You can read the first part here! The hexes that they'll be crawling through I talked about here.
We ruled that after the events in the Devil's Maw, the survivors of the adventuring company would spend a week in Cé recovering, learning the basics of their new classes, and gearing up for the journey ahead. We decided that the starting packs would be available for each career, and everyone decided to go with that. After some bed rest and gearing up (though To-rasha's hair, we ruled, will never grow back), we were ready to set out into the world.
Heading southward for some miles, the company was following a dry wash beneath a cliff face when they came upon a Pict corpse at the foot of a cliff. On his body they found 41 sp and a Potion of Climbing; they also noted the sounds of a camp being set up. Líadan set her raven Floki to scouting and came across a camp of more than a score of feral Picts chopping trees for firewood and setting up lean-tos. They speculated that this unfortunate must have been one of their number and moved in for a closer look, to judge the danger to Cé from their presence. The eight managed to successfully infiltrate themselves past the Pict's sentries to take a look, and found a well-prepared camp readying themselves for a raid - likely Cé. There were twenty-three Picts in all, including a large woman covered in tattoos and woad that was likely the war-leader; several wooden cages held 4 captives intended for either ransom or sacrifice. They quickly formulated a plan, with To-rasha preparing several incendiaries with flash, Líadan readying her sleep spell, and Usekhmehi consulting snake-bones for good battle-omens for Adrasteia. An hour later, when they were ready, Líadan threw her sleep spell over the 30' radius of the camp, ensnaring 14(!) of the berserkers into a deep slumber (GM Note: sleep continues to be one of the best D&D spells ever written - those 14 berserkers would sleep for NINE TURNS, over an hour, if they were permitted!). As the Picts fell alseep one by one, the leader sprang up to berate one in a fury, when Adrasteia strode into camp with her giant two-handed ifrit scimitar and bellowed that she was an avatar of Thaumagorga and those who did not fall on their faces and worship her would be consigned to the fiery pits.
GM Note: This actually took me a minute to figure out how I was going to handle. On the one hand, I didn't want to make it as difficult as an extraordinary test, which with Adrasteia's Cha would have been around a 4% chance. After perusing the book for options, we decided that Adrasteia would fight a 1-on-1 combat with Vipoig (the Pictish leader) for leadership of the warband. Everyone agreed that was both fair and an excellent suggestion, as Vipoig would look weak for refusing.
While we decided this I was rolling up treasure for this encounter. Horrifically, the dice gods determined that Vipoig was in possession of a suit of plate armor +3. This was narratively a very cool scene however I definitely went into it with some trepidation, as Adrasteia had quickly become a group favourite... but was matched up against an HD 3+6 adversary in magical armor. Lavender, though, is a peach and lives for this kind of moment. I really enjoy playing with this group, who is always down for anything.
The lesser Picts looked torn between cowed and ready to fight, but kept glancing nervously towards their leader. The massive Pictish woman cracked her knuckles and flexed the massive muscles in her neck, and bellowed: "Vipoig will face the avatar of Thaumagorga! When I take your holy scimitar, the warlord of blood will recognise ME as his champion!" The other Picts immediately began to chant "VIPOIG! VIPOIG! VIPOIG!" and a circle formed around the two combattants. It was at this point that the Pictish champion armed and armored herself; a giant footman's flail and a heavy suit of plate armor. Adrasteia slammed the massive ifrit scimitar into the earth and drew her hell knight longsword, igniting it by drawing the blade across her naked palm. The other Picts shrank back, and the combat began.
Vipoig sprang forward and slammed her flail into Adrasteia's midsection, which fortunately, resulted in a glancing hit. Her second attack went wide; Adrasteia's return blow sheared through armor, flesh and bone, setting the Pict alight for an instant. Frothing and howling in pain, the huge Pict grabbed her opponent's arm and smashed the butt of her flail directly into the Amazon's nose, cracking her skull and driving her to the ground. The Picts howled their approval, and charged at the remaining adventurers, their bloodlust raised. Vipoig brought her flail around to clang thunderously agaist Kijo's shield, which would decidedly have been a killing blow had the Lemurian not sacrificed her shield. A pair of berserkers teamed up on Eulalia, the first knocking her down with his mace and the second finishing her off with his short sword. Herdís, Rhel, To-rasha and Usekhmehi all took serious but not-yet-life-threatening wounds. In return, Usekhmehi crushed a Pictish skull with a critical blow from her quarterstaff; Rhel killed another with her mace, To-rasha blinded one with a flashbomb, and Kijo dealt a fierce blow to Vipoig that was easily absorbed by her thick armor. With the situation swiftly growing out of control it was decided to retreat as quickly as possible lest all of them join their Amazon companions in the afterlife. Unfortunately, they lost initiative to the Picts. Vipoig managed a parting blow on Kijo that largely glanced off her armor. Herdís avoided the blows of two opponents but a lucky critical from a dagger-wielding Pict put her on the ground. Blinding To-rasha's Pict only made her angrier, and she sent the Mu pyromancer reeling and bleeding with a wild slash from her longsword. Kijo, utterly focused on fending off Vipoig, failed to notice a second Pict with a trident coming after her and was stabbed ingloriously in the back. Only Rhel, Líadan and Usekhmehi managed to escape, leaving their broken companions and a trail of blood behind them as they fled, Pict war-howls in their ears and shame burning in their chests.
GM Note: At this point, we took a break, because all of Penny's characters were dead (RIP) and Andy, Lav and Frances had lost one apiece. We decided it would be fair if Penny rolled up 4 more level-0s and the other HAGS 2 apiece, and that's how we spent the rest of the session. I also informed them that they had made a serious adversary out of Vipoig, who was now in possession of not only the hell-knight longsword but the ifrit scimitar and was convinced that she'd just slain the Avatar of Thaumagorga in single combat, and was thusly blessed by chaos. The Savage Boreal Coast was likely to become awash in fire and blood very shortly if she was not stopped. I also informed them that while Eulalia was Very Dead, Kijo, To-rasha, Herdís and Adrasteia were all very much alive for the moment, just unconscious. The HAGS, counting their wounds and their dead, promptly decided that Vipoig and the captives was, as Penny put it, "someone elses' problem" and resolved to get to Uerteru and get on a ship and away from here as quickly as possible.
Girl, same.
The new characters:
Penny: Beorhtfrith Bone-Breaker, Anglo-Saxon healer; Chlothsinda the Shiftless, Carolingian-Frank weaver; Aspasia, Kimmerian ostler; and Caiqarresta Dilltose, Common urchin.
Andromeda: Clotild the Vengeful, Carolingian-Frank indentured servant; and Banbha Inghean Eadan, Kimmeri-Kelt attilator.
Lavender: Dunnesta Zenntose, Common rope-maker; and Inger of the Bear Clan, Lapp herder.
Frances: Nariyanaa, Yakut entrails-reader; and Phile Phorkys, Atlantean orphan.
I also want to highlight how one random encounter roll and one single-sentence hex fill have contributed to, in the second session of the game, a near-TPK, a significant world-altering event, and an entire sessions' worth of action. Lest anyone ever accuse hexcrawls of being unengaging or boring.
I ruled that Rhel, Líadan and Usekhmehi ran into this plucky group of level-0s as they fled Vipoig's warband into hex 05.01. The ten new PCs were themselves fleeing enemies to the north: a horde of the mindless undead that had ravaged the merchant-caravan upon which they had joined. The three original PCs encountered their new friends under attack from 5 zombies. The zombies proved far too resilient for the level zeroes to affect with any success, but Usekhmehi brandished her holy symbol of Yig and commanded them to begone, and... success! Temporarily stunned by the priest's booming voice and confidence, the undead shrank back, and the now-thirteen companions opted to head westward, putting as much distance between themselves and the undead (and Vipoig!) as possible. The girls burned another day's worth of travel and rations (and rolled high on their encounter), coming to a placid lake in the dead of night. Skirting the lakeside they headed towards campfire-smoke and a twinkle of light, which in turn led them to a rude hut nearly on the beach; reeds and river mud, shrouded by willow-trees adorned with fingers of bone. They were (deservedly) nervous but hungry and cold and tired, and so Líadan braved the door and knocked.
Dwelling within the hut was a Pictish witch, Caoimhe, who offered her hospitality for "services to be rendered later." The company agreed to these terms; there was enough room inside for half of the company at a time, so they split the watches with half the group asleep and the other awake, replenished their waterskins, and recovered a few hp. Líadan spent most of the night in the company of Caoimhe discussing the craft; the others were all asleep when the Pict witch insinuated that it was time for the Kelt to fulfill her end of the bargain; fortunately, all Caoimhe wanted was for someone to share her bed, for which Líadan was more than happy to oblige. In the morning, the company awoke to a hut that looked to have been abandoned for some years. There was no sign of Caoimhe. Líadan awoke to an empty bed and a number of strange and arcane sigils seemingly scratched into her belly and breasts; she recognized these as the formulae for pass without a trace, which she recorded in her grimoire.
We decided that here would be as good a place as any to end the session, as rolling new characters had taken up a considerable amount of time. They had "only" traversed 3 hexes - 72 miles - in just under three days of travel, and there were many more miles to go before the company could reach Uerteru and board the vessel that was waiting for them. For experience, I calculated that everyone got a share of defeating the 5 zombies, 75 XP for surviving the encounter with Vipoig, and 25 XP for braving the witch's hut overnight, which ended up in everyone recording 32 XP! This was enough for the zeroes to advance, of course, but they couldn't do so here in the wild and would have to advance to their level 1 classes in town. Hopefully some of them will survive to so!
- Cor
