thesilentx
2014-09-29, 12:56 PM
Hello, I'm a DM of moderate experience, and I decided to start running Red Hand of Doom as an awesome way to get my players up to level 11ish so they can start on my own personal campaign of nearly epic proportions. It started off great, and quickly degenerated into a nightmare of fumbling through the book trying to keep everything both interesting and fun for everyone (including me).
Sorry this is really wordy, this is six sessions of a campaign journal that I just wrote up today, inspired by another RHoD campaign journal by kjones.
A couple of things to note before reading through the journal. Hobgoblins in my campaign are not tribal savages, but instead more akin to Spartan or Roman soldiers. They frequently use phalanx formations combined with either casters or soldiers in the second row wielding long spears or bows. To me, they are more like they are portrayed in the monster manual, a highly disciplined, fighting force with a society built around martial prowess. The Red Hand is comprised of soldiers who either did not make the cut, or who would normally be exiled or killed for crimes they have committed. These have outcasts have all gathered in the mountains to the north. Azarr Kul has turned this group of outcasts into a cult and now leads them on the Elsir Vale, trying to establish a hold in human lands to create his own personal kingdom.
Due to events happening elsewhere, no caster, no matter how high level is able to cast above 6th level spells. This includes the hobgoblins and the players. This won't come into play until much later, so I don't really think it will matter for the early to middle portion of the module.
Dragons in the game (up until now) have not been true dragons in the monster manual instead, they've been half dragon monitor lizards. So medium sized lizards that spew forth an element and have tiny wings, incapable of lifting the creature off the ground. This is due to the same force that is restricting spells.
Now the True dragons have awakened and are starting to wreak havoc alongside the Red Hand.
Grimm - Whirling Frenzy Barbarian/Ranger/Fighter
- Dwarf and his stalwart friend donkey who are hunting the Orc clan that slaughtered his family
Vi - Straight Rogue, building for massive AC
- Hengeyokai from 7000 years ago who wandered into the wrong temple and was discovered in a ziggurat. (Time hop plus Psionic sequester trap shenanigans for backstory)
Shenna - Swift hunter Skirmisher
- Human who is part of a group known as The Wardens, essentially Spectres from Mass Effect, but without the power to make arrests.
Karl - Marshal 1/Soulknife 5 focusing on Iajutsu
- Half-elf savage (Read Native American), attempting to gain mastery over his mind blades so he can find his way back to his clan.
Ana - Binder 1/Warlock 5
- Teifling, daughter of a demon lord who was sent to investigate rumors that Tiamat was trying to make a move in this particular area of the material plane.
Cecil - Swift hunter using Cleric/Ranger/Scout
- Tortured by hobs, now intends to destroy them
Varian - Duskblade
- Human, Kharn's shock troopers destroyed his and his adopted brother's village, so now both of them are on a hunt to take Kharn down.
Bel'dax - Beguiler
- The name should tell you what race he is (please don't post if you know, I don't want to give spoilers to PC backgrounds in case they read this post). See above for motivations
The group of adventurers has journeyed from the West, in search of an item of power hidden in the depths of Vrath Keep. Walking into the area, they get ambushed by the hobgoblin marauders. I messed this encounter up slightly by moving the hobgoblins on one side of the road to engage the players right off the bat, instead of plinking away with arrows for a couple rounds until the adventurers figure out which side to attack. The Uth-lar Zarr, and the hellhounds come out of the farmhouse, to see the regulars getting cut down like chaff (literally one hit from either Grimm, Vi, or Karl kills them), and since the hobgoblins aren't taking this seriously, they haven't formed the phalanx yet. By the time they realize these aren't your standard mooks wandering up the road, four of the original six are dead, and the second wave is 1 round away. Zarr drops one bless, then goes invisible, realizing that the regulars aren't living long enough to get heals, he runs away, leaving Uthlar and his second band of regulars to try to hold off the group. Zarr will eventually get to Koth and spread word of the adventurers. Uthlar manages and his regulars manage to last more than two rounds with phalanx formations and Hit and Run-esque tactics, but they are quickly mopped up by the group. At this point, I figured I would take the advice of the RHoD handbook on this forum and start upgrading the army. The party makes it to Drellin's ferry with no further incidents. They make their way into town, chatting up Kellin Shadowbanks and discovering hearing of an increased presence of hobgoblins. Norro Wiston makes his way into the tavern and talks to the party, requesting they take care of the hobgoblins that have made their home in Vrath Keep, he suggests they find Jorr Natherson as he can help the party navigate the Witchwood to find Vrath Keep. The party agrees and Norro leaves the tavern. In walks Ana, using disguise self to appear human, and Cecil. They tell the party of how they lost their own group to marauders on the road and want to avenge their fallen comrades. Everyone goes to sleep for the night to get ready for the day of murder that follows.
The party heads into the forest along a trail that the Cecil easily picks up (Shenna was gone for this session). They follow it until they come to Jorr's cabin in the woods. The dogs race out to the party and stop short. Cecil tries (and fails) to appease the dogs with a handle animal check. After not influencing them either way, he backs away, which provokes the dogs to attack. The dogs both attack Cecil. One dog gets neatly bisected by a mindblade from Karl in the first round. Jorr's turn comes up and he calls his final remaining dog off. I note that the dog running back to Jorr provokes an attack of opportunity from Grimm (mistake on my part), and suddenly there are four pieces of NPC on the ground in front of Jorr's Cabin. (I figured each dog killed moved Jorr one step away from indifferent, so now he's hostile.) Jorr starts moves into his cabin and starts shooting at the party, using the door and window shades as cover. Ana, sets a corner of the house on fire with her eldritch blast, and the rest of the party move to catch Jorr as he tries to escape from his now burning house. Jorr manages to get out the back, only to find an arrow, and a mindblade are being held to his throat. The dwarf charges through the house and tackles Jorr to the ground through a window in a thematically awesome grapple attempt. The party asks Jorr to calm down. They would gladly pay for damages and his services if he were to escort them to Vrath Keep to Kill Hobgoblins. Grimm offers Jorr a flask of booze (this stuff was legendary, I made it a flat DC 25 fort save or pass out for eight hours, so it was among Grimm's most treasured possessions), as an apology. Jorr takes a swig and tosses the flask into his now burning house. Now six pieces of NPC are on the ground around Jorr's house. While Grimm is cleaning his axe, Cecil says he can lead them out of the woods to Vrath Keep, because he is fairly good with geographical locations, and he knows the general way to Vrath keep. What follows are three days spent in the woods, wandering aimlessly, because the scout couldn't roll above a five to save his life (I was trying to up the stakes and give the horde more time to get to Skull Gorge bridge).
Finally, the party comes to The Dawn's Way and walks down it until they meet good ol' Warklegnaw, who is just sitting, minding his own business, and eating a Dire Boar. Everybody is wary of each other except for Grimm, who just sees a Giant. After some conversation, Grimm asks Warklegnaw if he's eaten a dwarf within the last 500 years. Warklegnaw replies with yes, (I figured he probably had, being that there is a Dwarven city not two days from where he's living, so sometime in the past couple of centuries he's probably eaten some poor merchant. Grimm and Warklegnaw throw down, and Grimm stands victorious (with very few hitpoints left). Ana berates Grimm, before they all settle down to eat some of Warklegnaw's fantastic dire boar. They wake up in the morning of day 4 and head north up the road (they believed they came out of the southern edge of the forest). They stumbled upon Skull Gorge bridge that had hobgoblin's manning the towers, and a dragon basking in the sun. The party all tries to figure out what the massive lizard with wings is before deciding to try to launch an ambush on the hellhound directly in front. Vi, transforms into a fox and lures the hound back to the party, where they dispatch it with ease. The Grimm and Karl both botch their hide checks, and Ozy sees them. He sounds the alarm and Karl and Grimm charge, with Cecil firing two arrows at the hobs in the towers. Ozy hits a majority of the party with his breath weapon before flying away to take cover behind a far tower. The hobs in the tower downed their feather fall potions and formed a phalanx right across the middle of the bridge. By the time Grimm was on top of the hobgoblins, the rest of the regulars were moving up from the camp. Grimm managed to sunder the shield of the first Tower hob, while Karl stuck him with a mindblade. Vi start trying to shoot at the hobs, but couldn't hit their AC while in formation. She eventually hid in the tower and readied an action to jump on Ozy if he came within reach. Meanwhile, the fight on the bridge was arduous, the two melee beasts had to sunder the shield first (fairly hard when power attacking), then they had to kill the hobgoblin behind the shield (fairly easy when power attacking). They were down to about half health when they killed the last line between them, the Sergeant, and the last hell hound. Ozy came out of hiding to breathe on the two, but they made their saves, and Ana blasted him with two maximized Eldritch blasts (using an Item I gave to the character earlier on). Ozy hid behind the tower again to regain his breath, while the napalm hound (Half dragon template with clinging breath) breathed on Grimm and Karl, both failed their saves and became the first deaths in the module. The survivors decided to flee and come back to fight another day. They made it back to Drellin's Fairy by nightfall of day 4.
They sleep in the inn, Vi gets drunk in remembrance of her fallen allies, and Ana just passes out in a bed. When the two wake up, they recruit two nomads off the road to aid them in their quest to purge Hobgoblins from the bridge. Both Varian and Bel'dax are in the minute someone says "murder-hobo the hobgoblins." They find Shenna on the way to the bridge (this time taking the easy way of Dawn's way to get there). Shenna found Vrath keep and was keeping an eye on the place. The party decided to take care of the keep after avenging their friends.
This time, the battle went much better. With the party invisible, no one was spotted and the sneak attack went off without a hitch. Ozy managed to escape with twenty hitpoints, and none of the hobgoblins survived. The party then headed south to Vrath Keep (leaving the bridge intact). They made short work of all members of the keep, killing Karkilan with the third Critical of the session from the scythe wielding Varian. Koth gave the party a hell of a lot of trouble by flying out of reach of the deathbringing melee PCs, until he failed a will save to Ana's command ability and fell into their midst. Vrath keep now cleared, Vi found and looted the catacombs beneath the tower netting a longbow for Shenna.
The party heads back to Drellin's Ferry to inform Norro of the impending hobgoblin horde. Norro doesn't believe them until they show Koth's map to him. He is convinced by them and they all agree to get everyone out of the city. Meanwhile, the party will head to the bridge to see if they can destroy it to slow the horde down. Day 6 is spent getting to Skull Gorge Bridge, and taking care of the pesky hobgoblins that have taken up a new residence of the area. This time, they capture a soldier and this conversation happens:
Ana: "How large is the horde that is coming"
Prisoner: "Huge, thousands of hobgoblins, coming for your blood."
Ana: "Tell me exactly how many or my friend will remove your arm."
Prisoner: "Never"
Varian removes the poor SoB's arm.
Prisoner: "I'll tell you if you give me a warrior's death."
Everyone: "OK."
Prisoner: " 50 battalions."
Ana: "How many soldiers are in a battlion?"
Prisoner: "50."
Shenna: "So we have 500 battalions of 50 hobgoblins each coming down to murder everyone in this area?!"
Prisoner: "Sure."
It continues on from there, about how they don't trust the source (I as the DM just run with it). Then they figure the guy has nothing to lose, so why would he lie to them. He is then butchered like a dog, and left to rot. The bridge is destroyed and the party heads back to Drellin's Ferry.
They tell Norro that a horde of hobgoblins 25,000 strong is coming to destroy "the area" (none of them are calling it the Vale yet). Norro starts getting everyone in the village ready to move out to Brindol. The party now starts moving from village to village, forcing their way into town halls and demanding the mayors/speakers start moving the people to Brindol (mind you, this is from days 7-12, all the while using only the map that was taken from Koth's corpse and on the false information of a prisoner in extreme pain). Everywhere they go, they are ignored as the tinfoil hat wearing warmongers they come across as. They get to Brindol and they finally take the diplomatic approach and talk like civilized people to a priest who has pull with Lord Jarmaath. He tells them he will inform Lord Jarmaath, and the PC's head north to try to convince the Lizardfolk to join with the armies of Brindol in defeating this menace to the Vale.
The group seemed to be losing interest because they were always ignored by the mayors. The morning of the 12th day, a messenger approaches the town hall in Witchcross, bearing word of an impending hobgoblin horde. To try to slow the horde, Lord Jarmaath is sending out a legion of troops 200 strong to try to hold Drellin's Ferry for a time to give the civilians a chance to flee. (I had been planning this encounter for the past week, trying to make it a way for the PC's to actually see that the horde isn't nearly as big as they think it is, as well as show them the four generals left for the party to fight. It was never supposed to be a fight they would win, it was supposed to be an epic fight for awesome that would hopefully show the party that Jarmaath did listen, and hopefully get things back on track with the actual adventure.
The party ignored the giant flashing neon sign and instead went west, into The Witchwood to find the retired adventurer, a wizard named Sardith (See Prosser information in the beginning of the module). They found the remains of Sardith being eaten by the Greenspawn Razorfiends. They fought the fiends and met the Tiri Kitor (I was still flabbergasted that they skipped right past the Battle for Drellin's Ferry that I forgot to mention Trellara's Brother's body). The PC's talked with Tellara and Sellyria, (I didn't use Diplomacy rolls and had the PCs just roleplay it out, so I may need to have them roll random d20's to see what impression they made). The PCs did some shopping then turned in for the night. They woke up and Killiar guided them north to the Lake Rhest. There, they lured a lizardfolk away from the camp by the edge of the lake, where he was ambushed, tied up and interrogated. They learned that the lizardfolk regard Regiarix as a god and would do anything to please him. During the interrogation, they took the lizardfolk's arm off (Varian's player was in having a hissy fit for an out of play reason and it spilled over in play), but got nothing more useful than, "Regi is in the middle of the lake and the Hobgoblins are his high acolytes".
Again, sorry it is so wordy, future posts will be much shorter as they will only be for one session, not six.
From my perspective, the story has gone down the toilet. He party may have finished all of the quests before the battle of Brindol by day 20, which will leave them with 45 days to sit on their hands. From my seat behind the screen it's a nightmare of me trying to stay ahead of the party, stuttering through the roleplay of the mayors, and generally been one crazy mistake after another.
From an outside perspective, is the module still salvageable?
What can I do to get the PCs more accurate information as to how large the size of the horde is?
After talking to Varian's character out of game, I've come to the conclusion that the horde is too big, but I can justify it by saying the original prisoner was exaggerating. What is a good size (numbers-wise) for the horde?
I had an idea that maybe I should let the army of 200 soldiers die and thus weaken the defenses of Brindol. I could also say 500 civilians that were too old or sick to make the journey died because the players decided not to join the 200 soldiers marching out of Brindol, but I don't know how the players would take this. I want to inspire the group, not grind it down by pointing out how many people they have caused to die.
I can toss backstory stuff at the group to run out the clock if needed between when they meet the Ghostlord and when Brindol is attacked, so that is a smaller issue.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Sorry this is really wordy, this is six sessions of a campaign journal that I just wrote up today, inspired by another RHoD campaign journal by kjones.
A couple of things to note before reading through the journal. Hobgoblins in my campaign are not tribal savages, but instead more akin to Spartan or Roman soldiers. They frequently use phalanx formations combined with either casters or soldiers in the second row wielding long spears or bows. To me, they are more like they are portrayed in the monster manual, a highly disciplined, fighting force with a society built around martial prowess. The Red Hand is comprised of soldiers who either did not make the cut, or who would normally be exiled or killed for crimes they have committed. These have outcasts have all gathered in the mountains to the north. Azarr Kul has turned this group of outcasts into a cult and now leads them on the Elsir Vale, trying to establish a hold in human lands to create his own personal kingdom.
Due to events happening elsewhere, no caster, no matter how high level is able to cast above 6th level spells. This includes the hobgoblins and the players. This won't come into play until much later, so I don't really think it will matter for the early to middle portion of the module.
Dragons in the game (up until now) have not been true dragons in the monster manual instead, they've been half dragon monitor lizards. So medium sized lizards that spew forth an element and have tiny wings, incapable of lifting the creature off the ground. This is due to the same force that is restricting spells.
Now the True dragons have awakened and are starting to wreak havoc alongside the Red Hand.
Grimm - Whirling Frenzy Barbarian/Ranger/Fighter
- Dwarf and his stalwart friend donkey who are hunting the Orc clan that slaughtered his family
Vi - Straight Rogue, building for massive AC
- Hengeyokai from 7000 years ago who wandered into the wrong temple and was discovered in a ziggurat. (Time hop plus Psionic sequester trap shenanigans for backstory)
Shenna - Swift hunter Skirmisher
- Human who is part of a group known as The Wardens, essentially Spectres from Mass Effect, but without the power to make arrests.
Karl - Marshal 1/Soulknife 5 focusing on Iajutsu
- Half-elf savage (Read Native American), attempting to gain mastery over his mind blades so he can find his way back to his clan.
Ana - Binder 1/Warlock 5
- Teifling, daughter of a demon lord who was sent to investigate rumors that Tiamat was trying to make a move in this particular area of the material plane.
Cecil - Swift hunter using Cleric/Ranger/Scout
- Tortured by hobs, now intends to destroy them
Varian - Duskblade
- Human, Kharn's shock troopers destroyed his and his adopted brother's village, so now both of them are on a hunt to take Kharn down.
Bel'dax - Beguiler
- The name should tell you what race he is (please don't post if you know, I don't want to give spoilers to PC backgrounds in case they read this post). See above for motivations
The group of adventurers has journeyed from the West, in search of an item of power hidden in the depths of Vrath Keep. Walking into the area, they get ambushed by the hobgoblin marauders. I messed this encounter up slightly by moving the hobgoblins on one side of the road to engage the players right off the bat, instead of plinking away with arrows for a couple rounds until the adventurers figure out which side to attack. The Uth-lar Zarr, and the hellhounds come out of the farmhouse, to see the regulars getting cut down like chaff (literally one hit from either Grimm, Vi, or Karl kills them), and since the hobgoblins aren't taking this seriously, they haven't formed the phalanx yet. By the time they realize these aren't your standard mooks wandering up the road, four of the original six are dead, and the second wave is 1 round away. Zarr drops one bless, then goes invisible, realizing that the regulars aren't living long enough to get heals, he runs away, leaving Uthlar and his second band of regulars to try to hold off the group. Zarr will eventually get to Koth and spread word of the adventurers. Uthlar manages and his regulars manage to last more than two rounds with phalanx formations and Hit and Run-esque tactics, but they are quickly mopped up by the group. At this point, I figured I would take the advice of the RHoD handbook on this forum and start upgrading the army. The party makes it to Drellin's ferry with no further incidents. They make their way into town, chatting up Kellin Shadowbanks and discovering hearing of an increased presence of hobgoblins. Norro Wiston makes his way into the tavern and talks to the party, requesting they take care of the hobgoblins that have made their home in Vrath Keep, he suggests they find Jorr Natherson as he can help the party navigate the Witchwood to find Vrath Keep. The party agrees and Norro leaves the tavern. In walks Ana, using disguise self to appear human, and Cecil. They tell the party of how they lost their own group to marauders on the road and want to avenge their fallen comrades. Everyone goes to sleep for the night to get ready for the day of murder that follows.
The party heads into the forest along a trail that the Cecil easily picks up (Shenna was gone for this session). They follow it until they come to Jorr's cabin in the woods. The dogs race out to the party and stop short. Cecil tries (and fails) to appease the dogs with a handle animal check. After not influencing them either way, he backs away, which provokes the dogs to attack. The dogs both attack Cecil. One dog gets neatly bisected by a mindblade from Karl in the first round. Jorr's turn comes up and he calls his final remaining dog off. I note that the dog running back to Jorr provokes an attack of opportunity from Grimm (mistake on my part), and suddenly there are four pieces of NPC on the ground in front of Jorr's Cabin. (I figured each dog killed moved Jorr one step away from indifferent, so now he's hostile.) Jorr starts moves into his cabin and starts shooting at the party, using the door and window shades as cover. Ana, sets a corner of the house on fire with her eldritch blast, and the rest of the party move to catch Jorr as he tries to escape from his now burning house. Jorr manages to get out the back, only to find an arrow, and a mindblade are being held to his throat. The dwarf charges through the house and tackles Jorr to the ground through a window in a thematically awesome grapple attempt. The party asks Jorr to calm down. They would gladly pay for damages and his services if he were to escort them to Vrath Keep to Kill Hobgoblins. Grimm offers Jorr a flask of booze (this stuff was legendary, I made it a flat DC 25 fort save or pass out for eight hours, so it was among Grimm's most treasured possessions), as an apology. Jorr takes a swig and tosses the flask into his now burning house. Now six pieces of NPC are on the ground around Jorr's house. While Grimm is cleaning his axe, Cecil says he can lead them out of the woods to Vrath Keep, because he is fairly good with geographical locations, and he knows the general way to Vrath keep. What follows are three days spent in the woods, wandering aimlessly, because the scout couldn't roll above a five to save his life (I was trying to up the stakes and give the horde more time to get to Skull Gorge bridge).
Finally, the party comes to The Dawn's Way and walks down it until they meet good ol' Warklegnaw, who is just sitting, minding his own business, and eating a Dire Boar. Everybody is wary of each other except for Grimm, who just sees a Giant. After some conversation, Grimm asks Warklegnaw if he's eaten a dwarf within the last 500 years. Warklegnaw replies with yes, (I figured he probably had, being that there is a Dwarven city not two days from where he's living, so sometime in the past couple of centuries he's probably eaten some poor merchant. Grimm and Warklegnaw throw down, and Grimm stands victorious (with very few hitpoints left). Ana berates Grimm, before they all settle down to eat some of Warklegnaw's fantastic dire boar. They wake up in the morning of day 4 and head north up the road (they believed they came out of the southern edge of the forest). They stumbled upon Skull Gorge bridge that had hobgoblin's manning the towers, and a dragon basking in the sun. The party all tries to figure out what the massive lizard with wings is before deciding to try to launch an ambush on the hellhound directly in front. Vi, transforms into a fox and lures the hound back to the party, where they dispatch it with ease. The Grimm and Karl both botch their hide checks, and Ozy sees them. He sounds the alarm and Karl and Grimm charge, with Cecil firing two arrows at the hobs in the towers. Ozy hits a majority of the party with his breath weapon before flying away to take cover behind a far tower. The hobs in the tower downed their feather fall potions and formed a phalanx right across the middle of the bridge. By the time Grimm was on top of the hobgoblins, the rest of the regulars were moving up from the camp. Grimm managed to sunder the shield of the first Tower hob, while Karl stuck him with a mindblade. Vi start trying to shoot at the hobs, but couldn't hit their AC while in formation. She eventually hid in the tower and readied an action to jump on Ozy if he came within reach. Meanwhile, the fight on the bridge was arduous, the two melee beasts had to sunder the shield first (fairly hard when power attacking), then they had to kill the hobgoblin behind the shield (fairly easy when power attacking). They were down to about half health when they killed the last line between them, the Sergeant, and the last hell hound. Ozy came out of hiding to breathe on the two, but they made their saves, and Ana blasted him with two maximized Eldritch blasts (using an Item I gave to the character earlier on). Ozy hid behind the tower again to regain his breath, while the napalm hound (Half dragon template with clinging breath) breathed on Grimm and Karl, both failed their saves and became the first deaths in the module. The survivors decided to flee and come back to fight another day. They made it back to Drellin's Fairy by nightfall of day 4.
They sleep in the inn, Vi gets drunk in remembrance of her fallen allies, and Ana just passes out in a bed. When the two wake up, they recruit two nomads off the road to aid them in their quest to purge Hobgoblins from the bridge. Both Varian and Bel'dax are in the minute someone says "murder-hobo the hobgoblins." They find Shenna on the way to the bridge (this time taking the easy way of Dawn's way to get there). Shenna found Vrath keep and was keeping an eye on the place. The party decided to take care of the keep after avenging their friends.
This time, the battle went much better. With the party invisible, no one was spotted and the sneak attack went off without a hitch. Ozy managed to escape with twenty hitpoints, and none of the hobgoblins survived. The party then headed south to Vrath Keep (leaving the bridge intact). They made short work of all members of the keep, killing Karkilan with the third Critical of the session from the scythe wielding Varian. Koth gave the party a hell of a lot of trouble by flying out of reach of the deathbringing melee PCs, until he failed a will save to Ana's command ability and fell into their midst. Vrath keep now cleared, Vi found and looted the catacombs beneath the tower netting a longbow for Shenna.
The party heads back to Drellin's Ferry to inform Norro of the impending hobgoblin horde. Norro doesn't believe them until they show Koth's map to him. He is convinced by them and they all agree to get everyone out of the city. Meanwhile, the party will head to the bridge to see if they can destroy it to slow the horde down. Day 6 is spent getting to Skull Gorge Bridge, and taking care of the pesky hobgoblins that have taken up a new residence of the area. This time, they capture a soldier and this conversation happens:
Ana: "How large is the horde that is coming"
Prisoner: "Huge, thousands of hobgoblins, coming for your blood."
Ana: "Tell me exactly how many or my friend will remove your arm."
Prisoner: "Never"
Varian removes the poor SoB's arm.
Prisoner: "I'll tell you if you give me a warrior's death."
Everyone: "OK."
Prisoner: " 50 battalions."
Ana: "How many soldiers are in a battlion?"
Prisoner: "50."
Shenna: "So we have 500 battalions of 50 hobgoblins each coming down to murder everyone in this area?!"
Prisoner: "Sure."
It continues on from there, about how they don't trust the source (I as the DM just run with it). Then they figure the guy has nothing to lose, so why would he lie to them. He is then butchered like a dog, and left to rot. The bridge is destroyed and the party heads back to Drellin's Ferry.
They tell Norro that a horde of hobgoblins 25,000 strong is coming to destroy "the area" (none of them are calling it the Vale yet). Norro starts getting everyone in the village ready to move out to Brindol. The party now starts moving from village to village, forcing their way into town halls and demanding the mayors/speakers start moving the people to Brindol (mind you, this is from days 7-12, all the while using only the map that was taken from Koth's corpse and on the false information of a prisoner in extreme pain). Everywhere they go, they are ignored as the tinfoil hat wearing warmongers they come across as. They get to Brindol and they finally take the diplomatic approach and talk like civilized people to a priest who has pull with Lord Jarmaath. He tells them he will inform Lord Jarmaath, and the PC's head north to try to convince the Lizardfolk to join with the armies of Brindol in defeating this menace to the Vale.
The group seemed to be losing interest because they were always ignored by the mayors. The morning of the 12th day, a messenger approaches the town hall in Witchcross, bearing word of an impending hobgoblin horde. To try to slow the horde, Lord Jarmaath is sending out a legion of troops 200 strong to try to hold Drellin's Ferry for a time to give the civilians a chance to flee. (I had been planning this encounter for the past week, trying to make it a way for the PC's to actually see that the horde isn't nearly as big as they think it is, as well as show them the four generals left for the party to fight. It was never supposed to be a fight they would win, it was supposed to be an epic fight for awesome that would hopefully show the party that Jarmaath did listen, and hopefully get things back on track with the actual adventure.
The party ignored the giant flashing neon sign and instead went west, into The Witchwood to find the retired adventurer, a wizard named Sardith (See Prosser information in the beginning of the module). They found the remains of Sardith being eaten by the Greenspawn Razorfiends. They fought the fiends and met the Tiri Kitor (I was still flabbergasted that they skipped right past the Battle for Drellin's Ferry that I forgot to mention Trellara's Brother's body). The PC's talked with Tellara and Sellyria, (I didn't use Diplomacy rolls and had the PCs just roleplay it out, so I may need to have them roll random d20's to see what impression they made). The PCs did some shopping then turned in for the night. They woke up and Killiar guided them north to the Lake Rhest. There, they lured a lizardfolk away from the camp by the edge of the lake, where he was ambushed, tied up and interrogated. They learned that the lizardfolk regard Regiarix as a god and would do anything to please him. During the interrogation, they took the lizardfolk's arm off (Varian's player was in having a hissy fit for an out of play reason and it spilled over in play), but got nothing more useful than, "Regi is in the middle of the lake and the Hobgoblins are his high acolytes".
Again, sorry it is so wordy, future posts will be much shorter as they will only be for one session, not six.
From my perspective, the story has gone down the toilet. He party may have finished all of the quests before the battle of Brindol by day 20, which will leave them with 45 days to sit on their hands. From my seat behind the screen it's a nightmare of me trying to stay ahead of the party, stuttering through the roleplay of the mayors, and generally been one crazy mistake after another.
From an outside perspective, is the module still salvageable?
What can I do to get the PCs more accurate information as to how large the size of the horde is?
After talking to Varian's character out of game, I've come to the conclusion that the horde is too big, but I can justify it by saying the original prisoner was exaggerating. What is a good size (numbers-wise) for the horde?
I had an idea that maybe I should let the army of 200 soldiers die and thus weaken the defenses of Brindol. I could also say 500 civilians that were too old or sick to make the journey died because the players decided not to join the 200 soldiers marching out of Brindol, but I don't know how the players would take this. I want to inspire the group, not grind it down by pointing out how many people they have caused to die.
I can toss backstory stuff at the group to run out the clock if needed between when they meet the Ghostlord and when Brindol is attacked, so that is a smaller issue.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.