A Fat Goblin

When last we left our heroes in Descent: Journeys in the Dark they had just finished rescuing some of the crop bundles in the village. It was now time to rescue the kidnapped villager and let the humble farmer in rough sewn clothing get back to farming.  Grisban the Thirsty despite his deep need to quench his throat trudged along with the rest of the crew and even passed a healing potion to Asherian, which brought her back to full health and in a mood to dance. The combined adrenaline of a successful battle and the sweet after affects of a healing potion put her in an optimistic mood.  

 Leoric of the Book and Avric Albright were not thrilled that Asherian wanted to dance, mostly because she had no rhythm.  The only dance she was good at was in battle with her ability to stun adjacent enemies. Grisban mostly muttered how he could be enjoying a good pint, but no, they had to go rescue some ungrateful farmers learned brother.

When our heroes reached the dwelling that belongs to Sprig, The Fat Goblin it had been decided that Asherian was going to take the lead and Leoric and Avric would chill and recoup some stamina before going in to the cobweb infested foyer. Grisban was cool with this, because it gave him time to catch his breath. His little dwarf legs were not meant to keep up with those that liked to walk faster. 

It was a good thing that Asherian was all healed up, because there was a passel of spiders waiting for them.  There was one boss giant spider and four regular giant spiders that skittered and hissed in the dark.  With the might of Avric Albright the heroes were able to deprive the spiders of a last meal before they met their death. 

The spiders were hardy and took a lot of might for the heroes to over come, but it was nothing compared to the Etins that were waiting in the next room. Leoric got picked up and thrown to the other side of the dungeon and was pretty much useless when that happened. I am pretty sure that if I hit the back of the wall, I might not be so swift to jump up. The goblin horde that was hiding in the lair were attacking and while they were not doing much damage it was still a challenge to get around them.

Sprig was holding the farmers brother over his shoulder and was trying to make a quick exit to the door.  With a stoke of luck and a  couple of lucky dice rolls Asherain was able to completely knock the  farmers brother out off of Sprig's meaty goblin shoulder and onto the hard cold ground. Swearing and uttering threats, the heroes watch Sprig with more speed than they thought possible escape out of the cave and into the bright daylight. Deciding that it was far wiser to return the wayward villager to the safety of the village  than trying to defeat the Etins, they headed to town.  

I am excited to play the next round on Descent:Journeys in the Dark. Despite there being a million little pieces to set up for the game, each time you play you move forward in the story and add experience to the characters. The heroes were able to level up some of their weapons in town and now are ready for the next leg of their adventure, even if there might be dragons.  

Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Curse you, Wil Wheaton! Curse you TableTop! Darn you for opening a door to entertainment that gets me away from the television and hanging out with my friends. If not for you I would probably not have wonderful new games to play or be willing to try new games that you haven't featured on TableTop, because they look like fun. Every time I watch TableTop I want to open my wallet and give you all the money and play all of the games. One of the games that has not been featured on TableTop that has made it into the house is Descent: Journeys in the Dark. 

Descent: Journeys in the Dark is a game that my husband researched and picked up. He spent a lot of time painting all of the game pieces. Decent is a dungeon crawler with a hundred different pieces. There is an entire story line that goes with the game and the objectives change with each twist and turn of the story. Each time you play the game the experience from previous boards follow your character to the next plot twist in the story. It sounds complicated and it is, somewhat. It is one of those games, that while it may take a while to set up the dungeon because there are different snap together boards and to set up the tokens and game markers. Once everything is set up, it is actually a pretty smooth game of strategy mixed with chance.

Today we played part of the second mission called The Fat Goblin. We enter into the town of Arhynn to trade and restock supplies when the Goblin Horde ransacks the place and is trying to make off with the harvested crops, which would leave the town destitute in the winter. Not only are there goblins scampering all over the place pillaging the once peaceful village, they brought with them a pack of ill mannered zombie dogs that have fleas and maggots and are running a muck, scaring small children in rough simple clothes. The rudeness knows no bounds.  It is not easy being a hero, when stuff like this happens. I am pretty sure that all Grisban the Thirsty wants to be doing is not wielding an axe at the scruffy mutts and would rather be raising a mug and telling drunk tales of the adventure he just came from. A heroes work is never done.

With a combination of good card play and really bad dice throws on my part, Grisban the Thirsty along with the help of his fellow hero companions, Asherian, Leoric of the Book and Avric Albright, the heroes were able to wrestle two out of the four harvest bundles from the scampering mischievous goblins with minimum damage to their health and stamina.  I am pretty sure that more villagers and crop bundles would have been lost if not for the strategic planning of Leoric of the Book.

Rescuing the bundles of harvested crops is only part of the quest, because now the fearsome foursome have to go rescue all those idiots that weren't smart enough to run and hide when a goblin horde is messing up the neighborhood. There is a farmer that believes his brother is being targeted in this, and even though Grisban thinks the blood spattered farmer in rough simple clothes has had one too many knocks to the head from fending off some maggoty zombie dogs, he has agreed to get drunk after they rescue his brother and the rest of the missing villagers, despite the fact that he fights better drunk.  Asherian thinks that is really big of him, but Grisban is pretty sure that Asherian is just being sarcastic about the whole thing.

And this is the end of part one of The Fat Goblin. The next part of the journey is where the heroes invade the Goblin Horde's home base and try to take back what is theirs, while trying to keep from dying. A lot of Goblins have been made orphans by these heroes and are probably out for revenge and farmers probably taste good in stew.

I am looking forward to the next round of this game. The more you play, the more you get into the different twists and turns of the story, and the more you come to appreciate the different aspects of the characters involved. If you are interested in seeing more of the amazing games pieces that my husband painted, here is a link to his blog on Board Game Geek.