The Battle of Riverside

June 11, 2020

The group talks more with Rickard and decides to go with him to Riverside.  The next morning, they are heading toward Riverside, talking about it.  Rickard says that what they are doing is technically illegal.

Dio stops.  "What do you mean?"  

"Well," says Rickard, "they are recognized by Ashriver and Kristoff sends patrols out by them.  So, they are citizens.  But they are ghouls and will eventually turn on the people."

"What if they keep eating goblins," asks Rolen.  

"They won't.  The goblins will run out and they will turn to Ashriver," retorts Rickard.  

"What if the goblins don't run out?" replies Rolen back, thickly.  

"They will.  If not by you, some other adventuring party will take them out.  Or they will join up with another and move on.  At some point, they will be gone.  And then what?  The ghouls will attack Ashriver, mark my words," replies Rickard, grimly.  

"How do you know this?" asks Dio.

"I just do."  Rickard stops and turns toward the group.  "Look, when you are sitting there, watching your friends being consumed by ghoul fever and there is nothing you can do about it, we can talk.  If you don't want to come with me, that's fine.  There is no way they don't eventually eat a human and go after a human."  Rickard turns back toward the group and keeps walking.

"Oh, don't get me wrong," replies Rolen.  "Only good goblin and all that.  I just wanted to know how you knew."  

"I was the one that had to kill him, before he completely changed," whispered Rickard.  "I don't want to do that again."  

"I still want the chance to save them," pipes up Dio.  

"And I'm fine with that," says Rickard.  "When it fails, will you be ready to kill them?"  

"Yes."

The group keeps walking toward Riverside.  The day is crisp but as the sun climbs higher into the sky, it promises to warm up.  Soon, they are at Riverside.  Rickard is next to Dio as he goes into the town and talks to their leader, Bradley.  Dio tells Bradley that he wants to help them.  Dio asks if he can cast a ritual.  Bradley says they don't like magic.  Dio says it will help them.  Bradley repeats they don't like magic.  Dio persists and eventually Brad agrees.  

Dio goes to the fire Bradley was at and starts to pray.  Bradley isn't convince but watches.  As Dio continues, Bradley gets more and more agitated.  When the group can feel the power of Moradin rolling off Dio in a wave, Bradley seems to have enough.  He shoots up to his feat and yells for Dio to stop.  Dio keeps going.  

"Stop!" yells Bradley, even more forcibly.  Dio doesn't hear or doesn't listen.  

"Stop!"  This time, Bradley moves toward Dio.  As he does, his skin goes pale grey and purple veins shoot up along his neck, face, arms and legs.  His eyes go blood red and he swings with claws that are now two inches long!  The other villagers that had come to watch seem to undergo the same change and soon it is a fight.  

Gorstag didn't think it would be much of a problem.  Even some hits that weren't as solid as he would have preferred dropped the villagers.  They had no armor to speak of and only these claws to attack.  Then one of the first they dropped got up and attacked again!  That's when the group noticed the ghouls were getting better.  

Rickard yells to form up closer, even as Rolen moved away from the group.  The ghouls from the other side of the river come to join but Gorstag and Dio keep pounding away at them.  Kaji's twin flame strikes also blast several, knocking them down.  However, it doesn't seem to matter.  Whatever they use to knock them down, they get up and keep attacking.  Soon, they can't tell who is healing and who isn't.  The group keeps attacking.  When they finally have a lull, they jump across the bridge.  Rickard had sensed something on the other side and the group goes to investigate.  As they look in the houses, the ghouls slowly recover.  When Bradley recovers, he pulls on necrotic energy and heals many of them, all of whom get up and join him.  They just stare at the group.  

Rolen is the one who finds it.  In the middle of some rubble, he sees the trapdoor.  He opens it up and it drops down fifteen feet into a room not unlike a butcher shop.  Except all the bodies on the table being cut and the meat taken are goblins.  

"I say we burn this," yells Rolen.  At that, the ghouls finally react and come running across the bridge!  The group turns and runs.  The villagers don't purse them beyond a hundred yards away from the village and the group heads back to Ashriver.  

They go tell Kristoff and he seems reluctant to help, even when told what the inhabitants of Riverside are.  Eventually, Kristoff relents and says he will send thirty guards up there to verify it and check it out.  However, he tells the group, the soldiers don't answer to the group.  They are there to stop the spread of the ghouls.  They will listen to the group and take advice but the group isn't in command of them.  The group agrees.

They go talk about what happened and what to do.  Rickard says he hasn't seen anything like this before.  When pushed, he says he's a White Necromancer.  He doesn't say that, compared to just being a wizard, since most don't think much beyond the necromancer part.  Kaji says that he owes them the story of Viktor.  As the group has accepted them into their ranks, he agrees.  

Rickard says that he was stuck in Ashriver in the winter.  Worse thing ever.  Not much to do but sing the same songs or talk about farming.  It was several months ago, he noticed the men coming through.  He figured they were an adventuring group and talked to them to see what he could learn and if they needed someone.  They didn't.  They weren't rude about it but they brushed him off, nonetheless.  When Viktor arrives, at least he assumes it was Viktor since the men that were still there saw him, they all deferred to him.  Rickard thought he might do better with Viktor, so tried to talk to him and Viktor just told him off.  

Well, he was curious, too curious for his own good, and heard them say they were going to get weapons.  The next morning, Rickard used a spell to keep himself invisible and followed the group.  They got weapons all right.  They attacked a caravan coming up from the south.  Rickard doesn't know how they knew it would be there but they did.  They walked in, pretending to be friends and from Ashriver, then attacked with surprise and killed everyone.  The bodies were all put onto one wagon which eventually split off from the rest.  Rickard decided to follow Viktor.  Viktor took his spoils of the fight, crossbows, bolts, daggers, and gave them to goblins.  Twice he stopped and armed goblins with the weapons.  Then he found an orc tribe and gave them the rest.  At this point, Rickard says he had seen enough and he left.  He had already pushed it, as he knew he made noise and Viktor was suspicious but Rickard's invisibility spell had held.  But Rickard was getting a headache from concentrating on it all day and just wanted to be back at the Sleeping Giant.  

When Rickard got back to town, he tried to tell Kristoff but Kristoff didn't know Rickard, or Viktor, or anything about a shipment of weapons.  Kristoff asked Rickard if he had any proof and when Rickard said he didn't, Kristoff said there was nothing to do.  So Rickard went back to waiting.  He did follow up and go see Riverside close, but didn't talk to them, and knew they were ghouls.  He was about to leave to Sundabar and see if someone would help him when the group showed up.  They knew the rest.  

The group then goes to Siobhan and talks to her about options.  She says she has enough brewing for eight potions and they pay her for them.  They ask if she has anything for ghouls and she finds an old protection from undead scroll that she sells them.  She offers to make a tincture that would hide their smell from the ghouls and they get that as well and will pick it up with the potions tomorrow.  

Now they just have to wait until the next day, when the militia is ready to go.  

1000 xp

GM Notes

• Accents were better.  Still a bit off.
• I did a gruff one for Rickard and my voice hurt from that!
• The fight was tough! 
• The ghouls being able to regenerate was only d6 a round but seemed to work well to make them worry. 
• The villagers weren't tough but since the group had limited healing and the ghouls kept regenerating, they soon realized they couldn't win.   
• d20Pro really helped make this fight interesting, because they wouldn't always notice who regenerated or what happened and I thought that added to it. 
• Good discussion afterward, as they got enough xp to advance, of what to spend it on, a feat or ability score increase. 
• Rolls for hit points were disappointing, I think.  

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