Raid on Black Goat Wood Pt. IV: The Battle of Campbelltown

OSR Colonial
Raid on Black Goat Wood Pt. IV
(via Shane Mangus' One Page Dungeon. Good stuff, check it out!)

Fall, 1757
Forest outside of Campbelltown, a small village near the Hudson in Southern New York.

The PC's
James Marcus (played by Ben)
Soldier -8
Campbell is a heavily armed and well trained former soldier. A dangerous looking man, he is loaded down with a few pistols, rifle, saber, bayonet, and a set of silver brass knuckles.

Father Patrick (played by Susan)
Minister-8
Father Patrick is a catholic priest who is not the nicest priest in the world. Described as 'sorta evil' he's a conniving and dangerous man who will apparently do what he needs to and manipulate people to get his way.

Allistair McCord (played by Kevin)
Scout-6/Physician-2
McCord is a scarred up ugly bastard with an old blunderbuss, and itchy trigger finger, and a bit of battlefield medicine under his belt. When not blowing hell out of things with his blunderbuss he'll be chopping away with his hatchets. Scottish, possibly a bit mad.

Guy LeFleur (played by Grant)
Soldier -8
A French mercenary from New Orleans. He's proven to be a capable and dangerous man with musket, knife, and hatchet. This is is first encounter with the supernatural and strange and he is coping well.

PART FOUR: The Battle of Campelltown
After escaping the sinkhole, and sending the traumatized Farmer Bob on his way the PC's formulate a plan. They take the robes off of the few dead cultists still on the surface. The robes are bloody but they plan to sneak back into town disguised as wounded cultists and see who reacts to this. They then plan on returning with as much whale oil and gunpowder as they can afford to reopen the hole and drop it on the Goatmen and the Dark Mother and kill the Hell out of Minister Evans.

Before they head back to town, however, they spend the next few hours alternating between resting and cutting down a few of the diseased trees and drop them over the hole in an attempt to further seal the Goatmen inside. It's hard work but they manage to drag them to the hole. It is late afternoon before they wander down the road.

Night approaches as they cautiously make their way into Campbelltown.
A bright Fall moon and a few street lanterns light up the town. The tavern is packed but there is no joviality or music. Through the windows they see terse men and women drinking and talking amongst themselves.

The church is dark, but there is a faint light in a back window.

McCord heads to break into the general store for supplies as Father Patrick, Guy, and Marcus head to the church to confront Minister Evans.

Father Patrick opens the door and enters the dark room, pistols at the ready.
The doors slam themselves behind her and lock. Guy and Marcus try to force them open but they are too strong.

 In the store a quick search turns up two barrels of oil and three small casks of gunpowder. McCord begins hauling them outside.

As McCord rolls the barrels out and Guy and Marcus try to force the door a faint commotion comes from far down the road towards Black Goat Wood. Then a massive roar tears through the night behind the church.

Ducking around the corner Marcus sees a massive creature emerge from the forest on the other side of the graveyard.  A four pawed vertically split mouth creature emerges from the woods. It is fully twenty feet tall in the  moonlight. It's beady eyes catch sight of Marcus in the distance and it lets out another roar before stomping into the graveyard and straight towards the church. (at this point I mentioned "Gug' to Grant whom did not know what one was and showed him a picture. As soon as I said 'Gug' Kevin and Ben hissed and hunkered down for a nasty fight...)

Down a road they hear Goatmen bleating in rage and in the moonlight see a large group of the mutants heading down the road a full run. In the lead is a massive Goatman with four tentacles growing from his torso. His face is different from the others but he is too far away to make out much detail.

The townsfolk are looking out the tavern windows and freaking out. Doors and shutters are hastily slammed.

McCord, Guy, and Marcus quickly set up two gunpowder casks and a barrel of oil near the water trough in front of the tavern  in an attempt to lure the Gug into a trap.

While all of this was going on Father Patrick is in the darkened church.
Suddenly a deep voice speaks words of power and the candles light up illuminating the alter in the rear of the church.
Lying on his back over the alter is Minister Evans, still bloody from the gunshot wound. He is sweating profusely and clutching an old book to his breast. His left boot has come off revealing a twisted leg with a goats hoof, explaining his limp.
He is shaking with fear and looking at the man standing next to the alter.

The man is tall and very pale. His long black hair is tied back and he wears all black riding clothing. A silver ring gleams on his gloved hand, a dragon carved upon it.

"Greetings Father. I have heard much about you. You seem to have a dark side about you. I wish to make you a deal..."

Father Patrick comes forward. Realizing his is outmatched and desiring power he quickly kneels in front of the alter and the man.

"no...no don't do this...please..." Evans mumbles but is quickly silenced by a gaze from the dark man.

Pulling a glove off he presents his white hand for the Father to kiss. "Kiss my hand and pledge yourself to I and my master."

"Who is your master?"

The dark man gives a sly grin. " You know who he is. I will not say his name. He is the Adversary. "

Father Patrick kisses his hand.
Quickly the dark man rips the book from Evans grasp and removes an ornate ring from Evan's finger.
"This is yours. The book will reveal secrets. The ring has power. Study the book well. I will contact you later for your obligations to our Master. My name is Moisette. Now, show your loyalty and kill this man."

He steps back as Evans looks on in horror.
"I made a deal too...." he gasps.

Father Patrick wraps his whip around Evans neck and begins to choke him to death.
Moisette turns away and heads to the shadows in the corner of the room. He steps into them and is gone.

 Father Patrick opens the doors and drags Evans out into the street by his neck catching sight of his companions panicking and  hauling barrels to the water trough and catching sight of the approaching Goatmen raiders.
Dragging Evans to the trough he sticks the Minister's head into the water choking and drowning him to death.
During this a bulge on the ornate ring on Father Patrick's finger slides open revealing a demonic eye. The eye quickly looks around and then the metal eye lid closes again. No one but Father Patrick saw this.

McCord lights a short fuse on the barrels and everyone clears out. Everyone but Guy runs down an alley and around back of the tavern. Guy is heading inside. McCord and Marcus take the long way around while Father Patrick takes the other side, and upon seeing the approaching Goatmen stops at the back corner of the tavern, pistol and whip ready to fight.

The Goatmen enter town. The leader and two others head towards Father Patrick's end of the tavern.
Four split off to head towards the front of the tavern and four more head off main-street to cause mayhem in the rest of the town.

The Gug has stomped its way through the graveyard and is rounding the corner of the church. Spotting Guy entering the tavern it roars again and charges across the street.

As the Gug and the Goatmen approach the water trough the homemade bomb blows up in a flash of smoke, fiery oil, and wood shards. Evan's body is shattered, the Goatmen are killed by shrapnel, the Gug is thrown on its back with a piece of plank in its chest and a large ichor gushing hole in its side. The blast shakes the tavern loosening the stone wall and weakening the roof.

McCord and Marcus race down the back of the tavern to join Father Patrick at his corner but it's too late the Goatmen reach him first.

In the glare of the oil lamps they finally see the massive tentacled Goatman has Ramsey's face.  He has been transformed by the Dark Mother and spit out to avenge her.

As Ramsey and the two mutants approach Father Patrick they falter and gaze upon his ring. With a wary look they circle around him and head to engage McCord and Marcus behind the tavern.

Ramsey dives into McCord: biting, bleating, butting with horns, kicking with hoofed feet, and smashing with tentacles growing from his body. McCord blasts Ramsey with his big damn blunderbuss and lays into the mutant with his hatchets but Ramsey is rapidly heading from each gory blow. McCord is quickly getting bashed into a pulpy mess but stays on his feet and keeps swinging away.

One of the other Goatmen steps around and catches a musket ball from Marcus. With a weak bleat it drops dead.

The other Goatman stays by Ramsey ready to jump into the fight.
Father Patrick cracks his whip at the mutant. The Goatman seems shocked that the Father is attacking him and goes to attack the priest.

Out front the Gug has regained its feet and with a maddened and deafening roar the toothy monster spies Guy looking through a tavern window. It hurls itself at the tavern smashing through the weakened stone wall and into the building. Stomping on screaming townsfolk it wades through the second floor collapsing it, the roof, and the walls inward. Broken lanterns quickly ignite the old wood and soon people are screaming and burning as well as getting stomped to grapes.
Guy, seeing the Gug approaching ran through the tavern and threw himself through a window in the back of the tavern, emerging into the bloody fight in back.

McCord and Ramsey continue to thrash each other.
Marcus pulls a pistol and fires at Ramsey who ducks the shot but it strikes the last Goatman in the back of the head blasting a huge hole and quite a bit of brain onto the wall. Barely on its feet and in a daze the Goatman is seized by the horns by Father Patrick. He dashes the mutants head against the stone wall of the tavern knocking the rest of it's brains out and killing it.

Ramsey is laying into McCord and Marcus with everything he has. Stomping and goring McCord while choking and crushing Marcus with his tentacles. Marcus starts chopping off one of the tentacles as McCord is struck senseless in the street, severely wounded and unconscious.

The Gug blasts through the back wall of the flaming tavern, scattering stones and burning oil everywhere.
Ramsey is hit with oil and catches fire, screaming in pain. The Gug tries to smash Guy with its fists but misses as the nimble Frenchman ducks away.

Raising his pistol Guy fires up under the giant's chin. The ball blasts into the monster's brain and it tumbles backwards, finally dead, into the tavern crushing the only two survivors of the fire and Gug attack. Whoops.

Seeing the effects of the oil Marcus grabs an unbroken oil lamp and empties it on Ramsey as Guy and Father Patrick continue to stab, shoot, and whip the mutant. Finally Ramsey falls over dead, melting into a flaming pool of goo.

They bind McCord's wounds and manage to get him on his feet.
A quick recon shows that the remaining few Goatmen have fled and the town is apparently safe for now.

Moving quickly Marcus, Guy, and McCord enter the still intact tavern basement hoping to salvage some loot. They find a secret door that was unhinged when the Gug hit the building. Inside they find a room with a desk, a few occult books, a journal kept by Ramsey, a chest with somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000 pounds in coins, and a fancy looking pistol engraved with strange symbols. They quickly loot the room.

While the trio is looting Ramsey's hide-away Father Patrick enters the church and finds the trap door to the basement. In a small room he finds Evan's workshop. Inside are occult books, maps, and a large doctor's bag with all sorts of vials of herbs and other nasty witchy items to use for spells. He also finds an ornate dagger with magical runes on it's blade and two vials of oddly colored liquids.
He quickly packs things up and heads topside to rendezvous with the others.

Retrieving a wagon and horses from the stables the four quickly leave town wanting as much distance between Campbelltown and themselves as possible.

After a few days of hard riding they come to a large town and McCord is given medical aide.
They spend the next few weeks recovering and re-equipping themselves for whatever lies ahead.
McCord keeps the pistol (+1 pistol.)
Marcus has his weapons modified, adding blades to two of his pistols and an axehead in the stock of his musket.
Guy buys new boots and clothing and is given the rune knife ( +2 knife.)

Father Patrick spends the time secretly studying and practicing the dark arts.