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Dear Players,

The Fort Rannick disaster.

Last session was bloodier than usual, with the deaths of Elswyn and Eigan.
As explained after the game, everything had gone perfectly the session prior to this one.
You had indeed a masterful plan, which was to infiltrate as stealthily as possible the fort, go to the upper level, slaughter the big chief, his Sorceress and his lieutenant after having craftily ended the life a someone downstairs who could have called for reinforcements.

Talking about reinforcements, there were all these Ogres arguing around that table in the mess hall that you avoided last time, and another named NPC Ogre, hence a tough one, in the workshop. Therefore, you should have faced another seven additional Ogres, as if the challenge was not hard enough.

All this past strategic mastery got lost though. Dropping/throwing the dead chieftain's head in the courtyard was not too bad. It just brought the brawl ahead of time, instead of waiting for one of the mooks to go upstairs to report to his commanding officer later that day. Why, oh why did you decide to lob fireballs and expensive shocking burst arrows indiscriminately on the horde of Ogres in the courtyard is beyond me.
Barricading yourselves with no real mean of escape beyond going up the tower and jumping/rappelling down the battlements was not the brightest idea either.
True, I should have given you another round or two before breaking the door, but there was no real strategy beyond "Marcus hides for a sneak attack". The slaughter was coming.

Instead of waiting out a sure-fire internecine fight between newly self-proclaimed Ogre chieftains, hence removing about half the Ogre Barbarians and Fighters, your actions united them again for a time of "Kill humans!". The exit strategy plan, although hastily devised, was pretty successful though. Nagri, the Gnome came close to be left for dead but escaped too.

The party will need to go back to Turtleback Ferry to meet with the new recruits, as I have run out of ideas on how to bring new PCs to Fort Rannick.

First Annual Rise of the Runelords Award For Outstanding Achievement In The Field Of Player Character Introduction Excellence.

This award shall go to James for his introduction of Telas to the party, happening at the time when Guideon having fallen face down from the rampart turned around to enquire about whom he was. Telas replied: "I am here to save you". Ian nearly died of laughter.

Party hierarchy.

Marcus is now the new party leader, thus is now free to plant as much evidence against Korvosa as he so wishes, once the fort is retaken. I assume that one day, you will retake that fort.

James has managed to evolve from "new guy in the game" to "veteran player three ranks away from leading the party" in merely one session.

Adventure background.

Only Marcus now has a faint idea about the Runelords and Thassilon, all the other PCs are only motivated by killing Ogres and reclaiming Fort Rannick. Everything else: the story about Lucrecia, the gambling barge, the bad weather, the amazingly organised Ogres, etc are mere happenstances.

Next week game.

David will be away, so it will be down to a four player party. Andrew could play Marcus alone unless he desperately wants to introduce his new PC.
You are still at Fort Rannick, there is no real compulsion to go back to town, besides getting some reinforcements. If you wait for too long, one of the Ogre Barbarian will reorganise the tribe and Fort Rannick will host: One Ogre Barbarian, three to six Ogre Fighters and about a dozen mooks within a week.
If you attack again the following day, the Ogres will only recover a couple of HP, they may send one or two scouts to ask local Ogre tribes for reinforcements, hence aiming at the forces gathered again after a week as indicated above.

I have had to remove the event vignette and post it again because I had to change the calendar from being "Nottingham" to "Nottingham FULL". This somehow does not work as expected hence the deletion, so if you had already registered in advance, do it again on the event vignette repost.

Laurent,