Raiding the Woods of the Dead

[Zodgrod]

Hi!

I've been running Coming Storm in a HQ/RQG hybrid and I'm looking for inspiration for a specific adventure the PCs want to embark on. 

The setup: It's Fire 1621 and the players are an Issaries Priest, an Orlanth Thunderous god-talker and an Orlanth Adventurous initiate verging on devotee status as well. Main deviations from the Eleven Lights campaign is that they have aligned themselves with the Telmori, have struck a deal with the Sazdorf Uz and even more seriously oriented themselves towards saving the Dolutha.  Alot of "side content" is stemming from the latter especially. The scenario I'm looking for help with is no exception:

Having successfully heroquested to turn Ivar to a More Loyal Thane bent, the party have found that those who are not favourable to that development (ie the Lunars, the Sworn Knives and remaining anti Orlanthi Elmali) have taken indirect control of the clan by keeping Ivar in command but on a very short leash presumably using threats of violence and blackmail. 

To continue to garner support and good will towards Red Cow influence, the group have organized an extensive war party to hunt and kill Good Arnal to free the Dolutha from at least one of its scourges and hopefully break it's kinstrife curse. They have managed to convince the local Humakti barracks (Orkarl and his followers) as well as The Temple of the Wooden Sword troll Humakti initiate and his dozen or so trollkin followers who now reside at Black Glass ruins (!!! never underestimate the power of Issaries diplomacy). 

Wanted to use the Highwall Inn scenario somehow but this is turning into a bit of a mass combat situation. Does anyone have any sdvice, ideas or inspiration on interesting twists to insert here?  Don't hesitate if you have more questions about the setup. 

[HreshtIronBorne]

This is so much different than it turned out for our party and I absolutely LOVE it. I will ask my GM to chime in with some ideas. 

[Zodgrod]

Thanks!  Would be interested in knowing how it went for you guys as well! 

Should also note they just returned from a secret night time raid of Stonegate. One of them has been proscribed by the Lunars and another is not far off thanks to their support of Free Sartar. The whole group are on Ivartha's bad side thanks to their Telmori apologist stance so getting rights to travel north to the Woods seems like a likely complication.  The Emerald Sword, Jomesland and Cinsina government know and actively do not trust the PCs. They might need to lean on the Mud Hens support (again) even if hunting ghouls seems a universal good. 

[HreshtIronBorne]

Our party consists of 

Humakti Initiatie (Mine),  LM Initiate (Mine)

Orlanth Adventurous/Thunderous Initiate, Agimori Hunter

Thiefy type Lanbril/trickster dude (publicly cattle raiding expert),Issaires Initiate (Recently being retired from adventuring), (Y)Elmali(on) Sunbro (recent PC replacing retiring Issaries, favorite player cult there too)

Shaman of Daka Fal, Odaylan/*spoilercult* Hunter Archer 

Vingan Initiate, and an Ernaldan (the last two see little play as the player recently had a child herself!)  

Each player has 2 PCs as a sort of insurance against losing a limb or dying and not having someone to play while the other PC gets resurrected, works great for our tables, was ESPECIALLY helpful in RQ2/3 days when things were particularly hyper lethal and skills started out much lower. 

My PC was sorta breaking the rules but, I love me some Humakti. Therefore, a lot of our campaign was colored by a Humakti just thoroughly mucking things up the moment we made contact with any Lunar force. Hate Lunars 80% from soon after character creation, embraced enthusiastically I might add, really led to a whole lotta Trouble Maker being shouted in our general direction from just about everyone that wasn't an outright rebel. We are currently in 1626, i think? About to do a Mass Battle. 

 

Specifically when we were dealing with the Woods of the Dead, the Queen of the Red Cow all but Banished the Humakti to the Woods of the Dead to somehow solve the whole ghoul problem. We had the LM do research throughout the local libraries while the Humakti went on a Quest to figure some stuff out. Ended up making/discovering a nemesis but, learned the secrets of stopping Brangbane. I have NO IDEA how much any of this is just off the cuff nonsense and how much came from source material, by the way. 

Eventually the Humakti led the Agimori, the Dual wielding Thief/Trickster, and I think the shaman(?) or that players former PC, I can't remember, into the woods of the dead. the first time we brought a huge expedition north and losses were heavy, mostly as an illustration of how freaking nasty the whole woods would be. After subjecting my assault squad to Ghouls enough to make ourselves immune to their debilitating howls we went in and raided the place, slaying literally dozens of ghouls per encounter. It really felt heroic and pretty metal.  

Eventually we needed to kill whole villages full of Undead Ghouls, so we brought in the Big Guns of the Shaman, who could do Ridiculous things like Multispell 5 on top of his 3 points of the Shaman Ability Spell Barrage. As long as we protected him he could ignite/disrupt/whatever many many ghouls a round. The Humakti shone throughout though, this is literally his specialty. Morale was a huge boon. Turn undead is not as great as you would think. Mostly just True All the Swords and get in there. SWORD TRANCE played as written broke the first time we raided the place so badly we reconsidered some rules for our Glorantha. lol

 

I dunno if any of this is helpful but, I will quit ranting now. hahaha. See you over in Egregious Munchkinnery. 

[Zodgrod]

Love the 2 PC approach!

That is helpful: thinking tilting this against the PCs will probably be a strong dramatic play. They haven't necessarily come off as understanding how lethal ghouls can be (with their Fear inducing screams and general super human-ness). They do have a lot of Humakti and are cognisant of the fact that the woods are full of ghouls...but maybe not enough. Will depend a bit on battle rolls though.

[Pentallion]

Queen Leika sent Nameless to prepare them.  Nameless captured a ghoul, toed it to a tree.  She had her trainees also tied to trees.  She let the ghoul howl to its hearts content.  After about 3 or 4 hours the PCs were all immune per the rules for gaining immunity to the howl in RQG Bestiary.  They understood why Nameless told them to wear their brown pants.