Clear Cold Weather Tonight

A great night to sit around the campfire, sharpen weapons, hammer dents out of armor, drink some very nice Elf Wine, and think about tomorrow. Will the giants come looking for us? Should we go back again and try to surprise them? Does Julio take that hat off when he sleeps? Who knows? Who cares? Tune in Saturday at 7 PM EDT and find out! I only just realized that you guys can log in with audio and work things out ear to ear if not strictly face to face. You can also debate using the forums or the email threads. Here is your camp, also is the landing page until this phase is over. Try not to move things around a lot, you can click on the maps & "Z" to view.

Looks like im surrounded

After healing and patching up all who need it, except Ragnar, Kelyn will sit near the fire with Brinely as a back rest and Dammit curled up on her lap. "Well now they know we are here and will be ready for us the next time. And they are probably now out looking for us. I think the biggest problem is the Fire Giants as the Hill Giants are seem to be easily dealt with. I still think our best bet is to thin the ranks as much as possible. Slip something into their food to weaken them. Attack raiding parties. Pick off them off from one by one from afar. I can try to summon more Dire Wolves in the morning. Or I can ask other creatures to be our eyes." To the Rangers: "Do you carry any Milk of the Poppy or other strong medicines? How close are we to town? Can we trade for Milk of the Poppy there?"

Its one thing to be upset with Ragnar about killing the evil magical kitty, but another not to heal him. Unless you plan on being the one who is in the frontlines against these fire giants, because if that's the case Ragnar will gladly sit behind you and use his bow. :) I'd also like to note that its strange actually seeing all of the circles on, makes things much easier to see. I know I can only see a handful of people's circles myself. As for our little setup here in the woods, we had about 20 or 30 people/animals quickly fleeing that Great Moot and into the woods with little to no attempts to cover their tracks. It is almost guaranteed that the Giants will send a force after us so we need to start digging in here if we plan on making our stand. We can use the rocks we found on the Hill Giant's bodies to make barricades of sort to give our missle users some cover from the enemy's rocks or possibly funnel their melee in. I believe we found about 80 of them, so probably enough for two decent sized walls, considering they were giant sized rocks. That being said, we certainly need lookouts around the clock in all directions to make sure they don't get the jump on us. Perhaps our two chimney sweeps can work on setting some traps in the area to the south of the camp to disable or potentially kill a giant or two. Thus far we've killed 23 of the Hill Giants and none of the Fire Giants, which probably leaves a little under 40 Hill Giants alive and around a dozen Fire Giants we have to contest with. Its probably a safe assumption that they'll send about half of their force after us and probably one or two of their guys towards the volcano to inform the Fire Giant King of what is going on, so any element of surprise against them is out the window. As for the Moot itself, assuming we can manage to clear it out I believe we should end up burning it rather than trying to inhabit it as this area is pretty far away from our normal stomping grounds and we don't want to give the giants an easy foothold back into this area once we're gone.

Johnny Fitzgerald Bouvier O'Farrell arrives in camp unexpectedly he brings a box of 10 +1 crossbow bolts for Knuckles and 10 +1 arrows for Fingers. "I never made the connection, Barzini, of course, how many Italian dwarf families could be in Sweden?" "Vlad also sent a large bottle of brandy for Ragnar, and these biscuits for Brinley, Jondo says he has contacted a friend and as soon as his friend gets here will be back in 'space', he did say it could be a couple of years before his friend Captain Harkness can get here." "The news is that Mr. Beria has gone on a clean-up spree, the Cheka have almost cleared the itinerant preachers from the God Quarter and a group of foreigners have been cleaning out the Foreign Quarter, thus far they have killed a beholder and are tracking down some other cultists."

volkrak chimes in "keylyn, you're an amazing woman, that sounds like a much smarter plan, After that whats the game plan? are we going volcano diving?"

It is not just about the cat though Kelyn is angry that an animal life was needlessly wasted. She is also angry that you didn't trust her enough to take care of the cat and bring it to our side after all this time traveling together. And that you waited until the spell was done or nearly done and you not only killed the cat but all injured her. Shortly after the cat was killed, Al sent me an email that said he stepped in as Kelyn and said no more healing for you. I have been continuing that edict. By your own admission on Saturday night, Ragnar is fine and has barely taken any damage during the battle with the giants. Now if the party thinks that Kelyn is taking this too far, she will set aside her current angry to treat and heal Ragnar as she does everyone else. However, she still will get her revenge eventually.

Aside from the issue of the cat, Kelyn thinks that Ragnar is correct. The giants will be coming. They have to know where we are. And if they don't we didn't actually make it that hard to follow us. The rangers and Kelyn might have been able to hide their tracks if they tried but the rest probably not so much. Kelyn agrees that we need to make this camp defensible. Or move to a different location that is more defensible. Once we are in a safer place, we can plan our next steps. Kelyn will welcome Johnny. She hands him a cup of mulled wine as she thanks him for the supplies and news.

Ragnar would have been more than happy to eat the cat afterwards, just saying. He had the stick and fire ready. As far as trusting Kelyn, its not that he didn't trust her its that he doesn't trust magic too much in general. Being a Dwarf makes him skeptical enough as it is when it comes to anything other than Divine magic, then chalk on the fact that he is a Barbarian which makes him doubly more skeptical about magic. A cat that can fire magic missiles,and did so at one of our allies, seemed pretty damn sketchy to him and needed to die, knowing it would probably piss Kelyn off. As far as having split healers goes, its never a good idea. Sure we could tuck Niko behind Ragnar all session and have him exclusively heal when necessary but that puts others at risk and severely limits Niko's usefulness in battle. As we've seen these Fire Giants have a thac0 of 3, which means we're going to be taking alot of steady damage. Ragnar's AC = -6 vs Giants, which gives a Fire Giant a 55% chance to hit Ragnar. Ravi's AC = -2 vs Giants, which gives them a 75% chance to hit Ravi. Volkrak's AC = 0 vs Giants, which gives them a 90% chance to hit Volkrak. Niko is sitting at the same chances as Ravi when it comes to getting hit and the rest of you are guaranteed hits if they swing, unless they fumble. Now Ragnar doesn't think about shit like this so he is going to throw himself at the biggest baddest guy he can find and see who is left standing, but if/when Ragnar falls the party is in some deep shit. So if Kelyn, who has the staff, is unwilling to heal Ragnar, we are most likely going to TPK on Saturday if we're attacked considering there were 11 of them that we know of and a few dozen more Hill Giants. This is also not mentioning the fact that these guys won't go down easily, I don't know for sure how tough they are as we haven't fought one yet but I can only imagine that they have more hp than a Hill Giant and it takes us several hits to bring one of those down. We've had some dangerous fights in the past, but once the big hitters take the field this one is probably going to top the charts.

occ: im not very exp.player but i dont think taying to fight is a good idea i think that we should try and move to a better location maybe spread them out and try to take them on in really small groups also it would help to have someone set traps in the forest so they would have to drift behind a bit maybe even lead the giants into an ambush again i am not an exp player so these are just my thoughts

You don't get xp from running away ;) But yeah you have to think of the time frame this is all happening in, we hit their Moot and killed 23 of them within the matter of like 5 minutes and then did a tactical retreat. They are pissed, but they are also confused as shit right now. They'll likely take some time to bury/burn their dead, however they decide to do it and then they are going to follow our tracks and come for us. Most likely all of them will not come as that'd leave their Moot defenseless which would be fairly stupid... though these are Giants we're talking about so who knows. Regardless, the area we're in now is quite defensible with the proper barricades in place, its likely the Rangers picked this place for their camp for a reason. If there was a more defensible position in the area they would have likely chosen that instead.

Makes sence I still say we should have some traps set up I dont know who is in the party and who is what hence my char just entered as the session ended

Shawn you are one of the characters who can set traps, Rangers, Druids, Thieves, Chimney Sweeps etc. can set traps. I am going to pick up the action just after you arrive at camp, when Johnny Fitzgerald Bouvier O'Farrell shows up, as you are preparing a celebratory meal and preparing to rest for the night. Tiko would have told you that the Giants would likely not come looking for you that night, as they had two fires, and a dead king to contend with...

Kelyn (the druid) should have a few spells that could help. I'll have to check them when I get home tonight since I can't access purpleworm.org at work. She has a new 4th level spell that I can't wait to try...

Shawn, you are doing fine. You'll get the hang of it.

I agree with Tracy, if you're enjoying yourself then don't worry all of the game's rules and such will come in time. 2e is a good edition to start with as it is much simpler rules wise compared to some of the newer editions, and Al is a good DM who puts alot of effort into the campaign. So if you have questions feel free to ask us or him, best bet is via email most of the time or on here, and we'll be happy to help you out. @Tracy 4th level druids have access to some pretty nasty spells, especially in The Complete Druid's Handbook. Earthmaw, for example, would be very effective for getting rid of a Fire Giant. Needlestorm can also pack a nice little punch.

I only have 1 4th level spell at the moment. Those are definitely the two on my list to try.