Goodman Games

Initiative order is:
Monster (Near Qort), Blackthorn, Bilgewriggler, Gnomeboy, Fenris.

Surprise Round
Blackthorn and Duke call out contrary commands in their strange off-worlder language. The Kith do not understand their shouting, but Blackthorn's stance is threatening.
Brandybland breaks her newfound weapon with a blow so awkward she's lucky she didn't slice her own feet. Nurzal chops through Moarbanez with a heroic swing, cutting from shoulder to waist. The Kith dies with his banner in hand--a soldier's death for sure. Jingles captures the warband's banner and waves it before them! Havarth lunges forward, unable to connect, but still showing these humans aren't just livestock.

Please give your actions for next round!

Moarbanez goes down nearly split in two and on to whatever rewards or punishments his gods hold for him. Seeing their banner captured, the remaining warband is momentarily unsteadied...
(hence Init 4, lol)
The three kith in formation come up to join Darag who is now revealed as the standard-bearer falls. Beega, who looks like a smaller Moarbanez, stifles a mournful howl and clutches a stone axe that makes him look even smaller. Arvis, the largest of the three, puts Beega slightly behind him. He and Kolo, the grizlzed older male to his left, flip flint knives into a downward parrying position. Darag, suddenly the frontline, cocks her head quizzically at the strangers shouts and fumbles haltingly with their weird words...

Darag: "SURRR-REND-DARRR? Hvað er SURRR-REND-DARRR?"
Since the kith are last in initiative, we'll hold on this until the others act.



(edited to add description)

My characters will delay their actions unless another kith enters the room with obvious aggressive intent.

Qort (assuming he lives through the creature's action this round) will scurry as quick as he can away from the water and along the wall in the direction of the battle sounds. There may be murderous kith in that direction, but they probably don't know he's here, and the creature in the water obviously does.

I believe Havarth is out in the hall, and can perhaps see some or all of the other Kith?

Havarth runs back into the room and describes what he can see to the assembled mob of Zeroes. {Judge, please fill in as needed.]

Toby stands right by the door jamb and gets ready to swing at whatever may skulk through -- unless the talk of the party says otherwise.

Lucius stows his strange rock and raises his sword ready for whatever strange thing might get within swinging distance.

Kelven does his utmost to get at the back of the party, sword at the ready despite his cowardly stance, not wishing to meet any aliens again so soon...

Blackthorn this Grizzlynargle crew looks just as beleaguered as we do. He lowers his weapon from a striking position to a defensive stance.

Duke steps forward, lays her spear across her off arm, and presents it to the largest Kith as on offing of unity. join us, we all must escape she says with kindness and confidence, hoping her tone (and 16 personality) will convey the message where language fails.

Darag is fascinated by this creature's strange speech, but is wholly unable to understand the woman's intention...
Darag Int NAT 1-1=0
...and she raises her club over her head, flinching a bit. Arvis hopes the postures of peace are universal...
Arvis Int=16
...as he cautiously steps forward to accept the offered kith spear, sheathing his own knife with exaggerated slowness. Without taking eyes off the spear-woman, he addresses his pack...
Arvis: "Ég held að þeir vilji taka þátt í okkur. Ef þeir drepa mig, sláðu og hlaupa aftur til hliðarinnar."

Everything in Planetary Common will now be planetary PURPLE!

(Sorry if I jumped the gun, I thought all the Kith were now within sight)

Since my characters were delaying until after the kiths' action:

Jingles (breathing a tentative sigh of relief): I hope he's saying, "Yay, we don't have to fight these strangers after all," and not, "Look, these idiots are handing over their weapons to be slaughtered like sheep!"

Nurzual: You have described the exact facets I was contemplating ...

Brandybland puts down her glaive haft and takes what she hopes is an innocent-looking step closer to the two-handed sword Jingles dropped.

Initiative order is:
Monster (Near Qort), Blackthorn, Bilgewriggler, Gnomeboy, Fenris.

A Kith-sized sea hag rises from the water, its large clawed hands reaching the ledge and pulling herself up. She stands near Qort, preparing to lunge at him (not enough actions left to do so).

Here is the sourcebook picture:


Blackthorn and Duke reach out to the Kith with their appeals. Havarth describes the four remaining bearlike Kith. His team prepares to strike if needed. Qort stumbles blindly through the dark, nearly falling down a flight of stairs. Turning a corner, he sees in the distance four large Kith blocking the way to his friends. The Kith hear the terrified scampering behind them. Is this a trick?!? Or do the humans really mean diplomacy? Both sides struggle to show signs of non-violence. Brandybland makes her step towards the sword Jingles dropped.

Since there's been a fair amount of wandering, here is a map of where you've been and what you've seen so far!
http://i.imgur.com/bcPBWr0.jpg

Please continue!!

A note on experience points!

I will assign experience for each adventure after the completion of the adventure. When there is a hex-crawl or no major adventure on hand, I'll assign XP after each major encounter. This should save book-keeping on your end and make less risk of people losing track of XP gains in posts.

Also note: I will be following the convention of assigning 10 XP for the completion of the funnel, so all survivors will be level 1 upon escaping.

The sea hag is first in the initiative order, right?

Assuming she doesn't catch up to Qort and eviscerate him, his action will depend on whether he hears her right on his heels. If yes, he'll run toward the armed folk who aren't actively trying to eat him. As he runs, he'll point behind him and yell, "Help! A monster!"

OTOH, if it seems the hag is not yet up the stairs where she could see him, he'll slide to the right when he gets to the intersection and flatten himself along the wall, hoping (1) to avoid the kiths' notice and (2) that when the hag reaches the intersection and hears noise to the left, she'll turn that way, and the two threats will fight one another instead of him. (He is, of course, forgetting that he's leaving a trail of water as he runs, which the hag can probably follow.)

(I'll wait to describe my other characters' actions until the rest of the players have gone, since they've now dropped to the end of the initiative.)

The hag is first, yes. If you intend to hide, let's get an untrained roll for hiding in shadows (Healers normally don't skulk!). Since the hallway is nearly pitch black, I'll bump your die up from a 1d10 to a 1d16.

Suspicious of an ambush, the kith draw back and resume their back-to-back defensive stance. Arvis and Darag keep eyes trained on the humans, while Kolo and Beega face the new threat from the side passage. All weapons are out, ready for anything...

Arvis: Haltu, en vertu tilbúinn að slá!

They hold unless a threat is certain. Would they, as natives, know anything about the creature from what they've heard or seen thus far?

Qort rolls a 14 ... 15 with his enhanced Agility!

Judge Blackthorn wrote:(Sorry if I jumped the gun, I thought all the Kith were now within sight)

This is a good point. Fenris, can you clarify where your peoples are?

TerraGoetia wrote:

Judge Blackthorn wrote:(Sorry if I jumped the gun, I thought all the Kith were now within sight)

This is a good point. Fenris, can you clarify where your peoples are?

As I understand it, my kith were dumped down a trap from the arena (area 2-3?) and went to investigate the human voices to the west. Moarbanez rushed (after stealth attempts failed) and the rest followed right behind him. By my intent, if Moarbanez was struck down, Darag would've been not more than 5-10' behind him and the other three quickened pace to join Darag. I would assume all my kith would be visible to the main party (in 2-1?).

Presently the group's action would be to fall back into a defensive back-to-back formation (presumably in the corridor) retreating from Duke's position no more than 5', as Arvis was poised to accept the spear.

Clear as mud?

As I read things, Havarth was ready to jump into the corridor at the sounds of approach. Then Moarbanez was described as leaping into the room. So we kind of skipped over the event that would have triggered Havarth's jumping out: the moment when the kith were almost at the humans' end of the corridor, but not yet to the door.

I therefore interpreted Havarth's jumping forward as a jump to attack Moarbanez after the latter had charged into the room.

It appears Gnomeboy interpreted things as Havarth jumping out before Moarbanez actually entered the room.

All my actions were predicated on the assumption that Moarbanez charged in, with the rest of the warband close behind him ... probably just outside the doorway where they could see into the room.

So we need to retcon something. I see three possibilities:

1) Moarbanez did indeed charge into the room, followed closely by the other kith. Havarth leapt forward to meet him at the doorway, and the rest of the human ambushers made their attacks from the sides of the doorway. This would put the warband just outside the door, and everyone else (including Moarbanez'scorpse) just inside.

2) Havarth jumped out just as Moarbanez was charging in, and the two passed each other as Havarth's swing missed. This would put Havarth just outside the doorway in the thick of the kith. Depending on the width of the corridor, it might then have been difficult for the entire kith band to observe Moarbanez's demise and the subsequent parleying.

3) Moarbanez never made it into the room. Havarth jumped out as the standard-bearer approached the doorway. In this case, we have to dial back everything that happened after Havarth's swing and miss, because my characters did not leave the room and thus couldn't have killed Moarbanez or scooped up the warbanner.

Options 1 and 2 seem the most satisfying to me, as I don't care for the idea of doing everything over. Option 2 seems a little less realistic than 1 ... but if our goal is realism, we're probably playing the wrong game.

Of course, it's the judge's call, and Judge Terragoetia may see a fourth option that I'm overlooking.

Option 1 is excactly what i understood

I understood things to be as option 1 there. I could have failed at reading comprehension, and I'm sorry if I caused any confusion; this is clearly my fault. I'm certainly not going to ask anyone to redo anything. Let's go with 1.

TerraGoetia wrote:I understood things to be as option 1 there. I could have failed at reading comprehension, and I'm sorry if I caused any confusion; this is clearly my fault. I'm certainly not going to ask anyone to redo anything. Let's go with 1.

No need for it to be anyone's fault, I think. It's not like any of us has a copy-editor going along behind us to make sure we're communicating with utmost precision!

I need this rounds actions from Blackthorn and Gnomeboy. Since this is a critical moment I don't want to skip anyone.

Okay, I'm trying to piece this together but I'm not sure what has or hasn't happened or changed since my last declaration...

My four will take a cautious pause if the Kith aren't rushing in to attack, and hope for peace. Wave after wave of alien monsters is just going to get us all killed, so let's hope we can make friends...

Kelven remains very much at the back as much as he can, though.

I suppose Havarth is still front and center, more or less. He puts his empty hand up, palm out, toward the Kith in the room. "Friend."

I think my actions from above stand if we are continuing with option 1. Sounds like we are all trying to be cautiously friendly with weapons at the ready should things go south. My characters continue to smile uneasily at the Kith and wait for them to make the first move.

Bilgewriggler go ahead and describe the rest of your team's actions. Since we're still in a combat situation I'll process the round in initiative order after I have everyone's actions. I'll try to be more clear about what's going on; if I cause any confusion, please let me know so I can correct things.

Havarth is still in the front and is in the equipment room. The Kith are outside the room, except for Moarbanez's corpse. For the purpose of the triggered actions I had him cross the threshold of the room before the attacks were processed; he fell forward and dropped his belongings into the room. Kelven is in the back, and everyone else is in the middle in whatever order they please (it's not important if peace is reached; if fighting breaks out again the parties can declare their ordering).

Jingles points to the floor just inside the door and says, "inside." Then she points to the kith side and says, "outside." She points into her pocket: "inside." She takes a coin out: "outside" and puts it back in, "inside."

She then points to the kith, then the party, and makes an encompassing gesture she hopes indicates their surroundings, "inside." Finally, she makes a shelf with her hand just above her eyes and looks around as though scanning or searching the horizon, and asks, "outside?"

Nurzual gives an appreciative nod at this strategy. Brandybland waits, ready to grab for the sword she's standing over if fighting resumes.