RealmsToowoomba Recap # 5 [RPG]

Aboard The Woeful Tide, the four adventurers rescued from the mysterious island decide to put their mutiny plan into effect. They wait patiently for most of the slave-ship crew to fall into a deep slumber and then pass Grindlestone Threebeards the keys to his manacles.

Nakor tries one last time to persuade the elves to join in the revolt, but they remain bitter and disdainful. The Sembian rogue has more luck, however, persuading a captured Uthgardt Sky Pony tribesman named Krok. However, Nakor's unlocking of Krok's manacles is noticed by an alert crewman who calls out loudly for aid. Before the group is completely ready, the mutiny has begun! 

The battle is a bloody back-and-forth affair. Nakor fights with his short sword before suffering some serious wounds and deciding to attack at a distance with his bow. Fargrim charges into battle and has initial success, but a grievous slash from a slaver's cutlass lays him low early in the fight. Rolen holds his own with the use of his martial arts ability, but gets worn down. Cain uses a combination of divine spellcasting and mace-swinging to occupy some of the attackers.

The number of dead and unconscious slavers multiplies. The sheer number of attackers is too much however, especially with each of the adventurers fighting alone in an isolated melee. Even with the brave assistance of the dwarves, Krok, and some other freed slaves, a woeful tide has turned against the adventurers!

Within minutes, Rolen and Nakor are unconscious and bleeding, while the barbarian Fargrim hovers at death's door. Cain darts in to cast healing magicks to bring Fargrim into consciousness briefly, but the dwarf has time only to stand up and stab a slaver in the back with his dagger before collapsing again. For a moment, the battle stands on a knife's edge, as Cain squares off against the two remaining slavers--if he can defeat them, the day could yet be won! 

But neither Tymora nor Kossuth aids the desperate cleric in his time of need, and he, too, is defeated.

The uprising that was planned well initially has failed in its execution, and a partial massacre of the slaves has been the result. Yet what is the fate of the four adventurers? Unconscious, bleeding, on board a slave ship headed to Luskan, their fate looks grim indeed.

------------------------------------------

Director's Commentary (May 23, 2013)

Our first all-combat session!  Four PCs and some NPC allies up against 15 slavers in a brawl for it all.  The PCs failure in this battle exemplifies the fate of many adventuring groups: they each act as if they're solo adventurers, and thus get spread out and surrounded and are unable to help each other.  If the PCs stood back to back so they couldn't be flanked and could focus their attacks on particular enemies, I think this fight would have turned out differently.  As it was, they still came quite close to winning, as a couple of better rolls at the end might have won the day for Cain.

An early lesson in audacity and failure for the PCs, and they would actually be rather cautious afterward.  An additional downside, as we'll see next session, is that they end up enslaved and having lost all of the gear they'd accumulated to this point.

Next Recap