[This entry is from Kathryn. RJ and Todd missed this session. Drew came over again and played Skuli while Jamie played Taranis.
My GM comments in brackets and italics as usual.
Spoiler Alert: There is a small amount of carryover from the Hellfrost Encounters Book 1…encounter #7 to be specific…from last session but most of this session was all homemade. It was, however, inspired by an old AD&D (2nd Edition) module called Temple, Tower & Tomb…mostly the map but even that was significantly altered.]
Morning arrived and the group arose early and almost immediately fell to discussing the necromantic events of the previous evening. After a closer inspection of the surrounding area, the tracks to and from the runed circle appear to have been made by only one “necromancer.” Skuli in his typically heroic fashion, boldly states that we should continue our travels to Veny’s bandit camp, ignoring the trail but the others continue to debate the proper course. The group members are gravely concerned about missing Veny allowing her to head to Olfun’s and attack. While the discussion was taking place, Taranis, true to his Lorekeeper’s calling decided to make a charcoal rubbing (using Andwik’s charcoal and his own parchment) of the runes in the circle for later study. After his rubbings are complete, he stows them carefully in his pack.
Cuthbert curious about the extent of the unearthed stone, starts digging with his claws to see if he can find an “edge”. He finds a drop-off approximately 3 or 4 feet from the circle but after digging approximately a foot into the earth, sees no evidence of a door or bottom. The group decides that Skuli may be right and prepares to head to Veny’s camp. Before leaving however, they decide that they should deface the runes on the circle, hopefully rendering its powers inert. With the help of Andwik’s shovel, Taranis begins to try and chip away the runes while Nissa, Andwik and Cuthbert decide to follow the “necromancer’s” trail as far as time permits.
With the first smack at the stone Taranis is surprised that the stone gives way as if cutting into flesh and blood immediately begins to well up, filling the carved symbols. As the eerie ichor fills the symbols, it is absorbed into the stone. Hoping to interrupt the absorption, Taranis tries desperately to carve out a chunk of the symbols. He is successful in digging out a chunk, but it becomes an ever-widening hole, releasing the foul stench of death and rot in a loud, “Whoosh!” The hole begins widening rapidly on its own as the flesh surrounding the hole begins to wither and die at an ever increasing rate. Taranis shouts in alarm bringing everyone, including the exploring party of Nissa, Andwik and Cuthbert, who had barely made any headway, running back to the now completely vanished circle. Deciding that they are responsible for whatever they may have now unleashed (or awoken), they feel they have no choice but to descend into the darkness to explore further.
[Heh, heh…if you build it they will come! I do, however, always try to make it clear to my players that just because something is there, it doesn’t mean that they have to deal with it, explore it, attack it, whatever. The choice is theirs…they just have to be ready to accept the consequences of whatever choice they’ve made.
In fact, at the end of the last session, I had no plans on really expanding this beyond the fact that someone, the “necromancer,” had been doing something with the circle. Drew, however, had made some comment about the circle…something like, “If he didn’t want us to investigate, he shouldn’t have made it look so damn interesting.” Of course, I can’t claim responsibility for making it look so interesting since it came from the Hellfrost Encounters book…that was all Wiggy! However, it got me thinking and things just started to fall into place and now another strand of our “story web” has been added.
As an aside, I highly recommend checking out Check for Traps at The Escapist….especially the articles on Tops and Bottoms; Go, Go Gazette, and Worlds in Motion. They all capture how I’m approaching my Hellfrost campaign quite nicely…or, at least, what I’m trying to do with the campaign development.]
The hole bottoms out after about 10’, the walls dripping with blood and running into a channel that Taranis, first into the hole with the torch, sees running down a slight decline toward a closed door. Trying the door, Taranis finds it locked, and calls back to the group asking if anyone has lock-picking ability. Giddy with excitement, remembering her days testing the locks in her dad’s locksmith shop, Nissa jumps at the chance to try her rusty skills. She finds the lock to be no challenge and it quickly opens under her deft touch. Skuli taking lead, heads in and sees that the channel of blood enters the room beyond and splits, feeding two once desiccated but now rapidly engorging bodies with blood. Skuli yells to the group, “There’s congealed, massive monsters in here! I’m going in to attack!” The faceless, featureless blood-creatures turn toward Skuli as he shouts and begin to attack.
[Full disclosure…although I’d love to take credit for these creatures, no can do. The Bloodborn are another wonder from the mind of Wiggy! They were published in Region Guide #2: The Liche Lands. I did, however, come up with what I thought wasn’t a bad miniature for them…Bloodborn pic…I just painted a D&D Mini (Bloodhulk Fighter or something like that) red and done. I probably should have made the face a little more featureless before painting though but, hey, I didn’t even know if the party would be going down the little necromantic hole or not.]
The ensuing fight is a literal bloodbath. Every strike to or from the blood-beasts splatters blood everywhere. With one swing, Skuli severs the nearest blood beast, sending a shower of blood in a wide arc, even hitting Andwik who is in the hallway, rushing to the attack. The mages try their offensive spells but are ineffectual at all but increasing the amount of blood splatter. The sheer volume of blood causes footing to become slick and treacherous and as Andwik and now Wulfwynn enter the room, they must tread carefully to maintain control as they close with the beasts. A total of four beasts becomes two as the fighters quickly dispatch their foes, but to the horror of everyone who can now see into the room, the final two beasts ooze together into a larger, more horrific single beast of twice the size. Skuli and others begin to move into position for a final, telling blow but with one perfectly aimed strike with his glowing axe, Andwik destroys the beast, sending great sheaves of blood everywhere.
[I was so proud of my players at the end of this fight. They started to use tactics that fit how Savage Worlds works. Rachel suggested that Skuli hold his attack to allow others to manuever to give Skuli a nice big Gang Up bonus (he’s the Iron Guild Mercenary so he gets another +1 from Gang Up and he has the highest damage dice with his Strength and a long sword). Everyone did that but before Skuli get in his attack, Andwick got in a nice blow taking the thing down.]
Once recovered, Skuli leads the group up to the next door. As the door opens, Skuli feels the floor fall away from under his feet, plummeting him 20’ into a pool of blood, striking his head twice on the way down and landing face first. Being encumbered by his gear and heavy armor, and in imminent danger of drowning, Skuli manages to thrust his sword into the wall, giving him a handhold and allowing him to pull himself partway out of the blood pool. Andwik moves quickly with a rope, and Tanaris equally as fast brings a torch to shed light into the dark shaft. Andwik lowers the rope but is unable to gain a secure foothold with all the slick blood coating the floor. Wulfwynn entangles Andwik and Cuthbert, anchoring them to the floor, allowing them to haul Skuli to safety. Deciding to continue to tempt fate, the party moves over the trap into the next room.
[Although I had described that the channel of blood ended about five feet in front of the door when the party first came in the room, I did not fell obligated to do so again…unless asked…after the fight. There was blood everywhere so it was no longer obvious. The end of the channel, of course, marked the edge of the pit. 😉
So, instead, Skuli found the pit trap the hard way and took a good amount of damage on his way down. Drew majorly Aced Skuli’s untrained Swim check…getting something like four or five 4s on the d4 in a row. I ruled and narrated that Skuli was able to wedge his sword in a crack in the wall and was able to hang on to keep from sinking in the blood.
Rachel came up with a great solution for getting around the lack of stable footing or handholds for the party to haul Skuli back up. Having Eostre’s Vines burst forth and securely wrap around Andwick and Cuðbert was an excellent “outside of the box” use of Wulfwynn’s Entangle power and certainly worth a Benny. Since neither of the targets attempted to “resist” the Entangle, I simply ruled that the target number was a four. She got a Raise on, at least, Andwick. I tried to convince Rachel to leave Andwick entangled as the party pressed on but she stayed loyal to the party. ;)]
The next room has two massive, painted murals of battle scenes with undead armies fighting Saxa forces. On one mural, there appears to be a leader of the undead, human, but with his face scratched off. Trying to be careful, several group members search the walls and floors for hidden passages, traps, and the like. While moving to look more closely at the face of the undead leader in the mural, Taranis triggers another floor trap, falling 20’ into a pit, taking the torch with him, putting it out as he lands on it, plunging the group into utter darkness. Quickly becoming experts at extricating people from pits, the group swiftly reaches Taranis and pulls him to safety. Andwik temporarily lit a torch until Taranis can recover and relight the one he carried. Once pulled to safety, Lorekeeper Taranis sketches the mural and adds it to his pack. While sketching, Taranis notices a notch on the mural on the human, undead leader’s finger. He pushes the notch and the wall behind the pit slides away. A stench of decay and death fills the room briefly but quickly dissipates.
[I think I’m falling in love with pits…get it, falling…yeah, I know, groan. The party is now resorting to that old D&D tactic of tapping the floor in front of them as they go forward. I think that they are also seriously considering having one of the spellcasters take the Light power at some point too.]
There is a hallway beyond, lined with skeletons. Skuli once again takes lead, jumping the trap, moving into the hallway where he attempts to behead the nearest skeleton. All of the skeletons immediately animate, the skeleton retaliates at Skuli and a swarm of skeletal rats quickly fills the hallway. Skuli quickly exited the hallway, letting Cuthbert grab the alchemical fire grenade from him, who then tosses it into the hallway but doing minimal damage. Knowing that fire is the best way to deal with such a large swarm, Andwik douses the rats in oil and once everyone is clear, Taranis heroically swallows his fear and uses the torch to light the swarm on fire. Once the skeletons are defeated as well, the group moves forward. Skuli finds a door at the end of the hallway and after carefully checking for traps this time, he pushes it open.
[Another Benny award…everyone else had been able to get clear of the swarm before it could go that round and, to keep it from enfulfing everyone again, Taranis had to light the oil with a chance that he’d also catch fire. Taranis has the Heroic Hindrance and has a small aversion to fire after his brush with being cremated (see Session #13)…so, since he did catch fire, a Benny for him.]
The group finds a room significantly larger than all the others…their voices echoing from the walls. There is a skull-littered altar, with two giant skeleton statues in black robes at the back opposite the door. In approximately the middle of the room, surrounded by pillars reaching floor to ceiling, there is a sarcophagus, covered in runes, resembling a language, unknown to all. There is also an ancient language that Taranis seems to recognize. Many group members hear whispering noises coming from the sarcophagus. Wulfwynn thinks back on her religious training and decides that the altar is most likely dedicated to Hela. Taranis deciphers the language stating that the inscription reads, “Disturb not the tomb of the Forgotton One, his reach exceeded his grasp.” Taranis makes a rubbing of the runes on the sarcophagus, stowing this bit of knowledge away as well.
[Taranis finally got to use his Speak Language power…now he just needs to find a good use for his Detect power…that’s a hint by the way. ;)]
The party begins to debate the meaning of the inscription. Was the Faceless One disturbed when they opened the crypt, or does it mean opening the sarcophagus itself? Deciding that nothing dedicated to Hela should remain intact in the mortal world, the group decides to open the sarcophagus. As the lid is lifted by Andwik, Skuli, and Cuthbert, thousands of blackened, desiccated hands stream forth.
[That, of course, is where we stopped for the night. I thought it turned out to be a good session for many reasons…the innovative use of powers (i.e., Entangle), better tactical coordination, and, of course, fun with pits. Another strand of our ever-growing story web has been spun…or at least it has begun to be spun and I’ve got some backstory that may, or may not, ever become known to the PCs. All in all, pretty satisfying.]
