The three princesses, fighting-woman Izzy and swoleceror Maya and thief Sycamore, having volunteered to help the dwarves of Shockhaven leave the gates of the fortress brewery behind. With them strides the hero-knight Sir Serge, and twenty-seven retainers. They left their henchmen behind, when they found out how dangerous the mission would be. Little did they realize when they volunteered, the grove where the dwarf’s secret ingredient grows had been taken over by a massive horde of giant, poisonous spiders. To make matters worse, the dwarves needed nine great sacks of the ingredient to produce a significant batch of their special ale. That would mean nine of their doughty fighters would be tasked with picking, while the remainder stood guard.
Sir Serge pointed out that things must be bad for the BrewMaster Tim to give up the secret of the grove. In a quiet clearing somewhere in the north of the island, surrounded by dense woods, five great and strange trees spread broad limbs from which depending the mysterious shockberries. Smooth skinned oranges, they appear at a glance, but pick one with bare hand and you’ll realize why they bear that name. The dwarves use long poles and special thick gloves, leather-lined rubber gloves that extend past the elbow, to pick them. It wouldn’t take long to get what was needed, but too long to escape the spiders.
Their dwarven guide, the GatherMaster Timothy (call me Tim) Starke explained all this as they approached the dim bower. A few strands of webbing became many, and scuttling could be heard in the dim recesses of the woods. They reached the grove without trouble, and had a few precious minutes to grab the fruits, now low hanging and fat since the dwarves had been long in absence. Izzy decided to pick one bare-handed and discovered to her literal shock that it carried a small electrical charge. Hence the thick gloves and special sacks. They don’t call it (legally distinct and fair use satire) Shocking Top Ale for nothing.
Meanwhile, the floor of the grove was littered with the bones and detritus of the spider’s victims. Silent watchers who added to the forbidding atmosphere. A few sailors whispered excitedly, realizing that some of the glittering amid the crunching bones was coinage. The girls cautioned them to stay alert, and good thing too. As expected, the spiders eventually ruined the party.
Your ‘umble DM at this point needed to know what kind of spiders were causing all this ruckus. The DMG has a nice little spider table, and a quick roll indicated mere giant spiders. These are realitvely weak, with but 1+1 HD each, but they are deadly. A single bite forces a save or die poison check. Yes, these pre-teen girls faced down 2d20 of the buggers without flinching (much). It turned out eighteen new friends joined the picnic and even won initiative, quickly dispatching several of the guarding humans. One also dropped down and chomped the GatherMaster’s big belly, killing him instantly.
The girls sprang into action and in a single round they and their men were able to slay five of the hideous beasts, which sent the remainder scuttling back up into the trees. Those failed morale rolls worked entirely in the favor of the princesses today. With all nine of the pickers surviving, the crew managed to full their sacks and drag the bodies of the fallen back to Shockhaven. Thus did they deny the spiders a meal of their friends.
To run this fight, we dispensed with the usual distances and surprise and facing and whatnot. The spiders dropped into the workers, creating a wild and chaotic melee. The good guys would attack the nearest spiders, and the spiders would attack random good guys. There were enough of each to make it not worth the trouble to track individual locations. Instead, I rolled random targets with each to-hit roll. Misses, it didn’t matter. Hits, we checked AC of the target – everyone’s AC was pretty close to each other save for the wizard – and we also dispensed with damage rolls. All that we needed was that save versus poison, because first aid was near to hand and the bite itself did minimal damage. Had any workers been attacked, that would have meant the shockberries spilling and negative consequences all over their return. As it happened, it didn’t happen, but it could have.
BrewMaster Simon was overjoyed at their success, even as he mourned the death of his GatherMaster. In a few weeks he would have a full batch – how many weeks it will take depends on when the girls can get together again for another session. This is one of the ways you can bend 1:1 time to suit your needs. Just because you hit a suitable stopping point, doesn’t mean you have to put too much pressure on everyone to arrive at a given time. How long before the in-game thing happens will depend on how long before the out-of-game schedule allows it. It may look like a stop-time hybrid, but who cares? It honors the 1:1 time pressure, while providing you with an easy solution to scheduling woes.
This time, they’ll have to escort two full wagons of the precious lifeblood of the Castle back through the dark marsh where they fought the great band of orcs. Would the orcs’ friends wait in ambush, or would some other threat show itself on the journey?