Blundering Through the Borderland- Turns 2-4.

This is a continuation of my experiment to combine the Five Leagues from the Borderland (5L) campaign rules with the Thud and Blunder (TB) skirmish rules for combat and character development.  This post will describe the events from turns 2-4.


Turn 2
Our team of heroes, led by Lena Ramstrom, returned to the village of Dunbrid after defeating the Orc cultist and eliminating their leader.  The village was full of good cheer towards the adventurers (we rolled Supportive Locals on the Village Event chart, which gives us an extra village activity).  Lena allowed her team to rest and recover from their recent battle before deciding their next move.

Village Activities:
Cirandale the Elf Ranger decided to train (which gave him a chance to gain a hero point, which he did).  Lena visited a local priest to gain a blessing for her team's next adventure (which we forgot to use).  Finally, Ersik encountered a wandering Monk and chatted politely with him for a time (using the interact action, he had a roadside encounter.  Using the 5L random charts we determined that he met a Monk, who had a polite attitude towards the hero).

Go Adventuring:
After a time, the Mayor of Dunbrid asked Lena to recover a trove of goods stolen by a gang of looters. His sources informed him that the looters were recently taken over by a brigand named Fulk, who had killed the previous leader.  Fulk, however, failed to learn the specific location of the buried loot, and only knew that it was buried in 3 spots near a secluded farm.  As Lena lead her band of adventurers to the farm, they encountered a wandering Entertainer.  When Grecco asked for a song, however, the Entertainer made a rude gesture and continued his travels.  Soon the party reached the secluded farm, but before they could start searching for the loot, Fulk and his brigands arrived and a fight ensued.  (On the random 5L chart we rolled both a combat encounter and a roadside encounter.  We rolled randomly to determine that the roadside encounter would be an Entertainer, and that his attitude was unfriendly.  Characters encountered may aid or harm the party depending on motivation, in this case the Entertainer was just a jerk.  For our combat encounter, we rolled the Outlaw threat, and randomly determined that we would play the TB Exploration encounter.  Rather than have 2 Trolls as potential random encounters, however, we decided that 3 of the tokens would be loot, and 3 would be nothing.  The party that got the most loot off the table would be considered to hold the field threat removal purposes.)


The Battle:

The farm house rests in a swath of land between bogs and forest, a rough land to eek out an existence.  The house seems idol, and the outbuildings look empty.  No signs of the farmer can be seen as the party approaches.  Scattered about are small patches where the earth has recently been upturned, perhaps these are the places where the buried loot can be found.

Lena tells her team to fan out and investigate the sites of suspicious digging. Samis approaches one, while Cirandale, Cassi and Flavius approach the hedge that borders the house. 

 On the other side of the farm Galifas and Grecco move ahead towards the south end of a copse of trees.  Lena and Ersik follow.

As the Adventurers approach the farm from the north, the brigands approach from the south.  Henry Brugel the Ox (blue coat), Fulk's right hand man, leads a group of former soldiers, mercenaries, and young thugs towards the farm.  They see the Adventurers and plan to take them out!

On the other side of the farm Fulk rushes towards the heroes, sending Ulric with his fighting dog ahead to guard one of the suspicious spots.  The Brigands scream and yell as they run.

 Ulric sends his hound ahead with orders to attack.  Samis readies a javelin as he sees the beast approach.

Flavius climbs the hedge and heads toward the center of the farm.  He spies a mercenary, perhaps a fellow former soldier, who stands ready with a weapon in each hand.  A young thug nearby wields a deadly looking ax.  A flash or flicker draws Flavius attention, and he quickly interposes his shield to block an arrow.  "Leave him to me," says the mercenary to the ax man.  "You can do the digging."  Flavius smiles.

Elsewhere, Grecco finds himself heavily outnumbered.  The Ox approaches for a fight as two thugs hold back, slings at the ready.  Another thug reaches one of the dig spots and prepares to search the area.

Lena and Ersik prepare to climb the hedge and head towards the center of the farm.  Galifas the Bright finds one of the dig spots, but stops to send a magic dart at one of the thugs.

Just as the thug pulls a bag of looted goods from the ground, a magic dart blasts into him.  He mutters a surprised gasp and slumps to the ground, out of the fight.

In casting his spell Galifas gave away his position and the enemy thugs sent sling bullets flying his way.  Though he tried to avoid them, one struck home and Galifas went down.  (He used a hero point to re-roll his destiny test, however still failed the roll).

Unafraid of some punk youth, Henry Brugel the Ox rushes forward, his longsword looking more like a massive cleaver as he waves it about in strong, threatening strikes.  Grecco, however, darts in with his spear and against the odds brings the brute down.

The mercenary rushes Flavius, preparing to attack with both longsword and knife, but Flavius catches the villain on his long spear and the fight is over.  The young thug with the ax stares on in disbelief.

Fulk the Brigand leader rushes towards Cassi, but the young guide calmly keeps his bow and puts an arrow in Fulk's leg, knocking him down.

Samis does not have time to throw his javelin before the fighting dog is upon him.  He tries to hold off the dog with his small shield while using his javelin like a spear.

Meanwhile, Ersik, finally over the hedge, rushes to engage the thug ax man.  As he engages the brigand an arrow strikes his shield, momentarily distracting him from the fight long enough for the thug to swing first. Though the vicious ax strikes home, putting a rent in Ersik's armor, the hero somehow managed to avoid injury.  His longsword flashes and brings the youth down.  Investigating the dug up earth, Ersik recovers some of the stolen loot, and begins to take it to safety.

Undeterred by an arrow in his leg, Fulk jumps to his feet and takes Cassi down with a vicious sword strike.

Nearby, Samis takes down the fighting dog.  The dug up spot he was investigating proves to be a badger hole and not buried loot.  Cirandale fires shot after shot at Fulk, but does not mange to put the Brigand leader down.

Ulric, the dog handler, yells in anger and rushes Samis to avenge the death of his hound.  His shortsword cuts through the youth's javelin and digs deep into his shoulder.  Samis' eyes turn glassy as he falls to the ground near the dog he had killed.  Fulk charges Cirandale, his sword and dagger swinging with deadly precision.  The Elf ranger draws his dagger and bravely faces the menacing brigand.

Undeterred by the deadly flashing blades of the brigand leader, Cirandale ducks and dodges blow after blow.  With a quick reversal, he steps in for one quick strike with his dagger.  Fulk slowly loses the smile on his face and glances in surprise at the blood staining his coat.  He mouths words of profanity, but no sound escapes, and he crashes face first into the dirt.

On the other side of the farm, the Brigands have managed to grab 2 of the 3 bags of loot and head for a safe escape in the forest.  Flavius rushed after and intercepted one of the thugs, and Lena attempts to stop another.  The brigand archer on the barn roof knocks Lena down with a lucky shot.  The brigand she pursued rushes to the edge of the forest while Lena gets up.  Grecco, having run around the copse of trees attempts to engage the brigand, but the desperate brigand takes him down.  The delay, however, was enough for Lena to catch up, and the battle ensued.

Flavius, outnumbered and harried by arrows fired from the barn roof, manages to take down the thug with the loot.

Lena brings down the brigand, a mercenary spearman, and recovers the loot he carried.

While Flavius' attention was on taking out the thug with the loot, he is unceremoniously brought down by a club blow to the head that made his helmet reverberate and his ears ring.  Taking a chance, rather than take her loot to safety, Lena decides to rush back after the unclaimed loot.  Dodging arrows from the barn, she rushes back, and with a deft stroke, she takes down the club wielding thug.

Cirandale moves to a place where he can shoot at the Brigand archer, but before he can take a shot, he is rushed by Ulric the dog handler.  The Elf Ranger draws his dagger once again and quickly takes Ulric down.  Free to retrieve his bow, the Ranger begins firing at the Brigand archer.  Outnumbered and facing two heroic opponents, the archer elects to slip away into the cover of the woods.  The heroes have recovered all of the stolen loot and hold the field of battle.

Aftermath:

Based upon the Thud and Blunder rules, the party earned 69 Reputation points, which will convert into 5L Gold Marks.  This is the reward from the Mayor for retrieving the loot.  Rolling on the 5L Unusual Finds table, it turns out that some of the Brigands had a price on their heads, so the party gained an additional 7 Gold Marks reward.  For other loot, the party found 3d6 Gold Marks, a set of Fine Knights Armor (I will have to convert this to TB mechanics), and a scroll called Whisper of the Weak, which can help heal a downed character.  Each character that went out during the battle had to roll on a recovery table to see how badly they were injured.  Galifas, Flavius and Cassi rolled well, and were just knocked out.  Grecco and Samis, however, rolled the dead result.  Using the TB Destiny stat to avoid injury (like the luck stat in 5L), Grecco made a saving throw and fully recovered.  Samis, however, died and failed to make his save.  The party has lost it's first member.  Finally, we rolled to see if we reduced the Outlaw threat level.  Based upon the outcome of the battle, we needed a 3+ on a d6 to reduce the threat.  We rolled a 5, so the Outlaw threat dropped from a 2 to a 1.  The next time we pursue the Outlaw threat will be raiding the enemy lair to get their boss once and for all.

Turn 3:

Since no lingering injuries exist, we did not have to visit the healer at the start of the turn.  For the Village event we rolled, "a place to stay" which gives the party an extra village turn without having to pay upkeep.  We decided that the Mayor put up the party at an Inn to celebrate the return of the loot.

Village Activities:

Lena, drowning her sorrows at the loss of one of her followers, caroused at the tavern.  There she met a hopeful youth named Olaf who wanted to join the party (she needed to make a TB Destiny test to recruit a new party member).  Meanwhile, Galifas went to train, but could not focus on his studies (he needed to make a TB Destiny test in order to gain a Hero point, but he failed).

Turn 4:

The party stayed in town to recover from their celebration.  Lena introduced Olaf to the party and then got down to business.  The Village event was a wandering card player, which would increase gambling winnings if we gamble.

Village Actives:

Galifas was sent again to train, and this time earned a Hero point, and Lena went out to retrieve herbs to make healing potions.

Adventuring:

For our next adventure, we rolled to face the Border Tensions threat.  We will face a group of Nomads we encounter while travelling.  We then rolled a random TB scenario.  The party will be caught in a major storm full of flooding and deadly winds.  The only hope to escape will be to race the Nomads across the beach to small boat that awaits there.  The boat, however, only holds 3 people.

Blundering through the Borderland- a cooperative fantasy campaign.

Blundering through the Borderland is an experimental campaign merging Nordic Weasel's Five Leagues from the Borderland  (5L) rules, with The Ministry of Gentlemanly Warfare's Thud and Blunder   (TB) rules.  Five Leagues from the Borderland has a rich campaign system centered around a party of 8 adventurers clearing various threats from several villages on the border of civilization.  In between battles and roadside encounters, the characters conduct actions in the village to help them gain new skills and supplies, heal injured party members, or recruit new members.  When they go adventuring, they set out to reduce the threat levels from Outlaw activities, Border Tensions, and threats from Dark Secrets around the area.  Thud and Blunder is a straight forward, set of warband level combat with an old school feel. The rules provide numerous sample warbands, along with an easy to use system for creating original characters.  Talents, magic, and a variety of weapon choices help to provide many different options to diversify characters.  TB has 20 different scenarios and adds various complications based upon conditions or the location of the encounter.  I hope that merging these rule sets will bring the narrative strength of 5L, and the depth of character and ease of play from TB in order to create an interesting roleplay light cooperative miniatures game.

The Warband of Lena of Sodermanland:  (L to R in back)  Galfas the Bright, Cassi the hired guide, Flavius a former soldier, Grecco a hopeful youth, Samis a former militia man, and Cirandale the Elf Ranger.  Front Center (L to R) Lena Ramstrom the warband Captain, Ersik the Bold her loyal retainer. 

The Characters:  5L calls for 4 Heroes and 4 Followers.  I have tried to stay close to that intent with my TB warband.  I started with 350 points, using 337 and banking the left over 13 as Gold Marks.  TB uses points to purchase talents and gear for characters, and Reputation Points as a form of experience points.  5L uses Gold Marks to buy equipment, and the two are easy to equate.  My 4 Hero characters all have the Hero talent, and purchased 3 Hero points each.  For the Followers, I used 30 points or less and allowed them to have a single talent each.  This seemed a good approximation of the character types from 5L.

Campaign Set Up:  5L calls for choosing a region to adventure in.  This can be the Hinterlands (a lawless region on the outskirts of civilization, the Borderlands (the very edge of civilization) or the Wilderness (settlements beyond the borders of civilization).  Each area differs in the types of threat that are more prominent.  Hinterlands, for example, have more Dark Secrets than the Wilderness.  For this Campaign, I chose the Borderlands.  Next 5L randomly determines the number of villages, and the threat levels in each.  I ended up with 2 villages, Cherwic and Dunbrid, with the following threat levels:

Cherwic-  Outlaws 3, Border Tension 4, and Dark Secrets 2.  

Dunbrid-  Outlaws 2, Border Tension 2, and Dark Secrets 4

My son and I decided to clear out Dunbrid first, so our party started there.

Campaign Turn 1:  The campaign turn starts with the characters in the village doing various things before setting out on an adventure.  It starts with resolving long term healing of injured characters and a few other logistical tasks before you start the turn with the Village Event table.  Our event was an abundance of blooming herbs in the region.  These herbs can be used for healing in 5L, but I also allow them to make potions from TB.  The event would allow someone taking the Forage for Herbs action to gain extra supply.  Next in the turn is the character activities, where 2 characters can conduct business in the village.  We elected for our wizard to forage for herbs, while one of our followers worked manual labor to gain 2 more Gold Marks.  To forage, our wizard had to make a TB Destiny test to find the herbs, unfortunately he failed so he found no herbs.  Once the character activities were through, we determined the type of encounter we would have.  Using the random charts from 5L and a chart I devised to break TB scenarios down by threat type, we determined that our adventure would be to Assassinate the leader of a Cult of Night Folk to diminish the threat of Dark Secretes in the region.  For our purposes, since I only had an Orc Warband prepared, we decided that this is an Orcish cult creating havoc in the region.  Per the TB scenario, the Orcs were trying to Assassinate my leader too.  To complicate things, the battle would take place in the pitch black of night.  My party could not see to use ranged attacks, but the Orcs with Night Eyes could.

The Combat Encounter:  Assassinate the Nigh Folk Cult Leader

Lena knew from her sources that the Nigh Folk had a camp somewhere near the old ring of standing stones just south of the old mill building.  Though the moon was out earlier, the clouds moved to block the light as if it expected her party to pass through the desolate plain.  The standing stones could barely be seen in the dark, but Ersik the Bold insisted he lead the party across the plain to find their foe.  As long as their cult leader was alive, the Night Folk would be out to get Lena.  Ersik insisted she remain hear the old mill and stay out of the battle.  Stumbling across the ruins in the dark, the party discovered the Orc cultists when arrows started flying their way.  Flavius rushed ahead in the direction the shots came from, and encountered two of the Orc Archers.  The former soldier charged the nearest Orc, hoping his friends were following his lead.

Indeed, Ersik the Bold, moving slower in his medium weight armor, followed Flavius into battle in an attempt to silence the Orc ranged attacks on the party.

Lena watched, as best she could in the dark, as her warband went slowly forward, rushing from one standing stone to the next until they encountered the approaching Orcs.  She saw a flair of light as a magic dart flew past one of her men, and elsewhere, Orc arrows continued to fly, one clanking off of Ersik's shield.  Samis had darted ahead on one flank, but no one supported him and he found himself facing the Orc Shaman and a Spearman.  Cirandale had rushed out of hiding and was attempting a stealthy attack on another Orc Spearman.

Meanwhile, Grecco had gone off on the flank and found an Orc Lieutenant preparing to shoot Cassi.  He rushed in to stop her, but was felled by a vicious flick of her dagger.  Ersik and Falvius had finished off the other Orc Archers, so Ersik charged the Orc Lieutenant, while Flavius rushed towards the Orc Leader and his Spearman guard.

Cirandale took out an Orc Spearman with his Sneaky attack, but another rushed in to fight the Elf.  Cassi rushed over to help out, but the two become locked in combat, as neither side could get the advantage despite the heroes superior numbers.  (Cirandale kept missing Destiny Rolls to stay in the game after being hit.  He would spend Hero points to re-roll, and eventually went through them all and stayed down).

Ersik fought a hard back and forth battle with the Orc Lieutenant, even having to rely on Destiny to protect him when his armor failed.  The Orc was well trained in combat and her dagger flashed in the dark night, but eventually Ersik prevailed and struck home with his Long Sword, taking the Lieutenant down.

The tide was turning against the Orcs, despite the Night Eyes giving them an initial advantage.  Galifas was the target of the Orc Shaman's spells, and unable to see well enough to cast his own in return, the Elf closed the distance and fought with his Quarterstaff.  Cirandale rushed up to help, while Flavius singlehandedly fought the Orc Leader and a Spearman.  Though Flavius hit home with some blows, he could not penetrate the Orc's armor.  Cassi rushes up to help from one side, and Ersik from the other.

Flavius could not hold out until help arrived, and went down under a vicious blow from the Orc Leader's Polearm.

A fierce exchange took place as Ersik and Cassi fought the Orc Leader.  The brute's heavy armor could not be penetrated by Long Sword or arrow.  Once the Leader fell, but managed to get right back up.  The prolonged fighting took it's toll on the Orc, however, as Cassi was able to find a weak spot in his defenses, and send an arrow striking true.  The Orcs were defeated!

Aftermath:  After the battle, downed characters must roll to see if they are injured or killed.  Samis, Grecco, and Cirandale were all only knocked out per the 5L charts.  Flavius received a light wound, but was able to make a Destiny test and avoid injury.  That means that the entire warband will be available for the next fight.  Cassi the Follower was still on his feet at the end of battle, so he had the chance to gain a skill or even be promoted to hero.  His roll, however, was unsuccessful.  Per TB rules the party gained 45 reputation points (to be used as Gold Marks) reward for meeting their objective, and for the foes taken down.  The party also found some loot using the tables in 5L, a Balanced Broadsword, Throwing Knives and some form of vital information.  They also found an unusual find, bodies of the Cult's previous victims.  This comes with a reward from their families for avenging them.  Finally, the party rolled to see if they reduced the threat level, which they did, bringing the Dark Secrets threat in Dunbrid from a 4 down to a 3.

Assessment:  My initial assessment is that this mesh of the two systems works very well with a bit a tweaking here and there to make things fit.  The seamless merger of Gold Marks and Build Points really helps to keep the economic/logistic side easy.  Also, the 5L system stands mostly intact.  Any changes or adaptations made were logical for TB and also kept to the original intent.  My son thought this was a great way to quickly and easily develop a narrative based game, which is maybe the best endorsement I can give.

Blood in Space 2nd Edition

Blood in Space is a 1-2 player game following the exploits of a small crew of adventurers as they  traverse from planet to planet, explore derelict ships, or fight Imperial forces.  It uses the same game mechanics as Blood on the Blade, which you can find in previous posts on this blog.  The game has simple, yet interesting rules, several missions and enemies, and lots of options for campaign play.  The latter includes a nice flow chart that logically sets up what the crew's next adventure will be, a mechanism that strengthens the narrative flow of your overall story.  The new 2nd Edition of Blood in Space also incorporates a randomized star ship room cards with matching terrain tiles used for playing scenarios on space ships.  You can learn more here...http://zak965.it/studium/


Now, on with the story of the crew of the Free Trader Quixote.....

Crew of the  Quixote (L to R): 
Captain Cortez-  reluctant leader of the crew, and also the ship's medic.  She is armed with a Laser Drill and a good old fashioned knife.
Maroon-  a good soldier and crewman who (for some reason) is abundantly pleased to be away from the main space lanes.  Maroon is armed with a Blaster Rifle.
Chuck-  Chuck is just Chuck.  He carries a shotgun and hopes one day to be an engineer.
"Princess" Katya- a Psyko with PSI powers.  Her LasGun has a stun option, in case she wants to play with her prey.
"Happy" Harrison-  lives up to his nickname, especially when he has something to point and fire his heavy blaster at.  When aboard ship between missions, however, Happy gets entirely too grumpy.

Mission= Exploration
Played cooperatively with my son.  The game rules handle enemy AI.

 The crew has been hired to explore a snowy region on the planet Tellos-7.  This unaffiliated planet is sparsely populated, but it's locals believe that the planet once housed an advanced alien civilization.

Cortez reads a blip on her scanner, but weather conditions foul up her readings.  She follows the signal to investigate and discovers 2 Imperial Soldiers.  Since Tellos-7 is not an Imperial planet, Cortez refuses to hand over her weapon and surrender to the soldiers. Unsurprisingly a batten ensues.

Cortez is injured in the fire fight, and falls back to treat her wounds.  Maroon and Happy step in to cover her.  With a barrage of fire, they take down the Imperial Soldiers.

Fully recovered, Cortez continues to take point as the crew approaches another fouled signal on their scanners.

Meanwhile, Princess nimbly climbs an old ruin to investigate another ghost signal.

Cortez' search reveals more Imperial Soldiers.  Maroon takes a hit, but with Happy's Heavy Blaster, they easily take the Soldiers down.

Chuck takes point following up another sensor reading, and leads the team to more Imperial Soldiers scanning the area.  What are the Imperials doing on Tellos-7?  What could they possibly be looking for?  These questions do not cross Chuck's mind.  Instead he thinks about where to point his shotgun so that he can get both targets in one shot.  He is successful in this task, even if the Imperial's armor withstands the shot. Eventually, the enemy is eliminated, but the crew of the Quixote still have no clue as to why the Imperials are here.

At the last spot on the frozen plain, Chuck discovers another pair of Imperial Soldiers.  This time, it appears that they were digging for something in the hard frosted ground. 

The Crew fans out and concentrates fire on the Imperials.  Princess attempts one of her PSI mind blasts, but only manages to give herself a head ache.  She nearly passes out from the effort, but fortunately the crew vanquishes the soldiers while she rests.  Investigating the site once the battle is done, Cortez discovers that the Imperials were digging up an alien artifact.  That means that their employer will want to send that kook of a Scientist down into the valley to search for more artifacts.  Cortez leads the way back to the ship where she will tend to Maroon's wound and prep her crew for the next mission.  This time they will be on the look out for more Imperials.

Next Mission-  Escort (Science)

Thud and Blunder- Our First Game

My son and I played our first game of Thud and Blunder today.  He had a team of Human Adventurers, and I had an Orc Warband.  We played the Exploration scenario with a few adjustments.  Our teams were only looking for 1 artifact instead of 2.  Also, we eliminated Trolls as possible encounters, and replaced them with Ogres (which proved deadly enough to the Orcs).  Below is a brief battle report of the game.

Somewhere in the ruined village of Blartsmortt, as rumors tell, is hidden an ancient artifact wanted both by the forces of good, and by the henchmen of evil.  As fate would have it, a team of Adventurers seeking the artifact approach from South of the village.  At that very moment an Orc Warband approaches from the North with the very same purpose.

Griglak the Orc leader has promised his master that he will find and retrieve the artifact.  To that purpose he leads a few of his warriors in search of clues.

The Shaman Rainmaker and Monger, the Orc Ranger, lead the rest of the Orc warriors into the ruined village.

Meanwhile, Garris the Ranger, leader of the Adventurers, has his team fan out on the South side of village.  They approach cautiously, somehow sensing that not all is right in the village.  Kullen the Rogue and Estelle the Healer stick together on one flank.  Since they are not loaded down with equipment, the pair can move very fast if needed.

As the Orc Warriors blunder into the village, unaware of any opposition,  Monger the Orc Ranger spots movement in the woods.  She draws her bow, but is struck by an arrow and knocked down before she can loose her shot.  Uninjured, she gets right back up, but too late to warn her fellow Orcs.

Meanwhile, an Orc Spearman looks for a clue in the murky pond.  Instead of the artifact, he disturbs an Ogre's den.  The beast emerges from his home and licks his lips in anticipation of an Orc dinner.

The Ogre's roar of delight unleashes pandemonium in the village.  Garris and the fighter Ersik approach the only intact building in the village.  As he approaches, he ignores the arrows sent his way by Monger.  Another Orc Spearman turns to face the Ogre, while the other Orcs fan out and approach the Adventurers.

Rainmaker the Orc Shaman directs the Orc Bowman and Orc Spearman to attack Rufus, the Human Mage.  Rainmaker himself attempts to cast a spell, but fails to channel the mystic energies, and only sends sparks down his fingers.

The Ogre makes short work of the first Orc, then looks at the second one like it is dessert.

The second Orc Spearman makes a desperate, doomed attempt to skewer the Ogre.

Meanwhile, an Orc Spearman charges Rufus the Mage, and the two prepare to fight hand to hand.

The Ogre deftly slays the second Orc and begins his feast.

Horsa, the Barbarian jumps into combat with the Orc fighting Rufus.  His two-handed sword swoops down and splits the Orc's skull.

Elsewhere in the village, Griglak the Orc Leader searches the ruined house for the artifact.  On the second floor he stumbles upon a sleeping Ogre, who unfortunately wakes up hungry.

Griglak strikes the Ogre, but his blow has no effect on the monster.  The Ogre then takes his turn and lays Griglak out with a single blow.  With the Orc Leader down, leadership falls to Monger the Orc Ranger.

As the Adventurers and the remaining Orcs merge on the village, individual fights break out.  Yet, those not fighting or dying continue the search.  Suddenly, Estelle finds the Artifact in a small chest, buried in a shallow hole, on the edge of the woods.  Rainmaker hears her exaltation and rushes over, preparing a spell.  Horsa the Barbarian rushes to head off the Orc Shaman, while Kullen the Rogue shoots an Orc who jumps Horsa from behind. 

Rufus, charged by another Orc, gets knocked down.  Ersik trades blows with Monger, who tries to slip the blade of her knife in the gaps of his armor.  Garris rushes out of the intact house and sees his team fighting throughout the village.

Estelle grabs the Artifact and runs to the team's rally point while her friends cover her retreat.  The Adventurers have found the Artifact, kept it out of evil hands, and have bloodied the Orc raiders in the process.  All in a good day's Adventuring.