Session I: Into The Mines

Thaeryn the cleric, played by Aldarian [247¹ points]

Brock the fighter, played by Siobhan [246 points]

Tobias the swashbuckler, played by Jeremiah [250 points]

Jefe "The Honest," the wizard, played by Ian [248 points]

Jefe is a fairly powerful wizard, starting off with Magery 4, IQ 16, and a respectable spell list². On offense, he has Stone Missile, Concussion, and Flame Jet. In addition, he has a suite of illusion spells, and a few utilities, including Create Whatever and Great Haste. He's addicted to using magic whenever possible, even if mundane means will suffice, and is a Wierdness Magnet. Jefe the Honest is decidedly dishonest (he named himself). The player is a very creative one, and I forsee truly imaginative things from Ian in the illusions department.

Thaeryn is a fairly standard frontline cleric. He has the healing spells, as well as some protection spells. Offensively, he has Sunbolt, and his mace is a Staff, Power Item, and Holy Item. Given his armor, Thaeryn is also the off-tank, usualy standing in the way of attacks meant for Jefe or blocking for the all-out-attacking fighter. He has a pile of self-imposed mental disadvantages, such as Honesty, Truthfulness, Selfless, and Compulsive Generosity.

Brock is the frontline mix-it-up-er, with Weapon Master (Greatsword), Greatsword at skill 21, and armor everywhere. Due to weight and starting funds, she only had chain on the limbs, but managed to get plate on the torso, and chain and plate on the head. In addition to stacks of DR, she outdamages anyone else in the group³. As a side note, she also has a heavy crossbow and Crossbow skill 16.

Tobias is a lightly armored precision striker. He's sworn a vow to never wear armor (badass leather jackets are a grey area), and has Luck to compensate. He has excellent defenses, with Dodge 11 and Parry 15F, allowing him to avoid damage he can't absorb. With Saber skill 20, can afford to call shots to weak points, such as eyes, and Extra Attack allows him to get past defenses with multiple attacks.

The party started off in the town outside the Mines, and spent some time gathering rumors. They picked up little of real value from the bartender and his patrons, other than that goblins have moved in to the upper levels of the mine, and bandits have moved into some of the secondary mines near the primary one.

Jefe decided to go to the library instead, and do some research. He got a brief history of the mines, and found something mentioning possibly intact Dwarven vaults, such that goblins would be unable to break into.

Tobias' compulsive partying caused him to rack up a slightly higher bar tab, which almost bit him in the ass when it came time to divvy up loot later on.⁴

With little further loitering, the party left town and ascended the mountain.

On the way, a great perception roll from Thaeryn spotted a goblin scout running down the mountain into the mines, and pointed it out to the party. The goblin botched his Not Sucking roll, and fell off the mountain, landing with a thud in front of the mines. Not wanting a scout to report back, Brock fired off a truly impressive 200 yard shot with her crossbow, ruining the goblin's leg.⁵

They snuck up on the Mines from there (and put the goblin out of it's misery on the way), and another impressive perception check from Thaeryn heard "the pitter-patter of tiny booted feet," informing them of impending goblins.  Jefe got the bright idea to create an illusion of an unattended mule, overburdened with delicious smelling goodies. The goblins took the bait, running headlong into an ambush, killing all three in one round. The fourth goblin was "smart" and hung back by the barricade, firing off mounted heavy crossbows. The first one nailed the unaware Brock, but she was too tanky to really care much. Brock advanced behind Thaeryn's shield, and nailed the goblin with another good crossbow shot.⁶

The party proceeded to Steal the Furniture by freeing the mounted crossbows of their mounts. They didn't want to carry them around, so they stashed them with Shape Stone and moved on.

By the time the party got back in, the goblins had formed a defense. They had a proper shield wall, with a spear wall behind them, and crossbowgoblins behind them. The party was getting ready to obliterate the goblin line, when the goblin chief demanded to know why they were there. Jefe was the only one who spoke goblin, so parlay began⁷.

After some "diplomacy," (Jefe making shit up) the goblins and the party came to an agreement: the party kills the "Big Bad Thing," which had been causing trouble for the goblins, and pays a 10% tax on all coins leaving the mines, and the party was free to move in and out of the goblin town. The party quickly realized the many loopholes in this agreement, and gleefully accepted. The only concern was the Big Bad Thing.

First thing, the party asked for a guide. The "Smart goblin" (aka the One Who Can Read) gave them his assistant, Cork. After having the guide show them around goblintown, they asked around for details on the Big Bad Thing. What they got was that it was big, had four legs, breathed fire, and ate goblins. Last time it escaped many goblins died, and they subdued it with "lots of nets."

With little further loitering, the party continued.

The guide led them deeper into the goblin town, and straight to the section where the Big Bad Thing was imprisoned. The party unboarded the doors. Jefe put an illusion of a closed door on the doors, and the party prepped spells and opened the door.⁸ Inside was a slorn.⁹

Jefe immediately Great Hasted Brock, who stormed in and started laying down the hurt, slicing off a claw.¹⁰ Thaeryn fired off a Sunbolt, Tobias started moving in, and Jefe charged up a Stone Missile. Due to Great Haste and ambush, the party beat up the slorn pretty badly before it got to act, but when it did, Brock got an object lesson in the definition of tanky. It attacked Brock twice, biting once and firebreathing the second time. Brock got hurt, but the player calmed down when reminded just how much damage she could take.¹¹ Brock was just too tough for the slorn, and the party beat it down with no casualties.

After killing the slorn, the party went about looting what was left of the goblin corpses laying around. They found a decent amount of silver, and Jefe's knowledge of alchemy allowed him to remember that slorn Breath Glands are valuable; he and Thaeryn started surgery.

During looting, they almost got ambushed by orcs, but yet another amazing perception roll by Thaeryn alerted them early.¹² Jefe illusioned up a still-living slorn, with the party hiding under it, and counter-ambushed the orcs. The orcs were no contest, and died horribly or fled. The party lootedthe corpses, taking two chain shirts and a silver ring.

The party then left the dungeon under the Slorn illusion, send panicky goblins everywhere.Jefe  made sure to add bits of the party and bits of orc to the illusion's mouth. The goblins are now free from the Slorn, and are convinced the party is dead. There is no way this can come back to haunt the party in any way.

Returning to town, the party divided up loot and counted coin. It was barely profitable, with the silver ring and the Slorn bits making up a decent chunk. Brock added the orc's chain shirt to her armor, making her even tankier, but incurring armor stacking penalties.

Thus ends session one.

Everyone got 5 xp, since it was a (technically) profitable venture, but nothing particularly impressive occurred.

Footnotes:

1: Some characters are slightly less than 250 because they burned points for starting cash.

2: Jefe gets skill 18 with 1 point into most spells

3: Brock has DR 6 on the torso/groin, DR 10/8 on the head, and DR 4/2 everywhere else. The end of session chain brought the torso DR up to 10/8. Her greatsword hits for 4d+1 cutting each strike.

4: With Compulsive Carousing, Tobias' tab was 190sp this session, instead of 150.

5: At the range the goblin was at, it was a -12 to hit. Brock aimed for three rounds, granting +6 to hit. With a -1 for SM, this brought effective skill with Crossbow to 9. She rolled a 6.

6: At this point, Brock spent a quirk on "Prefers to use the crossbow"

7: It should be noted that Jefe's player, Ian, is fiendishly clever and kind of a troll. Him being the negotiator was a recipe for shenanigans, one that I may come to regret.

8: The idea was that when the door opened, there would be an illusion of the door still being closed, blocking vision into the hallway (and the party).

9: Unlike the Slorn from Dungeon Fantasy Monsters, mine have 4 legs. I just like it better.

10: Brock was All Out (double) attacking on her first action, and Rapid Attacking on her second. That adds up to 16 dice of damage each round, and still allowing defense. Laying down the hurt, indeed.

11: 16 HP, Hard to Subdue 3, Hard to Kill 2. Brock can tank almost 100 damage. Over the course of the fight, the Slorn did around 20 or 30 damage after armor.

12:His perception isn't even that amazing, merely a good 14. He consistently rolled under 9 on perception checks, making the party very hard to sneak up on.

Lessons Learned: 

Several of the players are new to GURPS, and did not fully understand how their characters worked. I should make sure all players understand the rules their characters were built on.

Orcs are not nearly tough enough. They are supposed to be second-floor threats, and the starting party steamrolled them.