A Fistful of Crecibles/Session 4

Having agreed on a plan of attack while Gordon is off on his wild kobold goose chase, the party splits in two. On gathered information and Sallah's recommendation, Ivory Hands, Isra, and Sallah head out on horseback for a rendezvous with "Shiqun" - "the wolf's paw". Shiqun is the leader of an all-female Telranian mercenary troop, famed as bodyguards. They currently are under contract with the McKeough clan, though there have been some conflicts. Still, as Shiqun points out, the point of her spear is more than enough to defuse the usual summary execution that Jimmy McKeough is very ready to hand out.

Shiqun insists on a brief duel. Ivory Hands gets the draw on her and shoots the spear out of her hands and the wolf's skull at the same time, causing the spear to land in the wolf's jaw. Suitably impressed, Shiqun agrees to do business. Meanwhile, Tucker and his kobolds executed a daring morning raid on the manse and gardens of Timmy McKeough. Their aim: to loot and destroy and lure Timmy into a rash retaliation.

The early parts of their plan did not go well. First, lietentant "Stone-Faced" Steve the Kobold decided to recklessly charge the aqueduct, driving the guards back inside. He attempted to climb the aqueduct as his kobolds tossed explosives, but unfortunately the guard was too quick, and opened the floodgates, sweeping Steve and his cohort downstream. Steve himself was drowned attempting to rescue his pet rock, along with many of his men.

Meanwhile, Tucker and his kobolds took the signal to mean that they should attack the Rose garden. Leading the kobolds, they ruined many a crop of prize winning roses, never to see the glorious Telrion rose parade. However, they quickly found themselves surrounded by the flooding irrigation channels and pursued by a rather angry helicopter, which mowed the inexperienced Kobolds down as they attempted to ford the dikes. Only Tucker and a few of his better kobolds escaped to the garage area.

Meanwhile, a third group led by Krack the Kobold, dubbed the "sheep fuckers", went to despoil Timmy's favorite Sheep. They decided that this would be accomplished by disguising themselves as sheep. However, Krack and his pals were somewhat unclear on the concept, dressing themselves in goats's heads, strapping antlers, horns, and even feathers to themselves in a curious array capped off by the last kobold dressed up as the least hairy sheep dog in all of existence. Unsurprisingly, these kobolds were detected immediately and shot to pieces, Krack fleeing in terror, his bell bedecked tail jangling all the way back to the cover of the crags as his fellow kobolds were killed around him.

However, the most important task was left to his elite team: the theft of Timmy's prized Rolls-Royce. This they accomplished with panache, with a kobold named Henry Crokdockle firing himself out of a mortar and another named Jerry Crockdockle "rocket jumping" on an Iron plate up to the roof, where they quickly captured a heavy machinegun and turned it on the guards and proceeded to capture the garage. Despite a small timing mess-up on the explosives, they made it out of the garage mostly intact. However, the turret of the armored car they stole (in addition to the Rolls-Royce and a third car) had been jammed by the explosion in the garage, so once again Jerry and Henry went into action, jury rigging the machinegun to the back of the Royce.

Pursued by the helicopter which had finished cleaning up their kobold allies, Henry made a lucky shot through the canopy of the helicopter, severing the controls and causing it to spin right back into the sheep enclosure, exploding and killing many prized ewes. The kobolds, despite having taken 2/3 losses, counted this a major victory and rode off excitedly with their new prizes. A few days later, just as Aristom arrives back from his meeting, the extremely angry Timmy McKeough arrives to the "kobold stronghold" mentioned in the note tucker left behind. With a sheep alongside him in his armored car, flanked by tanks and accompanied by horsemen and motorized infantry, Timmy rides headlong into a trap. The kobolds and townspeople are all too happy to spring it...