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The kobold army and the PCs headed back to the same place they got ambushed and nearly killed by the rat master.  This time they split the force in 2 and sent the sneaky druid and rogue round the side with half the kobolds while the rather more clanky warlord and paladin went down the middle.  The sharp ears of the warlord picked up the sound of rats, lots of them and on all sides.  When the first rat appeared it was the size of a dog and just as mean, then an even bigger rat appeared with extra spikey bits and sharp pointy teeth.  The rat master had made up for the lack of kobold allies by calling in some giant rats and dire rats, and they tried to surround the party.  The giant rats were killed in short order, but the dire rats proved a little more trouble with one devouring 3 of the 8 kobold minions the party had recruited to their cause.  The tactics proved sound, and a "lead the attack" from the warlord made hitting the rat master easier too.  The same thing happened with rat aura and ongoing rat damage wareing the party down but they backed the rat master into a corner and in a final dramatic combination of dwarven might and druidic cunning the kobold rat master boss was defeated.

Buoyed up by their victory the kobold allies made their will to take the fight to the heart of Spinetaker territory felt.  As the party near their objective in the north of the ruins, we discovered what happens when a stealthy rogue sneaks up on an equaly stealthy foe in a classic "spies like us" scenario.

The party got some sweet natural 20s, but i managed a fumble on the rat master's encounter power; "the kobold cracks his whip, sending his rats at Orsik in a ravening hoard, they swarm to attack...when i say a ravening hoard swarms to attack, what i mean is they just sort of mill around his feet squeaking a bit"

Oh and the party reached 2nd level too.

This week the party decided they would be taking an extended rest, but since it was still daylight they spend the day itself with Orsik regaling the others with tales of his homeland. As night falls a group of stealthy kobolds sneak up to the tower hoping to take their territory back.  This time its the party who have the defensive advantage, and as each kobold comes out of teh stairwell, Orsik whacks it with his greataxe.  Often getting two swings a round thanks to the warlords commander's strike.  As luck would have it Luurk; the duel shortsword wielding leader of this assault team, is rendered unconcious by a blow and survives the fight.  Morthos stabilises his wounds and slaps him awake to be interrogated.

"What do you know about the Rat King?" demands the Tiefling.  The poor kobold slyblade whines that he doesnt know anything about any rat king, and the Warlord threatens to remove digits if he doesnt talk. Luckily for Luurk, Kawashi notices in his body language that he is telling the truth and really doesnt know.  Morthos decides he has no further use for this kobold and is about to kill him when the Paladin points out that they really shouldnt kill him yet.  Reminding the others that there is more than one group of kobolds in Amlur and maybe they can get some information on the other groups.  Taking up the interrogation Orsik get the names of the other 3 tribes, their territorial areas and the information that the tribes sometimes fight over who gets the best bits of the ruins.  Morthos now sees a common enemy, the Spinetakers to the north, and impresses the nearly dead kobold that they are truly a force to be reckoned with, and if they really want to get some of the Spinetakers territory they should squad up with the party and go fight the Spinetakers, inspiring Luurk that fortune (and the dragon goddess) will favour the bold. Luurk agrees to put the plan to his tribal leader.  They all decide that they should take down the dead kobolds on spears that they set up round the pagoda ruins as a sign of "good faith".

Morning comes and the Kobold Cheiftan Frissk comes out to meet the party with a bandaged Luurk.  He clearly wants the party to get what they came for and leave his land so he can go back to lording it over his tribe in peace, and if it means giving the Spinetakers a bloody snout in the process all the better.  All in all 10 kobolds join the raiding party with the pcs, and the Warlord has an army at his disposal. 8 minions and a couple of slingers, which gives the party the joy of firing "those annoying sticky things" at their enemies, and the Tiefling can try his "set me on fire" plan.

Sadly our druid's player was unwell and could not play.  The sorceror stood us up again. We are wondering if he even wants to play now, as every sunday he says he will come and then doesnt. apart from absent freinds i think things went well.  I had already decided that if the party spent a second night in the Temple of the Bright City complex, a party of kobolds would have mustered to try to take the area back, so this worked out for the best meaning the druid's player should not have to miss out on taking revenge agains the rat master that nearly killed his druid.  Hope he is ok next week.  Now the party have a distinct advantage with extra cannon fodder to throw into their combat they should be able to offset the lack of 5th player if the sorceror doesnt come.  The interaction with Luurk was fun for me, and i really thought he had had his chips when Morthos said he would kill him.

This week the party investigated the final area in the temple of the Bright City and discovered some detritus, the rogue set off a trap he had in fact spotted (while attempting to disarm it slightly) and got squished under some falling rubble and a pair of kobold tunnel entrances too small for the dwarf to squeeze down were found.  Disappointed by the lack of magical goodies the party resolved to find the other temple complex, and set off in what they determined was the right direction.  They found themselves wandering into one of the best preserved areas of the ruins where narrow passages between almost intact buildings created an ideal environment for a kobold ambush...

Funnily enough the stealthy pair of Swift and Kawashi were able to detect the kobold threat before the kobolds knew of the party and a suprise round ensued (though i think there was general disappointment that you only get one kind of action in a suprise round and cant move and attack).  It was looking good for the party innitially.  Then the rats attacked.  It was the dreaded kobold rat master with his aura of gnawing rats, the surroundings gave the other kobolds cover to attack from and the rat master seemed to be a hard fellow to land a telling blow on.  (hey not just any old kobold gets to be a rat MASTER).  round after round of standing in the rats wore down the Paladin and in the end he was forced to retreat, not long after defeating the rat master's associates, the warlord was forced to sound the retreat as it was clear the party couldnt take much more of a nibbling, but Swift didnt want to back down, and Kawashi the rogue was sure they could take this kobold, they stayed to fight another round but this only ended in a rat enduced coma for the razorclaw and Kawashi was forced to use his amazing acrobatic abilities to escape the allyways.  Orsik, though badly injured, belted back into danger to drag the unconcious druid out of the combat area and save her from dieing, with a tpk thus avoided the party headed back to the ruined pagoda of Erathis to lick their wounds and discuss tactics for a rematch, with the taunts of the rat wrangling kobold boss ringing in their ears.

All in all the game session ran well, the players appreciated that having a fight where they had a chance of dieing was good, as it adds excitement.  The guy who is supposed to play the sorceror is in trouble though as he showed up late, with no character sheet and said he wasnt playing afterall, meaning the other players kind of blame him for that fight being so hard, and they are right, as i was expecting the sorceror to have joined the party by that point, and though the fight was totally within their ability to win on paper with 4, it was not meant to be that hard really.

Sorry i did not publish a blog for last weeks game. i got back late and decided to sleep instead.  Also appoligies in advance for typing this post whilst intoxicated, i am just back from a pub quiz and i drank too much cider.

Last week the heroes had finished off the kobolds in teh temple complex and the warlord discovered that the moat while not that deep, was poisoned.  The kobold shamen type guy also made some reference to a green terror, could that be a green dragon? The kobolds were slaughtered (the rogue was finally convinced that enslaving a kobold would be EVIL, at least i hope he was, sheesh) and apart from the "one that got away" the compound was rendered kobold free (or is that kobalt free, since i tend to pronounce it like that) and investigation was resumed after a nights rest.  The first area investigated was apparently once a temple of Ioun and hidden beneath a hollow altar the party found a suit of chainmail that the warlord might find useful.  Could this be the first of the magical artifacts?

in terms of play the druid was having a bad day because of bad rolls, but rather than say " ah such is life" he had a bit of a sulk and spent the session messing on his psp.  The idea that if at first you dont succeed to push the kobold in the water try somthing different, did not occur. yeah the party was rolling suck biscuits, but they still won even though it was a tough encounter (and so it should have been they just found a major magical item after it).  I hope the party regain the spirit of team coordination that got them through their first two encounters so well and cease to have moaning sulking fits or else the kobolds may have the last laugh yet.  Oh yeah and the socerer still doesnt have a name, so he still hasnt turned up. Seriously i spent several hours researching suitable names for my asian setting and sent them to him in an email, but he still wont give me his char sheet.  By this point Bob the socereror is looking good, sheesh.  How hard is it to name your character?

This week the party continued towards the area they suspect is a temple, rather than continue the skill challenge for finding where the magic items they are searching for are likely to be, and getting their bearings, they said they wish to dispense with the skill challenge altogether cause they think its too much like an mmo (quite confused over that one, i never played an mmo where there was anything like skill challenges but whatever, i am supposed to keep 'em happy)  So on to more combat!

A bridge stood between them and the temple complex, but kobolds were gaurding the bridge, and a visejaw crocodile seemed to think the party's paladin was quite tasty.  The fight was tough, the rogue went down twice and the dwarf was out of his depth in the river where the crocodile had dragged him in, but in the end the warlord had turned his glaive into kobold satay, and with some help frome the druid the paladin will have a nice croc skin cape to wear, just as soon as that blood and fleshy stuff has dried up and fallen off.

With the bridge clear they moved on to a temple complex where a couple of dead men hanging from the trees told no tales, and all seemed quiet until a flame pot came hurtling out of a concealed location and hit the poor druid setting her on fire.  Where did that missile come from?  Will everyone make it over the collapsed bridge before they get picked off by slingshots? Can the party cope with only the warlords daily power left? And what is that moat really made of?  All will be revealed next week.

The players did spend some time moaning about 4e, well a lot of time.  I maintain its a good system.  But its hard running a game for people who only seem to moan about the game being like an MMO, and nothing makes them happy.  The druid has a charisma of 8 and yet her player complains there was no role playing opportunity, despite the fact they are exploring a set of ruins in a jungle, where hostile kobold tribes live.  That is not a flaw with the game, or with my adventure, its only the second session and all the party have done is get through a combat encounter, so no there was no role playing, and should there be an opportunity to role play with an npc, i can't see the cha 8 druid who spends most of her time being a cat and not talking is going to have much to say.  IF she does have something to say its likely to get taken badly with a -1 diplomacy penalty and her attitude being how it is.  If things are easier to acomplish in 4e than they were in 3.5 they complain, if they are harder they complain, if anything is different its automatically worse by them.  And apparently its all my fault.  Plus the guy that GMs a lot for this group moans and makes sarcy comments, and if i try to tell him to shut up like he does when he is GMing, he makes out i am overreacting, like he is the only one allowed to make comments.  I wonder if i am trying to feed brocolli to someone who hates brocolli.  It won't matter if its chinese brocolli stir fry, cream of brocolli soup or spicy brocolli fritters, they are just going to moan that its nasty and they dont like it.  Though if i tell them they get XP for eating it they might manage a mouthful or two

My second 4e game has begun.  It is set in an asian themed area of my game world and is based on a more collaborative model like suggested in the DMG2.  The hero's have set out from their home village of Dabaishu (pop aprox 4000, its a big village) into the nearbye ruins of Amlur, where songs tell of magical items, crafted to defend Amlur from an invasion, that were lost when the quarelling clerics of the town could not agree on who should wield them and the town was sacked.

It would seem the ruins are home to some kobolds though...

The Party consists of: Swift Shaddow, shifter druid; Orsik Adrikson, Dwarf Paladin; Kawashi Motoki, human rogue; Morthos, Tiefling Warlord and possibly a fifth member: a dragonborn soceror; if his player gives him a name and shows up to play.