The Tale of Balthazar Blimp : Part I

Part 1 : Dog Day Sunday

The village of Standof is situated in a wide, luxurious valley to the south of the country. Safe from border incursions, a benign local baron, its fertile fields and plentiful wild game mean that it is a place that most people would want to live. However, it can be very boring; not a lot happens in Standof. So, when Balthazar breezed into The Star Inn and offered the choice of eternal boredom, conviction for a variety of petty crimes and misdemeanours, or a life of adventure on the open road, many took him up on the life of adventure (as well as the beers he had on offer).

The weather was warm and a brisk, but leisurely pace meant good ground was covered each day. The journey to Felstad, 500 miles to the north, would take maybe 5 or 6 weeks if the weather held and not too much happened to slow the party's progress.

Five days in, and just under one hundred miles had been covered. The party were feeling good, and this particular day started well, but it would soon take a turn for the worse. The adventuring band was due to stop for a meal at the next village marked on their map - Canisby.

Balthazar called a halt as the village hove into view. Where were the usual noises a small-holding produced? There were no signs of human life, no sounds emanating from any of the animal pens and barns, and no smoke rose from the chimneys of the hovels. The only sign of life was a small cur snuffling at a small bundle in the middle of the path.

 

With horror, Balthazar realised that the bundle was the remains of a small child, in a poor state of decay, being worried by a mangy cur. Upon hearing the approach of the party the small cur snarled and yelped a couple of times. With a series of growls and snarls, two wild dogs bounded over the wooden fence, hunger written all over their mangy, emaciated bodies and saliva slathering from their gaping maws, straight at the wizard and his party.

This spurred Balthazar and his henchmen into action. The wizard advanced upon the two larger dogs, blasting them with an Elemental Ball of flame. The one at the centre of the blast immediately turned to a charred mass but the other kept charging. Dave, following his master's example, launched his own fireball, injuring the second dog. The rest of the soldiers ran to either engage the remaining dogs or to search the buildings for survivors or any left behind trinkets. Bill 2 and Dom were caught by surprise at the ferocity of the wild dogs and were savaged for their carelessness. Dom was severely injured, Bill 2 less so.

 

 

Balthazar, upon seeing that his companions seemed to have everything under control, advanced to the hovel to the left of the path with Ben. They peered inside but found no survivors and nothing of value. The rest of the soldiers carried on attacking the dogs but they proved a bit more troublesome than anticipated. Ted and Bill 2 struck down their adversary, but the fire-injured cur fighting Bill and Dom managed to finish off the already badly injured Dom with a savage snap of its jaws. At the other side of the hamlet Dec, Ant and Dick checked out the barn but were unable to find signs of any survivors. However, they did manage to find a small sack that might contain something of value.

The two wizards thought that the fight was totally under control, so decided to leave the village as soon as possible to check the treasure that was found on the child's body. Unfortunately, behind them the old kennels spawned more ill-favoured canines. A real fight was now on the cards.

As the wizards left the village, the rest of the warband fought for their lives against an ever growing number of wild dogs. Bill tried to carry the limp form of Dom after his masters so that his body would not be ravaged by the incensed hounds.

 

The melee swirled, sometimes the men had the upper hand and at other times the dogs, but eventually steel (a couple of well-timed critical hits) played out tougher than jaws and the final dog was put to death, but not before Dick fell to the savage beasts.

The remaining adventurers picked up the limp forms of their two downed comrades and left the doomed village behind. They finally caught up with their masters in a glade half-a-mile further along the road. A fire had been lit, water gathered from a small stream was boiling in a pot, and sleeping pallets were put down for those in need of rest.

Balthazar and Dave attended to their comrades; Dick, although quite severely savaged, his blood loss made his injuries look a lot worse than they actually were, would feel much better after a hot meal and a good night's rest (rolled Full Recovery). Dom, on the other hand picked up a few more injuries that needed some basic field work. He would need to take things easy for a short while (rolled Badly Injured, so will miss the next scenario), but the problem was it would slow the party's progress.

After everyone had been checked over and placed at ease, Balthazar examined the two treasures that had been found in the village. On the body of the child was a small satchel which contained a Grimoire, 80 Gold Crowns and a few trinkets. The sack found in the barn contained two potions, 40 GCs and a handful of silver and copper coins. The trinkets and small change were rapidly dealt out to the adventurers with hearty thanks and the two wizards set about working out what else they had found.

It took several hours, but eventually Balthazar and Dave found that they were now the proud owners of 120 GC, a Potion of Invisibility, a Greater Potion of Shrinking and a Grimoire that contained details of architecture and methods of construction, and how to prematurely age buildings and stonework by using the arcane sigils of the Chronomancer spell Crumble that was written in archaic script within the hefty tome.

Experience:-

Wizard participation = 40 XP 

2 spells successfully cast = 20 XP

2 Treasure Tokens secured = 80 XP

11 dogs killed = 50 XP (maximum allowed is 50 XP no matter how many killed)

Total = 190 XP 

 

This was my first game of Frostgrave. You can see how I built the warband in previous posts but I thought I would also summarise how I came up with the scenario idea and how it panned out. I do not have much in the way of scenery or critters to fight against in my collection, so I went with what I already own - I will add to these as time goes on.

As a result of the lack of resources, the scenario was fought in a non-snowy environment - the warband are on their way to Felstad - so I could use the few items of scenery I have. The opponents needed to be something quite simple to control but also something I have in my painted miniatures collection; cue the wild dogs. As this was a test scenario, I thought I should reduce the number of treasures to two, the central one that was to be found on the body in the centre of the board and another one that would be found as a result of a dice roll (there were four areas to search; the first area would contain a treasure on the roll of a 6 on a d6, the second area would contain a treasure on the roll of a 5 or 6, the third on a 4,5 or 6 and the fourth and final area would contain it automatically if not already found).

For the adversaries, I started the scenario off with just the one cur in the middle of the board, basically guarding the main treasure. Each turn, in the Creature Phase, I rolled a d6 and consulted the following list - 1-3 = no dogs, 4-5 = 1 dog, 6 = 2 dogs. If a 6 is rolled, on a further roll of a 5 or 6 then an additional dog arrives; i.e. if a 6 is rolled, followed by a further 5 or 6 means 3 dogs arrive. Each subsequent 5 or 6 also adds an additonal dog, so the number arriving can be quite high if the dice rolls go against you - I rolled up on one occasion during this game and on a couple of occasions rolled for no dogs arriving.

As the journey progresses, Balthazar and his band will encounter more adversaries. To facilitate this, I just roll a d6 per campaign day to see if there is an encounter. On a 6, then there is a scenario to come. This will require some thought each time a 6 is rolled - what miniatures do I have, how can I proxy if I have certain minatures but those particular critters do not appear in the Bestiary?

I am going to make the journey 500 miles (as stated in the preamble blurb above). If the going is good, then Balthazar's band will cover 20 miles per day. If any Bad Injuries are in action, then this will slow the pace by 2 miles per day per person. So, the results of this encounter reduce the mileage by 2 miles for each day until the next encounter is out of the way (by that time, Dom is deeemed healed). Even though the warband lost half a day's travel due to the encounter, it is assumed that each subsequent day will be taking that into account.

Anyway, enough for one day's gaming. I will sort out how to spend the experience points and divvy up the treasures over the next day or two and update the spreadsheet. Hopefully I can get a few more games played over the next few weeks in order to familiarise myself with the rules more and to use my dusty miniatures collection.