Having left their pilferage incomplete, the crawlers decided to return to the tomb of Skorgald and finish clearing it out. Upon setting out from Plainwood, the party consisted of:
- Hazel Ravenvale: outcast halfling, thief 1
- Kais: mercenary human, wizard 1
- Nubbin Stump: drawn halfling, fighter 2
- Tulk: marked half-orc, ranger 2
- Vraazox da Pryist: wolfchild goblin, priest of Memnon 2
- Ylva Fekyue: outcast halfling, bard 2
- Shiraal: marked half-orc, thief 1
[I had originally intended to run Somewhere West of Light as an occasional pop-up and backup game when we didn’t have a quorum for Kaserne on the Borderlands. However, this was a scheduled Kaserne session where the GM wasn’t prepared to run, so this was a much larger party than I’d intended for this campaign.]
Making their way overland to the cave, the crew spied firelight flickering from within. Creeping closer, they determined that the bandit camp from their previous visit had been taken over by orcs. After a brief conference, Vraazox and Ylva determined that orcs would probably make acceptable sacrifices for the Nord Old Gods altar that the crew had previously discovered. With intent to disable and capture, the crawlers attacked.
There were more orcs than originally anticipated, including two shamans [my first attempt at rolling my own Shadowdark monsters]. The crew’s front-line combatants got bogged down on the popcorn orcs and some summoned wolves, which gave the shamans time to summon yet more wolves – including one crit that bamfed a dire wolf into being. Shiraal went down in the fight and bled out despite Ylva’s best efforts, becoming the first PC fatality [about twenty minutes after being rolled up].
During the struggle, the party received unexpected reinforcements. Yuri Völvason (witchborn human, priest of Ord 1) and Nite (cult initiate dwarf, Knight of St. Ydris 1) managed to break free of their orcish captors’ bonds, reclaim their weapons, and enter the fray. Their aid proved decisive, and they chose to join their rescuers in hopes of a share of the treasure.
[Yuri was the reserve PC for Shiraal’s player. Nite was a pre-gen selected by our late-arriving last player.]
Moving deeper into the caverns, the crew encountered a squad of skeletal Nord warriors. The combined power of two priests easily laid them low. Shortly thereafter, the altar of the Nord Old Gods once again knew the taste of blood, and the crawlers emerged from the unfamiliar rites feeling strangely empowered.
A peaceful conversation with the cave’s resident sea nymphs revealed that another crew of crawlers had recently been here, and had dispatched the nymphs’ sister who had previously succumbed to the curse of undeath. Remembering the enchantment that said undead sister had laid upon her in the crew’s previous encounter, Ylva made a hasty withdrawal when the nymphs offered her the opportunity to sing with them.
Tying off to ropes and making use of the Light spell, Yuri and Nite explored the underground pool and discovered a small rocky outcropping with the remains of an ancient rowboat and a headless skeleton. As they investigated, an undead Nord arose from the stone beneath their feet – King Skorgald was awake!
Skorgald was irate, but saw the crew as disposable minions to accomplish what he could not. Bound to this place, he was unable to pursue the last of his treacherous bloodline, who had defiled his resting place and stolen the head of his favored son, Mordeme. He told Yuri and Nite that their companions had taken his grave gold, and thus they owed him a boon. He tasked the crew with pursuing and retrieving his last mortal descendant and Mordeme’s skull.
Taking the orders of an undead Nord king at face value, the crew left the cave. With a ranger in the party [and a GM disinclination to inflict travel complexities or random encounters on them], they quickly caught up to the Nords. The battle was fierce, and only the aggressive healing interventions of Vraazox and Yuri kept the crew’s melee combatants on their feet. At the end, though, the berserker Garatha lay unconscious at Hazel and Nubbin’s feet and her Nord followers’ bodies were scattered around the campsite.
Recovering Mordeme’s skull and grave goods, the party returned to Skorgald, dragging their captive behind them. Skorgald declared their debt paid and handed over his ancient enchanted greataxe, stating he had no further need for it. Then he seized Garatha by the throat. A howling conduit of magical energy roared from his eyes into her mouth and nose. The draugr collapsed… and the thing behind Garatha’s eyes nodded to the crawlers and almost smiled before turning to walk deeper into the cavern.
Not entirely sure they’d done the right thing, the crew returned to Plainwood to drink away their pain of their wounds.
Treasure and carousing yielded enough XP to level up Yuri, Nite, and Hazel to 2, and Tulk and Vraazox to 3. Nite’s player chose to adopt him as his primary character and kept Mordeme’s greataxe, Waning Edge:
Nubbin acquired the Axe of Nine Eyes, whose magical powers have yet to be fully revealed:
This delve also completed the first of two milestones toward unlocking the Sea Wolf and Seer classes and the Nord Old Gods (from Cursed Scroll #3) for player use.
This session was characterized by epically bad player rolls. The Foundry dice roller yielded more natural 1s than I’ve ever seen in a session. During the fight with Garatha and her followers, Hazel got three in a row.