When last we left The Graverobbers, they had succeeded in overrunning a forward outpost of Bandit Queen Thalestra's barbarian hordes in Highfrost Pass, preventing the guards from lighting their signal fire. Kat's cohort, Ryder, was slain during the fight, and Kat and Daphne nearly were as well. After interrogating some captured archers, the party learned that there was a prisoner of war camp up by Barrow Lake, near where they had defeated Uli Blackeye over a year ago. They decided to free the captured Kaldish soldiers and use them to take Castle Drenn.
 |
| Montilore "Monty" Bearbriar, CN Dwarf Fighter 10 |
The Graverobbers descend Highfrost pass into the snow-dappled foothills on the other side of the mountains, following the ill-kept road right down to a palisaded encampment. Zel wild shapes into a hawk and flies over the camp, spying enough tents to house 15-20 men and a tower topped with an unlit beacon fire. The inhabitants of the camp turn out to be an unlikely combination: trolls and dwarves. The camp is divided down the middle, one half housing the neat and orderly dwarven mercenaries' tents, the other playing host to a scattered assortment of ramshackle dwellings thrown up by the mercenary ice trolls. Zel reports back to the party and they form a plan.
Sigrid, Kat, and Daphne wait there while Rikkette, Hardrig, and Monty circle around to the other side of the camp. A minute later, the signal to attack is given: Zel, still in hawk form, casts geyser on the signal tower, shooting the stacked logs high into the air and knocking a dwarven guard off the edge, where he is crushed by the falling logs. The rest of the dwarves and the trolls rush to both gates to defend their camp as Zel summons a cyclops and a white tiger in their midst, sowing confusion. The hardened mercenaries cut down the summoned beasts, taking losses in the process. They cheer, thinking they have fended off the weirdest attack of their lives, when suddenly a fireball erupts in the camp, the sky darkens and crackles with lightning, and a dirge of doom fills their hearts with dread. Sigrid charges into the western gate on Flokki, hacking left and right with her glowing green broadsword, and enlarged Hardrig and Monty crash into the eastern gate. Then, as lighting begins to strike inside the camp, Cameo the roc flashes down, grabs a troll, and drops him from a great height.
A few dwarves make it out the western gate and gang up on Kat and Daphne, beating them down with their warhammers. Sigrid rides to their aid, but the dwarves and trolls are piling up. Monty and Hardrig cut their way through the fray, with Rikkette making sure the trolls stay down with magical fire. Hardrig comes to the aid of his wife as she stabs a dwarf through the helmet, letting out a Valkyrian battle cry. Monty, meanwhile, seems to really enjoy ripping into trolls with his serrated waraxe. Finally, the last of the mercenaries is dropped into the middle of camp from a height of 240 feet. They loot 900 platinum pieces from the camp - all marked with the X of their mysterious adversary. Sigrid remarks that this is almost enough for another resurrection, which is starting to be how the Graverobbers measure wealth.
The party continues onwards, and Monty realizes, with his keen knowledge of geography, that they are farther south than Barrow Lake. Zel flies up for a literal bird's-eye-view and reports that the towers of Castle Drenn are barely visible to the southeast, and the nearby land is dotted with small camps and settlements. The road they are on turns southeast toward the castle, then northeast from there. They figure they can bypass Castle Drenn by cutting overland toward the northern road.
They set off over a rocky plateau, passing the occasional chunk of ruined building or wall. Eventually they come to an abandoned windmill, its arms broken and scattered on the ground, and an old sheep skull affixed to the door with wire. Sigrid and Monty open the door, which swings outward, revealing a cold, misty room full of old weapons and armor. As the two begin to head in, a gelatinous pseudopod reaches out and pulls them inside, and they are paralyzed with cold, floating in the center of the room. The entire windmill is filled with a gargantuan icy gelatinous cube! Zel and Rikkette begin to sear the frosty abomination, and Daphne tears into it with a critical hit from her crossbow. Icy pseudopods whip out from every gap in the derelict windmill, and one of them slaps Rikkette and paralyzes her. Then Zel drops a flame strike through the roof of the ruin, melting the ooze creature and freeing Monty and Sigrid. The weapons they recover from inside the slime are imbued with unnatural cold, so Daphne takes one as a sidearm.
The adventurers continue, finally meeting up with the road and finding a handy signpost that points them toward Barrow Lake. They make camp in a hollow under the roots of a fallen tree, in what appears to be good farmland. Sigrid makes a note to order some irrigation channels dug out here from the nearest water source when this becomes her land. Zel, Monty, Sigrid, and Daphne set out hunting and (with an incredible Survival roll) track down an aurochs, which they elect to spend the next several days preparing and smoking into aurochs jerky. On the second day, Zel and Rikkette spy on a group of bandits moving toward Castle Drenn. They mention something about a woman named Galvessa, who is apparently a sadistic bitch even by their standards. After they pass, the party moves out, striking north for Barrow Lake. They come to a river with a single wooden bridge guarded by a man in a hut. He comes out bearing a pike and saying something about paying a fare to pass, but the party simply bypasses the river with their roc and a single use of dimension door, leaving the bridgekeeper scratching his head.
They reached the prisoner of war camp at dusk. A stiff, cold wind blew dark stormclouds across the lake as the party gathered. The prison is a wooden palisaded structure surrounded by guard towers and out-buildings. Monty attempts to stealthily approach the camp, but is instantly spotted. As he tries to bluff that he is merely a traveling merchant, Rikkette casts haste on the party and Zel (in hawk form) begins calling down lightning bolts. From concealment, Daphne begins firing crossbow bolts at the guards in the towers. Sigrid and Hardrig storm one tower, swiftly climbing the ladder despite their plate armor, but Hardrig suffers a grievous wound as the guards open fire with their arrows at point blank range. Monty runs toward another tower as arrows ping off his thick armor like hailstones. A troop of spearmen pour out of the outbuildings; some of them begin poking at Monty while others take up a position atop a barrow and begin throwing javelins at Daphne.
A voluptuous woman in black leather armor strides casually out of her cabin, sizes up the situation, and beckons to Monty. "Come here, fool!" He is drawn to her inexorably. She touches him and bestows on him a gift of even greater strength, then orders him to attack his friends. At this point, Monty snaps out of the charm and strikes at the woman with his axe. She screeches, unfurling leathery wings and a pair of horns, and flies up into the air.
Meanwhile, Rikkette has been blasting away with fireball after fireball, and Zel has been striking the guard towers with lightning. Cameo is perched on the side of a tower scrabbling to get in and bite the guards cowering in the opposite corner. Finally she succeeds, dragging a screaming guard out of the tower by his head. From up in the air, Galvessa the succubus summons a babau, a hideous red demon dripping with acid. Hardrig, in his element now, smites the evil being with a critical hit. By now the guards are fleeing, and Zel is picking them off with lightning and a summoned tiger. Galvessa strikes Monty with a scorching ray from her wand. When Cameo comes after her, she weaves an evil spell to cloud her mind and says "You don't want to attack me, pretty bird." Cameo regards her as a friend. Then Galvessa suggests she go off and find a mate, but Cameo gets super offended thinking that Galvessa is calling her old. Rikkette, feeling left out, starts bad-mouthing Galvessa in the hopes that she will come over and try to seduce her, but it is to no avail. Monty delivers the final blow to the summoned babau with his lucerne hammer, and Galvessa, seeing that she will not have victory tonight, teleports away.
The victorious heroes free the prisoners - fourteen Kaldish soldiers led by a Sir Hugo of Granz. They arm them and feed them and tell them of their plan to retake Castle Drenn. Another prisoner, not from the Kaldish Empire, is Cole Diaz, a wizard from Kat and Daphne's past who was captured while trying to find them. As the last rays of the setting sun withdraw from the dark sky, Kat decides to try out a new spell she learned, conjuring two cozy cottages out of thin air.
They also loot the camp, coming up with plenty of coin and some weapons. They find a suit of magic studded leather armor in Galvessa's cabin, along with a cloudkill scroll. And in the footlocker of one of the dead guards, they find a map:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I wish I gave my players handouts more often, because it is really fun. I knew they needed a map, because they were entering unfamiliar territory. Moreover, they were entering the hex-crawl part of the campaign and I wanted to give them some hints about where they could go. I also put in
I used charcoal to draw the map, for added authenticity, and I made sure not to be too accurate. It's just enough to give the party an idea of what's out there, and some of what they can expect. Enough for them to plan a few moves ahead, and start looking forward to setting up their barony when they capture Castle Drenn.
Hey, do you want a stat block? I would put Galvessa's stat block here, but she's still a threat-in-being and I don't want my players to know all her tricks. Instead, have one of those dwarven mercenaries:
Volkezhi Hammerer Mercenary CR 7
XP 3,200
LN Dwarf fighter 8
Init +5; Senses
Darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +6
DEFENSE
AC 26, touch 12,
flat-footed 19 (+9 armor, +1 Dex, +5 shield, +1 dodge) (+4 vs giants)
hp 84 (8d10+40)
Fort +11, Ref +4, Will +5 (+7 vs fear); (+2 vs poison, spells, and spell-like
abilities)
OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft.
Melee +1 warhammer +15/+10 (1d8+8/x3)
Ranged masterwork
light hammer +10/+5 (1d4+5) 20ft.
STATISTICS
Str 18, Dex 12, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 5
Base Atk +8/+3; CMB +12; CMD 23 (27 vs Bull Rush or Trip)
Feats Dodge,
Cleave, Improved Initiative, Power Attack (-3 atk, +6 dmg), Quick Draw, Shield
Focus (tower), Vital Strike, Weapon Focus (warhammer), Weapon Specialization
(warhammer)
Skills Perception
+6
Languages
Volkezhi Dwarven, Toliuq, Kaldish
SQ hatred,
stonecunning, greed, weapon training (hammers)
Gear masterwork
full plate, masterwork tower shield, 4 mwk light hammers, cloak of resistance,
100pp
When I stat up a bunch of enemies for a particular area, I try to give them different roles. In Thalestra's army, the Volkezhi mercenaries are the tanks. They hit hard, and are hard to hit, sort of like lesser versions of Monty.
-your cartographic d20 despot
No comments:
Post a Comment