Belswick session 0.5 - there's goblins skiing behind an owlbear, what do you do?

You all live in the hamlet of Crossroads in Walden barony. It's a sleepy place but there's a party because the baron's son is getting engaged. The beer is cheap, and some wag down the street says there's a rampaging owlbear coming pulling along three goblins on skis...

Belswick campaign finally kicked off this Friday! We did a fairly quick run of character creation and tying the characters together, then a couple of scenes of mayhem and intrigue to start the adventuring proper.

QUICK, CREATE A CHARACTER

With some houserules on top of the already detailed D&D 5e, I expected character creation to take some time. In the end it took an hour, including describing setting details. Here's how I tackled it:

• Let players choose how much control they wanted over character creation: most rolled for everything from abilities to race and class. Everyone picked their background. We didn't roll for professions yet. (if players want to: 1d00, reroll anything over 81 because those are for larger towns)
• First player to go rolled up a Fishling barbarian - "a Fishling? what's that?" --> immediately got to flesh out the "lots of fantastic animal races" aspect.
• Of course our Chaos worshiping "randomize everything" player was then proceeded to roll a Human fighter...rerolled to get a Mouseling rogue.
• Used these class and background cheat sheets to quickly get people the info they needed for their character sheet.
• Tied the characters together based on this system: each player picks another who wasn't chosen yet and rolls to define who their characters knew each other. Worked like a treat as an alternative to the old "you meet in an inn, what does your guy look like" routine.

THE CHARACTERS

• Aju - Fishling barbarian, kind of a loner (hermit background).
• Knows Squeek from the war with Arrayne, when Squeek got the two of them out of a press gang. Wields a stupendous greataxe and little in terms of armor. His fishscales and mighty muscles protect him.
• Player: GJ
• Squeek - Mouseling rogue, earns his keep as a ratcatcher.
• Knows Lomin Mor from a con to steal a noble lady's jewelry, which fueled a two week party. Spent an absolutely miserable winter paying back a favor to the Hungry Crone - he took a minor pact with this warlock patron and can now cast cantrips and spells. But hush, there's a cleric nearby!
• Player: B, who is our patron saint of randomness and chaos
• Lomin Mor - Elf rogue. Not his real name - this is a roundabout elvish way of saying 'dark shadow'. Dealmaker, hustler, thief. Mr. Mor to you.
• Knows Tilbørd (well, his family) from decades ago and is interested to see what this young forger can do. 
• Player: PH
• Tilbørd Bjornsson - Human cleric and deacon priest of the Olmadician Order (knowledge domain). Hails from the Væring in the far north and was sent to Crossroads by the church to learn at the feet (well, foot - see below) of Father Eustace. Comes from a family of forgers who sadly passed into the tender care of the hangman and has been looking for a good contact for his shadow work. Knows many languages, two of he keeps secret and which catch my attention: Mist (Thieves' Cant and magic language of the Violet Cloud) and Du'vanku, the necromancer tongue of a lost Empire.
• Knows Aju because they share an interest in certain occult lore and languages.
• Player: R, who tends to dig into and ask for more background

It is at this point that I remind players that XP is only for loot and reward, not for killing opponents.

Quickly google, just show me some images of these miscreants:

PASS THE FLAMING OWLBEAR

1. How do you all meet? Easy, everyone lives in Crossroads (pop. 170) in the barony of Walden, duchy Belswick. Is a feast day - both because of spring festival and because the baron's son is getting engaged. No nobles in the party, so no-one knows the kids' names. What the hey, there's cheap booze and food and the weather's nice enough to sit outside. Orbat the hawkling innkeeper is doing great business.

Crossroads is where the two country roads meet in the eastern part of Walden, itself ~36 miles wide. This area is mostly wilderness, with Goblins, lake monsters, a black unicorn, a fire-spewing Hydra and a dread knight.

2. Sounds like someone's having a go at scaring the party-goers. What else could explain the sound of a rampaging owlbear coming down one of the two main roads? The shrieking of goblins mixed in is especially good, even though the Goblin-haunted Forest of Walden is to the west, not the south. "GIFTSIES! GIFTSIES!" goes the chant. (The Lazy DM says: have a strong start. This good enough?)

3. Applause all round for the sound effects until people spot the actual owlbear with three goblins in tow, wooden planks tied to their feet, skiing behind the beast and poking it with pikes in a vain attempt at steering it. This is also when the fireworks turn out to be fiery arrows from even more goblins. The inn is on fire and it wasn't even the players' fault! People start running, the owlbear and goblins skid into the market stalls.

These perfect idiots

4. WHADDAYADO? Rather than have everyone describe their new character and their gear in eyewatering detail, I choose to have them describe their natural reactions. Illuminating, I recommend it.

• Strongman Aju gets out his greataxe and walks calmly towards the rampage. Behind the inn, he finds five Goblin archers with fiery arrows. One is cloven in twain with the first attack and first crit of the game, with enough damage that I decide it spills over to the nearby archer. Who fails a morale check and decides to run. The rest keep up the chant for GIFTSIES!
• Tilbørd uses a Prayer to the Authority and in a booming voice gets the owlbear's attention. He then helps crippled Father Eustace and the rest of the crowd get away.
• Lomin Mor and Squeek need no further encouragement and start looting the wreckage of the market. Squeek sees Annabelle the potionblender (sick this past week but still out of bed for the party) go paler than usual at the Goblin chant. She chants the chant of the innocent (fuckofuckofuckofuck) and downs a potion which turns her into a puff of mist. Squeek sneaks in, sweeps six of her potions into his backpack. Then staggers to hide his haul somewhere because of his lowly strength score and reduced Mouseling encumbrance.

5. The rogues (cleric and mouseling and elf) scamper away when the owlbear reverses course, ski-Goblins again shrieking and poking, and heads to where Aju has decided to enter a RAGE, chops into the owlbear, takes a massive claw swipe in stride, then aims for the ski-Goblins.

The Goblins starting to wonder how well thought through this plan was, as their wild ride causes them to miss every single target. Their angst is short lived as Aju slaughters them in one fell swoop. Remaining goblins and owlbear flee.

Hit point pools are a wonderful innovation, I'm glad I remembered it from Ars Ludi's blog back in 2007.

6. One more forlorn "GIFTSIES..." echoes from the darkness, receding. The inn is still on fire and players fail to take charge and organize an effective bucket brigade. It burns halfway down but surrounding houses survive.

7. The town takes stock, Tilbørd takes care of the wounded, people pat Aju on the back, Lomin and Squeek turn up again looking innocent. A miserable night turns even worse when a mauled cart makes its way into town - Dinadan, a Swanling merchant, is heavily wounded.

Swanlings always have rotten luck. In this case, Dinadan was making his way to the festival when he was attacked by Goblins and an owlbear. Half the Goblins kidnapped his servant boy Guy, and looted his cart, the other half continued for Crossroads.

8. Reward and hook time. Flash forward to the next day:

• Aju gets a reward in tools, coins and favors for standing up against this raid. 
• Squeek and Lomin earn minor XP for the things they took from the market.
• Squire Silas Kerjules, the Hedgehogling son of the local knight, comes to inspect what happened. He offers a reward together with Dinadan: 100 gp of coin and merchandise for the head of the owlbear and the boy Guy returned. There is frenzied haggling over who gets what share around the table. Gold=XP has sunk in.
• Innkeeper Orbat makes an angry speech about the raid, with enough key phrases in Thieves' Cant in there that Lomin and Squeek decide to have a talk. 100 gp of coin for information on this raid. What does "GIFTSIES" mean? Is it a coincidence that the raiding party came out of the foothills of Mount Gale, where Annabelle is said to have a special herb garden for her potions?
• Tilbørd chats with Dinadan, who was curiously traveling out of the foothills around Mt. Gale.
• Not a common direction, because that way lies Castle Gale, where Ulric the dread knight has ruled with a terrible fist since murdering his wife and being excommunicated by the Church. (After having him killed by, and kill, their Saint Cascarrion, the Church decided to leave the guy be.)
• Dinadan confesses he was hauling a special package: a triple-locked chest bound all the way to Baronetcy Emlyn. But hush! 50 gp -all he has- for the casket returned to him.
• Aju talks to Annabelle about the strange coincidence - Goblins from a direction where no Goblins usually roam? And so close to her herb garden? Brawn and brains, this fish. Annabelle confesses she trades with the Goblins for special ingredients. In return, she gives them little gifts. She doesn't specify, but asks him to take a pig of hers to the Goblin den and tie it to a tree there. In return, Aju gets a healing potion (2d8+2 hp)

And there we end the session. More mayhem next time!