Drink Talk Roll Extended #28: Amra the Lion in Winter

Session Recap

Starting directly where the last episode had left off, the party had ended Emberfell Palace on the frozen Rotti Islands to find Darius and an old woman he called his mother. Darius had the same demand as last time: Now that Ulrich was dead, his contract with the Winter Court was void; thus, Jedah and Amra were to be returned to Winter Court custody. Jedah and Amra both didn’t care for this arrangement. Jedah tried to keep a cooler head but Amra was well... Amra, and that meant combat broke out pretty quickly.

Faced with a small army of Snowbolds, a hag and Darius, this combat proved more difficult than before. At the start, Darius’s mother (Her name never came up but it’s Rhonda) used her magic to create a cold vortex that took a decent chunk out of the party with only Khorr managing to avoid it with his fast reflexes and small stature. Darius also focused on Amra and cursed him with fear making him an easy target.

The Snowbolds swarmed Amra and Rhonda summoned a wall of ice behind him to limit his options. Luckily, Amra hadn’t forgotten about his ability to teleport. He charged forward and pressed the attack the hag. With the combined attacks on her, she fell quickly which caused her Snowbold creations to disappear as well.

At the death of his mother, Darius got just as furious and headed straight to Amra with no regard for what happened to him. This made him easy prey for the party who finished him off quickly thereafter. Searching his body revealed two potions, a few gems for funds and the mission directive from the Winter Court.

At this point, the party was split on what to do and by that, I mean that as usual, Amra wanted to do something recklessly belligerent and the rest of the party thought that was a stupid idea. His plan was to somehow find a way to send the missive back to the Winter Court with Darius’s bloody handprint and a note explaining the situation. Everyone else disagreed with him but the argument was put on ice (pun intended) as they heard a thumping sound coming from behind the throne.

Searching the area, the party found a man and a woman. The woman had strange skin that seemed to crackle with fire. Amra and Khorr were quick to recognize the two as King Kolonohi V and Queen Kalanika. They did their best to get things up and running as the weather around the islands began to return to normal. They learned that Mt. Lohi, the sacred mountain of Darune the city sits on had been acting up lately while sailors coming in from Hozumi had noted that the Sea of Storms had been worse than usual. It seems the elemental forces of Arretin are still out of balance. After having a vivid reaction to touching the Fire Ruby, Queen Kalanika granted the party a royal invitation to visit the Forge of the Gods as soon as the path had cleared up.

To pass the time, the party headed back to the ship to update Captain Ren of the situation. Once again, Amra chose needless belligerence when trying to request the ship stay docked near Emberfell while the party investigated. Captain Ren noted that they would need to stop anyway because of the long delays in the calm zone and the frozen islands meant that they need more supplies than expected.

After a few more days on the boat, the party made their way to the start of the path up Mt. Lohi to see the Forge of the Gods... and that’s where our session for this week ended.

How to Avoid Being Swarmed in Combat

Running a large group of enemies can be mentally taxing and a major pain. *Salutes Major Pain* This is especially true when they’re not the only enemies in the combat. Here are somethings I keep in mind to keep myself from bogging down combat too much when running a group of enemies.

First off, I play the groups different if they’re the only enemies or if they’re part of a larger set. When the Snowbolds were by themselves, they used more magic and more complex attacks. They were the main threat of that combat and thus, I could put all my focus on what they were doing. That’s why they were the ones who got to use cool (pun intended) ice effects. Those effects also scaled with the number of creatures still alive so that things got easier as the players defeated them. It made things more in the players’ favor and helped them feel like they were making a bigger dent in the group.

In this week’s combat, they were just the minions of main threats Darius and Rhonda. The magic and other special abilities were reserved for their controllers. They still swarmed and surrounded Amra as they focused their attacks on him. They also moved simultaneously instead of having individual initiatives that made them feel more like a small united being controlled rather than a set of independent actors. That’s also why the rest disappeared as soon as Rhonda was killed. I think all this helped reinforce that they were just minions this time around and kept the difficulty down when already facing two characters that were on paper at least, a decent threat to the party by themselves.

Well, that’s it for this week. These were just the ramblings of one DM but your TTRPG of choice probably has some advice for running a large number of creatures individually or as a swarm in either its manual for running monsters or its advice guide for game masters. We should be back next week as the party explores Mt. Lohi and the Forge of the Gods. Until then, keep on rolling.

-J.D.