Welcome to the ongoing saga of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign I ran a little while back. It started off using The Sunken Citadel module from the Tales From The Yawning Portal source book, but was then fitted into my Homebrew setting and moved on from there.
In the last post, the party found the stronghold the orcs were building and made an initial attempt to attack it, discovering that it was well defended and they would need a better plan.
I hope you enjoy my D&D campaign write-ups, and the commentary I add to them. Questions, comments and feedback are welcome !
Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio
Following the initial venture of just blundering into the cavern entrance, the party withdrew a little way and healed Griff of his wounds. They then planned out a more deliberate assault.
This involved hugging the cavern wall and moving under the arrow slits to avoid being fired on, then finding the entrance to the archers' gallery and storming it from the rear. At this point, they didn't know there was a second row of arrow slits (from room 5 in the previous post's map), nor did they know that out of sight around the corner was a defended wall across the cavern.
They went in, hugging the right hand wall. At which point the orcs opened up on them through the arrow slits in the opposite side of the cave entrance. There were less slits on that side, so it wasn't quite so bad, and the party had buffed themselves up with magical protection which helped a little.
They decided to go forward, sticking to the plan. Rounding the corner they saw the Wall of Sorrow, a low but solid barrier lined with orcs ready and waiting for them.
Storming forward, they launched a determined attack. With bardic support from Fartacus, Griff and Erioch charged forward rapidly enough that the orcs archers only got off a single shot before they arrived at the foot of the wall. At this point, I knew they'd gone off-script from their original plan, and I wondered if they actually had anything in mind or were just blundering around and hoping for the best.
I was quite surprised by what happened next. As an aasimar, Garnet (the party sorcerer) had the ability to fly, but had so far not used it. Now, she did. Taking cover around the corner, she cast an invisibility spell on herself, then flew high and wide to cross the wall. As she went, she dropped a rope with a grapple which enabled Griff and Erioch to rapidly climb the wall and get to grips with the orcs.
While they did this, Garnet carefully selected a target and launched a magical attack. This caused her invisibility to drop, but a well-placed Burning Hands spell empowered with Metamagic to increase the damage made it worth it. Several orc archers were incinerated, but more importantly, the orc Claw of Luthic (their shaman) was killed and two of the orogs (extra-tough orc NCO-types) were badly burned.
Despite this, the party were still seriously outnumbered. The orc archers mostly dropped their bows so they could engage in hand-to-hand combat, but a couple pulled out of the fight and kept up a constant fire against Garnet.
Griff and Erioch found they were being pushed apart by the press of orcs. They put down the two wounded orogs, and Erioch then found himself face to face with the orc war chief without support from Griff, who was rapidly being surrounded.
Despite building a wall of orc bodies around himself, Griff was starting to take serious damage
without time to heal himself. Garnet was using Fire Bolt cantrips to keep most of the orcs off Erioch's back, but the orc archers were scoring occasional hits on her that were starting to whittle her hit points down even though she was safe from melee contact.
Erioch's battle with the war chief was epic, brief and very, very bloody. The war chief went down, but Erioch was down to less than a quarter of his initial hit points.
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The wall was taken, and the orc ranks were thinning out, but the distant sound of lots of pounding boots made clear that more orcish reinforcements were almost there. It was the archers from the firing galleries, who were coming to the aid of their comrades now that they had no valid targets. I was running the orcs as smart, and they had goblin "runners" maintaining communication between the various groups.
Amazingly (for this party), they realised that it was all getting too much for them to handle.
Taking advantage of the temporarily diminished number of orcs around them, they made a hasty retreat. They gambled correctly that the reinforcements were the archers manning (or should that be orcing ?) the arrow slits.
Once safely outside, they withdrew back to the orc watch post they'd captured earlier in the day, to have a long rest, heal up and consider their next move.
Next time..... in through the back door
Previous posts in this series;
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-introduction
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-lets-meet-our-characters-
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-arrival-at-oakhurst
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-to-the-sunless-citadel
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-into-the-citadel
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-kobolds-are-people-too-
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-a-deal-with-kobolds
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-no-creatures-land
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-a-beast-a-fountain-and-more-rats
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-first-encounter-with-the-cunning-goblins
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-pits-and-dragons
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-the-goblin-chiefs-potted-plant
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-down-the-hole
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-the-fungus-garden-and-a-laboratory
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-the-bugbear-gardener
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-into-the-twilight-grove
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-showdown-at-the-gulthias-tree
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-an-unexpected-offer
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-orcs--orcs-
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-overthrowing-the-mayor
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-cooling-off-cantrips-and-council
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-taking-the-fight-to-the-orcs
@alonicus/the-second-dandd-tarak-campaign-first-sight-of-the-orc-stronghold