The Fearsome Four, Eric do Deric the human cleric, Garrawk Jawns the dragonborn paladin, Darta of Hanover the eladrin wizard and Layla Silentstalker the elvish ranger met up with some orcs last night.This is the same four who cleared the sewers in town and subsequently found an ancient tomb that they turned over to the authorities to explore. (sissies)
To continue their punishment they’ve been tasked with picking up a parcel at Rivenroar. The trail passes through many communal farmsteads. Each farmstead holds from 4 to 10 families usually and is typically a collection of buildings, homes and barns, secured behind a palisade wall of timbers for protection.
The weather is inhospitable, late fall and an early snow is threatening. The wind is cold and drives a half froze sleet and rain before it off an on throughout the day. The trail is part mud and part frozen earth. Â Miserable weather to be out in and hence why these four were selected to do it. They are on punishement detail after all.
Garrawk smelled smoke and saw a group of orcs huddled around a small concealed fire in a small semi hidden space under a large fallen pine tree. Luckily for the party and unlucky for the orcs, the orcs didn’t spot them back. These orcs were a contingent from a larger force further east and were supposed to be watching for travelers while their orc brothers continued the looting. But as mentioned the weather was horrible so they were doing more warming their hands than watching the trail.
Garrawk pointed them out to the others and switftly Layla and Darta laid waste to them in short order. All five orc drudges were downed before the paladin could get close enough to fight them. [Note: No more minion only encounters unless there's lots of them.]
The group leveled at this point taking them to level 2 which was where I wanted them to be for the next encounter. We didn’t fully level them, just gave them their extra hit points and their new utility powers but that didn’t completely bankrupt them in the next encounter. I believe they looted a healing potion and some gold off the orcs.
They continued on after looting and after noticing an orange glow and pillars of smoke off the side of the trail they investigated to find a farmstead that had been overrun with orcs. The palisade wall had been breached in two places and the edges were still burning, the flames giving off green sparks. Â An orc raider stood rather desultory watch. Â Using my house rule of Total Surprise, Layla attempted to take out the guard with twin strike from 105′ away, the closest they could get, but although she hit twice it wasn’t enough to bloody the orc and he saved to avoid being stunned handily and raised the alarm.
The party stayed in the concealment of the tree line and inside the compound, out of sight of the group, the orcs gathered their forces. Essentially rather than the series of waves which was one of the options the party is going to end up fighting all the orcs except the orc deadspeaker at this time.
A couple of rounds passed and the 7Â orc drudges (an eighth was dropped at long range by Layla), the orc raider and the orc berserker grouped up and charged across the clearing. Â A couple were dropped before they could close but not nearly enough and there was a mass melee as the orcs slammed into the line of the party. Garawk took out a drudge and damaged the berserker with his acidic acid breath, while Layla concentrated on the berserker and Darta flung scorching burst and magic missiles around. The party had to shift a few times to avoid getting caught in their own AOE’s, a warlord would have come in handy here as would a rogue allowing them to get some flanking action. Â Â Although not an easy fight the party prevailed without loss of life.
As the last of the drudges was falling the orc raider ran for the compound but Layla sank two more arrows into him and sped him on his way, dropping him just inside.
As they recovered, looting the bodies of the fallen, they had a minor debate, Layla and Darta not sure if they should advance toward the omnious green-yellow flickering glow inside compound. Layla could faintly hear rythmic gutteral chanting that was speeding up in tempo from inside but Garrawk wasn’t about to leave without checking for survivors and the party proceeded cautiously inside. They stopped to grab a pair of Flame Bracers from the raider which Garrawk took.
[note: the party is a little magic light right now so they're getting loot a little more frequently as a result. Currently at level 2 they only have the Thundering Sling +1, the Flame Bracers (now), and I'm going to drop another magic item from the 'boss'. But that leaves them essentially 1 item short just for level 1 and they're not working their way up into level 2.]
They found a pile of bodies in the central common area, mostly human farmers but there were a few orc bodies in the pile as well indicating the farmers didn’t go down without a fight. Which is understandable, to survive out there unsupported any group would have to have either skills at fighting or superiour numbers or both.
They moved toward the large barn where the glowing lights was coming from the upstairs loft when a orc in heavy robes bearing a staff stepped into view. Layla, her bow held tight was waiting for such a thing and before the orc deadspeaker fired but missed. Eric shot his Thundering Sling even as Garrawk fired his heavy crossbow [note: house rule weapon]. Both Eric and Garrawk hit with Eric triggering the thundering ability of the sling pushing the deadspeaker backwards one square.
But that wasn’t enough to stop the deadspeaker and he finished his ritual Undeath to My Enemies and from the pile of corposes five of the farmers stood up (zombie rotters level 1 undead minions) and to of the orcs stood (zombies, level two standards). Well that didn’t go as expected so Garrawk and Eric engaged the zombies while Darta and Layla manuevered through the battlefield trying to get an open shot at the deadspeaker who was ducking and hiding in the barn loft.
The deadspeaker showed up and used his Death’s Burn on the paladin and cleric smacking them hard with the greenish fire, dropping Eric who fell dying, on fire. Garrawk wasn’t doing a lot better but he moved to Eric and slapped a lay on hands on him.
This fight with the undead saw lots dirt time for Eric and Garrawk and the party went through their supply of Healing Potions, Healing Word and Lay On Hands and both Eric and Garrawk were still almost dead by the time they finished off the zombies and deadspeaker. Â Layla managed to crit on her Split the Tree and did a resounding 48 points of damage with it, 24 each to the two orcish zombies.
The group rested a bit, looting the deadspeaker and the rest of the bodies and of note recovered a potion of healing and a Staff of Storms from the deadspeaker which Darta appropriated quickly enough.
Note: I am as usual trying to give the party magic loot that works for them while still keeping it semi-realistic to the things that drop it. The next item that drops will most likely be something for the ranger and then something at random again for the group. Each round of loot starts off completely random as to who it’s for, then the next is random among the ones that didn’t get anything and so on until the last person gets their next item and we start all over. Once Layla has an item, I’ll probably weight the treasure table toward some protective gear. I tend to use random loot tables but I keep rolling till I get something useful to the group. This has been my method for 20+ years and I’m unlikely to change anytime soon.
After a short rest [note: at the end of which Garrawk and Eric had one healing surge left between them], Garrawk and Eric found some shovels in the barns and begun digging a common grave to bury the bodies in, the dragonborn’s strength making the process go reasonably quickly. Â Layla discovered a hidden cellar where several children had been rushed to safety and they rescued the children, 8 of them between the ages of 1 and 12. Â The older children let them know that they had relatives in the town of Rivenroar so the party bundled the children up against the cold, gathered what food they could and piled the orcs up at the edge of the trees for the animals to feast on.
As night closes in we leave our Fearless Four in the common area surround by children, discussing what they should do next. Each of them is tired, with Garrawk and Eric both dragging ass from their exertions.
Note: they’ve burned their dailies, the cleric and paladin have no healing surges to speak of, they have one healing potion among them and they have 8 children to feed, guard and guide to Rivenroar. Now a generous DM would let them sleep here undisturbed. I’m not necessarily all that generous so we’ll see what happens next session won’t we?
Afterwards we generated a rogue, a human brutal scoundrel, to add to the party in case we come across someone else worth playing with as the party could use someone sneaky. But a fighter wouldn’t be amiss either, or a tactical warlord.
Speaking of generating characters, I went in and entered all of the characters into the character builder from wizards and none of them were 100% correct. 
 Usually to the detriment of the character. It was mostly missing skills or feats or in case some flipped attributes. I’ve fixed that. I’m honestly not sure if the character builder or the DDI database is worth the price of admission, I paid for the year so I got it at the $4 a month price but even then I’m just not sure.
