D&D Session 43 (6/22/22): Slaughter At White River

Text by Paul O'Connor, Dungeon Master

Caught between a defended ford and a thundering herd of cannibal Wolf Tribe barbarians, our heroes gird up their loins for the grim task ahead.

A halfling thief, a wizard, and a half-orc barbarian -- with a frost giant, a reluctant barbarian, and an adolescent owlbear to support them -- faced off against far superior numbers. A frost druid and his tribal champion companion, a fierce berserker, a towering yeti, slavering lycanthropes, and a whole clan of tribal spearmen. Good luck!

The druid showed his hand early -- raining hale and jagged ice far and wide. Sarkagan took the worst of it, and when the Wolf Tribe berserker singled out the wizard, fairly vaulting across the battlefield to clobber him with his axe, it looked bad for the good guys.

But our heroes got their feet under them. Sarkagan quaffed a healing potion, and the giant Harshnag lifted the little wizard up onto his mighty shoulder, where he might better concentrate on what he does best -- blowing fearsome pipes and blowing stuff up. 

Meanwhile, Blah threw caution to the winds and sprinted through the druid's bodyguards to lay into the enemy spellcaster, heedless of the spears and axes arrayed against him.  Stunned by this turn of events, the druid shifted to defensive mode, first failing to escape by transforming into an owl, then relying on magic fog and stealth spells to quit the battlefield. Blah's impetuous attack took the Wolf Tribe's most important piece off the battlefield, and that Blah also beat the tribe's champion and a score of spearmen seemed almost a bonus.

Meanwhile, from atop the towering giant, Sarkagan routed half the field with his damn pipes, then wreathed Harshnag in a wall of fire, which drove back the weres and spearmen yapping at his heels. Arthur tumbled here and there about the battlefield and put paid to the enemy berserker in single combat. Before long the field was a confused mass of burning lycanthropes and fleeing, fear-maddened spearmen. A few got across the ford; more plunged to their deaths in the swift-flowing White River.

With Mal-Do yelling that enemy horsemen were fast approaching from the south, the team mounted up and fled across their hard-won ford, with Sarkagan frustrating pursuit with a wall of water cast across the ford, securing the only line of pursuit like a magical cork in a bottle.

On to Sommpher's Rest!

D&D Session 42 (6/10/22): Harshnag!

Text by Paul O'Connor, Dungeon Master

Emerging from the cleft guarding the Tomb of Axton, our heroes were confronted by a massive frost giant. His helmet was the skull of a white dragon, he wore magic armor and bore a wicked axe. His white beard was like a frozen cascade across is chest. This is Harshnag!

Harshnag met the heroes with suspicion. He'd had a dream that Ragaman wished him to find the heroes. His path led him to Sommpher's Rest, where he paid tribute to the fallen hero (who he had known in Sompher's youth, as part of Force Gray), then followed the trail after learning of the quest for Axton's tomb from queen Bjornhild Solvigsdottir.

There was some breast-beating in the form of diplomacy. Harshnag tested the edge of his axe. But seeing Sommpher's holy item and the Harpers ring bequeathed by Ragaman softened the giant's heart.

Once convinced the heroes were who they said they were, Harshnag gladly threw in with them, saying that as they were friends of Ragaman, then their quest was his.

Their numbers swollen by the massive giant, they began the long march back to Sommpher's Rest ...

... but it wasn't long before they were trailed by sinister members of the Wolf Tribe barbarians. They were clad in human skins, their teeth filed to sharp points.

A desperate race for the ford, which comes up just short ...

... and as intimidation fails, the Wolf riders charge down upon our heroes, with a whole howling pack of their fellows fast riding up from the east!

 

Dr. Sketchy's Seattle. 6/6/2022