The Collective - Session 18

This is the eighteenth session in The Collective campaign and the third in the Stolen Swords, Orcish Villages, and Dwarven Vaults sub-arc of the Dwarven Sword Arc.

Summary
TUESDAY, AUGUST 8, 1000: Waking up in the morning, the party prepared to venture into the Crimson Mountains to continue to track down John. Roscoe, meeting Sir Sheer for a breakfast of hearty cabbage, used Suggestion upon him to convince him to take an alternate path to search for John. He succumbed to the spell’s influence and promptly exited the fort. The rest of the party, meeting outside of the tavern, discussed their plans. Gorrn, inspired by some spark of artistic passion, carved the words F A S T C A B B A G E into the side of their wagon, and Badger brought both the wagon and horses to a stablemaster in the fort, named Kurt. Their possessions secure, the party departed Fort Wayne in search of the secret pass through the Mountains. Before they could make it very far, both Frederick and Astrid left to their respective homes, wishing the party good luck in their travels, leaving the Collective and Evangeline. After a day of travelling and sightseeing through the Mountains, the party set up camp under its high peaks. Realizing soon after that they were not alone, Badger and Gorrn confirmed that someone was watching their camp from behind a rock and called out to him. The man watching their camp was a Half-Orc named Rogath, a scout from a nearby Orcish village. After an exchange in Orcish between Gorrn and Rogath, the two came to an agreement that they would assist his village (the Headsmashers) from a potential attack by another Orcish clan (the Ribcrushers) in exchange for any information that the village Elder may have regarding John’s whereabouts.

The village, a small collection of ramshackle huts surrounded by crude walls in an old basin, had clearly seen better days as Rogath led the party to Merrick, a large, old Orcish man and the Warchief of the Headsmashers. Although Merrick was very hesitant to work with Humans and Half-Elves, he agreed to accept their help due to his desperation and his tribe’s relationship with Gorrn’s former tribe, the Bluefiends. While the rest of the Collective began to build defenses and a zipline to assist them in the coming combat, Rosanhi went to the infirmary to heal some of the survivors of the most recent attack.

Rosanhi, already at a disadvantage due to her race, tried and failed at first to rally the Orcs to fight again, angering one of the injured Orcs, who cornered her. Mustering up hence unseen confidence, Rosanhi managed to convince the Orcs to accept her healing magic so that they could fight again. The Orcs grabbed their bows and posted up on the top of the wall, ready to defend their village. Badger, at this point, had decided that he was going to impersonate the Warchief of the attacking clan to convince the invaders to retreat; during his transformation, he revealed to the rest of the party that he was a Changeling, forever solving that mystery.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1000: The party rested behind their battlements until the next morning, when they heard the beating of drums and blowing of horns. The Orcs had arrived, led by a behemoth of an Orc with waist length hair. After a surprisingly quick battle, the Collective managed to defeat the invaders, learning in the process that Evangeline likes to throw out expletives during combat and that Gorrn is very good at wrestling. Successful in their task, they returned to Merrick, who told them of an old Dwarven Vault to the North that they had seen someone fitting John’s description heading towards. He then gave Gorrn a large horn, a traditional offering of goodwill between Orcish tribes, and the party rested in the village before departing.