Outrageous Outlaws Offed!

Way back in December 2019, Anasdiazi's Raft encountered some slavers outside of Garakt. That was their fourth outing in the campaign to rid the region of threats to four villages. Garakt has long since been safe, and the Raft as of late has been clearing the lands around Oraskat, And they have finally run into some more slavers, this time a group composed of professional people sellers as well as some hired military help from the Lunar invaders.

But first, a little bit on what has been going on for the Raft since they beat down the last of the Lunars and rendered Oraskat safe from the invaders for the time being. Upon their return to Oraskat, there was a bit of a bronze shortage, making it harder to acquire basic arms and armor. Anasdiazi, Quackmore, and the Nameless Priest of Humakt all recovered one further turn of their healing time. Mataw came out of her sleep from the Winter's Flask, with an increase of one each in Agility, Speed, Combat Skill, and Toughness. She has become a true melee monster now! There was much foraging done with a result of three dose of Healing Herbs. Puddles caught two gold crowns' worth of fish. And then every able bodied member of the raft went out adventuring and found nothing to meet or fight. And si they went back to Oraskat. In game terms, I rolled a "2" for encounters, meaning neither a Roadside nor a Combat encounter would be involved. And so we rolled on to the next campaign turn...

Our Heroes. Y'all should know them by name by now.

The people of Oraskat have been very happy with Anasdiazi and the Raft, so much so they they were showered with gifts of food and ale. No Upkeep costs this turn around! Even better, Anasdiazi, Quackmore, and the Nameless Priest of  Humakt were all healed up and ready to fight. There was some Tracking, and the Raft thought they had a real good idea where to find some Outlaws. There was some laboring done, to the effect of six more gold crowns in the Raft's coffers. And Puddles went fishing but caught nothing.

The bad guys, with both old and new faces.

The Raft had no Roadside encounter. But their Combat encounter was automatically Outlaws, because both the Border Tensions and Dark Secrets threats had been reduced to zero for Oraskat. And who they encountered were a mixed group of eight, both Slavers and Lunar deserters (all using the Slavers profile, of course) as well as their overall Leader. Worse, while tracking down the Slavers, the Raft found themselves tracked down and attacked while they were investigating a copse of trees!

The Raft, effectively ambushed in the woods

The first run saw very little happen except the Slavers advancing towards the Raft in two groups, and in turn Our Heroes trying to get out of the woods to either get a clear shot or Lay The Smack Down. Seriously, only one shot was fired and it didn't hurt anyone.

The first turn of movement, shooting, and no effect

The second turn, however, saw what a true combat monster Mataw had become. She personally felled three of the Slavers. In other news, Pariwan Keetslander didn't go out of action, and archery was again useless. Anasdiazi and Quackmore held their own against some other Slavers, over on the other side of the woods.

Mataw shows her new moves in Turn 2

The last turn saw some nice archery from Trackquack the Guide and Oasasya, Mataw killed the fourth Slaver over on her side of the woods, Anasdiazi and Quackmore killed some Slavers before Quackmore went down to a counter-strike, and finally the Nameless Priest of Humakt finished off the last two bad guys.

The end of the game sees nine bad guys and Quackmore down

In the aftermath, it seemed that Quackmore was suffering a serious injury, but he pressed his luck and turned out to be just fine. They found some battered weaponry, one basic weapon usable out of it all. They managed to reduce the Outlaw threat to Oraskat by one, to just 1. The original Threat level had been 1, so the next Combat encounter would not be a Last Stand. The Nameless Priest of Humakt leveled up, with +1 Agility. Finally, they found a Spring Vial on a corpse, which is a life-saving magical fluid.

This was the quickest game of Five Leagues From The Borderlands I have ever played. No, really, it was a whole three turns. I think it took me longer to roll up the encounter and get it all on the table than to actually play the game. I even tried to stack the encounter against them by sticking them in the woods so their heavy-hitting archery would be nerfed for a few turns. The Raft has gotten powerful. So powerful, in fact, that Pariwan Keetslander has now survived a few games. If they smoke through their next Combat encounter and reduce the last point of Threat to Oraskat, I am raising the difficulty of the campaign when they get to the next village.

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