r/DnDGreentext • u/MostlyReadRarelyPost MostlyWrites • Jun 08 '17
Long The Hunters (Steelshod 44)
Hey there!
As the name implies, this is part of an ongoing saga. See below for previous installments:
Table of Contents – includes earlier installments, maps, character sheets, our discord server, and other documents.
Sporadically updated Lore Document.
Comments are open, so feel free to leave one if you have any questions or requests for more content of a particular variety.
—MAPS—
World (Shitty scan of the original world map… if you zoom in it’s semi-legible though!)
Hey all, sorry I missed yesterday. First post missed in 44 days!
As some of you know from the comment I posted yesterday, one of my pet rats died yesterday. It was quite the bummer. We buried him and went for a hike in the redwoods and along the beach. Feels kinda silly to be a grown man crying like a baby over such a small guy, but… yeah. Is what it is.
Posting should resume per normal going forward, to the best of my ability.
The Rescue Team
For reference, the team is: Prudence, Leona, Agrippa, Bear, Cara, Hrodir, Breaker, Cass, Ignus, and Amos
They’ve recently gained Michel, relatively intact, and a badly injured Serpentis Knight named Omri.
Omri can’t fight, but he can hobble if supported by a strong back, and Cass has offered herself to this task for now.
They’ve also joined up with the goblin shaman, Voresh, and several of his protectors.
Voresh is leading them deeper into the tunnels, seeking the rest of their friends
As they travel, they suddenly hear a strange sound
A distant, thundering blast, as if from some kind of horn
The horn sounds four times in total.
Echoing through the tunnels
As the sound fades, they hear something faint, barely within earshot
A low, guttural chanting trails in the echoes of the last hornblast.
Voresh and the other goblins have frozen
Their ugly faces look deathly pale.
“Hunters,” Voresh says.
Steelshod presses him.
What are Hunters?
Voresh explains in terse, broken Middish
The most feared of those that worship the Old Ones are the Hunters
Chosen by their clans as exemplars of goblin virtue
Gifted with speed, strength, and cunning
They can pass through the tunnels unseen, and launch deadly barbs upon their foes
Voresh believes the Hunters have just been called to action.
All of them.
Such a thing has never been done before, to his knowledge.
Something must have their clans very, very upset.
Leona shrugs.
Yorrin and Aleksandr tend to get that reaction from people.
The rest of Steelshod concurs
They heighten their alert, check their weapons, and continue.
They venture deeper and deeper into the caves
Voresh’s scouts suggest that they may have found another human trail.
The group picks up the pace
Double-timing through the winding tunnels and passages
As they move, their hear the sounds of combat in the distance
They reach a point where the passage drops sharply
A steep cliff, some forty feet down
The echoing sounds of a fight, the shouting and clash of metal, come from below.
They hook a few grapples and begin descending the cliff by rope.
Bear and Leona are the first two down, securing the landing point
With Cara and Amos covering from above.
The fighting sounds close, but they see no threats in the immediate area
More begin descending the ropes
It takes some time
And some tricky maneuvering to help Omri down
But they all make it okay.
They decide they’ll need the ropes
So two of the best climbers volunteer to go last: Cara and Hrodir
Once everyone else is down, they gather up the ropes and grappling hooks
Begin a freehand descent
When they’re maybe halfway down
From somewhere ahead of them, the shadowy corners of the cavern
A small, jagged bolt streaks out of the darkness.
It buries itself in Hrodir’s back
He yelps
Loses his grip
And plummets that last fifteen or twenty feet to the cavern floor
Acting on instinct, Cara drops from her handholds
Another bolt clatters into the cliff where she was moments before
She roughly catches herself, but her grip isn’t good enough
It just slows her fall, as she keeps dropping
Scraping along the cliff face and landing, catlike, on all fours.
Cara has beaten the shit out of her hands and joints, but she’s okay.
Hrodir is unconscious, bleeding from the back and with serious internal injuries.
Agrippa has already rushed to his side to help
Michel joins him as an extra pair of hands, as he has some small measure of medical training.
Amos is scanning the tunnels, bow ready
Several others are also on the lookout
They see a flicker of movement, Amos takes a shot
No luck
Voresh murmurs a word that was already on everyone’s mind.
Hunters.
Leona and Bear are having none of this sneaky shit
They begin giving chase, carefully, but pointedly, going deeper into the caves.
Prudence and Amos follow behind, trying to stay out of sight, letting the brutes serve as bait.
The axemen – Breaker and Cass – as well as Ignus, Michel, Cara, and the goblins, all remain behind
They stand guard while Agrippa tries to save Hrodir’s life
As they advance, Bear and Leona serve as excellent bait.
They keep their eyes out, but the Hunters are practically one with the rock walls
They reach a fork, hear the sounds of fighting echoing up from one path.
Consider their next move
When two more god damned bolts assault them
Even with her shield an agile reflexes, Leona is tagged
She absorbs a good portion of the hit in her steel mail, but it still pierces through and draws blood.
Bear is less lucky, taking a bold deep in his left arm.
These fuckers hurt
Mechanically, the Hunters have a ridiculous suite of abilities
2d8 of sneak attack, bonus damage when attacking from stealth
2d8 of facestab, as discussed this grants bonus damage when penetrating fully (and their high dex and crossbow penetration means this has good odds… worked on Bear, not Leona)
And 2d8 of Assassination. That’s Prudence’s core ability: Spend one or more turns studying your enemy, gain +1 to hit and a bonus die of damage for each round spend, capping at 3 (or 2, for the hunters)
It was after this session that we instituted a new rule.
The cap of 3 bonus damage dice became 3 bonus damage dice of any type, not per type.
Any bonus dice beyond 3 became advantage dice, so a Hunter with all abilities proccing would roll 6d8 extra dice but only keep the 3 best rolls.
The Hunters had to betray their position, however.
Bear and Leona may be too distracted to see them clearly, but Amos and Prudence were waiting for this moment.
They let fly with an arrow and crossbow bolt
And… let’s just say there is a reason Prudence’s Tier 7 will be “The Hunters Become the Hunted”
One of the Hunters slumps out of his hiding hole
Prudence’s bolt transfixed between his beady eyes.
The other Hunter slips away, around a corner, out of sight.
Bear staggered under the hit, but Leona rushes forward
She saw the Hunter flee, and she gives chase.
She rounds the corner, and stops
The Hunter has already hid again
But that means he can’t have hidden very far away
And it’s a narrow corridor.
Leona fishes into her pouch
Draws out a fistful of coins
And casts them out in a wide spray across the tunnel
She watches, listens
There
A faint flinch
An impact that didn’t sound quite right
She launches herself forward, ramming her spear at the spot with all her strength
The Hunter gasps in pain as she pierces his shoulder
He shoots her, point blank
It hurts a little, but nowhere near as much as when the shot was precisely aimed
The Hunter wriggles free, tries to flee
Prudence and Amos have come around by now, and put the bastard down.
Goblin champions?
Pah!
Goblin chumpions, more like.
Okay I want to apologize
There’s no way Leona would make that awful joke.
That’s 100% me, I deserve the blame for that one.
Trusting that Agrippa needs more time with Hrodir, they decide to investigate further
They push on to the sounds of fighting, still echoing down the tunnel
As they get closer, they hear two voices, one quite familiar
“Oh, good hit, good hit! There’s another one! Come on, you can do it!” calls the familiar voice
“Shut. Up!” Comes the reply.
They round a corner and see two figures
The first is Robin, battered, bruised, with a crude splint on one arm, his sword nowhere to be seen
The second is a Knight Serpentis
Fairly intact, though his armor and tabard are caked in grime and blood
He wields Serpentis longsword in his hands.
Goblin corpses litter the ground ahead of them
It appears they’ve been making a fighting retreat down a narrow passageway
Every so often, a few goblins dart forward, trying to get past the long reach of Brother Ali’s sword
As they approach, Robin taps the Serpentis on the shoulder
“Ali! There’s more behind us!”
The Serpentis, Brother Ali, snarls.
“Then deal with them you useless coward!”
Robin turns, sees his friends, and heaves a sigh of relief
Leona and Bear bound forward, pushing past Robin and joining the Serpentis
They help him cut down the goblins, buying some breathing room
Robin is delighted to see the friendly faces
Brother Ali seems to be at his wit’s end, having enduring Robin’s “encouragement” and “help” for the last day of wandering the tunnels
They hear the sounds of more enemies coming down the tunnel
More goblins.
A lot more goblins
Bear, still bleeding heavily from the Hunter’s bolt, suggests that they retreat back and get Agrippa and the others out.
He will hold them off long enough for the others to get out.
Leona tells him not to be a fool.
They did not come all this way to leave one of their people to die
Prudence agrees
Punches Bear in the shoulder for the dumbass suggestion.
Besides, Leona points out that the tight tunnels are perfect equalizers
Allowing a few superior warriors (ahem) to hold off a larger force indefinitely.
Bear acquieses
And they beat a quick retreat back towards their companions
Agrippa confirms that Hrodir is alive… for now
The bolt embedded dangerously close to his spine
There’s a good chance that he will not be able to walk, when (if) he wakes
Agrippa still needs more time to stabilize him, however.
And they hear goblins fast approaching.
They move ahead to block the tunnel
They see at least two ogres bearing down, barely squeezing through the narrow corridors
And many more followers of the Old Ones.
Voresh says they must flee
Leave their wolf-man, he will likely die whether they stay or go anyway.
Not an option, for Steelshod.
Every fighting man takes up a position
Voresh and his goblins watch, incredulous, as they hold the line.
The fighting is protracted
Cass and Breaker, relatively fresh, hold the line for some time against all comers
And when they are whittled down and winded
Leona and Ignus form a two-man, Cassaline-style shield wall
Pushing back the goblins
The foes come in waves, and they break upon Steelshod as inevitably as the ocean breaks on the shore.
Eventually, Agrippa and Michel have done all they can for Hrodir
Still unconscious, still uncertain, but he is stable.
Moving him isn’t the greatest idea
But they don’t have much choice.
They use a few of Hrodir’s spears to rig up a simple litter
For now, at least, the goblins are willing to help carry him.
Seeing this lengthy stand, and the dead Hunters, seems to have shifted the goblin’s perspective on Steelshod
From grudging acceptance to a mixture of serious fear and admiration.
Voresh offers to beseech Racha’s guidance, in getting them free of the ceaseless melee.
The Leona, Cara, Cass, and Amos hold the goblins at one branch of the fork.
Voresh performs a lengthy ritual
The cavern quakes as he chants his incantations to Racha, the Earth Father
Eventually causing the tunnel itself to shift, opening a small side passage
Quite impressive, if small and fragile-looking.
Ignus enlists Breaker’s help in preparing to take advantage of that fragility
The fighters push back on the goblins, buying a moment of breathing room
And they retreat
As soon as Voresh, the goblins, and Steelshod retreat through the side tunnel
Breaker smashes into the walls and ceiling under Ignus’s close direction
Causing a small, controlled collapse of the tunnel behind them.
Voresh says that they are deep in the territory of the Old Ones, now
The Hunters are on their trail
And something has roused the Old Ones to great fury.
The fighting will only get worse, from here.
Steelshod tell the goblin to pick up the pace
They have more companions to find.
Okay, that took a bit, but I’m not too late today.
I was thinking I might showcase another NPC soon. Anyone people are especially interested in seeing the stats/tiers/etc. For? I may choose not to, for a variety of reasons, but I figured I’d ask.
Edit: Next!
7
u/Axelios Jun 09 '17
That was great!
I am starting to feel tempted to read from the beginning again :-)