The Orcs That Came By Night
Seniario
The PCs have been in their homevillage (or some other village of the
GM’s choice) for some time for rest. Soon they recieve messeges from
refugees that the surrounding villages have been subject to orcraids,
and everything points to that the PC’s village is next…
It doesn’t have to be orcs, even humans will do. The point is that the
PCs hopefully will be standing in front of a moral dilemma, should
they stay or run for help? The players have a number of possible
solution to the problem, e.g.:
- Warn the king’s troops and get help. (Note that they only have a few days, if even so much!)
- Leave the village an do some spying on the raiders and find out who they are and how many they are, etc.
- Stay in the village to organize the defense. (What does the chief think of some strangers (?) starting to do his work? Does the inhabitantd follow their new leaders?)
Background
It is a band of 40 orcs and 8 humans that have gathered and started to
plunder the surroundings. They are well equiped, disciplined and by
high moral from all the victories so they won’t surrender so easily.
They don’t fight to death (although they know that they can’t count on
the villagers mercy) but try to retreat and regroup instead if they
are facing a defeat. This is not a five minute exercise with the sword
and bow. They plan to attac one or two villages more and then move to
other regions since they count on that the king’s troops will arrive
soon enough.
The leader for the orcs is called Garmesh and the humans leader is
called Haldrim and they are both skilled warriors and good leaders.
The left half of Garmesh’s face is deformed by a great big, badly
healed scar and he is therefor easily to recognize.
The dicipline in the band is hard but the members are satisfied, they
get food, riches and victories. They fight in group altough they are
formible foes singlehanded too, the PCs won’t be able to fight them
off like a bunch of bugs on a table. They will have to fight for
eavery inch to defend their village.
If the players can’t come up with something the fate of their village
will be the same as with the rest of them and they only have two days!
By midnigh in two days the orcs will come for a visit. Brute force
would probably not solve this adventure.
Data for the orcs and villagers is up to the GM but the orcs should be
at least as good as the PCs. Who wins the fight is up to the GM but
you can always let the king’s troops finally arrive at the last moment
if the villagers defeat is obvious. But let the players taste the
bitterness of defeat if you think they deserve it, every adventurer
needs to be taken down to earth sometimes. Just to remind them of that
they are mortals who is only alive due to the kindness (?) of the
GM…
Back to Gamemaster’s Refuge