When we last left our heroes, they had joined a gnome, Bale Havensack III, on his journey to Oldsten as guards. After about four days of largely uneventful travel from Oakhart, they came upon the village of Rooksten. Smoke could be seen drifting up, buzzards circling, and a bell ringing. As Cora scouted, it became clear that giants–most likely hill–had attacked and goblins had entered the village as well. Cora had crossed the lowered drawbridge and peeked in, spotting two large wolf-like creatures feasting on a dead horse in the village square. She started to enter and that’s where we pick up after the break.
There are potential spoilers for “Storm King’s Thunder” from Wizards of the Coast but it has been significantly modified for our use. This write-up is from Rachel and my GM comments are in [brackets and italics] as usual. Muse and Todd were both missing; Jason played Otilia and RJ played Alaric. Bridgett was able to join us again to play Cora.
After a little scouting ahead, Cora and Digger returned to the group and reported that there are two dire wolves or worgs eating a horse in the center area of Rooksten. We discussed how to enter the palisade without attracting the worgs’ attention and came up with a plan. Chuck teleported Delg and himself to the hill edge by the northwest watchtower. With the assistance of the Monkey’s Grip armbands, Delg climbed to the top of the tower and lowered a rope down for Chuck and the rest of us to climb. Alaric, Otilia, and Pallas swam across to the hill edge and climbed up the rope to join Delg and Chuck on the tower. Chuck encouraged us all to crouch or lie down so we would be less visible to anyone out and about within the palisade. Meanwhile, Cora and Digger burrowed under the palisade wall near the watchtower.
Delg bumped his armor loudly as he went through the trapdoor and down into the tower. We all followed suit, though not as loudly. Outside the tower, Digger poked his nose up out of the ground and sniffed something that made him stop and back up a little. Cora knew that meant he scented a predator so they stayed in the burrow.
Chuck was the first of us to step out of the tower-—he was immediately attacked by two worgs. Pallas and Alaric came out to fight the worgs and try to prevent more injury to Chuck. Digger and Cora burst out of the ground behind one of the worgs, surprising it and taking it out quickly. Pallas attacked the other worg, who decided to run off instead of staying to fight.
[Delg’s loudness (and RJ’s very poor Stealth check) attracted the attention of the worgs from the village square. Given that worgs are cunning and malevolent (not to mention very perceptive), they laid an ambush for the creatures coming down the tower.]
The bell was still ringing, so we all moved around to the entrance of the nearby temple. Pallas stayed in the entrance to make sure the worg did not come up and surprise us from behind. Everyone else entered the building and found it was a temple to Frigga, with a lot of unicorns decorating it. [Also dedicated to Mielikki, a nature goddess.] In the room past the main room, two goblins were taking turns ringing the bells. They were not happy to have their bell ringing fun interrupted and did not like Digger (one called him a “big dog”). We took one out in the temple and took the other one out just outside the temple. Cora found a sack on each goblin. One contained three blocks of incense, a silver pendant of a unicorn head, a frayed human-sized belt, and a pair of sturdy [and smelly] human-sized socks. The other sack held three empty vials and a small wooden box with a leather thong holding it shut. The box held 37 copper pieces and 15 silver pieces.
[The goblin had found three vials of holy water and drank it.]
We decided to check the rest of the village for any potential human survivors, the worg that had run off, and any other goblins. We checked a cottage – its door was open and things were haphazardly tossed around, but no one was inside.
We moved to the windmill and entered. Cora heard a giggle just before she was hit by an arrow. Delg moved in, cast light and climbed up the center pole. He spied two goblins who were each belly-down on beams overhead. They each put a finger over their lips to Delg, indicating that he should not give away their location to the rest of us. Delg quickly lets us know about the two goblins, prompting the goblins to point at their butts [and then at Delg] before shooting arrows at Delg. In return, Delg knocked both of the goblins off the beams (one of them yelling “wheeeeeee!” on his way down before yelling “ow!” when he hit the floor). We took out both of them pretty quickly. These two goblins had pouches – one with six copper pieces and the other with three.
We moved to another cottage – its door was partly blocked by a big boulder. Cora carefully moved in and saw the bodies of an elderly human couple crushed by rubble. As she moved into another part of the cottage, something big flew by her head. It was a cat-owl type creature and it perched on a shelf and looked at her. Cora put a little jerky out for the creature and moved back – it came down from the shelf to take the jerky and returned to its perch. Cora came out and told us about the creature. Otilia thought about trying to use her animal handling skills with it but decided not to at this point.
[The creature is a fairly typical looking house cat…except for the pair of feathered, leathery wings, owl-like faces, and a fluffy ball of fur and feathers at the end of its tail.]
We moved to the southeast watch tower, where Cora heard goblin whispers beyond the closed door. Delg went in the door and found the ground floor empty with no sign of a ladder or way to climb up to the next level. He came back out and started climbing up the side of the tower. While the rest of us were waiting outside, Pallas saw two goblins come out of a nearby cottage with pumpkins on their heads. They staggered around blindly, one kept saying “pumpkin” while the other kept saying “pie” (maybe a goblin version of Marco Polo?). Eventually each goblin raised his pumpkin blindfold and gave a little cry when they saw us – we took them out pretty quickly. Two goblins popped up from the top of the tower and scolded us for taking out the goblins who were just playing Pumpkin Pie. We took out one of the goblins (apparently named Larva) but the other one jumped off the back of the tower into the moat. Cora found a sack on Larva that contained assorted pewter utensils and a broken vial of flowery perfume. One of the other goblins had a pouch containing four copper pieces and three silver pieces. The cottage the pumpkin-headed goblins came from was ransacked and had several smashed pumpkins in it but not much else.
We came to a cottage with runes on the closed front door and shutters. Pallas’ mark allowed him to read the Infernal message – it threatened those who entered the home without the consent of its owners with being sent to two specific levels of hell. It looked like human tracks have come in and out of the cottage recently. The runes and message made us a bit more wary of checking this cottage but there was no response to our knock on the door or Cora’s calling out to see if someone needed help. Alaric kicked the front door in and we entered, finding nothing ransacked or disturbed. The bedroom had two footlockers in it – one with black and red clothes in it; the other with a polished gold symbol of Asmodeus, a vial of healing potion, and a pouch with a healer’s kit. We found midwife supplies in the bedroom as well.
We left the cottage and went into a big garden with a big boulder in its center. The cat-owl was perched on the wall looking at us. It perched on Cora’s shoulder and let Cora and Chuck pet it. Chuck told the creature it could come with us and it did follow as we continued our survey of the village.
[The “cat-owl” was initially coy with Chuck but did, eventually, briefly land on his shoulder.]
Cora carefully entered another cottage with a boulder blocking the entrance – a Halfling adult hand was sticking out from under the boulder. This appeared to be the home of a Halfling family though Cora saw no other bodies. She did find a loose floorboard hiding a pouch with 15 gold pieces and a vial marked “anti-toxin.” Another cottage by the garden was ransacked but we found nothing of interest in it.
As we approached a large building, Cora heard a horse inside – it did not sound distressed. As we looked inside, we saw that a boulder had come through the stable roof but missed the stalls, sparing the five riding horses and five draft horses in them. Otilia found the horse feed and made sure all the horses were fed. In the paddock behind the stable, Cora heard a chicken clucking and saw two goblins chasing chickens around the yard.
We left the stable and headed to the east watchtower. Delg entered and went up to the top. He found a goblin girl there clasping something in her hands. She said “It’s mine! You can’t have it!” When Delg told her to show him what it is, she jumped off the tower into the moat.
Cora and Digger moved toward the northeast watchtower and saw that its door was open. As they got closer, Digger sniffed and then hustled away. A worg burst out of the tower with blood on its face. Cora cast a gust of wind, pushing the worg back into the tower (where Cora spied a pig body the worg had been eating).
[Digger had smelled the blood and the worg. Cora closed the door after the worg was forced in, possibly trapping it within…except…]
We quickly regrouped and the goblins in the paddock noticed us and ran away. Preparing to fight the worg again, Delg and Otilia moved around the other side of the stable and the rest of us moved to join them. The worg came crashing through the paddock and attacked Pallas. Otilia took the worg out with guiding bolt, spraying Pallas with its remains.
[Worgs are intelligent…as in approaching human level intelligence…and cunning. It had no problem figuring out how to open the door of the watchtower. It then feinted going around the paddock and barn, leading the bulk of the party to hustle around, in the opposite direction, the barn to catch the beast. It, however, cut through the paddock to attack the party’s stragglers…kind of like a predator picking of the stragglers from a herd of prey.
Otilia crit and pretty much obliterated the worg attacking Pallas, drenching him in gore. Yuck!
That’s where we ended for the night. The group had explored, essentially going house-to-house, about 70-80% of the bailey portion of Rooksten. A few structure still remain and, of course, the motte which looked significantly more bombarded than the “village” proper.
Rachel speculated a bit about the goblins. Perhaps they are just opportunists who took advantage of whatever giant attack had occurred and the fleeing of the village’s residents. She noted that the prior goblins encountered, at Havel’s Cross, they weren’t responsible for the attack on the inn. Instead, they came in after to scavenge and loot. Might this be something similar?
Regardless, why did the giants attack? Where did the villagers go? Outside of a handful of bodies crushed under boulders, they group has seen no other bodies of villagers (or living villagers).
Station: Started with the Labyrinth soundtrack and then to David Bowie (goblins after all). After encountering the goblins playing “Pumpkin Pie,” the station switched to, what else, Smashing Pumpkins.
Beer Log: Here’s what we sampled this session, using, as always, our hit, miss, crit, and fumble rating scale.
- Avery Raspberry Sour: Thanks to Jason! Been some time since I’ve had an Avery sour and almost two years since this one. Always a pleasure…a solid hit!
- Rare Barrel Ensorcelled: Another Raspberry sour…not planned. Rare Barrel…’nuff said. Great sour. Near crit!
- Exile Pineapple Bohemian: We had one more left from what Rachel brought back from Iowa. Still probably my least favorite of the Bohemians but still impressive for pineapple. A hit.]
awww man…I missed david bowie and two raspberry sours! Sounds like a great evening, and yay Jason for critting with Otilia on the worg! I might need Jason and Bridge to rub my dice and give them some mojo since they crit more often as Otilia than I do LOL!
I totally forgot to post a picture! I drew a map of Rooksten. It didn’t all fit on our table but enough did at a time. Click for a larger version.
Rachel’s first comment upon seeing it all laid out was something along the lines of, “I guess we should go somewhere else now.”
Players…sheesh! (She was just joking, of course.)