Hellfrost Sidetrek: Pirates of the Crystalflow Session #1

To give our new players a taste of Savage Worlds & Hellfrost and to help the rest of us get reacquainted with them after being away for a bit, I’ve decided to run the module, Pirates of the Crystalflow, from Wiggy and Triple Ace Games. Our regular Hellfrost campaign is set in the Freelands and was dropped in the middle of a combat in some sort of tomb/necromancer’s place. So this module isn’t really part of the campaign…just a chance to get some play in and get used to the system again. Hopefully it will help break folks of some D&Disms that I’ve found are sometimes problematic when picking up Savage Worlds after D&D type games.

Although it doesn’t really fit with our prior Hellfrost campaign that we’ll be picking up soon, I also decided that it would be helpful if those that had played in the Hellfrost campaign previously could play their old (and soon to be again) characters: Rachel is playing Wulfwynn, a Reaper of Eostre; RJ is playing Skuli, an Iron Guild Mercenary; and Todd is playing Taranis, an Eire Elementalist and member of the Lorekeepers. Austin and Bridgett are playing Andwick, a Hearthkeeper of Kenaz, and Drefan a Woodsman. Both of these are characters of players who aren’t playing with our group anymore.

So the Heroes of Dalsetter somehow ended up down in the Crystalflow Confederacy and without any funds. We all decided that this was somehow probably Skuli’s fault. So the PCs are both looking for some additional funds and, being heroes and all, the chance to be heroic. So I’m sure it is no surprise that, as the PCs were eating a meal that the last of their money had purchased in some unnamed inn in Scathmoor, they were approached by an individual interested in obtaining their assistance.

Spoiler Alert: Obviously, there are going to be spoilers for Pirates of the Crystalflow below the break…although most of this session was on the fly improv. This write up is from, well, me and my GM comments are in [italics and brackets] as usual.

As the party contemplated how they might earn the funds to return home to Dalsetter, a young and somewhat disheveled man approached the group’s table and asked if they were, indeed, the Heroes of Dalsetter. The answer, of course, was yes and so the man, Rodgar, asked if they would be willing to meet with him at his office after they finished their meal…he is in need of some heroes. The party agreed and Rodgar provided directions to his office.

After finishing their meal, they headed to his office in one of the warehouses along the Crystalflow River. Rodgar explained that barges traveling between Scathmoor and Bridgwater had been attacked. The goods and crew of these barges are missing when the barges are found, usually washed up on the shore somewhere along the river near the Gnat Marsh. Rodgar and a couple of other merchants in Scathmoor have lost men and goods and have pooled their resources to hire some individuals to investigate these attacks.

[How fortunate for Rodgar and his fellow merchants that THE Heroes of Dalsetter just happened to be passing through Scathmoor right now. ;)]

The party chatted with Rodgar for a bit and learned that the barges hit did not have highly valuable cargo. Instead, the barges have been carrying food and cheap beer. He and his compatriots believed that another merchant in Bridgwater, an Engro by the name of Oswald, had been benefiting from the loss of their goods. They’d like the party to travel to Bridgwater, investigate whether Oswald does have anything to do with the attacks, and, hopefully, at least put a stop to the attacks if not recover their lost men and goods. Rodgar had already arranged for passage on a barge to Bridgwater that would be leaving in two days. The trip will take about four days, assuming nothing delays them on their trip.

Two days later, the party boarded the barge, captained by a Saxa named Kjartan and manned by four other Saxa. The first day was rather uneventful. It wasn’t until just before evening that anything interesting happened…another barge was heading downriver in their direction. Kjartan recognized the captain and called out for news. Ulfen, a captain based in Drakeport, informed them that they had come along another barge that had been attacked. It was washed up near the Gnat Marsh and its crew and goods were missing. It did look like there had been a struggle and there was blood on the deck. Another barge traveling upriver had already volunteered to tow the derelict to Bridgwater.

They traveled a little further before stopping to camp for the night. As Kjartan and his crew secured the barge and started to set up camp, one of the crew was grabbed and yanked off the barge by some long, green arms. He is pulled right into the river. Skuli saw it but could not react in time to save the man. Describing what he saw was enough for Kjartan to understand what happened…it was a Grindylow, a malevolent water fey. Kjartan and his remaining crew walked a little farther up the shore, explaining that once the Grindylow drags you under, there isn’t much you can do.

Taranis volunteered to be bait in order to capture or kill the creature. The Heroes of Dalsetter all agreed that such a creature could not be left to prey upon others in the future. The Eir Elementalist tied a rope around his waist and had it tied to barge, with just enough slack to be pulled into the water but not enough to go completely under.

[Unless, of course, the Grindylow pulled him in head first.]

Drefan retreated to the shore and readied his bow. The others positioned themselves on the barge. The Grindylow, however, didn’t comply with their plan. Instead of going for Taranis, it attacked Andwik. Arms shooting out of the water with lightning speed, the fey tried to pull the Hearthkeeper under but was unsuccessful. Everyone backed a little farther away from the water.

The next attack was directed at Drefan standing near the river’s edge with his bow at the ready. He twisted away from the attack and the Grindylow was unable to get a good grip. Before the creature could escape to the river’s deeper waters, Drefan loosed an arrow. It flew true and struck the creature. The fey floated to the surface. Cautiously, very cautiously, the party feared it was a ploy but they eventually pulled the body from the water to find that Drefan’s arrow had slain the Grindylow.

Kjartan asked Taranis if he had any magics that might find the body of his lost crewman, his cousin actually. Taranis summoned forth his small zephyrs [detect/conceal] and sent them searching for the body. They, of course, dove straight into the river. Unable to swim quickly enough to keep up or to see where his zephyrs had gone in both the fading light and the river’s waters, Taranis could only sense that the body was nearby but not its exact location. Deflated and with their spirits somewhat sunken, the group resigned itself to burning the body of the Grindylow and settling down for the night.

In the morning, Taranis attempted to find the body again. With some maneuvering of the barge and Kjartan, a much better swimmer than Taranis, stepping in, the body was recovered. It was in the deeper waters of the river and stuffed into some rocks to keep it from floating up. Although it would delay their arrival in Bridgwater, the group built a pyre and burned the body.

Continuing on their journey, the second day was uneventful until, again, just before dark. Spotting a travel tower through the trees up ahead near the river’s edge, Kjartan said that would be where they would camp for the night. However, as they got closer, a few of the PCs spotted a figure on top of the tower, a figure that quickly crouched down to duck out of sight. Kjartan pulled the barge to the shore before reaching the tower and the Heroes leapt to land.

Moving towards the tower, they called out a greeting to whoever may be in the tower. A man responded and told them to not approach any closer as they might be bandits. Offering assurances that they were nothing of the sort and only wished to share the shelter for the night, he responded by offering up that perhaps he might be a bandit himself. In fact, he continued, if the party did not lay aside their valuables and continue on their way, he would attack. The Heroes, of course, refused the request and the man yelled, “Fire!” A small rock flew towards the barge, fired by a small catapult, but missed by a considerable margin.

Kjartan and his men shoved off and let the barge drift downriver, away from the tower and out of the range of the catapult. The Heroes began to move through the trees towards the tower to deal with these bandits. Five archers loosed arrows at them from the top of the tower and another from a small window on the second floor. Wulfwynn threw up vines to block the window and the more skilled of the archers [bridge], and Andwik chopped at the door until he broke it down.

Wulfwynn, Drefan, and Taranis all climb some of the nearby trees to get a better look (and targets) at the top of the tower while Andwik and Skuli climbed the stairs on the inside. Eventually, the party prevailed and slew some of the bandits and wounded their leader before he surrendered and agreed that they could share the tower for the night. Unfortunately, during the fight, Taranis was grievously injured by a shot from the bandit leader and began to fall, unconscious, from the tree in which he had positioned himself.

That, of course, is where we stopped for the night…with Taranis’ fate undetermined. 😉

As I mentioned at the start, most of this session was on the fly. Outside of the basic plot from Pirates of the Crystalflow, the rest of this was not from the module (i.e., the Grindylow and the tower). My original plans were to use the characters from one of our previous Hellfrost sidetreks, the Hrafn Point Sidetrek, but I had forgotten that they had all died or had been captured due to the treachery of one of their allies (bad GM…bad GM). So the Crystalflow thing was kind of last minute thing but I think it’ll be a good introduction/refresher for all of us. Unlike the Hrafn Point sidetrek, I’m not sure how much this one will impact the main campaign when we get back to it.