The party somehow manages to dig each other out of the masses of snow and stand looking up at the mountain. More likely than not, curses are heard from the group as they consider what they think of the kobolds and what they will do to them when they get their hands on them.
As they tentatively make their way to the crest of the slope, they finally reach a small plateau. In the light of the afternoon sun, they can make out what appears to be a statue of something resembling a headless gnome, less than an hour's march from them. They can also spot something dark beneath the statue, perhaps a cave entrance of some kind? It seems that the map was correct about there being a way into the mountain close to the statue.
As the party stare at this sight, they notice three small specks moving down the slope towards them, quite quickly, one could almost say kobold-on-ski quickly. As the specks get closer, it seems that this is indeed the case. As the kobolds come into view, our heroes can see that one of the kobolds is waving a white flag (which against the snowy backdrop was quite difficult to make out at first) .
The kobolds slow down as they get closer, breaking with their skis, until they get to about 50 ft away from the party. You recognise the leader as the spellcaster who webbed Telfis and Eolar.
He looks at you, his reptilian features inscrutable, before he begins to speak, his common heavily accented.
I am Zibzug, grand sorcerer of Snaefang. I have come to... discuss terms. Maybe we can reach an agreement? No more deaths, yes?
The kobold looks at you expectantly...
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34 comments:
As Eolar came out of the snow he can feel that the power of St.Cuthbert in him grew stronger. In this moment of death, St.Cuthbert once again reached out and offered HIS helping hand.
Eolar falls to his knees, looks up to the sky and starts praying. He promises to devote his life more than ever to serve his god and spread HIS word in this chaotic world.
1) That self-righteous doink of a cleric to St C**tburg is beginning to get on my chain-mail-armoured-tits.
2) Ooh - interesting plot progression.
3) Thesis is properly down on HP when he gets out of the snow, so uses all his remaining spells (1) to put a patchwork of bandages on him, and suggests we go somewhere to lie down, soon-as.
4) Being CG, I couldn't be further from a Kobold's alignment - organised-evil, could there be anything more diabolical? Are we going to trust a scum-of-the earth lizard who just crawled out from under a rock??
5) What on earth are we going to say to him? Where is Bodush when you need him?
to 2: You are absolutely right! :)
to 3: I would have some nice cure wounds available, but do you want to be healed by St.Cuthberts powers? ;-)
to 4: I'm neutral, and at least they are lawful. I don't really like evil people but we should listen to creatures who at least know how to follow rules! Perhaps they have something good to offer.
to 5: It seems that Zigzag (or whatever his name is) speaks common. I can speak to him from lawful to lawful.....
As we seem to be continuing this a little on-line. Here are everyone's HPs (before whatever losses from the burial):
Mendez 46 - 19
Durin 44 - 6
Eolar 43 - 10
Kraddo 55 - 0
Telfis 35 - 17
Thesis 49 -28
Wer 36 - 21
5): Bodush would, in standard metagaming fashion, get out of the way 6 seconds after Thesis started considering how many hitpoints everybody has left.
*lol*
You may be right!
Can somebody confirm how much we lost through the avalanche? Didn't write it down at the end and can't remember if it was 14 or 18 for Eolar.....
Mendez brushes the remaining snow from his clothes and subtly steps between the Kobolds and the unpredictable Thesis.
“We have no desire to kill you. I’m sorry for the deaths of your guards.”
Mendez looks around waiting for one of the others to take the initiative.
Where is Bodush when you need him?
Mendez HPs -19 after avalanche. (Happy to still be alive.)
The Kobold draws himself up, hatred burning in his slitted eyes.
"No desire to hurt us, human? The families of the dead warriors and scouts do not care for your desires! I am here only because the great Patriarch desires peace, not to soothe your blackened conscience."
He takes a deep breath before he continues: "Now, Patriarch Thelgez want to know why you have invaded our lands, and what it will take to get you to leave."
Damn, and I was just beginning to like him.
Trouble is I'm thinking they might not actually be evil.
Let's consider the facts:
They're defending their homes from us. A reasonable thing to do.
They allowed the sheep farmers to live unmolested. (I think.)
They sent their strongest to defend their weakest. An act of bravery.
Their preferred class seems to be Ranger. A class not normally associated with villainy.
They are trying to negotiate a peace deal to prevent 'needless' deaths.
Also, I've always considered Alignments to be elastic. Are ALL Kobolds evil? Probably not.
In fact, it's only because they didn't send down Paladins against us that I don't think they're Lawful Good.
I suspect they are Lawful Neutral.
Can someone cast 'Detect evil' on them or something?
The Kobolds are evil. However, they are also not (incredibly) stupid as well as quite community minded. Their evil manifests primarily as a singleminded desire to further and protect their community at the expense of ethics, outsiders and individual members of their community(with the possible exception of the leaders).
The farmers did not complain overly about the kobolds, they did, however, mention that they paid tribute to them.
Thesis says - "A minute Zib-zug, while we confer" and motions the group into a huddle.
Whispering, Thesis suggests that we make out that we have decided to tell the Kobold the truth, and that the truth is "that we are here to lay to rest the last king of the Dwarven Lords of the El-Brach mountains.".
We would explain to the Kobolds that we have to find the ancient burial chamber and scatter his ashes, and that having done so, we would leave peacefully. We would only ask that they let us freely pass through the ancient chambers, without being followed or attacked.
To the group Thesis also suggests that we have an option to take the access hatch that the Kobolds are using, or to go via the front-entrance labeled "Snowcatcher & Big Monsters" - thus further putting the Kobolds off our scent.
What say you all?
I think even St.Cuthberts powers are not enough for that bluff check! :) They hate us, so I guess they won't let us roam freely and without guard through the treasure chambers! I don't think they'd let us all into the fortress. Perhaps one or two of us. But we might be able to get the book from them without entering.
Another idea would be to use the goblins, which they seem to have problems with. We could get rid of this problem for them and lawful as they are pay us with a selection of stuff (including the book). I still have a potion of invisibility and could have a look inside (or somebody else who doesn't leave tracks) to scout and find out which is the best option and if we stand a chance in the worst case.
No - the point is that the Kobolds clearly don't know that there is any treasure in there. I am guessing they are occupying only a small part of the maze of caverns in the mountain. Have a look at the map. There is a link from the "maze" to the "My Precious" locations. They probably don't know it, or the treasure is gone by now.
If we enter from the top ("Main Gate") then we make our way down through the main part of the "adventure" and not through Kobold territory at all.
We just need the Kobolds to have a believable reason why we should be in the mountain.
Basically - there is a whole adventure for us to get through - the shortcut is no longer an option, so we have to do it the hard way (ie. via the "Big Monsters")
Under this assumption it might work. Although I doubt that they don't use the whole thing. Dag mentioned a lot of kobolds! If they avoided the area with the big monsters and the treasure part, then they might even be more willing as either we get rid of the big monsters which must have bothered them, or they get rid of us. for the kobolds a win-win situation!
I can't believe Thesis, Mendez and Eolar are negotiating for the party.
Isn't there anyone better qualified in the absence of Bodush?
Where's Telfis?
Will the Kobolds get the 'book' for us or give us any useful information in exchange for the promise of non-violence?
If the Kobolds are evil and can be no use to us; I say we kill them all.
DEATH TO EVIL!
(Send in Kraddo. He could do it by himself.)
I just can't be bothered to go in and slaughter a hundred kobolds - life is too short.
Equally, we don't want them to get the book for us - for a start, we don't want to mention we are in there looking for something - they would go after it too. Secondly, it would be no fun: "Get the book for us - OK, here it is. Thanks. Bye. Bye!"
Let's go in the front gate, kill a few bears/owl-bears. Get septimated* by a dragon, and leave victorious heroes!
* Septimated: to kill on in seven. See decimated.
Well if Dag is running this encounter on-line, we can just say 'Kill them all.' at he'll do the working out. No bother at all!
'Life is too short?' ...So are Kobolds.
Still even though Dag says 'they're evil', are they?
Do we judge them by their thoughts or their actions?
Getting the book in exchange for their lives seems a reasonable request to me.
:)
Fighting Owl-bears and dragons seems much less appealing.
:(
Hmmm...what did we say about excessive planning?
Aehhhm, letting Dag work it out could backfire! We could also get the answer "You all died trying" :)
OK, Let Eolar or Telfis negotiate.
If it goes badly or we're going to get nothing from them, Mendez will kill the three Kobolds.
Move up to 30' distance and then: Rapid shot.
1st Arrow: Zibzug.
(+10 to hit. +5 damage)
2nd Arrow: Zibzug if alive, otherwise Kobold 2.
(+10 to hit. +5 damage)
3rd Arrow: Zibzug if alive, otherwise Kobold 2 if alive, otherwise Kobold 3.
(+5 to hit. +5 damage)
Better they be scared of us than fight with the aid of their Sorcerer.
So far, we haven't come up with anything to actually ask Zibzug.
The only thing we have is:
1. Tell them what we want, ask them pretty please to get it for us.
2. Give them some bullsh*t as to why we need to be in Snaefang and hope they will leave us to it.
3. Kill them all!!!
What can we actually ASK them?
Any suggestions?
e.g.
- Why did you break the statue?
- What have you found in the mountain?
- Do you know what MUNCAGON is? (Rhetorical question to gauge their understanding - equally, do you know what DoGS is?)
- Do you know who the GMCooDI are?
Also, we should ask questions 3 and 4 that Assif posted, as well as if they've found anything dangerous/deadly in the mountains. Unless they're very proud, they'll probably answer that more honestly that if they've found anything, which they'll probably interpret as being about treasure, which they certainly won't answer honestly if they don't want future deaths.
And have the questions be asked by the person with the best scores for "Sense motive" and "Diplomacy" so we can get the best feedback about the situation.
Someone drag Telfis over.
Telfis took a bit longer to recover from the shock of the avalanche. He had never even seen snow before.
He only comes fully alert when he hears Thesis' clumsy plan to deceive the kobolds.
He shakes his head.
See, Thesis, the thing with lying, or so I'm told, is that a big lie only works if you hide it in a lot of small truths. First thing you learn, really. Well first thing you hear. From other people. Not that its ever good to lie... well anyway.
Why don't I just go over them, and tell them, somewhat exasperatedly, that you two clerics are quarreling over who is the only god. And legend has it that there is an old book in there library on their mountain. so we have come here to look for that book. They might as well let us in. Once we're in, we might get a look at the chamber below, if they have not emptied it. It seems they are industrious miners, so why fight our way in for possibly nothing?
Ok, so we agree on the following:
1. Telfis tells them the stoty that we clerics need that book to solve a dispute
2. We heard the book is somewhere in that mountain and we want to get there
3. If they don't know about books, we go through the front (whenever they don't know about books, libraries or whatever)
4. If they know about the library, we want to go in to search for the book
So if they don't know, we try to avoid them and kill monsters. If they know, we have to get in
if they dont know about the library they probably are also scared of the monsters, this might give us some leverage because if the monsters kill us they dont lose, if we kill the monsters, they win
greed is always a good argument
See; this is why we need some thinkers in the group.
Let's do what Telfis and Eolar suggest.
I'm for it.
Good plan. Thesis has a 14 intelligence, but I think it is all in his sword arm!
It definitely doesn't affect his listen check :D
I wonder where Mendez keeps his 14 intelligence?
In his shirt?? ;)
It's true; my silk shirt is very smart!
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