Director: Dylan Arena
Players: Adrienne Mueller, James Lawton, Ryan Fox Squire, Sean Nittner
System: Draw Steel
It’s been four months since our first session of Draw Steel, and as Dylan put it, jumping back in was like going to the gym, warming up, then waiting four months to do you heavy lifts!
We spent a little time going over the rules. And thanks to Gloryang for making print outs at the table possible, I was able to print out the rules reference so we remembered the effects of getting knocked back, knocked down, and knocked around!
Dylan recapped where we left off, delving in to the tomb to rescue Violet, the daughter of Ashley the blacksmith in Broadhurst. Though the locals thought it might be haunted, so far we had only seen its more recent inhabitants: goblins!
At the start of play we had just defeated the goblins in the room with the large brazier (which we were all pushing each other in the whole fight).
The play is the thing
The room smelled of goblin habitation and Xena realized they had probably only been here for a little over a week (8 days, she was very precise). She also found a pouch with three healing potions, five costmerry leaves, and a recipe in Kalian for creating healing potions. The whole bundle looks as if it had been stolen from someone.
There were frescos on the wall of knights drinking from a chalice and then going off to defeat a demon. We followed the single hallway east and saw a corridor with a recently decapitated goblin as well as frescos of a fallen knight being carried to a hall with the name Delios Heh, that’s where we were!
Saren and Xena suspected the goblin might have been felled by a trap, so Saren with all the grace of a millennia old elf, belly crawled to where the goblin was and search the ground, where found a lose stone, and above a slit on the wall where a scything blade could spring from. He pried the plate up but still recommended that we all bow in deference to the fallen knight. Bow really low.
Red Skull
Inside the next room we saw 10 sarcophagi, five on either side. At the opposite side of the room was the statue of a proud Kalian knight, with spear and shield. In the center of the room, a red skull was painted on the floor and the paint appeared to be burning.
Xena studied the magics and determined it was some kind of summoning or call, but not one that affected her. Hrunk opened his mind and realized the magic was necromantic, and that it could likely be destroyed with holy damage. Preparing for the undead to rise from the sarcophagi, we took a formation at the entrance of the room, and Hrunk cast down a holy light on the sigil.
The flames flickered and the undead stirred! Four ghouls, four skeleton, and two fungal zombies rose! It was time to Draw Steel!
Our strategy of creating a bottleneck didn’t work for three reasons. The first was that the ghouls could jump through our lines, the second was that the skeletons had ranged attacks, and the third was that the zombies had area of effect attacks.
The battle was a difficult one, with us often being knocked down, dazed, and/or weakened. However Hrunk kept us on our feet (literally!) and with judicious use of holy damage, destroyed the sigil causing the animated dead to collapse and return once more to their eternal repose.
Disrupting the Ritual
After the fight, we studied the statue and saw an inscription upon it “Once this fails, the battle is lost”. Behind the statue we heard chanting and realized there must be a secret door here. Mallory expertly followed the lines of the stonework and was able to quietly lift the latch to slide the statue back and reveal stairs down.
We crept down them to the tomb covered by an energy barrier, and many goblins around it chanting. At the far end of the room we saw the girl who could only be violet tied to a statue and white tendrils were coming from her chest as the leader, a massive figure, was completing a ritual. She called out “The Cup of Iulius shall make the legons of Bardnot strong!”
Or you’ll choke on your steel first. It was time to Draw Steel!
Saren opened the battle marking the leader as his target and calling on his allies Mallory and Xena to STRIKE NOW! The unleased potent magics and though the goblins harried us, Hrunk eventually felled the leader with his holy fire! When she fell, the rest fled, and Violet was saved!
Aftermath
Mallory cut Violet down from her bindings and Saren led her out of the tomb to her mother.
We spend some time examining the statues and frescos and found an inscription indicating that only the worthy could pass. From our knowledge of Kalian history, we determined that they were a martial people who honored deeds of valor. One the frescos we saw Iulius depicted wearing the amulet of a Kalian solder and the ring indicating his was a commander.
Finding no such items here, we departed, but not before pulling two rings (which we later learned were Bloodbound Bands)
