WRITTEN RECAP
Eldoria — Episode 11: Havroth'S Gambit
Episode Eleven picks up with the Old Dudes outside Stonebridge after refusing to pay a toll to the thugs occupying the bridge.
One man escaped the fight and ran into town, which means the party's arrival is no longer a surprise.
Stonebridge is not the place they remember.
The village where they once convinced everyone to give Shorg a chance has been taken over by armed men serving a bandit leader named Borthog. Rough barricades control the roads, residents are frightened, and the newcomers learn that Borthog did not simply wander into town looking for a place to rob.
He was sent here.
The name behind him is Norak.
That lands hard.
The ancient being the Old Dudes released by lighting the ritual candles in the ruined temple is no longer an abstract mistake somewhere far away. His influence has reached a settlement the party personally helped.
Worse, Shorg is dead.
The ogre who had become Stonebridge's unlikely farmhand and protector was killed when Borthog's people seized the village. The first genuinely kind choice the party made in Eldoria has been answered by one of the consequences of their worst choice.
The Old Dudes take that personally.
They question one of the thugs and learn enough to confirm that Borthog is holding court in the meeting hall. There is discussion of strategy, deception and whether they can talk their way close enough to make the coming fight easier.
There is also a great deal of bell-related judgment from Zayon, because by now bells have somehow become both a campaign motif and a running table obsession.
The party enters the hall.
Borthog is waiting.
The fight is long, ugly and much more dangerous than the roadside toll encounter. Borthog and his men hit hard, and the Old Dudes spend much of the battle trading control of the room one body at a time.
Characters go down.
Characters get back up.
At one point a dying Garth Maul answers a brutal strike with Storm's Thunder, blasting his attacker backward and killing him even as Gar drops himself.
Zewor, briefly standing on one hit point while other party members are making death saves, announces that he is going to heal himself.
The table immediately labels him the selfishest ranger alive.
To his credit, the plan changes once everyone explains that being conscious means he can heal somebody else. Potions get poured down throats, healing magic starts bringing people back, and the party somehow reassembles itself while the battle is still happening.
“I am capacitated now” becomes as close to a rallying cry as this group is likely to get.
Borthog is eventually brought down.
The surviving resistance collapses with him, and Stonebridge is free again.
The villagers emerge to thank the party, but the victory is not clean. They tell the heroes what happened to Shorg. Borthog approached him during the takeover and killed him.
The Old Dudes cannot undo that.
They can, however, make certain Borthog never hurts anyone else.
His head becomes proof that the occupation is over.
Stonebridge begins sending people toward Shade Karn for help while the party returns to the reason it came west in the first place. Oma Val asked for a sample of the strange black ichor affecting the lizardfolk, and the conspiracy in Shade Karn is moving toward a deadline. The Old Dudes cannot spend too long celebrating.
They leave Stonebridge and continue toward lizardfolk territory.
Late in the episode, laughter echoes through the forest.
For once it is not Fars.
The party spots a pack of giant hyenas feeding on a bear and fighting amongst themselves. The animals have not noticed the adventurers yet.
This produces an important philosophical discussion.
Do the Old Dudes actually have to kill every dangerous creature they see?
The session ends before they decide.
Episode Eleven closes with Stonebridge liberated, Shorg avenged, Borthog dead, Norak's influence confirmed, and a completely innocent pack of oversized hyenas about to discover what kind of adventuring party has wandered into its lunch break.
Havroth's political gambit is still unfolding back in Shade Karn.
Norak's gambit is already costing lives outside it.