Classic Fantasy: Mistamere (Episode 2)

If you missed episode 1 then you might want to read it first.

“Let me come,” demanded the young man, “and I will fight by your side.”

He was tall, that was for certain. Perhaps six and a half feet or more, Sven mused. Well-armed too.

“You nearly died yesterday,” the young man continued, “and I am certain that you cannot afford to turn away a strong sword arm.”

“Perhaps,” mused Itomas quietly.

“I will ask no more of you than a fair share of any spoils you recover.”

Itomas nodded. Sven looked up at the young man, noting his scale armour and well-made sword.

“You’re well-equipped for a poor farmer,” Sven stated.

“I am Bjorn and, yes, my father is a farmer. But he is not a poor farmer and I have benefitted from training with our militia here at Woodfell,” he explained.

Sven nodded, “Very well. On condition that any spoils from the beast we slayed yesterday is ours alone.”

“Agreed,” replied Bjorn.

Yes, I created a third character – Bjorn Fellshand – to bolster the party some more. I’ll not get into the full details here, but he’s a Fighter Rank 1 and of reasonable intellect as much as being a tall hunk.

Heading Back to Mistamere

It was still early enough to make a journey to the castle, so the three set out. Although the sun was bright there was much cloud and it wasn’t nearly as inviting a walk as yesterday. Perhaps, mused Itomas, a brush with death takes the joy out of such journeys.

At length they arrived near to the walls of Mistamere once again. The gates remained closed and the corpse of the monster lay sprawled as they had left it the day before. Blood soaked the ancient gates lying under the severed upper section of the centipede-like beast. With caution, weapons in hand, the three walked forward to look at the ruined lower half of the creature that had presumably fallen back down the hole it had arrived from.

Looking at the dead creature and estimating its size from the two sections, Bjorn spoke up suddenly.

“It’s a Carrion Creeper,” he said, “and a big one too. Nasty things.”

They peered into the hole under the gates, careful lest there were others lurking.

“Nothing’s moving,” said Itomas, “that’s a mercy from the Gods.”

“Bloody thing’s stopping us from seeing if anything’s underneath though,” grumbled Sven.

Putting down his shield and war hammer, Sven grabbed the bloody end of the worm’s body nearest the top of the hole.

“Come on,” he said, “let’s haul this thing out.”

After a few minutes of grunted exertion, they had the beast pulled out of the hole. Altogether it was perhaps nine feet long and reeked of death.

Not much point in making characters roll for tasks that are fairly routine unless they are under a time or risk constraint. This is a feature of Mythras in that the GM can rule a skill has automatic success (or failure) if the conditions merit such.

Peering once again into the hole, Itomas said, “There’s a glint of metal down there. Coins, I think, and quite a few. And bones, of course.”

Without hesitation, Itomas began to unpack his rope from his backpack.

Again, I’m allowing an automatic success for the Athletics test to climb down – Itomas is, after all, a thief and he’s not operating under pressure or without a rope.

“There’s a skeleton of a small creature down here,” Itomas shouted up to the other two.

“What’s it look like?”

“Perhaps three feet tall but the skull is elongated, like a dog.”

“Hah,” laughed Bjorn, “sounds like a dead kobold.”

“You know your local fauna, eh, Bjorn,” said Sven.

Itomas was gathering up coins, copper and silver, and shoving them into a large sack. He had recovered around a thousand copper coins and as many silver. The look of glee on his face was noticeable, even from above.

“Almost makes it worth getting eaten by a giant Dwarf-eating worm,” he said.

Back on the surface some few minutes later, Itomas was rummaging through a mouldy leather bag that he’d picked up off the dead kobold. Inside was a handful of extra copper coins and a brass key. Itomas pocketed the key and poured the coins into the bag with the rest.

Who Closed the Gate?

“Let’s take a look at this gate,” Sven suggested.

With weapons in hand, the three approached the gate slowly; it was about 40 feet wide. To the right of the gate, the wall ran 130 feet while, to the left, it ran 100 feet and then seemed to have a 10-feet wide or so hole and rubble pile. Beyond the hole, the wall ran another 20 feet before turning a corner. At about 50 feet high, the wall was imposing but badly crumbling and Itomas felt convinced that a serious attempt at climbing might pull it down on the climber.

Signalling to the others to wait, Itomas skulked off to the right. Prowling around the rubble, he found several large blocks of stone fallen from the decaying walls. Another kobold skeleton lay under one of the blocks, but he couldn’t see any treasure near the poor fool. The block itself was too heavy to move.

Moving up to the wall, looking for holes to peer through, Itomas noticed that most were too high to reach without climbing. Doubling back, he passed the others and then saw some holes in the wall left of the closed gates, near ground level. Looking through, Itomas could see a large courtyard inside the wall, and the remains of a castle. The ruin looked old and cracked, but not as badly as the outer wall. Only one story of the castle still stood; the upper parts had crumbled and the rubble was scattered throughout the courtyard.

Looking right, Itomas saw them: a group of creatures hiding in the shadow of the wall, avoiding the sunlight of the day.

Now I’m switching tense because I’ll type the scene as it unfolds. 

They are kobolds! There seems to be about ten of them, but he can’t see them well enough to determine the exact numbers or their equipment.

Raising one finger to his lips, Itomas pads back to the others and whispers the news. Sven scowls and Bjorn smiles. Together the party moves eastwards, left of the gate, towards the pile of rubble that leads to the opening in the wall.

At this point, the party rolls a group test of their Stealth skill. In short, we roll against the lowest value in the party – if they succeed, all succeed; if not, all fail. Bjorn has the worst Stealth (24%) and the he rolls 14. A success! To see if the kobolds notice the party, we roll against their group’s highest Perception in an opposed test. I am going to make this harder for the kobolds, as there is a fair distance between them and the party, modifying the difficulty one level of difficulty from standard to hard; this drops the 64% base skill by one-third to 42% – they roll 70 and fail.

From the vantage of the 10-feet wide breach in the wall, hiding among the blocks of stone, the party can see the kobolds more clearly. There are indeed about ten of them, armed with short swords and short bows.

“That’s unusual,” says Bjorn, “the kobolds usually fight with javelins. I wonder where they got those bows and arrows from.”

“No matter,” replies Itomas, “we don’t stand too much chance of crossing the courtyard without being spotted. Do you think they’ll attack?”

Bjorn nods.

Itomas unslings his own bow and strings it, looking along the wall towards the gate.

Itomas wants to know if the gate is barred. He rolls Perception (43%) to see – 55% is a fail.

“Why don’t you two let me draw their attention with some arrows? Once they engage me, you slip along to the gate and see if you can smash your way in. I can’t see if the gate is barred, but that’s a much shorter distance to charge them from than all the way over here,” says Itomas.

“Stuff that,” says Bjorn, “we can charge them down. They’ll probably break and run anyway.”

To Battle!

Because the kobolds will be surprised, the combat begins with them having a -10 Initiative penalty; they are also “flat-footed” and cannot defend themselves until their turn comes up in the round. Even then, they cannot take offensive actions during the first round. Finally, the first attack on the target, if successful, gains a bonus special effect.

Initiative scores are: Kobolds 9; Itomas 10; Sven 15; Bjorn 16.

Bjorn jumps down from the breach and runs towards the kobolds, sword and shield in hand. As he becomes visible, the kobolds look in his direction with surprise.

He chooses the Ward Location action (free) and the Dither action (uses all of his Action Points) to run 60 feet forward (x3 base move). He is covering his right arm, chest, abdomen and right leg with his shield in a passive blocking position.

Sven too jumps down from the rubble and runs forward alongside Bjorn. He mutters a prayer to the Gods as he closes on the dithering kobolds.

Likewise with Sven, although he is right-handed and so shields the left side of his body.

As the two men run they hear the whistle of Itomas’ first arrow as it flies overhead towards the nearest kobold.

Itomas is loosing his short bow, spending 1 Action to attack, which has an effective range of 300 feet. Given the small size of the kobolds at around 110 feet, the shot is one step harder than usual and reduces Itomas’ skill to 38%. He rolls 76 and misses.

Not the best photo, but here the kobolds form a line to tackle Bjorn (left) and Sven (right). I really ought to paint those models one day, eh?

Although none of the kobolds is hit, they begin to form up into a battle line to meet the running attackers. Some of the kobolds draw their bows and aim at the running men.

The kobolds nearest the heroes form a line, taking a Dither action along with a Ward Location action with their shields and swords in hand; they run 30 feet forward to try to stop the heroes from making an effective charge. The kobolds towards the rear Ready their bows and spend the remainder of the turn aiming at one of the two heroes.

As the kobolds move forward, Itomas smiles to himself – they’re closer to hit now – and draws another arrow.

It takes time to reload a bow, so Itomas spends the first of two Actions to begin reloading. This ends the first round.

Bjorn closes with the kobold battle line, guarding himself with the shield and bringing his sword up.

He spends an action to Close Range and takes a free Ward Location action as before.

Sven similarly moves to engage the kobolds, shielding his right side and showing the creatures his war hammer. Facing the two men are five kobolds who raise shields and try to stab out with the short swords.

The first kobold stabs out at Sven and misses. The second tries to ward its head with the shield while stabbing wildly at the cleric too, but also misses. The third, caught between the two men, thrashes his blade at Bjorn but misses too. The fourth kobold strikes at Bjorn and misses, while the fifth only narrowly misses too.

They all spent an Action to attack while warding themselves with shields, but with combat styles at 49% don’t seem too potent. In the background, by the way, Itomas spent the second action point needed to ready his bow.

The kobolds at the rear all loose arrows towards Itomas, perched as he is on the rubble behind the melee. Two arrows come close and force Itomas to duck sideways back behind the wall – just too late as one of the two arrows strikes his right arm… but bounces off harmlessly.

The kobolds are firing at hard difficulty because of the range; I decided to roll for them quickly all at once, but two of them roll well – a 20 and a 23. Itomas evades the first arrow (rolling 28 in an opposed test) but cannot evade the second because he is out of action points. I have him spend a Luck Point to gain an extra action point to use for evasion, but he fails the roll. Doh! The kobold arrow does 1d6 – 1d4 (due to the weedy damage modifier of kobolds) and scores zero points of damage. Itomas is now prone behind the wall, out of sight of the kobolds.

Bjorn slashes out with his sword at the leftmost of the kobolds, feeling the energy of the battle filling him with courage. The creature tries to parry but Bjorn’s blade is too quick – and he slashes down towards the beast’s legs. The blade cuts through the leather and Bjorns feels the crunch as it glides into the bone.

Bjorn attacks and rolls 29 to hit. The kobold parries but fails, giving Bjorn one special effect – he Chooses Location and aims for the left leg. The damage is 8 points against the two armour points and four hit points; this reduces the location to -2 hit points and delivers a major wound. The kobold rolls an opposed Endurance test against the original attack, rolling 26 – he fails because it’s less than the original attack roll. The leg is rendered useless and the kobold falls prone.

The kobold screams and falls to the ground just as Sven swings his hammer at the neighbouring monster.

Sven rolls 49 under 57% combat style to hit. The kobold tries to parry, but fails. Sven chooses the head and rolls 8 damage – enough to cause a serious wound. As the kobold fails the Endurance test, it’s knocked unconscious for 8 minutes.

The kobold is smashed in the face and falls down into the mud of the courtyard. The remaining three kobolds stab out at the heroes, with one catching Bjorn’s shield with its blade. Bjorn’s skill is such that the creature’s blade skitters off the surface without further harm.

Back behind the melee, the kobolds with bows reload and prepare to launch another volley but dare not shoot at the two warriors lest they hit their own kind. They watch as Sven smashes out again at the kobold on the left of the line, crashing a blow onto the beast’s shield. Shortly afterwards, the two kobolds fighting Bjorn stab out and one catches the warrior in the head, drawing blood and yelping with delight.

As the second round ends, I’m going to switch to narrating only and let you enjoy the story.

Bjorn’s sword strikes at the leftmost of the two kobolds in front of him, bypassing its attempt to parry with the shield. Aiming for the head, Bjorn brains the creature and slices open its face – it sprawls before him, unconscious. With a yell, Bjorn prepares to fight the last of the creatures before him.

Sven’s attack strikes the kobold and similarly slips past its desperate parry to crash into the head and stoves it asunder. Blood and brains splatter across the field and spray up into Sven’s face. Carried on by the momentum of battle, Sven strides towards the archers bellowing a challenge. Up at the ruined hole in the wall, Itomas gets up and readies his bow again, impressed at the progress of his compatriots.

The kobold before Bjorn tries to strike but misses, finding himself tripped by the larger man and thrown to ground before him. With a yelp, the kobold signals his surrender.

The five kobold archers all finish reloading and loose arrows towards the closing Sven. The cleric parries the two arrows that appear on target, using his shield to do so. The archers, looking worried, all rush to reload their bows.

Sven reaches the archer line as the kobolds look ready to shoot at him again. Bjorn strikes down at the prone kobold, all but helpless as it lies in a tumble before him; the fighter runs his blade across the kobold’s belly and it passes out from the pain of being so rudely opened up. Striding along the wall, Bjorn moves to support his ally against the archers.

Fear welling within them, the five remaining kobolds throw down their weapons and surrender. The battle, it seems, is over.

Aftermath

Disarmed and cowed, the kobolds beg for their lives. Sven questions them and they offer to show him treasure in return for their lives. While Bjorn and Sven go with their prisoners to a far-off corner of the courtyard, Itomas slips down from the breach and pads over to the four comatose kobolds; he promptly dispatches them with his sword, quietly deciding to end their threat in case the more goodly-minded companions decide to let them live. Shaking his head, he sees the two men let the remaining kobolds run back into the keep as the pair carry back an iron box dug up by the former captives.

Inside the box are 100 gold coins and a black onyx gem, which Itomas places into a separate sack. Bjorn’s head wound is quite bad, and so Sven places his hand over the cut and prays to the Gods for healing – within moments the worst of the injury is gone and it takes only a few minutes of bandaging and cleaning to see that it has been healed.

“Well, then,” asks Itomas, “Shall we go inside?”