Beginning of the Siege: Game 12

General Summary

The Party pried loose more secrets from the necromancer scimitar, and ultimately reached the relative safety of the small village of Olbat. In Olbat, the Party decided to hold up and prepare for a siege from the Red Crescent Moon orcs, or in orcish Gijak Rescent Han.
The Party has a distinct advantage in that it has slain many of the orcs, worgs and some of their most powerful monstrous assistants, including an ogre and owl bear. The orcs are also separated into multiple groups. There is the advance and mobile orcs and worgs which have arrived, but the Party does not yet know what they are doing (scouting the village, setting up a camp, hiding in the forest, etc.). The remaining orcs are at least hours away, and many likely more than half a day as they were scouring the woods for the Party. This provides the Party with some important time to plan, prepare the village, and, potentially, take action before the orcs can organize and rally their forces.
Meta gaming note: The adventure is set up such that the orcs are likely to break into the village, and the Party should plan on their fall back positions. The worst case scenario for the Party was that you would have lost all of the NPCs, and slain very few of the enemy. Given how successful the Party has been (good work team), there is a greater chance of preventing a breach in the walls and a new opportunity in that the orcs are not all arriving in one army. Don't get over confident though, your lives lie on a scimitar's edge, and bad luck or planning can quickly end it all.

Lay of Sayf

Odium Moulim used his scroll with the Identify spell on the magic scimitar, revealing that it has at least the following powers: 1) +2 scimitar, 2) it is intelligent, 3) chaotic evil in alignment, 4) the scimitar becomes more powerful as it bonds with a person, and 5) a poem revealing some of its history. The scimitar has more powers, but another Identify spell would need to be cast, which the Party does not have.

Orc and worg attack

The Party carefully avoided the road and were largely successful in avoiding orc patrols using tracking and forest survival skills. Orc and worg scouts discovered them and blew their horns, summoning more worgs and their brutish riders. A short fight ensued, with more losses piling up as the lusty yet faithful Cormac and the Celtic warrior Bryn, a tall hunched over warrior with long blond hair covering his scared face, were both killed by an orc shaman's magic. The Party likely would have defeated their attackers, but with more losses when Chief Tarran Ó Banain and a small group of his warriors entered the fray causing the remaining orcs to flee. Chief Tarran was injured by a poisoned orc weapon, and, while conscious, is effectively out of action of the remainder of the siege. However, the village's peacetime leader Myrs Krayts and a score of fierce Celtic warriors are ready and willing to fight the orcs.

by By Mabel Dorothy Hardy - Guerber, H. A. (Hélène Adeline) (1909)

Olbat

In Olbat, the Party informed the villagers of the rough truth of the situation, and they rallied to Ankili mac Aevyrn's side. The respected druid and high ranking half-elf easily convinced them to succor and defend them against the forces of evil. They have a long standing hostility to the orcs, who in the last decade burned the village to the ground. Angharad Fawr, who has not in any way been charmed by the sword, has also been convinced to fight to the end to defend the scimitar from the orcs: He lost too much blood and treasure to let it go to waste, and it does not matter how long you live, but how you live.  He will fight to live, and live to fight for the scimitar.
The villagers of Olbat are described in the summary of Olbat.

Report Date

27 May 2023

Sayf's Lay

Stolen from a grave: The warrior princess Delfina suddenly sees where the grave-fire burns over on the edge of the island, and she goes up there and is not afraid, though all the mounds were in her path and the dead standing outside. She waded through the flame as if through fog till she came to the crypt of the djinni, the crypt of her father al-Angantyr, who was slain by his sister wife Queen Jezebel and buried with the great magic Scimitar Sayf.
Then she called:
“Awake, Angantyr, Delfina wakes you, only daughter of you and Queen Jezebel; from your crypt give me that keenest blade, the scimtiar dwarven smiths of Atlan struck.
Angantyr, under forest roots I rouse you, may you be racked in your ribs rotten, decay as though dwindling deep in an anthill, if you don't hand over your scimitar; it does not suit dead men to grip a good weapon.”
Then said Angantyr: “Delfina, daughter, what drives you to call so? Brimful of bale-runes, you're bound for grief. You're out of your mind, mad have you gone, lost your wits now, waking up dead men.”
Then the mound opened and it seemed to be all fire and flame. And Angantyr said: “Hellgate gapes and graves open all is fire on the island's rim; it's grim outside to gaze around, shift yourself, girl, if you can, and flee to your ships.”
She answers: “Oh, you can't burn any bonfires by night to frighten me; your daughter's mind does not tremble though dead men there in the door she does see.”
Then said Angantyr: “I say to you, Delfina, have a listen wise daughter now, to what will be: this sword Sayf (try to believe it) will, girl, your offspring all destroy.”
She declared: “I cast this curse on you father to lie eaten in tomb to rot undead with dead; hand me out of your mound that Atlanian dwarf-made blade, it's no good to hide.”
Angantyr says: “Girl, I say you aren't like other mortals, to walk among barrows up here by night.”
Then said Delfina: “Hand me then, what hates armour, the hazard of shields and the snake's bane.”
Then said Angantyr: “The bane of snakes lies below my shoulders, the blade is wrapped, right round in flame; one girl only on earth up there, I guess would dare take that blade in hand.”
Delfina said: “I will take care of and take in hand the edge-sharp blade, if I could have it; I'm not afraid of fire burning.”
Then said Angantyr: “You're foolish, Delfina, but full of daring, I think I'll give you the cleaver from my cairn, I can't refuse.”
Delfina said: “You do well, sir, warrior kinsman, if from this grave you give the scimitar; I'd rather have that sword regal lord than all Fultar beneath my sway.”
Angantyr said: “Wicked woman, what would you know? No need for glee or glad words now; this blade Sayf (you'd better believe) will, girl, your offspring all destroy.”