DM: Geokhan

Leader: Don
Scout: Bardy
Trailblazer: Twee

Mission: Travel to the Bloodeye Clan and defend them from the approaching gnoll horde.

This mission reminded me of my days in the army: Panicking civilians, incompetent allied forces, siege weaponry, a general on a horse and lots and lots of gnolls. Just how I like it.

Day 1, Weather: Cool & Partly cloudy
Our small scale “army” departs WMC with the Bloodeye Clan as our destination. Travel on the roads is peaceful, no monsters dare approach our party. Most we saw were some travelers and the arrow riddled corpses of six large hyenas by the side of the road. We set up camp by the side of the road, go through night watches and wake up unmolested.

Day 2, Weather: Cool & Cloudy
We pack up camp and set out northwards on the road. We come to a crossroads and spot some dwarves from Jub Jubs, with one of them identifying himself as Grim. He had come to WMC a week back, asking for assistance in defending the crossroads from the gnolls. He says they have completely fortified Jub Jubs and that they’ll remember this favor. We bid them goodbye and travel on, eventually arriving at the Bloodeye clan’s settlement.

It seems the entire clan has gathered here, with over a hundred civilians, about 25 warriors and 6 worg riders. Some warriors greet us as we enter and relay the current situation. The several hundred strong gnoll army, with Talos & cultist reinforcements, is camped on nearby hill to north-east. We could go attack them ourselves, but this is dismissed as a foolish notion. We begin digging in and fortifying the camp, believing the gnolls to attack at dawn.

Evening comes and we enjoy a dinner with the hobgoblins. Sounds of drums and gnoll yelps begin to carry over the plains. We begin night watches. I’m on the 1st watch and thankfully the gnolls don’t attack. We wake up the next watch and go to sleep ourselves.

Night 2, Weather: Dark & Foggy
I’m shaken awake in the middle of the night and see the camp abuzz with activity. I summon the armor from my ring just in time to see a light radiating arrow shot out and into the field. Gnoll warcries fill the air, someone blows into a whistle and multiple birds fly around camp. The siege has officially begun.

Volleys of arrows begin flying in from the darkness at the people on the walls. From the north-east, a huge iron pole flies into the camp and pulses with a magic nullifying aura. I run to the center of camp just in time to see Nahil order the civilians around to move the iron pole to the center of camp and away from the walls. General Don yells at me from atop his horse to go help Nahil and the civilians with the pole. I give him a thumbs up.

A quake rocks the camp as something large impacts the north-west wall. Don begins giving a passionate speech, but is interrupted as right in front of him there’s a flash of energy and a blood cultist and a gnoll warrior suddenly appear. I run to help him as Poindexter deftly eviscerates the cultist with a volley of crossbow bolts. Rattled by it’s sudden appearance, both of my arrows miss the gnoll warrior.

Hearing shouts of panic from the south-west, I turn and see another cultist appear, accompanied by a hulking gnoll wielding a jagged greatsword. The brute cleaves hobgoblins and worgs in two and screams in delight, as the horde climbs over the wall and into camp. Seeing the obvious threat, I start running towards the gnoll champion and watch in horror as one the swarms slaughters a group of civilians.

Another quake hits the north-west wall as more of the horde climbs inside. My companions make quick work of the cultist and manage to thin the horde somewhat. A booming explosion rings out from the north-east and I see rising flames from outside the wall. Still looking north-east, I watch another iron pole sail through the air and just barely miss me, embedding itself deep into the earth right next to me. Hitting the ground, it hums to life and pulses out a magic nullifying field. Shortly after, a painfully loud ringing sound erupts from the north-west wall. 

Seeing more swarms of gnolls climb over the south-west wall, I run out of the antimagic field and teleport in front of the horde in a silvery mist. Willing the black eye to open and shine with cold blue light, I unleash a blizzard of freezing energy at the gnolls. My limbs stiffen and freeze over, as majority of the gnolls turn into blocks of ice. Fully expecting them to retaliate, I resign myself to my fate.

Shockingly though, the remaining swarm completely ignores me and instead slaughters some hobgoblin warriors standing nearby. The damn beasts don’t care about us, they just want all of the Bloodeye clan dead.

Sounds of panic carry over from the north-east as something heavy hits the wall on that side. Looking to the north, I watch a ball of fire sail ascross the sky from the north-east to the north-west and incinerate more gnolls. Terrifying. Right after the fire fades a bit, the north-west wall shatters inward as a stone boulder crashes right through it. Another heavy impact hits the north-east wall and shouts of “Fire!” and “Bring water!” start crying out.

Focusing back to my immediate surroundings, the gnoll champion cleaves more and more hobgoblins in two with it’s jagged greatsword. I attempt two sword strikes on it, but it effortlessly parries them with it’s shield. Thankfully my attacks were enough for a distraction, as Abel slashes the beast’s head clean off with a divine strike. Seeing this area being clear for the moment, I dash towards the north-east and see the wall engulfed in flames. 

Folks quickly get to extinguishing the flames, while others on the wall still shoot at something far out in the plains. Suddenly an unnatural darkness washes over the battlefield. After a few moments it dissipates and the people on the wall report that the gnoll forces have disappeared. They retreated, we’ve survived the siege.

Our forces reconvene after the battle and take stock of our losses. Out of the Bloodeye clan, 100 civilians and 13 warrior survived. People are quite pleased with themselves and congratulate each other on managing to stay alive. It is still the middle of night though, so folks quickly return to their watches while the rest of us go back to sleep.

Day 3, Weather: Cool & Clear skies
We wake up in the morning to a scene of carnage, now clearly seeing all the gnolls we killed. People get to searching the bodies whilst others have breakfast and debrief. Someone mentions the birds we saw flying around camp were probably familiars for enemy spellcasters. Another group goes to check out the siege weaponry the gnolls used, but find only ogre tracks leading into the plains. Feeling satisfied, we split up the gathered loot, leave the Bloodeye clan to their reconstruction and head back to WMC.

Signed – Tor

Important notes:

The gnolls have ballistae that can fire iron rods which generate an antimagic field around themselves. Finding these weapons and dealing with them is very important!

The gnolls have allied themselves with an ogre tribe. It seems they’re being used to carry around their siege weaponry. We need to find this ogre village and deal with it.