The Story is About   +  GAME

Last Stand of Tyrurk

Saturday night I was able to run Last Stand of Tyrurk for my group. The following is a brief actual play report and contains spoilers… so don’t read if you are planning on playing in it.

There were 4 players besides myself, and they chose to play a War Priest, Medic, Bombardier, and an Infiltrator.

Game play started at the Burning Beard and Gimbol outlined the mission ahead. Afterwards, the players set about the village procuring a month’s worth of supplies and provisions using the cover story that the War Priest was on a pilgrimage to the Pit of Gremot to see where one of the Dwarven Gods smote a Goblin God.

They left town and headed East for three days before turning south. The got a little lost along the way and it took them 2 weeks to reach the Dire Peaks. Amazingly, they had but one encounter this whole time (3 Grawblins) but chose to avoid them.
At the mountains, the characters got seriously lost and wandered for 9 days before finding Ulfbet. Again, a miraculous amount of rolls had them encountering only one herd of game animals which they used to replenish food stuffs, and nothing else.

The characters circled the valley for a couple of days doing recon and 1) spotted various Goblin patrols, 2) Figured out that Goblins avoided a certain ruin (the area with the Plague Rats), and 3) Found the Observation Post. The players decided, before anything else happened, to ambush the Goblin Wolf-rider they had seen so they could question him.

A brief fight, one dead wolf, a captured goblin, and no characters injured. After questioning, the players learned of the Plague Rats, that the Goblins had no idea about the Observation Post, and that the name of the leader in Ulfbet was a hobgoblin named Krunit who had a powerful weapon…which the players assumed must be Sylkyr. Deciding to add some tension outside of the written adventure, I added a large goblin stronghold up the river where this wolf rider came from. They dispatched the goblin and made for the Outpost knowing they were under the clock now that they might have a day before someone came looking for the overdue patrol.

At the Outpost, they were lucky enough to spot the Rock Dragon, but not knowing what it was decided to “poke it”. It let loose a flame jet which knocked 3 characters down a die, before the Infiltrator striking from the shadows dispatched it. They set up camp, dropped their extra supplies and headed back to the Fort to investigate at night.

The infiltrator spotted the Fell Spider keeping watch at night, and sneaking, found the secret door. He went around to the front to check on the gate, when the War Priest decided he wanted to sneak to the secret door but failed. The Spider spotted him and came on the attack. The infiltrator came back to help, but the fight was saved by the Bombardier who lobbed alchemical (Napalm) fire at the spider and killed it. The War Priest was injured again. The fort started emptying of Goblins to see what was going on, and the characters all snuck into the secret door.

Inside, they found Sylkyr and then wondered what powerful weapon Krunit must have? They came up into the smithy and closed the gate behind the goblins who started trying to break back inside. The Bombardier lobbed bombs through the three main doors on the home. Krunit soon emerged and a big fight ensued. Krunit died a horrible death with a few injuries for the players. Everyone went inside. The characters found the prisoners and Krunit’s room, taking some of the wealth, but decided to leave what they could not readily carry. The managed to avoid the Grawblins. The Bombardier blasted everyone at the gate from above in a tower, clearing the path and reducing the fort to a few Goblin stragglers who they let live to tell the story of what happened.

The characters fled back to the outpost, grabbed their gear and made a run for it before the Goblins up the river found out what happened.

Since it was late at this point in the game night, I wrapped things up by simply saying they managed to make it back to Tomsol by avoiding encounters. Game Over.

Observations: 1) The players appeared to have a fantastic time and the one other RPG veteran in our group (everyone else is fairly new to gaming) said it felt very much like an old D&D adventure, but he did have one complaint: No traps. To be a proper OSR adventure, it should have had traps and right he was.
2) There is not much that can stand against a group of characters in a Team-up, so future modules and perhaps a revision to LSoT, may need to have multiple combatants in fights to prevent the overwhelming force of a team-up. Krunit for example, would have lasted a lot longer had there been someone else to fight at the same time.

Over all, I am quite happy with the adventure.