New week, new adventures and two new characters!

• Noggin (lvl 3), Thorwalian War-Cleric of Swafnir 1012 XP
• La Fleur (lvl 3), human wizard, 2101 XP
• Jalosch (lvl 1), dwarf ranger, 0 XP
• Jang-Chi (lvl 1), human monk, 233 XP

A few things happened in Lowangen while the group was gone:

1. There are rumours about a very important looking person flying the crest of a blue raven was seen confering with the city adminstration
2. The city has put out a bounty on reports for the road to the south, which is plagued by bandits and orcs. Even more bounty for removing any of those bandits or orcs.
3. There was an attempt by the army to seize the orcish watchtower, but the tower was to well fortified and the strike force returned home after only exchanging a couple insults with the orcs.
4. La Fleur found a black wooden plate with the letters ‘RSVP’ engraved when she returned.
5. One of the brewers and his family has been found drowned and robbed.

Both La Fleur and especially Noggin were keen on slaying enemies, and thus decided to go after the goblin cave where the group was defeated during the first session of this campaign.

They gathered a little information, and went to ambush the goblins that were themselves ambushing travellers. They easily found them, and Jalosch snuck on them, while Jang-Chi (unwillingly) distracted them as lonely traveller.

The goblins were surprised, went away screaming, but the group ran them down merciless. With a fury born from desperation, the goblins defended themselves and wounded Jang-Chi (badly) and Noggin (slightly) before they were killed.

The group followed the tracks, which Jalosch could easily read, and found the clearing which lead to the cave. Different than last time, the clearing was adorned with rotten goblin heads on pikes.

Those were the goblins which helped the group against the hobgoblin in session one, and were punished for their mutiny.

Jalosch snuck next to the cave wall behind the cover of some shrubs, to get a view of the cave itself. He was so careful not to be noticed that he failed to find the cleverly laid traps and first fell into a hole before being swung up by a snare.

The goblins left the shrubs there on purpose: Only enemies would attempt to sneak up to the cave, allies would simply follow the well trodden path over the clearing. The shrubs invited enemies to sneak among them, basically funneling them into the trap, which would then expose them for target practice.

Jalosch dangled in the air, losing his dagger in an attempt to free himself. All the while, one goblin took shots at him while another frantically hit a gong to sound an alarm.

Jang-Chi and La Fleur ran to help Jalosch, while Noggin stroud into the middle of the clearing, purposefully drawing the attention of the goblin archers.

I had the player roll a deception check against the goblin’s passive perception (9), which he passed critically. Thus, both archers ignored their orders and concentrated on Noggin instead.

The group returned fire and sought cover, except for Noggin who simply rushed forward. After a little while, a hobgoblin, three wolves and five more goblins came out of the cave, attacking the group at once!

The wolfs tore into La Fleur and Jalosch, who both went down (Jalosch permanently). Jang-Chi killed two of the wolves with H’ruruzat techniques, while La Fleur dispatched the last with point blank magic missiles.

Noggin was standing in the creek right before the goblins and the hobgoblins, and heard the axe calling to him: ‘Release your fury, and wash your enemies away! ’ He did so, and created a giant wave that swept the hobgoblin back into the cave, not to be seen again, but felt exhausted afterwards.

The fight continued badly for the group, in the end, only Jang-Chi was still standing, badly wounded, but with all enemies defeated. Luckily, La Fleur woke a short while later and helped him drag Noggin to safety.

Everything looked like a TPK when Jang-Chi (with very few hit points left) was alone fighting two goblins, but luck was on his side when a hit only reduced him to one hit point, and he finally won. The players of La Fleur, Jalosch and Noggin frantically rolled their death saves, hoping to get on their feet again with a natural twenty, but only La Fleur rolled one, and only after Jang-Chi had already defeated the remaining goblins. Jalosch had bad luck and rolled three consecutive failures, which meant he had bled to death during the fight.

On their last leg (and even without looting the battlefield), the group retreated to Lowangen to lick their wounds.