Session 7: Yet Another Owlbear Disappointment

Starting with this overdeveloped battlemap of the party fighting three owlbears. Though mean and menacing looking, they did not last long. Still, I wanted the map to capture the attention of the players, to give them a real sense of space. Some of the elements here are A.I., some are features of the publisher program... and some are a mixture of both. For example, A.I. created the grass pattern and the stone pattern, but the actual shape of much of the stone was done using Publisher tools. My design of the map took longer than the actual battle. But then, I still have the map, in Publisher, so it could be used again, or even handed out if the gentle reader wanted to use it.

Though the spellcasters are low level, there is a 3rd and 4th level cleric, a 3rd level mage and a 1st level druid in the party. Between them, using entangled, dust devil, wyvern watch and even the cantrip twitch, which proved too strong for a cantrip and needs reworking, the party were able to benefit from the narrowness of the space to tie the owlbears up rather than getting tied up themselves. The owlbears' lack of intelligence, so that they could not coordinate their attacks (I played them "dumb"), plus their lack of range weapons, made them easy prey. If there had been six, the first three would have soaked up the party's spell use... but alas, it was not to be.

Giving them d10 for their hit points, I rolled amazingly well: 42 h.p. out of a possible 50 for one, and 37 for another (the last had 20). It didn't help. All told, the owlbears only managed to do 38 damage. Total party experience was only 2,806. I don't plan to throw any more owlbears any time soon at the party. If I do, they're damn well going to have a hill giant as a handler.

The wagon and corpses shown on the map was merely to give a precedent for putting some wealth into the party's pockets: 1200 g.p., 600 s.p. and 300 c.p. By my system, 1 g.p. = 1 x.p. = 3 s.p. = 4 c.p. This allows me to give less actual wealth to the party while still permitting and experience boost. Ti, the 2nd level fighter, went up to 3rd. Nice when someone goes up every fight. Certainly doesn't always happen.

Thereafter the party followed a route led by Laszlo, the Hungarian looking after the boy Peter, whom the party agreed to help get to Budapest. Following Laszlo's route shown on the map, starting east of Salgotarjan, where a gap between the hills shows the location of the owlbear fight, the travelled in a circuitous route to avoid Ottoman patrols. Reaching Veroce, where Laszlo knew smugglers who could get the party by boat down to Buda without incident, they stopped just north of the city at a blockhouse, where — with some qualification from Laszlo — they were told that entry into Buda with weapons is strictly forbidden. Even a knife is a danger. Then they were introduced to three Hungarians, whose names were not invented for the session but I'll invent them here for the next running: Gusztav, Dorian and Salamon. Two others were present as well, Croatians, a woman named Barica and a man named Kruno.

Prior to their arrival, Laszlo expressed how impressed he was with the party. He'd watched them fearlessly meet the Ottoman soldiers in the previous running and now he'd watched them easily dispatch three owlbears. He respected the party's help getting the boy to Buda; he spoke of them as "good people," obviously fearless, obviously kind hearted and willing to go out of their way for others. And therefore, with that going for them, the three Hungarians asked the party, "How would you like to help the Kingdom of Hungary strike at the Ottomans, however they might?"

A chartaque (Turk. Çardak), a watchtower and

fortification in the Ottoman Empire.

Several options were pitched. Were the party willing to kidnap a princess? How did they feel about setting a dock on fire? Would they like to protect a fire opal mine in their home town of Ozd against it being discovered by Ottomans? Would they like to help these two nice Croatians attack a strong point on the border between Hungary-controlled Croatia and Ottoman lands? This last caught their attention. As we ended the running, the party started to purchase some things in Buda, deciding to unload their opal with the help of their Hungarians, before following a plan of crossing a closed border into Hungary, then moving west and south until meeting Barica and Kruno's partisans, to take on the blockhouse/chartaque.

That's where we pick up with our next running.