The last day of their journey there was a heavy rain slowing them down. However it was proven to be a blessing in disguise because the rangers that were scouting ahead on their horses spotted a group of 30 men heading north. Quickly the party and the whole battalion covered in the trees of a small forest nearby and when the small band of men appeared they saw that they were all armed and lightly armored. Believing they were part of the bandits that were after them about a week before they ambushed them, surprising them quickly and forcing them to surrender.
The bandit's lair, just ignore the compass,
the north is upwards as we are looking
the map
Having so much useful information and also having the element of surprise, the party and the men of Verbobonc's militia start planning their attack. They know that there is a main entrance in the hill and also a hidden exit through a small river in the back that leads to a pond. The bandits have a few boats to get out through the river if they need to either escape if something bad happens or to have some of their men ourflank the enemy. The river gets too deep and its hard to get out swimming, especially if you are armored.
They decide then to cut some wood from the trees, surprise the guards by putting them to sleep with magic and then use the wood to create a big flammable ball, put it on fire and throw it in the main entrance of the lair, to not allow the bandits to come out through it. Their archers will be stationed in the hills close to the pond and when the bandits come out with their boats, they will rain fire in them. Another part of the army (and the small cavalry that is basically the party and the henchmen on their horses) will wait in the front entrance, in case some of them manage to come out.
They also knew that now the bandits had even less men than the party and the militia. There are more than one hundred members of their band, but since they captured about 30 of them, they even had the numerical advantage!
Everything seems perfect. Even the rain has stopped and they could find wood to use for their plan. The main force of the battalion was hidden in the forest and the archers with a few footmen made a long circle avoiding being spotted by the guards in the main entrance and positioned themselves in the hills, having a clear shot to anyone coming out of the back exit.
There were again two guards protecting the main entrance. They seemed bored, doing their casual watch duty in their lair in the middle of nowhere and so they became easy target of the party's arrows. They were dead before they even realised what was happening. Then, the party hurried and put forward their plan. They put their flammable ball on fire and threw it inside. Then the footmen positioned themselves in front of the entrance to see if anyone comes out and also to be able to watch what was happening in the other side.
After a few minutes a boat comes out with 10 men on light armor. Quickly, more than 40 men rained arrows on them and killed them. 3 more boats will appear in the next minutes, this time using their shields to protect themselves but still, the archers did their job well.
A couple of minutes pass and then a man waving a white flag comes out swimming from the back exit. He says that they are surrendering. The party orders them to come out one by one without armor or weapons and with their hands raised. They do so and the group gathers them all and tie them up. They count them to be sure that they were as many as they should be according to the captured patrol's words. Indeed they are.
So, the group takes a few boats, gets inside the lair and take the loot that bandits had! With that done, the party triumphantly returns to Verbobonc without having lost a single man, bringing a huge stash back to the city and more than 50 prisoners. One of them is the leader of the bandits, a former captain of Verbobonc's militia named Jeribolt, who defected and created this band of men, attacking caravans and travellers.
Jeribolt being a bandit for many years now, had reports from his scouts about the other warband that the group has encountered, the gnolls who most probably attacked Hommlet a few days before. He is willing to cooperate with the authorities and share his knowledge about where their lair most probably is. The viscount of Verbobonc summons the group to his castle and congratulates them for their victory. He announces that as a reward for playing such a crucial part in defeating the bandits, they get to keep the biggest part of the loot! And not only that, but since Jeribolt revealed the approximate location of the gnolls, if they are willing to lead the same 80 men against them and beat them, he is promising them to make Korin lord of Humming's End and knight the rest of the group to be able to join him there and rule it in the name of Verbobonc!
The party is ecstatic with that and prepares for its new war. There are even more choices to be made however, since in their absence, Betham the sage completed his research and learned of a possible location where magical weapons could be. Looking into lore and history, he learnt that many years ago there was a noble group of elven bandits dedicated to demigod Gadhelyn who were fighting against a tyrannical local ruler who has put heavy taxes on his subjects. They were receiving however attacks by monsters coming from the mythical underworld that their lair was connected to. Because of that, a famed elven hero named Gardon joined them to fight of the monstrosities. He was known to have an amazing sword that cuts his opponent to pieces. However their story ends there and the authorities never again were worried by the actions of the band, assuming that they perished somehow. The sage's research about the raids that the band did, helped him pinpoint the location of the lair and he also knows part of the code that the followers of Gadhelyn use with markings on the trees, so there is a good possibility that the party will locate the lair and hopefully will find something of value there.
The party started thinking about the choices that they should make and their henchmen, having experienced such a great fight began their training to get stronger.
LOOT AND KILLS:
Loot:
gem worth 5000 gp
gem worth 1100 gp
gem worth 700 gp
4 gems worth 1000 gp each
4 gems worth 30 gp each
4 gems worth 20 gp each
8 gems worth 8 gp each
600 gp
plate armor +1
longsword +1
various weapons worth 300 gp total
Kills:
52 bandits
DECEASED PLAYER CHARACTERS:
Urikas the elf, F1/MU1, Readying 25, 576 CY, eaten by ghouls
Zyla the elf, C1, Readying 25, 576 CY, eaten by ghouls
Jack, F1, Readying 28, 576 CY, slain by the evil cleric named Lareth
Causticas the elf, F3/MU3, Goodmonth 14, 576 CY, burned alive by a red dragon
Yus, C1, Brewfest 6, 576 CY, Poisoned by a purple worm's sting
Trenaccatlo, F1, Ready'reat 27, 576 CY, devoured by a two-headed giant troll
Korin Clubfoot, F5, Flocktime 11, 577 CY, poisoned by giant centipedes / REVIVED
THOUGHTS AFTER THE SESSION:
What a session! This was the first time that the party had to do a somewhat big battle with about 100 fighters in each side so we tried chainmail! It worked great!
I hadn't used it before so I decided to have the two armies divided in tokens that represent not exactly 10 men but 10 total levels (so for example a 5 level PC and 5 level 1 PCs will be a single token). However, thanks to some of my players being more experienced with the fantasy supplement, I allowed them to have their PCs being represent with a single token.
We basically just used the tables that chainmail has to see if a token dies or not. As you saw in the recap however, that wasn't really necessary. The party was extremely lucky to have an encounter in just four hours away from the lair. Since they were close I rules that there was a 40% possibility that it would be a bandit patrol and it was! The heavy rain helped the rangers scout from a distance the big group travelling and the rest is history.
They handled the situation really clever. They blocked the main entrance and forced to come out from the back, where the archers would wait the bandits with their bows ready! Since the guard lost the surprise check and didn't have a chance to alarm the rest of the band, they didn't have a chance to win.
I rolled the area using the DMG random wilderness generation table. Since it was a hill hex, I just rolled the d20 using the hill column results and created a map of the 30 miles hex analyzed in 6 miles subhexes. After that I just created an even more zoomed in one based on the results. The nice image of the lair was one I found googling, but I was amazed because it fitted my thought perfectly. Even its size matches!
My course of action for the bandits was to have them guard the main entrance that was on the hill, about 50 feet from the ground and then have a group of them come out from the back to outflank the opponent. Then a part of the bandits will charge through the main entrance, the other will make the flanking maneuver and they will also have archers in the entrance.
But who cares? My schemes were all in vain! Congratulations to my players! And now, not only they have information about an old lair that could or could not have something of value (I love this Robin Hood Gadhelyn, I had to put him in there) but they will become lords! I thought if that was too much but the truth is that: 1) Korin was part of the group that raided the Moathouse, 2) Korin helped Veluna City from the bandits and Veluna and Verbobonc communicate, so viscount Wilfrick could ask about it, since it's one of the stories that Korin surely has shared, 3) Korin was the famous dragon hunter and 4) they have proved their skill and loyalty by tracking down tha bandits and leading their men to an unexpected triumph of 0 losses and total destruction of a dangerous band! I think that Korin has done enough to earn the chance to rule a small village and the rest of the characters have proven their worth as well.
However, let's not get ahead of ourselves! They still have a group of gnolls to beat to get there, and I don't know if they will be lucky enough to just randomly fall upon a group of them again...
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