Damn Elf Press

Rescue Mission in the Barrow-downs

[This is a continuation of our Fatbeard Whitebox Roll20 game in my campaign world of Reuel. I GM the game and we have four players. The game is run on Roll 20 and we usually play one evening for 2-3 hours each weekend.]

Current PC Roster (All PCs are 1st level and so are all henchmen)

Will — human magic user
Brogo and Drogo — henchhobbits (fighters)

Tharn — dwarven fighter
Innocentius — human cleric henchman

Valerius — human cleric
Volanis — human henchman (fighter)

Jim Barley — human fighter
Brillo — henchhobbit (thief)

We begin play in a narrow tunnel inside the barrow-downs north of Bree…

Tharn, the dwarf, moved cautiously along until he came to a fork in the narrow tunnel. A flagstone caught his eye. His dwarven heritage told Tharn to slow down and use caution. Tharn slowly ran his hand over the flagstone. Just a bit of pressure on one side caused the stone to tilt down into a hollowed space. In that space were a half dozen bronze spear tips standing for countless years waiting for an unwary soul. The dwarf wedged a dagger into the seam, marking it for the others in the party.

Two men were somewhere in this barrow-downs, held captive and awaiting their doom. Tharn and his companions made a decision to plumb the darkness, risking their lives to rescue them. Sheriff Briarfoot explicitly told the party to not go into the barrow downs and also to never remain there when the sun went down. Heroism or stupidity, perhaps it is the same thing for this party of hobbits, humans, and one stubborn dwarf.

Brillo, the hobbit, came scampering down the tunnel with his lantern. He saw Tharn’s dagger and could see him moving forward into the darkness. Brillo stopped and listened at the opening to his right. A scratching sound, pebbles being dislodged perhaps? Shining his lantern, Brillo saw a gray human in tattered clothing, teeth gnashing in ravenous anticipation. Brillo gulps and tosses his lantern at the creature. It lands with a loud clang on the tunnel floor and goes out. The hobbit can hear the cries of others in the party, “Who snuffed that lantern?!” Darkness engulfed friend and foe alike.

Unsure what else to do, Brillo rushes forward to catch up with Tharn and hopefully hide behind him! The ghoul lopes after him and meets Tharn. The dwarf makes a chop with his axe but comes up short. The ghoul slashes Tharn with its black nails. The dwarf cries out in pain and feels his muscles tighten into a rictus!

Behind them, the others scramble to light another torch and Valerius, the clerics moves forward, holy symbol in hand. “Flee from my sight, unholy spawn! Through the power of Eos, I rebuke thee!”

The ghoul hardly flinches as the clerics presents the holy symbol. Its hunger for warm flesh drives him forward. The ghoul lunges at Valerius, its filthy nails scraping off the clerics chainmail.

Valerius grabs his warhammer and swings, but the narrow tunnel hinders his attack and he misses. Brillo sneaks up behind the ghoul, sinking his dagger deep into the creature’s neck. It claws frantically at the dagger and then sags to the ground, black blood flowing freely. It twitches twice and lies still.

With Tharn paralysed, Brillo takes lead in the narrow winding tunnel. He hears the sound of many voices ahead. A chorus of whispers echo from ahead, all coming in unison, as if all are part of some dark invocation.

Having retrieved his battered lantern and relighting it, Brillo now decides to shutter it and slowly creep forward. He can see the dim glow of light and peeks around the corner. In a medium sized cavern, Brillo spies four black robed humans, a pale face leader in priestly vestments, and a gray skinned ghoul sniffing the air and pacing at the rear of the cave. The robed figures are standing in front of an altar. Two red candles are the only source of light. They sit on the altar, flanking a stone idol and a copper plate.

Brillo scampers back to tell the others. “Those two men captive here are f*cked! We better leave now!” Valerius and Innocentius (both clerics of Eos) interrogate the nervous hobbit and he relays what he had seen. The clerics are filled with zeal and holy righteousness and decide to charge into the cavern!

The cultists are interrupted by the scream of two clerics rushing into the room. Valerius misses his target but Innocentius swings his flail overhead and caves in the closest cultist. Brillo moves along a cave wall to snipe with his crossbow. The rest of the party moves into the cave to support the clerics.

The cultists are recovering from the surprise charge and grab for their cruel daggers. The clerics strike again, this time Valerius connects with his warhammer, crushing another cultist. Innocentius targets the priest but misses!

The evil priest summons dark energy and touches Innocentius. Dark energy pulls lifeforce from the clerics! (Cause light wounds! Innocentius has one hit points remaining.)

Brogo and Drogo appear out of nowhere to stab at the priest with spear and sword. Drogo misses with a daring lunge of his spear and he falls flat on his back! Brogo’s sword sinks deep into the evil priest’s heart, killing him instantly!

The remaining cultists emboldened by the savage ghoul, stand their ground. Jim Barley yells a war cry and throws his rock, only to trip over a dead cultist and fall down. Will, the magic-user casts sleep and two of the cultists drop to the floor. The ghoul rakes at Valerius but misses. The foul creature is then set upon by sword and warhammer and falls under the assault.

The sleeping cultists are dispatched and searched, the cavern also.

They find a handful of silver pieces, daggers with symbols of chaos engraved on them, a suit of chain mail (priest), and an unholy symbol. Valerius destroys the unholy symbol as Brogo jumps onto the altar to kick the candles off and destroy the idol. It was a crude carving of some demon.

The party follows a tunnel in the rear of the cavern. It leads to a storage room. After a thorough search of some barrels and crates…and finding and killing a couple large spiders, the party has found some serious loot.

All told, the party finds some furs (400sp) and three pieces of jewelry…a quartz statuette of a goat (2000sp!), an ancient bronze necklace (100sp), and a malachite figurine of a bull (5000sp!) [Note–I use the silver standard instead of gold standard in my game. I was shocked at the randomly rolled value of the jewelry, but I’m not going to retcon this. Sometimes, fortune smiles on you.] The last piece of loot is a dark blue candle covered with arcane symbols. [They will have to do some research to determine what it does.]

The party presses on and after following more winding and narrow tunnels, they reach a door. Inside are two men, the captives they had spoken with through the vent hole in the barrow-downs. They are chained to the wall, but a few turns of hard work with hammer and spikes, break them free. The men are nervous. They can see that night is approach by looking into the vent hole above them. They tell the party that another of their group was taken yesterday.

In a frantic rush through the tunnels, now with Tharn fully recovered, they emerge from the barrow-downs with the sun setting in the west. Wasting no time, they gather their mules and race southward towards the town of Bree.

[One challenge that presents the party is how can they sell these valuable pieces of jewelry? The town of Bree is only 300 people. It is however on a trade route that regulary sees merchant wagons. Otherwise, the party may need to visit a larger town in the midlands. They’ll need to figure this out.]

End of session.