Scouting Party
The party makes camp at the site of their last fight. The send Ferrethryn ahead to scout and check the bodies of their fallen Rhodin. Ferrethryn returns claiming the people in the keep have gone into lock down mode, sealing themselves inside with a large number of the enslaved villagers.
The party decides to attack from the opposite shore and finds a ford to cross the river near an old slaughterhouse. They meet the butcher there who gives them some more information about the Rhodin. They approach and plan a stand on the village isle at the bridge to the keep's island. It is not long before they are confronted by a Rhodin who proclaims the area the property of the Freebooters, The party chalenges him about this, and he leaves, shortly thereafter, a party of eight more led by large Skurg arrives to contest the party. The cowardly Rhodin push a human shield of three villagers ahead of them to prevent missile attacks. When the get to the bridge the fight breaks out. After a reasonably long fight in which every member of the party participates well, and only minor injuries are taken (well Vor Tarn was pretty seriously injured) the party managed to kill almost all of the Rhodin. The Skurg (nearly killed early in the fight) skulked back to the keep, another was kept alive long enough to be tried and executed.
The two surviving human shields explained the situation, roughly fifty hostages in the keep, twenty five or so in the mines, and others elsewhere. They also learn of a witch among the Rhodin, and that there is some disillusionment among the Rhodin.
The party decided to rescue the villagers in the mine and made quick work of the single Rhodin guarding them. They escorted the former hostages and sent them to a miners' camp nearby. When they returned to their defensive position at the bridge they saw six bodies rasied aloft by the Rhodin at the keep. A battered and beaten human came down from the keep, and told them the Rhodin threatened to kill six more every hour, unless the party surrendered. They healed him, sent him on to join the others, and pondered their next move.
One Hero point for Vor Tarn for insisting upon the rites of justice, and for trying to rescue the human shields.
posted by Scholz at 11:49 PM
3 Comments:
Well, in all fairness, Vor-Tarn completely botched the rescue attempt (yay for rolling a 1), subsequently killing one of the human captives. Sigh, no good deed goes unpunished, blah blah blah.
Well, the two major considerations in this situation are whether we capitulate to the Rhodins' demands, or not recognize the fact that they are using underhanded hostage tactics to force our compliance. I'd rather not give in, but there are variations on the 2 main paths we can explore. We could offer to do a trade kind of thing, 1 party member per every 10 hostages or something. That would buy us some time, and get some people inside - sort of a faux Trojan Horse scenario. It would be especially good if Ferrethryn or the unfettered went, as they are more capable of handling themselves without armor and such. Or, we could all of us surrender, with one person remaining outside, to infiltrate and bring weapons, equipment and such. Alternatively, a couple members (most likely Ferrethryn and the unfettered again) could infiltrate while we try to distract the Rhodin, deal with the guards, and try to get the prisoners out. And there is of course the "screw it, kill the bastards and not worry about what they do" approach, but as a champion and a player, I'm not a big fan of disregarding the hostages.
There are flaws with all of these plans, but they are the main options open to us. If I've overlooked anything, post it for discussion. We can decide on one of these plans of action and refine it to make it better if not fool-proof.
Any suggestions anyone? Better ideas? Anyone wanna say "ah, it's too hard, let's just sack Lowenvale"?
Let's figure something out....
Obviously Graal doesn't want additional hostages taken. They are his people and he is there to protect them. But if we surrender we are guaranteed to die. If they have any sense they will immediately kill us as soon as we put down our weapons. I don't dare send in anyone to infiltrate since any single rhodin would survive an encounter long enough to get reinforcments. Plus they are probably hyper-vigilant right now and have a serious height advantage, so it would be very difficult to even sneak up to the keep, never mind into it (this could be overcome somewhat by sustained missile fire, forcing them to duck). A full frontal assault would put us outside the gates in short order, but the enemy would have plenty of time to kill hostages as we tried to break through the door. I can potentially do 2d8+12 damage per round, but it would still take several rounds to get through, I suspect. I guess if the full frontal could be coordinated with someone opening the door for us, we might be able to overwhelm the Rhodin before they killed all the hostages, but this seems unlikely to work. There is always a strategic retreat. If we leave, there isn't much sense in their killing off the labor force. We could lay low for a couple of days then hit them hard when the captives are safely back in the mines.
Just a couple of factoids to help your planning.
1. Elidia will tell you that Rhodin are not particularly bright. In fact this whole hostage taking, and in particular, the use of human shields, it highly unusual. Perhaps they are getting advice from someone (something) else.
Normally, Rhodin are easily confused, and tend to respond with violence towards anything that confuses them.
2. There is considerable cover surrounding the keep. Granted one of you is 11ft tall and wearing platemail, but pretty much anyone else could get right up to the keep in places, without being seen, if he or she were willing to move slowly through the heavy thorn bushes around it.
3. Survivors from the human shield will put the Rhodin numbers before the ones you killed at around 30 medium, 3 large and the Witch. So you've already killed a large number of them.
4. Rhodin are nocturnal, and at least half of them are typically asleep during the day, deeper in the castle. Whether an alarm would rouse them immediately is unknown.
5. The prisoners are being keep either right inside the main doors, or in two room immediately off the front room.
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