When we last checked in on our heroes, they had finished their exploration of the ogre-guarded palisade and had rescued one of the missing Kosma children, Vencel. With a child in tow, they had started back for the “safety” of the village of Borsod and to report their findings to Baroness Varga. Ogres, in league with the giant tentacled moths as well as some of the tentacled centipede things, sought out the group and caught up with them as they camped their second night of travel. This confirmed that the ogres, and their leader Momma Graul, might be part of something larger than just what they had encountered so far. Defeating all opposition, the group eventually arrived back in Borsod. After they settled down for a rest at the Temple (where Jolana was seeing to the traumatized Vencel), there was a panicked knocking on the temple door. This 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 as well as portions of The Hook Mountain Massacre below the break.
There is a knocking at the door, we open the door. Rumble, armed with a crossbow and panicked, says that there is a man at the inn who has black eyes and that he is here to kill the baroness. We are not sure an assassin would announce his intentions before the act but are weary of situation. The baroness asks if the innkeep got the man’s name. Rumble admits that he had not and speculates that the man might be a demon. The Baroness decides that she will head to the inn to see the man and we accompany her.
At the inn, Faelan has his crossbow ready as does Rumble. We let Rumble know that if he shoots Raspin in the back, he has to buy the warrior drinks. [An ongoing theme and running joke given the number of times Raspin has been struck by errant friendly fire.] The Baroness makes it clear that Raspin and the rest of us can drink as much as we want at Rumble’s establishment. [A patron’s generosity or continued punishment for Rumble’s prior involvement with Miklós? Perhaps both?] Raspin gets a big grin on his face as we go into the inn.
A man is sitting at the bar. He turns as the door opens; his eyes are not black. Serena asks if he is the man looking for the Baroness. The Baroness bluntly asks if he has come to kill her. He responds with a no to the later and the Baroness calls Rumble a fool. The man bows and introduces himself as Stelisto and that he has heard that the Baroness is looking to hire men-at-arms. He admits that he is not a soldier but has other skills.
As the Baroness starts to ask questions of Stelisto, Faelan interrupts by blurting out his own questions. The silence and steely stare from the young Baroness makes Faelan realize his mistake and he apologizes, but the Baroness insists that he take charge of the questioning. Stelisto indicates that he had come to Presov after hearing of a call for men-at-arms. He had traveled with a small group of mercenaries. When they arrived, they spoke with Farkas and the Captain. While the mercenaries remained, he traveled on to find the Baroness. Asked as to how he survived the trip to Borsod on his own, he repeated his claim to have certain skills.
The Baroness asks if he can give her bark for skin or make her glow. Stelisto says no but…and starts to mumble, clearly casting a spell. Faelan yells out a warning and Rumble lets a bolt fly, narrowly missing Stelisto. The Baroness demands that someone disarm the innkeep and Raspin happily complies. Stelisto casts his spell, spider webs cover his hands and feet, and he then walks up the wall and across the ceiling. The Baroness asks if he can do that to others and Stelisto comes down to cast the spell on her. She smiles and starts running around on the ceiling, with Rumble and Raspin running around on the floor to be in position to catch her if she falls. The mantle of Baroness slips and she giggles like the young girl that she is.
After having some fun, the Baroness suggests that such skills might be useful. Stelisto asks if he is hired and about pay. The Baroness and the group agree to let him join…for now…and the Baroness gives a lecture on maintaining the safety of her subjects. Everyone introduces themselves to Stelisto with Raspin adding that
he’ll be keeping an eye on him.
The group decided that they’d speak with Trinu, the village witch, in the hopes that she might have information about the “mutations” at the palisade before settling down for the rest of the night.
In the morning, we stop to speak with Jolana about the Kosma family before heading to speak with Trinu. Although we had speculated that the ogres had some reason for targeting the Kosmas, Jolana could think of no reason other than their location as one of the most outlying farms. They were a typical farm family and good people. We let her know our concerns that there might be ogres keeping an eye on the village and she says that she’ll have some of the boys in the village keep watch and let her know if they spot anything.
We to head to Trinu’s and the Baroness decides to come with us. We knock on the door. As Trinu opens it, the Baroness moves forward and tells her to answer all of our questions. We ask about giant moths and tentacled centipedes. Trinu suggests that they could be creatures from the Underdark and explains that many aberrations live in the Underdark. She doesn’t really have much detailed information beyond that. We also ask about her cousin [rumored to be an evil witch] and ask if she may know more about what is going on. Trinu doesn’t like talking about Saara, giving us brief answers. She suggests that we go talk with Saara and point us in her direction [at least a couple of days travel deep into the Forest of Árnyék].
Trinu is short and irritable with us, explaining that some of us, pointedly looking at Faelan, have previously been disrespectful to her.
We decide that we need to head back into the Mélyen Hills and do more investigation around the palisade, specifically the farm where we believe that this Momma Graul resides. Although we are concerned about leaving the Baroness unguarded in Borsod, she states that dealing with this threat takes precedence over her safety. Stelisto will also come with us.
At the bridge outside of Borsod where we had spotted the ogres previously, Caliana searches for tracks. She doesn’t spot any, but the heavy rains that last few days could have washed any away. We continue to travel until it gets dark and find a place to camp against a hillside. We set watches as usual, Raspin decides to take watch with Stelisto to keep an eye on the newcomer.
During the third watch, Caliana hears rough and clearly not human voices in the distance. She wakes everyone. Faelan turns into an owl and flies in the general direction of the voices. Clearing a hilltop, he sees about a dozen or so humanoids, armed and heading deeper into the hills. Faelan returns to the group and informs them of what he saw.
Stelisto sneaks away, unnoticed by the group until Cailana realizes he is missing. Not sure of our new companions intentions, we decide to move to a nearby hill and watch to see what happens.
For his part, Stelisto snuck off in the hopes of taking a closer look at these humanoids. He catches up to them and, hidden on a hilltop, spots a group of orcs heading parallel to our camp. They head north and Stelisto follows for a shot time. As they continue heading north and do not veer in the direction of our camp, Stelisto decides to head back.
Arriving at “camp,” Stelisto finds that we’ve left. Looking around, he spots Cailana on a nearby hilltop and waves to her. Rejoining the group, Stelisto explains that he wanted to go and get a closer look. He apologizes for not letting us know and then explains what he saw. The rest of the night is uneventful.
After more travel and an uneventful night camping, we reach the area around the palisade. Cailana scouts ahead and it looks like the palisade has been repaired already. Wink suggest that maybe it is more of a pen and that the people within are food for the ogres. With that lovely thought in his mind, Faelan transforms into a bird and flies around the palisade. He spots no movement within. He then flies over the nearby farm [believed to be the home of the ogres] and all looks like it did previously. He returns to the group and reports.
We head to the farm. When we get closer, Wink summons his earth elemental which we refer to as Rocky. Faelan enchants Raspin’s skin to be wood and Stelisto summons a hardened darkness to act as armor for himself.
We head into the small copse of woods around the farm. We strike out for the the barn first with Caliana and Wink sneaking up to it. Wink makes a small hole in the barn with a spell. Caliana looks in; all she sees is thick webs.
We head back around the woods to the opposite side of the farm, closest to the farmhouse. Cailana and Wink sneak right up and he casts another hole. A horrific smell immediately leaks out, rotten meat and excrement. Inside is a room with three lidless coffins standing against the far wall, complete with corpses leaning inside. The corpses have their mouths sewn shut. There is an easel with what looks like a human skin canvas. Nearby are are paint brushes made of human hair and what looks like paint made out of crushed organs. There are skulls on a shelf as well. Buckets of excrement are scattered about the room. There end of an immense bed is spotted in one corner of the room.
The pair decide to repeat their scouting in different locations, creating holes in the wall at each spot. A privy is found. Another room has a shelf holding skulls, blood stains on the walls, and someone chuckling. The next has a massive bear skin rug on the floor, a huge hearth, and a massive couch made of human skin and animal hides with fox heads and human hands and feet sewn onto it. They also spot a door on the far side of the house.
We regroup and discuss our options. Wink and Raspin suggest just burning down the house. We decide that we can’t do so as the still missing children might be in the house. Plus Faelan has concerns about the fire getting out of control and setting the woods, which come right up the house on a couple of sides, on fire. We discuss trying to lure the ogres out, sneaking in through a window, or simply storming the place.
Stelisto takes the lead and heads to the front porch with most of us following. As he walks across the porch, part of it collapses. He just catches himself from stepping on spikes that look like they’ve been smeared with excrement. The collapsing porch made quite a bit of noise and so we spring to action as Stelisto extricates himself.
Wink, Cailana, Raspin, and Serena head around the corner and are getting ready to enter the side door. Faelan and Stelisto are on the opposite side of the building, preparing to go in through one of the skin windows. Slicing it open, Faelan looks in only to see a massive female ogre staring right back at him. She declares that it looks like Momma’s got some company.
[I can’t take full credit for the “The Hills Have Eyes” ogres…that’s on Nicolas Logue who wrote The Hook Mountain Massacre. Let’s just say that a lot of Momma’s dialogue isn’t really safe for work for I’ll be censoring it out]
The others open the side door and the room reeks of rancid meat. Flies and cockroaches are abundant in the kitchen. A thick butchers block sits in the room with cleavers and leather aprons hanging above it. Hacked off hands and feet are in jars and some rats go scurrying as Rocky is sent in first. Wink follows and heads over to the opposite door and opens it.
Meanwhile, Momma tells Faelan that he looks yummy and tells him to take a nap. Fortunately, he is able to resist the spell that washes over him. Half blindly throwing his dagger, he flees from the window letting Stelisto know about the magic using ogre within.
Wink is assailed by an even more horrific stench from the room beyond the door. A “dining room” with a large table and eight large chairs. A crude table cloth that looks to be made of skin covers that table. The chairs have skulls adorning their backs. The centerpiece is a rotting human head. As Wink steps in, the floor sinks slightly and blades slash down from the ceiling. Wink is gravely injured and drops to the ground, unconscious. Raspin rushes forward to retrieve him and Serena is able to heal her fallen comrade enough that he can move on his own.
On the other side of the house, one of the corpses comes out of the window. A second and third follow shortly thereafter. Stelisto runs around the corner of the house, but the “zombies” catch Faelan before he can escape and surround him. One strikes him and dazes him, disrupting all of his maintained spells. Quickly clearing his hand, Faelan returns the favor and “kills” one of the zombies with Metsä’s aid. [His healing spell does damage to undead.] As he does, a noxious green cloud seeps out of the window and reaches Faelan. It then coalesces into Momma Graul!
With his bark skin fading, Raspin realizes something must have happened to Faelan and runs back to the other side of the house. He meets up with Stelisto heading his way and the pair head back to assist Faelan. Momma is happy to see a big, strong man (Raspin) and makes some suggestions as to what he should do to her.
Serena continues to heal Wink as they step outside the house. An ogre comes out of the house towards them, saying that Serena is “purty” and that Momma’s going like her. Wink “rends the veil” and the ogre, along with a large part of the house’s interior are disintegrated. A yell is heard from within the house, screeching about toys being broken. An ogre, with baby legs, drags itself out of the house followed by another ogre with a baby’s head. Both are defeated and killed quickly.
Faelan, Raspin, and Stelisto battle the zombies and Momma Graul. When Cailana heads over and Momma spots her, the immense ogre gets enraged, screaming that elves ain’t pretty. Momma heads straight for Cailana and incapacitates the elf with the human leg that she wielded as a large club. After Cailana falls, Momma starts to fly away, mumbling something about having to let someone named Margit what had happened. Serena lets loose with her Sojourner’s Spark, causing the ogre matron to crash, dead, into the house, collapsing much of it. Faelan takes out the last of the zombies but loses control of his magics and suffers damage from the feedback.
As Serena goes about healing the downed and wounded, another ogre rounds the corner of the house. This one has a second, small head growing out of its neck. It stops when it sees us and asks if we killed Momma. Serena says that he’s going to be next. The ogre turns to go in the hopes that they could just go their separate ways, but Stelisto steps up and wants to ask a few questions. The ogre agrees. First, he was asked if he knew about any human children. The ogre shares that the baby boy was in Momma’s bed the last time he saw it and the girl had been given to the boys in the barn to “play” with. [Neither piece of information bodes well for the well being of the children.]
When asked about Margit, he refuses to answer except to say that he won’t talk about her and that even Momma was scared of Margit. Despite saying that, he did share that Margit paid them good to tend to the “herd,” referring to the people at the palisade. He also shared that Margit can change you.
When asked about the barn and if there are spiders, he laughs and then suggests that we go see Zeke, sharing that Zeke would be happy to see us.
We also ask if there are any more ogres about and he reckons that Crowfoot is probably hiding somewhere in the woods.
Not planning on letting the ogre leave, Raspin and Wink maneuver into position to attack. The ogre, noticing this, reached into its pouch. Stelisto wanted to ask more questions, but it was too late. The ogre was dropped easily by Raspin’s mighty blow.
[And that’s where we stopped for the night as we had already strayed past our normal stopping time.
So it looks like the ogres had largely been dealt with, but it also seems pretty clear that they weren’t the ones in charge here. Someone (or something) named Margit had hired them, according to the last ogre. A someone (or something) that even Momma was scared of and appeared to be heading off to inform before Serena stopped her. I suppose it is too bad that the group didn’t wait to see if they could get some info about Margit’s location from the last ogre. 😉
Who is Zeke and what else might be waiting in the barn? What about Etel (the Kosma girl)?
What else might be in the farmhouse? The group never really got past the dining room. The house remains pretty much unexplored, but is it still structurally sound after Wink disintegrating a good portion of the interior and Momma, who weighed hundreds of pounds, crashed into it? What about Henrik (the Kosma boy) last seen in Momma’s bed?
What about the “herd?” With the ogres defeated or, at least, their matron defeated, what is going to happen with all the people at the palisade? Can they be reintegrated into the Quail Valley population? Have their experiences scarred them too much for a return to normal life? Do they all have “mutations” and even if they don’t, will those that do be accepted by those in Borsod or Presov? A bit of a dilemma that I don’t think any of use were really planning on.
And what about this Stelisto guy? Can he be trusted? Raspin doesn’t seem convinced…at least not yet.
It’s all getting a bit more complex than just looting some treasure vault in (or below) the valley.
Beer Log: Beers shared this session using, as always, our hit, miss, crit, and fumble rating scale.
- Proof Tangelo Half Sister: Half Sister is a New England style Pale Ale from Tallahassee’s best brewery. The tangelo treatment just makes it better with that additional citrus flavor. A solid hit…near crit.
- Cycle Barrel-Aged Hazelnut Stout w/ Cocoa Nibs: I’ve probably sat on this one too long but still good. Nice hazelnut and chocolate flavors with the roastiness and a hint of booze. Cycle stouts rarely disappoint. A nice thwack…aka hit! 😉]
