The Red Hand Goblins Report

General Summary

Patchwall 12, 595 CY

Session: 2024-02-14
Asked by Merris to wait until he checked in with them, the companions settled into the mine office. While Kaszu took the time mending the window Malakai had gone through, the others spent a few hours clearing out the main living space, then started a fire in the fireplace and investigated their findings.
It seemed like this Winera, very likely the body in the cellar, fled Greyhawk after being caught with a wealthy merchant's daughter. He styled himself a great enchanter and vowed vengeance on Greyhawk, though his spellbook only contained magics of the first and second order. Two things stood out amidst his ravings, he found a cairn nearby which may still be relatively unplundered, he called it the Whispering Cairn because the wind that blew through the cairn sounding like whispering. He had snatched an ancient blue lantern from the cairn, which was also in the bag of holding. He also noted the location of the Red Hand goblins, which were probably the ones serving him, and whose bodies lay outside in the yard.
The second floor was opened to the elements, large sections of the roof were missing, and any interior walls had fallen over. There the companions found the goblin sleeping nests. Near the largest nest, one of the goblins had carved a message into the wall. Translated by Argan, it read "Stoopid human wizard, make me think we friends. We waits. He make good guard dog for now. When we finish outpost we breaks his wiggling fingers and chops out his tongue. Then we bring him back to Red Hands, I tell Chief Grum that we made clan outpost and have another slave. Me gain glory in tribe."
After a few hours as dusk was settling in, Merris brought his patrol by. They were still hunting a few hobgoblin warbands. When the group mentioned the Red Hands, he told them it was a small tribe, a dozen or two members. He noted that the younglings could make it back to Diamond Lake after dark, or just wait here until morning. While Argan wanted to return, the rest voted to stay and maybe investigate one of the new-found sites in the morning.

Patchwall 13, 595 CY

Waking the next day, the younglings decided they'd rather wait on the cairn until they were more prepared, and chose to attack the Red Hands. With the map in hand, it took about an hour to reach the cave mouth. Going inside, they had to think about light, since not everyone could see in darkness. The first thing they spotted was an unlit torch stuck in the wall. Moving to it, however, Argan heard the sound of a lot of insects buzzing from the crack the torch was stuck into. Deciding to leave it there, they moved ahead.
Here Tolman took the lead, stealthily scouting ahead. To the north was fairly large cave with a cave-in blocking a northern passage and what may have once been a wooden wall or fence collapsed in a western passage. Back in the entrance, Tolman scouted west, which led to a large cave filled with guano and mushrooms. The ceiling of the cave was covered with hundreds of bats roosting.
Very interested in the fungi, Malakai moved in to examine the find, but ended up triggering a nest of centipedes. As three separate swarms of the creatures attacked, the bats overhead began getting restless. While bats are triggered by light and noise, centipedes are just plain vicious. Malakai got some satisfying crunches on the swarm with his shillelagh, but they kept on coming while Delilah rained down eldritch blasts. Tolman decided that the best course of action was firing his shortbow from range while Kaszu did the same with his fire bolts. Unfortunately, there were too many of them for Malaki, and soon he lay dying.
Crichton moved in with his glaive, and Argan with his battleaxe, but it's hard to do a lot of damage to a swarm. Meanwhile, several swarms of bats circled overhead, getting agitated from the commotion. Delilah cast fear upon a swarm causing it to be frightened of her and less effective. Crichton laid hands of the dying dwarf and saved Malakai from death. So Malakai jumped back into the fray with his shillelagh.
Just as the last of the centipedes were scattered, the bats began diving down. While the plan was to back out of the room, Crichton breathed fire, hitting several of the bat swarms, and promptly got sworn at by his companions, in several languages. Luckily, Malakai had enough time to heal some of his wounds.
The bats weren't as difficult to scatter as the centipedes, and soon the party was able to back out of the cave and leave the rest of the bats to calm down and return to roosting overhead.

Younglings
While most humanoids physically mature at about the same time, there is a period where they may be physically mature, but not yet considered adults in their societies. Many of the races call this period the youngling period. While relatively short for the faster-maturing races, such as rageborn or humans, it lasts considerably longer for the long-lived races such as elves or dwarves. In fact most elves wouldn't be considered an adult until their human "youngling" friends might have passed away.

Campaign

It Started in Diamond Lake

Protagonists

Tolman K’hurzz

Malakai Steelbuckle

Delilah Raincloud

Crichton Eogen

Argan Agu-Ulakanu

Chaotic Good Goliath (Outlander)
Ranger 4

36 / 36 HP

STR
18

DEX
14

CON
14

INT
10

WIS
12

CHA
8

Kaszu Billowcase

Chaotic Good Rock Gnome (Guild Artisan / Guild Merchant)
Artificer 3

24 / 24 HP

STR
8

DEX
12

CON
14

INT
17

WIS
14

CHA
10

Report Date

18 Feb 2024