Fighting Ogres Has Never Been so Unpleasant

Where have I been, you may well be asking? Work's gotten pretty crazy. So in lieu of some half-baked essay, here are adventure logs written by two ACTUAL PLAYERS from the Hounds of Aros game:

(OLOZ, the now-satyr former-half-orc)


Whatever the fuck day we arrived:

We have come to Tyrma, the great stone in the crown of the elf-kingdom of Silversong. I can feel the call of the woods that shoot through the city like roots through soil, of the elf-maids in their meandering marble houses - I burn to be acquainted more closely! If Thurayn was a nightmare, then Tyrma is a dream. I cannot shelter myself in dreams. Nightmares still exist all around, outside this magical place. Thurayn still waits. I cannot forget that. I still have more to do before I can take to the woods and to the women. I must never forget. Essad and all her slaves must be set free.

Avaunus, 2nd Longing

Though I have been on a few now, I am forming no great love of boats - and this one less than most. We have only the night before spoken with the Seasinger here in Tyrma, and found him in need of our aid - an island temple nearby has been taken by some ogaritic force, with, perhaps, gigantine aid, and so I have paid for the help of this easterner cog, bedecked as it is in scorpions and catapaults, to take us there, and help with their machinery where they may. The goblin manservant Thembo has a lurid quizzicality about him that puts me in mind of Takal, and his snaggletoothed sneer is almost more than I can stomach. Still, it bears us toward the isle where we will take back Meri's temple, and with arms most useful for the task - if its captain can be trusted.




(TOMMASO, half-elven Dorlish wizard)

Our landing had been both fortuitous and not so. Two ogres and their thrall, the cyclops, lie dead on the ground or in the sea. Two of our own numbers died fighting them off, and some of us came close, depleting much of our wizardly and priestly potency. The potion of absorption I gifted Oloz with likely saved his life, as he was hit by a boulder and the wildly swinging trunks the cyclops had for hands.

We counted our losses and our lovable mercenary Cain joined us from the Black Wind. So we pressed onward, up the same path the ogres had come down. My own mortality, and that of those around me, had become very clear to me. I had resolved to use what little I had to make sure the rest of us get out alive. The path nestled the rough terrain and we came to a junction, a fork leading to the treacherous stony hills with countless places for hiding and ambushing. Needless to say, we chose to carry on the path. It had been cleared into a forest, and as we emerged out of it we came across carnage from when the ogres had stormed the island. Corpses had been carried off, possibly for consumption, but the battered remains of broken trees and bloodstains still stood there.

The shrine was situated next to a cliff. It was a tholos with colonnade of red coral, and a green-blue roof. A large marble statue of a woman stood next to the shrine, staff in hand. She had lost her head, possibly in the hands of the ogres. We spotted movement in the shadows of the shrine's entrance and we prepared for battle. Our sharpshooter announced our presence in Dorlish, told of our deeds with the cyclops and it's handlers, and of our intent to free the temple. I repeated the message in Varan and Söle, which prompted a threat from inside. We didn't budge, and after a while of hushed yet still loud ogaritic muttering the ogres sallied forth. There were six of them, five simple brutes with wooden clubs, and a big one clad in mail and brandishing a mace.

Our crossbowman opened fire, hitting only one of them after several tries, and as I later leaned, Oloz snapped the string of his bow on the first shot from his hiding place further ahead. The lumbering beasts were nearly on us, and I unsealed my clay flask, imbibing it's contents. We were in luck, all of the ogres sported blunt weapons. The potion, a gift from my master back in Dorlan, absorbs even devastating harm from one type of source.

The ogres stopped short of us, preparing to charge us in moments, so we let loose a volley of spells. My spell of sleep was entirely ineffective, but Nauraänen and Adriana were more successful, causing the ogres to slip to the ground and become entangled by the undergrowth. Five of them were out of the fight, Adriana skewering them with her thrown tridents, while I ran out from cover to stop the leader from reaching the rest of the party. Oloz was still a while away, running like the wind to reach us.

The leader was as foul as the rest of them. It strode forth confidently, intending to crumble me aside like the feeble little being I was. The mace's first swing connected with my side with a thud, yet I remained undisturbed. I had witnessed the effectiveness of this magic second-hand, but it is entirely different to look at a humongous knotted lump of muscle try to crush a being with all of it's might, than to BE that being. A strange mixture of confidence and absolute terror filled me. The only thing standing between me and certain death was a very temporary enchantment. All I was armed with was my feeble little dagger, but I put up a fight, if only to keep the brute occupied with me instead of my relatively more malleable companions.

I managed to stab him in the arm once, and then Oloz was upon him, his blades singing a ghastly song of death, right in the back of the ogre. Moments later it was finished, and our comrades strode up to engage the surviving ogres that had managed to clear the field of grease. Sadly after that our luck turned: Cain took a ghastly hit to the face, shattering his nose and cheek, and Oloz's ribs took a similar treatment. I moved in to treat him, but the crazy goatman jumped right back into combat, finishing the last ogre.

We were badly battered and spent, but thankfully the only occupants of the shrine were the six ogres. The mess they had left behind was ghastly: the walls were blackened with soot, the place was filled with piles of refuse riddled with snapped elfbones, there were no traces of the eikon. The odor was unbearable, but we did what we could to clear the interior. Hopefully the shrine isn't beyond restoration. We will come back with people from the temple.

A deep rumble shakes the island. I will finish this entry later.