Thaw of the Lich Lord ~ Game 1

Last night 8 players at our club embarked on the Frostgrave campaign: Thaw of the Lich Lord. I was one of those and here is my tale...

My wizard is The Magus Mandrax and he is of the Summoner School of magic. Being an ambitious fellow of high intellect and superior skill, Mandrax has recruited a band of trusty, if not altogether trustworthy, souls to aid him in his quest for treasure and power in the haunted precincts of Frostgrave.

From left: Mandrax the Magus, Apprentice Joquettes, the wily ranger Thursten, Ned Undersack a skilled tracker, two thieves Maximus Stinkfoot and Goz and four hulking thugs of dubious quality and even more dubious hygiene.

The Scenario:

On this, the magus's first excursion into the ruins it so happens that a solar eclipse is underway - an auspicious and magically charged conjuncture. Indeed, the very atmosphere is pulsating with potency and latent power. Surely there will be other practitioners out amongst the ruins at this time of heavenly convergence.

There were 6 treasure tokens on the table and, due to the eclipse effect, line of sight was reduced to 16" (reduced by 1" every turn until turn 5"). At turn 5 the eclipse is in full swing and all spell casting gains a +5 bonus. Monsters were randomly rolled for whenever a treasure token was claimed.

And so there was. In the same precinct lurked Balthazar Zvezda the Chonomancer and his gang of cutthroats. A worthy adversary aye, but hardly a serious threat to our hero. So, as an opening gambit, both bands moved in and spread out, with each searching for age old, abandoned treasure and keeping a weary eye open for deadly lurking creatures...

Balthazar leads his cutthroats into the maze of old stone.

Lead by Thursten the ranger, Apprentice Joquettes and some hired muscle move into the ancient city.

 Luck! Goz the thief finds something of obvious value.

Balthazar's gang of ruffians and thugs move in to loot the ruins to appease

their paymaster's greed for mystical treasure.

So both parties began exploring... Balthazar cast a Wizard Eye spell onto a tall section of wall in the center of the table which extended his line of sight and thus, his spell range. This proved to be problematic. Mandrax, perceiving a hidden treasure but unable to see it clearly moved closer with the aim of using telekinesis to pull it closer, but he still couldn't quite see it clear enough (out of LOS - now 14"). Instead, he cast a Leap spell onto the thief Maximus Stinkfoot who leaped to where he could clearly identify the loot.

 Eye spy... Is that treasure? Stinkfoot! Go and invistigate. Dh'zz%^# LEAP*#@!!!
That's magic talk folks!

 Aye, boss. It is treasure. Shall I go in and retrieve it?

 Uh oh! 

Some of Balthazar's goons, creeping around in the gloom,  made their presence felt with one archer loosing an arrow at & Stinkfoot severely wounding him. On the left Joquettes had also recovered some treasure and tasked one of his hired thugs to take it back to safety whilst he and ranger Thursten advanced further into the gloom. Some of the Chronomancers' people were lurking, and where they were sneaking there was bound to be more treasure.

Whose that lurking in there. Have an arrow for your troubles, sunshine.

I shall cast a Wall o' Fog to blind mine enemies!... >#*&-FOG-^<>!!

The ranger, a thug and the apprentice tried to sneek around one ruin but the chronomancer's apprentice threw up a wall of fog. Joquettes and one thug moved towards the center, Thursten posted himself at a window and another thug began to move through the magical fog. A pincer maneuver! Arrows flew but no hits were scored.

In the center Mandrax cast a Leap spell again to pull the wounded thief out of danger where he landed behind a solid &safe stone wall. Unfortunately, Balthazar descried these actions through the Wizard Eye and cast a Bone Dart spell at the wounded halfling knocking him down and out of commission.

There's that Wizard Eye, overlooking everything below.

The other halfling, the tracker Ned Undersack, was close by but was too busy dealing with a couple of enemy thugs. Arrows were shot by both parties but none hit their mark. But then more treasures were claimed and...

An ice toad appeared right behind Balthazar. He managed run and keep a distance between himself and the ferocious beast but he was distracted for a while before he managed to cast a devastating Bone Dart spell. The shard of bone hit the beast right in the eye and entered it brain causing it to drop down dead as a door-nail. 

But another treasure was claimed and another wandering beast appeared. This time a bear and it launched a brutal attack on the distracted Ned Undersack.

Mandrax, ever vigilant towards his own safety, cast a Wall of Ice to limit the bears' LOS. Expecting the bear to totally maul the halfling to shreads he hoped that the ice wall would channel it into his enemies' men who stood watching nearby.

While this was happening and whilst Balthazar was dealing with his own monster problems, Joquettes took the opportunity to move up under the gaze of the Wizard Eye and cast a spell of his own - A Bone Dart which caught one of the Chronomancer's men in the throat knocking him to the ground in a gurgling heap.

On the apprentices side of the table, the Wall of Fog failed and dissipated revealing one of Joquettes' thugs who was preparing for a sneak attack. Unfortunately there was an archer waiting on the other side and as the fog lifted he put an arrow into the lurking brute, felling him like a tree.

Miraculously, Undersack regrouped and attacked the bear inflicting a great wound. It wasn't dead but it did give him the breathing space to escape, bloody but still standing.

The eclipse was now at it's zenith and power was fizzing in the air. Mandrax used his summoning skill and brought forth an entity of the infernal planes - a minor demon - to destroy the crazed bear (the enemy skulkers had withdrawn leaving the magus the only possible target for its killing lust).

A great battle of immense ferocity ensued. The bear tore at the demon and the demon tore at the bear. The bear, in it's wounded frenzy tore into the unearthly creature causing damage that would have killed a human, but the creature of the outer planes took the bear and rent it asunder in a welter of blood and gore. (both down to 1 Health point after a couple of rounds).

Both parties began to withdraw to count their treasure. Mandrax summoned another creature from he infernal realms - an imp to help cover his withdrawal and to inflict any other mischief on Balthazar's group that it could. Joquettes was badly wounded by a Bone Dart via the Wizard Eye once Balthazar regained his composure following his fight with the ice toad. However, it was Undersack who loosed a final arrow that felled one of the enemy before departing the field.

The Outcome...

Balthazar won on the experience stakes. Mandrax won out on treasure with 500 gold crowns and 3 - that's 3 Grimoirs (I rolled 19, 19 & 20). One grimoir was particularly useful as it had the Bind Demon spell. I didn't have that. But now, I can afford a Summoning Circle in my lair and Bind Demon combined with Summon Demon means that I can attempt to summon a demon before the start of each game.

Conclusion...
It was a great game yet again. My opponent was Neil. He's far more experienced than I (only my second game) and I totally expected him to have a better grasp of the nuances - like casting the Wizard Eye spell which had far more reaching effects than appears in the write up because I'm trying to remember as much as I can and I recall my own actions far better.

Many thanks to Neil and Piotr at NWA who organized this campaign. Neil supplied all the great looking terrain used in this game and I feel very lucky to have played on it. I can see that I'm going to have to make some of my own.

What awaits The Magus Mandrax in the next scenario? We'll just have to wait and see.
I'm really looking forward to it.