RED OAK: ARCHIVE

[Longman]

Stop fretting about HP tallies!

Action happened on Sunday night and she didn't get one back as I said. You retreat on Monday to a patch of woodland halfway to Hemmer and she gets 2 back overnight. Tiana writes her letter.

On Tuesday morning, it becomes apparent that all Freya's poison damage is gone and she is on 15.

You don't know about the poison. You do think it probably would have killed Anna, Wen, or Tiana. Two hits would kill the tougher members. It's bad. But not as bad as your own wyvern venom which can kill in minutes.

As for Wen - nothing in, nothing out. He's not decomposing, or breathing, and he hasn't soiled himself. He looks exactly the same as when it happened. Tiana has no idea what magic could have done this. Certainly no elvish spell that she knows could have done it.

It's Tuesday AM, still muggy.

[Woe]

It was simply a "two plus two" question.

On the poison, I suppose that's good news. Of sorts. Now all the party has to do is avoid getting hit. Or Kilian/Talin will need to jump in front and take the arrow for the weaker members. Better to not get shot. Tiana starts meditating how to stir up enough wind to make missile fire inconceivable (gust of wind = fifth level spell; I'm not expecting a positive outcome).

On Wen, that's bad news. Who brought Anna down from Red Oak? If the driver is trustworthy and still around, let's bundle up Wen and take him back to Red Oak where he will be safer, and see what Ember comes up with.

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Alrighty, let's try this again but this time as a day assault where the humans will be of better use. Hopefully the villains were working all night and are tired as well. Who's in? Bruce, Caradoc, Coll, Anna plus the four stalwart adventurers? And of course, Kilian will give Tiana the miniature trebuchet that he's been working on all night. If she can do nets and coracles, he's hopeful that she'll be able to do the same with the trebuchet.

[Longman]

Tuesday Aug 12, Muggy.

You can send Wen back, no probs. To make this easier, I'm also saying that your original driver Danys has been ferrying people up and down and is still in town. He picks you up on Tuesday and drives you back into CD, before taking the hapless wen back to RO.

"What the hellz as happened to him then?" he says. "It's not going to catching onto me, is it now?"

I'll leave you to deal with that bit of role play before you get started on the day raid. The four of you plus 2 second level rangers. But, what are you going to do?

Incidentally - the two new 1st level spells that Tiana learned. What were they? She can cast them now, you know. I can't see them on her sheet. If she has learned 'token object', a crossbow is not out of he question. But with that particular spell, once she has chosen, she can only ever enlarge that object with it.

[Woe]

Oh! I thought Tiana was almost level 3, not actually level 3. The other two level one spells would be steer missile and knock (here is the last on that thread).

The plan... is not very well thought-out. I'm thinking a frontal assault with bows blazing, which is great for a western and not so great keeping people alive. Need a bit more time on it.

"No Danys, it's not catching unless you get pricked by the same nasty poisonbush that he was. The elves call it toxy...toxico... oh I give up. Ask the elves if you want to know the name. It's a mouthful to say, and in elvish too. I guess what happens is the plant paralyzes the person. He can't move, but he can hear everything we say. Which means, try to be nice to him because when he recovers, he'll be pretty angry if he has new bruises."

Freya comes over, just in case Danys wants to hear the elvish name (I'm assuming no and he's not totally comfortable around the elves yet). "Master Danys, can you mail this to Brant while you're in Red Oak?"

[Woe]

And now, the battle plan. Kilian will do the main planning, but would love to get Talin's and Caradoc's feedback.

During the discussion, Caradoc suggests that instead of raiding the workshop, instead ambush the pair of frequent travelers leaving the area and heading into the forest (never to be seen again). Kilian concurs, and that's the new plan. I assume that the group has enough knowledge of the leavings to know the general path, general timeline, general frequency. Freya and the rangers will look for good ambush opportunities on the known trails that the villains take as well as any tracks that are both on and near the trail.

[Longman]

Hold up. When I said...

There seem to be lots of these bandit people, nearly all male, and they are always heading off into the woods in twos or threes and then being slowly replaced from further south.

You're imagining a much more regular pattern of arrivals and departures than what I tried to describe in that post.

Two Nisha / bandits left into the forest last week. Arby came up from Bowen. It now also looks like a group of Nisha returned from the forest on Sunday night. You have also seen several small parties of Nisha in the woods, and one larger one that ambushed you. All of these seem to have come originally from CD or Bowen.

Knowing all that is not the same as thinking that if you wait in the woods a few days, two of them will come by, like clockwork.

I assume that the group has enough knowledge of the leavings to know the general path, general timeline, general frequency

Sorry, you have no such knowledge. A good guess is that they send missions into the woods about once a month. As for the path they take, it seems to vary all the time. In CD, all you know is the place they decided to come back out of the woods, near the cottage.

BTW - I just realised I have been not been keeping track of the moon. It was full moon on Sunday night - the night Freya got shot. It was very cloudy and you could hardly see it.

What's your plan now? Still scratching around in the woods looking for likely trails?

[Woe]

Oh. In that case, Caradoc's idea was even worse than the frontal assault idea.

Let's start with a very early stakeout, about 6am. How far away is the burned ruin from the house/abandoned building? What's left of the abandoned building, other than town? I'm looking for a few places to stage archers.

Here's my problem: I don't have a casus belli. Without that, I'm a bit adverse to shooting townfolk just because they're suspected nisha. I am coming up with a bad plan, which is better than none at all. Unfortunately, my bad plan works best at night, and the party works poorly at night. More thought required. I think I can tweak it, but still need to work out some details.

[Woe]

Here's the bad plan, as loosely detailed as it is right now. Mage hand a scarecrow, dress a cloak on it, and have it skulk through the area southeast of the workshop. That should flush out some interest from the varmits, which the archers can then take down.

As you can see, I definitely need to work on this more.

[Longman]

Casus beli. Hmmm. The whole issue of who started it is a bit confused. A sole nisha did attack you when he thought were an easy target. After that, you have mostly been the aggressors when you met them in the woods. Except when they tried to ambush you...and also, when they shot an innocent women doing her shopping just because she knew you.

But then, you did kill a bunch of them at the Caleydore stand...and they haven't killed any of you at all, yet.

The other factor is, they are bandits and have robbed a lot of folk in the last few years, and killed a few as well.

Caradoc (possibly channeling some DM wisdom) says: "Look, if these folks got anything to hide they would have hidden it by now. And I'm guessing if there was something in those backpacks, it's long gone. Maybe it's best if you have a look around in the woods close up to CD and explore some more of the area. Maybe you can work out where they are going? Me and Coll can keep an eye on the town."

If you want to go for an attack on the cottage at 6am you'll have to wait til Wed. And mage hand the cantrip is nowhere near powerful enough to animate a scarecrow! But animate object is...you'd have to be about 80' away, though.

(one more tip - did I mention the cottage has a thatched roof? I think I did.)

[Woe]

Nah, every time they attacked first with the sole exception of the night of the full moon. By then, I'll claim that they had already established their intent. The problem isn't the nisha though. It's the innocent townsfolk. I need a "verify nisha" spell.

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Dang, Caradoc is right. This group is just terrible at in-town investigation. I think I know where they are going though: Widow's Peak, or the ominously labeled hex at M20. Tiana considers stopping at the hedge wizard's place to leave a note about current events -- both the nisha as well as the watchtower -- but decides against it.

They'll plan for a short sweep of the area, everything two hexes away from CD to start. 2 EP each, so that'd be two hexes/day or about four days for the eastern side.