We had a double session this past weekend. Some of us got together to play some Deadlands: Reloaded in the afternoon and then we played our FRC campaign in the evening. Savage Worlds is probably my favorite rpg system and Deadlands is always fun so it was nice to have a chance to play it again. But back to the regular campaign.
When we last left our intrepid explorers, they had delved deeper and further into the depths below Cagair Keep. An exploration that for some, Skarr, was probably a safer place to be than face his sister’s wrath for certain, um, indiscretions with a certain female dworc.
This recap is from Thomas. Todd and Craig had to miss this session and so Muse played Skarr while RJ played Dench. My GM comments, as usual, are in [brackets and italics].
As Skarr comes to the end of the small passage, a grimlock falls from the ceiling and attacks. After swapping some blows, the creature is killed with the drums beating incessantly in the background. As Verrak passes by the dead body, he recognizes the creature as a morlock.
[Yep, although the dworcs had thought, from the description, that the creature’s that the party had previously considered some sort of “ghoul” to be grimlocks, it turns out they were morlocks. Of course, some stupid DM ended up using the grimlock stats in this first battle instead of morlock but I’m sure the PCs didn’t mind given that grimlocks have way fewer hit points…d’oh!]
The party continues further down the corridor towards the beating drums. As they arrive at the entrance of a very large hall, five morlocks hiss and run to engage the party as one morlock begins chanting in front of a make-shift altar at the end of the hall. The morlocks, hanging from the ceiling and standing in front of the entrance, form a kind of blockade keeping the party from interrupting the morlock at the altar. After finally taking a few of the morlocks down, Verrak breaks through and runs towards the altar. Verrak hits the morlock with his hammer but the chanting continues. Using mage hand, Verrak flings the object of the chanting – an ornate warhammer – off the altar.
Although this infuriates the remaining morlock and he attacks with a ferocity unseen in the other morlocks, Rory eventually takes him down with her well-placed strikes. Walking back over to the warhammer from the altar, Verrak immediately recognizes it. It is the legendary Bloodcrier’s Hammer, a Dwarven relic!
[Here’s what I provided Thomas, since Verrak is a bit of a dwarven scholar, about the hammer. This was largely taken from WotC’s Weapons of Legacy but with some changes, of course.
Bloodcrier’s Hammer is forged of black iron. A grinning skull is etched onto the surface of the hammer’s head and bloodstones and dragonhide gems stud the weapon.
Bloodcrier’s Hammer is one of two great weapons wielded by the ancient dwarven folk hero Bhazad Khrar. (Khrar’s other legendary weapon is Flamecaster’s Bolt.) While the dwarves still refer to their hero with the proper pronunciation, in wider circles the name is remembered more for the properties of the weapon than the original wielder. So, “Bloodcrier” is the name that Khrar bears in many myths. Some ascribe hidden powers to Bloodcrier’s Hammer. It has been debated, however, whether these abilities were in the hammer or were part of Khrar’s own repertoire.
Bhazad Khrar is the supposed descendant of a mortal son of Moradin and was of mightier mettle than most dwarves of his age. Many exploits are attributed to Bloodcrier: founding a mine that pierced to the center of the earth, discovering mithral ore, and stemming an orc invasion singlehanded. This hammer was forged by the hero himself in one of the greatest smithies of the ancient dwarves. Bhazad was believed to have fallen while defending Thaltekhth in its last days and his weapons were presumed lost.]
Verrak is stunned with the find and, knowing that this relic belongs to the Dwarven race as a whole, reluctantly agrees to use it. Upon touching it, Verrak feels good. But what Dwarven historian and fighter wouldn’t feel good holding a hero’s fabled weapon?!?
[Good point but I think the “good” feeling probably went beyond that.
Something else has kind of been nagging at me since this find. If Khrar was believed to have two legendary weapons and the hammer was here, does that mean that his crossbow might be nearby? Seems like a pretty valid question for any dwarven historian/scholar type or for any old greedy adventurer/treasure-hunting sort of folk. 😉
Doesn’t it?]
Looking around the rest of the hall, there are two doors, one small plain door at the end of the hall and another very elaborate double door down a small slope in the middle of the room. Deciding to investigate the smaller door first, Skarr accidentally triggered a trap that released perpetually swinging axes, knocking him unconscious.
[Perpetually? Might be a bit of an overstatement but they did continues swinging for as long as the PCs remained…which was well over an hour.]
Dench heals Skarr, getting him back on his feet and after some unsuccessful searching to find a way to turn the trap off, the party instead turned to the double doors. Built into the stone doors are four figures, a high elf holding a scepter, a dwarf holding a sword, a wood elf holding a warhammer, and a human with a staff. Immediately, Verrak recognizes that these four figures represent the four leaders of the Kingdom of Phalorm, the historic alliance between dwarves, high elves, wood elves, and humans. However, he also notices that the leaders aren’t holding the weapons traditionally associated with them. Above the figures, written in both Dwarven and Elven, a riddle:
I’m the center of the wood, but matter most when made of gold,
I’m jealous when there’s fire, yet sharpest when I am cold,
I stand alone when bound in stone, when secret, I am not so bold,
I shatter when forged of glass, of age I die not so old.
Seeing that this is the only way forward at this point, and clearly into an important area, the party works very hard on the riddle. Attempting many different tactics, the party finally was able to activate the door by simply saying, “Heart.” Once spoken, the figures, who have one hand over their heart and the other raising their weapons, move one hand to reveal a hole in their chest while also lowering and releasing their weapons. The party notices that the holes in the chest will hold the weapons so the party arranges the weapons according to the figure that correctly corresponds to the weapon: dwarf gets the warhammer, human gets the scepter, wood elf gets the staff, and high elf gets the longsword.
The door makes a clicking sound! But does not open.
[These doors are probably the entry to the dwarven outpost of Migdhal Yar proper. Verrak knew that most dwarven doors of old like this had “locks” requiring three things to be done and so they probably needed to do something else before it would open.]
Looking at the verses, the party figures that the first four clauses refer to an order of weapons while the last four clauses refer to a figure. So the party rearranges the weapons in the order according to the verses: staff (center of wood) goes to the dwarf (alone in stone), scepter (made of gold) to the wood elf (secret and not bold), warhammer (jealous of fire) to the high elf (shatter when glass), longsword (sharp when cold) to the human (die not so old).
The door makes a final click and opens! Taking the weapons and putting them in their original positions, the figures move back to their original positions.
[Credit where credit is due…this riddle was largely taken from a post on ENWorld by the user Quickleaf. I modified just slightly. I probably let the players agonize over it a bit too much and puzzling it out did take up a good chunk of time.]
As the party begins down the path past the door, they are struck with the smell of body odor, sulfur, and rot. The corridor leads across a stream and into a natural cavern, steadily descending. Having heard some hissing from ahead, most likely a response to their light, the party cautiously continues. They arrive at a fork of three different paths, the right one being covered by a stream flowing down it. Dru looks down the middle path and sees that it quickly dead ends into a shelf raised up 7-8 feet, but continuing on after that.
Instead, the party decides to go down the left path. Skarr leads the way, yet again. Going around the corner, Skarr is hit by a very strong stench of rot and a loud hissing noise.
[And that’s where we ended the session instead of starting what might be a big fight with about fifteen minutes left. Lots of gaming and lots of cupcakes, right RJ?
Bloodcrier’s Hammer seems like it might be a pretty big find, huh? I wonder what the morlocks were doing with it. It was pretty clear that it was the object of their devotion and chanting. Varrek was pretty hesitant about actually picking it up and was worried that the creatures might have done something to it. So far so good though but he hasn’t used it in battle yet.
The PCs took control of Cagair Keep less than a week ago (in-game time) and they’ve already:
- Recruited a garrison (albeit fairly small).
- Alienated the captain of said garrison (or is Adran just flirting).
- Discovered fairly extensive underground construction and natural caves and tunnels below the keep.
- Cleared most of what they’ve already explored.
- Suffered the death of one PC.
- Recruited a clan of dworcs.
- Created grievances that might lead to a union strike amongst said dworcs.
- Attracted a complete sycophant in Bartholomew…at least as far as Adran is concerned.
- Set the grounds for an enmity with said sycophant…at least in terms of Skarr.
- Entered an ancient dwarven output (assuming that the riddle door was the entrance to Migdhal Yar).
- Recovered an ancient dwarven relic.
- And have already begun to father the next generation of adventurers.
Not to mention the stuff that happened before taking the keep. 😉
Beer Log: Using our hit, miss, crit, and fumble rating scale, below is what we sampled this session.
- Brauerei Harald Baumgartner Tiroloer Bier Märzen: Courtesy of the travels of RJ’s mom. 😉 I wouldn’t say that Märzens are a favorite style of mine but this one was a nice solid hit despite that. Very smooth and pleasant to drink.
- New Glarus Spotted Cow: We’ve had this sitting in the fridge for a little while now and figured it would be good to expose folks to some of New Glarus’ non-fruit beers. While it might not be as good as their fruit beers, it is still a pretty solid farmhouse ale…a hit.
- New Glarus Stone Soup: Continuing the non-fruit NG theme, this was a good, solid hit of a Belgian Pale Ale with a nice hint of spice.
- Stone Farking Wheaton W00tstout 3.0 (2015): We rounded out the tasting with a nice big stout! Bourbon, vanilla, and chocolate but a tad bit boozy…still good stuff and a nice hit.
