So the game started out as my character Khaazra the Dragonblooded, Salvarion the favored of Tylona, and Squee the goblin were headed out of the Desert of Desolation town of Jezail towards the town of Wildgate, to investigate a series of goblin raids.
Another fun thing we did for this campaign is Joel had picked up those Campaign Coins at GenCon.
Along the way there, we encountered a few riders in the dangerous wilderness areas in the forest. These weren't combat encounters, so we picked up rumors and directions from a few of the riders we met. They warned us that the forest got a lot more dangerous at night.
After a few miles it turned to dusk, and we came across a farmer and his son crossing by cart... we could just see them in the distance, about 100' ahead. By this time we were on the battlemap.
And just then the goblins attacked. They were mounted on dire bats, throwing barbed javelins connected to tethers. They started out by attacking the farmer and son on the cart.
We charged forward, and I found out I was a bit slow, because I had to spend an action casting shield (not wanting to waste one of my two scrolls of mage armor just yet). Luckily the goblin barbarian (Squee) crossed the space quickly, and the favored soul (Salvarion) managed to lay down some fire from his crossbow as he was moving.
Squee reached the fight first, where the farmer had already been impaled twice. The farmer was a little disturbed by yet another goblin on foot moving up to try and cut the tethers, but these guys were all glad to see us when they saw Salvarion. So anyhow, the farmer is cut free by Squee. The goblins circle again and impale the son this time, bringing him down to 0 hp.
Around this time, Salvarion managed to crit one of the goblins that had the kid impaled, knocking him off his bat. The goblin dropped another 20' to the ground. His bat flies off.
I reached the fight second, and grabbed the rope, trying to yank the goblin off his mount. I had a great strength advantage, but I managed to roll really low.
The goblins circled again, and switched targets from the helpess civilians to us, which we shrugged off. They were almost out of javelins by this time. My character cut the kid free and tried to stabilize him until Salvarion could get there (I failed on that one). Salvarion kept up covering fire with crossbow bolts.
Squee yelled out "They can't take us on the ground.. " and pushed the vulnerable civilians under the cart. He then managed to stabilize the kid (who was down to -3 at that point). Squee than yelled out a challenge to the goblins, taunting them.
Khazraa nodded and took up a position on top of the cart. He powered up Fist of Stone.
Salvarion finally got there, firing another crossbow bolt. He saw that the kid had stabilized, so he yelled out that he wouldn't use any healing on him until we had either killed or driven off the goblins.
The goblins circled one more time atop their mounts, and then flew off.
So that was out first encounter.
After that we talked to the farmer and escorted them the final few miles to Wildgate. We learned more about the goblin raids, and heard other rumors connected to their lair, the goblinspire.
Back in Wildgate, Joel had the idea to try out one othe games he had bought at GenCon- a little quickplay strategy game called '
Gnome Crystals'. So when we hit the tavern there- we picked up more rumors, and ultimately got involved in a betting game of Gnome Crystals.
Also, we used the Campaign Coins! I only had around 5 gold left, but I happily threw some coins in, and we even made a few side bets throughout the game. Joel took on the role of a wily gnome proprieter. Anyhow, my character won that game which was fun. It was cool throwing coins in and making side bets with little stacks of coins.
So after I doubled my money, I wasted about half of it getting us accomodations, and Salvarion blew all of his remaining gold on ale for gathering clues. Squee saved his.
The next day, we investigated some more rumors in town and interviewed a few NPCs. We heard about a shrine to a local legendary thief, which I visited (and Salvarion desecrated as soon as I turned around).
Then we headed off to the Goblinspire itself.
(continued next post)