RPG in SoBH test - part 2

Well, it hardly seems like only, ehem, 7 months ago we played the first half of introductory D&D adventure "The Eye of the Wyvern" using the "Songs Of Blades and Heroes" ruleset, but here we are. It's been so long, actually that we couldn't find the original warband sheet so we had to guess the warband and miniatures used. And no, it didn't even occur to me to look back to the earlier post on this blog - stupid I know!

Anyway the names and faces may have changed, but the adventure goes on. The party now consisted of a warrior (not paladin), mage, thief, barbarian and Elite Dwarf. So not too far off the original.

The party had left the town to travel further into the hills to find to origin of the attacking wyvernling beasts. Night fell and noises were heard from up ahead. Inside an old ruin the party came across a band of goblins, lead by a goblin mage with a large pet wyvernling. At the edge of the goblin camp was a cage with another of the creatures that the party had battled in the barn. The party decided to attack from different side of the camp. The Thief and Dwarf from one side and the others from the opposite entrance. The dwarf and thief were having a hard time making any impression in the eastern side, but the warrior raced in and jumped onto the alter to engage the goblin mage and prevent him from using his magic. The barbarian managed toknock down and  gruesomely kill one of the goblins, causing all but one goblin and the mage's large pet to flee from the battle scene. They were swiftly dispatched, and the caged wyvernlings were put out of their misery whilst still in captivity.

The party, unscathed from the goblin battle continued up into the mountains, until the discovered the source of the wyvernlings - a portal. There was a shining stone in the wall of the portal - the key to it's power. As another creature started to slowly materialise all the party had to do was remove the stone to deactivate the portal. Unfortunately, round the corner, came the portal defender - an Adult Dragon. The party would be up against it!

The adventurers moved up the slope before the rashly dwarf charged the dragon on his own. The result was he was knocked down and killed on the Dragon's activation. A stark warning to the rest of them as them saw their best warrior go down in seconds. The thief flanked round the side of the dragon as the rest of the party took on the dragon in numbers. The warrior went down, out of the fight,  before the dragon was knocked down and the thief nipped in and dispatched the dragon. Unfortunately a wyvernling had already emerged from the portal, and took on the thief, who had sneaked in and taken the power stone. The thief went down, followed by the barbarian and finally the mage. The party had failed and the portal was re-opened.

The adventurers weren't actually killed, as we rolled their fates as per the SoBH campaign expansion rules. Two (the thief and barbarian) fully recovered, the warrior lost a quality point, the dwarf hurt his leg so "gained" the slow rule whereas the mage became so hideous scarred that he actually gained the Terror special rule. Whether we continue with the same group or create a new campaign warband ArabianSquire can decide another time.

One thing is for sure.I'll definitely be looking out those old RPG modules to create another narrative adventure. The variety of battle and of level, in this adventure at least, was very interesting. Going from battling a superior numbered gang to a more powerful single creature requires a quick change of tactical thinking (which, to be fair, may have been a bit of a stretch for an 8 year old, although he did get the idea quickly once his best fighter "died"). And as it was all contained within the story line there wasn't any artificial "lets try something different" feel to it.

As mentioned before, the crux is finding a narrative that can be easily span the battles without too much roleplaying. I'm sure that'll all come in later years!! But I'm pretty sure that the encounters could be extracted and a simple storyline inserted instead, even with a couple of options to make the experience less railroaded.