[WFRP2e] The Saga of Jorunn - Part 1 - "That Which Remains"

[MrAbdiel]

The Saga of Jorunn
Part 1 - "That Which Remains"
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Prologue - 5 Marks

You became a man the day your father died.

The events were not related; not by skeins woven by men, at any rate. But the gods, fickle and sometimes cruel as they are are not prone to gentleness when they move in the lives of mortals. Men may build on sand and stone; and the savage sea rises and smashes down all that is not well founded. That which remains is what is destined; that which is lost to the sea was destined not.

Your thirteen winter was approaching. You had begun to mature before many of your peers, and enjoyed a defacto ruler status among them as a result of your size; but now most had caught up to you, or near enough. There was enough strength in your arms and legs that you felt like a warrior, but custom forbade anyone taking you seriously in such a manner until you had walked through the Seax-dalen - the Valley of Knives.

You remember it well. A ritual with many similarities to the other blooding rituals of other clans, and tribes. Your tribe, Bjornling, has its throne and King in the city of Skjold, at the far south western tip of the Norscan peninsular. Your Clan, Osgaer, is part of Bjornling; and your village, Urjarki, is one of four costal villages that host the bulk of your clan's warriors. All four - Urjarki, Loergen, Nathvir and Vaelmar - participate in the Seax-dalen ritual. Before the ritual day, hunters from all four tribes harass and chase hostile beasts into the calderra in the forest clearing with the jagged dark rock edges like great teeth, or knives. The only passes easilly in or out are watched to keep the creatures within. Sometimes, odious troublemakers from the villages are hobbled and tossed in, too - one more beast, among beasts.

All the young men of the villages, and those handful of young women who think themselves strong enough to run and fight and die with men, enter the Seax-dalen. No one may leave without a trophy of a kill. Typically, these kills are the pelts of the confused, cut and starving wolves and snowcats driven into the crater before the ritual. But often enough, they are the skulls of the outcasts thrown in; and just as often, just as encouraged, a child will bring back the head of one of the other aspirants from another village. All the mothers of Clan Osgaer hate this day; the fathers both dread and look forward to it. An unworthy son will die, and not be thought of again. A worthy son will emerge, blooded and victorious. Your father, Aegir Vulbrakker, had much hope for you. He pressed your shield into your hands, the morning before; and instructed you not to take the sword with which you had been practicing, but a hatchet instead used for the logsplitting for the fire.

"The axe will fare you better, out there. Better for pulling shields; better for the task. I have not made you cut firewood all these years because I am too lazy to keep my own hearth warm!" He smiled, when he said this. It was the last of its kind. Your mother had called you Jorunn, after her grandfather. And after this trial, after this test, you would be a man, and your father would give you your second name, and you would no longer be the boy Jorunn, but the warrior Jorunn Aegirsson.

You did not know that when you returned from the trial, he would be dead; and no man of your family would be present to give you your blood-name. All you knew was the fire in your blood, and your thrill to be permitted, encouraged, demanded to take life and spill blood for the first time. You knew you and your clan-kin, Aran, Byjan, Harald, and the girl warrior Ylva would honor your pact to each other and watch each other's backs. None of you would leave before the others were blooded and ready. The boys of the other villages might try; but you would give their eyes to the crows, and livers to the hounds, and guts to the eagles, and tongues to the serpents. By bloodshed, do the gods make known their will.

How naive, so young, to think the gods felt any need to make their will known at all.


Alright, my man Bramble; you're up. How does the 12 year old Jorunn fare, in this Hunger-Games-esque gauntlet of worthiness? Does he get isolated in a brawl and have to fight on his own? Does he stick with his team and deflect all comers?

Most importantly, what is the nature of his kill? Does he take the life of another aspirant child from another village? A tired and lean wolf, trapped in the calderra?
A shebear, large and threatening, that required his whole gang to fell? Write as much or as little about that as you like, and I'll show you what I mean afterwards about this being his first of five "marks"!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn and his friends entered the caldera at dawn, as was the custom. the sun crept above the horizon, and the dark pines stood like fingers against the oncoming dawn. jorunn was focused, senses straining to see and hear anything past the wind and the sound of the blood rushing in his ears. he saw a flicker of movement, and the blood surged as a hefty youth with swirling tattoos up his arms came out of the woods, howling madly and wielding a two-handed axe. this was a rival chiefs son, thrasvangr and a worthy kill

jorunn caught the axe on his shield, and buried his hatchet deep in the youths unarmored torso. the youth coughed a mouthful of blood onto jorunns face and collapsed, hands clutching at the hatchet embedded in his torso. jorunn wrenched the hatchet free as a broadhead arrow skimmed his shoulder, adding a trickle of blood to the mass of blood and bits of lung dripping down his face.

after all was said and done, jorunn was now a man, and the skull of the rival chieftans sons head was put on a spike outside the longhouse for the crows to peck out the eyes

[MrAbdiel]

It was as quick, and brutal as you were warned it would be. Thrasvangr's father, the chief of the village of Nathvir, was respected and known; a fierce warrior of whom much was expected and to whom much was owed by others in clan Osgaer. Thrasvangr himself was a third son, the two before him already grown. But this boy, desperate to prove himself, had thrown himself at you rashly. He had down so with honor - the hound barks before it bites, and so Thrasvangr's howl as he engaged you was, in retrospect, somewhat respectful. It alerted you to his attack, and also warned your friends that his assault on you was an invoked, and almost sacred thing. But all that was for naught; his axe bit your shield, your axe bit his heart, and with a face full of his blood you had your prize. Thrasvangr's son had died in the proving ritual, and his family had no right to see revenge; so you were safe from that reprisal - that was the theory, anyway.

"Glory to you, Jorunn!" Aran announces and laughs; the shorter of your friends, and the most excitable. "I had hoped for a wolf; but you have killed a rival. The gods favor you today! They favor us all!"

Then an arrow clipped you shoulder, and once again you were under attack. Byjan, taller and broader than you, catches another arrow on his shield, and spots the vector of attack - two figures in the trees yonder. "There! Cowards! Come down and fight, if you dare! Or throw down your bows, and be spared."

"I spare no one!" Ylva shrieked; lowering her voice by effort as she worked herself up and sprinted with grace and pace to the trees as arrows whipped around your group. You had your trophy; but your friends needed their own, and you stayed until it was done.

In the end, Ylva wrestled one of the boys with bows from the tree, and he broke his neck on the way down before the other fled. Aran got his wolf - a large, healthy one too, though pared away from his pack, and encircled to die by yours. Byjan lost an eye to another arrow, though its shooter was never found; your friends helped him, bloody and half blind, to a blind alley of stone where a panicked elk had exhausted itself and cut itself badly on the black stone edges of the pit. Not the most glamorous kill; but Byjan paid his price with his wound, and the beast's antlers were prize enough. Harald, the fifth of your group, did not do so well. He called out a passing group from one of the other other villagers, demanding a champion to duel him; and they sent out the only girl of their number, longspear in hand. Harald was the better warrior, of your friends; lithe and quick and deadly, probably better than you. But astonishingly, the girl was quicker; with a sword in one hand and axe in the other, he could never get around her jabbing spear guard; except the one time, when she wanted it. She let him juke around, swept up the spear's butt to strike his chin and stagger him back, then rammed its point through his chest and pulled it out again. With a spurt of blood, Harald died; and you could do nothing but allow them to take his head, just as you had taken Thasvangr's.

Byjan and Aran had to hold back Ylva. She raged and swore oaths of loathing; she had eyes for Harald, you all knew. So you won your manhood, and lost a friend; and returned before the sunset with your prizes, and Haralds things - his body left for the beasts.

Byjan became Byjan "One-Eye" Ivarsson.
Aran became Aran Hvarrsson.
Ylva become Ylva Eruksdottr.

But when you returned, your father was not waiting for you. Your mother, tearful and alone, ran to you and embraced you, bloody as you were.

"Jorunn! Jorunn, he's dead, he's dead; I feared I would lose you too!"

No warrior's death, for your father Aegir. No glory on an enemy field; but some awful, unknowable malady. Your mother Innora said he became distressed as they walked back to the encampment where the parents awaited the fate of their children. He stumbled; his left side seemed to numb, and sag; and he could not speak a word but to slur and fall, dragging her to the ground in the frozen grip of his hands. An hour later, he was gone; blue face, having swallowed his own tongue. This, while you were taking another boy's head from his shoulders in the proving place. The village wise women had no help for you - it was no poison they had seen; but as violent and short as life is in the cold lands of your home, there are some who die for no obvious reason at all. This is no comfort at all. If it had been an enemy, you might have sought to kill him; if a god had stained the ground with a cursing mark at his feet, you could atleast have loathed the god. But there was neither; just an empty space in your house where your father had been, and a head on a pike out the front - your prize, with no one to validate it. You had not been named Aegirsson. You held no standing among your people except as your mother's son; and she held only the standing as a widow, which was no standing at all.

But your friends, at least, did not abandon you. You snuck out with them one night and went halfway to the village of Loergen, and met a skin-marker they had arranged to come and mark you. Marks in your clan were not given frivolously; wise women and war leaders could command them to be given, as could prophets of the gods; but beyond that, only scars were recognized as earned marks. That's why they could not involve any of the skin-markers from Urjarki - none of them would give you such an honor-mark without being permitted. But this mercenary tattoo-artist was happy enough to do so for coin, and once marked it could hardly be taken from you. So you were not given a name, on the day you earned it; but you were the first of your friends, the first of those young warriors in your village, to receive a mark: a stylized rendering of a great axe, broken against a round shield over your heart, in the same place you had cut down Thasvangr.

A man with no name was as good as a thrall, in Norsca. But a man with a mark - well. Such a man had to command at least a little respect. Just enough, as it would turn out.

The Mark of the Shield - Gain the talent "Mark of the Shield".
It's a custom talent I'm creating for this purpose. It goes like this:

The first fate point you spend in a day to reroll a failed parry check causes the re-roll to gain a +20% bonus.

Years later, your fortune would have changed a little. The debacle about your naming was a fact of life, and you had faced prejudice and disrespect; but you had survived, and grown, and no one could deny you were a man just by dint of your physical presense, and your mark. Your mother had married again - to become the second wife of your father's brother, bringing you and your mother into his larger home in the traditional act of familial care for a dead brother's spouse. The nature of your mother's actual relationship to the man who was now her husband was mysterious to you; but best kept out of your thoughts. He treated her kindly enough, and his first wife was not overtly hostile; and that is as good as a widow and her son could ask for. Theoretically, it was within his power to name you whenever he wanted - then you could be Jorunn Ominsson, and would stand to inherit a portion of his wealth along with your newly acquired step-brothers, Garn and Vardren. But Omin's kindness did not extend that far. He did right by your mother by keeping her; and right by your father, too - Aegir's skull was cleaned and kept in his brother's personal effects, now. You wondered what it would be like to have a brother who would be so devoted to you as to take your skull, rather than leave it for the sea, or the wolves, or the worms, if you were struck down in such a way that it was in question if the gates of the the Neverwar were closed to you after death. Perhaps your friends would do so; almost certainly.

You thought of Harald, whose skull was someone else's trophy, now. What would the gods make of his spirit, then? Would he become that girl's thrall, after the Neverwar? Her prisoner? Was his spirit banished and lost forever, for his failure in life? The gods may know. They do not say; atleast, not clearly.

But you saw her again, that girl with the spear. A riotous festival of Clan Osgaer saw most of the population of all four villages come together in Vaelmar, each bringing two effigies out of the eight to worship the gods of Clan Osgaer together with a sacrifice - eight bulls, eight goats, eight horses, eight sheep, eight snakes, eight dogs, eight men, eight women. The slaughter is quick enough, as you witness it; a semi-circular ramp leads up to an earthen platform high enough for the godsmen of the village to slit the throats of the slaves one at a time and hurl them into the huge firepit. The animals are killed on the ramp too; though they are butchered and cooked for the feast, only their blood offered to satiate the gods while their flesh is left for men. There is dancing, and there is drinking, and there is no shortage of excess; couples sneak away from the festivities to secret corners of the village and the wood surrounds, to do those things drink disinhibits them to do. Others use the event as an excuse to brawl barehanded, biting and twisting arms as those around them roar and jeer.

Here, surrounded by your clansmen most of whom are not from your home village, it is a refreshing reprieve from folk knowing your unnamed state. Most of them just see a young man, feasting and revelling like so many others. Aran, still the least of your friends, has a way of cunning about him; and he flakes from your group early in the night to pursue the affections of the painted-faced girl dancers of Vaelmar.

"Lucky boy," Byjan comments, and not for the first time. Scars are not unpopular among your people, but the loss of his left eye has badly impacted his ability to fight well, and removed almost entirely his skull at hurling javelins. He has spend the last five years learning the shipright's craft, which suits him well enough; and will carry him in wealth even if he ends up doing little plundering himself. He staves off the melancholy of his half-blindness most of the time, but you know him well enough to detect it in him - and he has little stomach for festivals like these.

Ylva as not so restricted. She had grown lean, and almost as tall as you; she kept her hair short in blonde braids close to her skull. She was not being courted as a wife - no one was brave enough to countenance the possiblity - but she gained plenty of attention from the other young men, and was happy enough to entertain it with varying seasons of fickle harshness and muted appreciation. But she struggled when it came to the other villages in the clan. She never shook Harald's death from her mind, and could not trust easilly when it came to other villages like this one. You watch the sustained attempts of the local youths trying to entice her to the firelight dances. She resists; but her fortification is slowly yielding to the eroding power of mead, and attention.

But there was another warrior-woman, there; one whom you recognized all too well. When you saw her first, the bloodrush of the proving ritual and perhaps your own youth had made you fail to notice, but she was starkly beautiful; black haired, pail skinned, with a single braid falling between her shoulderblades and sharp, elegant features. She and her own coterie of lads, who orbit her in hopes of winning her attention before spinning off and settling for that of one of the freeholders' daughters, all clustered on the other side of the massive fire ritual, with the feast tables between and plenty of obstructions. These are the reasons that Ylva had not seen her. If she had, there would be blood spilled already; she killed Harald after all, duel or not. She possessed your fallen friend's skull, somewhere in her belongings wherever she was from. But she was also more fair than the other women; one of the few who could keep up with the young proven men, or exceed them as you witnessed yourself; and radiating her awareness of that fact.

Byjan dwelled in his melancholy; Ylva slowly conceded towards the advances of the local lads; and the spearwoman kept her own counsel, and that of her kinsmen. You ate, and drank, and participated in the festivities honoring the gods - but when the time came, there was only one choice where to focus your attention.

It's Viking Prom - time to choose your date.

Ylva has been your friend since you were children. She's a warrior like you, though not as skilled; plenty savage, fiery spirited, and blessed/cursed with a changing temperament that is not for the easily discouraged kind of friend, or companion.

The Spearmaiden you do not know the name of. You know she was a superior warrior to a friend of yours whom she slew, whom you had considered your better, in the mastery of combat. She is deadly cool in temperament, as far as you can tell - but more than this, it's hard to know. She is mysterious - but you could spend this ritual night pursuing her company, if you can pry her away from her hangers-on.

Alternatively, if you choose the noble path of the bro, your boy Byjan has a bad time at events like this and you could forsake the youthful pursuit of pretty women for the noblest alternative - the ancient fantasy viking equivalent of playing COD with a friend who could use the distraction.

How do you spend your time, this evening? If Jorunn is chasing the attention of either of the girls, how does he try to gain their attention above that of the varying competing guys? If you choose to the path of the bro, what do you do as an alternative to all this nonsense - sneak off to drink and fish, or set fire to a local shrine as a prank, or something else?

[bramblefoot]

"cmon byjan" jorunn says, taking him out to the old fishing spot on the docks where they used to fish so many summers ago. he baits the line, and they fish in silence, until there is a mighty tug on jorunns line. jorunn braces and fights the fish for what seems like an eternity, until he's able to pull the fish close enough to harpoon it. the harpoon sinks in, and together byjan and jorunn heft the fish out of the water.

the fish is more like a long eel, with a mouth full of serrated teeth, and a powerful tail that thrashes violently when hauled out. its lambent eye stays locked on jorunn until it dies. the boys together hold it until its motions cease, and they bring it back to the festival

the festival falls silent as the boys bring the fish in, and then the shaman claps his hands "you boys clearly are blessed, as i was hoping someone would bring one of those in"

jorunn and byjan are allowed to attend the shaman as he does a ritual. the ritual goes smoothly, but jorunn grunts as his head throbs for a split second, followed by a cackling in his mind

[MrAbdiel]

Byjan helped you haul the monstrous eel into the festival, and the local Vikti congratulated you and gave the sea-thing a perfunctory rebuke. You felt something like a sharp wind whip past your right ear, and the strain of pressure between your temples. Byjan asked if you were alright; and you weren't, at that moment. But the pain soon passed; and the 'fish' was carved up and added to the feast.

The eye of the eel stares at you from the flames that roast its body, and you can't help but wonder if it would have been better to let it remain riverbound - but Byjan brings you from you reverie. "You are a good friend, Jorunn." He is rubbing his bad eye as he says so; always drawn to that blinding scar when speaking of friendship. And perhaps you are; you are strong, and young, and you might have spent the evening chasing the girls of the clan and vanishing off into some cleft in the woods. But there would always be girls, and bonfire lit escapades to chase them; but the arrow that took Byjan's eye might have easily been yours, had things turned out a little differently. And clear and inexplicable instinct tells you that he will give more than his eye, before his hairs turn grey. Best to show brotherhood to him now; perhaps that would please the gods as much as a sacrifice.

"Hey. Hey, I remember you boys." The new voice comes from a grinning, blond man with a wiry build; his arms and legs covered in elaborate inking. You remember him too - Ravki, the skin-marker Byjan and the others rustled up from you from Loergen village. He's here for the gathering in Vaelmar, like you; and only a little drunk.

"That's a black loach you pulled up there. Curses the water; blesses the land. You ought to be rewarded, eh? Vaelmar will keep its bones for charms; but here... I am bored, and my woman hates me until she is two more hours drunk. Come; let me mark you for it, so the gods do not forget it when they look upon you."

An hour later, you and Byjan each have a matching mark - a black loach coiling up in an S shape, pierced through by a harpoon. Byjan gets his first, you get yours after. The mark is on your right shoulder blade, so you cannot see it - but you can see your friend's mark, and he can see yours. And that's alright. As it would turn out, he would not forget.

The Mark of the Loach. Gain the talent "Resistance to Magic".

Years passed. The time came for you to seize your birthright - not as anyone's son, but as a Bjornling, and as a man of the North. A new dragonship is finished, and the village veterans go about selecting those worthy for this new endevor; seeking youths to mix in with the seasoned killers, so the latter can learn from the former. You almost didn't make the cut - the old wardogs know the circumstances of your father's death, the lack of naming, and openly do not want you on the ship. You are a bad omen, they have decided; they will not bring curse onto their ship. Even the protestations of your step-brothers, Garn and Varden, do not move them. You have never heard them stand up for you before - relations with you in their house have been tense, though not violent; but you have lived with them long enough that they have some level of fraternal thought for you. But it's Byjan who makes the difference; Byjan, who in these years has not striven to become a warrior through training and hunting and wargames against the other villages, but a shipwright with the other dragonship makers. This is the first such boat he has worked on as a fully respected crafting hand; and he pitches a fit when you are to be excluded from the crew. He breaks the haft of his mallet in a dramatic display during an argument, throwing it to the hard earth and stomping hard on it just below the weighty head. "You fear that curse? Fear my curse instead! Cursed be the work of my hand, except that my friend Jorunn take an oar!"

It's a rash declaration, and one that will cost him esteem among his fellows; but a craftsman's curse is not disrespected. They were bound by ancient rules among the Bjornlings, who trade more with the other tribes and nations than any other northmen, who value and admire the skills of makers throughout the world, and prize them as slaves. Hushni, the stunted, dwarvish maker-god, is part of your pantheon; and his ways forbid men from using a crafter's creations in defiance of him. So there is nothing they can do, except resent him, and take you on; and you become part of the warparty.

Your destination: Truskholm, a village of the Skaelings east down the jagged coast of Norsca. The relations with the Bjornlings and Skaelings have gone up and down forever; but now they are down, and while the Skaeling ships are away attacking the coast of far Bretonnia, Bjornlings are seizing recompense for ancient slights. Sixty warriors in your clan's ship, from all four villages; ten ships from different clans in the tribe; six hundred fighting men coming to seize wealth, and set fire, and teach the vaunted Skaeling raiders their need to appease their neighbours, not just sack their enemies.

Your ship's crew receives a long blessing, in the name of the eight gods of your clan.

Hound, vicious and furious.
Crow, persistent and stubborn.
Eagle, cunning and sighted.
Serpent, wise and wicked.
Hushni, dwarvish master of made things.
Bjarna, denmother bear of the hearthfires.
Straamval, shark-toothed king of the wild sea.
Old Jormung, who is death, and the road for ancestors.

Byjan bids you farewell, from the beach; and with Ylva, Aran, Garn and Varden by your side, and fifty five others with axes in hand and blood on their minds, you row and ride the wind to Truskholm.

Jorunn's first raid. What's it like, for him? The target is another Norse village, with people who largely cry out in his language when he strikes them. The bulk of their warriors are away, and the defenders will be men too old, young or injured to go on the raids. Does he find he likes the despoiling, and thrives in it? Or does he find that this kind of slaughter is, necessary as it might be to his way of life, tasteless, or even morally wrong? Don't feel the need to go nuts on the gory details - we can abstract the worst of the pillaging behaviour. But a slice of his experience, using his weapons for the first time on a raiding scale, would be great.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn takes his oar well, and hangs with his friend group as they travel the waves to the settlement. It's dawn when the ships approach the settlement. the beat of the drums is fire in jorunns blood as men pull hard on the oars, pulling the shallow-drafted dragonships into the bay on beaching them on the sand. jorunn is the first over the side, sword and shield out. an arrow notches his ear, and he charges, the red rage boiling over as he bellows his devotion to the warband.

"forward brothers" he bellows stridently, hewing through an old man fleeing for his life. his blood sings as something darker calls to him. he sees a horned individual beckon as his blade becomes soaked in blood

[MrAbdiel]

It's like...

It's like hunger. It's not exactly hunger; but it's like hunger. And this raid was the first time you felt it; gnawing inside you, desperate to be slaked. And every swing of your blade that found purchase in skin slaked it, but caused it to leap up again stronger than before. Your first deadly exchange in the raid with an opponent who fought back was over quickly - a one armed man, who tried fairly to defend with his short sword - stood no chance. A vicious humour steered your actions, and you hacked off his remaining arm and let him stagger back in shock, with Aran laughing wildly at your artistry. Only when you put the man out of his misery did you realize Aran was elsewhere on the field - it had been your laughter, somehow sounding alien to your own ears.

After that, the memory of the raid dissolves into foggy red flashes. A horned man - a daemon or mutant - had called you out, and you answered the challenge; exchanging clashing blows and fighting back and forth while trading cuts, and knicks. At the end, you had disarmed each other; but you had cut your enemy so badly he was weak from bloodlessness. You seized him by the horns, and with a mighty wrench twisted off the head entirely.

Or rather, you didn't. When the haze passed, you were panting and gasping from exhaustion, splattered with blood. Your friends were around you, worried in expression, maintaining careful distance; and in your hands, you held a horned helmet that one of the Skaeling marauders might wear. And at your feet was your opponent - a boy, no more than fifteen winters into his life. How he had given, as you fought him; how mighty a champion he might have been, if he had lived. How little glory there was, in killing someone younger and smaller than you. But it wasn't your choice - you hunted all those who defended, and he came to defend. May the gods succour him; whoever he was.

"Jorunn... What happened to you? Are you... touched?"

A strange question, when you heard it. You had gone into the berserker rage - to put on the bear-pelt, as many Bjornlings did. Many of the other raiders had, too. But the rage wasn't what they meant; you didn't understand until you had seen yourself in one of the silver plates you looted from a longhouse. Guided by a clear and inexplicable instinct. You buffed the platter to a shine and gazed within. Your hair, from roots to tip, had gone snow white. Your eyebrows, your eyelashes, too. And now that you're looking, your irises too; pearl circles in the centre of bloodshot sclerae. A gift? Perhaps so. Bjarna, the den mother bear and her cubs, have snow-white fur like those ice bears that live on the northern glaciers.

Your father did not name you; but henceforth, your people claimed that the gods did.

Jorunn Isbjørnsson; Son of the Bear.

You have 'gained' the Mutation: Bizarre Coloration. Your hair and eyes are ice white.

I was nice to you on this one. Those 3d10 you rolled were the D1000 for the mutation you earned when you rolled above the 80, since all Norscans have a 20% chance to start with a mutation. I decided, since this is a solo game and a protagonist should feel good, that I would take the 3d10 you rolled and arrange them in a whichever combination produced a mutation that was interesting and distinctive, but would not preclude your ability to go places and do things in the world. You rolled a 3, 6, and 1.

So the options were...

631, what you actually rolled. Multiplication - but bursting into 10 little versions of yourself and merging together later is kind of weird as hell, and hard to take seriously.

613 - Mindless. You need a brain to be a protagonist, not to be a warpstone zombie.

136 - Bestial Appearance. Classic, but a little dull and beastmanish.

316 - Extra Limb. Too bizarre and non heroic to have a vestigial foot sticking out of your buttcheek.

361 - Fast. Would have given you an extra point of Movement, so it's just good; but frankly, too good, since I'm being so nice and giving you all these options. If it had been the number you rolled, sure; but with this second-chance draw, it's too good.

And finally, 163 - Bizarre coloration. Strictly speaking, what you rolled up was "White Face/Head", but playing a berserker mime sounded a little wonky, so I used my powers as DM to make it a little cooler. A little more Geralt of Rivia or Elric of Melniborne, a little less Marcel Marceau.



ADDITIONALLY!

You gain another Mark when you get home - a tattoo of a rampant bear, taking up most of your chest that is not occupied by the shield tattoo.

The Mark of the Ice Bear. Gain the "Mark of the Ice Bear" Talent.

Mark of the Ice Bear: If your head is fully visible, you unnerve people as if you possessed the Unsettling talent.


There were more raids, as you grew in skill and reputation. But finally, fatefully, your half brother Garn had the idea that you would so deeply regret; the idea that would get him, and so many others, killed far from home.

A dark emissary came to your village, speaking promises of glory and gold from the gods; a realm of battles to be fought against contenders from many nations, for treasures laid up in ancient tombs.

"Albion." Garn says with a grin, to your retinue and yourself. "Albion, the isle of mist and old magics. Something's going on there, now; soon there will be ships from all over the world coming to the isles. The southern kingdoms; the elves; monsters from all places coming to claim powerful treasures and win glory. We must get there before the Skaeling - we will write the names of the gods on the giant standing stones, and they will reward us!"

Needless to say, it was not so glorious. Six hundred men arrived; and no sooner did you land in a marshy harbor, but you found yourself fighting for your life not against men, but against lizards that walked as men. A hundred of you died, that day; before you could fortify your landing. Your older step-brother, Varden, was one of them; your elders cut off his head and gave his skull to Garn, for keeping and honoring. Two weeks later, a clash with a warband of dark clad elves with bladed armor went badly indeed; not only did you lose another hundred of your band, along with many of the leaders you had come to admire and learn from, but some of those were not killed in battle but carried off with hooks and nets. Ylva was lost, this way; dragged off to wherever the elves made camp, never seen again. All her screaming and uncommon woman's strength was naught, against such deadly and swift foes.

Greenskins. Dwarves. Giants. You saw, and fought, so many things; and very little of it was glorious, but frightening and desperate and unrewarding. But no enemies were deadlier than the Tileans. Surprisingly, men of a kingdom "Remas" you had never heard of were the hardest to overcome and outmaneuver. You were tasked with leading a midnight raid to burn their boats; but having succeeded, returned to your own camp to find they had run through it and burned yours. On the field, your kinsmen were superior killers and warriors; but not superior soldiers; and when the swarthy men with their terrible long spears blocked up, it was soldiering that mattered. Trying to fight up through a pikewall was like trying to work your way through the teeth of a dragon to strike at its tongue; desperate, bloody, painful work; it gave you many scars, and cost many Northmen. A steel-eyed officer on a huge and admirable warhorse trampled Garn to death, in one engagement; so much for his dreams of Albion, and glory.

You had come with your friends, and six hundred kinsmen; but later say around small fires in your broken encampment, with no more than seventy of you capable of fighting, and another seventy who would never stand to fight again. Elsewhere on the isle, the armies of the other factions were withdrawing in shame and glory, concluding their business. But with no boats to get home, and no strength to take one from an enemy, it seemed despairingly likely you would die here on this cold, boggy lump of land; a graveyard of hubris, where the gods had abandoned you.

Help would come from an unlikely place - the Tileans send an emmisary who spoke the norse tongue to call our men to speak for your warband, and you were among those to make the meeting. The Tilean - the handsome, but now hard-worn captain who had ridden down your step-brother - had a proposition for you: both you and they had been whittled down to fragements of strength. But together, with forces combined, you had the strength atleast to escape this awful island. They knew the location of a diminishing Imperial host from Nordland, with a functional ship remaining - but without your kinsmen's strength, they could not take it, and would die trying.

Tilean mercenaries, and Norscan berserkers; an unlikely alliance was struck, and the desperate gamble was run: a night raid with 65 Norsemen and 88 Tileans, to ambush and kill 344 Imperial soldiers, knights, handgunners.

If only that bloody battle had been the worst thing you had found, in Albion.

This is your offramp into the Mercenary career! The Tileans need your night-raiding skills to pull this off, but you also start learning from them. What part does Jorunn play, in this night raid? How close to death does he come? What does he learn from these men of the far south, that improve him as a warrior?

[bramblefoot]

jorunn did not like this, but it was escape or die here, and he always fancied living. the night battle was gruesome and slogging, but they prevailed. jorunn was in the first rank of the column, an honor rarely afforded him, and narrowly escaped death thrice. the first was when a pistol ball ricocheted off his helm, stunning him and making him stagger out of the line of crossbow fire from the imperial lines.

the second was when an imperial knight attempted to reform the line after norscans made a gap in the imperial center. a tall man astride a muddy courser thundered towards jorunn, lance couched and ready. jorunn let out a bellow, and the horse dumped the man, lance going just a hair under jorunns armpit. jorunn coolly finished the man, and stalked onwards

the third was when they made it to the ship. sailors fought bravely, but were outmatched and unready for the ferocity of the norscan berserkers. a gaffe kissed jorunns stomach, opening a small bleeding line that would heal after the battle ended

the ship was theirs and they set sail, thanking their various gods for a ticket off this rock. jorunn found tileans useful. they dont fight like norscans, but when pushed, they do good enough killing

[MrAbdiel]

It's a bloody toll you paid, but bloodier that you charged. That growling, snarling not-quite-hunger lit your veins on fire and drove you in the heat of battle into dangers your undriven mind might desire you flee from.

"Aaaugh!"

Aran, your last living friend in this wretched place, caught a halberd's point to the stomach; and having followed your primal urges and a clear and inexplicable instinct to hare off alone in the combat, you were too deeply engaged with the enemy to attend him. But the Tilean captain, Ronaldo, was there; with a flash of his blade as he rides by, he scythes off the head of the halberdier and keeps going. By the time you got to Aran, he was blacking out, but alive; and the enemy breaking around you, fleeing their camp and dooming themselves to the strange sufferings of the bogs, and the fen beasts, and the damnable Dark Emmisary's promises. When you see that craven seer again, you'd cut his head off - or so you'd sworn.

Aran slipped into an unwaking sleep. You were carrying with you now the skulls of your two half-brothers; you had no desire to carry a third. The skull of a kinsman is heavy indeed; and you fought bitterly with the handful of surviving Norscans - a little more than a score of them - to take him on the ship, rather than put him to the axe here, as a mercy. In the end, the Tileans, who now outnumbered you two to one, sided with you vocally, drawing upon the bonds forged in this strange alliance, and their southern sensibilities that did not tend towards, in their words, "killing men like maimed horses."

The ship was alien to you - you knew how to row, but even then you didn't have the accumulated, tireless rower's skill that the older warriors had. But you knew little of sails, and knots, and a brig of this size; the Tileans seemed to know what they were doing, and your unhappy lot of berserkers boarded at their mercy. You did, atleast, get to fill the hold with loot - Imperial swords, and halberds, and armor. Guns were fascinating weapons, but they were limited use to your people - with no way to make their fantastic burning powders, they soon would be clubs, and bad clubs at that. But the weapons and armor were good steel; not the tool-grade steel your people knew how to forge, but the beautiful, silvery metal that the men of the southern lands knew how to make because the dwarves taught them. These treasures would not make up for the catastrophe of the voyage; but it was a small comfort.

The plan was to drop your people back at your village, and the Tileans would take the ship and their share of the loot with them. Outnumbered in this way, it was a fair deal. They had won your respect, a little; especially Ronaldo, who had proven himself a fierce combatant as well as a commander, and not a quisling hiding behind his champions, as many southern commanders were. With Aran comatose, you became uneasy friends with the Tilean captain; you took to his language as easilly as he took to yours. On the voyage, he taught you things about combat you had not considered, and attributed them to his goddess, whom he called Mur-Mid-Jar; a warrior woman and tactician who dwelled among men before returning to the realm of gods. Your people were very practical, about gods; they would worship all those who came through on their promises, and Mur-Mid-Jar had been responsible for your life, today. The mark you gained on the ship, at the hands of a Tilean skin-marker; was different in style to those others you had from your own people - but if it brought you the favour of their exotic goddess, you could hardly complain.

The Mark of Myrmidia

You gain Common Knowledge: Strategy and Tactics.

But if only you had followed your first thought, and demanded they throw it overboard! Not the stolen arms or armor or guns, but the main prize that was already in the hull of the ship when you boarded, and only discovered beneath the heaps of empty Imperial supply crates when you were at sea.

A stone box. They must have used clever tricks with rope, and logs, and mighty men to get it into the hold, as heavy as it was. It was the length of a man's body, and the width of a man's shoulders; and such a box could only contain one thing - a dead man, and one worth boxing. It was worth nothing to you, but apparently something to the Imperials; and the Tileans thought some of their scholars would find golden value in its like when they returned to their enviable sunny climate and, so you'd been told, rolling green fruitful hills. And you owed nothing to the vulgar gods of Albion who had cost you such losses - why should you have cared for the disturbance of their dead one?

But if you had cared, if anyone on the ship had been sufficiently willing to risk the blasphemy of tossing it overboard instead of the blasphemy of keeping it, things might have turned out very differently.

Frozen Norscan winds blowing off the mountains into the Sea of Claws fought your ship as you approached a familiar shoreline. High in the night sky, the gods announced their interest in your return - the white moon, Straamval's moon, was half full like a winking eye; and the pallid green moon (which Norscans call the Black Moon, but your clan also calls the Omen Moon) was full and bright. The Omen Moon kept its own calender; there was no telling when it would come, or go; but it heralded the intervention of the god, or some great changing event.

From below deck came a great cry, dragging you away from your contemplation of the two moons. When you went below, it became clear the omens were against you.

The stone coffin had smashed itself apart; within the wreckage stood the withered, bony remant of a man with a crown of black stone and two precious stones in his eye sockets; a huge pearl like you'd never seen, the glittering, eye-watering brightness of the green crystal that the rat-men so desperately traded for. He stood as a man alive; a man angry, and confused; hunched, wheezing angrilly; his body bound up in slowly unravelling green-crusted silver chains which were themselves tethered to hunks of broken stone that once composed the coffin.

With a soul-wrenching howl and the swipe of a wrist, the dead man swing a spar of stone at the end of one of its tethers, and smashed in a Tilean onlooker's chest - then all was bedlam, and desperate violence.

You're almost home, but this revenant of ancient Albion rises to assault your Norscan companions and new Tilean allies.
It is powerful and hideous, but there is nowhere to run - no where but to the freezing ocean water. How does Jorunn respond to this strange new threat? Does he retreat to the upper deck to regain his bearings?
Does he try out some of the imperial weaponry on the undying monstrosity, before realizing it takes almost no damage at all? Does he lose himself to the berserker rage and throw himself at it, heedless of the outcome?

[bramblefoot]

against this monstrosity, discretion was the better part of valor. jorunn snagged as much good imperial steel as he could, and retreated to the top deck. "we need to make it to the shore, and nothing more!" he barked to the sailors in norse and tilean. below, he could hear the creature finishing off those below, and would shortly come up to kill the rest. "hold until the ship makes it to land, and then bail" he bellows, exhorting the crew to keep the ship going until shore

with a grinding crunch, the monstrosity came up through the wooden hull, and those capable of fighting held the line to ensure that the ship made it to shore. jorunn took a hit to the head as the ship beached and was thrown to the surf. shaking his head to clear it, he decided that the ship was lost, and he fled into the night with his imperial steel

can we work something out to say that his compatriots think he's dead instead of fled

[MrAbdiel]

can we work something out to say that his compatriots think he's dead instead of fled

I do not suspect that will be a problem, my friend. >:)

A block of ancient stone on a chain's end clips your head, and the stream of hot blood in your eyes is half blinding as you tumble into the water with your arms full of fine bracers and gorgets and sheathed, filigreed swords. It takes a great deal of effort to thrash through the rocky surf, the sand just under your toes when your head is just below the surface, and you fight your way to land as the screams echo behind you. Ronaldo is in there, somewhere; perhaps dead. Aran, too; lost in his dreamless sleep. You were a warrior; but this was a fight for daemons and champions of the gods. Could you save either of them? Likely not. Clear and inexplicable instinct told you there was nothing more to do but escape onto the frosty cold sand with your limited loot.

But the dead-thing, howling bitterly in the night, would not allow you even this. The land gave way beneath you; and you plunged into the water of the bay.

How it had been so, you cannot say to this day. You were on the land; the ship had beached; but then it hadn't. Without a sense of motion but a mind-churning sense of displacement by forces beyond your ken, the land shot out from under your feet to the horizon and you and the ship hit the water again - and the ship, wracked from its impact with rocks now ripped away from its hull, broke in two with a thundercrack and began to sink. Beneath the freezing waves, trying not to swallow the sea, you felt something burning on your forearm - something searing in your skin, boiling the water around it. And there, beyond you, the bodies of the other mercenaries and warriors sagged and bobbed and sank in the water; torn and ripped and broken. There was Aran - his eyes flashing open as the shock of the sea struck him from his sleep into this hideous nightmare. And there, beneath, was the dead-man; his chains and stone shards which served as weapons before now serving as anchors. One skeletal arm strained out and seized Aran's ankle, and your friend - always the cheerful and light-spirited one - did not have the strength or the clarity in the moment to contest it. The revenant sank into the dark, Aran with it; and with them, all hands who sailed on that doomed ship back from cursed, cursed Albion.

All but you. It cost you everthing. You could not swim with steel. You could not even swim with the sword you had looted from the Imperials, or the axe your father gave you, or the wooden shield with the hammered iron rim that your step-father had passed to you before your voyage (even if he would never give you his inheritor-name). You shed your treasure, and your weapons, and your leather armor, and all your earthly things; and blood-blind, shocked and desperate not to die, swam like a madman through the freezing waters toward the land stolen out from under you once already.

When you got there, you crawled up onto the harsh, gravelly sand and looked at your arm under the light of the Omen moon. There was a mark, on your inner forearm; a circle, within a circle, within a circle; and each circle marked with strikes at mysterious intervals; three concentric rings with unknown indicators on their edges. It was of a style common neither to the Norscans, nor the men of the Southern Kingdoms; but you had seen similar shapes and marks on the giant stones of Albion. What was it? A promise? A threat? A gift? You knew only that the now sinking monster had given it to you. But you knew also that the omen moon was not bright enough here to make out the details you could see upon yourself - or over the landscape around you. Had it changed you in other ways? What affliction was this?

The only way to answer these questions was to live; the first, and final trial of men. Freezing, soaked, alone on a dark beach in the middle of the night on the Norscan coast, you make a bid to survive.

Mark of the Revenant.

Gain the Nightvision talent.

It also does other things, which I am not inclined to tell you about at this juncture.

Remove all the items from your trappings - we're starting out at the bottom. Later, you will be able to say that you did so; and now you are here.

You begin play with a poor quality set of clothes, and two ritually cleaned skulls on your belt - Garn's, and Varden's - that you are theoretically obligated to return to their father, or else keep yourself as a kind of guardian. The skulls of those you respect ought not to be destroyed, or lost and taken as a trophy for an enemy or a home for vermin.

[MrAbdiel]

The Saga of Jorunn
Part 1 - "That Which Remains"
https://images.wikia.com/wowpedia/images/thumb/1/10/Dragonblight_Art_Peter_Lee_1.jpg/350px-Dragonblight_Art_Peter_Lee_1.jpg

Chapter 1 - Ruin

The wind is low; if it were high, it would strip the heat from your bones very quickly indeed. It is bad enough as it is, stalking over the hard and sharp gravel-sand to the thin covering of snow over the permafrost of land. Behind you is the sea - chunks of broken, waterlogged wood from the wreck of the ship bob about in the surf. Ahead of you, in the dark, is a thick treeline of hearty pines that look not to have been forested by a tribe in many years. To your left, the beach carries on and hooks up around the treeline towards elevated ground. To your right, it continues in a roughly straight run - level, easier travel.

You need to find somewhere warm. Then, when the relative softness of morning comes, you can figure out where you are, and how to get somewhere else.

Alright, we're rolling, bossman. Sorry to rob you of your trappings - I promise it's more satisfying to claw up from nothing. For now, you can head left (to elevated ground along the coast), right (sticking flat along the coast) or try your luck in the forested land ahead. Alternatively, think of something else you want to do, and make a pitch! This is your game, after all.

[bramblefoot]

shivering and soaked, jorunn took the level ground path. it was easier terrain, and simpler for traversal. "gods its cold" he swore, moving fast enough to keep himself warm

he refused to believe he would die here, as there was always a way out. as he walked, he absentmindedly pressed the concentric circle marks in different patterns, seeing if they did anything, and remembering the results

[MrAbdiel]

You lope along the coastlike as your skin grows numb; trying to keep your blood hot. Prodding at the strange new mark seems to provoke no reaction - whatever mystery it denotes, it is not pressure (or cold) that will expose it. Still, having this foreign mark put on your skin unsolicited, by whatever strange Albion magics caused the disaster of the ship is disconcerting to say the least.

You go for hours; fingers growing stiff forcing you to ball your hands into fists and relax them over and over again; and you try to ignore your wet tunic frozen to your chest. Finally, though, your instinct begins to pay of: you smell smoke, on the wind; and then after a few more minutes, you notice the glimmer of a campfire. Moving into the shadow of the coastal trees, you get close enough that you can see the small encampment - two rough, hide tents; a roaring fire being fed by a shivering, burly man sitting on stump while two more stumps sit empty by the fire. A scrawny deer carcass is opened, beside them; gutted, some of its meat hung up on sticks to freeze in the night, half the work of skinning it done so far. A hunter's camp - presumably, one or two more men sleep while this one keeps watch.

Unfortunately, you notice one more thing - the tattoos on the man are of a kind you know well. Skaelings - the tribe your Bjornlings have been feuding with, or were when you left on your doomed mission. If they are still at throats with each other, meeting them and expecting kindness might be a way to die, or be made a slave.

A skinner's knife pokes out of the stump next to the one on watch; but there's no way to know if there are more or better weapons in one of the tents without commiting to sneaking in. Atleast, under cover of night and with this unusual clarity of sight in the dark, the gloom is your ally.

Alright! A few rolls to come, and then you can decide how to approach this.

First: give me two Toughness Rolls at +20. You've a lot of walking in the wet and cold to do, and without the trees as a wind break it's brutal; but you grew up in these conditions so you can power thing. For each failure, take a "fatigue" level, like we use in the other game - a cumulative -10 for the blistering cold.

After that, I'll ask for a Perception Roll at +10 to scan the area visually for opportunities and then, depending on what you want to do (sneak into a tent?
Creep up on the guy and try to steal the knife? Throw one of the skulls you're carrying and hope he goes to investigate?) I will ask for more rolls!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will stalk silently into the camp, eyes scanning for something closer to hand then that skinners knife. if there is nothing closer, he'll stalk in, and bury said knife in the mans heart

silent move tn 21
[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

You skulk into the modest Skaeling camp, scanning around for a better weapon. As you stand in the unsuspecting man's shadow, hand reaching for the skinning knife, you spot a woodcutting axe lying at the foot of a pile of split and prepared wood on the other side of the fire. Too late, now - the man before you is too close for you to withdraw safely, so you grab the knife, clap your hand around his mouth and pull him back against you, and ram the blade swiftly between his ribs. He cries out under your hand, but the muffled sound dies away with his physical protests.

What you didn't see, what you couldn't, was the inside of the tents; where another hunter around the age of the first sleeps, and a third with the scars and grey showing him many years their senior - resting, but not asleep, and able to see the spectacle of murder unfold.

"AaaAAH! AAH DAMN YOU! DAMN YOU! AHHH!"

His hysteria has certainly woken the other man; but that one is taking a few moments to comprehend. No time for him now. At a man hands-and-knees scramble, the elder man lurches out of his tent towards the axe. You're closer; but he's already in motion.

Roll Initiative! And if you do better than [roll0], you can go first. You could, for example, move to the axe - I'll let you 'quickdraw' it from the ground - and then attack. But if he beats you, you can bet he's going to scoop it up first.

The skinner's knife is sharp, but it's not a weapon of war - for the purpose of combat, it's a poor quality dagger, so it's -5% to weapon skill. The axe would be a poor quality hand weapon, since it's more a tool than weapon itself. But if you end up with both, you're dual wielding dagger and axe, and get a free parry!

Initiative for the startled sleeping hunter, too: [roll1].

[bramblefoot]

jorunn scrambles for the axe, easily beating the hunter and scooping the axe up. he'll make two attacks against the veteran hunter

[roll0]

19 and 30 in the ooc, for 13 and 12 wounds respectively

[MrAbdiel]

Before he can get close to the axe, you move like liquid death, snatching it up, using the 'chin' of the axe to hook his ankle out from under him so he collapses on his back; then bringing down its block-splitting edge onto the crown of his head, winking out the light in his eyes instantly and requiring a boot of leverage to pull the axe free.

The younger hunter in the tent is just awake enough to witness this, and can only bray in delirious horror as he thrashes out from under a pile of furs, trying to find his feet.

Two down. The one that was in the tent is recovering from being asleep; you were silent enough coming into the camp that he's going to miss this turn, and he's still unarmed. You can charge and make an attack if you like; or if you're feeling merciful, let him get up and run.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will drag him out and finish him off. no point in ruining a good pile of sleeping furs. after that, he'll rub a tad bit of blood on the mark, warm up by the fire, and go to sleep

[MrAbdiel]

You stalk into the tent, stooping to dip below its frame, put the still bloody knife between your teeth and drag the last Skaeling hunter out of bet by his ankle. In a moment of bleating panic he swings at you - and you pull your head back as a fistful of arrows, grabbed awkwardly from his quiver inside the camp, miss your face by an inch as they're stabbed at you. Dumping him on the ground, you put the boot in; then the axe in; and then that's the end of that - three dead Skaelings.

A father, and two sons, maybe? Still; Skaelings. And none of the four war gods, Hound, Crow, Eagle or Serpent, demanded you ought to permit yourself to die easily. Survival was the ultimate act of worship, for your people; martyrdom was for the followers of the southern gods - let them die for their gods, and you live for yours.

With the beach not far away, you strip the bodies and drag them to the shore's edge so the tide will take them, and perhaps deliver them elsewhere. You took them by ambush, and they were not prepared to fight; neither were they your kin or kith, and so their skulls are no prize. But you help yourself to what they had. That much is yours, by right of conquest.

You gain a hatchet (woodcutting tool, counts as a poor quality hand weapon).
2 skinning knives (a very sharp skinning tool; but in melee, a poor quality dagger.)
2 sets of poor clothes.
1 set of rags (bloodstained and stabbed-through)
1 good quality coat (bearskin)
2 bedrolls
2 small tents
1 waterskin
1 days worth of rations
1 bow, with 18 arrows
1 small trap
1 large trap
1 quarterstaff
10 yards of rope
1 set of leather bracers and hide vest (leather jack)
2 large sacks
1 backpack
2 untanned deer skins.

You feed the fire with logs your foes harvested for you; dry out your wet clothes, change into some dry ones; feel the heat coming back into your limbs and body. You drag some blood over the strange mark on your arm - the blood beads and runs off it like water on wax, weirdly repelled by it. You are no shaman, but none of your gods decline blood in any fashion. Strange.

Gaining your bearings, you cast your eyes down the shore, the way you were going. That way is east. If there are Skaelings camping here, you are a good deal further east than you thought - probably in the unpatrolled wilderness between Bjorning and Skaeling territories. That means it's a longer trek back the way you came to Bjorning territory, but atleast you would soon be in the homeland of your tribe, and from there could navigate back to your village. On the other hand, the Skaeling must have a village less than a day along the way you were already going. If your marks are covered, they may not know you are Bjornling; and if you are lucky, the politics between tribes will have changed while you were away, and there will be no tribe-war to worry about anyway. But east will definitely take you to the closest village, with the risk of it being possibly enemy territory, and the reward of being able to trade some of what you've looted there. West will take you back towards friendly ground; but it's going to be a three day journey atleast before you hit a village, if you are where you think you are.

You sleep in the diminishing warmth of the fire, rugged up in furs taken as blood gelt. In the morning, the tide has taken the bodies of the men - perhaps to the deep, where Straamval will feast on them. But the tide has brought something, too. Guided down to the waterline by a clear and inexplicable instinct, you notice a dark, waterlogged circle of wood with its hammered iron rim laying in the sand. A shield - your shield, in fact, tossed onto the sand with a few scraps of driftwood from the wreck. Perhaps Straamval, that hungry shark who swims in the dark and whose passage causes the shearing tides, appreciated your incidental offering, after all.

East to what is likely the Skaeling village this hunters were from; west for a much longer journey back toward home territory. Or north, into the woods, seeking adventure, now that your situation is less desperate!

Oh! And you gain 150XP for this brutal and efficient overcoming of your first obstacle.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn thanks straamval for the shield back, dresses, and heads east, packing up his kit before leaving. he keeps a weather eye for any tracks or such, and keeps an ear for sounds. no reason to get cocky, after nearly freezing his buns off, and killing three men

[MrAbdiel]

With a night's rest in warm conditions and nothing spoiling it, you can clear off that fatigue.

In the morning, with you gather up the camp. It's too much to fit in the one pack you have; but with the quarterstaff lashed to the top of it with the rope and the sacks counterbalancing either end, you strike out with your loot jangling either side of you. The shield given to you by your step father has improbably returned to you; though the injustice of the wreck has still taken the axe your father gave you, not to mention poor stricken Aran, and the loot you had won from the Imperials with your Tilean allies. Still, if the trajectory can be trusted, the gods have tested you harshly and now they are releasing their fickle grip, tightening on someone else - the Skaelings in your path, it seems.

Setting off took longer than you wanted; getting the fire to start to cook some of the deer left overnight in the preserving cold is the kind of task usually kicked to less capable warriors on such a venture who need to prove their value in ways not measured in iron. You pass some men casting their nets into the surf to catch the shallow water fish; they give you minimal glances, but focus mostly on their work, and let you pass by without comment. You consider asking them where you are; you weigh the benefits of knowing that item versus needless interaction with the Skaelings and the chance of something going awry. But before you need to decide, a crawling recognition makes its way up your spine. You round a spar of dark coastal stone to see the coastal village; the steep slope into the town square... the fresh, unweathered longhouses, some still under construction.

The cluttered piles of burned junk wood, cast to piles around the village.

This is Truskholm; this is the first settlement you pillaged. Time has passed, and they have rebuilt. It is strange that fate should throw you here; but with your tribe markings covered, the likelihood that any of the Skaelings here recognized you as a Bjornling, let alone the raiders who came on the sea for them, is low. But not nil.

You're in the rebuilt village of Truskholm, mostly recovered after you plundered it as part of your rite of passage as a warrior. It likely has a trader with wares, village elders with local information, and most things you can imagine a village might have. It also has houses and homes that ostensibly belong to a tribe you've been in conflict with, so you can decide if you feel bad about taking from them.

If it factors into your imagination, the village looks like it can accomodate between 50 and 100 people. It's a big spread, but that's longhouses for you; without more info, that's the guess you have.

If you want to find out more information, you can give me a Gossip roll at +20 and give me an idea what you're trying to find out!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn walks into truskholm, playing it cool. he stops to sell the deer hides, and to try find a blacksmith with a better weapon then the axe he got from the hunters. he'll chat up people, face always concealed behind the bearskin cloaks hood

gossip roll
[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

You're treated with suspicion, as an outside in this place; but you have the stature and the shield of a warrior, and despite distrusting looks, you are mostly left to your devices. You find one chummy drunk who doesn't know better, however; with a skin of mead in his lap, he chats your ear off about the woes of his life - his woman ran off with an Aesling skald - before being coached to answer your questions.

"Eh? Blacksmith? Ehhh... Decent enough, but not a talented one. Thralls with the secrets of steel in their hands are hard to come by, and expensive to trade for. Some of the raiding boys came back with good steel weapons from the Nordland raids, but they're mostly keeping them. But hey, my father used to say if you want a good weapon, you trade with the dwarves. Har har!"

You don't get the joke. More than that, it's less than useful advice - you have no idea where the closest dwarf hold is, and classically the sons of the mountain do not have ideal relationship with Norscans, even clans as affably progressive as yours. They do not forgive a little opportunistic raiding, like sensible folk do. But the drunk seems to suggest that there are good weapons on the warriors, and presumably in their homes in the town - just not being fresh forged, for the secrets of steel are not widespread among your tribes.

You see one such weapon on the wall, mounted above the trader's display when you go to sell the hides - a short, sharp, polished steel blade with barely any nicks at all; and its matching ruddy red scabbard.

"Not bad hides, traveller. Untanned, but I can have Jorgen and his sons sort them out when they get back from their own hunt." He offers you a seven silver sceatta for the four hides. Having no skill for haggling nor wish to draw extra attention to yourself, it feels like a good enough offer.

I know seven silver sounds very low, but bear with me! Norscans do not mint gold coins; they melt gold down to make jewelry, and crowns, and embellishments for armor. But if you ended up carrying enough silver it became obnoxious, you might find a gem trader, and carry your excess wealth in that convenient way. If you wanted to spend a lot of your adventure in Norsca and become wealthy, that's going to involve probably keeping large amounts of lumber, thralls, livestock, and mammoth ivory!

They do make use of silver coins, though coin currency is still somewhat novel among them. Lots of their trade is done with barter; but for simplicity in our campaign, we'll probably do most transactions in silver sceatta, and the bronze pfennig. There's 12 pfennigs to the sceatta, just as their are pennies in a shilling. But the purchasing power of a sceatta in Norsca is roughly that of 15 Shillings in the empire - so a Handweapon (if you found someone willing to sell), worth 10GP in the empire (or 200 Shillings), is worth about 13 sceatta (sc) and four pfennigs.

Are you confused yet? I know, I know. Bear with me for a while, I think it'll add a little to the depth of the setting. If it gets too janky, we'll just convert to regular currency later and I'll get over it; but I like all these little culture details.

The shop keep, a short but barrel chested man named Gunnr, notices you eying the sword.

"Fair, isn't it? I will give it to my son, when he is of age. Barely takes to the teat, right now; but eventually. Can I interest you in anything, as you pass? I have dried meat, and saltfish. If you're heading west to the thrallmarket at Zagdhelm, you'll want to take extra rations. It's a rough cold, out there; keep the furnace full of tinder, I say."

[bramblefoot]

"how much for three days rations?" jorunn asks calmly. at the news of zagdhelm, he'll press the man for any extra info he may have

[MrAbdiel]

"It would run a single sceatta, and some copper; but I'll wave the copper, if you speak well of me to King Death if you see him first."

This is a Skaeling expression; or more properly, a seafarer's expression common to a great raiding clan like the Skaeling and pirates in the seas all around the Old World. King Death is just their icon for the god of death, whom your clan knows as the ending dragon, Old Jormung. But to give someone a favor to speak well if you meet King Death first is a simply hospitality blessing for strangers; wish well of me, as I wish of you, and perhaps the gods will hear.

Surrendering back one of your precious sceatta leaves you with six, but now you have all you need to travel for three days. But six is still a good amount; enough to buy a couple of strong thralls, perhaps with useful skills to navigate the wilderness. Crossing overland back to Bjornling territory will be a difficult trek indeed; having made your way that distance by ship before, and having some idea of Norsca's bitter landscape, it is likely to take ten or more days. You have trained to be an asset in war at the shoulders of other warriors, themselves supported by the uplifting apparatus of the clan; you have not been afforded the time or mentorship to live well in the wild and cold places of the land. Without a companion, or a hireling, or atleast a thrall with some survival skills, it is likely to be a very difficult and taxing trek indeed.

You press for information about Zagdhelm; and Gunnr's reply is short, and wondering. "Yes, Zadghelm - with the thrallmarket, west and between the forest and mountains. Though they are beset by - er..." He trails off, having grown suspicious of the hooded stranger asking these questions.

You can press for more information about Zagdhelm, and what it is beset by; but if you want to press, make me a Charm or Gossip check, at +0. Failure means, even supplying you information, the storekeep Gunnr seems to you to have grown wary of your hooded, solitary appearance and questions. That may bear fruit later.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will drop the subject, and leave after collecting his rations. he'll head west, to zagdhelm

[MrAbdiel]

Now that you know east takes you into Skaeling territory, striking out west must necessarily bring you closer to Bjornling land; though admittedly tracking east and west is a little difficult with the overland path you are forced to take, even with the loose directions of Zadghelm and the occasional sniff of a beaten path.

Give me an outdoor survival check, for this first day's travel; to keep on track, to find a safe site to camp, etc.

In addition to that, give me a straight d100; a general fortune of the road check, which cannot be fate-pointed.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn beds down for the night

[roll0]

[roll1]

[MrAbdiel]

You struggle to find any game or forage to sooth your stomach after a day's hard hike west, even if you're confident you've navigated correctly. Fortunately, you bought rations to deal with this eventuality; and they're not even the worst you've eaten.

You're disappointed in yourself, though, when you wake; for you are not alone. A scrawny wolf, missing clumps of fur and sporting scratches and bite marks from a combination of mange and conflict with other creatures, has joined you. Unable to battle the cold with its compromised coat, it has snuck into your tent and fallen asleep in its contained warmth. It sleeps, shivering a little; quite desperate indeed to have risked this partnership. It's vulnerable - you could kill it, and its meat would feed you for the day even though the meat of predators isn't particularly flavorful. Or you could show it mercy - not a traditional virtue of your people, but one present in your array of human feeling all the same.

A fail on the Outdoor Survival roll, so you use one day of rations but you didn't pike it so bad you got lost. But the luck roll came out pretty good; so that'll work for you.

If you want to kill it, you can do so for free, and you'll be fed for the day. If you want to try to befriend it, that'll be an Animal Care roll. Normally you'd need Charm Animal; but it's pretty desperate. After that, give me another Outdoor Survival, and then a Perception roll for certain events of the next day.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will attempt to show the wolf mercy. if that doesnt work, well its dinner time

animal care
[roll0]

outdoor survival

[roll1]

perception

[roll2]

[MrAbdiel]

You have never needed to, before; but you read the animal's behaviour, and try to cater to it some. You wake it with some saltfish in your palm, and placid and morose, it nibbles it up; though you suspect the profusion of salt to preserve it is not ideal for the beast. It is sick; and without special medicines the likes of which you do not know, the best you can offer it is real meat, and some sips of water splashed out from your waterskin. It overs a reedy little whine it its throat, and accepts your kindness; complaining only a little when you rise to pack up camp.

It's in more luck than you are on the road, when your eyes spot a deformation in the snow where a rabbit has dug a hasty burrow. Giving it a good stomp on top and bracing yourself, you plant your weight down and snatch the scrawny beast up when it bolts for its life, breaking its neck and having it over it spit that afternoon. A welcome break from rations - and fresh meat for the pathetic, but inoffensive wolf that nibbles up the gizzards and cuts you toss him.

No need to spend rations today!

But as the snow continues to fall, it obscures the remnants of track you've been relying on to guide yourself towards Zagdhelm. It takes all your focus and concentration not to veer off and become lost; and while you accomplish that, the sacrifice of your senses costs you.

There are three of them, surrounding you before you realize; leaning out of the shade of the trees and rocks about you having followed you for, you guess, perhaps half a mile, catching up only now. Mutants; wretches, deformed and rejected; unworthy of a tribe, striving only to live, never to prove themselves to gods or clan. Pathetic. But here you were, with them around you: a horrific bloody skeleton containing a sagging collection of wet organs; a man whose skin and body entire seem to have been turned into jagged glass; and a third man, whose body... seems not to have changed at all. The first two carry clubs made from the limbs of trees- the crystal-man hoisting his with easy, the repulsive skeleton wretch barely lifting his. The third, the leader, you think, has a rough leather quiver on his back, with spares like the javelin in his hand. They do not call a warning, asking you to surrender. The mean to kill you, if you do no kill them.

[roll0] Unnerved!
[roll1]
[roll2] Unnerved!
[roll3]
[roll4]
[roll5]

If your initiative comes out higher than all of them, you can go right away. The wolf is following you, but not tamed and able to take orders just yet; you'll have to wait and see what it thinks of all of this.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn gawks for a second at them, but a second means all the world in the trenches of combat. after that second has passed, he lets out a bellow and attacks the javelin-wielding mutant

[roll0]

i assume i have my shield out, so i get a free parry

[MrAbdiel]

With a howl of his own, the javelineer cranks back his arm, aiming to compensate against your shield, and flings his weapon...

[roll0], +10 for aim and -10 for shield included. If it hits, [roll1] damage.

...though you easily duck it, and it sail on to embed in a snowdrift behind you.

The glass man, whose features are unreadable as they glimmer and shine with the light off the snow, hesitates to charge you; instead, he shifts sideways to guard his leader, crouching defensively.

The Glass Man has moved between you and the Javelineer, so he's impeding a charge. You could charge him, but he has taken a parry stance to prepare to receive you.

The Skeleton-Man has yet to act, though he also seems unnerved in his miserable posture.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will charge the mutant he's dubbed organ meat, and make a chop at him. he slips on the snow, and nearly goes prone, but keeps his feet

[roll0]

[roll1]

[MrAbdiel]

The grotesquery skitters back on the snow as you come for it; then makes an almost ginger swing with his club. You lean away from it, not enacting the labor of parrying such a feeble strike.

[roll0] for [roll1].

The skinless, fleshless creature makes a pitiful warble for aid; though his companions are not particularly forthcoming. While the Glass Man shuffles forward, club held defensively, the javelineer makes a risky throw into the melee; a second shaft whipping by without really endangering you.

[roll2] for [roll3] with the javelin. Glass Man moves towards Jorunn, and takes parrying stance again

Oh, and attempting to save off Unnerving:
Glass Man [roll4].
Skellybo [roll5].

Nope! Your turn again!

Your new wolf friend dances back from this combat, ears drooping in trepidation, tracking the combat with distress.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will make two attacks against organ meat, hoping to drop him before glass man can come to help. "get in the fight, damn you" he yells at the wolf

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]

[MrAbdiel]

The mangy wolf makes a mournful roowoowooowoo; its experience in combat, it seems, less than favorable, and it fear of harm too strong for it to commit.

Your blow crashes into the skeleton-man, cracking ribs and jostling guts; and he releases pathetic wheeze while trying to raise a reasonable defense. The javelineer gives up his effort of engaging from range - he draws the half of what might once have been a good sword, but is now broken off halfway down the length to make a very poor one indeed. As he does so, his companion, the glassy juggernaut, charges in and swings for your lower back with his club!

[roll0] for [roll1].
[roll2] for [roll3].

[roll4]
[roll5]

Gosh, these guys have bad targets to hit; but they've also rolled garbage. Can't catch a break! Atleast the Glass Man seems less unnerved - now you're ganged up on in the melee, with the poor pathetic wolf unable to muster the lupine courage to commit to combat.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will make one attack on bonesy, hopefully finishing him off, and then move to attack glassy

[roll0]

[roll1]

[roll2]

[roll3]

[MrAbdiel]

The repulsive skeleton, whose flesh seems to have already fled him, manages to weave back from your executing blow, with the crystalline opponent crowding into your vision, bombarding your senses with prismatic glare coming off the snow. Furious, you turn your attention his way, strike aside his incoming blow, then bring down your stolen axe with vengeful fury on the attacker's arm. There is no satisfying wet smack of flesh, but there is a somehow gruesome sound of glass cracking and crazing as shards fly, and the mutant's arm goes slack to its side, the wound glowing orange and bubbling with molten glass rushing from it like an arterial flow. Wailing with a weirdly human throat, the creature has the presence of mind to pick up his dropped club with the other hand and bring it to bear on you, just as the skeleton does the same; the pair hammering you with nuisance blows.

First Organ Meat hits your left arm for 5 damage (down to 1, after your TB of 4); then the Man of Glass hits that same arm for 6 (down to 2, after your TB). But you can attempt a parry and dodge to these blows, to negate even this small damage!

A clear and inexplicable instinct warns you these two, furious as they are, are not your greatest danger; your instinct to charge the other first was right, though they impeded it. Now with club in hand, standing in the snow, the mutant starts to bark and froth; eyes growing bloodshot, biting at the skin of his club and the skin of his wrist in wild hate as he draws up his anger, just as you have done in the past.

The mangy wolf seems so slowly find its will, now; going from nervous disengagement to slowly assured then concentrated, warning barking at the berserker. And soon it's apparent why - not only does he grow mad with anger, insensible to the instinct to survive, but he grows taller, his arms and legs longer. You hear bones clicking as they rearrange themselves; tufts of dull grey fur stabbing through his skin in clusters until he is covered in mats of it, his face pushing out into a lupine muzzle dripping with saliva and full of fangs as fierce as the claws on his hands.

A were. A man touched by the gods, perhaps the Hound, and given the blood and soul of an animal. He will surely charge you, in a moment; and you must wonder what such a monstrosity might do, if you have to consider its friends as well!

The "Javelineer" spends this turn entering Frenzy, which triggers his were mutation. He is now considerably more threatening!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn curses, and will attempt to parry and dodge the attacks. then he'll make two attacks on organ meat in hopes of finishing him off

parry

[roll0]

dodge

[roll1]

[roll2]

[roll3]
[roll4]

[MrAbdiel]

Two blows crash into the wretched mess of bone and organ meat; the first blow smashing through its shoulder and shearing off one skeletal arm, the next crunching through the exposed ribcage and into the panic-beating heart within, topping him over backward and ending his pathetic existence. Oozing molten glass from the jagged stump of a shoulder, the vengeful mutant with a body of glinting crystal brings down a punishing blow toward your head just as the bounding wolf-creature behind you roars into combat, swiping with its massive claws at your exposed back. The mangy wolf, rather than becoming afraid at this, seems to become impassioned by it - a wolf that hates its own kind, perhaps, though it cannot manage to lay fangs on the monstrosity.

As you defend yourself, your heart hammers in your chest. You think you can finish off the Man of Glass - but what of this monster? Have you come all this way, just to die in the snow and be fed on by a slavering monster? The very thought touches your heart with defiant fury... and a clear and inexplicable instinct urges you that rage does not belong to animals; it belongs to men, like you.

Two big hits to defend against this turn - 14 and 13 damage. But after that, I will offer you, this one time, an opportunity to enter Frenzy for free, instead of taking a round to do so; if you choose.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will dodge and parry, and take a swift attack as the rage boils over inside

dodge
[roll0]

parry
[roll1]

attacks
[roll2]

[roll3]

[roll4]

[MrAbdiel]

Another chop at the Man of Glass throws jagged chips of him into the air; his body tough to crack but brittle with leverage; and he recoils away from a blow that, properly twisted, might have split him in half. As he totters back, you slap away the club from his hand and he lets it loose; falling back to the ground and turning to try to crawl away with his one arm and molten-slag stump leaving a trail behind him. You might have given chase, but then the other one, the wild and hideous wolf creature is upon you; almost too fast for you to comprehend. Most of the blow that comes in merely rakes across your shield, but even the tail end of the slash leaves agonizing, gory gouges up your bicep and shoulder; gobbets of blood splashing away from you into the snow. Turning to confront this deadly foe more fully, giving him now the respect a true enemy deserves, you feel the fury come up from the floor of your guts and boil into your head until red fills your eyes, and a shout leaves your mouth - not a shout but a scream, not a scream but a roar.

But it's... not like last time. It's not like the times you've raged; not like when you sacked Truskholm, or fought the Imperial dogs in Albion, or any time inbetween. The rage comes up, and fills you, but pushes on your body from within and you feel it stretching you, threatening to split you entirely from within. More than that, you see it in the eyes of the wolf-man who towered over you a moment ago, but now looks up at you; the frenzied warrior insensible to fear as you have become now, but trepidatious in your expanding presence. You feel the stitches of your clothing splitting and bursting, as you lunge forward. When you strike, and the wolfman dances away, you see your hand holding the hatched - a huge, clawed hand holding the weapon's whole haft; your arm and hand covered in fur as snow-white as your hair, and eyes. But your fury will not let you relent, and you barrel onward following the missed swing with an instinct to bite; and your mouth - or rather, your muzzle, your jaws, crash down on the wolf's shoulder and you taste its blood and muscle tearing beneath your fangs. As you do, the mangy wolf picks up on the sense of your frenzy and lunches up to latch its jaws on the back of the man-wolf's knee; writhing and biting, adding insult to your significant injury.

It swipes back, in its own desperation; one claw slashing narrow lines in the hide of the wolf below it, while its teeth bite into your shoulder in kind; but your shoulder is now a bulwark of muscle and fur, and not so easily damaged. Never have you felt more powerful; never more deadly and masterful over the world. You must kill this creature; and then, its pitiful ally crawling away; and daemons take all the why, and how, that would delay you!

Well, this isn't something I expected when I first thought about your adventure, but it's what the dice demanded. Rolled up fair and square. Remember when I made you roll that 20% chance to be a mutant, and we did your mutation? Well, on top of that, Norscan characters who start with a mutation ALSO have a 10% chance of being ... more. And I wanted that to be a surprise if it came up, and low and friggen behold... https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25658214&postcount=269

Jorunn is an Were; specifically, a Bjornwernar; a Werebear. This does two main things to a starting character.

The first is that it sets your Fate Points to Zero. Since this is a solo game and there's no need to balance the game against other player characters who might feel put out, we're not going to worry about that, so your Fate Points stay the same.

The second is that it dramatically alters how your Frenzy talent works. Normally, Frenzy is... pretty bad.

Normal Frenzy: Spend a round psyching up. Next round you lose control and go berserk. +10 Strength and Willpower, but -10 Weapon Skill and Intelligence. Can only make all out attacks, charge attacks or swift attacks; can't flee or retreat. Lasts until combat is over.

That's alright, but a -10WS is a really big price to pay for those small bumps to Str and WP. But a Werecreature, when they Frenzy, gets the following:

+10 WS
+10 S
+10 T
+20 Ag
-10 Int
-10 WP
-20 Fel
+1 Attack
+5 Wounds
+1 Move

And replace skills and talents with:

Skills: Concealment, Follow Trail, Perception, Silent Move, Swim
Talents: Keen Senses, Natural Weapons, Night Vision

So instead of becoming a little stronger and stronger of will, you become a reckless killing machine half-bear. The only real downside compared to normal frenzy is the reduced WP in that state, which will matter only when dealing with certain spells and effects that target WP. As it stands, it means you become signficantly more deadly, especially with that extra attack - which is why I asked you to roll that third swing.

Also worth noting is Natural Weapons, which means you are considered to always be armed with a handweapon for everything except parrying. So right now, you have that hand weapon and shield and they're still important for generating that free parry; but you're attacking with your bulk, and claws, and teeth, without that pesking -5WS for poor quality on the axe.

If any part of that isn't clear, let me know; I know it's a bombshell, but I hope the surprise was a welcome one. I tried to foreshadow it a bit with all the bear imagery and the white hair mutation; but now you're a were polar bear, and if you're anything like me you will find that sick as hell.

You do need to parry this wolf boy's attack, though you now have an extra 5 wounds to burn even if you fail. The glass man withdraws and starts crawling away. You may now, at your leisure, attack three times and rip this guy apart.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn cackles through a mouth full of blood, and will make three attacks on the wolf-man. his heavy claws scything through meat and muscle like a hot knife through butter. "come to die, have you!" he crows

parry

[roll0]

attacks

[roll1]

[roll2]
[roll3]
[roll4]

[MrAbdiel]

Your little ally, seeming so small now when he was almost your size a moment ago, releases his grip on the towering wolfman just in time for your display of gore. Dropping shield and hatchet, your massive paws rise to grab top and bottom jaws of the wolfman, your strength powering through his bite pressure and quickly detatching him from you with an audible, dislocating crack. His howl becomes a yelp, just long enough for your claws to slash across his throat and pour blood down his chest and to the snow - a mortal blow, with the rage leaving his eyes as he knows it. But mortality is not enough; and with one massive hand clutched around the enemy's broken muzzle and another dug in under his collarbone, you rip him open; snapping away bones and innards and leaving a grotesque pile of insides while the hollowed, exposed chest chavity smokes in the cold air. Heart shredded to pulp by this maneuver, he goes slack; his body remaining in its half man half wolf form even in death.

Your roar of triumph shakes the trees; and with no enemies left, the blood haze begins to fade; and the feeling of unstoppable power in your blood sizzles down; and within moments you are yourself again; but exhausted, and bleeding, and surrounded by bodies. The Glass Man has bled to death; his strange blood cooled into a glazed streak in the snow terminating at his still corpse. The slain skeletal monstrosity cannot look much worse in death than in life; but it, too, is destroyed.

The wolf, still mangy, still somewhat pathetic, joined in the battle by the end; but in the aftermath, he sniffs at the bodies and recoils; knowing by instinct not to eat the flesh of mutants.

Gain 250XP for this brutal revelation. You are presently on 4 wounds remaining, I believe.

You are not trained in medicines; and if you were, you couldn't address a wound on your back. But the blood isn't rolling off you; so it doesn't seem mortal... yet. You pick through the bodies, but find little spoil worth taking; the clubs are just choice chunks of wood. But they had to be staying somewhere - they had to have chosen this ambush point for a reason...

Give me a +20 Perception test, to scout about for the mutant's camp. Failing that, you'll have no choice but to forge on (for two days) towards Zagdhelm; or go back (one day) to Truskholm.

I'm going with "they appear 'full' when you change, and they disappear with whatever damage they took when you change back". So you gained 5 "Temporary" wounds, the wolfman mauled you for 3 of them; but those 3 points of damage and the two untaken wounds went away when you turned back, so you're back at the 4 wounds you were on when you got whacked the one time. We'll call that a kind of.. mild regeneration.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will stalk around the wilderness looking for their camp. his blood is up, and he wants no further scuffles. he finds nothing, and continues to zagdhelm

perception
[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

You scout about the area, following tracks as best you can; but all you find is a crummy, cold calmfire and a pot of boiled tree-bark; a testament to how desperate these mutants were. They must have moved south towards Truskholm, then spotted you on the way and stalked you back here, intending to kill and eat you. But now they are dead, and you are not; may all fools end this way. With no other options, you and your skittish lupine tag-a-long continue west towards Zadghelm. When the sun begins to fall, you painstakingly set up one of your tents, and struggle to light a warming fire. Every action that involves twisting or moving or shifting stresses the tears on your back, and spikes you with pain. With a stomach moderately full of rations, you drift off to difficult sleep.

Down one more shot of rations; but you heal 1 Wound overnight, so you should be up to 5. Fortunately, you weren't reduced to 3 or fewer wounds, which would have rendered you Heavilly Wounded and only able to regen 1 wound per week!

But the morning doesn't bring much relief. When you wake to the pathetic wolf licking your face and stir painfully to look outside, you see that the sun has neglected to rise; in its place are dense grey clouds, and curls of snow-laden wind that you know well precede a considerable fall.

You skip breakfast, pack with haste, and start on the road; the biting winds kept off you skin by the trophy-furs you took from the hunters, and push on towards Zadghelm. You have little choice; turning back, away from the storm, would drive you towards Truskholm, where certainly the town has learned of the fate of their hunting party and put together the circumstances in which a stranger sold them skins in the same timeframe. If you can get to Zagdhelm before the blizzard hits in full, you will be safe for a time; but if you are caught on the road and it really comes down, you will certainly perish in the frost. So what choice do you have? You push on, at a jog when you can; sparing your energy and embittered by the pain of your wounds.

The snow is coming down, and your best hope based on the descriptions you were given is that Zagdhelm is just a couple of hours further west. But an opportunity presents itself - off the road, on a slope of ground cleared by hand, is a small log house with an empty animal pen beside it, and smoke rising from its circular chimney. A freeholder's home - whoever lives there has likely taken their animals inside against the coming blizzard, preparing to wait it out. But the presense of such a home at all suggests Zagdhelm must be as close as you hope.

Options lay themselves before you, and time to choose one runs out.

The homestead is closer; you could go there and seek hospitality (or force that hospitality on the bluff that they won't fight you, wounded as you are). But if those who live there are strange people or become hostile in the time you may end up trapped by the snows, you will be in more danger than you would have been in Zadghelm; a thrall market enjoys the enforced peace of a trading hub that provincial homesteads do not. An ambitious farmer might simply kill you in your sleep rather than risk your threatening presense, but it's much less likely a boarding house operator in Zagdhelm would do the same.

...But what good is a warm bed in Zadghelm if you freeze to death on the road, having hoped the storm wouldn't be so bad or wouldn't last so long, and so chose to risk it?

Option A: Check the homestead. You can do this with a concealment roll if you want to approach sneaky like, though if spotted this is much more suspicious behaviour; or simply walk up and make yourself known for a more civil approach. This may put you at the mercy of whoever lives there.

Option B: Try to push hard on the road hoping to get to Zadghelm before the snow boxes you in. Zadghelm is safer, but you're gambling the weather will not become foul; and the worst scenario of all is being stuck in a small tent in a blizzard, which tempts a cold death. But if you want to try pushing on, give me a Toughness roll to keep up a good pace.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will push on, huddling in his furs as he curses the weather

toughness roll

[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

Growling a curse to the weather - and in the same breath, a prayer to Bjarna the she-bear with whom you now hold new shocking kinship, to keep you in sure footing as you move westward, toward hearth, toward home. Slowly the stony path before you fades entirely into white powder; only the cut way through the trees guiding you on; and after a while, with feet numbed to blocks of marble and skin so cold you fear your blood is turning to rubies in your veins, you finally can see nothing at all. All is white; but the knowledge that slowing will mean you are buried in slow and lost to the cold drives you on, with your mangy wolf scuffing along behind you in your snow-carved wake. At last, you shut your eyes as the freezing wind threatens to pearl your eyeballs; and a moment later your eyelids and frosted closed. You feel tilt when your numb feet catch something, and the snow and earth races up to smash into you; and for a few more exhausted feet, you crawl in the way you think is west. Then comes the darkness; and a dream of warmth.

"That's right, Jorunn. This is the one."

You sit, so young and bright eyed that dreams of glory have not yet come into your head, and all you want to do is climb trees and catch snowhares. The snow is heavy and thick outside; when it stops, the hares will be trying to kick open their tunnels and that is the best time to snatch them up, if you are quick enough. But you are forbidden to go out in the blizzard; you are inside, in front of the fire. It's no climbing-a-tree, but time with this man, who seems to you so big he must hold up the world, is also good. He holds an axe in each hand; both have short hafts, but one has a plain, squared head and the other has a narrower band of steel which sweeps down into the axe's 'beard'. It's also fancier; it has carved runes in it, not like the runes you see around town. Runes belonging to whomever the axe was made by, before your father killed them, and took it as a prize.

"This is a tool, and this one is a weapon. Both can kill; both can cut wood. But this one is made to cut wood, and this one is made to kill. It is the same for men, as axes. Some men are made to cut wood. Others -"

You lay on the floor in an unfamiliar longhouse; the remnants of a meagre feast being doled out to hardy men as others lay out their bedrolls. You are heaped infront of a fireplace beneath your furs; you are shivering, but alive; the mangy wolf sleeping on top of your feet, lending them its warmth.

"You're up. Damn - I had bet another man a sceatta that you would not wake. The last rider back through the gate had found you buried in snow just outside the boundary stone, nothing but the tip of your axe to tell you were there, and this mutt yarping away. Tried to put it away for you so it wouldn't be stolen; but your fingers seemed frozen around the half, or else gripped like Old King Death."

The speaker is a little older than you; a wiry young warrior with markings suggesting he is from the mountainous Vanaheimlings, sipping a mug of hot mead as he chats away. Attention drawn to your hand, you look down under the furs and discover, indeed, your hand is still gripped tight around the haft of the axe. But not the woodcutter's axe that has served you in these last days. It is the bearded axe that your father gave you that he won so long ago; the one you carried into your trial, so ill-fated as to see you emerge to your father's death.

The axe that you had to release to the deep black of the sea, to survive the horrid wreck in the freezing sea. How is it possible, that it is here now? This is the second item returned to you from the fickle ocean, this time far from the shore where it could feasibly have happened by chance, and this one not likely to ever float on a wave anyway.

Is this a blessing from the gods... Or something of which you should be wary? The answers, still, are not clear. Your story grows only more complicated; never simpler.

You're holed up in a longhouse, to wait out the blizzard; safe, apparently surviving. And somehow, your old axe has found its way back to you.

It's likely to be at least a day of isolation before the snow stops and the market can resume. If you have any questions for these travellers who have come here for the Thrallmarket from many tribes and clans, now is a good time for gossip/charm rolls. Otherwise, you can have another day of rest (for another 1 wound back), and decide what you're hoping to look for at this Thrallmarket; after which I'll set the scene for you.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn jerks awake, and then relaxes. "thought i was dead for a second" he jokes, slinging the axe back in his belt. jorunn will take it easy for the day, gaining another wound back

[MrAbdiel]

You keep a low profile and recover for the day, your drive to survive having paid off. Your eyes watch the room, and those assembled here; Aeslings, Skaelings, Vanaheimlings... even some Bjornlings like yourself, though you suspect from the great city of Skjold, as they seem well provisioned and you recognize none of their markings as the regional clans you know. It's not a particularly festive arrangement; no one drinks to excess, and everyone's eyes are on everyone else. Norscan clans are not a naturally united bunch, and a 'neutral' ground like a Thrallmarket only restrains that so much; but there is no deviation from that quiet simmer of tension.

The day after, the blizzard breaks; a handful of the Vanaheimlings bore through the snow heaped at the door, and the local Skaelings with the responsibility to facilitate the Thrallmarket in process are already well underway clearing, preparing, lighting warming bonfires. You let the other warriors, the ones who are not recovering from such vicious damage, head out first; the less attention you draw to yourself, the better. But then you emerge, and the village of Zagdhelm lies before you; a great circular array of huts and longhouses with a village 'square' dotted with recently stoked bonfires; and a field of tents pitched around and between all the structures. In the square itself, the assembled tribes have their banners planted, and present their wares - live and otherwise - for purchase.

You can investigate any, or all of these points, in sequence. It's a large market, but a small enough affair you won't miss out on any today.

- The Aesling Sale Block
- The Vanaheimling Sale Block
- The Skaeling Sale Block
- The Bjornling Sale Block
- The Vikti's Hut (i.e., the local Skaeling Shaman)
- The Chaos Dwarf Delegation
- Shrine Of Kharnath (Primary Skaeling Deity)
- Shrine Of the Chained Maiden (Local minor deity)
- Ring of Proving (Pitfighting and Mercenary recruitment)

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will wander the markets, looking for a healer thrall to patch him up, and check the stalls in no particular order. he'll also check the chaos dwarf stall, though he's prolly too poor to afford anything in there

[MrAbdiel]

I don't normally do trigger warnings as a matter of principle, but when we're coming up on a slave market in a game, it's worth making a note, just for anyone who happens to be glancing through this thread who might recoil.

Slavery is bad and wrong. In the world of Warhammer, it is practiced by the worse people in the world, as well as some runners up.
The fact that this system has classes for thralls and slaves and slavers is neither an endorsement of those behaviours in real life or a minimization of their historical evils; either by myself, or my noble player here, or a reader, or the designers of WFRP2e.

That said, while I don't intend here (or ever) to run a game that has an ongoing side feature of the players trading slaves and exploiting them in one way or another, I don't have any intention of bubble-wrapping the worst parts of this dark fantasy setting. If a man gets chopped in half by a demon, he's getting chopped in half. If Jorunn needs to purchase a thrall to hunt rabbits in his journey or protect him while he sleeps or tend to his horrible werewolf wounds, that's what's gonna happen; and on account of none of these people being real, I'll construct those scenes and those NPC's and I'll be privileged for the opportunity to do so.

Slavery bad; stories that glorify slavery disgusting; stories that feature bad or disgusting things are just part of an honest approach to fantasy.

- MrAbdiel.

You walk the rows of thralls, eying them over as you go. If you were buying a horse, this would be complex. There are secrets about a horse's hooves, and teeth, a buyer ought to know before taking out his lucre. But humans are humans; and as an inflictor of damage, you can tell damage on humans, as well as which might have the skills their sellers claim they do by the quality of their hands, and muscles.

There are about forty thralls for sale; these have distinguished themselves by surviving to be sold here. They all look predictably sorry as a rule, but you pass over those that are particularly undernourished. Those might be fed and made to work the land on a freehold, but they'd be no good to you in the days to come. You winnow out those with no usable skills, or obvious weaknesses of form, until you are choosing between those who have something you offer you - they speak enough Norscan to not require constant violent supervision, they do not look immediately eager to flee into the wilderness and die cold rather than live in service, and you are able to learn from their handlers something about what they, atleast, claim to have done in their life before capture. And they are not so outrageously valuable.

The Aeslings, the ritually scarred and horrific maniacs they are, have come this way from the far east of Norsca - perhaps it is their proximity to the frightful Kurgan that is responsible for their particularly wicked aspect. Of those of interest from their mess are two strong fighters - a Bretonnian Man-At-Arms and a Kislevite Kossar. Both look strong and young, though the Bretonnian likely has less disruptive spirit in him (they are all slaves to their dukes and kings already), while the Kislevite is more used to surviving in harsh cold wilderness already. They have with them also a Dwarf Peasant whom, you are given to understand, was a colonist of the Norse Dwarves who strayed too far from their encampment. He has a common man's suite of skills, which means he might be useful handling and training that mangy wolf... but dwarves make bad thralls. They do not long tolerate the collar, so their captors tend to work them to death quickly rather than risk the stunted ones developing the spirit required to kill them in their sleep. All are male; each of these would cost three sceatta.

The Vanaheimlings are high mountain dwellers from the jagged uplands north of both the Bjornlings and the Skaeling. They are tall, rough folk even by Norscan standards; with few words to mince, but a patient indifference to the games of dealers and hagglers. Of their captives, three stand out, all snatched up from the same ill fated adventuring convoy that made its way into the mountains to perish. The two men are a Mediator and a Deepwatcher; the first a kind of negotiator between castes or classes (who apparently failed to talk his way out of this) and the second a member of a guild of explorers and adventurers that originated in Tilea and has flung its chapters across the Old World. The former possesses a quick tongue and a talent for language and deal making, the latter has the skills of a fighting man and one accustomed to navigating deep places. The third is a woman who claims to be a Bounty Hunter, though what bounty was worth going into the Vanaheim Mountains, she refuses to say. She certainly has tracking and stalking skills; and seems capable enough, especially for a woman. Your people, the Bjornlings, are somewhat more open minded about skilledness than other tribes; and if the other tribes are willing to sell a female thrall to you for two sceatta while the men cost three, then all the better for your pocket.

The Bjornlings are a party from the great port town of Skjorn, from which raiding ships go out to seek thralls and plunder even as Marienburg trading vessels come in to buy ivory and fur. These are the most 'social' of tribes, though that doesn't say much to the Southerners who see all Norscans as undifferentiated thugs - typical Southerners, all so soft and overeducated. Their offerings are plucked up from the Nordland coast: a Rat Catcher and Miner, both women whose versatile skillsets are likely to be overlooked when they are sold off to a Freehold somewhere that needs them only for their obedience and plot-toil, and a man who has withstood considerable beating without giving back, but holds his bruised self with quiet dignity - a servant of one of the Southmen's gods, you are told. Perhaps good luck, if their gods can be persauded to work with yours. This Initiate has displayed no supernatural blessing, but priests and such often have training in medicine, among the southern peoples. He may be a candidate for your healer-thrall. The Bjornings see enough value in all these captives they want three sceatta for each.

The Skaelings you already know well; legendary sea reavers and constant rivals of your people, whom they see as soft and worldly. They have more thralls to offer, since they haven't had to go so far; but they also have a greater preponderance of Norscans they have captured. It is harder to take a train of thralls across the country if they are native to that country; they are more prone and capable to run off, but since the Skaelings host this Thrall Market, they have the privilege. They possess a female Pilgrim, snatched up from just north of Couronne after she had completed her journey to that walled city and, foolishly, decided to witness the sea before going back to her home. A male Burgher, who seems protective enough of the pilgrim that he might be her paramour but has little in his array of city-living skills to defend her from this awful fate. And a male Student, who knows the letters of the southmen and, like the Initiate, some of the healing mysteries of those book-loving people.

In your currently isolated position, you would be disinclined to take on native Norse thralls. They, like you, are desperately seeking home, and have at least as much chance of you of finding theirs, if they can only escape. But two of them strike your interest, neither for good reasons.

One of the Skaeling slaves is the girl you remember - a young woman now, of course. She does not have the tight blond fighter's braid, and the imperious look has been wiped off her face. The Skaeling are selling her as an Entertainer, who knows how to dance and might serve a freeholder in adjacent ways... but you know this woman is a Bondswoman; sworn to the Jarl of your clan, Osgaer, and a capable enough fighter to have taken your friend Harald's skull in the bloody rite when you were children... and Harald, at the time, was better than you were. This women is riding the Skaeling expectation of her weakness, since the Hound's way is not available to her and she is forced to tread the path of the Serpent. If they had known she was an enemy warrior, they might have killed her, or ritually humiliated her in some fashion to ensure she did not avenge herself upon them.

The other, it grieves you to see, is your old friend Byjan. You are a long way from the firelit ritual in Nathvir village, where you and he snuck away from the festivities to catch that black devil-loach. He is still thick bodied; strong, though perhaps less coordinated that he would need to be to be a fine warrior. He has lost his eyepatch, somewhere; the ghastly pucker of the socket, where he lost his eye to an arrow during your blooding rite, stares out at the world with as much literal emptiness as his remaining eye has emotional vacancy. The last time you had seen him, you were pushing off in the boat he had a hand in making; your place on its deck very much due to his protestations.

"You fear that curse? Fear my curse instead! Cursed be the work of my hand, except that my friend Jorunn take an oar!"

But that voyage had been cursed, and you were its only survivor. Though now, perhaps even that's not completely true - for here are two slaves of your clan, Clan Osgaer of the Bjornlings, who must have fallen to some terrible raid by the Skaelings in your absence. What has become of your village? Your mother, your step-father? Are they dead? Are they slaves also? Byjan, and perhaps the warrior-woman may know... but you can hardly ask such things, in the presense of the thrallherds. Only purchasing them, and speaking in a subtler moment, may yield such answers. The Skaelings are offering all these female thralls for two sceatta each, and the males for three sceatta each. Byjan is a skilled shipwright, and that should command a better price... but, you expect, no Skaeling wants to go board on a ship worked on by an enslaved Bjornling. A wise precaution, you imagine; may all their ships fall to flinders under them, in the deep waters.

You have 6 sceatta, which is enough for two thralls - though if you had wanted to try to pawn more of your acquired possessions or barter with those, you might try to sell them off to other warriors, with a Gossip roll to find interested parties for each piece of gear; or a Haggle roll to try to get one of the thrall traders to respect the barter value of an item.

[bramblefoot]

Jorunn will attempt to sell off one of the bedrolls to someone who may need it.

After the bedroll is sold, and depending on how much sceatta he gets, he will pick up the bounty hunter, the mediator and byjan if able

[MrAbdiel]

After a short round of trading with an Aesling bondsman for your spare bedroll, you manage to come away with another twelve sceatta in your palm. In a big market, or with much more time, it might have been twenty; but your options are narrow, and opportunities few; and with eighteen silver pieces in your palm with the printed faces of six different Norscan kings staring up from them, you splash out and purchase some thralls. You come away with three - a former bounty hunter, a former mediator, and a former shipwright.

You take them aside from the blocks, where the iron collars around their necks are removed and they each rub gingerly at the harsh chafing it has left on them. The woman bounty hunter is on the younger side; like you, in the early twenties of seasons; with some bredth to her shoulders suggesting the presence of sufficient skill to do her job in many circumstances. Her eyes are copper brown; and her hair which had been a darker brown has been clipped back close to her skull in an uneven scruff of short locks. The handler selling her to you told you her name was Marlene, if the name of thralls is important to you.

The mediator is a man of middle age, build stocky but going to lean with his recent sufferings; his shoulders particularly rich with bruises suggesting he tried to talk his way out of captivity many times and talked his way into extra beatings. His eyes are beady and dark, but not inherently untrustworthy; light brown hair short and knotted halfway to hell in his present condition. He might once have had an earing in the right ear; but it seems to have been removed rather viciously, leaving a piece of the lobe missing. Once, he was called Liebwen; though he waits sullenly to find out what he is called now.

The tradesman you already know - your old friend Byjan has been spared the clipping of his hair, so it is a messy tangle of dark brown dominating the right side of his head. He is a big man, and time and his captivity have not changed that; and he regards you uncertainly with his one eye, hesitant to look at you too directly; aware of his vulnerability with that one eye, and perhaps used to having it threatened. In your hooded and guarded state, it seems he has not detected who you are, yet.

The thralls shiver; they are dressed in rags and tattered blankets sufficient to keep them warm enough for sale, but it will be a test of endurance for them to travel long distances like this. But they are the ones who survived to here, from wherever they were captured - perhaps they're strong stuff.

You also have ten sceatta remaining in your palm - more than enough for one or a few more thralls, or else perhaps some items purchased to help you on your way, if you can find them. If you don't end up acquiring one of the thralls with skill to look at your wound, your choice might be to check in with the Vikti shaman and pay them for their medicine and blessing.

But first, your thralls wait on your first words to them - waiting to learn if they will suffer more, or less; for you to set the tone of their ongoing nightmare.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will speak to the thralls in a low voice. "let me be clear. if you dont harm me, i dont harm you. you can keep your names, and I'll treat you right." he will move to byjan, and show his face, holding a finger to his lips. "what happened?" he whispers

after the debacle, he'll move to check the local stands for weapons and such, and dish out the spare clothes he has to byjan and the bounty hunter. "need you two strong for the coming trek" he explains levelly

he'll also buy the initiate, and look for like rations and shtuff in case the bounty hunter cant scrounge game

im letting the mediator handle the bartering

[MrAbdiel]

The Initiate's name is Ortel; a man just barely young enough to still be regarded as a young man with hair and beard prematurely greyed. He has been robbed of personal effects including holy icons, so it is not obvious which god or gods he serves; and he doesn't assume you and interested, as you take him into your growing coalition of the willing and unwilling. Byjan and Marlene end up with the blood stained, pierced, but still better-than-rags clothes.

You use the illusion of pity for the other thralls and permit them to warm themselves near one of the fires while speaking in clandestine fashion to Byjan. He is startled by the recognition of you; first disbelieving, then confused, then relieved to the point of tearfulness that he has to restrain with all his mustered mettle. "Jorunn! Jorunn, Jorunn, I had lost hope, and thought you dead!" He can barely keep his words at a whisper; clearly wands to lift his hands to clap them on your shoulders, but he keeps them at his sides; understanding the ruse of thraldom in which he finds himself, preferring it greatly to the genuine article. "The Skaeling came. Their ships returned from their raiding afar with much plunder; and many fine weapons from the southern kingdoms. When they came, they first sacked Vaelmar; and when they amassed an army outside of Nathvir, the clan chief called challenge to the Skaeling warlord, and they met in battle; but the warlord cut him down; and then his eldest son, who came to retreive the body in the field. There could be no negotiation, after that; they took Nathvir, and put all the bondsmen to the blade, and carried the women and youths into captivity; drove the elders out into the snow to freeze, or carry word in fear to the other villages. The folk of Loergen fled to our Usjarki, and there we met them, and armed all who could carry spear or club or stone, and built palisades and prepared to fight hoping that your ship would return soon with its warriors, and that it would be enough... but you did not return, Jorunn! Your step-father and my father are slain; and not taken with honor but cast out, skulls and all for the beasts of the wood and birds of the air to have their fill. We had sent runners to Skjold, calling on the pacts that bind out clan to the tribe; but no Bjornling host arrived to save us. I have seen no evidence that they ever intended to - out tribe abandoned our clan, and now all villages of our tribe are looted, and burned. All warriors have been hunted and slain, left as carrion; you are the last bonded warrior of Clan Osgaer. You... and Anja, whom the Skaeling mistook for a dancer and she has not seen fit to correct them."

He glances sidelong to the spearmaiden, feigning harmlessness as she waits for a buyer; the killing eyes of the predator given a doe-soft gleam in her act. Byjan shakes his head in misery.

"The warlord - Áleifr The Sighted -... they say he was once a Bjornling, himself; a son of Skjold, and a fine raider well regarded in that capital place. How then did he come to hate our small clan so much, and betray his tribe in doing so? How do the other clans of Bjornling sit idle against such a wicked betrayal? I do not know. I have been in terrible despair - but now you are here. Where are the other warriors? Are there enough for us to... take revenge?"

Even if you had your full ship of warriors, without the explicit implied backing of the greater Bjornling tribe, it would be foolish to attack the Skaeling en masse. But you don't have those warriors - there is only you, and those thralls now in your hand. Vengeance, if that is something you even dare to want, is hidden in a field of so many questions on top of your own mysteries. Who is Áleifr The Sighted? Why target clan Osgaer? If he is really Bjornling by blood, why does the tribe tolerate his betrayal? With your initial destination, the village of Urjarki, reported to you now to be ask and desecration... you must decide what next move to make.

The mediator is strongly incentivised to succeed in his bartering on your behalf - in his rags, he has little chance of surviving the cold if you plan to strike out into a blizzard or heavy snow. The gods seem kind to him, atleast: he is able to secure a deal with a local pedlar.

The pedlar will give you two more sets of common clothes, each normally worth perhaps one and a third sceatta, for just two sceatta total. He will, furthermore, give you enough rations for your party of five to cover a week of bad hunting; that will cost two sceatta.

The price of the rations seems very low indeed, to you - you wonder infact if you are being sold some kind of slop. You paid several times as much, back in Truskholm. But your mediator Liebwen gives you a pained, awkward look. "Alas, err... Master Jorunn. I think that other merchant ripped you off by a factor of four or five, and pretended he was doing you a favor sparing the copper. But, err... I am making up some of that ill fortune with this deal, here."

He'll further supply you with a fishing net and a hand reel and hook, for one sceatta - a good deal you think, atleast by the reckoning of your mediator, and will go a long way to helping your bounty hunter or Byjan in securing a mean when you are near to fishable waters.

With seven sceatta to your name after purchasing the initiate, clothing your thralls, suppling them with rations for the journey, and the tools to fish would cost you a further five sceatta, leaving you with two to spare. Your coup against the Skaeling hunters was a fine little win; but it is inescapable that you may need to commit to some kind of short term, paying work if you are to purchase much more in the way of gear (or thralls, or hirelings). And the skill you have to sell is killing, and destruction; for which there is always a market.

You make your way to the stall of the Chaos Dwarf delegation. True to your expectation, their wares are so finely made and wonderful that they are far out of your price range. The dwarves are bartering them for skilled thralls; sometimes a dozen thralls for a single blade, or glass oddity. But the dwarves, strange little men with braided black beards festooned with brass toggles and rings, seem amiable enough; even if it is clear for every moment you spend with them that they see very little difference between free humans and thralls. It is simply luck, or the will of the powers, which is wearing the collar and which is holding the leash, as far as they are concerned. Perhaps they are right.

A particularly short, chatty dwarf at the edge of the kiosk notices you. "Friend; I see you you eyeing these wares. I see a man who desires much we have to offer; but has little means to claim it. Do not despair; perhaps, if you are a man willing to bargain, there are services you would provide instead of simple silver, or traded flesh. Tell me, what are you looking for?"

Presuming you buy all that stuff, you're down to 2 sceatta. The dwarf seems to be willing to bargain, though you know to be wary before committing. Open question - what things is Jorunn most interested in? Armor?
Weapons? Oddities?

[bramblefoot]

jorunn approves the purchase, and moves to the chaos dwarf stall. he was looking at the weapons. jorunn looks at the dwarf, sizing him up. "aye, that be true. i'm a warrior" he looks over the instruments of death. "need someone killed?" he whispers

as he looks over the instruments, a blade with the handle of a screaming daemon face appeals to him. "that one" he says, pointing

[MrAbdiel]

The dwarf looks at your selection; looks up at you with a raised eyebrow and stares for a moment as if trying to decide something about your nature; then back down to the blade. He picks it up with his stubby fingertips - oddly, by the blade, not the handle. "A bold choice. Perhaps something about this wicked steel appeals to you, warrior. Here, then - the bargain." He turns, and points up past his shoulder; up the slope of a looming, crooked mountain. "There is a tribe of beastmen that live in the forest against the mountain side - the Split-Hoof herd. They mostly war against themselves, because the Skaeling whip them badly and sell them to us when they come out in force. But recently they have been more bold..."

You recall the shopkeeper back in Truskholm mentioning that Zadghelm is beset by and then trailing off. This, perhaps, is what he meant.

"Which is foolish, because it will rile up the Skaeling to assault them and burn their forest. But that is not my concern. My concern is that they harry Zadghelm, and the road here; carrying off captives when they do. Which makes transporting the slaves back to my destination more perilous than it needs to be. But the road-attacks are quite small, all things considered; and my tracking-thralls tell me they are coming from up the mountain, not deep into the forest. If you can make your way up the slope, find whatever splinter-tribe is dispatching these attacks and stop it, I will be grateful enough to part with this blade. More reward still, if you discover information about what caused this anomaly. My name is Arnuuk - do we have a deal, warrior?"

[bramblefoot]

"before i sign my own death warrant on traipsing into the unknown, may i ask a few questions?" jorunn inquires.

"one, how many beastmen travel in raiding packs, and what is their general level of armament?"

"two, do you perhaps have any idea when this started, and a general layout of where the attacks occured?"

"three, are there any dangers out of the ordinary on that mountain that i should know of?"

after those questions are wrapped up to his liking. he'll confer with byjan and the bounty hunter, get healing from the initiate, and move out assuming daylight lasts

[MrAbdiel]

Arnuuk, who seems smug enough to be believing you're on the hook, is only too happy to answer.

"Well, certainly. The attacks have been happening up and down the way from here back to Truskholm, and then some beyond that. Small attacks; groups of three or four beastmen at a time, usually with one of them having horns, being their leader. The have small packs of mutants doing the same; carrying off bludgeoned captives to the mountain. The Split Hoof warherd has hundreds of warriors, but they're concerned mostly with the other herds north deeper into the woods; Whitefang, Ironfoe, Plaguetalon, so forth. This little effort, I'm convinced, is something else - maybe a party of defectors. But it's not like beastmen to split from their herd like that; not to join as a smaller group. It's been going on for at least a month, targeting freeholders and isolated hunting parties and trappers. Sometimes they get desperate enough to attack armed men. One report of a few of the little bands joining together to attack a small warparty of Aeslings on their way here; though the Aeslings thrashed them and drove them off. As far as special dangers up there... Well, it's a mountain; you should expect the normal fauna. Crag wolves, ice bears maybe. Nothing a man like you can't chase off with a torch in hand. Oh - and the beasts are the same wretched dogs you all know, wherever they crop up. Dirty bastards come with their sharpened sticks and stone weapons. Some will have iron they've stolen from Norscans, but not the skill to whet any of it."

[bramblefoot]

"i accept" jorunn says, and clasps hands with the dwarf. he will have discussions with the bounty hunter about that mountain, and see if he can get healing from the initiate before they traipse off into the direction of the mountain.

when they make camp for the night, he will send the bounty hunter on watch, with the bow, three arrows and one of the skinning knives. "you are my right arm while i sleep" he says, pressing the stuff into her hands. "byjan, you're on the second watch" he says, pushing the wood axe into his palm. "keep an eye on her yeh?" he murmurs, motioning with his head towards marlene

[MrAbdiel]

You aim to make it to the foot of the mountain, camping at the edge of a clearing where a trickle of water offers something to drink. Byjan understands, and arranges the fire while you confer with Marlene - who seems surprised you are trusting her with weapons but, true to your instinct, does not turn them on you, atleast right away.

[roll0], including a plus 10 for favorable conditions, to not require rations tonight.

Yuck! Bad roll. You had a few days of personal ration left over, so i'll say that's consumed supplementing the needs of the group for the rest of the day. Now, 7 of 7 days of ration remaining for the party.

"Just as well that blizzard burned out a couple of days ago. If we were caught on the mountain side in such a storm, we'd all be dead. All of us, anyway." She looks back at the other thralls; making do with their clothes, crowding to the fire - a luckless lot, but still better off in your hands than those of the Chaos Dwarves for example.

"Tomorrow I'll try to find some sign of passage the beasts are using up the mountain. Old tracks will be long lost to snowfall, but they have to be using some kind of regular path up. They're not just running down the side of the cliffs and dragging prisoners back up. Did you... want me to scout with you tomorrow, then?" Her question highlights the unspoken implication - that to skulk around as a pair looking for clues, you're leaving the other three thralls behind - which might help you move faster and quieter, though it carries the natural disadvantage of leaving slaves unattended... as far as she knows.

[bramblefoot]

"lets go together" jorunn says. raising his voice, he calls to the rest of his thralls "alright, here is the deal. work with me, and you'll go far. hinder me, and i can assure you that it won't go well"

intimidate roll

[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

Your underlings are cowed by your threat; and the next few days pass without incident. Almost frustratingly so; Marlene manages to find trails for a scrawny deer that spares your party some rations for two days, but you spend the better part of four searching for sign of the beastmen as you wind around the mountain's foot. It may be a blessing in disguise; the extra days permit you time to recover, and for Ortel to address your wounds. "Good thing you've stayed off the use of that arm, for a bit. The scars should knit up nicely. You're lucky these claws didn't ruin your tattoos. Perhaps... if you intend me to tend you this way often, getting your hands on some medical tools would help. Not that there is much, out here in the frozen north..."

Ortel failed two heal rolls and passed two more, and the ones he passed were for 9 wounds and 7 wounds. So I think you're back to full!

You also spend two more days of rations with two successful hunts, so your party is down to 5/7 days of rations.

Finally, on the fourth day, some luck.

"Here - you see this? Beast sign. They use it to mark passage for themselves. I can't read it, but we're on the right track now. From here, we just need to find the way they head up the mountain; a way that is easy enough going to bring captives." Marlene indicates a cluster of scratches on a high bough of a pine that you would easily have missed.

But not twenty minutes past this good sign, not long before you would be ready to camp for another night, you run into a new problem. Marlene spots something ahead, and crouches low; a sign you and your thralls have come to know means to do the same. She slides on her belly along the snow behind a log and you do the same to catch up to her, and through the snow-dusted branches of a shrub, she indicates what she sees.

Three creatures, feminine in form but clearly not human. Not even animal. Shapely forms covered in hard, creaking bark with coronae of fine twisted branches drawn back from their brows like hair covered in frost. No eyeballs, but eye sockets filled with soft blue light; no teeth, but a jagged gap for a mouth where fractured smiles of wood seem more capable of rending flesh than furnishing speech. You cannot hear them from this far back, but they confer with each other in languid, unhurried cadence.

"Dryads. Tree spirits. They loathe beastmen. But... they often aren't fond of mankind, either. We ought to go around, and leave them be. I don't know if... asking them about the beastmen or mountain is worth the risk."

You have a chance to parley with these creatures, and perhaps learn about the mountain and your quarry; but anger them, and you may have a vicious fight on your hands.
Is it worth the risk?

[bramblefoot]

"i would say we avoid them" jorunn says. "no reason to endanger ourselves, unless you think its smart to get some intel" he looks at her, gauging her reaction

[MrAbdiel]

Marlene shakes her head. She's already a thrall - she has no intention of downgrading her fortune to dead.

"I don't trust spirits, woodland or otherwise."

With that declination, you slink back to your thralls and give the chattering dryads a wide berth; then spend much of this next day following the scattered beast sign up the lower slope of the mountain.

Give me a perception check. +20, because of assistance from your thralls. Feel free to just roll it in the OOC, and I'll set up a scene depending on the outcome.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn keeps a wary eye for anything out of the ordinary on the way up the mountain, trusting the tracking to marlene, and the watching of the thralls to byjan

[MrAbdiel]

You spot them early - or rather, you hear them, which permits you and Marlene to scrabble through the snow and get eyes on them as they carry on up the mountain. Not a small group like you'd hoped, but a decent little warparty. Ten grey and white furred beastmen with bulky torsos, primative but effective weapons, spiral horns. With them are two more beastmen not like them in appearance; one smaller and weaker, no stronger than an average man; one larger and more fierce, with one broken horn at the other larger and jagged as if to compensate, leader by right of might. In their midst they tow a miserable, bloody, battered woman in her middle age; her clothes ragged and shredded, her wrists tied in rough rope towed by the weak, small beastman who has been clearly tasked as her keeper.

The beasts are having an argument; neither you nor Marlene know their awful grating tongue, but it seems to be a division in the rows of the main creatures (you know these to be gors) are bickering and shoving each other. The small one (the ungor with his pathetic little horns) can only look on, clutching the rope of the prisoner and keeping a wary eye back on her so she does not think to make a mischief of the situation. Soon though, the large one (the bestigor) lets out a basso bray that is almost a roar, and his lessers fall silent as the sound echoes through the woods and quiets the chitter and hush of wildlife. Three of the gors are dispatched back down the way they came; two are left standing where they are looking awkward and shamed; and the remaining party of three gors, one ungor and the bestigor carry on up the mountain. In the quiet that follows the outburst, you dare not make noise; but after a minute the parties going up and down the slope are far enough away that you cannot hear them. The two left on the road bray and converse, and they produce javelins from the sloppy constructions they use as quivers and move into the woods on the other side of the scrubby trail. You fear instinctively they are hunting you; but Marlene whispers:

"...One captive isn't worth a dozen escorts. Looks like the ones sent down are looking for more; and these with the javelin are probably hunting game to take up to where the beasts will make camp. Or... what passes for camp. What do you want to do?"

[bramblefoot]

jorunn grins. its not a pretty sight "lets see if we cant take one captive and do a little interrogation to find out what he knows"

he will set off silently towards the beastmen going hunting, intending on capturing one in good enough condition to talk. if that dont happen, well tough noogies

[MrAbdiel]

The hunt begins. You give the two gors a chance to get further off the road and their companions to get well beyond earshot, before you creep up on them. With Byjan and the other two thralls lagging behind so they don't blow your cover, you and Marlene skulk up at close as you dare. Fortunately, this is exactly the kind of thing Marlene is trained to do; and the opportunity to do so, to do something, rather than be a powerless prisoner seems to agree with her.

"They're likely to spot us, if we sneak up. But they're hunting - let me distract them, and you take them. I'll join you when they turn to fight you."

This also opens up an opportunity for Marlene to run while you're fighting - but she seems to be honoring her place in your retinue so far, at you know you will not long succeed out here if you are devoting yourself to herding your thralls. Marlene slinks off ahead, you follow the gors; and they halt when they spot a rutle in a snow-leaden bush ahead. You watch their ears flatten back as they approach a little closer, within ten yards of the shrub, and then hurl their javelins into it, striking nothing. From your angle, you see the ploy - Marlene behind a tree ten feet beyond that shrub, having tugged the fishing line which she had snagged in its branches.

Your blood heats, as the moment to strike arrives.

Give me an initiative roll, and you can charge in this opening surprise round!
There are two gors; both have spears, but neither of them have weapons in hand right now, so each is as good as the other for attacking.

If you can beat both a [roll0] and [roll1], you can charge in and make your surprise attack (at +20) and then take a normal turn on top, because you're first!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will roar a challenge and charge into the fray. his axe hits the gor, but does minimal damage due to catching the gors javelin strap

initiative
[roll0]

[roll1]

[roll2]

[bramblefoot]

the second round, jorunn will move to attack the wounded gor twice, hoping to drop it, and then move to intimidate the second gor to surrender

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]


parry

[roll3]

dodge
[roll4]

[MrAbdiel]

You roar into combat, your first blow chopping at the shoudler and only scoring the fur and the quiver strap as the shocked gor stumbles back; but your second blow hacks into it arm as it reaches for the spear threaded into a rough loop on that quiver, badly gouging it. But your third strike drives your father's axe right down between its horns, and you pull it, and a splattering wad of brains and dark blood, free with a grisly crack as the gor slumps to the snow.

Its compatriot bleats in fear, draws its spear, and stabs out at you wildly; but then finds it is surrounded with you above it and Marlene with the skinning knife in hand, menacing it from behind.

The Gor gets a wild swing before you get a chance to try to force it to surrender.

[roll0]; with a [roll1]

Oh, I guess you prerolled a successful parry even it it hit. Hah! New turn, Marlene is assisting you in an intimidate check, and having made such a gory display, I'll give you a +20 to your roll, contesting his WP roll of [roll2]

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will place the axe to the gor's neck and growls "drop the weapon, or the head comes off, just like that" he gives his best rictus grin to the gor, pearl circles boring into its piggish eyes as he stares it down

[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

The gor freezes, its hooves constantly shuffling, trying not to let either of you out of its sights. Your display seems to have shocked it into a pause, atleast, and it has halted its attack. But its pitiful bray back at you suggests that it does not seem to know your tongue - nor do you know it's. If there's any interrogation to come from this, it will have to be in a medium understood in all langauges.

You got 1 degree of success with your Menacing feat; and it got 1 because of a fantastic roll. That's a draw - so instead of continuing fighting, or submitting immediately, you're locked in a stalemate with him.

But also, this chump doesn't seem to speak Norscan; or any human tongue, since it appears to be bleating at you in their clumsy Dark Tongue. If you decide to just finish the job, you can attack - if you have a plan to try to ask it questions you think you can communicate with violence, you can try that too!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will put the gor outta its misery. "fugging waste of time" he hisses.

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]

[MrAbdiel]

The gor bleats in fear and anger as you lash at it, one blow wide, one blow cutting a slit in his fur; and thrusts viciously out at you with his spear! You see the hate in the creature's eyes; hatred for humans, all, focused on you specifically as their representative for this moment. Some sages say the beasts worship the same gods as the tribes; but they are fools if they do. What god would exalt such wretched things?

That's a 12 damage hit you're gonna want to dodge, and reply to!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn barely dodges the spear, feeling it whistle past his ribs. he will attempt to end the fight quickly

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]

parry and dodge

[roll3]

[roll4]

[MrAbdiel]

You avoid the beastman's strike, and swing back with a blow that smashes one of his horns free of his head and black the creature out in the snow. After that, it's a simple matter to follow through on your promise - a blow to the back of the neck parts head from shoulders, and Marlene looks on at the dead beastmen with.. satisfaction, maybe. She shivers in the cold, and looks to you.

"What now? Did you want to hunt the rest of them? Those three will be down near the road by now watching it waiting for an ambush target. The other seven will be up the slope somewhere, waiting for these fools to bring back something to eat. We could... try to tease them apart into small groups. You seem very capable at killing them."

[bramblefoot]

"sounds like a good idea" jorunn says. "i think we should wipe out the bottom ones first, and deny them any reinforcements"

[MrAbdiel]

Down the slope you go, seeking the hunting party laying ambush on the road. You have been traipsing around on this mountain for the better part of a week now; but that was when you didn't know where to go. Now the terrain is familiar to you and you have definite directions; within a couple of hours, you and your thralls are near to your prey; and you peel off Marlene into your typical work arrangement. You confer with her, and she agrees with your instinct. If you were capturing people on the road, you'd have one of the three minding the ideal ambush spot, and one up and down that road to spot travellers so they could dash off and get the ambush ready for them to pass buy. It's just a matter of finding the isolated elements of these beastmen so you can take them out...

Give me a perception check. You can have a +20 because you're approaching from the mountain side, while they're largely watching the path below.

While you're rolling, give me a silent move. That's flat, because even though you're in a good position and can afford to move slowly, it's hard to be quiet in snow.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn scans the place with a practiced eye. "i see the lone one" he says. unfortunately, he steps on a branch, making a cracking sound and alerting the beastman to his presence

perception
[roll0]

silent move
[roll1]

[MrAbdiel]

You approach, but your unfortunate step alerts the beastman; and it startles, bleats, and dashes; loping through the trees toward in you expect the direction of one of its comrades. You have one chance to intercept it, using your descent down the slope and position to reach it; but you note already that the hooved creatures are quite fleet of foot, and not prone to remain in fights where they do not hold the advantage of numbers.

As you close, Marlene sprints further up the path just inside the treeline, trying to prepare to be a backstop of the beast gets past you.

Let's get this goat. Give me a flat agility roll; if you succeed, you'll be able to charge it; but you're not catching it by surprise. If you don't succeed, it's out of your grasp; and we'll see if Marlene can get the tackle.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn pounds through the snow, easily tackling the beastman off its feet. the axe buries itself in the beastmans chest, doing minor damage

[roll0]

[roll1]

[MrAbdiel]

The beastman bleats desperately - but faced with the option of turning its back to your blade and confronting you to fight, it takes the option that could conceivably result in victory... and strikes.

[roll0] vs Unsettling
[roll1] to hit.
[roll2] damage.

That's a big hit and he's not even unsettled - you're gonna wanna parry it! He takes parry stance with his second half action.

...As Marlene slings away her bow and draws her knife, preparing soon to join you in the melee.

[bramblefoot]

"hound protect me!" jorunn hisses as he desperately parries the incoming spear attack. after that, he'll make two attacks against the beastman

[roll0]


[roll1]
[roll2]

[MrAbdiel]

Your blow cracks into the beastman's side, spilling dark blood onto the snow and eliciting a pathetic bleat. The wolf who has followed you has fallen into the loose care of your mediator and initiate, Liebwen and Ortel. The former has some rural experience caring for animals, the latter serves some kind of wolf-god and has affinity for the creature. And when you bark for his attendance, you find that this time rather than quailing and hestiating, the scruffy lupine carves through the snow and launches at the beastman like a furry missile; seizing one wrist in its jaws and bearing him to the ground with weight, where Marlene is quick to seize her moment and stab through the beastman's heart. She spits on it; and the wolf spends a little while growling at tugging the dead gor's wrist, before letting go.

The bounty hunter-turned-thrall Marlene puffs frosted air, and looks to you with expectation. "That's one of three. If we can get the last two, there will be none behind us if you're planning to pursue the others up the mountain tomorrow."

You've been quite good so far! You're down to one FP for the day, but you've killed foes.. .But there are two more down here near the road, and if you intend to camp without whacking them tonight, you'll run the risk of them coming back up the mountain at night finding your camp. On the other hand, maybe you want that - you have turned ambushes handilly before, so maybe letting them come to you will save you some leg work. What's the move?

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will crack off one of the beastmens horns, for experimentation with the mark later. "push on, see if we cant find where they went" he says, and leads. he'll pass out a spear to marlene if she wants one, and keep the other in reserve

how much daylight do we have left? i have night vision, but my thralls dont

[MrAbdiel]

You are running out of daylight - but fortunately, the flight of your last kill told you the direction to stalk the others; and sliding up into the wooded mountain slope again, you discover both the remaining beastmen hunkering behind a stone aside from the pathway not far from where you killed the mutants who attempted to kill you. This time, your approach is better executed; you come within charging range of the pair before they notice; and once this pair are dead beneath your blade, you will have atleast nominal safety to rest, and pursue the remainder tomorrow.

I rolled your stealth and their perception opposed off screen this time to speed it up; first you both failed; then they got a 20 and you got a 10, which is a pretty even showing; but given the bonuses you're getting from attacking from a direction they don't expect, I'm inclined to give the ambush to you. The two beastmen are adjacent to each other, with a stone axe each. Their initiative is [roll0]. You get a surprise round to charge and, if you beat their initiative, another attack before they go; your mangy wolf and Marlene will join the ambush when you initiate. Last pair of beastmen and you've wiped out this secondary party of them!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn calls the wolf, and will move to attack a beastman. he narrowly misses the beastman as it flinches out of the way

[roll0]

[roll1]

[roll2]

[MrAbdiel]

As you launch into combat, Marlene looses her first arrow from the looted hunter's bow; and the shot is good, plunking into the eye socket of the second beastmen and sending him reeling, bleating with outrage, scrabbling to keep his footing even with the shaft sticking out of his skull. The mangy wolf rushes into melee with you, instinctively circling your beastmen and menacing him by darting in and nipping at his ankles, creating openings for you without committing himself to immediate harm.

Recovered from their shock, the beastmen attack - the one with the arrow sticking from his head blowing past you to charge at Marlene; the one you duel struggling to lay into you and beware the hound at his heels!

Marlene commits a bloody good shot, but doesn't quite crit the second Gor. The wolf zooms in with you, giving you a +10% outnumbering bonus on the one you're duelling without succeeding to bite.

You outnumber because Arrow-Eye charges at Marlene, provoking an attack from you for free (which you ought to make first);

And Lucky-Gor who avoided your charge swings back at you with his crude axe. [roll0], for potentially [roll1] damage! Edit: WHIFF! Miss.

Your turn - make a free attack on the one Gor and then, if you like, a swift attack on the other at +10 for the wolf.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will strike at the charging gor, and then make two attacks on the other one

[roll0]

[roll1]

swift attack

[roll2]

[roll3]
[roll4]

[MrAbdiel]

You strike aside a parry, then manage to land a meaningful blow against your gor's shoulder; and while it reels back, you spin to smash your shield into the side of the one charging at your thrall, staggering it and numbing its arm so its axe blow comes sloppy and slow, easilly enough avoided by the bounty huntress. Your mangy wolf seems to find its courage and, with a growl, leaps up and latches on to the back of your opponent's haunch with his jaws, eliciting a bleating cry and a panicked spin and stumble from the beastman.

Now both goat-men are badly injured, and neither has landed a blow - may all your battles be so conclusive.

You slapped both beastmen this round, and the doggo managed to get a bite on; while both beastmen failed hard. So both are on death's door, and haven't managed a hit - a pretty good ambush considering!

You are clear to attack again, while Marlene keeps the other one busy! You still outnumber this guy for +10, so you're looking for.. what, 67? Nice.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will drop two attacks into the beastman he's in combat with.

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]

[MrAbdiel]

Your flurry hacks the gor to the ground, leaving it wheezing and bleeding out against the snow in a tableaux of white and arterial red. The wolf releases as your prey falls, and instinctively launches after the still dangerous prey; and between his jaws on its ankle and Marlene's slashing with the skinning knife, this gor stumbles too - long enough that you are able to walk to it, grab its backwards-cranked wrist with the stone axe in it, drag it onto its back, and smash your father's axe into the front of its skull, splitting it open and destroying its foul brain. The other goatman has bled out by the time you turn back to it - but you know to make sure, and you do.

With these blows, and with these clumsy weapons taken for the other thralls, you reunite with your group and give the go-ahead to make a fire - there will be no sinister beastmen watching from the shadows tonight, looking to snatch up your shivering flock from its light. With all the killing of the day, Marlene has been unable to hunt game, and the others have not succeed in her absense... but the warmth of fire is welcome enough, and the rations are sufficient to calm the outraged stomach.

Planning to stalk the rest up higher into the mountain tomorrow? And if you do, did you have a plan in mind? You may win a conflict against an ungor, 5 gors and a bestigor with your full force unleashed - but it's far from certain. Are you seeking to divide and conquer - or just to follow them up to see where they go, ultimately? Or something more cunning still?

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will take the beastmans horn, and rub it on the mark on his arm. after that, he'll gather the troops and mention the plan. "i just wanna get a scouting run on what the beastmen have up that hill. lets avoid combat, unless there is no other option"

"lets scout at first light, and see what we can find. push comes to shove, make a lotta noise. with any luck, some gors will flee "

"any volunteers to try to lead some away? i wont force you, but if you survive, youll be looked upon highly"

i wanna get a good feel for the camp, maybe have a my fastest individuals attempt to lead some of them off

[MrAbdiel]

The experimentation with the horn on the mark is novel... but provides no effect. So far, nothing you do to it seems to be impacting it. So what is it doing? Tracking something else? Protecting you? And if you can't find the answers, who can?

Your thralls listen sceptically to your plan about the day to come, though they have no alternative but to go along with it. When you offer an extra credit assignment, Marlene is about to pipe up; but Ortel, the initiative, surprises you by piping up. "I'll do it. If we survive... can we have proper warm clothes...?"

It's a big ask. An appropriate set of furs might be six sceatta, - you that's enough for two more thralls, in a bloated market like this. Such reasons are why tribes tend to use up these pathetic schmucks then throw them away. But if you intend to furnish loyalty in them, making a promise you intend to follow through on - even much later - may be wise.

[bramblefoot]

"i will do my best to get you warm clothes" jorunn says honestly. he sets the watch, himself first watch, marlene second, and ortel third

[MrAbdiel]

A quiet night, and a grim morning; a light snowfall has refreshed the ground, covering all your old tracks and making a stark canvas for the new ones. You and your thralls, now armed with crude beastmen spears, approach your quarry's camp. You hope as you approach you will encounter a search party looking for the others; but they are not compassionate enough creatures to care about their lost brethren so much. When you find them, they are crowded into conference with one another; five gors, the ungor and the bestigor. The captured human lies on the ground near them, insensible with shivers from the cold. You and Marlene lay in wait, hoping the pack will split on its own; but after this scenario does not avail, you execute your plan.

The initiate, Ortel, shows remarkable courage - a credit to his god - as he slinks up to visual range of the goatmen... then decent acting skill as he releases a startled bark, as if he had just stumbled upon them before taking off down the hill at full pelt. A flurry of brays and bleats erupts, and [roll0] of the gors break from the group and give chase while the remainder of the herd looks on with curious detachment.

The time to strike has come again; and your blood is up and ready for it.

You've succeeded in a bunch of stealth alright, and these guys aren't expecting to be hunted because they had scouts out; so you don't need to roll to pull of the ambush. Perhaps the last fight in this beastmen saga - and the enemy will act on [roll1]. Charge the big Bestigor, the little Ungor, or one of the remaining Gors - and if you beat their initiative, you can have an immediate follow up round.

"Dammit", Byjan hisses, preparing his weapons; "Not nearly enough. Alright, we're all going in. Run and they'll run you down. Fight defensive and let Jorunn work through them. When they know they're losing, they'll break."
Your wolf, and your three additional thralls, brace to charge in with you.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will charge the bestigor, axe flashing

[roll0]

[roll1]

my second round action is to shift to my were form

[MrAbdiel]

In you go; your axe hacking into the Bestigor's shoulder as it turns and roars, its impressive rack of antler-horns shaking with its rising outrage at the ambush. The whole herd seems in disbeleif, as you slam in and especially as you begin twisting and changing, your muscles bulking out and straining, even tearing your clothes; your body covered in snow-white fur soon to be matted with beast-blood. The four gors before you seem shocked and alarmed by your transformation. The bestigor seems almost thrilled by it; and the ungor is in such a state of perpetual abuse that it is somehow unmoved by you arrival and the danger it permits. The small-horned beastman hops at the fringe of the combat, stalling his engagement and wondering if this is a good moment to escape as you and your allies lay in; but the other beasts begin to fight for their lives.

But the battle swings immediately, hard, in your favor. The mangy wolf scores a bite on the Bestigor's leg, weighing him to one side and spoiling his reprisal swing against you so the stone head of his great maul crashes into the trunk of a tree beside you. Down the line, Byjan engages one of the gors and they trade gauging blows without landing hits; and Leibwen, the mediator, manages to draw the short straw and duels two of the beasts - but he conducts himself with courage born of his current predicament, swinging the spear by its base to create a hazardous zone and forcing the two gors back from him, preventing either from landing a blow. Marlene does the best - the momentum of the charge carries her in, and the crute tip of a spear that just yesterday had been thrusting at you now plunges through the thigh of a gor and sends it to the ground, where she is able to finish it off with a second, more vicious stab still. Your allies have killed one of their number; and none of them have landed a retort.

And they haven't yet even felt your ursine rage.



Byjan: Uninjured
Marlene: Uninjured
Leibwin: Uninjured
Mangy Wolf: Uninjured
Ortel: Offscreen.

Bestigor: 9 Wounds (Lightly Wounded, Engaged with Jorunn and Mangy Wolf).
Ungor: Refusing to engage.
Gor1: Uninjured, Unsettled (Engaged with Byjan)
Gor2: Dead (Killed by Marlene!)
Gor3: Uninjured, Unsettled(Engaged with Leibwin)
Gor4: Uninjured, Unsettled(Engaged with Leibwin)
Gor5: Offscreen.

Your turn, then your allies, then the beasts again. You are free to attack with your... three bloody swift attacks and improved Were-bear profile! You have +10% to hit because you and the wolf are engaging the bestigor together.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will make three attacks on the bestigor, claws flashing. the first claw swings over his shoulder, but the second bites deep. the third is little more than an annoyance

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]

[MrAbdiel]

Your swing over the shoulder draws the Bestigor's guard up; but then you smash your shield into its thigh with such force that the femur audibly snaps and it collapses, the bone protruding in a gout of blood and affording you an arterial spray baptism as you drop down to execute it. The ungor takes this as its cue and starts to make its escape - hauling the numb and confused prisoner away from the combat, as your snarling wolf compatriot gives chase.

Meanwhile, the line holds. None of your thralls manage to land telling blows in the following exchange; but Liebwen, valiantly defending himself against two, takes a bruise from a thrown bestial elbow but keeps his feet. Marlene closes on the next gor in line, ganging up on it with Byjan and leaving room for you to charge and work your way through this one, too. If things keep going like this, these vaunted beasts will be scattered and gone in short order.



Byjan: Uninjured
Marlene: Uninjured
Leibwin: 1 Wound (Lightly Injured)
Mangy Wolf: Uninjured
Ortel: Offscreen.

Bestigor: Dead (Killed by Jorunn!).
Ungor: Fleeing! (Engaged with Mangy Wolf).
Gor1: Uninjured, Unsettled (Engaged with Byjan, and Marlene)
Gor2: Dead
Gor3: Uninjured, Unsettled(Engaged with Leibwin)
Gor4: Uninjured, Unsettled(Engaged with Leibwin)
Gor5: Offscreen.

Your turn, then your allies, then the beasts again. You made short work of the bestigor! You have a couple of options. If you join in the gang-bash on Gor1, Marlene and Byjan will give you a +20; though you could otherwise join Leibwin to take the pressure off him at his end of the combat.
You can charge or move into either of these combats.

But also, you could perform what I am inclined to call the Gimgroth Maneuver on account of how often Lars used it; which is to use a half-action to walk into engagement with one of the enemy groups (thus forgoing the +10 for charging) but then spending a Fate Point to gain an extra half action for the turn and swift attacking! That said, the combat is going very well for your side right now and you can decide if you want to conserve FP for "oh sheet" scenarios or capitalize on your strong position.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will capatalize on our strong position and do a swift attack, claws biting deep into beastman flesh

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]

the 9 and the 8 go on one beastman, and the 14 goes on the other

[MrAbdiel]

Beastman blood splatters the snow. You wade into the melee with the tiring Mediator, backing off to let you have room to work; your axe biting into the gors with your mightly blows and splattering their blood as they strain to fend you off with their spears. Their attention goes to you, naturally - one making a good strike that might even get past your guard, while Marlene and Byjan crowd and batter down the one gor between them. The ungor continues to flee; you hear your wolf barking and snarling as he gives chase around the bend of a hill.



Byjan: Uninjured
Marlene: Uninjured
Leibwin: 1 Wound (Lightly Injured)
Mangy Wolf: Uninjured
Ortel: Offscreen.

Bestigor: Dead (Killed by Jorunn!).
Ungor: Fleeing! (Engaged with Mangy Wolf).
Gor1: 7 Wounds, Lightly Wounded, Unsettled (Engaged with Byjan, and Marlene)
Gor2: Dead
Gor3: 9 Wounds, Heavily Injured (Engaged with Leibwin and Jorunn)
Gor4: 10 Wounds, Heavily Injured, Unsettled(Engaged with Leibwin and Jorunn)
Gor5: Offscreen.

I'll give them one more round to do something lasting otherwise these mooks are breaking and running. But before that, you get one more round of ripping heads off; there's two heavilly wounded gors in melee with you and Leibwen, so no gangup bonus in there.

One of the Beastmen actually hit! It's a hit on you for [roll0] damage to the arm, though you are entitled to parry as normal.

Edit: Lmao. Well, I guess that just dinks off your hide!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will attempt to finish off the two gors.

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]

[MrAbdiel]

These, too, you hack down; driving them to the ground with ruinous wounds to their bodies, where Leibwen can finish them off as you round to the remaining gor. It has managed to defend itself from Byjan and Marlene, but makes its break to run - though beast-swift as it is, so are you, and its flight is to no avail. You drive it to the ground and bash the life out of it while nearby the mangy wolf chomps and shakes at the neck of the now still and silent ungor, his shivering prisoner pressed back against a tree in shock; and down the slope, you see your thralls falling on the gor that had followed Ortel away and all the way back. The attack is a massacre; the entire party of beastmen wiped out, with only superficial wounds on your side. For a moment, it's almost like having an actual warband again...

The woman, whose skin is so pale it is almost translucent, looks at your blood-spattered fur and waits to die.

Gain 200xp for culling this herd! And now, you have freed this captive - she bears no thrallmark, so is theoretically a free woman of the Skaeling clan, for whatever that means to a Bjornling like you! But she, clearly, thinks you are another, worse kind of beastman.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will shift down to his normal form, and let the mediator deal with the terrified woman. he congratulates his thralls on a job well done, and will take the bestigors head for his skull collection

[MrAbdiel]

It's been a while since you've taken a skull. You spend a little time to yourself meditatively scoring the skin on the bone, peeling it off in strips and digging out the eyes and corners of meat wedged in its cervices; hooking grisly strips of brain out through the nasal cavity Over the next few nights, you will let the scavengers worry at it to clean it some more, and there will be some additional preparation for the trophy. But it adds to your saga; a hunting pack you and your thralls dismantled piece by piece, and you will carry this skull with pride.

You let the shivering Leibwen, who held his own against the beasts until you could relieve him, speak with the poor captive; and Ortel comes to assist also. Once you've done your cleaning of the skull and left it for the blood flies to strip, you find her with your thralls huddled around a new fire.

Her name is Thrud; she a homestead back off the road down the way you travelled to get to the thrallmarket. The hunting herd must have swept in while they were snowed in and not expecting attack, driving off and hilling her own thralls and livestock, taking her as captive. The way she tells it, they took two of her thralls also; but they didn't make the journey.

"Th-they s-seemed to a-argue about whether to e-eat m-me but the b-b-b-big one wouldn't l-l-let them...", Thrud stutters through her shivers as the fire's warm gives her back her life.

Marlene inteprets, relieving her of the need to keep struggling the words out. "So they were going somewhere they needed you alive, but didn't expect to find food on the way, or even there - thus splitting up to hunt. If there was a herdstone up there, it would be different. Maybe they have some kind of... mad, beastman shrine that requires sacrifices...."

The assembled, shivering thralls and the recovering prisoner consider this in dread reflection, while chewing on strips of venison that Marlene was, this day of all days, able to rustle up.

As you camp for another night, you consider the next day. With this obstacle removed, you have a straight shot higher into the mountain and can do so with a reasonable expectation that wherever they were going is accessible soon, since they were dragging a live prisoner which do not historically go well up vertical climbs. But it is getting more cold and bitter of a climb - it will be very difficult for the thralls to proceed, from here.

Estimating one more day of travel to your destination and unsure what to find there, you may choose now which thralls, if any, you intend to bring. Lacking good cold weather clothes, they (even Marlene) are at considerable risk any higher than this; but their skills may still prove useful, and the alternative is leaving them here under probably Byjan's supervision.

What's the call? Ascend solo, or take some friends? Either way, can you go ahead and roll me a Scale Sheer Surface roll at flat, and a Move Silently roll at +20%!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will consider to himself around the fire. he has thralls, and like it or not, he's begun to warm to them. do i risk their lives for extra muscle, or go it alone? he ponders. in the end, he comes to a decision, and will take marlene and ortel up the slope along with the wolf

silent move (15 in ooc)
[roll0]

scale sheer surface
[roll1]

[MrAbdiel]

With the light of the morning, you take Ortel and Marlene, and your mangy wolf who is growing in confidence, further up the mountain. At times you are required to climb against the snow-slick sides of the rock, where there is very little slope; but you navigate it easilly enough, as does your party behind you - though your four legged member bounds off into the snow and rejoins you up at the next level having found his own way around. A perfectly sheet wall you might have been able to climb; but this incline is about what the goat-men might manage with a prisoner dragged on a chain behind them. Marlene helps you choose between alternate paths at some points towards the most likely, and you are gratified as you clear to a plateau that you do not need to ascend all the way to the summit. A spar of rock hides a great tall cleft in the stone leading to an interior cave, just as cold as the outside but insulated from the wind chill; and your companions huddle within trying to get warm while you stalk further inside.

Your night-eyes work here in this darkness, with just fragments of light draining into the depth of the cave where it winks of condensed and frozen moisture on the walls; and your instincts prevent you from stepping on ground too crunchy or kicking loose rock. Just as well - after winding through the dark passage, you emerge into a great chamber which seems to be the source of the problem... and the reason you came up here. There are two creatures in the room, though there have obviously been more; the stone floor at the entrance is black with frozen blood from many slayings, fragments and bonechips scattered around all that remains of other prisoners dragged up this way. A huge, bulky rests against the interior wall; a mount of fat, and flesh, and furs; an ogre if you're not mistaken, with beard and moustache grown long and wild and crusted with frozen blood; the hides of mismatched creatures strewn stinking and heavy over his shoulders; a great hammer with a wedge shaped, bone-white head gripped in one sleeping fist. This, it seems, is the creature that has required feeding, and whom the beasts have been bringing captives to - not a sacrifice to dark gods, but to feet this glutton from the far east. Why they would feel a need to serve such a creature is beyond you. But the ogre is not the whole story.

Beyond him, dominating a massive cavern glittering with frost and icicles illuminated by shards of light bleeding in through cracks above, is a massive, scaled form the likes of which you had previously only seen carved in wooden relief and described in great sagas. A colossal dragon of pale blue scales sleeps here; drawing in breath and breathing it out with the tang of ozone flushing the room each time, each cycle of breath taking a minute to fill and drain the huge lungs. You don't know much about such legendary beasts - only that they are intelligent, and that they predate the coming even of the gods to the world - but your best guess is that it is in some kind of deep hibernation sleep like a bear, or a snake; it may require more than noise to wake such a beast. Just as well - the ogre, who is not hibernating but just sleeping a fat man's sleep, snores like a lion roars.

You've gotten this far without waking the ogre up. You might manage to get close enough to strike a mortal blow, if you so desired - its hammer looks valuable indeed. But perhaps it will starve, now that you have slaughtered its caterers? And what to do about this massive wyrm?

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will shift silently into were form, sneak up, and make three attacks on the ogre

silent move
[roll0]

[roll1]

[roll2]
[roll3]
[roll4]

[MrAbdiel]

You lope towards the sleeping ogre, feeling the blinding pain of the change that brings your radical strength. You're as quiet as you can be in the buildup, but there's no stopping your heavying breath and hungry growling, and by the time you are upon the ogre, he has ceased snoring, woken with a bellow, and flailed to defend himself. Your blows hack at him, and he raises his left arm to defend himself, forcing your father's axe to chop into the meat and fat of that huge limb as he hauls himself to his feet. Blood falls from the cuts, freezing in droplets and dancing off the floor of the cavern like scattering rubies as he raises himself up howls in, of all languages, cracked Tilean.

"AaaaRGGh! You come to feed? I eat your heart instead!"

The dragon seems unbothered by any of this; sleeping away, thankfully.

The Ogre is lightly wounded. Frenzy isn't quiet, but I gave you the move up to him and a free superior initiative. This turn, the Ogre is standing, and taking a parrying stance so he can defend himself against your next attacks! That's all he can do this turn - you're up to attack again!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will make three attacks again, axe flashing as the ogre staggers to his feet. "come and try!" he growls.

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]

[MrAbdiel]

You hack, chop and maul; the red crowding in your vision and darkening the periphery outside of this context of brutality. In this form, you are the ogre's match for size and brawl; which makes the matchup possible at all... but the maw-warrior takes your blows to the arms, to the thighs, and bleeds and grunts... but does not fall. Indeed, he seems committed to fight to the death here - there is hunger in his eyes which matches your bloodlust, and with his flagging reserves of strength, he brings his hammer crashing down at you...

[roll0] for [roll1].
[roll2] for [roll3].
[roll4] for [roll5].

[bramblefoot]

jorunn easily parries, seeking to get a chop into the ogres heart

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]

[MrAbdiel]

Your father's axe clonks into the ogre's skull. Its bite is disappointing shallow in the thick bone; but it splashes blood in ogre's eyes, and affords you a window to lunge in with your ursine snout and tear out the ogre's throat. It crashes down with a ghastly gurgle; its own blood splashing down its open neck into its stomach and, you swear, providing some strange relief in its eyes. But your opponent is dead, and your body cracks and shifts back to its natural form, leaving you spitting foul blood and wiping it from your facial hair. Looking up, you see dragon is just as asleep before - and the hammer, which appears to you now to be a finely worked handle and a massive, sawn off tooth or tusk with the flat top used as the hammer's face, clatters to the ice.

It is yours to take, now - though so far the reason for this weird coalition of ogre, beastmen and dragon remains less than obvious.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn grabs the hammer and heads out to his shivering thralls. "any idea what this hammer was doing with that ogre in there?" he asks, giving the hammer a few experimental swings well clear of his thralls

[MrAbdiel]

You grab the hammer, and pivot to get away from this dragon and back to your thralls-

But your legs do not obey. You feel a flash of pain in your calves and invading, awful cold; looking down and expecting to see them frozen to the floor - but the rebellion, it seems, is within your mind. Your feet will not move, and neither with your knuckles uncurl from the haft of the hammer that you pried from the dead grip of the ogre.

"You killed my sentinel."

Behind you, one draconic blue eye, larger than your whole head, squints at you half-lidded and intent. The magnificent beast has not risen from its sleeping posture; but it has awoken... not when you killed the ogre, but when you claimed the hammer.

"Tell me why."

[bramblefoot]

jorunn coolly says "that hammer looks mighty fine, im sure it hasnt been used in real battle in a while"

if given the opportunity, he'll give the dragon a story to try to placate it

performer (storyteller) roll
[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

It's been a long time since you stumbled into a situation where martial power had nothing to offer you. Your skills beyond killing are limited - it is what you trained for all your life, and it is the undisputed king of career moves. But in the face of such a titanic creature, it is deeply insufficient. Only a handful of legendary warriors have slain dragons in personal combat - none in memory more recent than myth.

...But you do know legends, and warriors, and myths.

The dragon asked why you slew his champion; and so you tell him using the other gift you have - the ability to present a story. You tell a tale of a young warrior, doubted and dishonoured by his people, who sailed to far shores seeking glory only to return home in wreck and ruin, striving to claw together enough debris of life to rise and start again; perhaps, for vengeance... perhaps, just to live. Your story ends with the warrior and his thralls making their way up a mountain, slaying a pack of rambunctious beastmen and finally laying low an ogre champion lurking in a dragon's cave... content, then, to take his prize and leave the dragon be.

The dragon listens; blinking the lazy lid of that eye every two minutes, or so. When you have finished, you are gratified to find you are not snapped up and eaten. You are addressed again.

"A fine story; one that would suffer to end early. Now harken ye; here is another story:

There were once two ogre brothers named, named Uruk and Gartak Firebelly. They were Maneaters - all ogres eat flesh, but the Maneaters are a caste of travellers and discoverers. And so they travelled far, killing and learning and eating, until they wound up at in a cave of a mountain in far Norsca, so many miles from their home. In that cave they met an ancient champion - a human of the Kurgan tribe, strangely in this place. He held a hammer made from a dragon's tooth. With it, he guarded the dragon's sleep in that cave - in exchange, the hammer's magic eliminated his need to eat; and age would not diminish him, as his life was fed from the dragon. But the Firebelly brothers knew this not; and they saw only a relic to steal - just as the Kurgan Arsak Helspike had, a hundred years prior. So they fought the Kurgan and slew him; and peeled his body out of his armor and ate his cold flesh. And then Uruk took up the hammer, and in that moment learned its nature. Gartak could leave; but Uruk could not. But the hammer's power could slake a man's hunger - an ogre's hunger is a curse, borne upon him by an evil god, and that could not be set aside. So Gartak sought to help his brother, who could not leave the cave, now burdened with the mystic duty of the sentinel. He harried and bullied local beasts to gather offerings and take them to the cave for his brother to eat, lest the dragon be roused and lay waste to their herdstone - a promise the dragon had not made, but the beasts were ready to believe. And for a short time, this worked; and loyal Gartak kept his brother alive by forcing beasts to bring slaves to eat. But the weather grew worse, and blizzards made hunting and slaving hard; and Gartak visited his brother with a lone rabbit he had managed to catch on a lean day while the beasts had failed in their hunting, intending to split it with him. But Uruk, maddened with hunger and despair, had grown melancholy, and he killed his brother and at the rabbit and at his brother also; then dwelt is miserable solitude as the beasts came less and less often, growing wary and suspicious of this threat now the enforcer was gone. And on a final day, the beasts did not come at all - but a new warrior, a bear-blooded killer with white hair, came, and fell upon Uruk in his sleep, and killed him, and claimed the hammer as his own... only to find like Uruk Firebelly and Arsak Helspike and Lodmar Ironshield and Orfus Ironsheild and Helga Ironshield and Tourmas Silverstar and Ladimore Silverstar before him, the dragon-tooth hammer was as much prison as it was prize."

Now you understand. The hammer is a cursed thing; a magical weapon made for or by this dragon to force a mortal sentinel to stand guard while he sleeps for ages. And now it's in your hand. Needless to say, you cannot remain like this. Perhaps you can bargain with the dragon - offer to find it another sentinel. That may require leaving someone, or something, of value behind as bond. One you're out of here, you could honor that word, or betray it, or keep going and never come back.

But you'd have to make the pitch, first.

[bramblefoot]

"what would it take for me to find you an enforcer?" jorunn replies cautiously, eyeing the beast. he keeps his mind shielded as best he can, to not allow any undue thoughts to get out, in case the dragon is a mind reader

[MrAbdiel]

"You have found me one. You are here, are you not? If you say 'I will find another' and go, you will leave and not return - and if I threaten to hunt you for such treachery, you will guess that I am a lazy creature, full of slumber, and be right. Why should I trust you? On which gods will you swear?"

[bramblefoot]

jorunn had never broken an oath before, but being a sentinel to some wyrm for his days sounds less than appealing. "i will swear on the chained maiden that i will find you an enforcer" he says with nary a stutter or waver in his speech

[MrAbdiel]

The dragon's nostril flares. Its massive eye narrows.

"...Do this, warrior; do this, lest your god pour suffering on you. Do this, faithful to your word, and more than the satisfaction of right action may be yours."

You hear ice cracking as the behemoth bulk of the beast shifts slightly. One of his grand leather wings shifts slightly - and you see it is sleeping on a heap of silver and gold coin... but of interest on that pile, apparently the dragon's offer, is a thick steel breastplate, which might have once been worn by a Kurgan champion - but then it vanishes from your sight as the wing settles again.

It closes its eye, and looks to be working back into sleep - and the rigidity of your grip slackens all of a sudden, the hammer clattering to the ground from your numb fingers. Once it is clear of your hand, your feet obey you again; and you tumble to the ground as your spasming calves once again recognize your authority. You are clear to leave, the cursed hammer no longer forcing your obedience; the dragon apparently deciding to add greed to the divine oath to compel you to action.

Back at the entrance to the cave, Ortel and Marlene are holding themselves, crowded into a corner with the mangy wolf between them lending its warmth. They look over you, splattered in crystalized ogre blood; but neither demands to know what has taken place. You have to move quickly to get down the slope to the rest of your thralls before nightfall; where Byjan does dare to ask about what has taken place, and what is to happen next.

"The woman, Thrud, is recovering slowly; but she needs warmth and care from a place like Zagdhelm, if she is to live. But you have returned - and the beastmen are slain. Perhaps that will be enough, for the dark dwarf?"

Arnuuk wanted most that you would stop the beastmen attacks - you've done that. He wanted secondarilly that you could gather intel about why they were attacking - you've done that too. The dragon has made you swear by a minor goddess, with the promise of a breastplate of reward, that you will find someone else to be its champion - the way you do this was not specified, but it will involve someone atleast combat capable picking up the dragon-tooth hammer. You may choose to ignore this promise, if you are willing to risk whatever might come from that!

[bramblefoot]

"should be" jorunn replies, lost in thought. "back to zagdhelm" he says.

he's not confiding to anyone save arnuuk about that giant ass wyrm up in the hills

[MrAbdiel]

It's a long walk back to Zadghelm - but atleast one with less thread, since you've culled the nearby beastmen; and the frost and snow do not decide to overly punish you. When you and your thralls are back in the town, you find that the Thrall Market is mostly packed up; sales have been made, ' goods' led away. A handful of vendors remain in these late days; and one of them is the small contingent of Dwarves. Arnuuk grins an unpleasant grin, and throws up his arms at your return; a gesture that seems almost to mock the idea of good friends, as much as to emulate it. Byjan and your thralls crowd to an outdoor bonfire, and see to some mercy for the rescued freeholder. This affords you a private-enough moment to speak with the dwarven vendor.

"You have returned, warrior! And with a great beast skull in your possession. A good hunt, I take it?"

[bramblefoot]

"a good hunt" jorunn says. he lowers his voice, saying "the beastmen were taking captives up the mountain to feed an ogre." he continues with. "i saw a wyrm, big as can be. apparently the ogre was its sentinel, with a big hammer" he does not elaborate on how he escaped the wyrm, unless arnuuk asks, and then he's evasive as best he can be

he looks over the oddments that arnuuk has, collecting his blade, by the steel and collecting a small spyglass with purple lenses and carved runes. when he puts his eye to the glass, a small imp is inside, and gives him better zoom and identification purposes

he'll thank the dwarf for his time, and meet up with his thralls.

if you have any hooks, now is the time to hit me

[MrAbdiel]

Arnuuk is surprised by your report - but definitely intrigued to learn that the mountain holds a dragon. A dragon whose primary defender is now dead.

"An interesting discovery, warrior. There have long been rumors of old Khazanaak The Blue in the mountains; but it had been thought he had fled to some other ice floe hundreds of years prior. This is good to know - and you have earned your reward..." He presents you with the blade you selected - and with some negotiation, the additional reward of the Devil-Spy trinket. He's also good enough to explain to you what your spoils infact do!

When you return to your thralls, they are recovering around a fire while Thrud has been taken into the hospitality of the owner of the longhouse; the same who took you in, when you were fished out of the snow in a similar condition. She will be in recovery for some time; and likely receive local aid restoring her home.

Byjan looks over your spoils breifly with his one good eye, before striking up a conversation with you.

"...Joruun... What happens, now? Are we going west, to Skjold, to find out why there has been no vengeance for our clan from the rest of the Bjornling tribe? Or further into Skaeling territory, to take vengeance ourselves...? Or ... do we need money first, before anything?"

It's a fair question. The blood of your people lies unavenged under the snow, crying out for reprisal - but then, those were people who refused to name you, and did not respect you. What do you owe them? The Skaeling are a powerful tribe - a small group could perhaps raid and plunder from their edges, with obvious risks. But a little more wealth - enough to outfit yourself properly and to clothe your thralls so you do not lose them to the teeth of winter - would also be useful. That would entail looking for work the hard way - tasking around to see if anyone needs a job done, probably a dangerous one, for decent recompense. Otherwise, you could try to steal a ship and make for another tribe's port, hoping to sell it there for a great prize of silver.

But on top of this decision, Byjan is certainly beginning to act as if you are partners, and as if he did not have a thrall-brand on him. So far you've been able to operate in this vague 'pretend to be my thrall' space; but it will not last. Soon you will either have to declare him a free man - a process that will require the surgical removal of the brand on his skin, and then you will have to see how this changes the micropolitics between your remaining thralls -... or you will have to put him in his place, forever cementing the nature of your friendship having changed to one of master and servant.

I like the little imp-telescope. But if there's a non-specified reward on the table, feel free to pitch it to me in the OOC before we chuck it on the record - it'll save a weird rollback if it turns out not to be the kind of thing available, or conflicting with some story element not yet revealed, or something like that!

But you have the Devil-Spy, a pocket, evil-powered spyglass. And you also have a new sword...

Witherbrand is a Good Quality hand weapon (shortsword). It is a Chaos Weapon - infused with dark magic, though not a daemonic spirit. In addition to being a hand weapon it has the following qualities:

Magic Destroyer - When this weapon strikes a character with a positive Magic Characteristic, the victim must succeed on a -10% Willpower Test or lose 1 point of Magic for 1d10 hours. Effects are cumulative.

Bound Spell - Once per combat, you can invoke the spell bound into the blade as if you were casting it with a Magic Characteristic of 3. The spell bound within is Lure of Chaos (Target takes a willpower test or you decide its actions next turn). If your casting provokes the curse of Tzeentch, you endure the effects just as a mage would. This is a sophisticated action and cannot be performed during a frenzy.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will coolly consider for a second, then answer. "money first" he says, considering his options. as much as he'd like to free byjan, the issue with the thralls would be a pickle to deal with. alternatively., he could change their friendship to one of master and servant, but he would hate to do that. he'll head to see the vikti, and show him the mark on his arm and the daemon weapon

[MrAbdiel]

The Vitki is a man of the. He is fat, which few norscans can afford to be; but he has the wild eyes in his head and the divine tokens in his dwelling; and he is left handed, which is always a sign of a wiseman. Ake, son of Brand, is just old enough to have the credibility of more life experience than someone like you, or Byjan. In short, he is no crooked old seer woman; but he'll do.

"This weapon is charged with the power of the gods. The ruiner gods - do you ken your gods, young man? There are gods of men, and there are gods who delight to destroy men. They are gods, and gods are owed fear and respect; but ware ye to rely on such powers. They break. They warp. They change." He gestures to your face - your eyes, your hair, the signs of your mutation. "You know that already. There's no daemon in this blade - it will not seek to crawl into your blood and ride you into the sea, like some blades do. But it is forged in the magic of the Dark Gods. Bane to wizards; and capable of bending a man's will with command, in combat. But having such a thing has a cost - you make yourself vulnerable to the Dark Gods, if their favor should change away from you. Consider the cost. A young man might use a weapon like this for a long time with no price paid - but there are no old men who have wielded such their whole lives, and passed them down to their sons. Consider, and weight, and be wise."

Chaos Weapons are distinct from Daemon Weapons. Chaos Weapons are a kind of Magic Weapon.
Where a magic weapon has certain properties, and a rune weapon has specific magical properties constrained by runes, a chaos weapon is empowered by chaos magic. Its powers are often greater, but the energy of it is corrosive to body and soul over time.

A character with a Chaos Weapon in their possession has a -10% penalty to any tests they make to resist mutation. These tests are not common, so this isn't a five alarm emergency; but it does mean if it comes up, you'll be rolling at a higher challenge; and if you plan to hang around in Norsca long term, or go north towards the Wastes (for some damn reason), you might consider putting it aside!

...But the mark on your arm seems to puzzle him. He rubs a fistful of knucklebones on your arm - bones from all kinds of creatures, human and elf and dwarf and beast - and scatters them on the table. He seems to interpret some information from the mess they leave, though you see nothing in it; and he picks one out of the heap.

"...A curse. A mark. Old magic; magic from ancient times, in an ancient place. It's a grip, Jorunn... It's..." He suddenly grabs your other arm at the wrist, his hand squeezing painfully tight causing you to jerk away. "It's a -bruise- left by an evil hand that you wriggled out of. It's pulling you back to it - it's pulling itself toward you, too. There may be sorcerers that can oppose such magics, but not I. Elven wizards, maybe. Whatever spirit or evil thing has gripped you, Jorunn, you will see it again. You ought to be ready."

How it had been so, you cannot say to this day. You were on the land; the ship had beached; but then it hadn't. Without a sense of motion but a mind-churning sense of displacement by forces beyond your ken, the land shot out from under your feet to the horizon and you and the ship hit the water again - and the ship, wracked from its impact with rocks now ripped away from its hull, broke in two with a thundercrack and began to sink. Beneath the freezing waves, trying not to swallow the sea, you felt something burning on your forearm - something searing in your skin, boiling the water around it. And there, beyond you, the bodies of the other mercenaries and warriors sagged and bobbed and sank in the water; torn and ripped and broken. There was Aran - his eyes flashing open as the shock of the sea struck him from his sleep into this hideous nightmare. And there, beneath, was the dead-man; his chains and stone shards which served as weapons before now serving as anchors. One skeletal arm strained out and seized Aran's ankle, and your friend - always the cheerful and light-spirited one - did not have the strength or the clarity in the moment to contest it. The revenant sank into the dark, Aran with it; and with them, all hands who sailed on that doomed ship back from cursed, cursed Albion.

Is that what was happening - a mad, magical tug of war between your desire to get away and the monster's magic to pull you closer? Is that why the ship had been dragged inexplicably back into the water in a blink of an eye - why your shield, and then your father's axe, somehow made their way back to you despite being lost? Atleast that's some kind of information - more than you had before. Even if you can't do much about it, right now.

[bramblefoot]

"thank you" jorunn says. he will walk back to his thralls, and take byjan aside. "lets get you freed" he says, taking him over to get the thrallmark removed

[MrAbdiel]

A short and painful story involving a knife, a hot iron plate, and a poultice wrap later, Byjan is once again a free man - though with no clan or lord, like you. He is ginger with his arm from the obvious pain; but freedom is a sweet enough balm.

"Thank you, Jorunn. You're a good friend. To think - if you hadn't come along, I might be anywhere. Perhaps those dwarves would have bought me, and I would be dragged to the Darklands to toil in their damn mines. I don't have much; but I owe you everything, now. I'm with you; to the end of your saga, or mine."

Byjan explains the circumstances of his manumission to the other thralls. None openly object - but then, they are thralls; they can hardly make a show of whether or not this suggests to them a possibly future in which you free them... or perhaps an unfair favouritism that they might grow to resent. As with so many things, you can only permit time to tell. With your friend in tow, you head to the warmth of the longhouse where your thralls ease their aches, and you and Byjan can contrive a way to get some more sceatta.

Give me a Gossip roll for opportunities. Have a +20, for all your thralls and friends.

[bramblefoot]

gossip roll

[roll0]

[bramblefoot]

jorunn finds a merchant who needs protection on the trail to a bigger city in norsca. he pays six sceatta up front with a little haggling from liebwen, with the promise of eight more upon delivery. jorunn will take the money and buy furs for marlene and byjan

[MrAbdiel]

Liebwen has to haggle his backside off, but you end up with two sets of respectable fur clothing for Byjan, and Marlene; Liebwen and Ortel left to suffer a little longer as your promise to clothe them so comes halfway to fruition. Six sceatta for two sets of furs is almost a steal; but the trade is draining away from Zagdhelm, and merchants are trying to clear what stock they have for portable, fungible silver. The merchant, a Skaeling trader named Haggur Fodrisson, is part way through his trade cycle. He brings thralls from deeper east in Norsca, trades them for more benign goods in Zadghelm, them moves on to sell those goods off at the large town of Krejj, in the boundary lands of Skaeling and Bjornling territory. Some partner will take those goods and move them on Skjold, where they will be traded to men from the southern realms - mostly, from the Empire of the effete hammer-god of men. You have seen the effigies that other Norscans make of him before they go raiding - a weak man, fat and laden with armor painted with ochre to imitate gold. This is what the Empire is - a weak, rich realm overseen by frail gods.

Haggur's little trade operation is a single large wagon, laden down with heavy ivory and mammoth pelts in bails. It is pulled by a team of four heavy shouldered musk-oxen that he dotes on, and has named Freggi, Skeggi, Peggi and Andreggi. For a couple of days travel, Haggur feeds you and your thralls from his stock of rations as you travel west. He's talkative, when you stop; Leibwen throws himself infront of the line of fire to keep him entertained with smalltalk, but he is a well travelled fellow with a wealth of information.

"Have you been to Krejj? It's a fine town. A few hundred, there; wooden walls, and a deep lake remaining frozen most of the year. The Krejji were once a much larger clan, in older generations; as big as any other, but they were driven to the brink by the Skaeling and now their land is our land. Now they are just one clan, one tribe, one town - the Bjornlings and Skaeling just let it stand as a neutral buffer, which suits a trader just fine. Long roads and deep snow; but a few more years of this, and I'll have all the money I need; I'll take a couple of young wives, and jump on one of those huge Marienburg boats, and buy passage down to the southern realms - souther than south, to the untamed lands beyond Tilea. There, a man can make a homestead with his wives; live like a jarl in his own domain! And there is so much sun that it never snows!"

Haggur seems well travelled, and positively disposed towards your band. If you want to ask him about Norscan politics and tribes, or things further beyond, you can do so. He has politely not asked your tribe - it seems not to matter to him. Otherwise, I'll move us on to the next scene.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will ask about general politics in norsca, and also about the lands of the empire. just the basics, and other prudent information. if the man seems talkative, he'll ask about aelfric the sighted

[MrAbdiel]

The report of Norsca broadly is not unlike its typical arrangement. The tribes are fractious, and bicker. In the far east of Norsca, the Baersonling clash with the Aesling. In the middle of Norsca, the Varg and the Sarl continue brawling in the passes between the mountains. Locally - this part you already knew - the Skaeling and Bjornling have been going back and forth burning each other's villages; but a Skaeling host burned out one of the Bjornling's tries entire, and from that position negotiated a cessation of hostilities - however long it lasts. It's a neccessary pause - to the north, the Graeling threaten both Skaeling and Bjornling, capable of swooping in and plundering either if it is left too weak or overextended. Parties of Graeling scouts are already making their way beyond the mountains and trying their luck, probing with attacks for response. That's as much of the reason for you guarding this wagon as any other - the Graeling might knock it over and burn it just to stir up further conflict between the Bjornling and Skaeling.

"The sighted one, yes - he drives the band that has been tearing up the Bjornling clans. Not the greatest Norscan in stature, as some are; but furious and deadly in battle. Touched by the Hound, some say. They call him sighted because he has four eyes - two as normal and two right below them." He taps his face with middle and forefingers touching just below his eyelids. "All the better to see his prey, I suppose. They say he was once a simple slave-taker; he sold his prisoners to Bjorning, Skaeling and Sarl. But touched now by the blood god, he no longer takes to the sea at all. I think - oh...?"

Haggur pulls his team of oxen to a halt. The lightly snowed-over path ahead is blocked by a great log - oddly straight and smooth, jumbled with ropes and what seems like heaped cloth; but it smacks of the oldest ambush trick in the book...

Time to get to work. Give me a Perception test, with +20 from your thralls helping as you inspect this zone; and draw your weapons, if you think that's appropriate!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will hop down, shield on his arm, and pulling witherbrand from its sheath. he will scent the air, attempting to pick up anything out of the ordinary by his senses "seems like a trap" he says gruffly

perception roll

[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

You flank out off the road and circle around... and you are ultimately left secure in your assessment that there is, infact, no ambush here. But then what is the nature of this obstruction? Closing to inspect it, you find it is not just a straight log, but a ship's mast - and not one unfamiliar to you. With quiet dread in your stomach, you dig around in the snow and fish out the frozen but intact flag that once flew above the ship it was on - the same gryphon-crested Imperial flag that flew over the ship you and your comrades seized as a prize and sailed back to Norsca. A clear and inexplicable instinct tells you this is, certainly, from the captured ship Der Stolzensohn. A flag, and a mast, that should be at the bottom of the sea of claws, not here beside the mountains in the interior of Norsca.

It seems that the vitki was right - the monster that was dragged to the sea floor has marked you, and is somehow almost... throwing debris at you across the stage of fate, and distance; like a man in pitch darkness, casting stones about to hear them skip and click off water, or stone, or thud into flesh to try to orient itself within the black. It seems unable to attack you directly - why not drop such a mast on you while you slept? But it is clawing away at the space between you with its incomprehensible magics - a condition that you cannot permit to last forever, even if you can endure it now.

You are being hunted by a magical horror from before the coming of the Dark Gods. Take an Insanity point; and then pass a Willpower check or take one D3 more.

With the help of your thralls, you clear the road enough to proceed; but it's only another two hours down the road when you do encounter trouble. "Halt there!", comes a voice that announces itself from behind a drift of snow behind the open road before you come close enough to spot anything wrong with it. The voice is masculine and deep; full of authority that it is used to hearing obeyed. "For the sake of the gods, I give you this chance, Skaeling - abandon your goods and beasts, and walk back the way you came; or else Kaelveg, son of Kaelveg, and his fated warriors fall upon you!"

...And now you're being robbed by some kind of would be bandits, presently hiding. You can't see the announcer's face, but the way he introduced himself, Kaelveg son of Kaelveg rather than Kaelveg Kaelvegsson, suggests to you he is not Bjornling or Skaeling - perhaps, Graeling, as your employer feared. How to respond to such a threat?

[bramblefoot]

"why dont we avoid unneccesary bloodshed and settle this mano-a-mano?" jorunn calls back. "send out your best champion, and ill fight him. i win, we pass unmolested." he says confidently. "or are you such an honorless bastard as to attack from ambush?"

CK norsca to see what i know of the graelings

[roll0]

fellowship roll to incite the graelings to come out and play

[roll1]

[MrAbdiel]

The Graelings, you know, are a fierce enough tribe; though given they live on the northern coast of Norsca, their conflict is more often with other tribes of Norsemen than any other force. They do not get to perform much glamorous raiding or profitable trade; instead, the fight to deflect the constant antagonism of the bloodthirsty Vargs to their east, and otherwise eek out a living from the hostile land. It is said the Graeling land is home to the dens of the Werekin - savage 'skinwolves', wolf-changers not unlike the one you tore apart... though perhaps worse. Werekin are thought to be champions of the dark gods who were unable to complete acts of sufficient devotion to be elevate to the tables of the gods in immortality, and were instead cursed - or blessed - with the ability to take on the savage beast shape. But the werekin are savage and isolated. This cocky bandit is far from home, and almost social.

With your challenge, the caller reveals himself - a massive warrior, just shy of seven feet tall before the horns of his helm carry up beyond that mark; his chest bare and scarred and crossed with an arrangement of leather straps and iron rings. He holds a massive axe in one hand; whose steel shining faces have the engraved likeness of a biting wolf upon them.

"Mano-a-mano?"

He repeats, tossing the axe to one side and reaching to remove his helmet as well; revealing an appropriate scarred visage, and short lock of tonsured hair. This warrior knows enough of the world, it seems, understand the classical phrase you dropped in your challenge, which you had learned from your Tilean friends - mano-a-mano, hand to hand.

"I take your terms. Prepare yourself, then. If I win, I will have my pick of your thralls, and your wagon's goods. By our contest, may the gods make known their will!"

Sportingly enough, he removes even the spiked bracers around his wrist which might have been valuable weapons; and then moves out to the road. Six other figures, none so massive but all similarly threatening marauders, emerge to witness the contest; steel great weapons and helms in their hands, idle, waiting.

Such a challenge is respected across the great world. Men, and elves, and dwarves understand it; even orcs and daemons interpret the sacred power of the challenge.

Kaelveg, son of Kaelveg, stands patiently for you to deliver.

Presuming you intend to honor your challenge, you can fight Kaelveg hand to hand in the most honorable fashion by rolling initiative, and trying to beat [roll0].

If you want to stress that honor some, you can charge into melee and take a surprise round.

Lunging in and attacking him with weapons (or turning into a giant monster with claws and teeth) will naturally foul the integrity of the challenge.
The gods are said not to like this, though they rarely intervene; but the other ambushers might take offense, certainly.

[bramblefoot]

Jorunn will stab witherbrand into the snow, and prepare for combat

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]

[MrAbdiel]

You try your luck leaning toward cunning instead of brutal physicality - this brute may well outmatch you, in that case. So you take up Witherbrand and incite its bound magics at one of Kaelveg's minions. But though the magic activation of the weapon is intuitive, it is still new to you; and something about the way you are willing it to act goes fowl. An unseasonably hot wind blitzes the scene of the showdown, carrying with it the babbling whispers of some unbodied thing in a language no one understands. This, you suspect, is a side effect of the spell going bad. But to Kaelveg, it seems you have cast something with sorcery and violated the combat of the duel - which is what you were trying to do, to be fair. "Wretch! Sorcerer! Damn your eyes!" He snatches up the axe from the snow and roars his displeasure; and the marauders who had expected to watch a contest of strength quickly take up their arms as well, preparing to fall on you and your party with vengeance!

Kaelveg's initiative is already rolled, but now that everyone else is getting involved:

[roll0]
[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]
[roll4]
[roll5]
[roll6]
[roll7]
[roll8]
[roll9]
[roll10]
[roll11]

Everyone on this list spends this turn grabbing weapons, dismounting the cart, drawing closer to the combat as the scene changes from a duel to a full melee. It's back around to your turn, with Kaelveg (and all the other Graelings) in charge distance.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will frenzy, turning into his usual were-form, and squaring off for combat "take down kaeleg, and the rest will splinter!" he calls

[MrAbdiel]

The battle is joined.

Your thralls have been through a lot; but they are used to this, after a few combats. They know holding out long enough for you to do your gory work is the surest path forward, and they hurl themselves into combat trusting that much of your nature.

As your bones click and shift and the red haze fills up your eyes, the Graelings behold your changing form with mixed astonishment. Four of the followers seem to balk at your ursine shape and the ruff of unnatural white fur over your body; but Kaelveg and a couple of the others take it in stride, too inured by the dangerous Norscan life to be dissauded from their action.

The merchant Haggur proves ready to defend his livelihood. "Come on, you bastards! Graeling swine! You'll not have my wares except by asking for them and paying a reasonable fistful of silver!" He bangs his axe on his circular shield and invites challenge - and he gets it. Two of the shield bearing Graeling charge him, their blows clattering off his defensive posture, but scoring no hit.

Byjan takes your command to heart and races into melee with Kaelveg, swinging down with the great stone maul looted from the Bestigor; but it is an unweilding weapon, and the raider steps aside the blow.

Liebwen the negotiator is least natural in combat, but has proven himself holding his own against several beastmen before, and musters his courage now. He raises his crooked wooden spear to defend himself, managing to spoil the charge of a Graeling rushing at him, and avoid death for another crucial moment.

Orten, your initiate, lets out a throaty bark and surrenders himself to his southern warrior god's courage (not as cowardly as reported, perhaps) and charges across the ground with a crude axe of stone make taken from your beastman slaying. It is Orten who scores first blood, his swing opening a cut on the Graeling warrior opposite him, whose steel great axe just narrowly swings over Orten's head and fails to remove it.

Elsewhere, another great-weapon wielding Graeling tries his luck - with you! Stomaching his fear, he charges across the snow and strikes a heavy blow with the two handed blade; it cracks fiercely against your shield, sending wood chips flying, but failing to cut through it into your arm. Marlene looses an arrow which sails through the combat and narrowly misses the third great weapon wielder so far unengaged.

All of this takes place in a few seconds while your body is rearranging itself. Then you feel the power in your jaws and claws; the strength of the bear in you, and the killing power of whatever god or spirit gave you this gift...

Jorunn's turn. So far the field layout looks like...

HaggurVsGraeling4 and Graeling6

ByjanVsKaelveg

LiebwenVsGraeling5

OrtenVsGraeling1

JorunnVsGraeling2

Marlene is standing on top of the cart shooting. So far, Graeling3, Wolf, and Kaelveg have yet to act because they go after you.

There's a Graeling on top of you for you to swift attack right now, if you want. Otherwise, you could charge out and join Byjan vs Kaelveg, but the one in contact with you will attack your back as you go, as normal.

So far, your folks are doing great - only one successful hit so far, and it's on the enemy. Good luck!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will let out a bellow, claws attempting to swipe through the graeling he's engaged with. the sword and claws bite deep into graeling flesh, causing torrents of blood to flow

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]

[MrAbdiel]

You smash your axe down so hard it pushes the Graeling's guard back, forcing the blade of his own sword to lacerate his chest. As he groans and pushes back, you bash his nose with your shield then drop the claws of that hand to slash open the flesh of his thigh. This is an assault he's not used to; with no practiced defense, the throws himself backward, dazed, scrambling to his feet and hauling his heavy blade into a guard position.

But then the wolf is there; his patchy, unevent grey fur an airborn blur as he leaps into melee beside you, sinks his fangs into your staggered opponent's shoudler, and twists and wrenches hard enough that something comes loose, and bleeds great gouts. Inside a few seconds, he is dead.

The Graeling who avoided Marlene's shot comes rushing in. Seeing Byjan falling upon Kaelveg unprepared, he brawls in to cover his leader. While Kaelveg puts his horned helm back upon his head and draws a second axe to pair with the first, his offsider clashes with yours... and while Byjan is fighting with a crude beastman maul, this Graeling raider fights with looted Imperial steel. Byjan deflects one blow, but the next almost takes off his right leg at the knee. He moves just enough to turn the blow into a deep chop into his calve, but it leaves him stumbling; his return strike going wide and missing both opponents.

Haggur fights with a constant string of shouted defiance, as he stalemates against two opponents; blows banging away into each other's shields with no blood yet spilled; Liebwen fends off his aggressor, spear in hand for another turn. Marlene tries to assist him the best she can; aiming carefully and loosing a shot at his opponent; but though caution the shot goes wide.

Orten fights like a man possessed. The southern priest swings wildly and manages another blow through his enemy's guard, opening another cut. The Graeling against him is a superior warrior, but off guard; and offers only an awkward, deflected return blow while settling into a more defensive posture now that he's losing blood...

You're up! You can charge any opponent; or move in, spend a FP, and swift attack. Between your blows and your mangy wolf, who seems to have gotten the hang of charging in now, you have felled your opponent and are free to charge. Byjan is in a bad way, engaged with both Kaelveg, who is now rehelmed and armed; and another Graeling who has scored a big hit on Byjan. Not enough to make him 'heavilly injured', but close. Another hit like that and he's losing body parts. Elsewhere your thralls and Haggur seem to be holding their own.
But Haggur is in a 2 on one, and Liebwen is outmatched by his opponent even if he is fighting defensively and succeeding. Orten is playing rocket tag and winning so far, he and a Graeling winging great weapons full force and waiting for someone to win big.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will charge kaeleg, axe flashing. "those who can, win fairly. those who cant, cheat!" he bellows

[roll0]

[roll1]

[MrAbdiel]

Kaelvag catches your downward blow in the crossed hafts of his axes; his strength not a match for yours in this form, but match enough to hold back the blow. "We will see then what the Blood God makes of tricks!" The wolf follows you into the combat, but his assault fares no better; a vicious boot sends him skittering back, growling, circling for an opening.

But your aid might have come too late. The warrior with the greataxe beside draws back his axe and smashes it down on Byjan. Two inches of axe blade bite into his arm near the elbow, slowed barely by Byjan's slow parry with the crude maul. Your old friend lets out a bellow of pain and stumbles back, putting weight on his hacked leg only to topple into the snow as his mangled arm pours blood into the snow. No man can bleed like that for long and live, even if the arm can be saved. Byjan's life now lies in the hands of fate, as to how a number of things manifest - how soon Orten can be detached from his own duel to assist, and if he can be spared at all during such a calamitous clash of forces.

Elsewhere in the field, Haggur's duel with two Graeling shieldsmen shows blood on both sides. The merchant breaks from his defensive rhythm to chance some strikes, and scores a slash on one opponent; but is answered in kind, lacerating the side of his gut. A second blow from the second opponent races for his skull, but he avoids that blow by a nigh miraculous movement that puts that foe astumble with surprise. Leibwen continues to fend off his aggressor admirably with jabs of the stolen beastman spear. Ortel howls and swings a deadly blow that would have broken his opponent in half, if he had not taken care to guard last exchange; the initiative priest again on the front-foot against his enemy.

"Orten! Come back!" Marlene calls; from her perch, seeing Byjan's distress as the big man staggers to his feet and prepares to defend himself. She does her best work to support this action; dropping her bow, drawing a looted rusty iron hand-pick, and charging into Orten's melee; pressing the solitary Graeling there further, providing a chance for Orten, perhaps, to escape and help stricken Byjan.

Kaelveg parries you, you parry him; the big development this turn is Byjan took a big crit; but I rolled a 97 for the severity, which is as 'low' as it can be. If I had rolled 90 or lower, it would have been atleast a lost hand. And there was a more than even chance he was going to die immediately; but he got lucky. He's bleeding, but not out; and defending himself this turn.

Right now, in that Melee there is You, poor Byjan, Wolf, Kaelveg and Graeling3; and Graeling3 is looming over Byjan with his great weapon.

[bramblefoot]

Jorunn will bellow stridently, and make three attacks on kaeleg.

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]

[MrAbdiel]

Kaelveg blocks your first and heaviest blow, but your flurry crashes in and overwhelms his guard so that Witherbrand slashes down his right arm, sending cut rings of chain spinning through the air in the splash of blood. He grunts, and keeps on; matching your rhythm with his - a bang, bang, bang relentless drumbeat of axe blows cutting into your shield and carving away big flakes of wood and warping its rim as you hold him at bay. The mangy wolf, having taken your group as its pack, looks for open enemies - and can see no opening in the wild battle between you and Kaelveg. But the Graeling towering over Byjan is distracted, and the lupine barks and lunges, forcing the would-be-executioner to regard this new enemy and not finish the old. He makes a reserved swing to drive the wolf back, but minds is energy against another potential attack. But Byjan staggers to his feet with a bone club in a lefthanded grip, and slams it into his opponent's knee; the greatweapon too slow to parry. Now both are staggering and pained; one outnumbered, the other rapidly bleeding to death. All until Ortel comes running in; in a charge of maniac bravery, his abandoned opponent's great weapon wooshing by his back and narrowly missing, the initiate races across the snow and crashes into the warrior who was moments ago standing over a wounded foe... and is now confronting two foes, and a lupine flanker. The heavy stone weapon cracks into his chest with bonebreaking force, though it holds not enough edge to break skin; leaving him wheezing, looking to his leader for support.

While Liebwen continues his epic fruitless duel with an enemy, Haggur's luck begins to run out. Fighting two enemies, he begins to be overwhelmed. His attacks cannot break past their guards when they divide his attention, but both get blows through that leave him bleeding and desperate. Marlene's engagement prevents Ortel's previous foe from joining the mix; with the skinning knife in one hand and her handpick is the other, she gives him enough to think about to prolong a stalemate and greate a window of opportunity where, if Byjan can hold on a little longer, Ortel might be able to address his injury.

Swings and roundabouts. The merchant who hired you, Haggur, is duking it out with two enemies and and losing; he's definately on the ropes and he'll be fighting defensively from now on to try to avoid death.
Marlene tagged out Ortel so now Ortel, Byjan, and Wolf are all ganging up Graeling 3.
If you or wolf put him down this turn (he's close enough to swift attack), Ortel might be able to address Byjan's bleeding. Liebwen continues to hold his one enemy at bay.

You scored two good hits on Kaelveg. A similar round like that and he'll be in criticals.
But there's also Graeling3 in arms reach, who needs to die soon if you're going to save Byjan. Whomever you choose to attack this turn, take +10: now this main brawl is a 4:2, which means your side gets a 2:1 gangup bonus!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will move to put down graeling three, staying within opportunity attack distance should kaeleg decide to do a runner

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]

[MrAbdiel]

It's hard work getting past Kaelveg; his attacks are relentless, and provide you little room to get by - but eventually you make your break, shoving Kaelveg back with your shield and lunging sideways. Witherbrand hacks into the Graeling's left bicep down to the bone and with an audible crack, splits over the humerus bone as you wrench it free, leaving the arm dangling by shreds of bone and meat. The Graeling howls, now bleeding as fiercely as Byjan, even moreso; his weapon dropping to the ground. Wolf is there to finish the job - with only one operable hand, the warrior cannot fend off the lupine's killing jaws, and is slain. You bring your spare momentum around at Kaelveg; but again, he catches your blow in with his axes and renews his assault on you - but fortune isn't on his side, and without another opponent right beside you to worry about, holding him at back is more manageable. His blows ring off your shield - but they do not break past.

Haggur stumbles back; his enemies manage blows past his desperate guard, but they glance off his ringmail. Byjan stumbles back to rest in the snow, and Orten drops his weapon and grabs for the meagre medical supplies you have been able to afford to him, working to stop Byjan's bleeding with a tourniquet made from a twisted rawhide strap. "Hold on, big man; hold on."

Orten successfully stops Byjan's bleeding, though he is still critically injured sufficiently enough that he is subject to Sudden Death and will likely die if he takes another critical hit.

Marlene and Liebwen both continue their jousts with their opponents. Marlene manages to step away from the tentative swing of her enemy's great weapon, and lashes out with her rusty pick to score a minor hit to add to the damage Orten has already left on the northman. The Graeling winces, injured now, looking about for assistance. Unfortunately, he is likely to have it soon.

Liebwen's luck runs out; once, and for all. Once a farmer from Averland, so far from the coast he would never be in danger of Norse servitude; but like a fool, he answered the call to adventure on a journey into the mountains of Norsca only to be captured and enslaved, and to end up fighting for his life in the cold. He fought well against the beastmen; but he is no match for thus marauding Graeling. Having gained the measure of the poor mediator, his enemy hangs his axe on his beltloop again. The next time Leibwen thrusts, the marauder steps to the side and ruthlessly rips the spear from his grib. Leibwen is stunned to be disarmed; but then his opponent's boot kicks him against a tree beside the trail and a moment later the beastman spear he was wielding a moment before is rammed into his chest so hard it rips through his heart and bites into the tree beyond. He has a moment to choke on blood before he expires, hanging by the instrument that killed him.

The battle tightens.

The Main Fight: You are squaring off against Kaelveg still, with wolf helping you outnumber for +10. Kaelveg has as many attacks as you, but he is not as vicious, and you are wearing him down.

The Side Fights: Nearby you, Orten stops Byjan's bleeding. Orten is likely to return to the fight, Byjan is not.

Haggur fights a losing battle against Graelings 4 and 6. He will not last long.

Marlene squares off against Graeling1. He is more deadly, but Orten has softened him up already, so that might go either way.

Graeling 5 kills Liebwen, and is now free to engage anyone he chooses next turn.

Casualties: Liebwen, Graeling 2, Graeling 3.

[bramblefoot]

"damn you!" jorunn howls, and will make three attacks on kaeleg.

to his thralls: "play it safe, and ill see you through!" he calls

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]

[MrAbdiel]

Back and forth you go, brawling across the bloodsplashed snow. You don't remember such a fierce fight against a singular opponent since your duel with the boy-champion of Truskholme. He lands a barely-there blow to your thight, but finally, you get a telling blow past his guard; a slash across the meat of the thigh that bleeds, and arrests Kaelveg's movement as he cannot freely switch weight from one leg to the other; especially with the wolf darting about behind him, snapping at his ankles. The wolf doesn't manage to land a bite - he has to dart back as the warrior who killed Liebwen decides to assist his leader, and comes roading in with a chop that skims hair from the wolf's uneven coat, but draws no blood.

Haggur lives another round; by devoting himself entirely to defence, he keeps his two aggressors at back a little longer. Orten, now leaving Byjan to keep pressure on his own wound, snatches up his stone greataxe and puffing with exertion, charges back across the ground he left, howling and swinging high. The blow clips the top of the head of the warrior he had abandoned moments ago - his weapon bound with Marlene's, he can offer no defence except to duck a little too slow. The swing takes off his skullcap, a chunk of his scalp, and leaves his stumbling and stunned. Marlene elects to dart across to join the beleaguered Haggur, finally evening the odds and forcing one of those two attackers to turn and address her.

Main Fight: Graeling 5 has joined the fight so his boss isn't ganged up on; he squares off against the wolf while you spar with Kaelveg, who himself is now critically wounded to the leg. You parried one attack from him and he hit with another; but it did only 6 damage to your Right Leg.

Side Action: Orten is slated to execute Graeling1, who is stunned from a head crit. Marlene has joined poor Haggur fighting Graelings 4 and 6.

Byjan is still technically able to fight; he can wield a weapon in his still functional offhand. But he is vulnerable enough that he is more a liability in combat, so he holds off for now.

Get 'em Jorunn; finish him! I will assume any 'excess' attacks flow to your nearest enemy, if you succeed in ending Kaelveg.

[bramblefoot]

"tables have turned" jorunn gloats, moving to make three attacks against kaeleg. they all hit, and they all bite deep.

"stay down byjan" he calls

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]

thats what im talking about!

[MrAbdiel]

Eagle, this time, beats Hound.

With a triumphant exertion, you throw Kaelveg's block to the side which spins him halfway around; and then smash him in the middle of the back with the rim of your battered shield. You hear a crack; but as fate would have it, it's Kaelveg son of Kaelveg's spine, not your trusty shield that is breaking; and his legs turn to slack rope beneath him as he collapses into the snow. Even if he survives the day, he will never raid again - nor walk.

The frenzy burns in your blood, and the momentum of this victory carries you right along into the startled Graeling who charged in to assist his leader, only to end up alone against a destructive dynamo. You slam Witherbrand into his shield, and then wrench it to the side exposing the upper arm for your vicious bite; he screams as you hoist him off the ground in your jaws, and thrash him against the ground as you release him. Your wolf, who has found a natural rhythm fighting with you, plays his now smoothly integrated roll - when your devastated opponent hits the ground, the wolf launches in and tears our this throat.

Elsewhere, the battle seems to be stabilizing or turning in your favor. Ortel, almost exhausted, heaves the crude stone axe that was once swung at him high in the air and brings it down onto his stunned enemy, cracking bones and crushing organs; leaving the Graeling dead in the snow. Marlene takes a small wound to her arm, but ultimately she and Haggur hold their own against their opponents; the situation much less terrible, with the burden shared.

You, the wolf, and Orten are poised to rush in and add your power to this remnant combat; but the Graeling there seem dedicated to their efforts. They are either desperate for a death in battle, or do not fancy their chances fleeing; but they fight on, inviting your final wrath.

The tide has indeed turned! Kaelveg is down; and between you and wolf you had the spare juice to put down his helper too. The only enemies that remain are the two shieldbearers, Graelings 4 and 6, locked in a 2vs2 with Haggur and Marlene.
Time to finish the job; mourn the dead; and reap the rewards!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn lets out a triumphant howl, and will charge into combat

[roll0]

[roll1]

[MrAbdiel]

You roar in and smash your weapon into the back of the Graeling threatening Marlene, sending him spinning into the snow with a slash on his back - and true to form, that mangy wolf with its blood covered muzzle is there to lock jaws on the man's throat and squeeze, and shake, and rip until he struggles no more. The lone Graeling starts to realize now, too late, he has gone from outnumbering his foe to being surrounded and alone.

He tries to get to grips with the badly wounded Haggur, perhaps hoping to use him as leverage to bargain his way out; but it's long too late. The wily merchant has moves left; he avoids the blow and spends his effort against the Graeling's shield, forcing his guard forward and exposing him to the attacks coming his way. You hear Ortel coming, and move a little to enable his straight charge; his bloody stone axe cracking into the final Graeling's shoulder, spinning him about. But circumstance he ends up twisted about on his knees infront of you, his weapon arm broken, peering up in shock. Perhaps you could capture him, or torment him for information - but the killing frenzy is on you, and only blood will slake it until no enemies are left. He witnesses your axe swinging sidelong at his jaw... then witnesses no more.

"Ahhh..." Haggur growls in pain, dropping his weapon, leaning against a tree. "Gods take the eyes of every last Graeling! Ah.... Ah..." He has been wounded to within an inch of his live; but he is only the third most brutalized member of the troupe. Byjan is the second; and Liebwen, pale and still and dusted now with snow, is the worst. Marlene takes it the worst - she and Leibwen were part of the same expedition that was captured and enslaved here in Norsca, and she collapses at the foot of the tree against which he is impaled, breathing heavilly, gathering herself.

Ortel takes a moment for his hands to stop shaking, and then checks on everyone's wounds, until he is satisfied no one is in mortal peril. He reports to you, after the combat, somewhat awkwardly; he had relied on Byjan to do this, or else Leibwen. But both are indisposed.

"Haggur will be fine, though one of us will have to drive his cart the rest of the way. Byjan's arm can be saved; though we will do well to get more medicine if possible, when we get to Krejj. Everyone else, has only fleshwounds, except Leibwen." He looks back at the body of his fellow thrall; and with your leave, goes over to give the man a final blessing.

Victory! Big fight - Have a big reward of 200XP. There's also loot to claim from the dead, and an opportunity to see if these Graeling have some kind of stash nearby... Give me a Search Check, with a +20 for help from your thralls.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will allow the final rest. he will place a hand on marlene's shoulder, then move to catalogue the weapons and armor.

a half-hour of searching later stumbles upon a small cache of valuables, enough to recoup the loss of liebwen, and a small roll-up bag of surgical tools

[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

Lol, I appreciate how keen you are to advance things bro; but I think I'm gonna reserve the right to determine the loot you find!
No hard feelings. You might have to go further abroad to get surgical tools!

You strip the dead. Marlene and Ortel have a short argument with Byjan about what to do with Leibwen's body. The man was not a warrior; but Byjan and the thralls certainly bonded in their short time as a company. Byjan wants to take Leibwen's skull with him - which is a respectful enough action for a Bjornling to take for a fallen comrade, just as it is to do for a worthy enemy; and has vague afterlife ramifications that would put Leibwen under Byjan's legacy, when it comes to the judgement of the gods. Marlene wants to bury him, so his bones are intact when the god of death - she calls him 'Morr' - comes for him. Ortel, the only 'holy' man in the group, does not find the skull-taking to be respectful but also contends that Leibwen, the real Leibwen, is a spirit that fled from his body at the moment of death. Anything done for the body, he says, is for the comfort of those living; a radical, almost blasphemous disregard for the corpse. Perhaps he is trying to find a way to leave the body out for the wolves; perhaps that would please his strange southern wolf god.

Ultimately, with the exception of Leibwen's loss and the blood spilled by your comrades, the stand against the Graelings has been quite profitable for you. Not only do you come away with a cache of weapons and armor taken from the warriors, but Marlene finds their encampment off the road which you commandeer and use for the night. It's a series of crummy wooden shelters not worth taking, but serviceable for a rest stop; but more interesting, a large wooden trunk containing a number of eclectic, useful items.

Loot From The Search

• A long bag containing a militiaman's longbow, leather wrist-guards, a flask of linseed oil and bowstrings, and a quiver with 30 arrows. Includes a fletching kit with extra feathers and needle and thread. (Longbow, good quality leather bracers, 30 arrows, and some miscellanea we'll call a 'fletcher's kit').

• A pair of embroidered laced leather boots made by a master tailor in Marienburg's famous garment district. (Best Quality Riding Boots)

• A pewter tankard etched with a raunchy slogan. (Good quality pewter tankard).

• A superb knife with a handguard in the shape of a two-headed raven and inlaid with bronze. It is fitted into a leather sheath decorated in a similar fashion. (Best Quality Dagger).

• A 20-pound bag of dried peas. (Another 2 days of rations for your party.) I think that brings you up to 4.

...and a total of 168 sceatta extorted from other travellers.

Loot From The Battle

From the goons...
- 6 sets of full leather armor (slightly damaged)
- 6 chainmail shirts (slightly damaged)
- 3 shields
- 3 axes (hand weapons)
- 3 great weapons (2 axes, 1 sword)
- 3 plate helms

From Kaelveg, Son of Kaelveg...
- Full Leather Armor (slightly damaged)
- Chainmail Shirt (slightly damaged)
- Chainmail Boots
- Plate Gauntlets
- Good Quality Plate helm


It's quite a haul. Some of the armor is damaged from the battle - to get best sale value out of it, you'll have to have it cleaned; and to rely on it yourself, you'll probably want it repaired. But it's far more than you had before, that's for sure. Yet you are confronted with a new problem - the way your body changes when you shift. You can wear your leathers loosely enough it is not a problem for them; your footwraps have strained but lasted this long, for example. But if you are going to wear better armor - especially metal armor - you will have to be careful to remove it when you expect to shift, lest it break, or harm you. How to overcome this problem long term, you don't know - but perhaps the Werekin up in the Graeling territories might have some wisdom; or else some other exotic wiseperson. For now, you are forced to carefully choose between wearing this metal armor, or being free to shift into your war-form.

Haggur and Byjan are both so wounded that they can't do much but laze by the fire and recover. In a moment while you are keeping watch and the others are resting by the flames, and Haggur's oxen are laden over with furs to keep them warm, Marlene comes to sit beside you. You can see a new awkwardness in her demeanor; strange, because of how forthright and co-operative she has typically been. "...What happens next, Jorunn? Where are you taking us, and what will we do there?"

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will answer with a "lets head to krejj, and see what comes after" followed by a "if you have some grievences to air, air em. no good comes of holding in anger"

im sticking to my war form, and damn the consequences

[MrAbdiel]

Marlene purses her lips; sniffs a little. Marshalls her thoughts.

"...We had talked - Ortel, Leibwen and me, I mean. Leibwen was going to ask you - ... He was always the better talker. Ah..."

Another pause.

"...Look, I don't want to end up nailed to a tree out here in this godless country. I want to survive. I want to go home. I want to go see Leibwen's family and tell them he died bravely. I almost ran off in the night, but Byjan or Leibwen talk me out of it. And you've been.. fair, so far. Not as cruel as I had expected. But on the other hand, we're not being taken to some farm to shovel sh*t and pick carrots. You're taking us into combat, over and over again. Today it was Leibwen; tomorrow it might be me. So we want to make you a deal - Ortel and I do. You set us free, like you did for Byjan - and we'll stick with you and serve you for a year, before we go home. I don't know if you honor oaths up here - gods know you didn't seem to want to honor that duel with the Graeling - but an oath is better binding where I come from than a brand." She holds up her arm, indicating her Thrallmark.

There it is, then; the consequence of you setting Byjan free - the other thralls conceiving that it is possible for them, too. By strictly Norscan custom, you own these thralls for whatever purpose you will for the rest of their lives. But so far they have served you courageously and sacrificially by their own volition. And a year is a long time to get the value our of the five sceatta you paid for them. Is the loyalty of an oathbound companion worth more than the obedience of a marked thrall? If you agree, and have their thrallmarks removed in Krejj, will they vanish in the night and be beyond the reach of thrall-trackers? If you don't loose them... will they take their chances with the cold, and with fate, rather than commit themselves lifelong to service in your bloody band?

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will scrutinize marlene's face. "you have served me well" he says, placing a massive mitt on marlenes shoulder. "i will free you and ortel, if you will swear an oath on one of your gods to serve faithfully for the year." he will sit down, and let her think it over.

he will continue with a corollary "should you swear and flee, and i catch you, my eyes will be the last thing you see. you saw how my war-form carved through those graelings like a knife through cheese"

[MrAbdiel]

Marlene looks shocked at her success. She had prepared in her mind some second volley of reasons to try to convince you, even mustered her courage to prepare to yell something; and you can almost see these unspent weapons of rhetoric rattling around inside her head without purpose now.

"Well... Good. Great; thank you."

She leaves you to yourself, then; going to tell Ortel the news, and permitting you the time to flay Kaelveg son of Kaelveg's skull; and to empty its now purposeless contents into the snow. After it is properly dry, it will find a place beside the bestigor's skull, in your renewed collection.

"... Good call." Wheezes Byjan, who apparently has listened to your previous conversation from where he appeared to sleep nearby. He lies on his back, trying not to move his badly cleft arm; eyes closed. "Thralls make fine enough workers, because an obedient thrall lives a life not much different to a freeman put to a task for his own petty benefit. But a thrall has less to fight for, than a freeman. They'll have to take a share of the loot, now - but you can make it their responsibility to outfit themselves. These south-men... I have been told always how weak and worthless they are. But I wonder if that is a condition of slaves, not of south-men. I have been a slave, now; it does take the spirit from you..." He trails off, falling back into sleep.


* * * * *

Ortel swears to serve you for a year, and does so by his god, whom he calls Ul-ric; a wolf god, and warrior god. Marlene swears by the main god of the southmen, Sigmar, whose frail and unthreatening likeness you have seen in effigy often enough. But they both seem sincere. And both are happy to have each a set of leather and some chain to keep them warm and protected. Proper weapons help, too; with your permission, each of them help themselves to a decent handweapon and shield. Ortel takes a greataxe, too; proficient as he seems, with them. Marlene would take the longbow and fletcher's kit, if you'd part with it; and Byjan would likely be happy to 'mind' the plate and chain extras that you cannot wear given your transmutable nature, until you feel you need them. This constitutes fair 'payment' to what is no longer your train of thralls, and is now your warband. And, you are glad to see, you still have a great deal of loot to spare. If only you can flog it off in Krejj, without getting ripped off...


* * * * *

Krejj, it turns out, is just as Haggur described it. It is surrounded by tall wooden wall with watchtowers around its rim. On your approach, you see the great frozen lake beside; dotted with twos and threes of the local Krejji fishing in holes cut through its surface. The town is large, and busy; teeming with the rustic industry of a tribe that has been ground back to a single town and so all of its growth has been confined inward and upward. Krejj has not been attacked in quite some time; as a border tribe that poses no threat to its neighbours, its weakness has ironically made it more secure than arguably any town of the Graeling, Bjornling, or Skaeling around it, while enjoying a centrality of trade from all of them.

Haggur does the talking at the gates as you drive the oxen for him. He's battered, but grateful; and intends to make a quick sale of his mammoth wares and then spend a few weeks resting up in the home he owns in the city; a fine, bigger-than-medium domicile without being obscenely big. He offers you and your warband to stay with him as well, given how fiercely you fought to save him and his goods; even going to far as to make your operation easier by buying any of your loot at its premium value, obviating your need to haggle and sell it on your own. Byjan has a good head for sales, but he will need a few days to rest, too; you may need to spend your time in and around Krejj until he recovers enough to comfortably travel. Ortel and Marlene, too - just long enough for the long scabs where their thrallmarks are cut off to cover over without complication.

You can sell as much of your loot as you want, in Krejj; Haggur will buy it at market value, with his good deal; and haggle it off in his own time later. If you're happy to let your former-thralls take their pick of weapons and armor and sell the rest, let me know and I'll crunch the numbers for you, minus anything you want to keep. Krejj is also a good place to look for things you want to buy; or for information on one thing, or another. Given a couple of days free movement in the town, what's he up to?

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will accept haggurs offer for the hospitality and the sales. he will wander krejj, looking for a set of surgical tools, a lucky charm, and just general information on the state of the tribes of norscans.

i will let marlene have the longbow and a good steel weapon, as well as ortel. im fine with them also having chain and leather armor

gossip roll

[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

You leave Byjan and Haggur, recovering in Haggur's warm and firelit home, to sort the loot and provide for its repair and distribution; and wander the streets of Krejj. There are many buildings that are two stories tall, in this town; and some that are in the process of having their steepled roofs raised to permit the construction of extravagant third floors - necessarily smaller, accessed by ladder. If you were a man of peace, this might be a nice place to retire.

If.

You stop for a drink at a meadhall, and find the local Krejji to treat you first with suspicion but quickly to warm to you, especially when you describe having thwarted a band of Graeling raiders to the east.

"Ah. Damned bandits. May they all bleed and die in the snow," offers one carouser.
"Say this not; the strong keep what they can, the weak surrender or die - this is the way and has always been!", counters another.
"In days before I was a child, but I do not continue to piss my pants out of tradition. All tribes grow stronger by safe roads and trade."
"Tribes grow stronger by eliminating their weakness. We will never be strong again with naysayers like you embracing this gold-wristed love of softness."
"See how strong you feel when the Kurgan ride in from the east again, and run us like hunting dogs before them into the guns of the southmen. You know nothing of strength, child - but if you crave a lesson, I will teach!"

They brawl, knocking over a table, until a hooting crowd shepherds them outside to continue the contest. The proprietress of the meadhall, the buxom young wife of a grey-haired veteran warrior who serves on the town's council of elders, sighs as she rights the furniture, and laments the regularity of such discussions.

"It has been many generations since a great invasion of the southlands, successful or not. Traders from all over Norsca have similar discussions about the right way. Once we were all one tribe, they say; the Norsii. But our ways are all too different for cooperation now; not without a High King to crush opponents, and to hold back the Kurgan when they come. But who can lend thoughts to such lofty futures, when each day is a struggle for food, and warmth, and appeasement of the gods? Krejj is small; but our smallness affords us vision. If only the vision revealed more than strife and war..."

You spend the rest of the day following the recommendations of one pedlar or another to chase a set of surgical tools. Such things are almost unheard of, in Norsca; the study of the body is a practise barely understood at such a level, but your time with the Tileans, witnessing the startlingly fine work of their surgeons with their wounded, has taught you there is another way. But Krejj is a city of a decent amount of trade, and you have some luck - a pedlar selling goods traded from a distant raid by the Skaeling has a leather roll full of copper surgical instruments. The pedlar has mistaken them for a set of scrimshawing tools - you know copper is too soft to hold up to repeated scraping on bone, but is ideal for been rendered to a fine edge for surgical cutting. Not knowing what he has, he thinks he is swindling you when he pitches an offer of fifty sceatta for them. It is amusing to see the uncertainty fill his face, when you immediately agree, and promise to send someone to pick then up and pay under your name tomorrow.

Given how close the last battle was, you turn your thoughts to currying the favor of the gods for good fortune, and head to the town's shrine. When you find it, you have a moment of recognition. The Krejj have small shrines to many gods, but their local god is The Free Maiden; and her fane features a preserved trunk of a tree that has grown in a distinctly feminine form; like a woman turned to wood in the act of dancing. Despite the fact that it is obviously a dead trunk, and has no roots where it was sawn from the stump, you see a number of tiny green twigs growing in its upper reaches; mostly around the likeness's head, like a crown of tiny green leaves. You recognize the likeness - the same deity is represented in Zadghelm, but there called the The Chained Maiden - to whom you swore an oath to send a protector to resume the duty of sentry, for a certain dragon. You remember Haggur telling you about the Krejji; once a great tribe, their lands ground back to a nub. It seems the Skaeling, where they took Krejji territory, took their gods, too; and where the Krejji worship the Free Maiden as an advocate of individual power and unbounded possibility, the Skaeling now make demands of her as the goddess of thralls; herself a thrall to the cheif Skaeling god Kharnath, whom most Norscans call The Hound, but whom is known by all as the blood god, and king of warriors.

You expect the vitki of this fane to be a withered old crone or crotchety man like they usually are. You're almost startled when, out of the incense smoke of this sacred place in the darkness behind the likeness of the Free Maiden, comes a form as lithe and feminine as the likeness itself. Perhaps the direct servants of the free maiden are, themselves, necessarilly drawn from the kinds of women who would be highly sought after as thralls for base reasons.

"Fancy this - a Bjornling, in the fane of a god of the Krejji; perhaps, because both Krejji and Bjornling are so badly disrespected by the Skaeling..."

The interior of the fane is lit by a lamp hanging from the the ceiling, casting a yellow light over the wooden likeness and fogging the air with incense. The vitki-woman makes a habit of staying at the rim of that light, hard to see... for normal eyes. Your cut through the dark more easilly, and you see than when she steps out of the light she descends to continue her approach on all fours, prowling toward you like a hunting cat; returning to a two footed, hip-swinging saunter when she edges into the light again near to you.

"Yet you are not in Skjold, making petition to Bjarna-Motherbear. You are here... with me."

She halts a few yards from you; leaning her front against one of the fane's wooden support pillars and peering around it at you, coyly. Close enough now that even the incense smoke does not conceal her details; slim, but full; raven-black hair bound in dozens of fine braids that she lets hang infront of her face like a vein, through which bright blue eyes peer. Her garments are not furs, here in the warmth of this fane; but shreds of white linen loosely veiling her body, hanging from a woven leather torque about her neck, and belt about her waist. She is... playing with you, you think. But you see something else; a flat, healed over scar on her left inner forearm, where a thrallmark once must have been.

"What have you come for, Bjornling? Medicine? Blessing? Wisdom? A trinket of fortune?
Or would you open your hands and receive not what you merely want - but what you are freely given?"

[bramblefoot]

"lets start with medicine and a trinket of fortune, and then retire for what is freely given?" jorunn offers, stalking forward to approach the vikti. "why do you linger in the shadows, when the light blesses us?" he asks, hands out in front of him. "you were a thrall, now free. tell me of you, and i shall as well" he offers

[MrAbdiel]

She seems to catch that your gaze is able to track her in the dark; her posture adjusts a little, whatever her conclusion. Then she makes her way to the wooden goddess likeness in the middle of the fane; climbs up to its shoulder with lithe, practised movements, and plucks a sprig of green growth from the crown of the Free Maiden before shimmying back down. She offers it to you at the full extension of her arm, pinched between middle and forefinger.

"Be blessed them, Bjornling. I know you have given freedom to thralls of your own - let the ward of the Free Maiden not forsake this right action..."

This small, evergreen leaf is a lucky charm, given to you for free.

"...Medicine will cost; such things are not without price. But as for me - I am no one. One I was a maiden of Krejj; then a prisoner; then made free. Now I am her voice; her tongue, and throat, and lips; and her words, to wandering men with violence in their heart. Tell me, Bjornling... if the gods gave you a thunderbolt, and you could cast it any way you wish, where would you direct the lightning? To your kin, in Skjold? To the Skaelings, in mighty Doomkeep? To the realm of the hammer-god, in the south?"

She lingers out of reach; bright eyes fixed and focused on you; weighting your response.

[bramblefoot]

"i would save the thunderbolt until needed" jorunn says. "too many impetuous warriors waste chances on passion, but good things come to those who wait" he will settle into a waiting stance

he will take the sprig and tuck it away

"how much for a couple units of medicine?" he asks

[MrAbdiel]

She broods at the answer; either disappointed at your response... or else wanting you to think she is disappointed at your response, to see your reaction.

"A waste of lighting. The power is in the instant of the thing; it does not linger in the heaven's quiver; it leaps at the first target. A man who seeks to cast lighting might do so, if the gods are kind; but a man who seeks to hold it in his fist.... this man will be struck by the weapon he covets."

She drifts across to a chest by one wall, and opens it; revealing a crowded interior full of tinctures, potions, and importantly, stoppered vials of the foul smelling but important herbal mash known as poultice...

The medicine available for purchase here are:

Healing Poultice (Allows healing as if lightly wounded, when heavilly wounded). You can get 25 doses of healing poultice (and bandages to apply it) for one sceatta.

Blessed Water, supposely useful as a deterent against the restless dead, is available for 14 sceatta.

The Throat of the Maiden has a small supply of Healing Draughts - they run at 4 sceatta each, though she only has five in stock.

There are also sundry amulets and tokens, but none of these seem likely to have genuine medicinal or magical power.

With that transaction complete, she resumes her circuitous interrogation. "Tell me, Bjornling man. Are you a cloud without purpose, blown across the sky on the shifting wind - or a gravid grey storm, hording its thunderbolts for some purpose. Here; let me be less coy - you are a raider, I know with ease. But here you are, far from the sea. What drives a raider from his boat, and his prize?"

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will pick up a unit of medicine and three healing draughts.

he takes a moment to marshal his thoughts and answers. " the boat i returned on was destroyed. i hold vengeance against the skaelings for sacking my village. had the bjornlings made at least a token effort to put up some sort of help, that i could accept." he continues with a "but since they didnt, i guess im on my own."

"i would say im a gray gravid cloud, hoarding thunder and seeking to grow stronger"

[MrAbdiel]

This - your confession of desiring vengeance against the Skaeling - lights her eyes up with interest. This is something she can work with more easilly than reserved wrath.

"Bjornling and Skaeling have claimed each other's skulls for many generations, now - considering one another soft, or senseless. They have raided and stripped each other's villages; but this warlord, the Sighted One, Aelfric... has an agenda of his own. He leads Skaeling, yes; but he is no Skaeling; neither is Aelfric is name. He has raided many lands for the Skaeling, and brought back many thralls and much treasure; but only in these recent times has he spurned the sea to make war on Bjornling, and Sarl - even other Skaeling. It is he who wiped a whole clan from the Bjornling, and did so with such ferocity that the Bjornling did not answer against the Skaeling. Is this the man on whom you would have vengeance, Jorunn? The Free Maiden can give me wisdom to guide you in such a quest... for a price. But it is a price a man who stands alone, with no tribe, is poised to pay more easily than another."

She slinks back to the shaped tree in the middle of the fane; draping herself against its lower curves like a languid cat.

"Here; bargain with me, Jorunn. My people, the Krejji, have suffered many indignities, but have come to thrive all the same. Yet I would see my mistress delivered from some measure of her shame. There are relics of her worship that have been plundered to those who carved up our lands - for each you bring to me, I will reveal more wisdom; and make clear also the path you might take if vengeance is in your heart. Seize my mistress's relics for me, and I will show you where your thunder ought to strike, oh gravid cloud. The first such relic is held by tainted monks in their monastery, on the other side of Lake Krejj. They extort dark sorceries from it; and none dare to raid their holding for fear of their magic. They have struck dead some men seeking their domain. But you, I think... Have the means to overcome it."

Her eyes track to your wrist, then back to your own gaze. "Will you give my Maiden her vengeance, and in turn, she will give you yours?"

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will consider. "how many monks and how much sorcery are we talking here?" he asks, steepling his fingers "im not opposed to seeking vengeance, but information always helps"

he will ask for as much intel on the monks as she has, and then return and ask haggur about the monestary across the lake

[MrAbdiel]

The vitki of the Free Maiden does not know these numbers; only the stories. She knows where the monastery is; that sometimes men have gone up there seeking to plunder and take, and they do not return. She thinks you can succeed where they have failed - but it's easy to be cavalier with other people's lives, so you do not bind yourself to oath without more information; and she retreats into the fane at the conclusion of your business.

"Seek, prepare, do as you will. You know my price, now. Bring me their relic, and I will fill your hands with lightning, one bolt at a time."


* * * * *

Haggur scratches his chin as you ask about the monastery. "Ah, yes. That place... I've not been there, though I've spoken to other traders who swear they have spoken to certain peddlars and dealers who have made their way up to deliver goods to them. You cannot see much of the monastery from the bottom of the plateau, but to be as discreet as they are, it cannot host more than a small village at its top with the monastery as its primary feature. They are tended mostly by the wind, though; a gale will blow flocks of bird across the sky and onto the plateau, where they must gather them up and eat them. That's good sorcery, I think; to feed yourself with the sky's bounty. But the mesa and its plateau is on the other side of the lake. There is a doorway cut into the rock, though that is the way men go and do not leave. The northern face of the mesa is better for climbing, I think. On the southern face, the monks sometimes cast down ropes to raise and lower baskets. The ice fishermen make them offerings out of habit. You could try your luck with the internal staircase; or try to climb the face of the mesa. An easier climb for one man, on the north side; but on the south side, if you were to climb and succeed, you might lower those ropes and bring others up, if you remained undetected."

He does have one more matter for you, however. After putting the armor in for cleaning and repair, pricing up the goods you are willing to sell, Haggur pays you 300 sceatta. This, on top of the 168 sceatta you looted directly, means you come away from the Graeling encounter much better equipped, and with 468 sceatta at your disposal - a very significant sum.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn nods. "ortel, i got some medicine, and a set of surgical tools" he says, proffering the stuff he purchased. "how long do you think it would take to get byjan fighting fit?" he asks, weighing his options

"i would say i climb the southern face and rig ropes to let you all come up" he says. "any questions, comments, ideas?"

after that, he'll talk to pedlars and dealers and ask about the monestary

[MrAbdiel]

Ortel is amazed by the fact you have found such tools; but adds them, and the medicine to the sack of belongings he lugs around. With the first share of the next loot he gets, he is likely to buy a pack.

"Well. Byjan lost a lot of blood. The muscles are knitting fine. If he's lucky, in a couple of day. Less lucky, and closer to a week."

As far as ideas for the climb goes, Marlene has just the one. "Well, I don't think any of us are particularly skilled climbers. It might be worth forking over a couple of sceatta to hire on a woodsman, or someone else with some scaling experience to do the climb... With the obvious benefit of, if they fall or get cursed and turned into a newt at the top, it's not you suffering the consequences."

You manage to find one of the peddlars who does deals with the monks of the mesa; he gives a sketchy little nod when you corner him for information and ask what he knows. "Well, sometimes they request certain things - bones, or pig gizzards... Sorcerer things, you know? It's not... worth my time to help them, but if I don't... Well. I don't want to end up in their bone-pit. It's at the southside of the mesa, near where they lower the baskets. You'll see it when you get there. But I think they have an isolated little town of thralls, up there. Living off fish freighted up to them from the lake, and birds blown in by the daemon-winds."

[bramblefoot]

jorunn nods. "ill see what i can do" he will ask around for a local woodsman

[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

It's not so hard to find such a man - after some direction you come upon one beyond the bounds of town, by a cluster of tall, branchy trees. He is showcasing his skills already; halfway up the trunk of one nodding, tilted pine; chopping away at its dead branches to preserve the growing whole and to provide a modicum of saleable firewood. You conduct your conversation with him calling down to you from the bough on which he sits, eating the dried fish that is his lunch.

"Climb up the side of the tor over the lake? With the wizards in it? Well... I can climb a wall and throw a rope, sure. Risky, though; don't want to be cursed. I'm afraid I couldn't do it for less than... than... three sceatta."

The young man is trying to put on an indecisive, aloof face; but he probably gets by trading firewood for dried fish and a place to sleep. He is under the impression, you think, that three silver is his highball offer than he expects to be outrageous to you. But he's willing, and has the skills - all that remains is the negotiation.

Leibwen could have gotten him for one sceatta, probably.

[bramblefoot]

"two sceatta if all you do is climb, three sceatta if you stick around and dont bolt the minute some shtuff goes down" jorunn counters

"ill make it five if you'll come with us into the teeth"

[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

The young man in the tree wipes his brow, and looks down at you. He's reasonably fit, as all men of the north must be; old enough to have gone through his time to become a trained bondsman of the King of the Krejji - or Jarl, or Warlord, or whatever he calls himself. He considers the offer as you escalate it, thumbs at his huge nose for a moment, then agrees.

"Alright. I'll come in with you. Just send me word when it's time, and I'll come through for you - but you're the tip of the spear, friend. There's not enough treasure in the world for me to be the one they see coming first."

His name is Guðbrandr Geirsson, and he climbs down to strike hands with you to make this deal. As it turns out, it's three days of rest before Byjan is hale enough to right; his flesh has mended much of the way, and Ortel assures you that he poses no risk to himself fighting through the pain. It's plenty of time to fill in your confederates on the plan.


* * * * *

Three days later, your warband is assembled in the cool of the morning dark at the foot of the tor. The lake is well frozen, and no trouble to cross; and you, Byjan, Ortel, Marlene and young Guðbrandr gaze up at your destination. A steep, snowcovered slope leads up a typical hill gradient; but at the summit of the hill the rise sharply becomes a singular upright rock formation, punching another hundred feet upward. The climb doesn't look -too- tough; but the punishment for failing, especially toward the top, seems harsh indeed. But the five sceatta set aside to reward your hireling are already doing work. He comes dressed in light leathers and furs, with a variety of axes, pitons, and knotted ropes. And the man does indeed know how to climb. You watch as he scurries up the stone, every twenty feet finding a crevice and hammering in a piton with the back of a handaxe, dangling knotted rope from it for your party to follow. His careful ascent takes about half an hour to prepare your way. Once he has done so, it's less than five minutes for the rest of you to scale the knotted ropes. Below you, the whole way, you see the pits where the monks throw their sacrifices - open wounds in the earth full of bones, and snow. When you pull yourselves up onto the the mesa, from the last rope tethered to a heavy post with from which the pulley for baskets must normally be attached, the sight that greets you is more than you expected. There is a monastery - a fort of mortar and stone in the middle of the broad mesa with two floors and a central tower. But there is also another dozen or more small huts and homes which look lived in. There is indeed a support village here, making do with their lives around this coven of strange spiritists.

The sun is only now beginning to rise and throw light on the mesa; the sound of the morning birds heralds the day. So far, no one has emerged to spot you or make a defence. The first decision comes now - do you race across the mesa to the monastery as swiftly as possible, seeking for haste and shock to carry your offensive... or sneak, hoping to catch the monks entirely unaware, but risking being detected and giving them more warning that a blitz might do.

Make a call, warrior. If you want to Blitz, then give me a +0 Agility roll to storm the monastery, and an Initiative roll. If you want to try to sneak in more quietly, you can make a Silent Move roll at +10 (for having a competent sidekick to guide you). If you want to do something else, feel free - just pitch it and I'll assign a roll!

[bramblefoot]

"we blitz" jorunn says, and will sprint across the plain, howling madly. he shifts into his were form, and will charge the monestary.

[roll0]

[roll1]

[MrAbdiel]

At full pelt, with your leather straining and its buckles popping as your bones rearrange themselves to accommodate your massive new muscles, you charge forward toward the monastery.

Guðbrandr balks. "Godspit, h-he's moonstruck!"
Byjan grabs him by the shirt and drags him along. "It's fine, talk later - fight now!"

You put your shoulder down and plow through the big carved wooden doors of the monastery. There is some kind of intricate story mapped out in the wood - but your animal hunger must be slaked in blood, and you send that carved saga tumbling back inside the hall beyond, where one of the doors lands and half crushes a man behind it. He is dressed like the other six in the room - in a long woollen robe that might be a bed dress, since you have given them no time at all to prepare.

Screaming fills the building. These men - all past middle aged and furnished with grey hairs and receding hairlines - start fleeing away into other rooms, howling in desperation.

"We're under attack!"
"Someone get to the bell!"
"Stall them, I'm going up!"
"No, YOU stall them! I'll go up!"

They are utterly unprepared for your assault and caught completely off guard. Only a moment of hesitation creeps into the animal drive of your brain.

You've caught these monks off guard. They don't seem ready to fight. What do you want to do?

1. Run them down and kill them one by one. If that's the case, feel free to make a charge attack against one of the six remaining monks, and your warriors will follow suit.
2. Take hostages. If you think you can leverage the lives of some for the obedience of others, you try an intimidate check and make some demands - but that would cause you to drop from your rage-form, as you cease combat.
3. Try to reach 'the bell'. The monks seem pretty keen on whatever bell is in the tower of the monastery. You could try to race up the stairs and seek to beat them to it - but again, since that is something other than charging and killing people, it would case you to drop from your frenzy.

Or something else you want to do!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will move to attack one of them. "spread out, and keep them from getting to the bell" he barks

[roll0]

[roll1]

[MrAbdiel]

You rage after one of the monks, who has fled into a room full of wooden beds, each laden with furs. They have captured years of smoky incense, and the thick, ritualistic smell bombards your senses before that scent is cut through by the blood you slash from the man's back. His reckless flight from you has saved him from the lethality of the blow, but he hasn't eluded you. You feel Witherbrand shiver in your hand as something like a whisper of blue light traces from the wound to the bloody blade; a robbery confirmed as the panicking monk snatches a staff from here it leans against the wall, turns to confront you with it, and utterly fails to produce any mystical protection at all. He urinates, in his disarmament; while a half dozen other men, bag-eyed and oddly birdlike in their features but across a range of ages, stir from their beds in a variety of states of alarm and fear.

Beyond this room, you hear your allies storming up the stairs, chasing those fleeing toward the bell. You can do nothing to aid in that effort, now. You have given mastery of your needs over to the beast, and the beast demands blood and meat and bone.

Frenzy gives you that extra attack, and in your case the bear form; but it also means you have to keep killing until there are no more enemies able to oppose you. You're in a room now with seven (or six and a half, since you whacked one) 'enemies'. It's your turn. They're going to spend this turn waking up, the next turn surprised, and the next grabbing weapons and feebly preparing themselves. They have tricks, but you have three turns of attacks to start working through them before they respond.

So give me three turns worth of swift attacks, which I beleive is a total of nine attacks. We'll assume your attacks can flow on from one downed target to the next without needing move actions because of the cluster of the room; and once we've got that measure of the massacre, we'll see how many are upright to oppose you and whether or not they will be able to oppose you with their 'tricks'.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn bellows, and will start a chopping


[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]
[roll4]
[roll5]
[roll6]
[roll7]
[roll8]
[roll9]
[roll10]


look at that garbage! my dice had to turn against me one of these days

[MrAbdiel]

You should be tearing through these weak men like a gutting knife through a fish's belly; but your blows, even driven by your killing rage and animal senses, find more air than flesh. A clear and inexplicable instinct inside your hunting mind knows - these are not just old men, not even just old men with some mystical gives, but old men with mystical gifts who are being sponsored and protected by a spiritual power that, even now, is protecting them. But without a body for you to strike at, you will need to contend with it the whole way.

Two of the confused fools, seizing their crooked staves from by their bedsides, find admirable enough courage to stand before you after you have ripped through both the one you chased into the room and the next closed to him; these raise their weapons in defence, trying to fend you back. Their three fellows behind begin conjouring their magics, and this time their calls are answered. From the palms of each comes a buffeting, foul wind; throwing furs and papers around the room like a hurricane and threatening to throw you onto your back, slamming through furniture as you go!

Two monks are blocking your way and full defending (no parries on them, but -20% to hit them). The three behind all successfully cast Windblast, which is a little redundant, but not completely. You are knocked prone. You need to make three Toughness Tests against being stunned for one round! You will, however, get a +10% on those tests from your Magic Resistance Talent.

Pass that, and you can act. You'll have to stand up, of course; but as long as you are inside the zone of wind, you're taking another -20% to attack. The monks themselves are outside of it - you can try to move out of the zone, which will require a -20% strength test to accomplish (but also triggering your magic resistance, knocking it down to -10%). It's gonna be a rough battle fighting all these windbags!

In summary, if you manage to avoid stunning, you could spend a fate point to get an extra half action to stand, then try to charge out of the zone to the monks and attack - but you'll still need to make that strength test to do it.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will attempt to stand, and push past these windbags, but a large book clocks him in the temple, forcing him down.

[MrAbdiel]

Pummelled by winds and debris, you are temporarily powerless with no avenue for your rage. At once, the winds abate - but before you can find your way to your feet, the blur of staves begin battering and pummelling you as you lay!

You spend that turn stunned, and the monks are going all out to try to get you - five monks, five all out attacks with their staves. All out, Plus outnumbering 3:1, means +40. Good luck, monks - you'd better make it good. Jorunn can defend while prone - at a -20 penalty!


Oh wait, there's another +10 for attacking a prone target - so I guess those all hit. Your mitigation is 6, so...

[roll0] for [roll1] (Confirmed in OOC) Hits for 7 net wounds.
[roll2] for [roll3] Hits for a net 3 wounds.
[roll4] for [roll5] Bounces off.
[roll6] for [roll7] Hits for a net 2 wounds
[roll8] for [roll9] Hits for a net 3 wounds.
[roll10] for [roll11]
[roll12] for [roll13] Bounces off.

Fortunately, your first dodge/parry/lucky charm goes on the first hit! If you survive that, you're free to stand up and attack - or spend, I think, your last daily fate point to stand up and swift attack!

[bramblefoot]

Jorunn will weather the storm of hits, and stand and start making mincemeat out of these old geezers

Parry

[roll0]

Attacks

[roll1]

[roll2]
[roll3]
[roll4]

[MrAbdiel]

Swift attack! I'll take that to be your last FP to stand up, then swift attack then?

The blows rain down on you, with one particularly vicious blow coming for your head - but you turn it aside, use your jaws to rip the staff from his hand, then smash his face flat against your shield as you stand, hacking another down with a backhand stroke of Witherbrand. Now three remain - and barking in belated bravery, your mangy wolf comes skidding into the room to menace the remaining monks from behind.

One turns to this new aggressor, and attempts to summon the winds of magic to aid him - but they abandon him in the crucial interest, fizzling in his hands with an audible pop, causing his grey hair to stand on end but offering no protective winds. The other pair, now trapped between foes, make their best effort - their castings go off just fine, causing the fingers of their right hands to warp into black, bird-like talons, fit for raking across your beastly skin!

One fails to cast entirely, the other two make natural weapon attacks upon Jorunn as their last effort:

[roll0] for [roll1]
[roll2] for [roll3].

...Not impressive. A nothing hit, and a miss!

Three left standing - lay them low, warrior - and may your allies have succeeded in their efforts beyond this room!

[bramblefoot]

"good doggo" jorunn grunts, making a swift attack against the geezers. one misses, but he gets one deep strike and one semi-deep strike

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]

[MrAbdiel]

You carve through one of the clawed monks, and slash the back of the one casting to fend off the hound - only for the beast to do its favorite trick, and leap up to the throat of an enemy reeling from one of your blows. Only one remains now, and he puts his all into furious slashes upon you with his wicked talons...


[roll0] for [roll1],
[roll2] for [roll3]!

That is... a scratch! For actual damage!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will attempt to parry, and move to finish him off

parry
[roll0]

attacks
[roll1]

[roll2]
[roll3]
[roll4]

[MrAbdiel]

A messy end to the last defiant - you plant Winterbrand in hits head, buried with a sharp stab and punching out the back, before withdrawing the steel and letting him slump. The wolf mistakes the twitching for life and savages the throat anyway, but there is a moment's peace for you, battered as you are.

You emerge from the bunk room to the central chamber of the monastery again. The second floor has a balcony around it to its side rooms, giving the main chamber a sort of auditorium design; and the tower above it is hollow, spiraled with a staircase leading up to the bell at its top. A howling monk plunges over the railing and crashes on the floor in a bonebreaking lump, wheezing and gurgling until the wolf dives in to execute him. Peering up, you see Byjan at the top of the stairs near a massive ceramic bell hanging in the tower. The big man is battered again, but alive - and seems to have intercepted that monk almost at his objective. Marlene and Guðbrandr emerge bloody from their own conflicts on the second floor, but seem to be healthy all things considered. Ortel emerges last, dragging a kicking and caterwalling old timer out from a side room and kneeing him in the stomach when he attempts to cast some kind of spell - a prisoner for your interrogation, as the rage-haze clears from your eyes and your allies scour the building to see if there remain any more stragglers. It seems you and your band have torn through perhaps twenty or so men, in this monastery - with one alive.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will stalk over to the man, and knee him in the stomach. "how many stay here, what defenses are there, where are your valuables, and where is the idol of the free maiden?" he asks gruffly, holding onto the man by the ear with just enough force not to tear it off. if the man doesnt start talking, well he'll start amputating fingers, toes, and other bits till he either sings or is a write off

intimidation roll

[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

"Defences!? Valuables? We are devoted monks of the wind spirit- we-we- have largely eschewed the things that mmAAAAHH!"

Denuded of a couple of fingers, he is immediately more forthcoming.

"There are a score of us, here - but the guardian is the wind spirit, Botis - Botis the Cryptic. He is drawn to the bell - but he also comes when he pleases, a bodiless spirit of great power! You-you-you should flee while you can!"

On the subject of riches, the prisoner cringes, but wants to keep as much of his hand in tact as possible.

"Our petty wealth, we keep in a coffer - behind the stair that spirals up to the tower. But I don't know anything about such an idol! I swear!"


In your experience, men tell the truth when blood starts to flow. They can be resistant until you start taking pieces of, but no one fights a series of last stands as you work from finger, to wrist, to elbow. They defy, and then they crack.

"There is still time for you to flee!"

[bramblefoot]

"take the valuables, and then search the place" jorunn says offhandedly to his thralls. he'll run the monk through, and move to search the place

[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

You execute the degenerate captive and cast his body aside, getting about your search. Byjan hauls out a wooden coffer from behind the stairs, where you were told it would be. The monk wasn't lying - it is petty wealth indeed. You gather 22 sceatta from it, but the rest of the 'wealth' within are carved bird bones; talismans that may have some signficance to the strange god of the shrine... but, given your desecration, are unlikely to be particularly protective to you.

It is your personal search that reveals the idol. At the top of the stairs, you examine the frost-dusted stone bell. How such a device makes any worthwhile tone you do not know; but your examination reveals the striker inside the bell is slim silver idol the length of your arm, carved in the style of the Free Maiden; though the idol itself is wrapped in fine chains that have badly scratched and grooved it, and the faceand hair of the idol is battered to an unrecognizable flat from striking the bell.

While at the top of the tower, you get a look at the small village around it, now; the rest of the dwellers on the mesa. A small crowd of peasants are scattered in clusters at their porches and doorways; women peering up where you peer down; children pointing and whispering to each other, being shuffled back indoors by their mothers. The longer you watch, the more obvious it becomes: there are only women and children here. This is some kind of bride-village for the now slain monks, serving and perpetuating their existence, but living quite separate and definitely not anxious to come running to their aid, it would seem.

A clear and inexplicable instinct brings your focus back to the bell - it is itself an icon of the temple's wind-spirit. Disrupting it is likely to anger it... perhaps, even trigger a confrontation...

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will free the idol, and make his way downstairs at speed. "found the idol, and now we leave" he says, chivvying his warband out the door

[MrAbdiel]

As you are retreating out the door you kicked in, clouds are gathering above the mesa; the women and children retreat into their homes and latch their doors while your warband rushes to where the descent ropes remain tied off to the pulley post. But the figure takes shape infront of you before you get there - ethereally interposed between you, and your point of escape.

Its shape is humanoid, though not human; the limbs are too long, the trunk of the body too compact, the head too far forward on the neck. Even hunkering forward on bent knees it must be eight feet tall. But the rest of its description you cannot countenance, because all it seems to be is shape. You see it only because the wind around it pulls up the dust and snow into its shape and it churns about in the humanoid hollow in space before, creating constant soft borders of motion you can pick out with your eyes. When it speaks, the release of wind from its mouth is so sharp it knocks Marlene and Ortel backwards over, while the rest of your warband is forced merely to lower their bodies against the gale.


https://i.ibb.co/4wqCz6X/Little-Bjornling.png

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will growl low and respond by pulling back his sleeve with the marking from the albion skellyman and baring it at the wind spirit. "i am protected against your magics!" he barks, motioning his warband to stay behind him.

[MrAbdiel]

https://i.ibb.co/hXdgMYQ/AreYou.png

As your warparty rallies behind you, the daemon-shape seems not quite to strike; but the front face of the shape buckles outward and the hurricane winds contained within it are suddenly roaring out at you. Most of it is powerful, buffeting force trying to throw you on your back; but within that wind there come smaller bursts of wind moving so fast that the air itself strikes you like a thrown stone; and other, finer bursts of air that shear through flesh like knives or bullets.

You feel the mark on your arm growing hot on your flesh, as you endure it. It seems to be protecting you in some measure - but you hate to contemplate what it would be like without that protection to endure such sustained attacks!

Strictly speaking this isn't a spell, but it is magical in nature. So for the purpose of this attack, and attacks like it, your Magic Resistance talent (which normally gives +10% to tests to resist a spell) will count towards your toughness to resist the damage, as well; effectively +10% toughness against flat magical damage.

The allies behind you will benefit from your protection to the tune of an effective +20% toughness for you being infront of them, which raises their damage reduction in most cases from 6 to 8. (Byjan to 9; Guðbrandr to 7, wolf to 6).

That's good, because everyone under the daemonwind is taking a Damage 5 Hit; with no chance of fury. They are also making agility tests not to fall prone, as you should, with a +10% bonus for your Magic Resistance Talent.

Jorunn: [roll0],
Byjan: [roll1], [ROLL=Agi]1d100]/ROLL]
Marlene: [roll2], [ROLL=Agi]1d100]/ROLL]
Ortel: [roll3], [ROLL=Agi]1d100]/ROLL]
Guðbrandr: [roll4], [ROLL=Agi]1d100]/ROLL]
Wolf: [roll5], [ROLL=Agi]1d100]/ROLL]

Needless to say, you are in combat - and may take a turn now!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn staggers under the blast, but the green sprig falls and withers, protecting him from the blast. he will stand, and prepare to rage on his next turn

stand now, rage next turn

[MrAbdiel]

The winds hammer down on you; but you hunker against them. You find it is easier to keep your footing if you turn your shield's edge to the wind; but that does not protect you from the striking, cutting winds within the wind; and so you must turn your shield, the shield Byjan gave you before your first voyage, into the full force of the gale. You stay upright, even if the wind drives you back, and you are forced to effectively stride forward in place not to be blasted over. The winds die down some after this great burst, and over your shoulder you see Byjan, Ortel and the wolf staggering back to their feet. Marlene is upright, and looses an arrow at the daemon-wind; but the shaft passes harmlessly through the space and deviates off on the wild gales, spiralling up and away from the mesa. Guðbrandr features his impressive bravery by charging and hacking forward with his axe; but it bites through the empty space where the shape stands and whocks into the snowy earth beneath it. Mortal weapons harm such a being not.

You make your move. With Witherbrand, you strike out at the figure, but the storming air pushes the flat of your blade away. You use the momentum and spin into a backhand slash across the creature's ill-defined shape; but this time, you feel resistance as the metal sheers into something unseen; and the daemon screams in outrage through the mouth in the ragged wind carved by your blow. You feel the sword pulling some of the magic from the creature's reserves; but this is like bailing a lake with a thimble. This daemon creature is a being of magic - a place where magic pours into the world.

Almost offhandedly, the daemon raises one space that approximates an arm to punish the woodsman for his effort, and a pummelling braid of forces batter him back and away from the melee. You see blood fly where the wind has struck him on the side with force enough to crack ribs and tear skin; but then it lashes at you with one arm, testing your defenses...

Attacking with its 'hand weapons'. [roll0] or [roll1], for [roll2]. This attack can, and should, be parried.

EDIT: NM, that's a big old miss. Jorunn's action! Raging, or following up on the successful attack with more?

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will hulk out, muscles and bones reshaping themselves into his war form

parry
[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

Your allies scatter. It's obvious this is not a combat they can assist you in, meaningfully - all they can do is shelter away from the winds, and pray to whatever gods they believe in for your success. As you warp and shift into your monstrous other-form, the daemon howls with baleful opposition; and tears itself open again, as another punishing gale comes raging out against you - this time, only on yourself, but no less furious for it.

Another 5 damage hit from the punishing winds - [roll0].
(Your mitigation, in this form is 7 off that number). You must also make another Agility test (at +10%) or or be blasted prone!

Edit: BOO. 0 damage. But you may still fall over.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will stay upright, and make three attacks. they all hit, and they all bite

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]
[roll3]

[MrAbdiel]

Now you have the measure of it. You can imagine how such a creature, dominating this raised mesa, might have been beyond the attacks of almost all its opponents, and capable of hurling them to their deaths or tearing them apart with these hurricane assaults. But against pure, bloody-minded killing power given teeth with a magical weapon, the creature, ethereal however he may be, has limited defenses.

Botis the Cryptic screams as you carve through his immaterial form with the magic-eating Witherbrand. Your first blow carves across its 'chest', and immediately that unseen wound 'bleeds' a typhoon of battering wind against you. But you are ready for this one, ducking low and letting the wind shear against your shield, hacking through one of the gangly, awkward long 'legs' at the knee. As you do, the swirl of winds defining its form for that limb comes apart entirely; and now, as if your many blows had depleted it of much of its internal pressure, the buffering wind from its torso is much less commanding. It affords you a moment to open your guard and cleave across, shearing deeply through the middle of the space it seems to occupy. This is a killing blow; and as the daemon dies, or is sent back to where such things lurk in between lives, it briefly becomes truly visible to you and your companions. It's a split second flicker in your vision like an image you shouldn't witness somehow spliced into the running field of your vision; black skinned, gangly, with an bulbous head dominated by a huge blue eyeball as its only feature, and a great fanged vertical maw from clavical to groin. In the moment when you can see it, it is falling into three pieces; the severed leg, the upper and lower halves of the body; but there is such misery and hatred in that single staring eye that you, and your companions, are likely to remember it for the rest of your lives.

Daemonshock time. Give me a Willpower test, at Challenging.
Success means just 1 Insanity point for yourself; failure means 1d5 of them!

And then it's gone again, both from vision and the world; with a whump of airy detonation that blasts a distended, stretched out silhouette of its deathpose into the snow behind it all the way from here to the edge of the cliff you ascended to this place. Quiet settles over the battlefield.

There don't seem to be any threats left here, now; you have slain them all. The monastery is empty, its operators and its false god all cast down. From the windows of the small buildings, the village inhabitants watch you and your warparty in naked wonder.

Scary for a minute, but victory is yours! Gain 200XP from sacking and clearing the Monastery of the Daemonwinds!

[bramblefoot]

"lets patch ourselves up, and then get off this mesa" jorunn says, shifting back down to his regular form

[MrAbdiel]

Your companions are very happy to comply. Ortel addresses the wounds of the group - all are relatively minor, since you soaked most of them and the shifting of your muscles and bones performs a certain amount of repair to damage done in the bear form.

You half expect to be ambushed by the daemon again as you descend, but no one impedes you as you slide down the rope to and the edge of the frozen lake below. There beside you is the pit, where the corrupt monks above had been hurling thralls as sacrifice to the daemon you have now slain. Perhaps the villagers will keep doing so, out of habit - such habits are hard to break, for cowed people. They may serve absent masters as desperately as they served the previous ones. Welcomely, there are no ambushes on the way back to Krejj - fate has exhausted its efforts upon you, for the day; and you still stand.

Don't forget to mark off 5 sceatta for Guðbrandr's help!


* * * * *

With the rest of your warparty returned to Haggur's house, you bear the recovered idol back to the vitki in the Fane of the Free Maiden. You cannot help but notice she is pleased to see you, and perhaps even slightly before she notes the bundle you carry. The bright blue eyes peer at you with vindicated glee from behind the veil of her raven-black braids, and she glides out from the dark with her strange grace to receive it from you; the weight of it significant, against her slight form. She cradles it like a child, and strokes the damaged face.

"An end to one string of blasphemies, then... and, given your wounds, the blasphemers themselves, also." She sets it in the shadow of the wooden likeness of the Free Maiden, and circles back to you - then beyond you, to close and bolt the door to the fane from within.

"You have earned a thunderbolt for your palm, Bjornling-man. Continue this way, and you will earn more; and all will be made sated by your work and mine, except those who stand against you. Come now..." She returns and this time takes your big hand between the pairing of her palms, "...your wounds are bandaged, but I will show you a medicine for the body and spirit; one to restore your strength that, I expect, your foreign priest does not offer..."


* * * * *

She shows you.


* * * * *

Afterward, warm in the snarl of furls and blankets hidden behind a blind wall at the rear of the fane, the vitki of the Free Maiden fulfills her side of your bargain.

"Aelfric the Sighted is not Norse - not by birth. He is a man of another place. The stories say he first wandered down from the lands nearer the chaos wastes - a man of the Tong."

Tong. A people-name all Norscans know; a race of men so vicious and strong that the Kurgan, Hung, and Norse dread them; though they mostly trouble the Hung and Kurgan, and only the Norse when a great war against the south is underwar. Even in such times, the Tong tend to mount their own parallel raids on the southern lands rather than submit to the banner of another people; though they have little fear of forcing other tribes to kneel before theirs, when it suits them.

"An exile, perhaps? Or a fated wanderer, like yourself? I cannot say. He led a warband of kurgan men into Norse lands, made a bloody name for himself, and then struck a deal with the Skaeling lords at the Doomkeep to begin raiding for them, instead of against them. For perhaps twenty years, he savaged the coasts of the Sea of Claws, taking thralls and plunder and bringing them to sale in Norsca to Sarls, and Skaeling, and Bjornling. But several years ago, his tactic changed - he beached his flagship, purged his raiding force down to a warband again, and began ravaging Norscan towns - Skaeling first, but not only. Perhaps they betrayed him - perhaps he felt their contract had expired. But he is a mighty warrior, of much experience, Bjornling-man. He will kill you, if you do not gather more lightning before you strike. But continue this partnership, and before he knows your name, you will have such a tempest laid up that even such a champion will fall before you."

She clutches a blanket to herself with one arm as she leans over to stir the burner of coals and incense in this rear room, refreshing the chamber with fragrant smoke, and welcome heat. Baring the skin of her back to you, rippled with just a few stripes with the old marks of a former master's rod, she offers her next proposal.

"Next you must master the gifts within yourself. The beast inside you is mighty, but no wild beast is as mighty as one commanded by a skilled handler. You must go to the Graeling lands, to the village of Fjirgard. The greatest of the Were dwell there - if there is wisdom about your gift, about how to better master it, you will find it there. But you will also find in the Graeling land another idol of the Free Maiden - though all my eyes and spies can only say it was once held in a trophy hall, in the Graeling Moot. Where it is now, you must discover - and bring it back to me, Bjornling man."

She coos; and lazilly drapes herself across you in a gesture that might be intimate, or possessive, or perhaps just loosely territorial. "My vengeance, your lightning. As before, so again. Yes?"

[bramblefoot]

"agreed" jorunn purrs. he will disentangle himself, dress, and purchase a pair of lucky charms for the way out, then meet back up with his warband. "we head to fjirgard after we're all healed up" he says, looking around to see if anybody has any better ideas

[MrAbdiel]

None of your warband have better ideas. There is a tone of mild trepidation about going into Graeling territory - but the armor you have looted has some superficial Graeling markings, so perhaps it will serve best in that place. They are bound to your band, and will go where you ask.

The morning after, you partake of Haggur's hospitality for the last time. He fills your stomach with a fish and vegetable stew, thanks you again for your strength on the road. "The Graeling are more bound to the old ways than the other tribes. The pay worship to the Four, and their ancestors; but there is a strong vein who call to the gods of the wood and hearth. You will know you are in their lands when you slip through the mountain pass beyond the frozen river, and you start seeing goatherders. They're goatfolk, the Graeling, more than other stock; less and less as you get toward the north coast. But you'll have to pass the mountains before that - the Vanaheimlings in the Vanaheim mountains will likely not give you trouble, as this time of year they are making their Provings, climbing to the peaks and seeking the yeti. Stay in the passes north all the way to the big forest gorge between the Vanaheim mountains and the Helspire Mountains - the stone changes color as you move from one range to the other, too. Mind beastmen in the forests, as always. But once you're in the Helspire mountain region, you're in southern Graeling territory. The Graeling Moot is just at the tip of one of the branches of the River Kaasmoas; and someone from there can point you to Fijrgard better than I can from memory. Gods overlook you, friends."

But you barely make it over the frozen lake, near to the Mesa, when you are see strange activity - there is a party of men at the lip of the mesa, just about where you climbed up; they are hurling the bodies of the monks you slew into the pits below. The nature of this gesture might be spiteful... or sinister. "Are they trying to summon the daemon again?" Ortel speculates with dread. "We ought to go back up and check - it was all women and children before, now there's men up there. Maybe just taking over. Maybe the work for the monks, and we'll have them behind us with an axe to grind."

Byjan shakes his head. "No. No, opportunists, I think. But they do seem to have decided all too quickly it was time to scramble up the mesa they thought was certain death before."

You could investigate this development... or you could pass by, establishing distance instead of potentially entangling yourself; not to suggest entangling yourself has troubled you too much before. Ortel certainly seems to want to make sure the people aren't suffering a new round of exploitation, up there.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will pull the devil spy from his pocket, and train it on the mesa. he's looking for insignia, rank tabs anything that might let him distinguish who they are "personally, we just finished a tough fight, and i see no reason to start another" he says.

perception roll

[roll0]

do i get any bonuses for the devil spy?

[MrAbdiel]

You do! And because of it, you succeed.

Peering up at the fringe of the mesa, you see no cult sigils or marks of affiliation. Just furs and hides on the men up there. In fact, you're quite sure you've seen some of them before. Some of them are ice fishermen you passed on your previous way over the lake; some are other woodsmen you passed when you were seeking recruitment. These are men of the Krejji, though the kind who dwell in shacks and lodges outside the walls to sell their produce and wares to those within. They don't strike you as hostile - they are disposing of the bodies of the previous occupants, and perhaps taking residence up there.

Infact, there is Guðbrandr among them! What is he planning, up there? He pauses, having helped one of the other men heave a monk's slack corpse off the rise, and squints in your direction, raising a hand to shade his eyes - but he has no spyglass like you do, and likely does not recognize you from this distance.

[bramblefoot]

"krejji" jorunn says, passing the spyglass to byjan. "gudbrandr is up there, and they look like they're making a home up there. personally i have no objection, unless you all do?" he lets the question hang in the air

assuming there are no objections, he will have them all push on

[MrAbdiel]

Ortel is still skittish. Daemons are no joke; and southerners are even less used to their nefarious dealings than most mortals. He presses the point, though not with absolute conviction. "Well... It's on the way - perhaps we can get close enough to call up to Guðbrandr, Jorunn, and hear it from him. You've a good rapport with him, after all."

[bramblefoot]

Ortel is still skittish. Daemons are no joke; and southerners are even less used to their nefarious dealings than most mortals. He presses the point, though not with absolute conviction. "Well... It's on the way - perhaps we can get close enough to call up to Guðbrandr, Jorunn, and hear it from him. You've a good rapport with him, after all."

"im not opposed" jorunn says, tucking away the spyglass and moving to go talk to the krejji

[MrAbdiel]

Guðbrandr and the other Krejji have just finished heaving the bodies into the pit when you get near the mesa. You signal the woodsman, and he waves back.

"Jorunn! Jorunn, come up, come up - Did the lad I sent find you, or just skive off to drink at the longhouse?"

Following the invitation to climb up the ropes you had Guðbrandr hitch up for your attack, you find the village buzzing with activity. There are perhaps a score of men here; fishes and woodsmen all, sitting about recently dug firepits and cooking fish on sticks; trying to coax the villagers into sharing them, and having some success.

"It was a bloody cult town, Jorunn." Guðbrandr explains, fists on his hips as he watches the people of the mesa mingle with men from below for the first time in their lives. "I chatted to the headwoman here. Bloody monks kept them like a stable of wives; pitched the boychildren into the pits; had the women raise the girls as wives for each other. Bloody awful. They barely know anythin', about the world or the gods or whatnot. Just that the wind-spirit that provided for them with flocks it threw down, and the monks that kept them. I figured they'd be set to starve now that you put away that spirit; they've no one to deal with the fishers below who knows much about fish or trade, so I started inviting lads up to help, and now..."

He gestures, to the very obvious and now. A host of practical, rural men who are not warriors or wealthy people are naturally trying to market themselves to a suddenly open market of women with the skills they have to offer. The men are not particularly charming; and the women still shy and adjusting to their emancipation. It may take some time for any such flirtations to bear fruit, but they are trying.

Guðbrandr points to the monastry. "We're trying to make some kind of... working village of it. It's safer for many of the fishermen and woodsmen to dwell up here instead out outside Krejj. Gods, we might be able to..." He makes an open handed gesture around the mesa, and the little houses there. Whatever this is supposed to indicate, he doesn't say; but he clearly has some amount of vision for the place. "Anyway. There'll be room for you all up here any time you want to stay; I'll make sure of it."

The hamlet, which by the time you return will have come to be known as Widow's Rise, is in your debt.

You have a fixed, reasonably safe home here. You can leave any wealth, possessions, or recovering injured folk here in Widow's Rise and have a high degree of confidence they will be safe; and you will not pay for accomodation.
Guðbrandr will make it his mission to make sure no one steals whatever you stash, if anything. The only limitation is beasts - currently, there is no way to get anything larger than a wolf up the rise.

[bramblefoot]

"i didnt get a message, so id say he went off a-drinking" jorunn says. he will accept the offer to stay, and then after some small talk, take his leave to go

[MrAbdiel]

The Saga of Jorunn
Part 1 - "That Which Remains"
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2F474x%2F12%2Fa7%2F3 d%2F12a73df368d130432e5490883f3ade3d.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=2899852f13a1e7f1fcaa949d709f8014ffcfeb366271e7 59b80b3b09295eda05&ipo=images

Chapter 2 - Roam

You dwell a little with the hopefuls whose lives you have changed, mostly by accident, on Widow's Rise. They have only fish for you, but fish is well enough. You were raised in a coastal tribe, of course; and after that, spent much time at sea. But then Guðbrandr bids you farewell, and you make your way north beyond the mesa towards the Vanaheim mountains.

The terrain becomes rough; up and town, hard going to clamber through mountain clefts to cut through towards where you are assured you will intercept the valley pass, and from there smoother travel. But it's here, halfway up one of the slopes, you encounter your first party of Vanaheimlings for the first time. They are bigger than Graelings - and Graelings are bigger then Bjornlings and Skaelings - and almost uniformly blond, and narrow eyed. A troop of ten or so of what seems to be a fur-clad hunting party are clearing stones and digging a great pit in the hard packed ground on the side of the mountain slope. They don't seem to be laying in wait for travellers here ... but what they seem to be doing is anyone's guess.

Action time. Try to approach and interact peacefully? Give me a charm test. Want to try to sneak by? Give me your an Outdoor Survival test; or if you want to go far enough back and around there is no roll at all, that's fine too; its just back tracking and time lost.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will walk up to the party of vanaheimlings, and will engage in polite small talk, attempting to get a good look in the pit

charm

[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

You put on your best social affect; managing to pluck up enough charm that you win them over quickly even with your eerie eyes and hair visible soon enough. Ortel and Byjan follow your lead and relieve the two most tired looking diggers, putting their backs to some shovel work in the large round pit while you speak to the group's leader; a massive man named Torf.

"Is a trap, you see?" He gestures to the pit, then next to the pit to heal of long cut tree boughs and bundled cloth. He nods toward the higher slope of the nearest mountain. "Up there is Rognir - a giant, you see? Twice now he has climbed down from his perch and attacked my people. Snatched up two women and a young man; stuffed them into his bag. Ate them, I suppose. No more, I think. We will lure him out and make him step in the hole - fall, maybe even break his legs. Then we will cut off his head and sled his skull back to our village. You want to join the fight? He sleeps in old dwarf runs high up the slope. We'll take the skull - you can have whatever you find once the Rognir is dead."

It's a friendly offer; but it's a promise of uncertain reward for a very dangerous task indeed. Giants are mighty warriors; able to kill great champions in single blows by strength alone. Defeating one with cunning like this might work - but if the giant does not fall in the pit, then it will be a troop of mere men fighting such a monster. Few heroes can hope to compete with such a goliath opponent in melee combat.

On the other hand... this may be the only chance you have to participate in a giant hunt.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will consider. "im sure we could be of use, but let me consult with my warband" he says.

"what do you think, should we help in a giant hunt?" he asks his party

[MrAbdiel]

The party is split. Byjan is fascinated.

"Such a creature - I am not a warrior of your calibre, Jorunn; but it would be a shame to let such an opportunity pass by. Who would not risk much to say, 'I am he, Giantkiller'?"

Marlene and Ortel are less sanguine. They're hirelings, after all; hoping to survive a year and go home. This is more risk than they'd like, but they are sworn to follow you. "If you want, Jorunn, we'll help - but we can't go toe-to-toe with something like that. None of us can; not even you. It better be a damn good trap," commends Ortel. Marlene seems to agree.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will come to a decision. "lets help, but play it safe" he says. he'll return to torf, and offer his help

[MrAbdiel]

Torf appreciates it; vengeance, you know, is not a commodity Norscans easily part with.

You and your warband lend aid deepening the pit, before the Vanaheimlings make the cap with the boughs they brought; binding them at one end in and splaying the other end over the hole so it sits over the cavity like crouching, long-legged spider. After this, the cloth - ripped and tattered old sailcloth, you think - is spread over the branchy cover. The resulting wide circle of cloth, with its radial ribs and its small peak, wouldn't fool anyone, in this state - but after a night of sharing game that Marlene and the Vanaheimling's trapper pull together, the snowfall has covered it in a couple of inches of powder and it appears to be an only slightly suspiciously regular snowdrift.

Having used your tents to make hunting blinds, you and the Vanaheimlings watch Torf wander up the slope with a wooden sled on his back; wait and socialize for another hour, and then head into the blinds to wait, and watch.

You are not disappointed.

After some echoed shouting a while later, you begin feeling the soft ground tremors of slamming footsteps. Torf comes racing around the bend of the mountain on his sled, shearing through snow in a serpentine pattern that seems chosen to slow his descent so the his pursuer - his quarry - can keep up, and so that he does not gain so much speed he cannot control the sled itself. A moment later, Rognir is revealed.

Megkaplak! Érzem a véred illatát!

The giant must be over twenty five feet all, and comes launching down the slope in strides as big as he dares on such a treacherous surface. He is not foolish, you think - he could not survive barrelling around this mountain without some cunning dealing with its surfaces- but he has taken the bait completely.

Rognir is pale skinned, beardless, with a low wreathe of scraggling black hair circling ear to ear behind his head, leaving the scalp wispy and bald. He has a small paunch of stomach, and the normal number of arms, legs, eyes, and ears. In most ways, he seems to be a simply a huge man; but there are uncanny differences in form that are hard not to see. Something about the proportion of his limbs is off - a little too long for the torso, maybe? And the fat over his form is not distributed in the same thickness uniformly as a paunchy human might experience; it draws down into the jiggling bulb of his belly, but the pectorals, shoulders, arms, legs and neck of the creature are corded and tight with muscle; their strain constantly visible as it even existing, upright, is a relentless routine of exercise for him. He proceeds toward the trap, following Torf, at pace; very soon will be the time to act.

Rognir is quite focused. You consider in these last moments before the battle how best to initiate. If you wait for him to collapse into the pit, you will need a moment of slogging through the snow to get to the pit and strike its captive. If you can creep a little closer, staying low and inoffensive so not to attract the giant's ire, you could more easilly unleash your full fury more swiftly. That would risk being seen and fouling the trap - but it would negate the risk of the giant not suffering as much as the Vanaheimlings had hoped, climbing out of the trap, and smashing you all off the mountainside before anyone can close and do damage!

You can stay hidden, in which case, once Rognir hits the trap, Rognir with have a turn before anyone attacks him to try to recover, if possible.

If you pass a Concealment (+20%) check, you can sneak closer and attack him as soon as he's in the hole.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will stay in the hunting blind, not wanting to risk it

[MrAbdiel]

Rognir gives chase, and the trap works just about perfectly. Torf slews around the pit and to a halt to look over as the giant, shaking the giant with each step after him, places a food straight onto the pit, crashes through the thin cover, and slams bodily at gut height into the lip of the pit at an awkward angle. His yowl is so loud and pained it shakes the snow from other mountains nearby. The Vanaheimlings shout, burst from their blinds, and begin to dash forward, javelins in hand, and launch them at the groaning and furious giant presently pulling himself out of the pit.

Roll Initiative! The party will act immediately after you. You'll have to spend your first turn running to close the gap, as do the Vanaheimlings, so there's no surprise round. The Vanaheiming's second action was to half move closer and yeet spears:

[roll0] for [roll1]
[roll2] for [roll3]
[roll4] for [roll5]
[roll6] for [roll7]
[roll8] for [roll9]
[roll10] for [roll11]
[roll12] for [roll13]
[roll14] for [roll15]


Torf and the Vanaheimlings: 12
Rogvir the Massive: 7


Rogvir also takes for [roll16] damage from a well executed trap. Because this is a carefully planned trap for the enemy, I'm forgoing the normal Terrifying rules unless something goes wrong, in which case they will suddenly kick in.

I'm also going to give him a 1d5 roll on the leg critical table. 1d5 crits are an invention from Only War and later Fantasy Flight games, but they're great do do small, specific injuries for traps that damage the legs or whatnot, since nothing below a 6 on the crit tables does greivous damage.

[roll17].

EDIT: So a whopping 20 Wounds from the fall, down to 14; and a pathetic hail of javelin for a net 3 wounds, so Rogvir has taken net 17 wounds so far. He has also dazed for a turn, can do nothing but stand up, or attack at a -30%; so I guess he's standing this turn!

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will charge rognir, and move to make an attack

[roll0]

[roll1]

init roll

[roll2]

[MrAbdiel]

Following you in, your warparty makes their best efforts against Rogvir, who stumbles in the pit as he strives to get his feet under him. The Vanaheimlings draw weapons, and close into melee with you - Torf himself running back from where his sled stopped, so not to miss out on the danger and glory...

[roll0] for [roll1]
[roll2] for [roll3]
[roll4] for [roll5] or [roll6]

[roll7] for [roll8]
[roll9] for [roll10]
[roll11] for [roll12]
[roll13] for [roll14]
[roll15] for [roll16]
[roll17] for [roll18]
[roll19] for [roll20]
[roll21] for [roll22]

Edit: Standby for results...

Up to 24 Wounds taken. Rogvir spends this round recovering from the leg-crit!

...But with arrows and axes striking him, lacerating and piercing, all those wounds seem small and insufficient to bring him down. The giant rights himself in the pit, abandons his efforts to climb out, and snatches up a handful of the broken boughs from the covering as an improvised weapon to defend himself.

You have only a moment before he has regained enough of himself to begin attacking - and terrible will be his revenge.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will make two attacks on rognir, not wanting to shift unless absolutely necessary. neither hit, and he curses his luck

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]

[MrAbdiel]

Rogvir retaliates. The bundle of branches, trailing streamers of torn sail, come crashing down into the midst of you and his attackers with bone-crunching force...

For the purpose of randomly determining attacks:
1 is Jorunn.
2 is Byjan
3 is Ortel
4-11 are Vanaheimlings.
12, next turn when Torf is in combat, will be Torf.

On [roll0]; [roll1] for [roll2] or [roll3].
On [roll4][roll5] for [roll6] or [roll7].
On [roll8][roll9] for [roll10] or [roll11].
On [roll12][roll13] for [roll14] or [roll15].
On [roll16][roll17] for [roll18] or [roll19].

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will make another two attacks. he curses again as he misses

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]

[MrAbdiel]

The giant smashes about, and the crowd attacking him become notably more reserved, not wishing to catch the fury of that swinging club. Most of his attacks miss their targets - but Ortel, swinging the steel greataxe you had looted, is in the path of one such blow...

Forgot to roll your guy's attacks with you just now.

[roll0] for [roll1] or [roll2]
Ortel's parry - [roll3], at -30.

[roll4] for [roll5].

[roll6] for [roll7]...

Stand by for resolution.

Confirmation for Rogvir's blow - [roll8] , for [roll9].

[MrAbdiel]

Ortel's heavy blow is smashed aside as the giant's blow catches him in the chest, spinning him away. It's only the flimsy end of a branch that catches him, so it breaks around him; but he crawls, wheezing, to his feet and back to his axe, breathing the name of his wolf-god, Ulric, under his breath.

Ortel soaked 7 of that 17 damage, so he's taken 10 wounds and is heavily injured.

"Keep at it! Now, now now!" Torf roars, lending his own axe to the ambition. Your wolf, at the edge of the pit, cannot close to attack without jumping in; so instead he barks, hatefully, at the giant.

[roll0] for [roll1]
[roll2] for [roll3]
[roll4] for [roll5]
[roll6] for [roll7]
[roll8] for [roll9]
[roll10] for [roll11]
[roll12] for [roll13]
[roll14] for [roll15]
[roll16] for [roll17]

Rogvir has taken 27 wounds.

[MrAbdiel]

[roll0] for [roll1]or [roll2]
[roll3] for [roll4]
[roll5] for [roll6]

[MrAbdiel]

It seems appropriate that Outnumbering should kick in, now.

[roll0] for Ortel to confirm, for maybe or [roll1] more damage.

After that, it's gonna be Rogvir again...

Rogvir is up to 38.

Your allies pile on their attacks, but the tension is high; you are all one bad blow away from messy death. Ortel, wheezing painful breaths, takes up his great axe and howls with bloody lips, swinging recklessly and chopping deep into the giant's forearm... a good blow, but it doesn't slow the beast down before it swings again...

[bramblefoot]

"ortel, play it safe" jorunn barks, making two attacks on the giant. one misses, but the other one bites deep

[roll0]

[roll1]
[roll2]

parry

[roll3]

dodge

[roll4]

[MrAbdiel]

On [roll0] at [roll1] for [roll2] or [roll3]
On [roll4] at [roll5] for [roll6] or [roll7]
On [roll8] at [roll9] for [roll10] or [roll11]
On [roll12] at [roll13] for [roll14] or [roll15]
On [roll16] at [roll17] for [roll18] or [roll19]

Two great blows hammer into the Vanaheimlings, throwing them off their feet and back into the snow; but perhaps by miracle of Ulric or some more local diety, none of the hits seem mortal. Not until yours.

When the last blow hammers down into the snow where you were standing, you make your move by instinct. One step on the back of the giant's fist, the next on his huge ropey bicep, until your foot slips with its movement and you go to your knee on its shoulder, within the miasma of breath that smells like the rotting, tooth-trapped remnants of his last dozen meals. Trusting the giant has the same weakpoints as a human, you lunch forward, dropping your shield to use your hand for extra stability, and ram Witherbrand into the corner of Rogvir's neck and shoulder. The arterial spray that washes out onto you is hot and bright, and the giant bellows and thrashes such that you tumble off and almost into the pit - but Byjan and Torf are there to snatch your arms and drag you back as the giant goes through his death throes. Once it is still, you are clear to retreive your blade.

"All still here?" Rogvir calls. Two of his men, and one of yours, are battered; but everyone seems to have survived. Once that seem to be the case, a slow excitement ripples through the group, and that becomes a cheer. Today, you have all plucked glory from the mouth of tragedy. Such days are worth celebration.

[bramblefoot]

"ortel, take a breather" jorunn calls, moving over to check on him. after the check in, he'll head up to the den of the giant with torf and the others, looking for loot

[MrAbdiel]

Ortel will be alright. He might have cracked a rib - he tells you if it's broken there make be problems, but as best he can tell, his ribcage held up to the wallop he absorbed. He has the flimsy boughs the Vanaheimlings used for their trap to thank for his life being in tact; a more solid branch, or even the giant's fist, would have crushed him utterly.

After a short celebration, the Vanaheimlings get about their grisly work; chopping away at Rogvir's neck, and lashing together a large sled from branches to skid it across the snow back to their village. Torf gestures up the slope. "The way is clear. I got close enough to see the entrance to the old dwarf ruins, and hollered from there; and out he came. He will have no guards - these giants are great, idiot vagabonds, not kings with kingdoms. May the gods grant you fortune in your finding."

It's an easy enough ascent, and you clamber, with Marlene and Byjan in tow, over a ridge to see the peak of this low mountain. A dwarven hold, to be sure; a huge shelf has been cut from the stone and a small fortress built into the cleft. It's squat, square, and defensible; but you see at once huge breaches in the outer walls and places where the stone has melted and run like wax. You walk over scattered bones picked to the point of being unrecognizable in the snow on the way to the entrance way, unable to imagine an army that could lay siege to such an isolated and defensible fortress and win. When you get to the open archway, you find it is not quite open - a massive iron portcullis has been broken and twisted inwards hundreds of years ago by a massively powerful blow, and the tormented metal has since rusted and frosted over. Marlene lights a torch, and you proceed inside together cautiously...

Give me three search rolls. No time pressure and you have help, so +20 to each of them.

[bramblefoot]

jorunn will poke around through the wreckage, looking for things of value and usefulness

search rolls

[roll0]

[MrAbdiel]

The hold has been mostly picked clean over the years; but such places always have their little treasures even many years on.

Byjan spots a crack in the wall in what was once an ancient feast all; the slow rot of wood inside the stone has split the wall in a way he as a craftsman is familiar with, and levering open the face of the wall he finds a hidden coffer of some ancient dwarf's stash - a box of gold coins. Such coins are not useful currency here, but the metal itself has no shortage of value.

Marlene finds a rotting leather wrap inside of which is concealed three tough, black scales the size of her hand, each of which bears an identical, graven rune in the likeness of the dwarven script. A clear and inexplicable instinct tells you this is not just dwarven writing, but some of their magic; and a dwarf could tell you the nature of such things... but they may take offense to you having them, certainly.

You, in your personal search, find the ruins of what must have been in ancient times a set of massive, building-sized brewing tanks for the dwarves to make their much vaunted ale. Now broken, aged and decrepit, not even the smell of the old drop lingers in this place. Still, you follow a hunch and climb up the wreck, and fish around in between the ruined tanks to discover and pull out an oddity of dwarven make - bundled leather you strip back to find a beautifully preserved, silver book. Its pages are bright, unstained squares of silver one hand long and high, and they are bound together on rings of gold down one side, with a gilded frame denoting the front and back covers. Given that the pages are an eight of an inch thick, there are only twelve pages in the lot; but it clearly has some kind of wonderous significance, and perhaps prize value. The writing inside is all carefully graven dwarven, with occasional diagrammatic designs that mean nothing to you.

Well, that's three successful search rolls, lol.

You find:
1* Good Quality Small Wooden Chest with 5d10 Dwarven Gold Coins.

3* Mysterious Graven Black Scales

1* Dwarven Platinum Book.

At the terminus of your search, you find where the giant once slept - a place that was once a throneroom, now with a heap of detritus packed in one corner as a makeshift mattress. You are drawn by two things - the smell of the giant's sweat pervading the room, and the sound of two voices bickering.

There are two dwarves in this room. Obviously not the old owners of this place, but some explorers, perhaps, who ran afoul of the giant. They are trussed up, with their bodies in sacks cinched around their necks uncomfortably, leaving them with their heads poking up over the drawstring ridiculously. Those sacks are hung on sconces fifteen feet up a sheer wall, and the dwarves - one with short coppery hair in a fluffy mess, the other with a fantastic, if now somewhat crooked, mohawk of gold - are none too happy about it, but are jolted by your arrival.

They start shouting to you in dwarven, until Marlene calls to them in Reikspiel, and they switch up to be comprehended. The mohawked dwarf hollers.

"Ay! Northman! Northman, get us down! I've got to show that giant his own guts, I do!"

[bramblefoot]

"giants dead. i killed him with some help" jorunn calls back in reikspiel. he'll look around for a ladder, or something to get the dwarves down with, preferably having them not break a leg, as that would be bad

[MrAbdiel]

"...What?!" The mohawked dwarf and his companion shout at the same time; the first sounding annoyed, the second relieved. The copper haired captive adds: "Well, thank the bloody ancestors; I thought we were fodder for sure. Help us out Northman - dwarves honor their debts!"

You look around for options; but there seems to be no ladders, or obviously useful tools. The giant has hung the dwarves here like bags of onions in a larder at a comfortable height for himself, with no thought for how they might otherwise be gotten down without him. There are plenty of small peices of masonry scattered about; the giant's bed is a heap of furs and old tapestries bunched and stained to make a mashed-flat mattress; and there is the odd piece of decaying wood furniture which you would not trust to hold much weight. Aside from that, there is only a difficult climb and a problem that may require your full wits before you.

[bramblefoot]

"spread out, see if you cant find a long, unrotted length of wood, maybe ten feet in length" jorunn says. "im gonna try something i heard from a traveler once"

assuming they find one to suit the build, he will try to pole vault up and cut the ropes holding them