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Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerors of Hyperboria - Campaign Write-up January 24th,
2014 Our tale begins in the Month of Tertius during the
Year of the Hare (or spring). The scene is The Dancing Dromedary a
mid-priced inn in the town of Swampgate on the border between the Fields
of Vol and the the Lug Wasteland. The innkeeper, Kamm Quul and his three
strapping sons stand over the prone bodies of four men and a woman lying
in pools of ...their own making. The innkeep has a stern look on his face
as he taps his foot noisily beside the head of a young Viking cleric named
Hallr. The other three men are the cleric's brother Gunnr, a warrior,
Bjorn, another Viking warrior and the Hyperborean mage Xarishoon. The
woman (NPC) is the Amazonian thief Kallistrat. The five of them blew into
town the previous evening and proceeded to celebrate as only young adults
out on the town on their own can do. With the immortal words "When you
regain consciousness" the campaign begins. The party awakens wishing they really hadn't and
who or whatever was making that godawful racket would stop. The cleric
looks blearily up and the innkeep greets him and informs him that the
party owes him 100 gold pieces. The party doesn't believe him and starts
to argue with him. That's when they notice that their weapons and gear is
all missing and the sons all have lovely studded clubs. The argument goes
on for some time until the sound of a spining coin interrupts. A voice
from a figure in a corner states that he will cover their bill if they
perform a small task for him. The party looks and sees a robed figure
sitting at a table near a window surrounded by books, scrolls and other
forms of record keeping. The figure offers to at least buy them breakfast
if they'll listen to his tale. Try as they might the party cannot make out any
features on the figure and his accent is totally non-descript. He speaks
the common tongue and states his name as Kon O Thun the Librarian, a
Hyperborean name. The party wolfs down an enormous breakfast and agrees to
listen to the task. What Kon O Thun wishes them to do is to travel to an
abandoned citadel he knows of and bring back any printed material they can
find. His stated reason is that he is a collection of knowledge. He
promises the mage that he may keep any magic books he finds after he, Kon
O Thun has a chance to peruse them. The party aslo gets to keep and
treasure they find for themselves. When they ask how they're going to
bring back a library Kon O Thun offers them the loan of his bag of
holding. The citadel belonged to a warrior and mage Rogahn and Zelligar
who are said to have left their fortress and travelled to the Plateau of
Leng last fall and never returned. Kon O Thun states that he has the key
to the citadel so they shouldn't have any problem getting in. The party agrees to performing this task and Kon O
Thun shares what he knows about the citadel. After retrieving their gear
he provides them with directions and they obtain additional gear to enable
them to travel to the citadel and back without starving. Kon O Thun
presents a magically scroll of questing as a contract and they all sign or
make their marks. (There was some talk of finding someone to mortgage or
pawn the bag of holding (a 25,000 GP value) and buggering off with the
cash. Or even adventuring for a while, levelling up (whatever that is) and
then returning to do the quest since there wasn't a time limit on it).
Wiser heads prevailed and they decided to do the task as assigned. The
next day they board a mammoth train, led by the famous mammoth wrangler
Kar-Teau the Hairy. The train passes through the countryside uneventfully
(there are few things that bother mammoths. Unfortunately anything big
enough to do so leaves nothing but bones). February 7th,
2014 The session was highlighted by two series of
unlikely rolls by the Viking brothers Hallr and Gunnr. As the party was resting in
the library their sleep was disturbed by someone or something pounding on
the library doors and speaking in some none human hissing language.
Fortunately they had taken the precaution
of wedging some of their pry bars under the doors (which opened in) before
resting so whatever was trying to enter was unable to.
They quickly turned one of the library
tables on its side to use as a shield and tied a rope to one of the pry
bars so they could pull it out and let whatever was pounding on the door
in.
A quick tug from the cleric and magic-user and
the door swung inward depositing a troglodyte on the floor.
Gunnr and Bjorn shot their bows at the
trog while Kallistrat flung a dagger at it.
Two arrows and a dagger later it was
dead.
The party won initiative for the next
round and Gunnr ran to the door and took the single shot he was allowed at
the other trog he found there.
(This was the first set of unlikely
rolls, 20 to hit (critical), a 6 for the critical effect = 3x damage, a
roll of 6 for damage from the arrow = 18 points of damage plus another 4
points for mastery and strength for a total of 22 points).
I described the arrow as going in one eye
and somehow exiting out the other eye.
Stone cold dead trog. The party, fortunately, was
rested enough by this point for the cleric and magic-user to restore their
spells which they quickly did.
A pair of ineffectual cure light wounds
on Gunnr for 2 points (he'd been chewed up by the trogs they'd found in
library before the magic-user slept them) and they continued on their
explorations.
Travelling down a long corridor they
found a large room used as a smithy.
Careful searching of the room turned up a
potion buried for some reason in a pile of charcoal.
This was wrapped carefully and added it
to the bag of holding stash (along with the blacksmith's tools they
found). In an adjoining room they discovered a vertical shaft that went
down about 40 feet.
They weren't sure whether they wanted to
descend or not but Gunnr and Hallr descended to check it out.
After barricading the doors like they had
in the library the other three went down as well.
(The ring they'd tied the rope they used
to descend with pulled out of the wall as the thief was descending but she
managed to climb down safely anyway.
The other two tied a rope to one of the
long logs found in the room and climbed down as well). At the bottom of the shaft
they found themselves in some natural caves.
The first thing they found was a pit trap
which Bjorn fell into.
Fortunately he was barely scratched by
the fall.
They continued on finding a pair of large
chambers that were empty except for an unfinished statue in one.
The thief actually managed to find a
secret door in the next chamber which led to a long passageway.
At the end of the passageway they
searched until they found the door and found themselves in a huge chamber
whose floor was covered by bat guano.
They decided to retreat back into the
passageway rather than risk disturbing the bats. On the way back through the
passageway Bjorn found a secret door.
Through this door they found yet another
long passageway which led to a treasure room!
There was a scattering of gold pieces on
the floor and a pair of waxy looking statues.
Of course as soon as the gold was
disturbed the statues came to life and were quickly diced into candles.
As they stared down at the statue bits
three stirges flew into the room and attacked the thief and the
magic-user.
The one attacking the thief was quickly
dispatched by Gunnr and Bjorn while Hallr tried to help the magic user.
(Tried is the operative word, 1 to hit
followed by another 1 to see if he accidentally hit his friend.
Add
a decent roll of damage from a footman's flail end result one unconscious
magic-user.
Thanks to his familiar he wasn't killed
outright).
The remaining two stirges
were finally dealt with and the party added the wax and the gold pieces to
the bag of holding.
They were disappointed to find the chests
were empty.
They decided to rest again so Hallr could
heal Xarishoon.
As they rested Gunnr took the precaution
of sitting in a dark corner beside the door so he could ambush anyone
entering the room.
It was a good thing he did because a pair
of troglodytes taking advantage of their chameleon ability had snuck in
and attacked the resting party.
Fortunately for some reason they couldn't
hit sleeping people (spectacularly bad rolling on my part) and Gunnr
quickly slaughtered one of them.
The other managed to escape so they
decided to heal Xarishoon and move before it could bring its friends back. They decided to return to
the upper level but when they reached the vertical shaft they discovered
the rope was gone and when the thief climbed up she found the top of the
shaft had been covered with logs.
They decided they'd better find another
way out.
They travelled down a corridor they
hadn't used before and found an entrance to another tunnel covered with
webbing.
They burnt the webbing which brought the
wrath of the giant black widow spider which lived in the tunnel down on
them.
She attacked Bjorn and gave him a good
bite.
Fortunately he made his saving throw and
the spider was slain.
They explored the tunnel killing the baby
spiders they encountered and finding the remains of an adventurer who had
been armed with an odd ray pistol of some sort.
He'd been wearing a suit of plate armour
which fit Gunnr.
Unfortunately upon donning the suit Gunnr
discovered that it was cursed.
They also found a quiver of arrows and a
lot of copper pieces and some gems.
Everything went into the bag and we
called it a night. February 22nd
2014 In which a cursed suit of armour is removed, a
nemesis is gained and the party really, really, really needs a bath. After clearing out the
spider's den the party weighs the options of getting Gunnr out of his
cursed armour.
Gunnr was quite willing to keep the
armour on but others in the party recalling stories they'd heard regarding
cursed armour thought they should throw pebbles at him until the suit fell
off.
The main proponent of this was Gunnr's
brother Hallr.
He was motivated by the danger suddenly
losing the suit would cause Gunnr.
Eventually they decided that throwing
rocks at Gunnr may not work anyway so they decided to defer worrying about
it.
It was also decided that the ray gun would go
into the bag of holding despite Xarishoon' As they left the room they
surprised and quickly killed a giant crab-spider they encountered.
Emboldened by this success and since
they'd recently rested they decided to continue on their way.
Unfortunately in the very next room they
discovered four skeletons armed with battle axes or spears and large
shields.
Hallr jumped into action and forced them
to cower before the glory of his god Ullr.
(As an amusing aside Bjorn's player
finally spent some time looking at the description of the gods commonly
worshipped in Hyperborea and was appalled by their near universal lack of
redeeming qualities).
The party decided that they would attack
and destroy the skeletons rather than leaving them as a threat.
Unfortunately this didn't
go as well as it could have.
They managed to destroy all four of them
but not before one of them had impaled Gunnr on his spear.
(It rolled a 20 which caused the cursed
armour to shatter causing triple damage which unfortunately was the
maximum 6 points.
I described the spear as going in one end
of poor Gunnr and out the other).
The discovery of four small garnets in
the skeleton's skulls seemed to be a poor exchange. They decided to stop and
recover their spells since not having done so had left Gunnr so weak the
spear blow had killed him out right.
They wanted to take Gunnr's body along in
the bag of holding but the DM pointed out this would endanger the texts
they were carrying in there.
(Due to the possibility of seepage caused
by decay).
Fortunately Hallr had a background skill
as a mortician so he managed to prepare Gunnr's corpse for storage.
The atmosphere in the natural chamber
where the scattered remains of four skeletons lay and a body was drained
of its fluids must not have been terribly conducive to a good rest but the
four survivors made due. After resting they moved on
and some chambers that had been hewn by the hand of man.
One of these was a rough work area filled
with debris which they didn't explore fully.
The next was an unfinished museum at the
end of a long corridor with a door.
They decided to rest more fully here
since they'd been going for a while.
That night as they rested Bjorn heard
some scuttling.
Getting the assistance of Kallistrat to
shine a lantern on the situation he discovered a large hole in the
southern wall that hadn't been there before.
He saw a large rat-like creature
disappearing down the hole.
The rest of the party was woken up and
they decided after much discussion that they would lean a large shield
over the hole to alert the party if any more rats emerged from the hole.
They went back to sleep.
Later that same evening
Bjorn was startled by one of these rat-like creatures.
(The creature looked like a giant rat but
instead of a rat face it had a wizened looking monkey or human face.
It also had little hands instead of front
paws).
It attempted to blow some dust out of a
bone tube at him but he managed to make his saving throw.
He skewered the rat-thing on an arrow but
the rest of the party weren't so lucky.
The three ratlings that had attacked the
party and incapacitated them then swarmed Bjorn and he was felled by
another dust attack. The party found themselves
to be paralyzed.
They could hear and see everything but
were unable to move.
As they lay there helpless they heard
footsteps coming closer.
They saw a humanoid figure wearing a
hooded cloak.
The figure swept back the hood to reveal
the face of a bald woman.
One of the ratlings plaintively asked,
"Can haz eyeballs?" emphasizing this request by gently poking a party
member in the eyeball.
"No you cannot have any eyeballs my
sweetling.
You may make free with our friends but
you may not harm them.
Leave them their eyes so they can see the
folly that is man."
"Can eat friend?"
"Of course".
And the party was treated to the
appalling sounds of ratling cannibalism as the woman frisked them.
She ignored all the party's gear and
finally found what she was looking for, i.e. the bag of holding.
She went through the contents, pocketing
the ray gun and scattering the iron rations much to the delight of the
ratlings.
This delight was intensified as she gave
them Gunnr's carefully prepared remains to devour.
Thankfully the party
couldn't see what was going on but they could hear the ratlings fighting
and tearing at the body.
Finally they fetched the mace from the
bag of holding so they could get at the delicious gray goop in the skull.
Through all this carnage the woman sat on
the magic–user's chest as she carefully went through all the documents the
party had found.
She had found the magic-user's familiar
and for some reason kept it safe from the ratlings.
The ratlings took great delight in
treating the party as their combination toilet/breakfast table/boudoir.
One large specimen perched on Hallr's
chest and told him at great length about the superior virtues of the
ratling deity. Finally after a day and a
half of reading the woman was finished.
She left the texts in a pile on the
floor, carefully folded the bag of holding, looked covetously at it for a
moment and then dropped it on the magic-user's chest.
She placed the familiar back on his
master and told the party, "Tell Kon O Thun that Shazar sends her regards.
Come ratlings."
And having said this they departed. Later that day Bjorn and
Xarishoon recovered from their paralysis to view the scene of horror
around them.
Every large bone in Gunnr's body had been
smashed to get at the marrow.
There would be no raising for poor Gunnr.
They waited around for a whole day though
to see if Hallr or Kallistrat would recover and after Hallr did the
following day they decided to move on to somewhere cleaner.
They had no food unfortunately as all
their rations had been eaten or spoiled by the ratlings.
Hallr gathered the pieces of Gunnr's
skull he could find and dragging Kallistrat along they left.
They discovered that the ratlings had
come through another tunnel next to the door and had unlocked it from this
side. They were a bit bitter at
the thief's inability to find secret doors but their need for food was
more important.
They went back to the work room and
discovered that they'd missed a staircase in their quick inspection of the
room.
They climbed the staircase only to be
attacked by a pair of crab spiders!
Fortunately while the spiders went first
they failed to hurt anyone and Xarishoon quickly slept the pair. Bjorn was adventurous and
cracked open one of the spider's leg and discovered it tasted much like
its namesake creature.
The rest of the conscious party quickly
took advantage of this unexpected feast to recover some of their strength.
They waited a while for Kallistrat to
recover which she soon did.
Proceeding on they found a trophy room
where they discussed taking the huge scaly skin (40x10 feet long!) which
they would never have moved.
Hallr satisfied himself with some scales
he pried off and Bjorn helped himself to a mighty tulwar.
Next they found a throne room of sorts.
Then they found a shrine to some dark god
where they found a gold ring. Finally after wandering
some twisting corridors they found a huge room with a statue of Xathoqqua
in it.
The room had 14 pools in it each
seemingly dedicated to some aspect of the god.
Since reincarnation is one of Xathoqqua's
aspects they decided to try dipping one of Gunnr's skull fragments in each
pool to see if one of the pools would reincarnate him.
(They were very careful not to risk
cross-contamination between pools).
Using their store of 10 foot poles and
the 100 feet of wire the thief was carrying and the blacksmith tools they
had they proceeded to test each pool.
(If they didn't have 14 separate skull
fragments before they started they certainly did afterwards).
Finally one of the pools that seemed to
be bubbling and contained a high mineral content did seem to be having
some sort of reconstructive effect on the skull fragment dipped in it. This is where we paused the campaign. March 8th, 2014 In which the party meets people with problems,
dines on something that definitely doesn't taste like chicken and makes
the reacquaintance of an old friend. The party was very pleased
by the fact that it looked like Gunnr's skull was growing in the hot pool.
It was decided that they would throw all
the pieces of Gunnr's bones that they had in the pool to see if that
hastened the regrowth process.
Kallistrat having finally recovered from
her paralysis they decided that some of them would have to go hunting or
scavenging for food.
Leaving Hallr to watch over his brother's
reconstitution the rest of them went out to see if they could find some
food.
(They realized this was risky since it
would be hard for Hallr to defend himself against a large party but they
were pretty desperate for food since their spider legs hadn't stretched
very far). After they'd left the pool
room Kallistrat suggested that since they had the bag of holding they
might as well split any reward three ways rather than four (or potentially
five) ways.
She was out voted on this by the other
two. They
managed to find the exit to the complex so they decided that they would go
outside to find some food. Unfortunately none of them were adept foragers
or hunters so they were gone quite some time. Meanwhile Hallr was keeping
a watch when he heard someone fumbling with the door.
He had stuck a dagger under the door as
the pry bars were in the bag of holding.
The
intruder managed to push the door open and Hallr saw that it was a
solitary man.
He was big and burly and armed with a
battle axe and looked like a stereotypical wild man.
He didn't act like one though and instead
of attacking he greeted Hallr and told him that he, Rannvarr was just
there for a quick drink.
He pointed at a pool that had a red
liquid in it that smelled like wine and invited Hallr to join for a drink.
Hallr agreed to have one drink and found
the wine delicious and strangely compelling.
He managed to resist drinking any more
though and watched as Rannvarr's quick drink turned into a marathon
drinking session.
Placing the dagger back under the door
again he continued his watch with the soon comatose Rannvarr his only
companion. Meanwhile the party was
wandering outside trying to find some food.
Only Xarishoon managed to find any food
but even that was only a day's worth.
They did spot a large wooly mammoth but
decided they'd better stay away from such a formidable creature.
After spending the better part of a day
they turned back.
On the way back they entered a clearing
just as a small pack of six wolves entered from the other side.
Only 20 yards separated the two groups
but the party went first and Xarishoon slept the pack.
They gladly slaughtered the wolves and
carried three of them back to the complex with them.
They managed to find their way back to
the pool room without being attacked and after being told all about the
unconscious Rannvarr they settled down to wait for Gunnr to come back to
life. It looked like the body had
regrown roughly about one third of its old mass.
Rannvarr was a bit of a concern but they
all decided they'd let him live since he hadn't threatened any of them.
He woke up shortly after the foragers
returned and he invited them to imbibe with him.
Only Xarishoon agreed to try the wine and
he, being a vinter by trade, declared it excellent.
Like Hallr he managed to avoid the lure
of getting drunk.
They settled in to wait roasting the wolf
meat on some wood they'd managed to scavenge. After that they went
to sleep. While Hallr was keeping watch there was a banging on the
door and a female voice was heard calling for Rannvarr.
She yelled that Kra-aig was looking for
Rannvarr and called him a worthless drunk. Waking the rest of the
party they decided that they would prepare for battle.
They pulled the pry bar out and a woman
came in.
Two things were immediately obvious,
first the woman had been hard done by.
She was filthy, bruised and battered.
The second was that even under all the
dirt and abuse she was a beautiful woman.
She was startled to see the party there
and immediately raised her hands to show she was unarmed.
She told the party that her name was
Melissa and she had been the mistress of the fighter who had built the
complex.
She told them that last fall she had
awoken one morning and found the complex empty.
As she had wandered the complex looking
for someone she had come across some wild men and become their prisoner.
They had abused her terribly as a slave. She told the party that she
knows the complex inside out and had been sent by the leader of the wild
men Cra-aig to find Rannvarr.
She explained that there were at least 25
of the wild men and their leader who were engaged in a struggle with some
troglodytes for ownership of the complex.
So far control of the first floor of
complex was still divided pretty evenly.
Neither faction was keen to descend to
the lower level.
She had never heard of any woman with a
horde of ratlings.
She was happy to flee the complex with
them if they would take her.
She gladly told them what the properties
of all the pools were.
(She'd never heard about any
reincarnation properties though). Since Gunnr was still being
reborn they decided that they would take some of Rannvarr's equipment and
leave it some distance off so if the wild men found it they'd think he'd
been slain.
They drugged Rannvarr with some sleeping
potion one of the pools produced and settled in to wait.
Unfortunately as they waited Melissa got
more and more nervous thinking about what Cra-aig would do if he caught
her again.
Finally she tried to flee.
She got the door unblocked and started
running down the hallway.
Kallistrat was right behind her though
and managed to knock her out.
They kept a better watch on her after
that. Finally the hot pool
started bubbling even more vigorously and the large, vaguely humanoid
shape that had been tossing and turning erupted out of the pool.
A coating of mineral deposits fell off to
reveal Gunnr.
But not the Gunnr they'd all grown
familiar with.
Instead of a Viking Gunnr looked like a
Half-Pict and more bizarre still Gunnr was no longer a he but a she! (Very coincidentally the
new Gunnr was the exact same height and weight as the old Gunnr.
5'10 and 160 pounds.
Totally random). Kallistrat quickly took Gunnr under her wing and
started telling her all about the new realities of existence. And that's where we called it a night. March 22nd, 2014 After
Gunnhilda was shown the ropes of being a woman and she’d spent some time
getting adjusted to the realities of her new body the party had a
discussion of what they would do next.
Gunnhilda was of the firm opinion that
since they’d found the exit they should just leave the dungeon and start
heading back to town.
Melissa had claimed that she knew where
some more print materials might be found and the rest of the party agreed
to let her show them.
She explained that she had fled them the
night before because she was getting too anxious of being discovered by
Kra-aig or his men if they stayed any longer in the pool room.
They believed her and leaving the still
unconscious Rannvarr to his fate they started more exploring. Melissa
led them to the chambers of the magician and they managed to find a lot of
alchemical materials and some papers and a few books.
Nothing looked all that useful.
As they explored further they found a
room with four wildmen in it.
They backed out of the room and waited
for them to exit killing them as they came out.
Feeling disappointed with the stuff
they’d found so far they decided to finally leave.
They
exited the dungeon and started heading back to town.
The trip was uneventful until the middle
of the second day when they heard an odd hissing from up ahead.
Kallistrat snuck up to reconnoiter.
She managed to successfully sneak up and
back and reported that she’d found two men in banded armed with crossbows
guarding the road.
Again the party disagreed with what to do
and the cleric and mage and Melissa headed up the road in what they hoped
was an unthreatening manned while Gunnhilda, Bjorn and Kallistrat snuck
through the woods.
The guards challenged them and were aware
of Bjorn.
They explained that they were guarding
their master Odd who was up ahead in a clearing where the hissing was
coming from.
They invited the party to enter the
clearing as long as they didn’t make any threatening moves.
The head of the guards was armed with an
Atlantean laser crossbow rather than a regular one. In the
clearing they found an odd horseless carriage being worked on by a large
red haired man and a young girl.
This was Odd and his daughter Celeste,
perhaps the most beautiful woman the party had ever seen.
Odd had reinvented the steam engine and
had mounted one on this carriage to power it.
He was the archetype of the distracted
mad scientist.
He explained that the carriage couldn’t
carry any more people so they couldn’t travel with them but he did invite
the party to dine with them.
After dining Odd and his party got back
on the now repaired carriage and drove off.
The party continued on their way foraging
along the way. And that’s where the session ended. Created February 24, 2014. Last updated March 30, 2014 |