Hellfrost Session #4

Warning: Potential spoilers below for the adventure, Lair of the Vermin Lord, from Triple Ace Games.

[Here is the deal I have with my players. Whoever does the campaign log gets a free Benny at the next session as long as it is done in a fairly timely manner and isn’t totally half-ass. If no one does it and I have to do it, everyone loses a Benny at the next session. As you may have guessed after reading this, everyone is losing a Benny at the next session ’cause I’m doing the campaign log.]

When we last left our intrepid heroes, they had just descended some stairs into a natural cavern and discovered a tunnel full of giant rats. As the party sprung into action and moved into defensible positions, voices were heard from above, “Heroes of Dalsetter! Olvir Brighthammer, Stonehand of Ertha comes to aid in your quest!”

[We had two guest players at the last session. Both Dave and Pat were in town and wanted to game. I put together a pair of Frost Dwarf brothers, a Stonehand of Ertha and a Cut Rune Mage who were relaxing and recuperating in Aslov. I wrote up a quick background which included a vision for Olvir, the Stonehand, of an old temple of Ertha being defiled by some beady-eyed, buck-toothed human. Olvir had a vague impression of the direction to the temple. Dragging his brother, Ljot, along with him, he set out for the temple.

When the Brighthammer brothers reached Dalsetter, they learned of the disaster (and hordes of rats) that had befallen the area. They also learned of the Heroes of Dalsetter (aka the party) and how they had prevented orcs from poisoning the remaining grain and all their other deeds. The brothers also learned that the Heroes had set off for a ruined tower to the north to seek out the beady-eyed, buck-toothed man believed to be behind all this evil stuff going on.

The Brighthammer Brothers made it to the ruins and discovered many tracks and the remnants of the party’s initial battle with the rats at the ruined gates. They also spotted the funeral pyre for Ulfwyn…humans have no respect for the dead…burning instead of burying. Pressing forward, they found the stairway and heard the sounds of combat from below. The brothers barreled down the stairs…]

The combat with the rats was relatively easy at first for the party…bolstered by the additional reinforcements. The party held their ground instead of forging ahead into the small corridor. This forced the rats to come to them where more than one PC could engage a single rat. They also started to take fuller advantage of the openness of the Savage Worlds combat system. Both Wulfwynn and Cuthbert used the move, action, move freedom of SW to good advantage.

Unfortunately for the party, the combat took a turn for the worse when two things happened. One, some unknown archers–presumably orcs based on the look of the arrows–began peppering the party with arrows. Second, Lia used the second of the Fire Lances purchased in Dalsetter. Unfortunately, Robert rolled a 3 on the 2d10 damage and so it didn’t even matter if the rats missed their Agility rolls as the damage was less than their Toughness.

[The Fire Lances were Burst alchemical devices with a fire trapping. I included them in the inventory at Rudwulf’s store (“I have these two devices that a wisard of some sort sold me when passing through last month”) since the party has no area of effect attacks and would be facing some rat swarms. It didn’t, of course, guarantee that the party would save them for any swarms they faced (why would they?) but it gave the option AND it helped reinforce the “magic item” approach of Hellfrost…more herbal and/or alchemical devices rather than permanent magic items (relics being the exception, of course). Of course, it also de-emphasized the SW approach of using your wits and tools at hand (e.g., oil) to overcome obstacles and defeat foes.]

Unfortunately, before the orc archers could be dealt with…the Brighthammer Brothers made mincemeat of them once they reached them…Skuli and, more importantly, Wulfwynn got pretty beat up. Wulfwynn ended up with three wounds and it definitely demonstrated the difficulty of the double penalty for healing oneself. It took quite some time for the party, and specifically Wulfwynn, to recover (i.e., receive Eostre’s blessing of healing).

[In other words, it illustrated that it might not be a good idea to not have anyone else with healing abilities (even the skill) or some kind of device, herbal or alchemical].

The orcs had positioned themselves where a larger tunnel led off in one direction, a smaller one sloped down in another direction, and an opening led to a chamber with a pool of water. Olvir felt something of an affinity towards something down the sloping tunnel. Cuthbert, remembering that one of the party’s three Saxa “rivals” said he was stung by something while walking through a pool in the ruins they had explored to the south of Dalsetter, cautioned everyone from getting too close to the water. After stacking the orc bows at the mouth of the corridor to the north (in the hopes that any rats/rat swarms coming from that direction would knock them over and alert the party), everyone headed down the southern tunnel.

[One thing that was left out of last session’s log was what had happened to the “rivals” leader when they had explored the southern tower where the trio found their treasures. Something had stung him while he was wading through a pool in the caverns beneath the tower. It left a wound and must have included some kind of poison because his leg had gone numb and he could no longer walk. The trio assumed that he’d be fine after awhile but, to be on the safe side, had Eowyn come to treat him.]

As the party traveled down the sloping corridor, they eventually could hear the sound of rocks clashing together. When they reached the end of the corridor and a large cavern, they found the source of the sound. At the back of the cavern, up on a shelf about eight feet high, dust and rocks could be seen swirling around a central focal point. At the outer edges of the swirling circle was the dust with progressively larger rocks closer to the locus point. Once Olvir was close enough, being a Stonehand of Ertha, he realized that it was actually an Elemental Earth Locus…probably the reason why the temple had been built here.

He and Wulfwynn, being a Reaper of Eostre who is the daughter of Ertha, climbed the shelf to take a closer look at the locus. As they did, two bulky humanoids composed entirely of rocks and dirt emerged from natural columns scattered about the cavern. Unsure what to make of this development and not willing to anger Ertha by taking aggressive action, the party hesitated momentarily. The rock hulks moved forward menacingly and one struck Ljot with great force.

[If I recall correctly, Dave spent a Benny and soaked all of the damage…the elemental smacked Ljot on the head and so didn’t do any serious damage…sure it is a cheap dwarven stereotype but it worked. :D]

Olvir called out to Ertha to assure her that they meant no harm but it clearly had no effect as the creatures still menaced the party. The decision to flee was made pretty quickly. Ljot was smacked again and had to be carried out by Skuli and Lia. Wulfwyn used her Entangle power pretty effectively to allow party members adjacent to the elementals to make their way out safely. The party fled back up the tunnel and saw that the elementals were not pursuing.

[We kind of played Entangle wrong. One of the elementals was restrained fully after a roll of 15 by Rachel. Instead of using 4 as the Target Number for breaking free of the restraint, I used 15. My mistake definitely assisted the party’s escape.]

After taking a moment to catch their breaths and lick their wounds, the party went back to the northern tunnel (the bows had not been disturbed) only to find it split into two. Choosing the left tunnel, they found a small cavern that reeked of rats. The room was full of broken and crumbled stone tablets as well as lots and lots of rat droppings and signs of habitation. However, there were no rats. They spent a short period of time examining the stone tablets and searching the room for anything of value. The tablets had some writing but no one could make out the language. Ljot found an intact tablet but did so by stepping upon it and breaking it.

[As the party searched, Dave rolled a critical failure for Ljot’s Notice check. I figured stepping on the magical tablet was a catastrophic way of finding it. The tablet isn’t critical to the adventure so…why not?]

Heading up the other fork, the party finds a tunnel leading off to the right and an opening into a cavern straight ahead. Taking the lead, Lia moved into the cavern to see what he could see. What he could see was lots of rats. Lia pushed forward and, unfortunately for him, spotted even more. Some of the rats were even larger than the other giant rats encountered so far AND an unnatural and unholy creature…a monstrous albino rat smothered in a crawling mass of rats whose tails sprout from the beast’s bloated body which was the size of a horse.

Momentarily stunned by the sight, Lia was set upon by the other rats and, relatively isolated from the rest of the party, was quickly taken down…though not quite yet dead. The rest of the party rushed forward and attempted to hold a line to both keep anyone from being swarmed by rats and to keep Wulfwynn, their only healer, out of reach. The immense albino rat slowly moved forward. The giant and huge rats were quickly being dispatched by the party. When the abomination came close, the mass of rats attached to swarmed about…stretching their tails to a great extent to reach the party members. Filled with a righteous fury at such a creature defiling Ertha’s holy grounds, Olvir burrowed to the far side of the chamber (which he noted was covered with coins and gems) and began to fling stones (i.e., bolt) with all of Ertha’s strength. Skuli and the others pressed the beast from its other side and the thing went down under the pressure fairly quickly. The remaining rats followed in short order.

[This was one of those fights were not only did the players use pretty good tactics but my rolls also sucked. I blew through my bennies to no avail and the whole fight was over in something like three rounds. Heroes of Dalsetter indeed!!!

We ended after this encounter with the rats lying dead. Lia lying incapacitated.

Next session we should have a new player joining us!]