Immersive Ink

Highbough will join the scouting party. He wants to find out what happened here; this aggression will not stand!

Another thing we should consider is cleaning up the cooked mule campsite. We don't want the goblins to find evidence of a (relatively) large group of people camping within a day's march of Ket.

FYI -- Ket is a frontier town; a wilderness outpost.

The interior of the Kingdom is to the north of Ket, with at least two other centers shown on your map. There is Maine -- a city of Men -- and also the Wood Elf town in Wildwood. Both are a week or more away to the north of Ket, and you would have to take the Hinterlands road to get there (or go overland). The very road that the merchants of Ket have been complaining is being harried and blockaded by Hobgoblins.

South of Ket is the Great Forest that separates the Kingdom from foreign lands (these are not shown on your map). There is a merchant road that passes through the Great Forest and connects Xanadu, and other far flung places, to the Kingdom via Ket. It is (or rather was) a modestly used trade route, but nowadays that traffic has all but dried up. Ket is isolated by distance, and now also by the Hobgoblins.

mgtremaine wrote:Remember ways let slip that he never thought the party would stay in Ket so long and they have not even gotten into the Hinterlands

That's true, but I only meant that the party hasn't visited the dungeon I had pre-prepared for the start of the campaign. "The Hinterlands" are just the hills and mountains north-west of Ket through which the trade road passes. You've explored numerous places in the surrounding low-lands, and now the Abbey in the Hinterlands proper, too. But it really doesn't matter; the game may have gone in unanticipated directions, but that has worked out for the best

In any case, since nobody has really "taken it up" with the Hobgoblins, they've been free to hatch and develop their own plans... enjoy

Eris wrote:

mgtremaine wrote:ooc: Tactical retreat...

Wen would frown. "Well this is tight spot indeed. Do we know of other ways into the City? Are there by chance underground tunnels? At the very least we might be able to send a message to the sister's or sneak a few of us in to see them."

"When we left town, a hobbit followed us." says Olaf, "He came out of Ket by some way other than the gates."

"If he can come out, we could go in." Olaf says grimly

OOC: Don't remember who it was, but someone did...

That would be Rufus -- lone survivor of the concourse catacombs.

verhaden wrote:That would be Rufus -- lone survivor of the concourse catacombs.

Yes indeed. Rufus' player is away of vacation for a while, so I will NPC him for now...

Eris wrote:OOC: Olaf's problem is that he is stuck at Level 2 until he gets the Mother Superior to do the "Remove whatever" on him. He's got the XP to go up levels, but no way to use them...I don't think.

Olaf was drained of his 3rd and 2nd levels.
Then he got his 2nd level back.
So he is currently drained of his 3rd level (a deep, cold wound that still pains him even now).

I think he's okay to advance normally (from his setback position) by accumulation of additional XP. If he happens to reach 3rd level again so be it. Receiving the second Holy Absolution would still restore all the lost XP to him, regardless of how many XP he has at the time that event occurs.

waysoftheearth wrote: If he happens to reach 3rd level again so be it. .

Says the DM who just blew up our town

mgtremaine wrote:Says the DM who just blew up our town

Hey, the town is perfectly intact


Besides... did you guys think all these Hobgoblins were just going to sit around waiting for you to come kick down their door? No Sir, these hobs have ambitions!

We definitely need to come up with a pretty solid plan since brute force is not going get us into Ket. I figured Torben knows the area best so that why he should lead the distraction team. Wen has the right spells for this if he uses The Eerie Lambent and The Irascible Leer to create lights and small fires to make it appear as if a large force is moving into the area. The trick is we need and exit strategy that will baffle the Wargs and not let them track us back to the Ruins.

Highbough and his Cloak would be useful but not sure if it ready to use again. The team that goes in should all be members that are sneaky and OR can really benefit from leveling up. It sort of Meta to think that but whoever goes in should spend the night and gain their Level. I suggested Olaf because maybe the Sisters will relent given the situation and cast the spell now.

If we pull that off we should have more intel to come up with some sort of plan to try and dislodge the hobs. But one step at a time.

Just playing devil's advocate here but do we really care about the hobs sacking Ket? It's the sort of thing dealt with by armies, not bands of adventurers.

I don't know, maybe Dorgan will feel differently if he gets a good night's rest in a bed and wakes up a Hero!