Blaeringr

Sounds like you have lived many tales. Welcome to this little community. May your tales grow only taller with the years, and your adventures be legendary!

Initiative Order:

• 24+2 Maybell (perception)
• 23+2 Khaine (stealth)
• 20+2 Flick (stealth)
• 13+2 Chalia (perception)
• 10+2 Kek (intimidation)
• 12 highwolves

Round 1

The adventures hear the recognizable sound of arrows being drawn and knocked, and the creaking of old wooden bows. They leap into action to attack first.

It's the player's turn

Current map (north is towards the woods

 

Highwolves init (stealth)

Hakaja Kek

HP: 42/42 ~ AC: 20 ~ Speed: 25
Fort: +7 ~ Ref: +9 ~ Will: +8 ~ Per: +8
Sheet link

Kek clacks some spare bottles together in his left hand, echoing rhytmically of the barn walls, "Highwolves - come out to plaaay! High-i-wolves! Come out to playayay!"

Intimidate Check

*Posting for Dr Jackal as hexs away temporarily.

@farothel @Eagleheart @Dr Jackal @omegoku @daltar

Please post for your initiative.

To keep the perception checks I rolled for you as you approached the farm, please say so. Otherwise, please roll an appropriate replacement check: intimidation for Chalia and Kek (plus the included intimidating/provoking words called out), or stealth for Flick, Khaine, and Maybell.

Please do not add the +2 from Chalia's scouting. I will add that when listing initiative. I want to see the results for the alternative skill checks for their own effects.

Thanks to Maybell's perception check:

Anyone acting after Maybell has had a chance to act will benefit from her calling out the positions of the bandits: "two at the upper south windows, two east of the south door!"

 

And here's a slightly better look at the four gentlemen looking to truss you up and ship you off to Rex's lab (unfortunately the big little man himself is not present at this site):

 

Combat is very likely just about to begin. Players may keep the perception rolls that I rolled for initiative if they wish or...

As Chalia and Kek pause by the small house, using its wall and open door to give them some cover against potential ranged attacks, they make as though they are checking out the house, while actually surveying the barn out of the corner of their eyes. Unfortunately, as far as they can tell, the barn appears to be completely abandoned. Did Sean lead them astray? He seemed to be leading them to the barn before being talked out of this foolish plan...

But then they spot Khaine, and he's giving them a signal for danger. The bandits have hidden to make themselves difficult to see from the approach to the barn, but the back door is also open, and Maybell's keen eyes have not only spotted all four of them, but also a little extra danger which the three hidden adventurers can convey loudly once the encounter begins, or quietly if one of them has a way of doing so (such as the message cantrip)

14 of Renewal, year 20

Afternoon, abandoned farm

The adventurers approach the would be ambush, Chalia and Kek take up position near the door to the small house, while Flick, Khaine, and Maybell creep close to the barn through the undergrowth of the woods.

My players' latest encounter. They've come upon a farm with the silo on fire, but they've learned ahead of time that an ambush awaits them somewhere here, and they are trying to be careful about how they approach the situation.

Ambush at the Farm

Looking at this post in the combat thread, is this the approach you all had in mind?

https://www.myth-weavers.com/index.php?/topic/18607-chapter-3-combat/&do=findComment&comment=307629

Ambush at the Farm

Khaine, Flick, and Maybell make a wide circle around the farm buildings, keeping to cover, and make their way to the woods, and eventually close to the north side of the barn.

After receiving a signal from their allies in the brush, Chalia and Kek make for the house to the left, keeping an eye out for movement from the barn.

Overview: 

Chalia and Kek

Khaine, Flick. and Maybell

I didn't make a model for the shed. Oh well. Anyways, is this what you had in mind for your approach?

Khaine to the back then. Maybell and Flick with him?

What's Chalia's plan if she approaches from the front/left? Maybe Kek's with her.

W are windows. The lines with a dot are doors

Please describe where your character will be approaching the farm based on this map:

the farm ambush

If you want to connect with more players, networking in the community helps a lot too. I've recruited some of my favorite players just on recommendations from other players. If you start a game and get one or two players that you're really vibing with, ask them if they can recommend anyone else to join. A lot of the time people who would be genuinely interested in your game and would be a good fit just don't check the game ads that often.

I'm a sandbox guy as GM. I give the players leads, and try to give them a world with stuff going on and let them figure out what they want to get involved in.

So "sandbox with plots" for me, emphasizing the plural on "plots".

It's not about what's the right or wrong way to run a game with me, but what fits with my personality. I'm a creative with ADD, so even if you give me a good pre-written story, I'm going to change things on the fly. Constantly changing things, and reading as little of the plot as I can get away with so I can just make up even more of it as we go.

"You're right, of course. What have I gotten myself into..." Sean seems indecisive for a moment, then say,. "They're waiting for you in the barn. They've got a lookout for anyone approaching, but the woods on the other side of the barn is their blind spot. I don't know what they'll do if you try any of those tricks." he shrugs.

Sean looks utterly miserable

"I didn't know nothing about aliens, really. Rex came to my village last year, started talking about how we were in for all kinds of trouble. Aliens were flooding Carisport, convincing the council there to fund growth, but only for non-humans, how they were selling out their own kind."

Hale yeah! Welcome, fellow adventurer.

The man seems genuinely confused. He watches as the other human, Khaine, smoothly takes direction from a pale elf to encircle him, how the halfling in kinship pats the shoulder of the talking white lizard. The lizards talks! And it seems so kind and gentle. And the orc standing by with the healer's tools on a pounch on his chest clearly displayed. An orc healer? Orcs are supposed to be monsters.

"I-I can't call it off. I'm not in charge..." His voice is softer now and lacking all confidence.. "They're waiting for you in the barn. Said a group of aliens matching your description was causing trouble on the main roads, that you'd jump at the opportunity to raid a farm in peril. Said you were bullies."

He drops his threshing flail, and just sits down right there on the trail leading up to the farm.

"My name Sean. It's probably safest if you just leave and go back on your way."

The two story barn is on a little rise, with windows on the second floor, a shed on one side, and a small forest on the north side close to it. The farm house is a few dozen feet off to one side (to your left if looking from the south as these adventurers currently are) on its own little mound of raised earth.

Hello!

I do feel like PbP enhances the stories I tell as a GM and as a player, for sure. By giving me more time to think through situations and my responses, especially because I love the whole improv approach rather than pre-made stories.

May your tales be tall and your adventures legendary!

Welcome. May your tales be tall and your adventures legendary!

At first, the man seems to sneer and dig his heels in further at the threats from the 'aliens'. But Khaine's words cut through his guard. After a few moments of shock he finally drops the ruse.

"We're making things better..." he mutters, mostly to himself. Then more clearly, "It's for their own good. And ours. Wolves don't den with bears or badgers. They need to find their own land and not leech off of the settlements our fathers founded¹."

He appears to have a very foggy view of very recent history, but nonetheless he goes on to explain how the Highwolves are patriots, in his mind, espousing traditional human values, and protecting against imminent alien take over where the nomadic elves, as one example, will start destroying larger communities forcing people into nomadic lifestyles².

At the farm, an ambush awaits in the barn (not the silo which was set on fire). There's not abducted family of elves - that was pure fabrication - and the plan was to rake the group alive, or mostly alive, and torture them a little to scare them and spread the word to keep out of human lands, and maybe experiment on them just a little. One of their leaders, Rex³, is a genius who loves to pick apart aliens for research.

1. The colonies were founded by a variety of races. Elven nomads were crucial in scouting the land, and halfling farmers in quickly converting it to flourishing farms. Just to name a couple examples.

2. The elves of Talanrial are not strictly nomadic, and absolutely do build their own settlements, as Chalia has personally seen.

3. "Little" Rex Coleburn from the wanted poster?