?"

The party announces they are looking for the village of Aom, to extract a tribute for the mighty Kek.

Their interlocutor is unimpressed. "Seems unlikely, but what do I, a simple shepherd, know? If you would but wait a moment, I will fetch my betters."

The Druid thinks he sees some disturbance in the distance, but can't be sure. Nonetheless, invisible voices no longer frighten our heroes; they pass the time in small talk, waiting for the outcome of their negotiation.

This comes in the form of booming voices. "See, I told you!" says the original. "Astonishing that they are so foolish as to still remain," says another. "Indeed," adds another, "the furry one looks tasty, does it not?"

Accompanying the voices are a pair of dire bears. The aurochs do not panic; clearly they are as used to the bears as sheep to their dogs.

"We're not for eating," explains the Ranger. "Rather, you're to deliver us to the Chieftain so we may collect a tribute."

"Are you mad? Then we wouldn't even get a bite," exclaims a voice. "Instead, if the rest of you run away now, leaving behind only the greasy one in the bear hide, we'll have a bit of a feast and not tell anyone else what they're missing out on."

A piercing whistle, and the bears charge, clearly intent on bringing down one or more of the party. Instead, arrows and spiritual hammers make short work of them.

The voices respond by becoming visible, at least long enough to throw rocks. The shepherds, it seems, are on the same scale as the animals, which is to say: huge. Twelve feet of grubby peasants they are, but they bowl like cricket pitchers. The Ranger, the chief source of ranged damage, soon finds himself pelted by boulders and perilously close to death. Most disconcerting, the giants become invisible whenever they are not attacking; their affinity with stone disguises them from any distance greater than 100'.

While this is not enough to defeat the party, it does allow one giant to escape and flee when his companions are brought down. The party loots the corpses, such as they are, and decides that rather than pressing deeper into danger, they will wait and see what the next response is. The Ranger sets out a magical trip wire alarm and the party retreats a few hundred feet to hide and observe.

A veritable herd of aurochs, being driven by four bears, soon comes into view. Behind it follow nine invisible creatures, detected by the Ranger's trap.

The party realizes it has been spotted when the aurochs break into a stampede. The Druid lays down a field of spike stones; normally these are quite dangerous but for creatures with as much vitality as elephants, it merely slows them. However, this gives the party time to kill the bears; and once the guide dogs are disposed of, moving out of the way of the blind charge is simple.

The giants are not so easily disposed of. They seem to detect the trapped field, and rather than pass through the spikes, begin throwing stones. The Cleric responds with a wall of blades, to keep the giants at bay; while this offers some protection against stones passing through, the ranged battle still tilts for the giants as once again the Ranger is battered down to single digits. Frustrated, the Barbarian skirts the field of spikes and flanks the wall of blades to engage in melee combat, whereupon he discovers that three of the giants are not peasants, but soldiers. Dressed in bronze armor and wielding bronze hammers, they deliver crushing blows that never seem to miss.

The Bard and Ranger move to support him, and just in time, as soon the Barbarian find himself a mere triplet of hit-points from extinction. And then the giant's sorcerer starts dispelling the party's magical buffs.

Recognizing the situation is dire, the Dire-Bear-Druid charges from the other flank and murderizes the giant leader in a single glorious round of claws and fangs. Enraged, the remaining soldiers pounce on the bear, their powerful attacks dishing out earth-shattering damage, and now the bear is at three hit-points. Even one more blow will be a guaranteed death; but the Bard, Barbarian, and Ranger have made it into melee range. They distract the giants for another round while the Cleric's hammers finish them off.

Other than tael and bearskins, the giants carried no loot - save for the sicking fact that giant sorcerer skins are a valuable material component for belts of giant strength. Lumps of bloody flesh are not quite the same as piles of golden coins, but the party takes it anyway.

The party retreats and heals, returning the next day intent on finishing the giants. They press deeper into giant territory but only find an abandoned village. It appears half the village died in the previous battle, and the other half absconded with all moveable goods deeper into the mountains. The Ranger cannot track Stone Giants through mountainous terrain anymore than he can track a Druid, but the tracks of the aurochs give some clue. At least they found the leader's hidden treasure, a substantial pile of tael - but still not enough to mark the leader as the kind of antagonist Kek would worry about.

This fight has seen more of the party reduced to near-fatality than any before it. And it's just a village patrol - the leader they have been sent to subdue has not yet taken the field. They pause to consider their next move.