Game Report: The Blood Caravan, Part I

It was the moment; they had the method, they had the experience, they had the will. It was time to perform their rescue operation on the Blood Caravan. After a short rest and a small visit from Mute, the resident wandering merchant (who always just happened to show up when the party needs him; wonder why), they stepped onto the teleporter pad and found themselves in a sparse round room, with only a set of stairs, two doors, and some iron cobras.

They quickly and effortlessly dispatched the homonculi, after a short discussion on what exactly a homunculus was. Not sure what to do next, they opened a door and found a small bridge connecting to another building, above a 10 foot drop, and they also seemed to be traveling at a considerable speed. Inspection of the second door verified the same. Seeing as they were in an independent building, they decided to take a look around in here before spreading out.

They traveled to the next floor to find a library, in tact but a little messy. Search found that the tower seemed to be the residence of the architect of the Blood Caravan, a necromancer who constructed the Caravan for Maluthis, an ice devil. They also found a general layout of the caravan and how it worked, by pulling blood and torment from humanoid victims on a center platform that was exposed to the rest of the caravan. They also could see who was on the platform through a window on this floor. Dylan was there, the paladin that was captured a week ago. There was another person of note there as well, one of the fighter’s family members, who he wasn’t aware was still alive. The fighter responded with a “well, crap.”

With facts well in hand, they stepped upstairs to find a room full of ghouls...and the toughest fight they would face in a long while. The problem arose from the ghouls’ ability to stun and immobilize, combined with the party being scrunched into the corner by the melee-heavy ghouls and tight spacing. the fighter was repeatedly beat upon and nobody could get in a position to actually help, which lead to an exhaustive fight that finally broke in the party’s favor about ten turns in.

After a short rest, they continued upward to find a stereotypical magic laboratory and some potions, and hear the sound of more ghouls upstairs. A quick peek found only a few of them eating some thing and a wight chilling at the edge of a bed. They decided they weren’t going up there, refusing to do a repeat of the previous fight, and instead made a lot of noise downstairs instead, to draw the undead to them.

They took positions, spellflingers in the back, melee up front, only to have the roof above the warlock swing open, slamming her against the wall, and the wight entered the room through the opening. The fighter quickly turned and charged though, and a few seconds later the wight was only dust, but the shock kept the warlock out of commission for a short while. The ghouls fell shortly after that.

They then took stock and tried to figure out how they would take care of this issue. They conveniently found an Arcane Lock ritual, which meant they could keep people out of this abandoned tower if they needed to. They decided the most important action right now was to get the prisoners out, and they would return alone or with aid to cripple and destroy the caravan. Mapping the best route, they moved towards the center platform.

They stepped into an adjacent building to find bedrooms and supplies. Nothing special, nothing out of place. They go down the stairs to find a hallway, and a few gnolls, torturing an unconscious person. A well-cast Bigby’s Icy Grasp kept their leader tied up movement wise, and the rest of the knolls failed to get a strategic position, shutting down the gnolls in moments. Unfortunately, the noise attracted the attention of some more gnolls downstairs, who came charging down the hallway. These are intercepted easily, although one bolts for the door that leads to the platform where prisoners are held. The fighter gets pushy though, literally, and keeps the gnoll inside the building. Another tried to get away down the stairs and gets blocked by the ice hand. It was a long encounter, but they managed to pull it off with grace and a bit of luck.

Then the most sensitive part of the entire scenario came; getting the prisoners off the platform, that was completely exposed to every other part of the Caravan. The warlord was tagged to unlock and rally all the prisoners to the door, while the rest provided back-up. The warlord charged out, beelining for the farthest chained prisoner, the fighter’s uncle, but a couple of spined devils in an adjacent building took notice, and began to disrupt the players with slowing effects.

The players took the reign of the uncle, a paladin, to provide some support, and got the rest of the prisoners unchained in short order. However, the last prisoner was completely panicked, shouting wildly and getting the devils’ attention, as well as immediately latching onto the nearest player as soon as he was free. They grabbed him quickly and dragged him inside, and a few slowing effects by the wizard keep the devils at pay, including managing to knock a single devil off the caravan. Once they were safely inside, they rushed back to the teleportation room and got out with four former prisoners in tow.

Now it was a matter of taking out the center of power once and for all.

Lessons Learned: I never want the characters to die. It sucks for everybody, and I often want to throw them a little bone to help them out. There were times during this game where I may have thrown them a Clifford-sized bone, however, and I need to realize that I’m also their enemy. I can’t always rout for them. (yes, that’s a big red dog reference. Shut up.)

Also, I often found myself stammering over getting the setpieces and scenery out there, often talking about it way before they would be able to observe it. Since I rarely do a lot of setpieces (a failure I’m trying to make up for), it was a miscalculation about tempo that I need to practice. Also, if you’re going to provide them with maps to the caravan, by all means actually provide them clean maps. I was hesitant to throw my map on the table because it had encounter notes on it, and it ended up being less than helpful.

Last thing: I am officially tired of hallways, doors, and stairs. It makes the game difficult in a very boring way. I'm going to work to both let the monsters let the PCs into the room first, and also to design areas with less strategically uninteresting hooey.