AAR: [3M] Toy Soldiers (2020/7/7 at 22:00 GMT)

[Reyntrannin]

LFG: Toy Soldiers
Time: 2020/7/7 at 22:00 GMT
GM: ReynTrannin
Circle: ECR 3
Difficulty: Medium

Rumor: A scouting patrol who was seeking to more thoroughly map the areas east of Skyreader Island and Kampung Gajah has recently returned to Throal badly wounded. Their report mentions a group of soldiers that descended on them as they were climbing higher into the mountains. Perhaps some enterprising adventurers would be able to investigate this and remove a possible threat?

Alternate Reward:

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[b]Name:[/b] Character name
[b]Date of Last Game Played:[/b]
[b]Circle:[/b] Circle of your character
[b]Discipline:[/b] Your character's Discipline(s)
[b]Unique:[/b] What your character is bringing to the table.
[b]Downtime:[/b] Talents and Skills that other characters can use over downtime: [Talent] [Step including +Karma Step if appropriate] ([Rank]) ([Further Details])

[ChrisDDickey]

Name: Mazor
Date Player last played: June 28th.
ECR: 4
Discipline: Beastmaster 3rd, Windling, Questor of Jaspree.
Quote/Unique: The night is dark, and full of Horrors.
Notable Abilities: Claw Shape & Pets.
Downtime: Animal Training Rank 3, Step 14.
Secondary character.

[predajey]

Name: Vralino Hammer-Shield

Date of Last Game Played:July 7
ECR: 3
Discipline: Sword Master...or Spear Master, depending on popular opinion.
Unique: Spears, Shield, Surgery, Socializing, Scaling Mountains, and Strategy...somewhat.

[verse86]

Name: Thorkell Gulbrandsen
Date of Last Game Played: 7/3/2020 Up, Upandal!
Circle: 3
Discipline: Weaponsmith
Unique: Thorkell brings the downtime activities. Besides that he is a perceptive and tanky troll.
Downtime:
[Forge Weapon] (11+4)
[Item History] (10+4)
[Craftsman] (10+4+4) can make mundane items, weapons, and armor
[Research] (10)

[sigfriedmcwild]

This is a secondary character
Name: Elisen
Last played on: 2020-07-06
ECR: 4 (7980lp)
Discipline: Cavalryman 4
Quote/Unique: Deliverance flies on silent wind
Notable Abilities: Zoak power!
Downtime: Animal training step 14 (10 + karma)

[Reyntrannin]

AAR

Player Rewards
Mazor: 1400 Legend, 275 sp, 3 TIP's
Thorkell: 1400 Legend, 275 sp, 3 TIP's
Elisen: 1400 Legend, 275 sp, 3 TIP's
Vralino: 1400 Legend, 275 sp, 3 TIP'sp

GM Reward: Langren: 7500 Legend, 650 sp, 3 TIP's

Downtime actions:
Elixen: Animal training step 14 (10 + karma)
Mazor: Animal Training Rank 3, Step 14
Thorkell:
[Forge Weapon] (11+4)
[Item History] (10+4)
[Craftsman] (10+4+4) can make mundane items, weapons, and armor
[Research] (10)

Some autonomous constructs were patrolling the valleys and attacked the Adepts on site.
There were signs of a larger group heading off to the south to join some unnamed operation.

[predajey]

The following is a recollection from Vralino Hammer-Shield, a 15 year old Ork girl with limited exposure to society. The text remains unaltered to maintain its authenticity (Certain terms and names written wrong to keep in character). It is written in Or'zet.

I got another job! Thorkell and I are going to figure out a unit that's ambushed a scouting patrol. Only one of them returned, and he was a blast! He could probably drink Elisen under the table! He very nearly was able to land a mug on their head! Our journey takes us to the southeast.

The first night comes and of course, the dangers of the wild rear their ugly head. We had about three wolves try to eat us. Luckily, Mazor was able to command two of them to run away. We ended up killing the third. Thorkell was wounded and I got to use my physician's kit to patch him up! I felt so helpful today. Elisen's Zoak got injured, but they were able to fix it up, too! Overall, not a bad day!

We arrived at a large clearing, and there's no sign of the ambushing unit. We saw some straw, wood, and weird track, but nothing out of the ordinary. We ended up going back about a mile to sleep. I can't wait for these assholes to come find us! Maybe they're the Therons from the Upandal tower! I am certainly looking forward to a second fight with them!

Well, it ended up being a group of scarecrows. Just a wooden frame with straw attached using wax of some sort. We were pinned against a rock wall. I was absolutely amazing! I was the fastest person out there for nearly a good minute! I was attacking from angles they couldn't even respond to! I even set up my comrades to royally destroy them! And then, I figured out a way to light the fuckers on fire! It was a short lived glory, though. After the first minute, I went back to my usual slow ass norm. Mazor was doing a lot of damage. Elisen was doing a lot of ride-byes, running away and charging back in. Thorkell wasn't doing so great, though. He took a lot of damage, but he survived long enough for me to cause my chaos then protect his back side. It was great!

We ended up finding some page or some such written in foreign. We took it back to Throal and had it translated. I gave some silver to do that, but I didn't stick around long enough to find out what it said. We also tried to track where the main force of these scarecrows was, but we lost them at a river. All we could say is they were heading south.

[verse86]

Journal Entry:
After licking our wounds from our loss at the tower, our group heard of a rumor of a scouting group hired by Garrell Mining Company being wiped out in the mountains. This is in the mountains not more than a week or two away from the tower. Could this be related?
A'horangi was unavailable so we recruited the help of a Windling Beastmaster by the name of Mazor.
Our trip into the mountain was uneventful for the most part...until we were ambushed by wolves in the night. Our Beastmaster was able to scare off two of them. We dispatched the third, but not before it took a nice chunk out of my calf. Fortunately, Vralino has been learning some medicinal techniques and helped patch me up.
Our next day we found a large clearing with clear signs of a battle. There were strange bits of wood and straw about. Unfortunately we were having trouble picking up the path from there. We decided to backtrack a mile and camp out for the night... And we were ambushed in the night... again. These weird scarecrows came silently bouncing up and attacked us in our sleep. People talk of scarecrow arguments as being weak. Let me tell you, these things were anything but. Vralino had the bright idea of setting them on fire. It seemed effective. What was effective was Mazor's claws ripping through their chests.
We found a note in a language we couldn't understand which turned out to be Theran. They were instructions on troop movements. Could this be related to the tower? Are these weird scarecrows related to the Therans? I must return and finish what I started.
Elisen asked me to look over his newest acquisition. The quality of the windling polearm is exceptional. The dull gray blade suggests it's purpose is piercing and sweeping attacks. It definitely seems heavier than I would expect of a windling weapon. After spending some time with it, I have determined Elisen must learn then name of this weapon. I also took some time forging it while I had it on hand. I must work on more windling weapons. They really test my finesse.

[ChrisDDickey]

From the journal of Mazor of the Deep Servos. 

Word reached us that a scouting patrol who was seeking to more thoroughly map the areas a week or so east of Throal has recently returned to Throal badly wounded. Their report mentions a group of soldiers that descended on them as they were climbing higher into the mountains. We decided to check out this rumor.

 First we talked to Olgin Treeclimber, whom we found already deep in his cups. The only things we were able to pin down was the location (48,12), and that the other survivor was named Terrisa, but he could not tell us where to find her. We asked many questions about the "soldiers" that attacked them: about their uniforms, their race, and every other question we could think of. The more we asked, the more he drank, and the more he drank the less intelligible he got. By the time we left I expect he was mere moments from sliding bonelessly to the floor. 

We also visited Garrel Mining, who told us even less. I tried to talk them into paying us to ether find out what happened, or to complete the survey that their party had been doing, but they were uninterested in either proposition. We headed out of Throal without an employer, in the hope that whatever was in the area would be profitable. After several days of travel we were attacked in the night by wolves. I dominated 2 and had them flee. The third was killed and we skinned it. 

Not too long after that, we happened to pick up the tracks of Olgin and Terrisa as they limped back to Throal. We backtracked them to the site of the battle. It was a clearing in the woods. We tried to fly high above the clearing to scout the area, but there were strong and unpredictable winds above the trees. We examined the area on foot but saw nothing but footprints and some worked lumber and straw. There were no bodies, nor any abandoned equipment. So whoever won the battle cleaned the site up pretty well. The footprints of the enemy forces were weird. They were vaguely human sized and shaped, but were not from ether shod feet, nor any known races unshod feet. We found the place where the enemy force left the clearing, and we could have followed it, but it was evening, so we retreated about a mile and made camp for the night. That night during the first watch we were attacked by 5 scare-crows. They silently rushed up and attacked. We were caught totally flat-footed, and it took a while for everybody to wake up and get up on their feet and fighting. . The scarecrows could heal when damaged. I managed to get the deathblow in on 4 of the 5 strawmen, which caused them to collapes into a simple pile of straw with lumber sticking out (like we had seen at the other battle site). 

The next day we tracked the strawmen back to their camp. We found a group of old dilapidated tents. The tents were old, but they did not seem to have been encamped there for very long, certainly not years. We found a veneer of wood with writing on it. It looked just like a page from a book, except it was thicker, as if the paper had grown in thickness and returned to its woody origins. We could not read it, but had it translated once we got back to Throal. Doing more tracking, we found that a larger force had not long ago traveled to the eastern branch of the Alidar river, where we lost them. We don't know if they got onto ships, or merely crossed the river (though we did look for tracks on the other side, we did not find any). 

And so we returned to Throal with nothing more than a single wolfskin to justify our efforts. Fortunately as we approached Throal, a small sack of money fell from the sky (probably from a passing airship), and thus we were able to pay our bills. I trained to Beastmaster Circle 4. 

In Throal we got the page translated, and it turns out the language was Therian. It was an order for a unit of soldiers to march south to begin "phase 1" (no mention of what that was), leaving a small rear guard unit to cover a supply depot. So the unit we fought was apparently this rear guard unit. Some strange thing (very probably a horror power, but the possibility exists that it is some other powerful magic) turned this unit of Therians into scarecrows, and this sheet of paper into a thin veneer of wood. Who are these Therians? Where did they come from? What caused them to turn to wood? I expect that there is much going on in that area that will need heroic intervention. 

[sigfriedmcwild]

From the Songs of Passion by Elisen of clan Adorjan, Haressa-tis

When the scouts got brutally mauled and vengeance is owed
Surveying Garrel Mining's lands
And the adepts joined for it was a worthy cause
And the adepts were Mazor of the many pets
And the adepts were Thorkell father of weapons
And the adepts were Vralino of the stabbing spear
And the adepts were Elisen rider in the silent wind
And the adepts rose to protect the land

And the journey took them to the inns of Throal
The inns where the drinks drown the sorrows
The inns where the drinks hide the fear
The inns where Olgin Treeclimber hid from the past

And the journey took them to the hills
The hills where wolves wait in the night

And the adepts woke from their slumber
And the adepts defended their camp
And the adepts earned their rest

And the journey took them into the forest
In the forest was a trail
And the trail led them to a glade

And the adepts scoured the glade
And the adepts looked for clues
And the adepts found only questions
And the adepts rested the night

And the night brought scarecrows
Scarecrows fighting like namegivers
Scarecrows looking for to silence the truth

And the adepts defended themselves
And the adepts broke the puppets
And the adepts scattered the straw

And the journey took them to an abandoned camp
In the camp was a sign
Orders from great Thera to an army
An army gone in the mountains
An army that needed no rest
An army that needed not food
An army of scarecrows

And the journey ended
And the adepts brought news to Throal

And so the threat was revealed