Scourge of the Howling Horde

Barrow's Edge

The frontier town of Barrow's Edge has put out the call for adventurers, requesting help and promising reward. Elred Vanjyre, an elf Rogue (Martin), Hank Ironhelm, a dwarf Monk (Adam), Lefrasa Dankil, a dwarf Cleric (Gill) and Truldan, a gnome Barbarian (Keith), answered the call.

Making their way along a long dusty road in the Good Hills of eastern Keoland, the Party had left the town of Kingsholm behind the day before. They were a day or so out from their destination, the village Barrows Edge, when they suddenly heard the sound of battle ahead of them. As they crested a rise in the road they could see a fight raging ahead. A merchant's wagon lay on it's side, it's horses dead or scattered. Several elves and goblins lay dead, while a few continue to battle. As Truldan and Hank charged forward, the last of the wagon's elven defenders fell, leaving the surviving goblins free to turn their attention to the newcomers. A flight of javelins headed towards them as Elred fired back with his longbow and Lefrasa moved in ready to assist. Fortunately the goblin assailants were made short work of and the cleric was able to move in and stabilise the two surviving elves on the ground. Elred was searching the goblin bodies for loot, slim pickings indeed, when he noticed a frightened halfling peering out at him from behind a barrel in the overturned wagon.

The halfling introduced herself as Sten Goodseller, a merchant returning to Barrow's Edge from a trip to the neaest town, Kingsholm, to restock. She asked the Party to help get her wagon back upright and then, instructing that they load the surviving guards in the back she went off to try and track down the surviving horses. While Lefrasa tended to the wounded, Elred insisted that the other two slain elves be loaded as well and returned for proper funeral rites. By the time Sten returned with two horses, the wagon was more or less in order. Fearing another attack she asked the Party to act as guards and escort the wagon back to Barrow's Edge for which she would offer them 100gp worth of credit at her store. As they were heading that way anyway the Party readily agreed.

Goblins attack

They camped that night near a stream, and given the threat from the goblins, set up a watch. Hank was on third watch when he thought he heard something moving towards them through the undergrowth.

Peering around with his darkvision he spotted a goblin, accompanied by a wolf, moving stealthily towards the camp. Shouting a warning to wake his friends the monk charged forwards targeting the wolf, just as the goblin cast an entangle spell on the area he had just left.

As his companions struggled out of sleep and in Truldan's case, struggled with the plants entangling him, battle was joined. Lefrasa spotted another two goblins sneaking in from the south and moved to engage them while Elred clambered on the the wagon and began firing his longbow. The battle was soon over, though Hank was wounded, requiring urgent healing from Lefrasa to stave off an untimely death. Elred searched the body of the goblin who has cast the spell and recovered a scroll and two wands as well as some coin. Lefrasa used read magic to determine the scroll to be one of charm animal, but no one had any ability to work out what the wands might be for.

The rest of the night passed peacefully, and they set off once more for Barrow's Edge, arriving mid morning. After Sten unloaded the wagon at the rear of her shop, the surviving guards and the bodies were delivered into the care of the local cleric Listra. When asked about the call for help that the village had issued, Listra advised them to speak to Mallie,who was the local innkeeper, and what passed for mayor in the town.

The Barrow's Edge Inn, proved to be an oasis of warmth and comfort following their recent privations on the trail. The beer was excellent and the food plentiful, good and wholesome. The innkeeper, the woman called Mallie, proved to be an eminently capable and organised and she, and a dwarf she introduced as Arvel, explained the problem to the Party. Something had recently stirred-up the local goblin tribes who had been quiet for years and they had started attacking outlying farmsteads and travellers on the road. They had not attacked the town itself as yet, but she felt it was only a matter of time. As the town had no militia or guards, she and Arvel had put up a reward of 500gp and sent the word out for adventurers. The mission was simple, defend Barrow's Edge, find the goblins and put a stop to the attacks. The Party spent the rest of that afternoon wandering the village though it didn't take long. Lefrasa canvassed opinions from the locals on the latest goblin attacks. Elred took the wands to a local magic user, Thamior, leaving them, and 20gp, for him to attempt to discern their purpose. Hank and Truldan meanwhile enjoyed the hospitality of the inn, the barbarian trading his 100gp credit line at Sten's for 50gp behind the bar!

Next morning they set out searching the surrounding countryside for clues. Fortunately Truldan had some rudimentary tracking ability and after several hours of initially somewhat aimless wandering about, they followed a well-worn path which led up to a cave in the hillside, each of them with the sure feeling the they were being watched. As they neared the cave, Hank switched to darkvision and saw two goblins and a guard dog hiding in the darkness. Calling a warning to the others he charged forward to attack. The sentries were quickly despatched and the Party deployed into the caves, Elred lighting a torch for those without darkvision. They moved forward through a guardroom, killing the four goblins playing cards there. Pausing only to retrieve the cash from the table, the Party moved on though a tunnel to a wide corridor of worked stone where another two goblins who had the misfortune to wander towards them, were swiftly dealt with.

The Desecrated Shrine

Heading deeper into the complex the Party found what had once been a shrine of Moradin that had been desecrated and rededicated to the goblin deity Maglubiyet. In a secret compartment hidden in the altar, Elred found some fine dwarven weapons and a Holy Symbol of Moradin as well as some potions and documents. Lefrassa, claimed the armour and holy symbol and quickly reading through the documents advised that this had been a dwarven outpost set up either to protect something far below from intruders from the outside, or to protect the outside world from something lurking in the depths - it wasn't very clear. Elred also found, clearing away some rubble, what Lefrassa identified as a healing font, of which the injured members of the Party availed themselves readily.

Outside the shrine there was a tunnel leading downwards which the were about to go down when Hank spotted a curtained-off piece of wall across the way and decided that looked more interesting. Interesting it was, being the quarters of the goblin tribe's shaman - unfortunately for the Party it was protected by a nasty inflict light wounds trap that kept resetting and a hobgoblin zombie and skeleton. True to form Hank charged in and went down in a blaze of glory, requiring healing from Lefrassa once the undead were dealt with. Searching the room they found some potions and more interestingly some notes, written in goblin, lamenting the arrival of the "black dragon" and its impact on the tribe.

After this the Party decided they were too beat-up to continue and headed back to Barrow's Edge, to rest or in Truldan's case to drink! Before heading to the inn, Elred went to see Thamior where he traded the wand which he had left yesterday, which Thamior waid was a wand of longstrider, for identification of the potions they had collected. They spent a couple of days in the village resting and recuperating where they met Wilf Bundecup, a gnome wzard who had heardof Barrow's Edge call for adventureres, Wilf happily joined up with them before once more heading out to the goblin lair.

On arrival, the goblins had set up a pretty ineffectual ambush that was swiftly dealt with and they headed deeper into the complex, this time stopping outside a door that had the words "Big Bronk's room". Big Bronk turned out to be a hobgoblin, who proved a minor trouble before being despatched to meet his maker. While he searched the room, Elred's elven senses detected a secret door which led to a short corridor. Truldan was volunteered to go through the door at the end first, finding himself in what looked like a goblin barracks where there were four surprised looking goblins. In short order the goblin's were engaged and quickly slaughtered. While Elred searched the room, Hank took up position at a door in the eastern wall, while Truldan wandered off up a corridor at the far end where he could hear noises.

The noise, it turned out, came from two hobgoblins who seemed eager for a fight. Truldan was equally eager to oblige them, though it proved a poor choice as he rapidly hit the ground unconscious and dying! Fortunately his friends rallied round - save Hank who kept a wary eye on the door he was guarding. Elred and Lefrassa managed to despatch the hobgoblins freeing Lefrassa to heal Truldan, who had fortunately stabilised. They barely had time to catch their breath when another, larger, hobgoblin came thundering up the stairs to the north and charged into the room!

The Dragon in her Den

As Truldan and Lefrassa moved to intercept this new threat, Elred fired from his tabletop position, but his aim seemed to have gone awry! As had Truldan's who kept missing the hobgoblin as he and Lefrassa traded blows. Meanwhile back in the barracks the door that Hank was guarding remained stubbornly shut - however four goblins charged in from elsewhere in the complex and attacked. Wilf, fired his crossbow hitting one, before Hank took out two others with flurries of blows, before doing down hard. One of the goblins scampered to the room where the others were fighting, but a bolt from Wilf soon stopped that - just as Truldan finally connected a blow with the hobgoblin leader and killed him!. The last surviving goblin, ran through the door Hank had been guarding ad returned with a female hobgoblin, a wizard, who just had time to cast a magic missile at Wilf before the others riposte of a colour spray took her out! While Wilf administered a coup de grace to the unconscious wizard, Lefrassa arrived to heal Hank. They searched the area and bodies, after Lefrassa paused to destroy a shrieker near the wizard's quarters recovering some loot including more potions of cure light wounds which came in handy to heal the wounded.

After a brief debate as what to do next, and a visit to the healing shrine, they went to the kitchens, but the door had been barred and blocked, so headed towards the tunnel near the shrine, where they met and dispatched a monstrous spider that nearly killed Hank. They headed back to the kitchen where Truldan made short work of the door with the battleaxe he had taken from the hobgoblin chief. Someone had piled furniture behind the door, Noak

Hank began clearing it, only for the others to clamber over it, whereupon they were attacked by a dire weasel, that proved briefly troublesome. The found the goblin cook hiding in the pantry and Truldan and Hank made short work of him! As he searched the larder, Elred fell foul of a lesser grey ooze and fled, leaving the others to finish it off, Hanks fists doing the job nicely.

After another visit to the shrine, for those who hadn't availed themselves today, they made their way back towards the hobgoblin chief's room, where they found a chest under his bed which Elred totally failed to pick the lock on. Truldan's new battleaxe proved an able alternative though, and they recovered a goodly proportion of loot. Leading out of this room was large set of barred double doors, scrawled in goblin on the doors was several messages the gist of which was -"bad dragon -eat goblins - go away!" Unable to resist such an invitation they removed the bars an headed in, Elred tossing a torch in before them to give some light. When they entered a line of acid spat out of the darkness hitting Elred and Truldan,. Wilf cast dancing lights, which helped identify their foe - tiny black dragon that flitted about shouting at them in draconic! The Party moved into to attack while the dragon flitted about, occasionally pausing to attack one or other of them or use it's breath weapon. Finally another colour spray from Wilf rendered it more or less helpless which allowed everyone to gather round and beat the poor benighted creature to death!