Editing Britbongsteros (section)

===The Beastmen of Wales===
So, for the next episode we must skip forward in time about six months. Algernon has proved a weak king (no surprise) and the Welsh and Irish are preparing to invade. We have our royal charter and the party reconvene in Harrogate.

King Algernon I has been persuaded to lead an army into Wales. Armed with the new Martini Henry rifles (remember way back at the start of this? That's what we got from the alchemist), they march confidently into Wales. Initial skirmishes go well. Welsh barbarians chucking spears, then melting back into the bush at the first volley. The army marches on to Harlech. Algernon leads an assault on the castle of King Rorke and his men of Harlech. Algernon is captured and the army massacred. Failures in the supply train (the army have boxes of ammo for those new rifles. The boxes are screwed shut. No screwdrivers) see the army butchered to a man.

Our mission, when we choose to accept it, is to get into Harlech, possibly kill king Rorke, and rescue Algernon. 

First it's necessary to lay out exactly what the Welsh are (sorry Wales). They're a mix of satyrs, half man, half goat, centaurs, and similar. All with the top half of a man and the lower half of some form of Ungulate. They're tribesmen, smart, cunning, and well organized.

Harlech is remote, a large isolated castle. Definitely not something the six of us (+ penguin) can storm by force.

King Rorke is half man, half bull. There are also rumours of the Welsh being supported by a wizard, one who calls himself
:''>Merlin''

:''>why are the Welsh so annoyed?''
Queenie ruled that they weren't human and therefore English settlers could claim their lands by force. 

So, we are in my Dorf Fortress. Six months have passed and the party have used them well.

:''>bard'' 
Has learnt to weaponize the bagpipes. He may now damage enemies with them
:''>Angus''
Invented napalm. Runs a successful shop. (He is a greengrocer at heart)
:''>Wizard'' 
Is now Sir Wizard, got married. Has further developed his powers.
:''>Cruella''
Now officially consort of Aldous. Has obtained a wicked looking bastard sword. Talks to it. It may talk back.
:''>Navvie''
The spirit of the Union (the magic glowy thing) defies all research. Still likes hitting stuff.
:''>Aldous''
I have some new titles, a waifu, and the gatling shotgun has gone tacticool.
:''>Purple Penguin'' 
Already at level cap. 

So we unfurl the map again. I light my pipe. The bard helps as usual by humming a tune. Everyone leans in and we start to plot.
Going overland seems more than a little dangerous. The army was lead into a trap and it seems the party would be ambushed if we tried.

We could go by sea however. We'd have to be careful and lucky to avoid the Irish.

Or we could go south through the much safer channel and then up and round. It is still likely that we would meet pirates.

We decide to sail from Liverpool and see what happens.

We provision ourselves and move on from Harrogate to Liverpool. 

So we arrive in port. There are three ships we can take:
:1. The "HMS Invincible 2", a battlecruiser. Not exactly subtle.
:2. The tramp steamer - "Matilda," subtle, not exactly fast. Looks inconspicuous
:3. The gunboat - HMS "38 Minutes," small, fast, and exactly the sort of thing the pirates would love to steal if they can catch us.

We favour the gunboat for the stealthy approach, reasoning we may also need to run away quickly. 

The royal charter (a very handy document, I should say we are described as "Adventurers By Appointment to <s>Her Majesty - Queenie hugs, kisses and I'll chop off your balls</s> His Majesty Algernon I, for services rendered" on the charter).

Anyway, this document sees us aboard the 38 minutes and sailing south at great speed. The Bard pipes us out of harbour as is tradition. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLYT0NR8ZLc Saxon, thin red line].

:''>DM: roll some dice please Bard''
:''>rolls''
:''>You kill three bystanders.''
:''>Oh, I forgot about that. I'll play a bit more quietly next time.''

Anyway, we make good speed southwards.

As we round a headland, the shout comes
:"BOARD THEM."
We've run straight into an ambush. Two pirate ships sling grappling harpoons at us.

We look at each other. We split into two groups and shout.
:"BOARD THEM BACK!" 

The pirates don't last very long, at all. The 38 Minutes rakes them with machine gun fire before we board, and the party commit all sorts of unpleasantness to the crew.

The bard looks around.

:"Guys I have an idea
:We take these sails, and well there's six of us, Wizard, Cruella and Me are the tallest so we could sort of cover each other with sails so from a distance we'd look sorta like centaurs and..."
:
:"Guys?"
:Angus: "I have another idea, lets take one of these ships."

Unanimously agreeing that Angus's plan is less stupid, we decide to leave the 38 Minutes moored in a cove near Harlech, and take the "The Revenge of the Purple Penguin" in closer for a look at the castle. 

The castle, it's fucking Harlech Castle, we sneak ashore in just before dawn, using the dusk for cover, and get a little closer. We set up on a little hill nearby and decide to observe the situation. There's thick mist. Really thick. We use the cover of it to get on the hill into a copse of trees.

The bard and DM are passing notes. Nothing is on fire yet, so we're probably OK, but that's a really bad sign,

We settle in and wait for daybreak. 

We can just make out the torches on the castle walls and not much else. When the sun starts to get rid of the fog, we start seeing more detail, and hearing things. All around us. We appear to have followed a stream (to avoid being tracked/scented) straight into the enemy camp.

We're surrounded by tents and dozing centaurs.

Alright. Plan B. Lets wait for nightfall.

We pass the day sleeping and observing as best we can.

Observations include:
:- That's a fuckton of Welsh
:- Let's not go out there for a bit 

We wait for nightfall. The bard starts getting twitchy about dusk. He goes into his bag and removes a small sail.
:"Guys guys we could..."
:"Shut the fuck up [bard player]"

We think and discuss (quietly). We are pretty sure our king will be held not far from King Rorke. We also know they want his ransom so they haven't killed him. Our best bet is to get into the castle at night, and get out again, King in tow and a knife through Rorke's heart. Now aside from Cruella, none of our weapons are exactly stealthy... We need a diversion. 

:"Wouldn't a disguise be really useful here?"
No, shut up bard.

As fog starts to come up, we have a thought. The baggage train includes a lot of hay (because centaurs don't like pulling carts, so there are normal livestock), surely a small fire would become a big one pretty fast. A technowizard bomb in amongst all that ammo they stole from the kings army would also sure be handy.

We reason with enough flame and smoke, Rorke will have to send his bodyguard, or at least some out, to help deal with things, and they'll have to come through the main gate. 

And the ammo dump cooking off should give us enough sound and random ricochets to cover us if we have to go loud.

Angus gets given the job of starting the fire, and Wizard of assembling the bomb. We split up. Bard and Angus with me, and Cruella and Navvie with Wizard. 

This was of course the plan.

They say no plan survives contact with the enemy. Well...

The wizard's team set off in the fog and darkness, with Cruella with them they should manage to be stealthy enough for the wizard to set off a timed explosion with limited disturbance. 

Well team wizard snuck through rows of tents and with a couple of guards getting a second smile, they did just fine. Setting off to wait in the ditch next to the main gate for us.

Our stealth team has: a dwarf in plate armour, an orc with a full on flamethrower, and a bard who normally contributes to the war effort by bagpiping. We are ninja. 

We get surprisingly far with our efforts before Angus trips on a guy rope, then falling into a rack of weaponry, making enough racket to wake up the Welshmen in the tent nearest.

Options:
:''>Bluff?''
I and Bard have decent social skills. We could, but neither of us speak Welsh.

:''>Start shooting?''
Retarded for obvious reasons

:''>Run?''
They'll raise the alarm

:''>Silent takedown?''
Cruella is the only member of party able to do that usefully.

:''>Hide?''
:"Guys we could..."
:''>shut up bard.''

Hiding is our best option though. We duck into some barrels and Bard tosses the sail cloth over us. In the dark and the mist it's just enough.
:''>Bard player is positively beaming at this point.''

We wait, holding our breath, we look innocuous enough against the background of mist and tents, in amongst the baggage train we are just another half shape in the darkness.

We listen to the beastmen bicker and pick up spears.

We wait.

We peek out. We got away with it. 

We continue on. Angus is delivered to the hay bails. He has so many fire related skills that him building a small fire which won't be seen but will burn very very fast into the bales (after about five minutes) is easy enough for him.
(IIRC he used a stub of candle, a lantern, and some thick rope soaked in oil as a sort of fuse - it was enough though)

We snuck on. DM, perhaps recognizing we could all die really easily, is likely to have fudged several rolls here, and a lot of the camp were passed out drunk which was useful. 

The fire gets going into a good blaze and down comes the drawbridge. Hooves thunder over us as we wait. Then the ammo dump goes up. Perfect.

We wait until the hooves stop. The portcullis starts to fall. Wizard creates tension in the chains and we get up, over and under the portcullis as the drawbridge starts to rise behind us. We are in and it seems no one is any the wiser. The wizard causes the iron of the portcullis to splay out into the cobblestones. No one is getting in or out without our say so. (We do know there is a sally port on the far (seaward) wall.

We get into the cellars relatively easily and as far as we know, unseen. What we find in the cellars is impressive to say the least. Cask after cask, barrel after barrel. Out of curiosity it we find an open one. It's Guinness.

It appears Harlech is what has happened to what the Welsh used to trade with the rest of Britbongsteros (along with tin and mutton). 

So, we are beneath Harlech Castle, we have found the king along with a variety of other prisoners. We take it upon ourselves to free each and every one (the Purple Penguin approves). King Algernon has very little idea what is going on but thanks us for "allowing him to continue to consider the custard." The other prisoners are a mix of general prison scum and prisoners of war, our party of 6 is now a party of 40 odd.

We decide to make for the courtyard and the sally port, then the ship. 

We get into the courtyard just fine, it's about then that we realize we might not be the only ones to have noticed our entrance. King Rorke and the rest of his bodyguards are facing us, and are not looking best pleased. We can fight, we can most likely take them, the question is, is it a good idea?

:''>'dis gonna be gud...''

We crack our collective necks, rack slides and generally get ready.

The bard pipes up for the first time in a while.

:"Guys, guys, I got this."
OK fuck it, it's not like you ever do anything anyway.

He takes a couple steps forward.

You could hear a pin drop. Prisoners and party on one side, and King Rorke and his elite on the other.

The Bard speaks.
:"I like beer."
??? 
:''>Everyone likes beer.''
ok...
:"And we know trade has ceased. We have here the king of this sceptered isle, his predecessor decreed you were no longer human, no longer to be traded with, no longer to produce Guinness for us, no longer to own lands, and this is why you rebelled, so were this man, this King, to reverse that, to allow the beer to flow, then what need for this rebellion be there?"

It's working.

Shit it's actually working.

:''>The bard is starting to glow, just as Navvie did previously. It's going well.''
King Rorke strikes his sword into the cobblestones.
:"Very well, you may..."
:"WAIT."
It's Merlin. He looks exactly like you'd expect. It's Gandalf with a different hat.
:"NO. YOU. SHALL. NOT. PASS."

Merlin is up on the battlements. This loopy wizard is going to object to creating peace because... actually why is he doing that?

We ask him.
:"Why spill more blood when we can make peace?"
:"Because you will never keep this promise, you will never honour your word, you will never hold true."
Fuck. 

Rorke and his men are starting to look grumpy, getting ready to charge. Bard is no longer glowing, but he does launch into [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cQNkIrg-Tk Hank Williams Jr, Country Boys Can Survive] looks like this is gonna end bloody. Then... Cruella does something no one expected.

She seizes the Purple Penguin. She holds him high.
:"What is this child's toy? Why do we carry it? It is a symbol, a promise we made to a little girl, that we would return her toy to her, that she would not go alone into that cold dark night, that in all of the horror of the world, there was some good. Let there still be some good. Each and every warrior here will have a wife, a mother, children, why must they be without a father, a son, and a husband? This Purple Penguin is the symbol of what we fight for, and why you should let the Guinness flow."
It's not a natural 20, but it's an 19, it's enough, Merlin doesn't have an answer. Instead he levitates down to our level. Struts past Rorke and starts to chant in a language no one recognizes. 

Rorke splits him from crown to crotch neatly with one blow of his axe.
:"Peace it is."
Everybody drinks Guinness until they pass out.

That was our one and only happy ending in Britbongsteros