Rangers of Shadow Deep - Burning Light - Part V

For the fifth part of the "Burning Light" campaign mission for Rangers of Shadow Deep... we have moved across the courtyard of the Convent to search a tower in the corner which appears to be some kind of Herb Store...

(There are some spoilers here - so if you are planning to play through this mission yourself, maybe don't read this until after you've had your own game experience...)

   

Our current lineup of Heroes:

Alfie's Team:

Arthur - Ranger (level 7)

Malvolio - Conjuror

Fern - Guardswoman

Hattie - Recruit

Brutus - Hound (rescued in the first scenario)

My Team:

Jennifer - Ranger (level 7)

Archibald - Archer

Seb - (a character from the Bloodmoon mission who is now a companion)

Geoffrey - Warhound

St.Doneera - Ghostly Warrior Priestess (who joined us in the third scenario)

After the smell of zombie nuns in the last location, the scent of herbs in this tower was a blessed relief... It was dark in the large room - our heroes could just make out racks of shelving and broken cupboards lining the walls, a large table in the center of the room..and something large and green in the far corner.. as our team entered the room through the broken door a Darkroot vine burst up through the floor directly in front of Seb... the situation became clear - the green mass in the corner must be the body of the Darkroot, and its vines were spread out into the room searching for victims!

"Dark Root" plant body (Miniature from Super Dungeon Explore)

"Dark Root Vine" (Miniature from Super Dungeon Explore)

A Vine erupts out of the floor and attacks Seb.

Jennifer my ranger was standing right next to Seb - so she "forced combat" and immediately attacked the vine - with help from Seb, she rolled just enough to slice the vine to bits with her first hit!

After a brief discussion, we decided that we would try and go en-mass diagonally across the room to take on the body of the Darkroot. We knew that if we killed it, then all the vines would also immediately die, leaving the room safe to search for clues that might help us in our quest to find the Decanter of St.Emilia...

Line of sight was severely reduced because of the darkness in the room, so we couldn't do any shooting yet.. we started to move across the room in groups. At the end of the first turn more darkroot vines appeared near the shelves...

Arthur and his companions arrived at the large table in the center of the room - Arthur failed a perception roll, and found nothing useful on the table... doh!... that was when a thick cloud of ash blew across the room.. for the next two turns line of sight was reduced even further... everyone had to pass a Will roll or lose an action. Five of our heroes failed their rolls...

Choked by a cloud of ash - half our heroes are reduced to one action!

Everyone moved a little bit more towards the body of the Darkroot. Jennifer was suddenly struck down by a crippling headache (failing a will roll as part of the event for round 3), which meant she would completely miss her activation in the next round...

Archibald managed to shoot one of the vines and moved over to a locked cupboard... everyone apart from Jennifer moved further into the room... another vine popped up out of the floor near our team...

The cupboard that Archibald wanted to search was locked - but he forced it open with a Strength Roll... inside were a few herbs that may prove useful later...

Archibald searches the shelves whilst everyone else heads towards the plant beast in the corner!

Another vine came up out of the ground - this time right next to Arthur... as our heroes were in a tight group that meant that a big fight ensued.. Arthur and Brutus against one vine, Seb, Malvolio and Hattie against another.. and Fern in melee with both vines at the same time.. despite the vines being outnumbered - they managed to dish out some damage before they were cut down...

Two Giant flies appeared - silhouetted behind us in the broken doorway through which we had entered this house of herbal horrors...

Three heroes take on a Darkroot Vine...

Jennifer, recovering from her stabbing headache, wasn't going to make it to the Darkvine body with the main group - so she veered off to search another cupboard... the vine that had appeared there was now chasing after Archibald... This cupboard wasn't locked - but all that she found was a load of poisonous fungus... luckily she passed a health check...

Taking on the Dark Root - St.Doneera takes a massive hit!

Meanwhile, Geoffrey, St.Doneera and Seb had made it to the evil plant body in the corner... Geoffrey and Seb managed to do some minor damage..but St.Doneera took a powerful swipe from the fiendish foliage... reducing her to only 2 health! If St.Donnera is knocked out then she won't return to help us with the rest of the mission... so this was not good news! Luckily, Malvolio and Hattie were not far behind... with five of us attacking the perilous plant at once, Hattie dealt the killing blow... instantly all the remaining vines on the board withered and died...

Malvolio and Hattie run to join the fight...

Seb helped Fern to smash open another cupboard, finding a pouch to carry herbs... and in the final turn, as a wolf appeared out of the darkness on the other side of the room, Arthur opened the final cupboard, and failing a perception roll, found nothing but some useless old bones...

Although we had some exciting fights, and managed to work together successfully to take down the Darkroot, we had three missed opportunities... we wondered what would have happened if Jennifer had passed her Will roll in the event phase in turn 3... was there something Arthur should have seen on the table in the middle of the room? Was there some significance to the bones that Arthur found that he just couldn't understand?.... we will never know... and so we have no more clues as to the location of the Decanter....

All of our heroes apart from Jennifer, Seb and Geoffrey had injuries - we managed to heal most of them, but even after healing, St.Doneera will be going into the next scenario with only 8 Health...

"The Ruined Chapel" will be our next target for investigation...

...

I created all the floorplans for this campaign using the fantastic free resources available from

  2 minute tabletop.