The Demon Verge: Session 3

We were short one player last session, but the newly christened Company of the Closed Fist returned to the Falcon Hall to clear it once and for all:

Aelaran the Resilient (male cleric), played by Bret
Cadie Stone-Spar (female dwarf), played by Jaime
Magda the Witch (female magic-user), played by Chris H.
Ondola the Blunt (female fighter), played by Chris V.
plus their retainers: Wart, Mordu, Janus, and Yar

Two of the Company's retainers from the previous expedition, Otto and Bardoon, declined to return to the ruined outpost for this sortie. The players talked the local lord, one Arjon Tenpher, into loaning them two of his personal guard (Janus and Yar) and, at the insistence of the halfling Garen-Gen, five sheep at the end of the previous session. Sadly, Garen-Gen proved to be highly allergic to the local breed of sheep and had to remain back at camp while his comrades stormed the Falcon Hall.

The player characters again used some very imaginative tactics, including herding their sheep into the dungeon in an attempt to set off any booby traps. Unfortunately, the denizens of the Hall had enlisted the help of a small squad of kobold trapsters, who had made a barricade of the orcs and goblins the Company had slain last session and seeded them with shrieker spores. The crawling fungi immediately alerted the tribe to the Company's presence, sending the sheep bolting back outside. The kobolds then hurled crocks of oil at the party's magic-user, Magda the Witch, and ignited them. She would have been killed were it not for the speedy intervention of Mordu, the guardsman she had charmed into her service last session. 

The Company set about setting the kobolds' grisly barricade alight and then sealing the orcs and their allies inside the dungeon, barring the main doors and sealing its chimney with a promptly slaughtered sheep. A previously unknown escape tunnel was soon revealed, and the party tracked the Hall's fleeing inhabitants to a muddy creek, where a pitched battle took place. 

The skirmish claimed the lives of every one of the Company's retainers. The orcs' trump card, a club-wielding ogre, was charmed by the badly burnt Magda and then instructed to give the party a tour of the Falcon Hall. The Company of the Closed Fist returned to D'Ansor considerably richer, but it remains to be seen how Arjon Tenpher will react to the loss of two of his trusted men at arms.

The big lessons that I took home from this session? Smart play yields great rewards, players react with dread when you use their tactics against them, and charm is a great spell.