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The World of Georic 1989-Present

Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Lost Dispatches of Feraso #57 - The Moathouse

The 14th Day of QuaDec in the Year 1045

The Free Village of Hommlet, Viscounty of Verbobonc

To His Lordship, Eger, Viscount of Verbobonc

I write to you, My Lord,three nights after receiving a call to arms for the Feldkurton Lancers to respond to a great uprising outside the Village of Hommlet.

As this is the first-ever summons of any sort in my twenty-three years of a noble serving the Viscount, I accompanied my men, with the assistance of local hero and dwarf, Murag Mountainhammer.

By the time we had arrived, the battle was near completion.  Scores of orcs, dozens of bugbears, and hundreds of humans lay slaughtered throughout the marshy woodlands around the hamlet.  Duke Gregor of Ostverk personally commanded the largest contingent of troops in the battle, and ordered us to perform a clearing sweep on the left flank, to flush out and eliminate any pockets of resistance remaining.

Upon completing our mission, I was granted an audience with Duke Gregory for a full briefing on the situation.

Historically, the Village of Hommlet has been a tranquil spot, a small community even the slowest dwarven caravan wanders through in the blink of an eye.  However, something agitated a secret community of adherents of the Evil Elemental Cults, seated deep within a long-abandoned moathouse a full league outside of town!

Or at least the villagers are aware of someone who may have attacked the moathouse, but allowed them to call for overwhelming reinforcements.

Three individuals, reeking of the stench of adventurers, had wandered into town, raised the usual ruckus that their type does, and almost as abruptly, disappeared.  The legions of bugbears and other monsters arrived about four days later.

The three, as they were not subtle about any of there stories:

Sabu Tablesmasher II, a dwarf fighter who had set up quite the reputation matching his surname with numerous squabbles inside The Welcome Wench.

The Wizard Sloemin, a quirky fellow who was an intolerant of alcohol as the lady patrons were to his advances.

Carathmus, a brooding fellow of questionable morals, yet could be quite the braggart to his magic swords and some sort of "living" armor he had acquired.

The Duke was still unsure if these were simply adventurers clumsily exposing the outpost, but escalating the situation beyond their control, or perhaps they were agents to the temple themselves, posing as clueless buffoons to perform reconnaissance.  To be sure, Duke Gregory and I led a small cohort to examine the ruined moathouse. 

The moathouse was probably in utter disrepair long before the alleged attack and subsequent counter-attack, but the current batch of violence nearly collapsed the entire structure.  At great risk to ourselves, we found access to the lower dungeon.  The evil and depravity found down there is not suitable for formal correspondence, or even the seediest sailor's lounge, but were able to corroborate some of our ideas.

(1) This Tablesmasher and friends were adventurers who brazenly sauntered into the moathouse, easily dispatched most of the evil barracks, but were very sloppy and let a number of key players escape.

(2) One of those players, a warrior-priest going by the name "Lareth the Beautiful," appears to have reached a much large stronghold for the Evil Elemental cult and returned with the legions of evil that the forces of the Krugraf needed to dispatch.

(3) Lareth slew dozens of villagers, but personally took the lives of two beloved villagers, Elmo and Rufus.  I was made aware by the Duke that these two men were skilled agents in the service of Your Lordship, tasked with rooting out evil within the area.  With all due respect, I believe these men failed in their task of scouting and protecting the region to a far worse degree than the rabble-rousing adventurers unleashed it.

(4) Both Lareth and the adventurers are unaccounted for.  Perhaps the "heroes" best tactic was to flee upon the counter-attack.  For Lareth, Duke Gregory insists we take a moment to reorganize our forces and then plan an assault on any remnants that might be around the Village of Nulb... and the alleged ruins of the of the Evil Elemental Cult Temple.

But first, a night of sleep and recovery!

Yours in Service,

Sir Elsderth Greyhawk, Baron of Greyhawk
Wielder of the Legendary Betrayer.
Defiler of the Temple of Tiamat.
Slayer of the Wizard Sazor
Freigraff of the Totenlinden of Amberstoll.

DM Notes: Ten years of peace and tranquility after the brutal murder of his friend Andrei, Elsderth is finally yanked back into some martial action with the sudden and brutal attack on Hommlet! 

So, circa 1997, I ran a few quick sessions for my friends Larry and Chad.  Accompanying me to the games was one of my sister's friends, who begged me to have a seat at the game... only to insist on running an evil fighter-thief style character from Rolemaster with this disturbing living armor.   

Better yet, I discovered he wasn't overpowered compared to the others.  The existing characters Larry and Chad brought had recently finished a game that I won't shy away from characterizing as low-level Monty Haul.  The xp value alone for the magic items they had should have bumped them up two levels from where they were, without killing a monster.  

Oh, they did the best of things, using all there powers to do cool stuff, but in the end, they were sloppy, and after hunting the swamp for packs of resistance that fled the moathouse, they were caught off-guard by the counterattack led by Lareth, and subsequently fled the area, leaving an unsuspected village to the Temple's wrath.  

Yeah, this was a short Summer game that had its wheels fly off the track early, but it did create some campaign drama back then, like it's facilitating a change in Elsderth's life now.

But first, Elsderth needs to explore (what remains of) Hommlet.

Episodes will take a break over the holidays and return January 7th!  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all, and an especially joyous Yule for my Georic players over the years.

Next:  #58 ....and Hommlet!

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