New Year, new games… back in mid-2023 I was in a game where a party of adventurers and a group of NPCs went loggerheads over a clash of ingame and meta understandings. After that this particular game sat on the sidelines, but early 2024 revived it spontaneously.

The system we played was a mix of various rules and rulings, with a result that does not easily fit in any particular box, but related to the “Delve or Die!” mechanics the GM had hammered out in December.

Four guys went cockatrice-hunting:

• Gilead, the Fighter
• Sir Eric, the Thief
• Mercutio, the Cleric
• and Jim the MU.

For the job – bring me the wing of Alfredo Cockatria – they had got a cockatrice kazoo to lure it out into the open, a map to the suspected lair, several scrolls, and a potion to counter any possible petrification mishaps. And a lot of ranged weapons, mostly slings. Ranged weapons felt like a good idea, considering the prey.

To take from the rich…

We set out and went cross country as the map suggested, suspecting nothing, as we were suddenly ambushed by gnomish robbers. Luckily they sucked even more than we did when it came to inflicting injuries, so we ended the reign of Robin Gnome and Gnomish John and made the land safer. On we went, until we found a steep rock, dubbed “Cockatrice Tor” on our map. A harsh cliff that called for the particular talents of Eric the steep-wall climber.

Mountaineers

Eric made it to the top and gave the others a hand — most made it well, only Gilead took several goes until he managed to heave his armored bulk and all his blades and steel up on the rock. Reward: a fine view of the rolling hills between Minaea, Tresa, and Markos.

After a short rest we continued to the summit, but again the peace was disturbed: A sniper shot at us from the flank. Once again we were lucky: We shot like a bunch of buffoons, but the sniper also hit Gilead’s shield more than any soft spots of the party, until, several rounds later, Sir Eric finally landed a perfectly aligned shot with a well-fletched arrow and ended the menace.

The sniper turned out to be a hobgoblin with a very fine bow, which Gilead claimed for himself. He also had a sack full of gold, presumably from earlier victims, which we decided to split fair and square.

High ground

We left the dead hobgob for the local fauna and continued to the summit where we expected our cockatrice. Gilead picked the very highest granite crag and decided that we should sit up there to get the animal from a high ground, but it turned out dastardly difficult to scale that place. In the end we decided to form up at a spot slightly below it and blow our cockatrice kazoo.

Quack-quack! Quack-quack!

Surprise! The hard-to-scale crag was actually the place where the cockatrice had nested! Lucky that we didn’t manage that particular climb, or we would have dropped right on it, with potentially deadly consequences.

As it was, we were pretty well poised to shower the critter with arrows and slingstones, until it dove in like a hawk and got Mercutio the cleric dead center. He failed his save and, with a last call to his goddess, turned to grey, unfeeling stone, not unlike all these granite crags…..

Melee Power!

Now that the beast was so close, Gilead dropped the hobgoblin bow and went in swinging with the sword. Eric followed his example, while Jim quickly gathered the potion to restore the brave cleric to life.

Luckily, the party landed some very solid hits with a great damage output in melee, and Jim also succeeded in feeding the potion down that stone-cold gullet.

Result: The cockatrice got shredded, despite a very respectable HP count — and Mercutio the cleric was brought back to fight another day.

Most of the party sunk down for a well-deserved rest, while Sir Eric scaled those sharp crags and discovered the lair, with even more valuable loot, which he dropped down to the party before climbing back down.

We shared the load around and called it a successful expedition. Sir Eric once again aided his companions on rappelling down to ground level, then recovered the rope and followed them, with a set of spectacularly nimble monkey-moves on the sheer face of the cliff.

Retracing our steps back to base we arrived safe and sound, and got showered with praise by the resident wizardess and her factotum. By way of thanks they allowed us (in that case, Jim) to keep the unused scrolls, and invited us to stay with them for their own next leg of the journey to Stonehaven castle, where they would support us in selling some of the valuables we found in the cockatrice lair – and expressed hopes that we might work together again in the future.

Happy End!