Scarlet Heroes: Night's Dark Terror Part 3

I can't believe the whole summer went by without a chance to play this! It was just too hot here in London, with several heatwaves one after another. So here we go, another session of the classic BECMI module Night's Dark Terror, played in Scarlet Heroes using the Old School Essentials rules for XP and levelling up. 

Campaign Day 3 (Continued)

Date: Lunadain (Monday), just before dawn, 4th of Thaumont, Spring 1000 AC

Beremud prays to Riramet for healing (Cure Light Wounds) and receives 1 HP. He and the others restock their ammunition from the supplies around the homestead.

Just before dawn all the goblin drums in the woods go silent. The Sukiskyn defenders tense up and take up guarding positions again. Then a deathly serious-sounding low chant starts up from the woods to the east. Everyone rushes to the eastern windows of the upper floor to see a huge crowd of Redblade goblins marching out of the woods. The ones at the front are carrying ladders, five of them.

The defenders loose their missiles and five goblins are felled, but the others march on undeterred. Suddenly Taras shouts "North!" from his position in the tower. He can see three tough-looking Redblades approaching from the North, almost at the burnt gap in the palisade. He shoots one of them with an arrow. The goblin stops moving for a moment but then continues.

Beremud runs to a northern window and looks down on the three charging goblins who seem to be heading for the northern door. One of them is better equipped and bigger than the other two - must be the leader. He frantically reloads his repeating crossbow.

The three goblins reach the northern door and start hacking at it with axes. The door has 30 HP and I'm going to use the standard BECMI damage rolls rather than converting on the Scarlet Heroes damage table, to keep it in line with the intent of the designers. Door current HP: 12/30.

The goblins to the east reach the wall and set their five ladders against them.
SH Oracle: Does the Redblade bodyguard lead the charge and climb a ladder?
Likely.
16: Yes

They start climbing the ladders. Beremud has reloaded his crossbow and shoots down at the biggest goblin from directly above. I give him a +1 to his attack since it's such an easy close range shot, so he hits but doesn't kill the leader. He shouts "Everyone, shoot at the big one to the north!". They do as they are told but can't bring him down yet.

The Redblade leader and the bodyguards keep hacking at the north door (Current HP: 1). The bodyguard leading the eastern goblins climbs through a window, as do four more. They're now in the upper floor room with Beremud, Pyotr and Irina. Beremud storms over to them and crushes the bodyguard's helmet down into his skull then clocks two more goblins, all with his mace. Two remain standing upstairs.

The leader and his two men break the north door down and rush upstairs while the two remaining goblins up there engage Beremud. Outside five more begin climbing ladders.

Beremud kills the two goblins fighting him then he and the leader charge each other and clash. More goblins pour in through the windows while the defenders inside shoot at the leader and bodyguards, and the ones outside shoot at the goblins climbing ladders.

During the fight Beremud winds the leader by hitting him in the stomach. He doubles up in pain so the enraged paladin brings his mace down on the back of the goblin's neck, snapping it. One of the bodyguards roars "No! Gnhass is slain!" and the pair run back down the stairs while Pyotr and Irina pelt them with arrows and bullets. The goblins that had just climbed through the window scream and try to get back on the ladders, but some fall off onto the other goblins outside.

The defenders watch from the windows as the greenskins retreat back into the woods, and a mighty cheer erupts from them all. Beremud bandages a wound (+2 HP) and stands guard with the others, just to be sure.

Some time later dawn breaks over the homestead. Beremud ventures out with Pyotr to examine the devastation of the night before. They determine that the attack involved three goblin tribes, identified by Pyotr The first is the Redblades, who adorn themselves with any red objects they can find like feathers, beads, fragments of pottery and other things. The second is the Wolfskulls who wear cloaks made from wolf hides, and the third is the Viper clan who tattoo their bodies with rough, scribbled designs. Beremud helps the homesteaders loot what few coins the goblins had and doesn't take any for himself, but they find all the bodies at the edge of the woods have been stripped of anything valuable already.

Beremud does find a small silver amulet in the shape of a ruined tower which Pyotr tells him is the symbol of another goblin tribe, the Yellowfang clan, none of whom are among the dead. Beremud pockets the amulet, pondering what this could mean (It is worth 50GP). Pyotr tells Beremud to get some sleep, which he does (+4 HP, he is now at full health).

Late in the afternoon Beremud wakes up and finds the new widower (and eldest son of Pyotr) Taras trying to persuade his father to let him track down the goblins that made off with the horses, arguing that they're too small to ride them so they won't have got very far yet. Beremud offers to go with him, which persuades Pyotr to agree. He offers to pay the pair 20 GP per horse recovered, and there are 41 horses.

The two of them will leave at dawn the next day, beginning the wilderness exploration stage of the adventure.

Campaign Day 4

Date: Gromdain (Tuesday), dawn, 5th of Thaumont, Spring 1000 AC
Weather: Light cloud cover, showers, breezy

They are able to follow the hoofprints out of the stables and off to the east quite easily. In four hexes, they'll come upon the scene of a battle. The map provided with the adventure has three mile hexes. Scarlet Heroes says adventurers can travel ten miles per day on easy terrain, but Old School Essentials gives the figure as their movement rate divided by five, which would be 24 miles per day for Beremud. Since this is a BECMI module the rules are probably closer to OSE, so we'll go with 24.

A few hours into the morning the horse and goblin tracks veer off to the south into the huge Dymrak Forest. The pair follow them into the trees about two hundred feet, only to find the scene of a massacre. Around twelve goblins lie strewn about with terrible wounds, alongside several of the horses. An obese goblin's corpse is strung up from a tree, perhaps intended as a warning.

Beremud and Taras don't have time to investigate however as six giant beetles the size of big dogs are eating the corpses, and scuttle towards them! Beremud shoots two crossbow bolts into one beetle, killing it, while Taras shoots an arrow but misses. The beetles are charging at them so Beremud rushes to meet them, cracking the carapace of one of them which puts it down, but three of the others spray jets of horrible black oil at him which somehow scalds his skin (-6 HP between all of them).

Beremud is finding the pain from the oil distracting (-2 attack penalty for 24 hours) but he manages to kill another beetle and wound the one next to it, which then runs away (morale failure). Finally he smashes the heads of the last two remaining.

He gets out his bandages and finds that the oil has covered his forearms in painful blisters. He's able to soothe the pain a little (+2 HP) but only time will heal the blisters. Suddenly Taras shouts "Look!" and points to a nearby tree. A goblin has just jumped out of it while they were examining Beremud's wounds, and is running off into the forest. The adventurers chase after it.