As our last session came to a close, the party had set off on the trail of some children from one of the outlying farms around Borsod…children kidnapped by ogres by all appearances. Aided by a magical potion from Borsod’s “witch,” they had followed an old, overgrown road through the Mélyen Hills. After traveling through the night, they came to the realization that the road likely led to the Mélthyen Mines. As they came closer to the mines, they came across an old, abandoned farmhouse and some sort of palisade beyond. Sheltering in the house after a short battle with an ogre, they cased the palisade. Eventually a group of ogres approached it from the hills to the north. Clambering over, a pair of the newly arrived ogres started handing children over the wall to the ogres remaining on the outside. The group decided it was best to attack now and started toward the ogres. One of the children spotted them, tugged upon a nearby ogre’s pants, and pointed…alerting the brutes to the heroes’ approach. That is where we pick up after the break.
As usual, my GM comments are in [brackets and italics]. There are potential spoilers for The Vault of Larin Karr below the break.
As we are moving slowly toward the palisade, one of the children sees us and tugs on one of the ogres, pointing to us so the ogre sees us as well. The ogre passed a kid back over the palisade before moving towards us. Wink summoned his rock creatures and they grabbed at the ogre’s legs—one succeeded. Faelan cast barkskin on Raspin and himself before we approached the ogre. Wink raised the ogre into the air and Serena sent Sojourner’s Spark at it, shaking him.
The second ogre that was outside lifted the other children back into the palisade before moving towards us. Raspin took out this ogre pretty quickly. Two more ogres climbed over the palisade and approached us. Wink moved the ogre he was keeping suspended in the air to a spot above the 3rd ogre and dropped him, hoping to take out both ogres. The 3rd ogre managed to move out of the way, however, and the falling ogre was shaken but not injured. Raspin took out the 4th ogre about as quickly as he took out the 2nd ogre, and Cailana took out the 1st and 3rd ogres with some well-placed arrows.
[Now why would the ogres see to putting the children “safely” behind the palisade before attacking? Was it as a caring parent or as someone protecting their livestock or something else entirely?]
We climbed into the palisade and saw that no one was out–it was still raining hard so it appeared that the children sought shelter in the shacks. The shacks had cloth hanging in the doorways instead of doors, so we moved the cloth to the side as we called out to people in the shacks. We checked out the nearest shack first and found a woman huddled with two children, their faces down [(crouching in a corner)] so we could not see their features. They did not respond when we spoke to them. In the second shack we checked, a man and woman were huddled together in the far corner with their backs to the entrance. Like the people in the first shack, they did not respond when we spoke to them.
As we moved around the shacks, we called out that we mean no harm and are here to help. We hear an eerie giggling but cannot place exactly where it is. Cailana checked and entered a third hut, where two women were huddled with their faces hidden. Cailana softly told them that we mean them no harm and that they do not need to be afraid. She touched one of them lightly on the shoulder and the woman flinched. Cailana gently moved the hair back from one of the women’s faces and was startled to see an eye on the woman’s temple. The woman screamed and Cailana left the shack.
We continued to move around the shacks and heard more of the eerie giggling. Several of us were attacked by children with very sharp teeth—they came up from puddles and pounced down on us from the shack roofs. Serena was wounded a couple times but was able to heal herself.
Cailana heard a call for help–several of us tried to locate the source but kept hearing it from different directions and could not pinpoint it. Raspin moved to the palisade wall and was encouraging us to leave when a smaller ogre came at him. Raspin dealt with the ogre pretty quickly and then joined us in trying to determine who was calling for help.
[Just a reminder…Faelan had spotted one of these smaller ogre things when he flew over the palisade, scouting in as a hawk.]
A human man calling for help came to Raspin. Cailana pulled him into a shack and asked him what is going on here. The guy did not have a lot of information but said that Mammy Graul (or Mama) is in charge and that we need to leave. He insisted that the voices calling for help are just trying to keep us here until reinforcements arrive. Cailana said we need to try to help more people but the guy took off for the wall. Cailana told him we had left a rope hanging down but had not told him the exact location of it.
As we continued to listen for cries for help, Raspin took out two of the attacking kids with fangs. The eerie giggling stopped. We heard more cries for help and started checking the shacks and pulling the cloths off the ones we had checked. We did not actually see anyone asking for help in the shacks we checked. Cailana focused and was able to hear one voice calling for help consistently–it was coming from the larger shack in the center of the palisade. The same shack where Faelan, as a bird, had seen the smaller ogre enter and exit earlier.
Unsure of what we would find in the shack, Wink summoned a rock creature to break in the door. A boy is inside and the rock creature brings him out. The boy was upset but tells us he is Vencel Kozma. Cailana quickly gathered him up and told him that the Baroness sent us to find him and his siblings. Vencel does not know where his brother (two-year old Henrik) and older sister (Etel) are–he said they were separated when they were brought here.
With Cailana carrying Vencel, we tried to check all the shacks for any sign of his siblings. We tried calling out their names and some adults’ and children’s voices responded all over. We did not find Henrik and Etel and decided that we should try to get Vencel to safety. We headed back to the wall and found that the guy had left our rope hanging down the outside of the wall. We were able to get up and over. Wink had the rock creature knock out part of the palisade wall and we called out that anyone who wishes to leave and come to safety can do so.
Faelan turned into a hawk and scouted. He spied a farmhouse not too far [to the north] from the palisade–it had cornhusk dolls hanging on the porch [and a wood and bone bench…a bench sized for, well, ogres]. On his way back to us, he saw one to two dozen orcs heading toward the palisade with one or two ogres. Faelan returned to us and told us what he saw. We started heading back the way we had come here. As we headed off, Faelan went in another direction and blew the hobgoblin horn (from Származás Keep) as a diversion.
[The orcs were flying a banner that bore the same symbol, a toothy maw on a black background, as had been seen in the “burial” ground beneath the Lonesome Drake Inn.]
That night we camped under an overhang. During the first watch, Raspin heard two of the large moth creatures flying overhead but did not know if they just happened to be flying overhead or knew we were below.
[And that is where we stopped for the night…lots of questions spring to mind.
So what’s up with the ogres and this “village” out in the hills? The palisade had no opening whatsoever (until Wink had one made). Was it more of a prison than for defense? It certainly didn’t look like it could keep out ogres. What were those “fanged children” that attacked the group? Are there more of them about? Why didn’t any of the people within the palisade take up the party’s offer of freedom if they were yelling for help? Who was the one person who did “escape” and what happened to him? What is the farm that Faelan found in the hills? Is it occupied? If so, who (or what) lives there? Who are these orcs that showed up? Where are Vencel’s siblings? What repercussions might arise from the group’s “attack” on this village? Was this just another example of Tim using random encounters and just making up stuff as we go or is there something more “planned” about all this?
Maybe some answers will be revealed in the next session.]
