Hommelet is done waiting around

After Hommelet was invaded by frog cultists, the village elders asked a group of adventurers, militia members, and soldiers from the tower to take a trip to the moathouse and destroy the marauders.  The group from Hommelet did not find frog cultists, but they did find a band of common brigands, who met them rather more tactical intelligence than the frog cultists might have exhibited.  Indeed, the Hommeleteers even began a retreat and if the brigands, carried away by hubris, had not pursued them, they would have lived to see several more days of briganding.  But the brigands did pursue, and outside of the blackguards dark bunker, the valor of the men of Hommelet (and the chutzpah of that one weird lady-priest) shone through and the forces of law and goodness carried the day.

The haunted prison of La Mola, a photo by B℮n on Flickr.

The forces of law and goodness beat a hasty retreat back to Hommelet, those with minor wounds giving support and encouragement to those barely hanging onto life. Which is to say they didn't get to do any looting . . . and there are others in Hommelet who think this might be the perfect opportunity to make sure those brigands didn't leave anything behind.

Siege of Quitokai Finale

Night Safari Fire Dancers, 5 of 7, a photo by kian esquire on Flickr.

The attackers made yet another sortie; under a cloud of giant bats, warriors attacked from both sides. While the defenders rushed out to meet the Wolf Clan, several warriors from the Red Clan crossed the burning logs of the north palisade to enter the compound and began seeking entrance to the stone great house. But while the villagers suffered a couple casualties, the attackers over-extended themselves. The bats proved a momentary nuisance. After driving them away, the defenders inside the great house shot their arrows at the Red Clan leader. Once he was brought down, his followers hesitated, and after losing several more of their numbers, retreated. Meanwhile, the villagers fighting the Wolf Clan went on the offensive, and after repelling those attackers, pursued them into the jungle, likewise seeking the enemy leaders in particular. And again, once the leader was slain, the remaining attackers fled deeper into the jungle, casting aside their shields in panic.

The End of the Black Flower Gang (presumably)

After being stymied in their investigation into the death of Hardtack, the party agreed to a more straightforward endeavor: attack the Black Flower Gang in their new stronghold, an old manor house in the ruins of the city. The manor house, built at least 50 years ago for a foreigner known as Lord Jourdain, had sent empty for decades, until last year when Beatriss and Tetsikichi, while searching for a missing person, had lifted its cursed and killed many of its monstrous inhabitants, allowing more-or-less free access, at least to the aboveground rooms.

The Dirty Rain Gang moved in and claimed right of possession. Immediately they began restoring the old House to serve clients for gambling, drinking, prostitution, and more. They made good money until recently when the Black Flowers showed up one night and forced them out. The survivors of that attack wanted revenge, and Kura, a rising star in the Dirty Rain was eager to lead them.

There were some who knew they were in over their heads, and getting wind of B&T’s history with the Black Flowers, made a persuasive “enemy of my enemy” argument. Beatriss did ask, “But are the Dirty Rain guys really any better?” Tetsukichi, however, liked the idea and won out.

incandesant bulb salutation, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

Again, I used SBH rules to conduct the battle. About 30 Dirty Rain guys were committed to the plan, and they divided into three groups, one led by Kura, one led by Tetsukichi, and one led by Mayro (a PC, more on him later.) Beatriss assumed a limited role, protecting the retreat route. Each group had a battering room, and the two groups moved their rams into position while taking limited casualties. Although the Dirty Rain members were easily scattered whenever one of their number fell under the Black Flower’s crossbows, there were enough DRs that they eventually broke down the gates to the house. Once this was achieved, they stole their way into the courtyard one-by-one or in small groups. Instead of targeting them, the BFs trained their crossbows on the leaders and several of them—Tetsukichi, Al-Fitar, and Golfo all looked like they were going to have a bad day and had to crawl to safety among the debris outside the house.

Mayro did make it into the courtyard, and into the house itself; he amassed a large group on the ground floor and planned a mass charge. Finally the Black Flowers, realizing that they would have no choice but to face their attackers in hand-to-hand combat rushed down the stairs. They were tough, and well-practiced at fighting in groups, but they were out-numbered almost 3-to-1, and were slowly, but steadily crushed.

Siege of Quitokai Part II

Untitled, a photo by Flash Parker on Flickr.

The attacking marauders lost two more wolves, four archers, and eight spearman. Meanwhile, the outnumbered defenders have lost 5 village militia/scouts. Again this was using Songs of Blades and Heroes rules to resolve a "D&D battle." In light of the high casualities for the bad guys, I'm questioning my system for converting D&D stats to SBH stats. But of course, that's usually the way things go in D&D-- all the monsters get killed and one PC gets wounded! It just takes longer.

Siege of Quitokai

A friend recently introduced me to Songs of Blades and Heroes, a fast-paced skirmish game using minis. I've had a good time playing it with kids (leaving out references to "gruesome kills" although I still use the rules.) I don't have much experience with these kinds of games, but they seem to generally combine the flexibility of an RPG with the closure of a traditional board game. For instance, I recently set up a scenario where one person was attacking "the castle" and had the objective of elininating the defenders. There were two players controlling two sets of defenders-- "the soldiers" and "the town militia." The soldiers' goal was to rebuff the attackers without any of the militia members being killed. The militia's goal was to participate actively in the defense and personally kill at least one attacker. So even though two of the players were co-operating, there was some tension in pursuing their goals.

As the title of this post suggests, I used the SBH rules to run a session in my Oriental Adventures D&D game. The PCs, while in the midst of a mission, have spent several weeks resting, planning, and training in the village of Quitokai. In the past, Quitokai has been targeted by slave-traders. The prescence of the PCs has discouraged the raiders from pursuing their previous strategies (sometimes deception, sometimes small-scale raids) not only in Quitokai, but in the general area. So they organized a larger assault on the village, attacking at a time when most PCS were out on patrol.

Rather than attack themselves, the slavers enlisted some of Quitokai's neighbors-- members of hunter-gather tribes who rarely fight openly with the agricultural people of Quitokai. Members of the Red Clan paint their faces red and they stayed in the background. Members of the Wolf Clan hunt with trained wolves and these were used in the initial attack. The wolves brought down one of the militia and frightened off many of the others. This gave the Wolf Clan warriors time to set the palisade on fire. But then the Quitokai militia re-organized, and using their bows from the safety of the watch-tower routed the Wolf warriors, the wolves themselves following close behind them. As the sun was setting, one of the PC-led groups (Gunjar, with some villagers) returned from patrol and the attackers retreated into the jungle.

(apologies to the real-world man in the photo below who is presumably peaceful)

Malaysian Native, a photo by Navin Bahl on Flickr.