21st Day of Goodmonth, CY 580 - The Falcon Attacks, Part 1

Going into today, I knew things would be a challenge. The Falconmaster module provides details (though not complete details) on 20 to 30 of the cultists forces, and about half that for St. Cuthbert's forces. The instructions in the module say to give the PCs a handful of enemies to fight that is appropriate for their level in one isolated part of the of the temple, and just narrate the end result of what happens in the rest of the battle, with some choices to pick from based on how well the PCs do, whether or not we plan to play the third module, etc. Well, I didn't like that idea. I wanted to play out the entire battle. After all, this series of modules came with 3-D buildings so you can arrange a massive battle. I pulled together every miniature, including Lego mini-figures, I could to properly put troops on the field. I spent a full week building character sheets, with selected spells, etc., for every single character depicted in the book so that I could distribute them to the players. I wanted to do something new. Something different. Something that would be difficult, but fun.

And boy was it ever challenging. We started at noon, as we always do, but for the first two hours we were just getting things organized. It really didn't help that two players were missing, and one player was dialing-in remotely over video conference (something that works mildly well, but it is limited in a situation like this). With only two players present, it was very slow to sort through all of the characters and select the best miniatures - some of which needed to be assembled from Lego parts. If I had more time, I would have had all of this prepared, but I just had to shrug and say that I can't do it all. I need the players to help. Once the fighting got underway, I knew it would be slow, because I wanted to do everything in initiative order, thinking that failure to do so might speed things up, but wouldn't allow people to effectively use spells. In the end, we had a long, exhausting battle, and we didn't finish by 5 pm. So once again, we end on a cliffhanger. . .

The party took control of St. Cuthbert's defenses, dividing themselves into two squads, with Jarrus leading one and Talasek leading the other. Four mages were placed on balconies in the north, south, east and west points of the temple, while Sarril planned to fly around invisibly, but waited until the attack started to actually cast the spells. They did some extra steps, such as covering all of the sewer grates with horse carts, making it so anyone trying to come up through the sewers would have a hard time. That turned out to be a pretty good tactic.

The attack came just before 2 am. First, a large cloud of over 50 ravens swooped in from the south (Claw Cloud - a specialty spell for priests of Iuz from the "Iuz the Evil" supplement). The ravens were instructed to harass and disrupt all spellcasters, and they immediately began dive bombing the mages on the balconies, who were forced to run inside. Next, about 20 rats started pouring out of each of the sewer holes - they were small enough not to be bothered by the carts over top of them. While both the rats and the ravens could do very little damage, if at all, they managed to keep everyone distracted and busy while the real attackers rushed in under the protection of a Wall of Fog.

This is where Sarril proved how versatile he really is. He was able to dispel the Wall of Fog, completely foiling that part of the plan and forcing the first wave of attackers to rush up the road toward the temple completely in the open. Because it was very dark outside, I still allowed the attackers to be up on the temple before anyone could act, but Sarril's familiar, Krek, was able to provide regular reports about numbers coming in, which was helpful. Sarril was also able to summon some flying creatures of his own to engage the ravens, and while he couldn't get them all, he made a serious dent in the numbers. Once down to a manageable number, the four mages were able to step back outside and use Magic Missiles to bring down the rest of the ravens. And while it took a few rounds, the people on the ground were able to get rid of the rats (with only a couple of first level clerics getting killed). This allowed everyone to fully focus on what was coming in.

At the same time, Eritai sent invisible messengers out. One to the citadel to alert the constable, and another to chapel in the the Old City to get clerical reinforcements. It was estimated it would take a turn for this help to arrive, though it didn't seem like they were needed, as the party quickly dispatched the first wave, which consisted of 1st level cultists, 2nd level fighters, and 4th and 5th level clerics leading. None of clerics were able to get any spells to land. Sarril must have had 6 to 8 "Silence 15' Radius" spells thrown at him and he saved against every one (DMs Note: I have a house rule for Silence 15' Radius. If it is cast on an object that is not on a person, then there is no save, but the caster can just move out of the radius. However, if it is cast at a person, then I give that person a save. If they make their save, they are able to dodge the spell. If they fail it, then the silence is stuck on them and it doesn't matter where they move to. In this case, because Sarril was flying, they had no choice but to cast it on him because casting in on the ground at his feet would not do any good). In return, Luapan managed to silence the only two clerics who had Dispel Magic spells ready, and they were planning to use them against Sarril. This is a common occurrence, where PCs rarely fail their saves, yet NPCs almost always do. It must be all of those rings of protection being passed around with the party. As a result, this first round really fell apart for the attackers.

The next wave was some much tougher guys. These consisted of 7th and 8th level fighters and clerics, backed up by 1st through 3rd level cultists of various types. There was even a magic user in this group. Also appearing was Nestor Morden, Deputy Constable, along with a handful of City Watch guards. They didn't engage the cultists immediately, which everyone found suspicious, claiming that it looked like Talasek had things under control and moved around to the back, where Jarrus confronted them. Janziduur detected evil on the regular guards, but not on the Deputy Constable, and Jarrus called him out on it. Nestor replied that they are obedient to him and that's all that matters. The two argued for some time, with Nestor reminding Jarrus that he represents the law.

The party did pretty well against the next wave of attackers as well. Very little injuries had been sustained by any of the good guys so far, but one of the new clerics was finally able to dispel Sarril's spells (which at this point included Flight, Fire Shield and Detect Invisibility). Sarril was now slightly more vulnerable than before, but still doing okay. The mages up on the balconies were able to blast with lightning bolts and fireballs. No one spell was able to kill anyone, but they quickly added up, and the next wave began to drop. In the front of the temple we were left with just two clerics and a magic user, while at the back of the temple Jarrus continued to verbally argue with the deputy constable, whom he assumed was actually a Falcon agent waiting to strike. Jarrus told Nestor to get his men back to the front of the temple where the fight was. That's with the deputy constable pointed into the sky at a Falcon flying in toward the rear of the temple and said "no, this is where we are needed."

And that's where we were forced to end. The Falcon landed at the rear corner of the temple, facing Jarrus and Janziduur, while Sarril, Luapan and Talasek continued to deal with attackers in the front. All four mages were still alive, and Eritai is inside the temple, so things are still looking good for our heroes. We will attempt to finish this battle when we reconvene in two weeks.