Frontier Bulletin 19: The Devouring of the Twelve-Headed Hydra

Players: 

Laughing Fox (Shaman) with his henchman Dogbreath

Laurentius (Cleric) along with two of his henchman

Hellena Kellar (Dwarf Mechanist)

It's been a month since the twelve-headed hydra laid waist to the Bloated Badger and forced Wirrow and his fellow hobbits off his land. Since then, Laughing Fox has put a plan together. Over the month, he's gathered a small army of giant catfish that he's kept in a small, manmade pond. He managed to gather 27 giant catfish. Laughing Fox's plan was when they confronted the hydra, he would release the giant catfish,, and hope they will get a surprise on the fowl beast and do enough damage that it would make the rest of the battle easier. The party also had planned to have Boldvay cast Paralysis from his Staff of Wizardry. Unfortunately Boldvay's player didn't make it for the session. The players were a bit nervous and thought about abandoning the plan to do something else. But their bravery prevailed and decided to help their friend Wirrow in his plight.

Before setting out, Laughing Fox asked his ancestors when the best time to attack the hydra, if it was hydra mating season, and where the hydra was nesting. There answers were: best to attack during the day, it wasn't mating season, and that it was nesting on land. With that said, the hired a boat (the very same that brought them back from Rivertown), put Hellena Kellar in the crab-mech they found, bought a lot of chum to lead the giant catfish, and finally set out. Their plan was to draw the hydra out, using themselves as bait, with Hellena Kellar waiting in the crab mech underwater to attack, and with the giant catfish waiting on the side to surprise the hydra. 

Arriving at the desolated river tavern, the party saw the wreckage the hydra wrought. They smelled something rotting and soon discovered pieces of Harley the river dragon stuck among the decimated settlement and along the bank. Various carrion birds were feasting on the remains, and floating debris of the Bloated Badger had made their home in the river itself. Cleaver, the sentient great axe the party found awhile back, swore an oath of vengeance upon the hydra. Laughing Fox and Laurentius both cast blessed on the party to even the odds, then the  players began to shout and draw the attention of the hydra. The twelve headed hydra swam out to meet the players in their boat. Before this, I decided on how to roll for the catfish army. Normally, due to it's size I would just divide the group in to two or three smaller groups and roll whatever dice for each group to keep things simple and fast. This time I gave the players an option: I could stick to that or roll for each single giant catfish. The group decided on the latter. Well, before that, the fish managed to surprise the hydra as it was making it's way to the players. With that, I then rolled 27 d20 to hit. 19 of the giant catfish succeeded.

They swarmed the unsuspecting hydra and with decent damage rolled for each hit (giant catfish have four bites that do 2d8 damage) the hydra went down. The players and the ship's crew looked aghast as the hydra struggled and was overwhelmed by the biting giant fish, and sank in a frothy maelstrom of blood and gore. Some of the crew even wretched at the site. I ruled that once their feeding was done, Laughing Fox would lose control of the fish and they would swim back into the river. With large sea-beast vanquished, the party went ashore to look through it's nest that it maid in the remains of the tavern. They found a mermaid statue maid of pure gold clasping a black pearl worth 5000 gp. The party also found four brilliant gems, four pieces of jewelry, and magical scale armor made of greenish-gold clams, and 10,000 gp. Finally, the greatest of the treasure was found: a pair of Gauntlets of Ogre Power. The party also brought back two of the hydra's heads.

They soon left and arrived back to Woodshome where the hobbits were hosting games for adventurers and warriors to kill the hydra. Wirrow, surprised at what the party accomplished, congratulated them and offered them half of the 10,000 gp to the ongoing games. After that, the players had some magic items identified, including some found from previous sessions. 

A couple of things. First, from here on out, the session reports will be called Frontier Bulletins. I wanted something more exciting than "session report" and had my players brainstorm for a better title. Second, the giant catfish army. Pretty powerful, right? Well, I allowed it for a couple of reasons. One, it was well thought out by Laughing Fox's player, and seemed reasonable. Plus it took over a month to gather said army. Second, with the use of animal control with his ring, keeping them fed, and separated from the rest of the river, seemed reasonable to me. I dig this out-of-the-box thinking that players can bring to the table and that D&D (or in this case ACKS) supports. It's an example of player skill vs character skill. And yes, it's on the meta side as the players all have access to the Core Rulebook and know all the monster stats. I don't have problem with this as I'd rather player with players who don't dumb themselves down. I'm running a game with actual, breathing, thinking human beings. Why should they have to play stupid? Playing stupid = poor player skill. Honestly, as long they don't look at my maps and non-existent notes, I really don't care. I think that the Alt-Right DM (may peace be upon him) says it best in these two posts. 

Session 7: Of Fire Water and Lizardman Holocaust

This is a long one folks, so get a drink and settle in. It's gonna get crazy. And violent. So earlier in the week, my patron, Wirrow Warrens who runs the local hillbilly hobbits that are trying to open a river-side tavern called The Bloated Badger, ran in a bit of trouble. And by bit, I mean one of the little fellows nearly got bit in half by a giant gator. The hobbits, being exemplars of their kind, managed to kill off their large scaly attacker, and saved their companion. They took the creatures head, and plan on putting as the center piece of their soon to be opened tavern. But what's amusing is that the patron for the hairy footed group never once thought the river could hold dangers. I on the other hand, didn't. 

With that in mind, this session was lead by the groups shaman, Laughing Fox, and they decided to help the hobbits with their gator problem. Laughing Fox was also joined by three new players, some who haven't played in decades. On their way to the hobbit village, Laughing Fox bought ten chickens and one goat. Why? To bait out any gators along the river bank. Jaws and Jurassic Park style. They ask Wirrow Warrens about where the attack took place and asks if any of the hobbits want to help. Four volunteer. And so after leaving the hobbit village, Laughing fox began to kill the chickens ever so often and threw them into the river. They plan on saving the goat for last. While strolling down the bank, I began rolling encounters, and lizardmen came up. Rolled to see if they were in a lair. Sure is. Rolled up a good bit too. So I figured they sent out a a handful to scope things out. The players got surprise, and saw the lizardmen swimming their way. They got their bows ready and shot at the submerged foes (their spinal fins were showing.) Arrow were let loose, and one of the lizard folk was killed and another injured. The remaining three began to walk up the bank where they were shot at once more. Another fell to the ground. This left two, but they were angry and after rolling morale, they decided to stay and fight to the death. They began hissing and saying that the party had killed their gator. Eventually one was killed and the other captured. They integrated it and told of the lizardman lair in a swamp on the other side of the river. They killed inhuman creature, and Laughing Fox got the bright idea to use their skins as disguises. He managed to only successfully retrieve three of the skins.

Instead of trying to do raid the lizardman village right then and there, Laughing Fox spoke to his ancestors and asked if they knew any ancient knowledge of the lizardmen in area, when was the best time to attack the lair, and if While they didn't know anything of the history of the lizardmen in the area, they did say the best time to attack was during the day.

The party headed back to Wirrow Warrens and asked if he wanted to help. He said he could spare ten hobbits, and loaned the party four canoes. They asked if he had any military oil, and he said no. Wirrow did say he could provide ten bottles of their strongest whiskey, to set aflame. And so the group obtained ten fire waters. The group sets out to the location of the stream that pours into the river and leads to the lizard folk village. The group got lost and decided to come ashore. Laughing Fox sent his spirit monkey up the nearest tallest tree to see if it could see anything. ACKS has a supplement called Lairs & Encounters has a procedure on locating lairs in a hex. For 11 miles or less, the DM must make a secret roll of +18 for a successful find. Since the hex is 6 miles, I had to get an eighteen or higher. First try and the d20 rolls up a 19. Nice. The money comes down and tells the group he saw the hatch roofs of some huts and a lot of smoke coming about a mile or less in the northeast. 

So Laughing Fox's player, who was also playing a venturer called Joe Bridger, the son of famous real life mountain man Jim Bridger. You see, Joe was travelling in world one day when he came across the mythical glass mountain. Instead of hitting the invisible mountain, Joe fell through and landed into the Red Frontier. Pure Appendix N here folks! With that out of the way, our Laughing Fox, Joe Bridger, and one of the newer players disguised themselves in the slain lizardman skins ala At the Earth's Core, left the main group by the tree, and set about sneaking around the village. Looking about, they notice that the village is set up on a lake, with most of the huts being on stilts and decks connecting them. Within the decks, they see four cages, with two containing two large gators. They see some commotion amongst the lizard folk, and also realize that there were far more than the twenty one their former prisoner told them about.  Laughing Fox decided to look further and goes out alone from the other two. He winds up getting spotted by two Lizardmen guards. They believe he was one of their former members who went out the day before to look for their missing gator. Laughing Fox convinces them that swamp goblins were responsible for the party's slaughter and tells the two that some are hiding back some ways. He leads the two to the other disguised party members where they quickly kill the curious lizardmen. Our party leader sets out once more to find a way to release the remaining two large gators and try to find the third one and control it with his ring. 

And once more he gets found out and manages to convince his captors that he's the real deal. Monster reactions are great. And so is having a high charisma and diplomacy. And a gruesome disguise. He tells them about the swamp goblins and is taken to the lizardfolk chieftain. And he's pissed. Laughing Fox manages to deceive the angry lizard people to finally deal with the troublesome swamp goblins. The lizardman chieftain, Blargz, has grown infuriated about the swamp goblins across the river. All the noise they make, the smell of their horrible food, their walking up and down the river on their hairy feet. With the lizardman war party heading out on the two remaining gators and some canoes, Laughing Fox realizes that the swamp goblins Blargz was complaining about were Wirror Warrnes and his hobbits. Oops! While this going on, the rest of the group, along with the small hobbit force, gathers and decides to raid the village while the warriors go on the warpath. Their plan is simple: infiltrate the village, slay the lizardfolk females and their hatchlings, grab their loot, and when the remaining warriors come back, burn the hatchery and its eggs down to the ground. Simple as.

Back to Laughing Fox. On their way down stream, our shaman manages to locate and gain control of the third gator. He manages to convince the leader that the Great Gator has chosen him as his mouth piece and tells the lizard chief that the Great Gator demands a blood sacrifice of five of the lizardmen warriors and by doing so, they will manage to wipe out the swamp goblins. The chieftain is concerned, as the war party is only twenty one lizards strong, and killing five of their warriors will weaken them. Using animal control, Laughing Fox puts his head in the third gators mouth, with it never chomping down on his neck. The chief obeys and has five of his men killed. After this, Laughing Fox unleashes the third gator upon the rest of the warriors, and manages to sneak off during the resulting chaos.

The rest of the party is making short work with the lizardfolk slaughter. With most of the group bringing the lizardman village down, the party's new thief Mark Tarvar and the cleric Laurentius (or was it the new fighter Roy Longshanks?) find the chief's hut, and inside it, his treasure. Two chest are left opened, and with copper, silver, jewelry, and even a gem gleaming bright. Laughing Fox reunites with the rest of the party and lets them know what happened. As some of the party are soaking the hatchery in fire water, the chief and his remaining handful of warriors show up, each one injured. They engage in battle with our lizard slayers, and Laughing Fox manages to gain a flesh wound. They lizardmen are quickly turned into a new set of boots. The party retrieves the chieftain's dragon bone trident, his trophy necklaces, and finally his head. They leave the village in fiery ruins, and the local lizardmen menace wiped out, and head back to Wirror Warrens with their well earned loot. 

Players:

Laughing Fox, Shaman (0%): 1626 XP

Joe Bridger, Venturer (5%): 1707 XP

Mark Tarvar, Thief (10%): 1789 XP

Laurentius, Cleric (): 1626 XP

Roy Longshanks, Fighter (10%): 1789 XP

Henchmen:

Big Nose: 1626 XP

Dogbreath: 1626 XP

Hobbit Hellforce: 10 x 1626 XP 

The Hobbits of the Red Frontier

 The Hobbits are actual Hobbits from Middle Earth that found their way here in the Red Frontier. They were lead to this world by a great leader called Chadwise Gamgee, whose own ancestor helped save their land. The hobbits established a state called Newshire that bordered between Ieston and the western Blackrot Swamp. They're pretty much Southerners from Dixie. They keep to themselves, are polite to others, and show hospitality to those who come to visit peacefully. And they will fight like hell to keep it that way. They love tea (especially iced and sweet), hate Goblins, and have no problem with killing them on sight. With that said, some of their people have caught the germ of adventure, and seek out a life of pioneering, hunting, and even exploring far from their borders.