Frostgrave - the long scenario reaches its penultimate stage

People who follow my blog must be aware that we have been playing out a series of linked games around the theme of finding the whereabouts of the treasure of a dreaded but long-presumed vanquished Necromancer. This started in December last year, and will finish in August, once various holidays are out of the way.

This game, together with the preceding two represent three concurrent parts of a single quest to find three Vorpal blades, which can only be handled by spellcasters, and which will play a role in the forthcoming denouement.

This time around, Owen provided the Wizard, I brought along an Apprentice and Richard a Captain, plus assorted warband members for support. Andy, once again ran the game and Nick took charge of the evil creatures.

Here is the initial table. The eagle-eyed might recognise the provenance of the central obelisk.

Everyone had to enter and leave this underground chamber via the portal on the right-hand side.

Bad things began to happen immediately. My hapless Thug was soon killed off by a snake-like guardian.

Vengeance was swift, however, as my Traesure Hunter, Warhound and conjured Zombie triumphed.

Elsewhere, more serpentine evil appeared. People may recognise many of these figures as well.

Daunting though these enemies appeared, we soon managed to see most of them off.

Obviously, the Serpent Wizard was protecting something, so we advanced across the chamber.

My Apprentice cast Wall, to prevent this Hydra, summoned from somewhere by the portal obelisk from easily attacking.

Elsewhere, Richard's Captain took on the Serpent Wizard's Bodyguard.

More nastiness appeared to attach a hapless crossbowman.

The brave Captain fought through to attack the Serpent Wizard, killing it but being killed himself by a Wraith Knight who was holding the Vorpal Blade (no photos, sorry). 

The fearsome Mouth On Legs creature was killed.

The Hydra was much more of a problem.

A Gorgon appeared. By this point, Owen's Wizard was out of the game. To win, I had to keep my Apprentice alive.

But to stay alive, we had to vanquish the Hydra. My Treasure Hunter managed to slay the Beast.

Ans she went on to kill the Gorgon, too. What a star!

Again without pictures, we combined to kill the Wraith Knight and my Apprentice took control of the Vorpal Blade. Time to get out of this chamber.

We fought out way back to the exit, seeing off more Serpent Guardians en route.

So, now, the Wizards, equipped with Vorpal Blades must confront the Evil Necromancer to triumph. 

The club Frostgrave League - continuing the scenario

Well, the Frostgrave League was much delayed by an unfortunate accident involving a staircase, an ankle and Andy, who has been running our "Find The Necromancer" series of linked scenarios. Anyway, Any is now back on both feet and the latest round of the adventure will be on 13th May. That, of course reminded me that I never wrote up the previous round, which we played back at the beginning of April.

Anyway, the scenario took our bands of treasure hunters and ne'er do wells out of the Frozen City to a location strewn with ancient ruins on the edge of some woods of bad repute. Woods in fantasy games are always of bad repute and will usually contain denizens who are unlikely to be a bunch of happy Teddy Bears having a jolly picnic and, when it comes to ancient ruins, well, the less said, the better.

This scenario had an unusual starting position. Each band was only allowed to field four of its members, each group to be led by either a Wizard, an Apprentice or a Captain. Richard, Owen and I all diced for who would do what, and I was tasked with providing my newly recruited Captain, with Richard sending the Wizard and Owen his Apprentice.

We were soon moving forwards into the unknown and the first unpleasntness to emerge was a Werewolf (here portrayed by my Werewolf from the My Last Sunrise set from Bad Squiddo). Owen's bunch of adventurers were able to see him off and things proceeded.

My group's job was to proceed to the building we could glimpse in the woods in the distance. However, on the way we were beset by a Giant Spider, but this proved to be vastly inferior to Shelob and was easily dealt with.

Advancing towards the woods, more creatures emerged, throwing javelins and disappearing, leaving me with a deceased Treasure Hunter.

I was unable to get them into combat, which was annoying, but hardly unexpected.

Finally, my Thug did manage to engage one of the things.

Elsewhere, more of them emerged and proved to be tough opponents.

Tough enough to kill my Thug, requiring the attentions of my Captain, Richard's War Hound and, eventually my Archer too.

It was clearly upset by my calling it a "horrible goblin thingy" but I did eventually kill it, but my Captain took a lot of wounds in the process.

Elsewhere, in what one can only call an Accursed Burying Ground a seriously Big Bad Thing emerged. My weakened Captain was in no shape to confront it, but Richard kindly healed some of my wounds with a spell.

It was a tough opponent, and appeared to be immune to normal weapons, but it was eventually killed, leaving Richard to discover an Enchanted Vorpal Sword among the graves.

Elsewhere, a twin Big Bad Thing was causing havoc with Owen's adventurers.

This one appeared to be immune to Magic, so I sent in my Captain, and she proceeded to go into battle against the vile beast. Eventually, the BBT fell to a combined attack from myself and Owen. 

Unhappily, my Captain was then set upon by evil Hounds, but by now the game was over, because we had the Enchanted Vorpal Sword, so we called it a day.

In the next round, I will be supplying the Wizard, so I am hoping that Ermengarde the Elementalist will prove to be a success and not get herself killed.

In the post-game accounting, my Treasure Hunter emerged unscathed, but my Thug was permanently dead. 

Frostgrave club league - Week Six

Following on from our last game of Frostgrave, last Sunday saw the next installment of Andy's scenario. People may remember that Owen, Richard and myself all found keys and parts of a map. This time around Andy revealed that the map, once pieced together revealed the location and basic layout of the buried former lair of the deceased Necromancer whose burial place we had investigated previously. The keys gave us access to the entrance of the lair.

The setting we used was a custom piece of terrain, built some time ago by Chris, comprising two levels of a dungeon/castle-type location, with linked rooms, staircases and an underground chamber. The first few pictures show this terrific setting, including a subterranean "garden" filled with statues, well we all hoped that they were just statues.

In the lower level was a workshop with a rather worrying cell, containing a Big Green Thing (BGT), hopefully a statue.

This lower level also contained what appeared to be some kind of abandoned mine.

As we entered the lower level, via the mining chamber, the first thing we discovered was that the mine was not abandoned. It was being worked by Zombie slaves.

I was the first player in the mine. My Wizard, Ermengarde was accompanied by a Zombie of her own, her out-of-game Raise Zombie spell having been successful. The Zombie was charged with securing a chest discovered by Richard's Reveal Secret spell. Luckily, the Zombie wouldn't have too far to shamble to get away with the loot. Ermengarde cast an Elemental Bolt, destroying one of the Zombie miners. I decided that we needed to clear a path to the upper levels quickly.

Before long, both Owen and Richard's bands were in the mine, with Zombiecide uppermost in their minds. Unfortunately, but hardly surprising, seeing as we were in a Necromancer's domain, Armoured Skeletons were also appearing. Even more unfortunately, the Big Green Thing in the cell turned out to be a Major Demon, and the cell wasn't there as a prison, it was just where the BGT lived. Soon it was in combat with our adventurers. My Apprentice, Gunilla was unable to to cast Enchant Weapon on my Man-at-Arms but he managed to survive a bout of combat with the BGT, even pushing it back.

Richard's crossbows peppered the BGT with bolts. Slowly, it was weakening.

Ermengarde managed to case Wall, shutting the Zombie miners away.

Unhappily, a bunch of Big Angry Fungus Beasts (BAFB) turned up. These were dangerous in melee but vulnerable to distance attacks.

Eventually, my Man-at-Arms killed the BGT and we all started to move troops into the underground workshop. The idea was to get missile troops in a position to shoot the BAFBs

Before long, we were clear of the lower levels, with the unpleasant creatures eliminated. We left most of our troops behind to guard the exit and the treasures we had found. Each of us took four explorers to the upper level.Richard had managed to cast Crumble on the ceiling of the lower level, creating a hole through which it was possible to access the lair itself. I decided to take the stairs, as did Richard (who might not have trusted his own magic enough to just climb up). (see below)

The upper level was a series of rooms joined together by a large central chamber. Owen had emerged directly into this chamber from the hole Richard had created.

In each of the rooms we found treasures, but there were also greater rewards for the brave (or foolhardy).

We found various scrolls and grimoires, defeating a number of vampire librarians on the way, including a Chief Librarian, in part thanks to one of my Treasure Hunters who had had her hand weapon temporarily enchanted by Gunilla. Richard, who actually destroyed the Vampire, generously gave my Treasure Hunter his +1 Enchanted Blade, because the dead Vampire dropped the +2 Enchanted Blade he was using when he crumbled away.

In the final chamber, an Armoury, we all came away with an Enchanted Weapon or piece of Enchanted Armour.

So, another interesting game of Frostgrave. We still haven't found the Necromancer, but the third part of the scenario will take place in early February, so I expect the foul dark wizard will turn up at some point.

In terms of treasures acquired, I came away with;

3 x Scrolls (Heal, Push, Fast Act)

2 x Grimoires (Fool's Gold, Invisibility)

1 x Spell learnt (Curse - 12 to cast) This was a bonus from passing a test in one of the rooms.

1 x Magic Shield

1 x Magic Weapon (thanks to Richard)

395 Gold Coins

320 Experience Points