The DM bitterly complains about sitting down behind the screen for a while, since anybody BUT him was supposed to run the game tonight. The wise reader will keep this in mind as they see how the game progresses.

Tasha: Hey, is this one of those games where the character who stay in the ship get experience, the same as those who go out and do stuff?
DM: Well, since I have experience last time, no.
Tasha: Aww.

The PCs loot the place, of course, scoring gold, silver, and some items which Tasha promptly Appraises, apparently having the skill. They also find an armband and two potions which the DM stubbornly refuses to identify. Tasha takes a lick of one potion, which makes her vision go hazy, while the other does nothing.

Cruroar: Are we Skyrimming this potion or something? Just taking the ingredients and, “Oh, what’s this do?” (making eating noises)

They also discover a note on the body, written in a language they do not speak!

Tasha: It’s Ye Olde Englishe!
Normilan: It’s Olde Goblinne.
Brunt: Alo-en ye one shall standeth… blade and ye staff in handeth…

Normilan rolls a Decipher Script, determining that these seem to be orders for the minotaurs to plunder and slay. They decide to go search the town for survivors!

Normilan: It wouldn’t take long. Go in groups.
Brunt: I’ll stand in the center of town and call out.
DM: What are your groups?
Brunt: Oh boy.
Normilan: Oh Christ.
Brunt: Forget the whole search thing. We’re moving on. We’re moving on!

They split up, dodge the apparent hurricane, and Tasha and Giles hear something coming from the root cellar in the house they enter.

Normilan: The rutabagas! They’re revolting!
DM: The lizardman’s tentacles!
Cruroar: (claiming a seat) That’s good… the chair cannot support my thighs any more.
Normilan: Get the other one.
Cruroar: I’m going to.
DM: Stick the wooden thing in its base back into its socket.
Cruroar: No no, not that. My thighs still spread the things out…
Normilan: He’s too wide for the arms.
DM: If I fit in it, I don’t see how you can’t, honestly.
Normilan: He’s got a big ass.
DM: Look, mine isn’t exactly elfin!
Cruroar: All right, you know what? We can stop this conversation.
Normilan: Well look at my ass, it’s fantastic!
DM: No one’s arguing your ass isn’t fantastic, Normilan.
Cruroar: I’m not sure it’s that fantastic, but let’s move on.
Normilan: I’ll show it to you later tonight. While you’re sleeping.
DM: Your appreciation has just been dulled by constant exposure.

Tasha and Giles head through the front door into the house they’ve chosen to investigate. Giles Listens at the locked door to the root cellar, and rolls so well he hears quiet breathing and fidgeting directly on the other side of the door.

Cruroar: Announce yourselves first announce yourselves first announce yourselves first!
DM: You’re not there!
Tasha: So you hear a slight fidgeting as if someone’s on the other side of the door?
Brunt: And thus Hunnerd Gold became World War Z Campaign.
Giles: I’m not gonna be the first person through that door.
Tasha: Um, I’m gonna suggest that I just kick in the door as hard as I can and try to startle them.

Total silence.

DM: All right, roll a Strength check!
Tasha: No no, I didn’t say I’m going to, I said I was suggesting it. The guy who’s with me, I wanna see what he thinks.
Giles: …can’t think for anything better.
Tasha: HA HA!
Cruroar: Oh yeah, announcing yourself, that’s a terrible ideas.
Brunt: He’ll kick in the door, fall on top of five starving children.
Tasha: HA HA! I rolled a 7!
Normilan: Now go “Mooooooo!”

Tasha calls out, but gets no response. Giles pops the lock, then Tasha opens the door… crossbow at the ready. Finding it dark inside, she casts Light on a rock.

DM: Well this got interesting quickly then. As you cast the light spell, even before you have the chance to hurl it, a dagger wings its way out of the darkness below. What’s your Armor Class?
Tasha: Doesn’t matter, you’re gonna –ing hit me with the thing anyways. 19.
DM: You duck it. It flashes past Giles’ head and clatters into the room behind you.

Tasha guards the door, while Giles goes to get the others. The door that leads to the outside down there crashes open. Tasha bellows the alarm, and the others see a woman and a kid bolting for safety. Cruroar menaces the DM.

DM: What are you pointing that at me for?!
Cruroar: Of all the groups! Of all – you choose their group!
DM: I didn’t choose, I rolled randomly.
Brunt: He rolled, he did. And it was randomly the group you wanted to come up.
Normilan: 1d100. 100, one of the other two. All the rest, Giles and Tasha.
DM: No, I rolled 1d100. 1 through 97, Tasha and Guiles. 98, the other two. 99, the other other two. 100, hurricane. “What did you find!” “I don’t know how I found this!”
Brunt: The most localized hurricane ever.
Giles: “HEY!”
DM: You yell out for them to wait. This doesn’t appear to stop them, as they keep running. Possibly they were spooked by someone trying to bash down their door.
Cruroar: You did this on purpose. I don’t care what you said, you did not randomly choose—
DM: …Well, I WAS hoping…
Tasha: So if I pop out of the house, can I hit her in the leg with my crossbow?
Normilan: Oh for fuck’s sake!
Tasha: Can I make an evil character?!

Since the kid is slowing down the woman, the rest of the party bursts into runs to catch up (sans Brunt, who has a certain expectation of how him bolting after them will look). The woman shoves the kid behind her, turns to face them with her sword, and prepared to fight to the death.

DM: You notice, interestingly, she’s holding the sword in her left hand because she doesn’t have a right arm.
Brunt: It was a drumstick.
Tasha: So my question is, how was she able to run holding the sword and the kid.
DM and Cruroar: She wasn’t holding the kid.
Cruroar: Anyways, let me get my Diplomacy out…
Brunt: Roll your Diplomacy and try to convince her we’re not minotaurs. If she’s that dunb…

Cruroar rolls a 28, convincing her to lower her blade. Tasha apologizes, which also helps… reluctant as it is. They offer to heal her arm… having failed to realize it’s a seven-year-old wound. Normilan comes to suspect that she’s elven!

Normilan: “Let us aid you and take us to the next town, at least for the boy.” I say this in elven.
DM: She gives you a funny look and chooses to proceed on speaking in Common…

They discover the woman speaks Giant, and promptly give her the note to translate! She relates that the orders tell the minotaurs to plunder towns, rob people, and bring back money and power for their chief!

Brunt: They’re 99%ers!
DM: They’re 18/99 Strength-ers!

They ask her name; she introduces herself as Lal, which is probably not her full name. They happen to mention the capital to her, prompting her to comment that she’s familiar.

Brunt: Maybe she was the Fifth Army.
DM: In-character, you KNOW what the Fifth Army is!
Cruroar: Is it two people? That’s what my character’s been thinking about the whole trip so far. Is the Fifth Army two people? Is it one person? Is that the D&D world?
Brunt: If you keep ribbing him about that, it’s gonna become a thing where he never tries to remotely create anything interesting about his campaign setting anything again.
DM: If Cruroar were ever to ask you, you could tell him that the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Armies are titles reserved for the kingdom’s levies, at such times as they are raised.

Brunt bitterly vows to create an Artificer, which the DM throws back in his face as too complicated for a man who finds wizards too complicated.

Brunt: If it’s a character you want to make, it’s because that character class is BROKEN.
DM: That’s not true!
Brunt: Not true, Mr. Thrallherd.
Cruroar: I recall a whole argument with Iglar that lasted like two hours about tiers and classes in D&D.
Brunt: Mr. Oh, We’re Up Against Six Opponents, Well, White Raven Tactics, No I’ve Got Five More Turns And Everyone Else Has An Extra Turn – No! Don’t gimme no shit about how you don’t make broken characters on purpose!

In a brief spurt of roleplaying, Lal introduces her son as Denny.

DM: The boy, who looks to be all of 12 or 13, looks up at Tasha, sort of rubs the back of his head… “Sorry ‘bout the dagger.”
Tasha: “It was a good throw.”
DM: “No it wasn’t, I missed you…”
Tasha: “I got lucky. Keep practicing.”
Cruroar: “Okay!” (miming hurling a knife)
DM: Oh a crit! Oh no!
Cruroar: His dagger was of Slaying!
DM: Roll your Fort save, oh, you’re dead, roll a new character…
Tasha: Working on it!
DM: What is WITH you guys?!
Normilan: Says the person who rolls a new character every session.
DM: Only when there’s something actually killing me!
Normilan: Oh bitch, bitch, bitch.

The woman, unwilling to take their mounts or their charity, parts with them here. The PCs bid her farewell and safe journey.

Normilan: I give her a farewell in elven.
DM: She gives you a look you can probably translate as, “Stop blowing my cover, asshole.” To Brunt she gives a salute of the sort he’s used to seeing in the capital, and to the rest of you she gives a courteous nod.
Brunt: It’s probably the king’s bastard child or something…
Cruroar: He appears out of nowhere. “Again you save another of my daughters. How about another treasure ten months from now?”
DM: “Blah blah blah BLAH blah… and we honor noble Brunt his companions…”

The group abruptly remembers to give Tasha her boon-rod. Night falls as they separate, and they split up watches. Normilan, on the last watch, is challenged to roll a Spot check!

DM: Just as you close your spellbook and look up, you see charging across the plains at you, two mighty bull-headed figures, axes bared and horns lowered!
Eilyns: Oh god.
Tasha: You serious?
Normilan: Oh dear.

Initiative and map-drawing erupt! As usual, the PCs roll extremely well. Giles is the first to awaken, but can see nothing.

DM: You are in a tent.
Giles: …I should at least know how the tents are organized.
Cruroar: He’s being an asshole.
DM: I’m sorry, the start of this battle is intense.
Cruroar: No, he meant the battlefield, DM, the actual – where our minis are.
Normilan: …I think you missed the pun.
DM: Did that really go past you?!
Cruroar: Honestly, yeah.
DM: The start of the battle is intense. In… tents.
Cruroar: I’m glad I missed it! My life would’ve been much better if I’d never heard it!

Giles slips out to hide behind his own tent… and Eilnys realizes she’s bunking with Giles.

DM: He’s the only one you can trust.
Eilnys: I can trust Brunt.
DM: How can you trust him? He’s a big hulking brute. He might dungeoncrash you in your sleep.

The DM points out the existence of the Blockade spell, which summons a 5’ cube of wood. The PCs scramble for position as Cruroar lobs an eldritch blast into the fray. Brunt gets bitter over the system. Eilnys gets a horn-gore charge for 23! Short on options, Tasha hurls out a bag of caltrops to interrupt the second, much slower minotaur’s charge. It takes several minutes to finally pick which square the caltrops end up in.

DM: All right, the caltrops vanish into a gopher hole. Normilan!

Normilan provides spell support! At last, the second minotaur double-moves forward, and his totaled 60’ movement brings him up exactly short of the caltrop square. Tasha curses profusely. Giles dances around outside the minotaur’s range, while Brunt charges in, avoiding an AOO by virtue of tower shield. He and Eilnys whomp up on the minotaurs, Cruroar sickens one, and Tasha blows a Concentration roll to cast defensively and loses a heal. Normilan’s Flaming Sphere takes out the minotaur that Giles was moments from attacking, thus rendering him continuingly useless.

Normilan: Ummm, hmm. The other one’s pretty fresh, still, isn’t he.
Cruroar: He’s only taken 10 damage.
DM: 20.
Cruroar: 20. He’s only taken 20.
DM: No… he only took ten… as some of his wounds mysteriously heal in front of you.
Brunt: It’s a mutant healing factor!
DM: He’s a half-troll.
Cruroar: Game ovr.
Normilan: All I got is Magic Missile.
DM: Magic Missile? That’s a good contribution!
Normilan: Shut the hell up, DM.
DM: What?! I said it was a good choice and now he’s mad at me, I don’t understand it.
Normilan: ‘Cuz normally you’re like, “THAT’s your contribution?”
DM: I made an effort to be more positive. And I wasn’t rewarded. So from now on, I’ll go back to giving you shit.

Brunt eats 18 from the minotaur, who hacks a chunk of muscle off his arm. Looking at the map, the group sadly realizes Giles can’t make a full tumble over and attack, so he just hangs out on the edge of the minotaur’s threatened area. A raging Eilnys goes for the minotaur despite being how on HP!

Brunt: Just roll a 1, and then you’ll stumble on the caltrops and you won’t actually get there.
DM: That’d be great…

Eilnys is promptly dropped by the AOO, plummeting to -6, and about to die when her rage expires. Tasha and Cruroar dart forward to deploy heals.

Cruroar: I go in your ear, “STAY DOOOOWN.”
DM: But she’s still raging, so she doesn’t.
Cruroar: God damn it, end your rage and stay down!
DM: Normilan, it’s up to you. They couldn’t finish the job.

Giles finally manages to get into melee without being cut down, and sadly whiffed. Everyone takes a moment to bemoan Giles’s failure to do anything… again. Well, almost everyone.

Brunt: How’d you miss a big bull ass?

Brunt fails to seal the deal as well, ironically, and since Eilnys acts with him, it’s her turn now. Cruroar offers advice for perhaps the fifth time.

Cruroar: You are ending your rage, so we’re not picking up your soupy body!
Normilan: ‘Soupy body’.
Eilnys: Against every barbarian fire in my body I am ending my rage and staying down.
DM: That’s the wisest decision you could made, since I did crit you on the AOO, hypothetically. You would have been splattered. Like in Baldur’s Gate when you overkill something, limbs flying EVERYwhere. You made the right choice.
Cruroar: We would’ve fought the rest of the battle with her little head impaled on his gore spike.

Cruroar auto-slays it by empowering his blast with magic gloves so that he can’t roll lower than its four remaining HP, and the field is theirs.

Cruroar: Remember that comment last week about the cow level? I’m starting to think it’s true. I guess that answers my question about multiple groups of minotaurs…

The PCs suggest they just hang around and level off of minotaur encounters, to which the DM responds by threatening to increase the number of minotaurs per encounter to 5. They loot the corpses. In light of this new information, the PCs discuss their options for travel. They squabble with each other and the DM over the relations with the hill dwarves, as well as their relations with mountain dwarves. After some rolls, the DM informs them that the mountain dwarves and the hill dwarves have split over ideological issues – divisive enough that the mountain dwarves built the pass that the Gatekeeper now holds.

Cruroar: Based on that, I think it would be wise for us to head over there. Hopefully the hill dwarves have been able to fend off this minotaurs. We’ll head over there as a last stop before our destination.

Silence.

Cruroar: If everybody agrees with me…
DM: “Cruroar has an idea. Let’s do it instead of thinking for ourselves.”

The DM makes a joke about Eilnys being half-mountain dwarf, half-hill dwarf which she bizarrely adopts as canon. The DM encourages them to roleplay while he actually works on the adventure, sniping bitterly at the players who had agreed to work up their games this week. The players… don’t RP.

Cruroar: “Huh. It doesn’t seem to be scanning. Price check on Porn Mag Six, price check on Porn Mag 6.”
Tasha: “The guy in line right now wants to know the cost on Gangbang Land #9… that’s the one with the midgits…”
Cruroar: “Which magazine was that? The one with the ten inch cock on the front? Oh yeah…”

Traveling onwards, they enter into the foothills, finding that the trail becomes a cobbled road!

DM: Eilnys, you recognize this as dwarf work.
Eilnys: “This is dwarf work.”
DM: Eilnys tells you this is dwarf work, which she recognizes this as being.
Brunt: Is she sure?
DM: Are you sure, Eilnys?
Eilnys: “Aye.”
DM: She’s sure. You’re not sure, but she says she’s sure.
Brunt: You’re sure this is dwarf work?
DM: (singing) Filler… filler filler hunnerd gold campaign filler… Soon enough, you come upon a sign which be probably be more informative if it hadn’t been clearly chopped in half and the pieces left on the side of the road.

They reassemble the sign and discover it to be crudely defaced, but 2 miles to the town of Khardaz. The DM calls for their marching order! In the front, Brunt and Cruroar get a Listen check.

DM: You hear, in the distance, a very faint moaning coming from around the hill face in front of you.
Normilan: The hill is alive!
DM: Run for the hills!

Cruroar signals for them to stop. Brunt… rolls a 1.

DM: Brunt, you hear a ghost. (ghostly moaning)
Normilan: G-g-g-g-g-ghost?!

Cruroar beckons Giles up to send him around the hill sneakily. Giles actually rolls well for once!

DM: I find it ironic that the one time you roll well is the one time you’re sneaking up on a corpse. As you creep around the hill, keeping yourself flattened to it and moving as silently as you can, you see a spot where, between the hills, there’s something of a… not quite a valley, but a fairly spread out and flat place. Several trees sticking up. In the center of that, you see a corpse of a hyena-like creature lying there.
Eilnys: Oh, it’s a gnoll.
DM: Yes, not that you’re there. That’s not the source of the noise, however. As you look around you see that pinned to a large tree near the corpse is a human figure, a man. He has a sword buried to the hilt in his stomach. He’s clinging to it, and you can tell he’s staying upright only through raw force of will. And probably the sword is caught on the bottom of his ribs, which probably helps, but nevertheless.
Cruroar: Call us over…
Giles: I won’t be able to help him that much, I’d have to get someone to help him.
DM: Giles considers his options.

Giles does get the rest of the party, and Heal checks are rolled to help this guy. Tasha diagnoses him, and then they team up!

DM: Working together, and with the aid of both Cruroar, Eilnys, Brunt… Normilan can just go piss off, he ain’t helpful.
Tasha: How big is this damn sword?!
Normilan: FISTS OF STONE!
DM: It’s not that the sword is huge, but you need two people bracing him so he doesn’t slump or move when you withdraw it.

The players insist that this NPCs must be Marros, which the DM was hoping to kill this way! The NPCs spies Brunt’s uniform cloak and drops to his knees in grateful supplication.

Normilan: I think Hammerhand knew about this.
Cruroar: Oh no.
Brunt: “Get up, man.”
DM: Hammerhand? Eilnys’s boss?
Normilan: Not Hammerhand…what’s his name?
Eilnys: Slamhand.
Normilan: Slamhand, thank you.
DM: Too many hands!

The NPC tells them that the gnolls serve the “Twin Lords of the Forest”, and declaims any knowledge of minoutaurs. He also tells them he’d killed the gnoll, after which the gnoll’s fellows had left him in the state the PCs found him.

Cruroar: “What about the rest of your men, the rest of your team?”
DM: “What – I am but one man. The others would not come.”
Tasha: “You must be the Seventh Army.”
DM: (laughing) Ha ha ha FUCK YOU.
Cruroar: “You came on your own, I’m guessing your team is camped a few miles from here?”
DM: “W-what team?!”
Brunt: He never said a team.
Cruroar: I thought he said he left his group.
Normilan: He meant he left his village…
Tasha: “Where’s your village?”
DM: “It’s down the path. Surely you must have – they smashed the sign, didn’t they.”
Cruroar: “I thought we were heading to one of the hill dwarf towns.”
DM: “This is a town where dwarves and humans live in harmony.”
Tasha: “Where’s the one you stabbed?”
Normilan: He’s on the ground.
DM: “…right there…”
Cruroar: He’s standing on the body. “Where’s the one you stabbed?”

The NPC happily volunteers the PCs to deal with the gnolls, as Normilan and Cruroar exchange panicked looks. The NPC, who has introduced himself as Willoughby, urges them on even as they try to find some excuse to rest for the night. A plume of smoke rises from the village where it sits around the curve of a hill, and realizing this is trouble, they hurry around the hill to the town! The DM clears the map and begins drawning!

Cruroar: Is that the path, there?
DM: This is the bridge.
Cruroar: Is it a well-made bridge?
DM: (sarcastically) No, it’s precarious.
Cruroar: God damn it. Why can’t we have a super-bridge that you don’t have to, like, try hard to get across.

The DM plops ten or eleven gnolls down on the field and returns to his screen cheerfully.

DM: Cruroar is the first to act.
Brunt: Charge.
Cruroar: I’m… just gonna…
Brunt: And let’s all stay here.

Cruroar blasts a gnoll for ten, then the boss gnoll snarls commands at his comrades, then fires an arrow which misses Cruroar. Eilnys moves forward, while Giles draws back his bow.

Giles: Aaaaand I crit-failed.
DM: Giles steps forward, prepared to make up for his inability to do much of anything lately, draws back his bow, and the string snaps! Fate curses the rogue, and he curses fate.
Giles: Now I’m even more useless!
DM: Poor Giles…

All ten gnolls shoot at Cruroar, and four of them hit; Brunt responds by moving forward and slamming down his tower shield as cover. Tasha fires her crossbow into the fray, while Normilan casts Bristle on Brunt. Cruroar slays an injured gnoll, and the leader gnoll casts his bow aside and advances.

Brunt: (muttering to Normilan while the DM is adjudicating Eilnys’s attack) What’s the class that gets made a lot at this table, with all the cards for attacks…
Normilan: Oh, one of the Book of Nine Swords ones. Swordsage, crusader—
Brunt: Swordsage, that’s probably what this guy is. He’s actually running forward to engage…
DM: As you charge forward and hew your axe at him with a precision you’re sure should penetrate his defenses, he brings his two-handed sword up and catches your blade just below the actual curve of it, shoving it aside. You’re certain there was more than simple skill behind that attack.

The gnolls abandon range and all stomp on forward. Cruroar bemoans the lack of fireball spells. Three attack Eilnys!

DM: One hits you for seven, another for four!
Cruroar: …oh man. We were fighting minotaurs at this point, it doesn’t seem like much at all! I was just like, “Oh dear god, here it comes.” “Seven and five!” “Oh.”

Normilan bemoans his lack of the Blockade spell, while Brunt steps up to join into the fray.

DM: As you charge forward, the gnoll hisses at you, and invites your attack with a sneer and a gesture of his weapon and shield.
Brunt: He’s not attacking?
Cruroar: How would he? He’s just taunting you. That’s a free action.
Brunt: Everything else attacks me when I charge… So a twenty—
DM: Yeah.
Cruroar: A 13 hit!
DM: It’s gone up, they’re using their shields now.
Brunt: It’s 14. 15 at the most.
Cruroar: They’re not holding tower shields, they’re not holding masterwork steel shields—
DM: They’re holding two tower shields and a third floats around them.
Cruroar: You said that was impossible!
DM: Only for PCs!
Cruroar: Nooooooo!
Brunt: 13.
DM: You slash him and his look of taunting immediately turns to one of surprise and regret.

Brunt’s Bristle does a little extra damage, while Normilan summons a fist of earth that rises from the ground and promptly grapples the boss gnoll. He spends his action breaking out of the grapple, while Cruroar fires.

DM: The warblade breaks free of the grappling fist! Since you guys pretty much guessed he was a martial adept at this point… probably since you saw me grab the book.
Normilan: No, actually I didn’t. We just figured he was probably going to be one.
DM: …ugh, I’ve gone through five sodas tonight. I feel shame.
Cruroar: 160 calories… times five.
DM: I’m not listening to you! Shut up!
Normilan: Got 70% of your total carbohydrates, too—
DM: Look, every time you point out the nutrition facts in a can of soda, these guys heal.
Cruroar: We’ve done this for years, I’m surprised that just now you’ve started to care.
DM: It’s only because someone pointed it out.
Cruroar: That’s all it took?
DM: Yeah.
Cruroar: I woulda done that years ago!

Eilnys whacks the warblade and Giles fires… missing. The gnolls swarm forward, all of them making attacks…

DM: …Your hand gets a free attack. As this one reaches forward, he lunges, trips into some debris on the ground, and windmills his arms. Your hand almost reflexively reaches out and grabs him.

The gnolls attack without a ton of effect, while the fist grinds its victim into the ground. After some exchanged attacks, the warblade steps over to engage Brunt. For perhaps the zillionth time, the fact that a five foot step does not provoke an attack of opportunity is explained.

Brunt: The simple, the Cliff’s Note version of it—
DM: Brunt—
Brunt: When we’re the PCs—
DM: If this ends in—
Brunt: We don’t get them!

The warblade knocks Brunt’s shield to the ground! The rolling of criticals in YuGiOh is discussed. Giles misses, the poor bastard, while the gnoll wrestles free of the stone fist. The gnolls go through their attack swarm, and the DM gives Brunt a free dungeoncrash!

Brunt: 8.
Normilan: You add Strength damage?
Normilan and Cruroar: You add Strength to that.
Brunt: 18.
DM: This guy lunges forward at you with his axe—
Cruroar: The guy with 1 hit point.
DM: This guy lunges forward, but apparently is weak or something and practically offers himself to you. With your newly-freed hand, you grab him and toss him aside. He flies sideways, slamming into the doors of this building. Half of him slumps to the ground while the other half smashes through the door and into the building proper. You hear the shattering of glass from inside.
Normilan: And the shrieks of people.
Tasha: And the screams of children. So you’re telling me he threw him against the wall so hard the guy split in half?
DM, Normilan, and Cruroar: Yes.
Tasha: Wow, dude. For a pacifist, you’re horrible.
Brunt: If you prick him, does he not bleed?!
Normilan: Look who’s talking! Oh my god, what a hypocrite!

A gnoll scores a crit, dealing 19 points of damage to Giles! Brunt lops a gnoll in two and cleaves – the DM jokes that he’s cleaving Eilnys, but this leads to massive confusion and thus regret. The hand and a gnoll slap each other around for a moment to no effect. Normilan slams one into the ground, while Cruroar moves up to use a wand on Giles.

Normilan: He jabs you in the back with a hard object. You’re not sure what it is, but damn does it feel good.
DM: Roll to impregnate.
Normilan: (slamming down his soda can)
DM: Damn, I was kinda hoping Normilan would choke.
Normilan: Nice try, though.
DM: The warblade screams out something in Gnoll and strikes you true.
Eilnys: Me?
DM: No, Brunt, who is apparently his designated foe of this encounter. He deals 27 points of damage to you with his mighty Mountain Hammer!
Normilan: Not a Foehammer though.
Brunt: I think I’m dead. Yeah. Yeah, I’m dead.
Cruroar: How many hit points did you have before?
Brunt: 18.
Cruroar: You’re at -9.
Brunt: Oh, so I’m practically dead.
Tasha: Damn.

A long awkward silence. Giles rolls an attack and actually crits!

Giles: You know, I’ve completely forgotten how to role my damage since it hasn’t ever happened in the past few games.

He also hits on his second attack, slaying the foe singlehandedly. Brunt’s turn comes up; the DM rolls dice, then demands Normilan verify his roll.

Normilan: What’s that for?
DM: Well, Brunt had a 10% chance of stabilizing. If he hadn’t stabilized, he would lose one hit point.
Brunt: Well, I’ve got stats.
DM: No, that’s why I had Normilan see what I rolled.
Normilan: Yeah, he rolled 100.
DM: …No, that’s a 10 in the 10 spot.
Normilan: Oh yes. You’re right. You stabilize.
DM: I rolled 10 exactly.
Brunt: Suspicious.
Normilan: It’s not suspicious…

Brunt continues to mutter that this is suspicious and imply that the DM is a player killer… and also that he had an artificer ready.

DM: You would never play an artificer.
Brunt: I would, just to hold the game up for four hours.

Eilnys takes a couple of zings, while Normilan’s hand goes for the grapple!

Normilan: It keeps rolling shit…
DM: I keep rolling great for the Strength checks on these peon gnolls. Of course I couldn’t roll good on the one who has a decent Strength score and character levels, he got grappled right the hell away!

Cruroar debates over attacking the warblade, or attacking one of the peon gnolls. He chooses the warblade, and drops him.

DM: I will tell you right now you made the entirely correct choice in choosing which one to shoot, because his next action, which was coming up immediately next to yours, would have been to hold the tip of his sword to Brunt’s throat and demand your surrender.


The other gnolls attempt to flee, provoking AOOs from almost everyone, which splatter them, and all the foes are down.

DM: The town is yours.
Normilan: We all just collapse…
Tasha: We take over as the new raiders. “Now bring me your jewels!”
Cruroar: “Yeah, you saved us!” “Yes, and we’re gonna need a protection fee…”

Willoughby runs up, cheering them furiously! People pour out of the buildings and mountain caves, cheering and celebrating!

DM: Without any respect for your injured condition or the fact that you might need a moment to cool down, they throng around you, cheering, slapping you on the back.
Eilnys: Somebody restrain Eilnys, oh god!
Tasha: Oh god, your hand is grabbing for them, Normilan!
DM: A few of them attempt to lift you up onto their shoulders in celebration. They seem to be paying no attention to Brunt. It’s clear from his vision they probably thought he was on the gnolls’ side.
Cruroar: Oh that’s messed up.
Eilnys: Aww, poor Brunt.
Brunt: He’s used to it.

Willoughby stops them from defacing Brunt’s body and calls for the ‘Father’. An elderly dwarf totters out of the building, and bestows healing upon Brunt and the others.

DM: In front of the gaping view of the villagers, you start pawing through the gnolls’ personal belongings. They have nothing on them except for their shields, shortbows, and axes.

The heroes are wined and dined, and Willoughby demands they offer the goods that would have been taken by the gnolls to the PCs!

Cruroar: Just a year ago we were celebrating last year’s harvest. Now we’ve rescued like seven towns…
DM: It’s all due to your inability to have a rational peasant response to the threat of death. It’s like, “Kobolds, let’s fight them!” not “Kobolds, shit they’ll kill me!”

The NPCs rack up the charged language to force the PCs to take the loot. The Father’s voice quickly becomes too much for the PCs to bear.

Cruroar: He sounds like he’s dying!
DM: He’s REALLY old! I mentioned this!
Cruroar: Are we talking, like, really old dwarf years or really old human years?
DM: Dwarf years. He’s gnarled, withered, he clearly has arthritis judging by the way he hobbles around on a cane… His beard is longer than the hair on his head, flowing down past his waist.
Eilnys: And it’s probably snow white and he’s probably balding on the top a little.
DM: Yes, you have it exactly. He looks kinda like… I don’t know… Theoden before he got healthy.
Cruroar: Damn.

The DM quickly gives them their loot – money, gems, and a couple of wands and several potions. The warblade has some valuable jewelry and a magic breastplate!

DM: A great party has erupted. A festival, a celebration, call it what you will. Musical instruments are brought out as the sun sets—
Tasha: World War Z, they’re attracted to sound!
DM: …Okay, roll for initiative.

The townsfolk shamelessly appoint the PCs as the heroes who will slay the Lords of the Forest, leading them to curse sidequests and attempt to wander off and return to the quest later under Skyrim rules. The town at least offers then their choice of beds for the night!

Tasha: “I’d like to sleep with HER.”
DM: Who?
Tasha: I dunno, I’m just joking.
DM: You point to the priest’s wife, the most elderly dwarf woman you’ve ever seen! You’re very drunk, you see…

The game ends with Brunt insisting he should be dead…