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…