The Lair Of The Manticore

Another Sunday night, another adventure for the fearless friends of Anasdiazi's Raft!

The village of Garakt was having a bit of a bad time of it; a few farmhands had been seized by a flying creature while working the fields! There was certainly extra work available on the farms, but Our Heroes had other plans. The first stop was the town healer, to get Puddles back up on his feet and ready for action. He promptly went fishing, caught four big fish, and sold them in town for a total of 6 gold coins. Anasdiazi himself followed up a rumor and managed to find Pariwan Keetslander in the local tavern. After some discussion and a small transfer of gold, Pariwan was hired to join the Raft. And although Holy water and traps were freshly available for sale, they were passed up to buy Pariwan a nice suit of partial armor.

Meet the new kids: Mawat and Pariwan Keetslander

While the Former Soldier and the priest of Humakt were still recovering (seriously, is that priest ALWAYS injured?) the rest of the raft went out adventuring again. They found blood and the remains of the missing farmhands, and nearby they found the lair of a Manticore. Clearly this was the beast that had been terrorizing Garakt!

Silly cat is silly

There was a brief delay of the encounter, as a Giant Mythic Godsland Housecat investigated the Manticore's lair. Once it had satisfied it's curiosity, the Spirit moved on.

The Raft moves in on the Manticore

The Raft attacked in four separate groups, Oasasya handling archery from the left flank, Puddles and one of the Hired Guides on the right flank, Anasdiazi and Quackmore rolling on the left, and Mawat, Pariwan, and the other Hired Guide running in on the right.

Arrows in the Manticore not shown

The archery proved almost entirely useless. The rest of the Raft advanced hastily, and the Manticore moved towards Mawat and Pariwan.

Pariwan and the Hired Guide are gone

While the archers continued their inabilty to harm the beast, Mawat scored first blood. Pariwan followed her lead, and was quickly struck down for his efforts. The Hired Guide had a similar fate. Anasdiazi and Quackmore were unsuccessful in harming it either.

Why isn't it dieing?

While the archers were hitting the Manticore, none could penetrate it's scaly hide. With a quarter of the Raft out of action, it was up to Anasdiazi to turn the tide of this battle.  He managed to injure it, causing it to lash out and knock himself, Mawat, and Quackmore back a bit.

Oasasya kills the beast!

As Anasdiazi and Quackmore were regrouping, and Mawat was staring down the maw of the beast, Oasasya finally found his mark and a well-placed arrow slew the terror.

The Raft gained 9 gold coins, 3 Story Points, an Icon (useful when gaining a blessing from a Village Priest,) a potion of Winter Flask (which allows an improved profile after three campaign turns sleeping, but might also kill Our Hero,) and a scroll of Sparrow's Flight. Scrolls are neat because they teach a character a spell, in this case to allow a friendly character to make a bonus shooting attack. The scroll is "one use" to learn the spell, but I will need to email the Rulesgiver to find out if the spell is a permanent once-a-game ability, or the spell is one use only as well. The Dark Secrets Threat rating was reduced by one as well.

When it came to the casualties, Pariwan Keetslander was lightly injured and will need to spend two campaign turns recovering. The Hired Guide, however, died (dammit! that was a nice conversion and paint job!)

The Manticore had a Toughness of 5 and ignored Wounds, so it was only taking damage on a roll of 6. This made for a bit of a problem, as it was very hard to injure. The Raft is getting big, and brought six Heroes to bear, with a variety of skills and weapons. If they had been at the same disposition as at the start of the campaign, it might have ended much more tragically for Our Heroes.

EDIT/UPDATE: I have received word from the Rulesgiver that once a Spell is learned from a Scroll, it becomes a once per game ability for the character that learned it.

Five Leagues From The Borderlands and the supplements are available here.