Sunday, February 19, 2012

A fortunate rescue 27 Thorri

Combing the ruins for clues to lost loved ones and who perpetrated the attack on Skaldby the exhausted party settles down for the night. Alas they fall asleep on watch again & wake to find some of the livestock (The Kine & Swine ain't mine! says Ulfar) has returned. They continue their investigations (including the boat-wright overlooking the still whole boat half sunk in the harbor). Mar collects every scrap of iron he can find hoping to eventually make armor out of it. Everyone but Tyr the boat-wright feels anger & wants vengeance for the massacre. Oddly enough they leave the bodies where they have fallen & never bury or burn them. OOOPS that might revisit them like a salmonella tainted anchovie lasagna.

Shortly into the morning of the next day as they are preparing to follow the road north they spot a large party of Warriors & well armed peasants (not piss-ants though they are somewhat irritable) rounding up the livestock of the village. When Ulfar approaches them to demand their business he is greeted with a friendly? spear. Avoiding such a cheerful hello he screams as he launches into a Tete-a-Tete with a hostile warrior. His friends back him up, but Skolmar is wounded in the leg. They're handling themselves well though the 3 to 1 odds against the party is taking its toll when more hostiles show up behind them. Surrounded, vastly outnumbered things are looking grim when a stranger wearing a smile, a wolf-skin about his shoulders, & a sword jumps in & aids them. Each blow of this  young looking hero cleaves two enemy warriors & inspires Arvarodd, Siv, & Mar to heroic deeds themselves. This turns the battle to their favor & the remaining hostiles head to greener pastures (or at least one presumes they do). Though his wounds are not too debilitating the helpful stranger collapses in front of them. When they are at last able to rouse him, he tells them his name is Starkaddr and that he has been wandering through the world earning fame & honoring Odhinn. He craves of them some help & company while his leg wound heals, so the party puts him on a sledge & heads north where they hope to find kindred & friends who escaped the massacre.

Since much of the day is gone after their friendly little spat, they only make it part way to the next village before camping during the night. During the watch at night strange sounds, screams, & other noises echo distantly the darkness. In the morning they spot smoke in the direction of the village they are headed to. After a mornings travel they discover this village too has been razed and massacred. A mortally wounded man tells them that a great horror visited them in the night. It was foul & disgusting & wreaking of Death. Nothing seemed to wound it. The village died horribly, but when the party identities themselves, he shrinks away & calls them "The Cursed Ones!" before he dies. Once again the party leaves the bodies where they are lying. Another helping of  Salmonella-Anchovy Lasagna, please? Just so they have another inkling that perhaps they're doing something wrong, Tyr falls into a smoldering building & severely burns his right arm. Noting that one of the old treatments for severe burns was urea (for killing bacteria) & maggots (to eat away the dead flesh) all the other males in the party take turns repeated trying to "cure" him.

During the night Skolmr notes a reflected gleam in the darkness. He follows it & discovers some golden tuning pegs lying in the grass. Hmm! that's not something you leave lying in the field everyday. During the next watch, the ever vigilant Siv sees the trees moving strangely in the forest. Ulfar goes to investigate and discovers this very large (about 8 or 9 feet tall), bloated, blue glowing, & foul smelling man crashing through the trees. A frightened Sami runs out of the forest pursued by this horror (played by a visiting Bill - father of Jerry) He winds up with his sling & flings a stone and gets a boulder in response that knocks him flat. His yells have alerted the camp. Starkaddr, Siv, Arvarodd, Skolmr, Mar, & Tyr run to the rescue. Fighting by the light of the moon & the strange blue glow of the large unfriendly guy they meet with scant success initially as his skin seems inordinately tough. Only the mightiest of blows penetrates the skin & allows the foul grey pus to ooze forth. Starkaddr & Arvarodd are knocked down & this foul creature crushes the arm of Starkaddr by stomping on him. The arrows & sling-scones have no effect on his tough hide. Finally Mar scratches the fiend's arm & Arvarodd impales the bloated head with his sword. Mar tries to shield bash the monster but gets kncoked prone. In a desperate move Arvarodd lifts the demon's lifts up the leg off the ground thus severing half its befouled connection to the earth. Starkaddr rolls free, Siv is able now to penetrate the skin & Ulfar gives a mighty heave on the other leg & topples the draugr who as it dies gushes forth grey oozing matter all over Mar & into his mouth. Blechh!

It was a mighty battle & at that point we called it a good evenings game. Many hints have been dropped concerning the raiders, Starkaddr, the monsters, the two razed villages but since all the players seemed to be a bit tired last evening they haven't yet pursued those clues. Hopefully a fortnight from now they'll start asking the right questions, HeHe!

6 comments:

  1. I still think it should've been called "Deus Ex Silva," bah!

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    1. He He - it's not such a benefit as it first appears!

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  2. I feel like an idiot, forgetting about the bodies. I went into the shop remembering to say something... then talked to Larry for 10-15 min and forgot.

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    1. Don't feel like an idiot - feel like you've been generous & gifted the evil GM with an extra plot-twist.

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  3. Don't worry about it - I figured everyone would forget about it because it is not something that people with the "D&D" mentality think about & the tendency in D&D to just loot the bodies & move on. I actually expected this to happen - though I figured Nate or Larry would at least pick up on it & suggest something. Remember what I told everyone to begin with regarding it being a low-magic & more historical campaign - "this is an exercise in teaching as well". The resultant abject lesson won't sting..... much.

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