Happenings and Going Ons in the Red Frontier Part 1

Unfortunately, I've slacked off on posting Frontier Bulletins for the Red Frontier for some time. This is due to my own laziness. Instead of writing and posting for each session after the Battle of the Vampires, I'm gonna do a recap and catch everyone up on what's been going on.

Urgag

First up, the two major patrons of of Chaos decided the time was right to attack the forces of Law in the Red Frontier. The Dark Lord Wier and his underling Urgag, the Orc Chief attempted to combine their forces to bring darkness and desolation to the frontier. They failed. But not due to a large battle between the forces of evil vs good. No, it was mostly due to the ingenuity of the players and an outside force. Their plan was to send the orcish forces towards Pottsfort Keep in hopes in drawing out the Lord Commander and his allied forces into a trap. With them away engaging with the orcs, Weir would bring his much larger force from behind to catch the Lord Commander unawares. Once done, they would soon bring their force to lay siege and capture the lone keep.

Before Urgag could make it to the keep, he was spotted by scouts from the nearby Knights of Chick Fa'lar. They soon waylaid on Urgag, but to no avail. Urgag rolled to see if his forces were surprised; they were not. He soon turned his attention upon the hapless knights. I used the same method for mass combat that I used during the battle between the dwarves and albino orcs and that of Urgag's forces when they took the first level of the Old Bastard. Number wise, Urgag's forces numbered about 268, whereas the knights only numbered less then 150. But the knights had two other disadvantages: 1) they were fighting in wooded, hilly country and 2), Wier, along with a small entourage, joined in the battle. Weir summoned a giant demonic spider (from ACKS Heroic Fantasy Handbook) that he road as a mount, and entered into the fray devouring anyone who got in his way. The knights tried to fight bravely, but were forced to withdrawal once over half of their forces fell quickly in battle. Unfortunately they were unable to, due to being forced to retreat uphill and were quickly cut down by the larger force.

While this was going on, a much smaller group of Urgag's forces that was left in the Old Bastard decided to scout around the knight's fort. They arrived around night and with a group of about 50, including about ten giant albino weasels, tunneled underneath the fort and managed to slay many of the sleeping forces. Those that were awakened and trying to scramble to get away, were soon killed. Urgag's main forces travelled to the now captured fort and set it ablaze. 

This ends Part 1.

Session 14: Short & Easy

 Like the title says, this one's gonna be short. Before the session started, some of the players had in mind in travelling down the river to Rivertown, in hopes of procuring slaves. That didn't happen. As the session started, they decided to head to the Old Bastard, as most of the players never have gotten a chance to venture in those dark and horrid depths. Some minutes later, their minds were changed again. Sort of. Instead of going and plumbing the levels of the megadungeon, they decided to travel the wilderness around the Old Bastard, in hopes of finding forces of the orc and ogre faction that now resided in that hellhole. With the help of five knights from each knightly brotherhood, the players made their way to the northeast corner of the map in hopes of picking off as many of green and ugly bastards that they could. Like Rambo taking out enemies one by one. 

Their first day, and nearly at the perilous ancient keep, they came across a small patrol of three orcs and one ogre. The party managed to get the surprise on them. Keeping some of the knights on horse back to charge if need be, while the rest with short bows, they quickly terminated the horrible vermin. The party then decided to march forth along the trail their vanquished foes used for patrol and soon came up with the idea of  finding either a dugout or a hollow to hide in, and surprise the next band of orcs that would eventually come their way. After awhile, no one showed and the group decided to rest for the night. Nothing troubled them.

The day after, they decided to carry out with the same plan, but this time, move further down southeast on the trail. And they were in luck. Making their way to the party, unawares, were six orcs and seventeen ogres. Despite the large numbers, the party stuck with their plan, except in one way: to let the magic-user Boldvay to try take as many of opposing force out with his Staff of Wizardry. Specifically using the spell Lighting Bolt. And use his staff he did! Boldvay let loose a terrible bolt of lightning upon the unexpecting patrol and managed to roast many alive. Now he was down with six charges left. Not all were electrocuted, and the rest of the party, including the knights, finished the stragglers off. Then they loot the corpses.

And what a haul! Thousands of silver pieces and electrum were found. And some gems too! But most of all was a magical axe. But not any normal magical axe. No siree. In ACKS (as in with D&D), each magical weapon has a chance to be sentient...if you make the roll. And that roll was made! The party soon became acquainted with Neptune's Cleaver, a lawful good and very talkative great axe. He let them know (with a booming voice like that of Brian Blessed) that he was found by a minotaur who quickly lost it to an ogre. Being lawful, he would never made himself helpful to the foul beast, and is thankful for the party for finding him. They asked about the forces inside of the Old Bastard, and the axe told them everything he knew. He believed, with the recent deaths of the two patrols, that Urgag has lost about half of his Ogre force and was down a good bit on the orcs as well. Plus he let them know of his other allies within the dungeon. The players decided to head back to town.

Back there, they quickly found out about Woodshome new resident, Zappos the Legendary! Whose that? The local, possibly magic-user ( or conman) who was more than willing to identify some magic items the group had laying out. He managed to use a magical tome that looked suspiciously like that of the ACKS core rulebook to help identify the items. Weird. Anyway, that's about it. Like I said, it was a short, but eventful session!

TOTAL XP:

(0%) = 622 XP

(5%) = 653 XP

(10%) = 684 XP