Rangers of Shadow Deep: Attack the Pack!

‘Holy’ Moses’ eyes narrowed. Hawkeye’s tracking skills were as true as ever, for through his hiding place among the trees he could clearly see (and indeed smell) the gnoll encampment.

He waved an armoured gauntlet, signalling for his companions to spread out. With a curt nod they did so, each knowing that they would have to act fast, lest they be shot down by the gnoll archers or slain by some eldritch spell cast by the two shaman that yelped and howled by the campfire.

Suddenly, his fellow ranger Felton and his men burst out of the trees on the opposite side of the clearing. It was time. Yelling a prayer, Moses charged out of the undergrowth as the feral, dog-faced gnolls grabbed their jagged weapons and nocked their arrows…

Time for another virtual game of ROSD! Our mission (another Giles homebrew) was simple: slay the gnolls before they could make their escape and retrieve the clues (map pieces: one held by each shaman and one in the centre) from their camp. The camp was surrounded on three sides by a ruined wall and dominated by a steep hill on the other.

Without further ado we charged, our archers exchanging shots with the gnolls without anyone getting hurt. This changed when Moses, channelling his righteous anger into a blaze of holy fire, blasted one of the shamans into hell!

Pausing only to retrieve a piece of map, he led the charge into the camp, slaying a gnoll warrior while Giles’ band whittled down the archers with counter-fire. The wounded were soon finished off my Moses’ companions, who clambered over the walls and into the camp. Once again, the fighting attracted other predators and an ogre lumbered onto the field behind Giles’ ranger Felton…

In the camp, we continued to fight the gnolls, slowly reducing their numbers and searching their bodies for the remaining clue markers. Outside the broken walls, Giles’ archer managed to fend off the rampaging ogre and push it back, allowing his archer to pepper it with arrows.

Moses and his companions finished off the gnolls, although one managed to stab Felton in the back before it was killed. Meanwhile the rest of the heroes mobbed the ogre, dispatching it with a flurry of blows. We had succeeded in killing all of the gnolls and retrieving the map pieces, enabling the rangers and their companions to limp back to civilisation.

This part of the kingdom was safe, for now at least, but elsewhere, other places were still plagued by incursions from Shadow Deep. Our rangers could rest for now, but soon they would be called upon again…

Return to Alladore!

The ranger’s armour clanked as he knelt before the corpse-strewn remains of the cart. Putting his gauntleted hands together in prayer, he raised his eyes heavenward.

“Oh Gods of Light, I commend these unworthy souls into thy care…”

“Does he always do that?” asked Hawkeye the tracker, re-stringing his bow some distance away.

“Oh aye,” his sneaky-looking comrade replied. “They don’t call him ‘Holy’ Moses for nothing. Just play along and, if he ever asks you whether you’d like to read one of his pamphlets, find yourself something to do sharpish. Otherwise you’ll be-“

A warning shout from the other ranger, Felton, interrupted the rogue.

“Hey-up, looks like them fanatics have come back to finish the job…”

I was delighted to receive an email from my buddy Giles inviting me to an online game of Rangers of Shadow Deep. He and our pals Alan and Rita have been running a homebrew campaign over their webcams and I’ve been asked to try out one of the scenarios that went somewhat difficult for their rangers.

After dusting off my rulebook and knocking up a ranger (a heavily-armoured templar type fellow with a tracker and rogue for companions) I fired up my laptop, ready to begin! (Subject to the usual initial teething problems where I tried to mime that my headset mic wasn’t being recognised and so forth).

Note: all photos are taken by Giles as the table was set up at his place.

This mission was titled The Fanatics and began with the rangers investigating a corpse-strewn cart. As they poked around for clues, they were attacked by fanatical ranger-hunters and their mad followers, determined to save the kingdom by wiping out any rangers they find.

In the centre of the board, the rangers and their companions rummaged around the smashed-up cart, discovering signs of a werewolf attack in addition to a magical weapon and some hastily scribbled notes. Distracted, the fanatics – one hunter for each ranger and a follower for each companion, split into two groups – were able to get up close and prepared to attack. Yelling, they engaged those companions that hung back from the cart. To make matters worse, the sound of battle had attracted a group of shambling zombies!

Leaving the tracker to continue searching, Holy Moses charged into battle to help the rogue fend off a fanatic. As more maniacs moved into combat, Giles’ warriors also piled in. Many wounds were taken and dealt. Meanwhile the zombies encountered the other group of fanatics and soon they were scrapping amongst themselves. Would this tip the day into our favour? No, for now some giant spiders also scuttled onto the field…

Between us we managed to finish off one group of fanatics, and, with the other group battling the zombies, we had a little breathing space. Moses used the opportunity to cast a healing spell on his rogue companion, while the others fired at the approaching spiders. Alas, this wasn’t the only thing we had to contend with, as another creature had been drawn by the noise: a brutal ogre!

We moved up to finish off the spiders, leaving the remaining zombies and fanatics to duke it out. The ogre continued to lumber towards us and behind him could be heard the savage yelping of a pack of gnoll archers…

Felton charged the mighty ogre but came off worse. However, he was soon joined by Moses and his band, who between them slew the monster. The gnolls fired at us, but luckily missed, allowing us to make our escape before more creatures of darkness arrived to mob us.

Thankfully most of the rangers and their companions survived the battle, and we discovered many valuable things, including a holy icon, in the cart, earing us some nice XP. Holy Moses had survived his first mission, but soon received new orders: more gnolls had been sighted and it was up to us to clear out their camp…