LL at Pauls: Contra Los Gigantes

Weeeellllllll, okay.

Here's last week's mayhem report from the Labyrinth Lord campaign.

So when last we left our heroes, we'd befriended an ogre through the agency of Hearth the elf's Charm Person spell.

We proceeded to grill the big dope, with Frog translating from hobgoblin, which was the only language the ogre, who's name was Gug, seemed to understand. He informed us that there were more ogres on the next mountain over, about 12 of 'em. (Actually, we weren't at all sure if this were an accurate number or not, or whether "twelve" was just his go to number when asked for one.) What's worse, they apparently were led by a hill giant named Grag (I think.)

What's even worse, the party up and decided that we were gonna go up and mess with this settlement of big goons. The Deacon reluctantly agreed. While it would be good to clear out this brutish scourge, on the other hand having one's skull reduced to a fine paste isn't a good career move.

So up the mountain we trekked with Gug in the lead. Our doughty dwarf Wormfinder (first name still not recalled) was stoked about getting to hunt down and kill some giants, since slayin' monsters was kind of his deal.

We came to a stop midway up the indicated mountain, and saw a two story stone structure clinging to the side of the mountain, with what looked like a nine foot ogre ducking in thru the door as we crouched behind a boulder.

So we sat down and took stock. We'd slept thru the night, and thus had our spells fully kitted out. Both Hearth and our new mage K-something (again, sorry for my memory lapse) had Charm Person racked, with Mr. K also featuring Sleep. For his part, the Deacon had Hold Person.

So we proceeded to hatch a plan with our big pal Gug, wherein' he'd go up and lure one of his friends down with promises of food that he needed help lugging back to the house. It took a lot of explaining to get this basic idea across, but he nodded and went trundling up the hill, while we all hunkered down and tried to stay out of sight (and rock throwing range)

A few minutes later a total of four ogres came tromping back down the hill.

So much for math.

So the first thing we do is pop up the spellcasters and let fly with Hold Person and two Charm Persons. As a result one ogre froze in his tracks, two smiled and waved, and one raised his club and charged. Which meant that one of the mages' Charm Person spells didn't take.

Kashiim, Frog, and Wormfinder stepped up to take the bellowing brute on. I don't rightly recall the blow by blow, but it was a furious fight, with the home team taking some nasty klunks from the ogre's whuppin' log. We finally finished the big goon off just as Gug and the other ogre, who's name turned out to be Thok, came down to join us, demanding to know. "Why you fight?" as well as "Where food?" We spun a sophisticated deception wherein' the newly dead ogre had eaten it, and I think he bought it. There was not telling what Thok thought, he only spoke ogrish. *shrug*

While this joyous reunion with our "friends" was going on, things kinda took a slide for the alarming up the hill, as 12 feet of mean and b.o. stepped out of the house followed by four more ogres, drawn out by the tumult raging down the hill. They took one look, shouldered their clubs, and came down the hill for a little pancake party.


Nothing quite focus' the mind like several tons of angry, tree trunk wielding muscle bearing down on you, so we sprung into action.

Mr. K fired off his Sleep spell, mercifully sending three of the approaching ogres off to twist the heads off some sheep in dreamland.

Meanwhile, Hearth entreated Gug, through Frog's broken hobgoblinish, to defend us from Grag and his posse, who we told him had stolen the food. (Ah, what a tangled web we weave when we practice the stupid to deceive.)

Initially we had no idea if Thok got the gist or not, but we were much relieved when he and Gug picked up some big rocks and hucked 'em at their former comrades. Apparently Thok was an all star QB at Ogre U, 'cos he spiraled his rock and nailed one of his buddies in the gut for mucho damage.

Finally, their offense crashed into our defensive line, and the battle was joined. We were all dreading the blows of the giant's tree trunk club, which was the fantasy equivalent of getting nuked from orbit. He killed poor Gug in a fit of pique, and laid a whammy on Wormfinder that left the poor guy even shorter than he was.

Meanwhile, the mages took the opportunity to slip up the hillside and punctuate the sentences of the sleeping ogres with their little daggers.

Sensing kind of a theme here...

Things were looking pretty dicey, but we managed somehow to pull out a win. The Deacon had to heal up Wormfinder, and by golly if the little guy wasn't the one who finally took the giant down. (I think that's what happened. It might have been Frog or Half Klint, even. If I'm failing to properly credit who took out the giant, let me know.)

So flush from our victory, the Deacon laid some healing on those who needed it, and we went up to check out the house. I'm not quite recalling what we did with Thok. Maybe he got clubbed, or maybe we sent him for takeout.

Anyway, we checked out the house, and found it mostly busted up and wrecked inside, as one would expect from a crowd of ogres and a hill giant taking up residence. The most notable room was a locked bedchamber that seemed to be untouched. Another one of similar composition, with a bashed in door, was on the other side of the house. Mysteries within mysteries...

Eventually, we sussed out that there was a room on the second floor where the giant probably kept his loot, a double doored affair that was inaccessible because all the floors around it had been caved in. We rigged up a window washer style rope trapeze between two spikes on either side of the expanse of wall, and hauled Half Klint across so he could work his theifly magic on the lock.

Well, that didn't work, but his halfling short guy rage allowed him to just bust the doors open with his tiny (albiet mighty) fists. Inside, we found sacks upon sacks of coins, so we scored big.

And that was where we left off.

It's come to me that Half Klint's player will soon be leaving the group, so overall it was good he ended on a high note. We'll miss ya, amigo!

Thanks again to Paul for running a great game, and thanks to the 10d gamers for getting ourselves into a fight with a bunch of hulking goons. Somehow we made it, so it's all win!