Dark•Heritage session #1, part 2

It turns out that the crowd of approaching riders--about twenty in all--were not hostile. They were Untash, but they hailed the one guy who had unsuccessfully attempted to hide himself, whom they assumed was there alone. Ironically, perhaps, it was the ninja.

After talking for a bit, the rest of the group revealed themselves one or two at a time, not unlike the dwarves filing into Beorn's house in The Hobbit. These Untash confirmed that there was a band of really bad tribesmen (the Gitani) further ahead, hidden in the hills over there on the horizon. Very "bad medicine" and not of the Bon Jovi variety. They got some intel on the lay of the land over thataway, including the knowledge that there was a village in the thick woods that surrounded a river valley. On a tall promontory island in the river was the sacrifice stones where the prisoners would no doubt meet their end very shortly.

These more friendly Untash wouldn't follow the group on into the Gitani lands, seeing it as a suicide mission. But Grimace the sailor, who was feeling woefully unprepared for an adventure in what was basically the Old West managed to talk them into giving him a rifle. It was kind of the opposite of masterwork--apprenticework, maybe?--so on a roll of a natural 1, well... things could get interesting with it. Otherwise, it was a nice add-on to his equipment. The group was also able to talk the Untash into giving them some horses (I'm not quite sure how, but... eh) so they had a chance of getting there before tomorrow morning. I also rolled randomly and determined that it was a full moon, so off the guys went into the sunset. Well, technically, they were riding north, not west, but the sun was setting.

The hellspawn scout decided to, well, scout ahead when they got close. He checked out the village and the lay of the land, and it was much as described. He also had his scent picked up by a number of freakishly large and bizarre animals; some kind of daemonic dogs or something--four eyed, gaunt and twisted limbs, naked hides, with protruding gums and enormous teeth. They rushed him, and he fled (again) bringing a party of three demon dogs (no relation to Thundarr), two archers and a junior witch doctor on the party, who returned the favor by ambushing the group. The dogs turned out to be really nasty; in addition to being obviously lean, mean, toothy killing machines, they could vomit a plague of maggot-like little toothy parasites on their foes, which proceeded to attempt to bore into the flesh of anyone they attacked. The witch doctor struggled at first to get his nasty spells off the ground, but after he caused Grimace to go insane and then start suffering a heart attack, he got a little more respect. Rags went (again) into negative hit points, which possibly explains his reputation as the guy who runs away from every fight he gets in, but the medic that the party pressed into following along managed to keep him from being in any immediate danger of dying.

It was a toughish fight, but it was really just an appetizer, and they managed to handle the group relatively quickly.

And then we ended the session.