Before I get started on the adventures of the Graverobbers, I have some news! My good friend Kent Hamilton, official illustrator of d20 Despot, has launched a companion site called d20 Doodler, where he will be posting daily warm-up sketches of characters, monsters, and scenes from my campaigns or just D&D/Pathfinder-inspired stuff. I'll be using a lot of these as preview images for my posts, but there'll be plenty more over at d20doodler.com! Let's check out today's preview image - a sketch of Rikkit, the Graverobbers' lovable goblin sorcerer:
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| The Death of Rikkit Nightingale - Kent Hamilton |
When last we left our heroes, they had just survived a prolonged assassination attempt and were about to meet the Emperor.
With much pomp, they were led into the throne room, where Emperor Heinrich IV awaited them. The youthful emperor was seated regally on the throne, a helmet-style jeweled crown framing his angular face. Those party members with Knowledge (nobility) or (history) noted the wicked scar on his left cheek, a souvenir from when his rebellious uncle Otto tried to murder him.
"I've been meaning to speak to you for a while now," he told the party. "I have heard much of your accomplishments. Discovering an ancient way under Highfrost Pass, slaying the bandit lords Helga Manarms, Uli Blackeye, and the goblin Blackhide. The Empire may have need of your services again in the north. In the last year, Imperial forces have been fighting to keep Castle Morbis and retake Castle Drenn, her sister castle on the other side of the pass. We have come close to taking Castle Drenn several times, but each time we have been thwarted by a change in the weather, the arrival of fresh barbarian hordes, or an attack by fierce monsters. This winter, we've retreated to Castle Morbis. And now, pirates and raiders bearing the markings of the Duke of Gaalbek have been harassing shipping and raiding the southern frontier. My barons grow tired of this war against barbarians in the frozen north - they see a chance to gain land and riches in war with Gaalbek, and demand that their feudal levies be reallocated to the southern frontier.
"If you, with your unique skills and experience in the area, could take Castle Drenn before the spring thaw allows for troop movements, that would really ease the pressure on the northern frontier. I will grant Castle Drenn and its surrounds - all you can conquer and hold in the north - to Sir Hardrig of Whitemouth and Dame Sigrid of Karlshus. You will hold the lands directly from me, and have complete freedom to build, tax, create titles… plus, given last night's events, I think it might be time for you all to take a break from the Imperial City."
After gathering supplies, the party set out. On the road north, they passed by a rock which suddenly began to speak: "So, you have become lackeys of the false emperor. It gets cold where you're going; allow me to warm you up." With that, the large rock disappeared, and in its place reared a massive reptilian body with ten heads, each spouting flame. The party rallied to the challenge, leaping swiftly to battle with the beast - obviously another 'gift' from the mysterious 'X' who had begun taunting them a year ago. Sigrid led the charge in attacking the pyrohydra's body, while Monty thought the key to killing it was chopping off heads. As it turned out, the party dealt too much damage to it too quickly for any of its heads to regrow. The final blow was dealt by Cameo the roc, who flew too close to the beast and was grappled by it, only to reach her beak down into one of its neck-stumps and rip out its insides.
After walking all the way to Brackenburg (except Sigrid and Hardrig, who rode horses, and Rikkit, who rode Monty, and Zel, who rode Cameo... Okay, I guess only Monty, Kat, and Daphne walked all the way), the party wanted to reclaim the badass carriage they had left there, fitted with a light ballista and a gilded demon skull. The Margrave of Brackenburg informed them that it had been plated with armor and taken up to Castle Morbis to be used in the war, but it would probably be snow-bound at this time of year. Disappointed, they headed up to Castle Morbis by foot, horse, and wing, via the familiar old road through the Shatterwald forest where they had all met so long ago.
Passing through the war-torn mountain countryside around Castle Morbis, with visibility reduced by snow flurries, they were set upon by a pack of hideous winter wolves. Although most of the pack were normal winter wolves (if you can call giant wolves with ice breath 'normal'), two of the brutes were two-headed mutants, and the leader of the pack had two winter-wolf-heads and a long reptilian tail terminating in a white dragon head (a winter orthrus - a rare variant of a rare variant of a chimera - see below for the stat block). Zel occupied the pack leader with a summoned cyclops while the rest of the party divided and conquered, taking icy blasts to the face but hacking and hewing through the monstrous wolves until the snow around them was red.
They arrived at Castle Morbis the next day. It looked much the same as how they had last seen it, most of the scars of war hidden under a blanket of snow. A young guard at the gate refused to let them pass without the watchword, but a stern voice intervened: "Let them in, you idiot! They're the ones who can actually get shit done." As they entered the gate, the figure came down the stairs to meet them. It took them a minute to recognize Albert Husker, the guard captain who paid them for bandit scalps and sent them on the hunt for the Hidden Pass so long ago. His moustache was graying and he wore an eyepatch over a wicked scar. "Boy are you lot a sight for sore eye," he called out. "Step into my office - let me fill you in on the situation." He led them back up the stairs into a tower.
"I don’t know what you've heard, but things are looking bleak up here. We tried to besiege Castle Drenn again this autumn and we were close to breaching the walls, but the barbarians got a new leader. She came out of nowhere and just destroyed our lines. They're calling her Thalestra Demonspawn, the new Bandit Queen, and her consort is just as dangerous, a wizard fella called Xericos. Our troops are at their breaking point; one more major defeat and the barons will probably pull out, leaving the north bare to raids and maybe invasion. The fear is that Thalestra will attack at first thaw and destroy Castle Morbis.
"I know we can count on you guys. You cleaned out three bandit camps and discovered the hidden pass! There's a 10,000 gp bounty out on Thalestra Demonspawn, 7,500 gp for Xericos, and 2,500 each for Dolf the Mighty and Grist Halfogre, two of the barbarian chieftains who have allied themselves to Thalestra. Plus, you'll be happy to know there's a 20 gp bounty out on bandit scalps.
"Both Highfrost Pass and the underground tunnel are dangerous routes. There are forward encampments of our troops at both passes, but they're a hell of a lot closer to Castle Morbis than to Drenn. Our scouts aren't sure quite where Thalestra's forward bases are, but the no-man's land is crawling with monsters. Good luck."
The band stayed in Morbiston for a few nights to recover from their long journey and prepare for the next one. They stayed at the Summer Snows, the nicest of the three inns in town, and stocked up on winter gear and healing potions. Kat and Daphne, having found a 'twins drink free' deal at one of the local bars, overindulged in the festivities and ended up staying behind in Morbiston, promising to catch up with the rest of the group later. The others, deciding to take the pass rather than the underground route because they'd already "been there; done that", headed off into the snow, not to return until they either retook Castle Drenn, or one of them died. They would be back that very same day.
They soon came to an earthen berm topped with spiked wooden palisades stretching across the pass, punctuated by half-stone towers topped with ballistae. Foot-long icicles trailed from every overhang, and men-at-arms wrapped in thick coats and cloaks stood watch near burning braziers. They showed them a letter from Captain Husker and the men-at-arms waved them through.
As they trekked through Highfrost pass, massive boulders came crashing down on them from both sides. Four stone giants strode into view, hefting more large rocks and wielding great clubs. As they were a ways away, Sigrid feathered one with arrows and then she and Hardrig spurred their mounts and charged the two to the left while Zel called down lightning and summoned a cyclops, Cameo charged another, and Rikkit dimension doored himself and Monty over to two of the other giants. One of the giants slammed Monty twice, the blows clanging against the dwarf's mighty armor but causing no damage. The other struck Rikkit with his club for a critical hit, crushing the goblin into the snow and breaking every bone in his fragile sorcerer body. Distraught, Monty hacked wildly at the giants and Zel and Cameo flew in to finish the job. Adding insult to injury, one of the slain giants fell on top of Rikkit's body.
The giant Sigrid attacked was badly hurt and turned to flee, but Sigrid slashed at it with her broadsword and disemboweled it. The final giant, already scarred by repeated hits from Zel's lightning, turned to flee as well, but Zel obliterated it with a flame strike. As Monty heaved the giant's corpse off of Rikkit, the rest of the party gathered around somberly. The goblin's broken body lay mangled in the red snow, somehow smaller and more peaceful than he had ever been in life. Monty cradled him in his arms and stalked silently back the way they came, through the snow. A few moments later, the rest of the party followed.
Back at Castle Morbis, they brought Rikkit to the priest of Dennar at the Temple of the Champion, who cast speak with dead, allowing them to ask if Rikkit wanted to be reincarnated. He answered yes. Zel traded a carved mammoth tusk they had recovered from one of the giant's bags for the valuable oils and unguents necessary for the ritual, then took Rikkit's body out into the woods and reincarnated him, rolling on my new expanded reincarnation tables. Rikkit's soul was bound to a new body, which knitted together around him. No longer a goblin, Rikkit came back as a female svirfneblin.
They spent the night in Morbiston recuperating again. Rikkit's new body and gender took some getting used to. She couldn't even take comfort in the last dregs of her Goblin fire ale, which tasted awful to her new tastebuds. On the plus side, she discovered that mushrooms were delicious, and stuffed her pockets with all the mushrooms from the stewpot in the Rusty Glaive tavern. Sigrid started bonding with the new female Rikkit, who she now calls Charcoal Rikkette.
The next day, they voted on whether to continue along the pass again or try the underground route. The party was split down the middle, leaving Daphne to decide, but Daphne let her monkey Pascal choose. At the bidding of the monkey, the party passed through into no-man's land again, this time with Kat, Daphne, and Ryder as well. Rikkit freaked out when they came to the place where he had died. One of the giant corpses, the one that had been slain by Zel's flame strike, was missing, presumed eaten. Soon, they heard what sounded like an avalanche, but turned out to be four yeti wielding icy axes and riding great shaggy aurochsen. The beasts stampeded down on the party, trampling many of them under hoof while the yetis swung their axes down on them. Kat attempted to leap over the charging aurochsen, but failed and was trampled. Rikkit was more successful, flying 30 ft. up into the air as soon as the danger was apparent. As Monty, Sigrid, Hardrig, Kat, Daphne, and Ryder tangled with the yeti and their mounts, Zel took one out with lighting and another with flame strike. Rikkit killed the last one with a burning arc, which struck and slew the aurochs before shooting up into the yeti that had been riding it.
Continuing on through the pass, they party spotted a stout stone tower ahead, the top floor of which was half-broken, with a man and a large stack of wood on top. They left Hardrig with the horses and snuck ahead. When they were close, Kat hailed the tower, claiming to be lost travellers. The man on top called back, telling them to turn around and head back the way they came. The exchange went back and forth for a few moments, with the sentry revealing that he was a Toliuq ranger in the service of Queen Thalestra, before Rikkit dimension doored herself and Monty up onto the tower. Monty bull-rushed the sentry off the tower, who screamed out "We're under atta-!" as he fell before landing on his back in the snow.
As the rest of the party started running forward toward the tower, Monty and Rikkit snuck down the ladder into the second floor, only to be noticed by a couple of archers who were alerted by their companion's hastily shouted warning. They called down that the enemies were already in the tower, and four more Toliuq soldiers climbed up from below, setting themselves between the archers and the intruders and bracing their longspears. At that, Rikkit climbed back up the ladder to avoid death-by-spear, but Monty charged in, only to be held back by the spearmen (thanks to the Stand Back polearm feat). The archer who was knocked off the roof stumbled to his feet, ran back, drew a flaming arrow from his masterwork quiver, and fired it into the pile of wood on top of the tower. It smoldered there for a second, but before the signal-fire could catch, Zel cast geyser on the top of the tower, extinguishing the flame and scattering the wood. Unfortunately, Rikkit was scalded by the geyser and almost knocked out by the falling wood, so she cast resilient sphere.
Zel, meanwhile, summoned a cyclops to deal with the archer who had fired the arrow. Then a massive bulk of a man garbed in furs and hides, with a furry horned helmet on his head and a mighty flail chained to his wrist, burst out of the door of the tower and charged the cyclops, striking a mighty blow with his flail and allowing the archer to escape. Daphne, however, saw her opportunity and charged the badly injured archer, finishing him off with a blow from her morningstar.
Inside the tower, Monty drew out Spider's End, his lucerne hammer, and engaged the longspearmen in a game of try-to-touch-me-with-a-ten-foot-pole, cleaving through their tight formation over and over again. The archers cast gravity bow on their longbows and took aim at Monty, but just then Kat and Ryder climbed up to that floor to enter the fray. The longbowman closest to the ladder shot Ryder twice in the chest at point-blank range, pinning him to the wall with a critical hit and knocking him down to -13 hp. Kat, who now had several new arrows sticking out of her, took one look at Ryder and ran back down the ladder, leaving the archers to focus their fire on Monty. Monty now started taking damage, a rarity for the dwarf with 32 AC, so Rikkit left his magical sanctuary and hid behind Monty, poking out every once in a while to shoot fire at the enemy fighters.
Zel was surprised to get struck by lightning - something she usually unleashed upon enemies, not the other way around. Turning to look, she saw a spell-scarred flaming stone giant skeleton charging toward her - the remains of the giant she had killed a few days ago. Sigrid, who had signaled Hardrig to come up with the horses, swung up onto Flokki and charged the flaming skeletal giant, with Hardrig close behind. Zel summoned a tiger to attack the skeleton, then retreated to the tower. Daphne made it into the tower as well, and climbed up the ladder to stand over Ryder's corpse and join the fight with Monty and Rikkit. On one of his great cleaves, Monty scored two critical hits in a row, killing one spearman and blinding another. One by one, the barbarians in the tower fell under the blows of the Graverobbers.
The raging berserker fighting the cyclops outside was almost slain by a crit from the one-eyed giant, but retaliated with two mighty blows, dealing over 60 points of damage to the cyclops and slaying it. Zel sighed and summoned another cyclops, which crit him and crushed his skull with its greatclub. Hardrig smote evil and dealt the killing blow to the flaming giant skeleton. It then exploded in a shower of fire and bone, killing Hardrig's horse out from under him.
Inside the tower, the two badly wounded archers threw down their weapons and surrendered. Sigrid and Monty played 'good cop/murder cop' to interrogate them while Zel flew back to Castle Morbis to fetch more precious oils to reincarnate Ryder. From the archers, they learned that there were a number of Kaldish soldiers being held in a prison camp at Barrow Lake, where Uli Blackeye's camp had been. They also learned that the barbarian Toliuq army led by Thalestra Demonspawn and her minions was scattered around the north for the winter season and wouldn't all be concentrated at Castle Drenn until first thaw.
The next morning, Zel reincarnated Ryder, who came back as a gnome, much to Rikkit's hormone-confused delight.
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Wow, I killed two PCs! Well, one of them was just a cohort, but hey, at least my new reincarnation tables are getting mileage.
I've decided that, since I have so many spare stat blocks just hanging around for all the monsters and NPCs that I use in my campaigns, I'll start posting some with each campaign update. Today, you're getting the stat block for the winter orthrus, the winter-wolf/white-dragon chimera that the Graverobbers fought on their way to Castle Morbis.
The following text in gold is available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars. The Winter Orthrus is modified from the original Chimera using the guidelines for the orthrus from Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Mythical Monsters Revisited (© 2012, Paizo Publishing, LLC; Authors: Jesse Benner, Jonathan H. Keith, Michael Kenway, Jason Nelson, Anthony Pryor, and Greg A. Vaughan), plus some other stuff I threw in there for fun.
Winter Orthrus CR
8
XP 4,800
CE Large magical beast (cold)
Init +5; Senses darkvision
60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +10
DEFENSE
AC 19, touch 10,
flat-footed 18 (+1 Dex, +9 natural, -1 size)
hp 85 (9d10+36)
Fort +9, Ref +7, Will +6
Immune cold
Vulnerability fire
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft.
Melee bite +12 (2d6+6
plus 1d6 cold and trip), bite +12 (2d6+6 plus 1d6 cold and trip), bite +12
(2d6+6 plus 1d6 cold)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Special Attacks 2
breath weapons (each wolf head,
every 1d4 rounds; 15 ft. cone, 6d6 Cold damage, DC17 Reflex half), breath
weapon (dragon head, every 1d4 rounds; 20 ft. cone, 6d8 Cold damage, DC17
Reflex half), rend (2 bites, 2d6+6)
STATISTICS
Str 19, Dex 12, Con 17, Int 4, Wis 13, Cha 10
Base Atk +9; CMB +14; CMD 25 (29 vs. trip)
Feats Power
Attack, Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Skill Focus (Perception), Toughness
Skills Perception
+10, Stealth +4 (+8 in snow or ice), Survival +2; Racial Modifiers +2 Perception, +4 Stealth in snow or ice
Languages Draconic
ECOLOGY
Environment any
cold
Organization solitary,
breeding pair, or pack (1 winter orthrus, 1d4 two-headed winter worgs, and 2d4
winter wolves)
Treasure standard
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See you next week. And bookmark d20 doodler!
-your death-dealing d20 despot
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