So in the latest session, our band of hardy adventurers had gotten split up:
- Eric – a human cleric of Styphon the Healer-god
- Reacher – a human “locksmith”
- Fram – a human priest of Galzar Wolfhead
…had all gone through a teleportal that caused them to appear about 20 feet above ground level, near the entrance to the dungeon. Meanwhile, the rest of the party:
- Grollan – the dwarven fighter
- Kyle – the halfling “locksmith”
- Garric – the wildly courageous magic-user
…had all gone through the same teleportal, but using a different command word, were transported deeper into the dungeon.
Group A went back to Kingsbridge, the nearby village, and recruited help. With two warriors and a bard, they went back into the dungeon in search of their friends. Going through the teleportal, they were reunited with their comrades, and began to make their way out.
On the way out, they found themselves on the second level of the dungeon. In a particular portion of said level, they had encountered a guard post manned by hobgoblins. In previous expeditions, they had tried to take out the hobgoblins, to little effect. The hobgoblins had initially asked for a toll of a silver piece per party member, but this was refused by stingy player-characters (“what, put money back into the dungeon? What are you thinking??”). Each expedition had seen an escalation in tactics: caltrops, molotov cocktails, tripwires, combined arms tactics etc. So on their way out, the player-characters decided it would be a good idea to take out the hobgoblins once and for all – BUT! The doors leading to the guard post had been spiked shut, leaving one long corridor leading to the actual guard room.
As the player-characters peered cautiously around the corner to see what was there, I told them, “it’s hard to see all the way to the guardroom, as the corridor has been keep purposely dark – there are some darker shapes in the shadows though, and something is clearly moving. All you can hear from down the corridor is an ominous krick-krick-krick-KRICK sound (not unlike the pawl on a rachet). Oh, and right there, hanging on the wall around the corner is a wooden plaque.”
The players, being properly curious, asked, “what does the plaque say?”
So I handed them this:
Hobgoblins write in TXT?
Hmm, sounds like they might have a ballista if the party can hear a ratchet from that far away!
LOL. Who get's to lead?
It's not like I haven't warned them. If the player-characters get a chance to rest and recuperate, so do the hobgoblins. 🙂
I just figure that hobgoblins don't have a very good grasp of Common.
I absolutely love the Hobgoblin TXT Speak. Spending their off time attaching little paper captions to their cats, silly memes spreading among them like a flash in a pan.
The goblins, notorious thieves, steal everything including language. But they're not creative like the hobgoblins, so they hold onto the memes for far too long.
The hobgoblins cringe but keep the goblins around to do the scullery work and the most dangerous jobs.
Hobgoblin: Hey u, chk out teh pit trap
Goblin: 😛 Orly?
Hobgoblin: *Sigh* Ya … Yarly.
1d30: You're giving me ideas….! *grin*
You left the best part out of the story! Yes the player characters once again refused to pay the "toll", and escaped unscathed by hurling a poorly thrown smoke bomb that provided cover for the escape! Yes, Kyle the "pyro" was at it again!
Uh-oh. My players have discovered my blog. Um, time to go rewrite large sections of dungeon notes…. 😉
I still think my idea of using the severed hobgoblin heads spiked onto their own spears as puppets to draw out the other hobgoblin guards was a nicely inventive idea..
however..
a ballista..
hrmm..
I wonder if we could get that down the stairs to the next level..
Nix
I have such imaginative players. That's actually really kinda cool. 🙂