GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Jozy Zim, Ash Cheshire, Lily Eisner, April Walsh, Adrienne Mueller
System: Shadowdark
Playing back to back games is a bit daunting, but thankfully the prep work between sessions was minimal. Since the previous game:
- Created Hrovic as a character. He’s a little goblin boy who might slowly be turning into a choker.
- Ask the group what the were most interested in: rotted docks, burial chambers (maybe with a ghost), or the caves with buzzing and flapping sounds. We had three votes for burial chambers so I was able to prep the map for that.
- Determine the resting rules (consume one ration and rest to recover spells and hit points, or push on and take 1 point of CON damage).
Cast
Sraxl, played by Lily. Solveig, played by Jozy, Malchor, played by Ash. Tirolas, played by April. Lenk, played by Adrienne.
The play is the thing
Thank you Adrienne for note taking. My comments added in brackets.
Everyone arrives to tighten our belts [no rations consumed] – who knows when we’ll find food (not choker food) again?
[The company crossed the river by using the raft as a bridge to seek out the burial chambers.]
Graffiti on walk towards dark chamber says “DEFILERS”
Something carved into relief on walls in direct opposite from the long boat [west wall]. Familiar to Solveig. [These are Nord warriors].
Malchor tries to cast mage armor. [Ask’s for Death’s Second Chances by connecting with a companion] He asked Lenk who she fights so hard. Lenk’s family has fought the Five Nations forever. Everything they have fought for has been taken back and had to be fought for again. Malchor agreed, nothing comes without a price.
[Death smiled and gave him another chance but the Shadowdark still sapped the arcane energies from him. Rolled a 10.]
Malchor was told that the Amaranth wouldn’t accept him because he was different from them. [Death smiled upon him again after sharing this, and mage armor was cast successfully].
Entering the Burial Chambers
A pile of crap on the right, a door at the end with incredible craftsmanship. On the west wall reliefs of six warriors bearing shields an an empty sword hand that formed sconces. Some held torches, some did not. In the center of the men was the relief a woman with a veil covering her face. She has no weapons but in her cupped hands clear water pools.
Solveig recognizes these as nord warriors and the woman as the seer Agatha. This room is the hall of the honored.
Solveig and Sraxl take torches. The are ancient and damp [30 min timers].
Malchor test the water. It tastes fresh, like from a mountain spring. He notices the bowl slowly refills on it’s own.
Tirolas checks the junk, it’s a barricade in front of the door. Mounds of shattered oars, boxes, and refuse piled against it. Tiorlas ties rope around heavier pieces to pull down the junk trap [safely].
When Lenk drinks from the water, the sense of fear abates and for a moment she feels welcome.
Sraxl investigated the door to the north. Fine craftsmanship. Iron banded. Runes caved with great deeds or pillaging Amaranth Isle. The latch was stiff from age but with a bit of strength, Sraxl was able to lift it and open the door. It opened to a vast room but Sraxl could not see the details because of the darkness.
Solveig recognized that this was a tribute to the seer Agatha, and that the warriors surrounding her were her guards. She tasted the water and it felt like home. This is holy water! And it it’s gone [but refilling slowing].
Malchor, Solveig, and Tirolas all pulled down the barricade. Barricade crashes down (safely).
Tirolas grabs the last ancient, damp torch.
Lenk follows Sraxl into the room to the north and illuminates four pillars, all cared with reliefs. There is the sound of water lapping in the distance and another door to the north with runes caved in it.
The reliefs contained lots of short bearded men working cheerfully on stone, often standing on each other’s shoulders, all the way up the ceiling (15′ tall).
Solveig crafted a torch from the broken oars and rotted fabric [makes a janky torch]
Sraxl wend a bit down the passage to find the sound of water. It smells like the sea! “Fresh water. It’s not unseasoned!”
Malchor collects the rope used to pull down the barricade and gives it to Tirolas. He also clears the way for the door to open.
Enter the Sea Wolf Tomb
Tirolas opens the door and Lenk came back with the torch to investigate. Room is unnatural dark [The torch light is dampened]. The Shadowdark!
Inside are six coffins with carved lids depicting warriors. The heavy lids show warriors with helms, great axes, and shields.
Room feels stagnant, old dust on the ground.
Sraxl goes into coffin room (to get out of the dark)
These are Nord warriors.
Solveig lights makeshift [janky] torch. Each alcove has a coffin. These are the honor guard. Nord warriors who fought for Skorgald.
Solveig pushes open a heavy coffin lid. Inside is a skeleton in chainmail with a shield, axe, and a gold coin over each eye.
Malchor probes the coffin and finds nothing strange in the construction, but on the backside of it, not visible to the entrance, there are images of Nord warriors with their pants falling down. “The Dverg were allies of the King Skorgald, but the were also pranksters!”
Lenk also probed for secret doors or latches at the end of the hall but found none. She does feel vibration on the stone, the river on the other side of it and heads a sloshing sound in the distance. Is that just the river or something moving through it.
Sraxl takes the gold coins [2GP] and a skeletal hand grabs them and pulls them down to stare into their empty eyes: DEPTH OF THE ABYSS. Sraxl collapses [0HP] and hears the whisper “Death’s sweet embrace.” And the torch is snuffed out!
DARKNESS.
Solveig groped for the great axe and wrested it from the skeleton’s hands. Malchor moves towards the sounds of his companions groping along the wall. Tirolas lights a torch!
The Skeleton rises in his coffin and slams Solveig to the stone wall [3HP]. Lenk slips to the side and pushes the lid closed. Beneath it the angered dead scratched and struggled against the heavy lid.
Solveig said his spirit has already gone to the Great Hall. He didn’t need gold because he had no eyes.
From outside they heard people laughing and talking in common. Two warriors [and more behind them] arrived at the door with torches. Their conversation ending “The goblins finally got bold enough to steal form the tombs…” and they they saw Malchor holding the torch. [ENCOUNTER]
Malchor said hello in goblin, and then realizing they were human, quickly code switched to say “Greetings friends” in common.
The woman leading them appraised the situation and was curious what these two humans (she could only see Malchor and Solveig), one of which who looked a Nord herself, was doing in the tomb.
“I am Garatha, heir of Skorgald, here to claim what is is mine. Are you here to plunder my ancestor’s great hall?”
Malchor moved to soothing platitudes. “No, not at all, we were just seeking refuge”.
In the corner (hidden) Sraxl was dying.
Solveig [had the choice to aid her dying companion or parley with the Nord]. “We sad the ghost of Gala who seeks to punish Skorgald’s decedents. What right do you have to enter these chambers?” [Successful charisma check to improve Garatha’s move further].
“We claim the right of the raider to take what we can hold. I see my ancestor’s blade. The axe of nine eyes!”
Malchor tried to stabilize Sraxl, but it was “beyond my ken.”
Tirolas [who had been hiding in an alcove] exposed herself to go tend to Sraxl “I must help my fallen companion”. With a slap, she brought Sraxl back to the living [Crit on a first aid check. Restored to 1HP, thanks to Death’s second chances[.
Lenk appeared and was almost immediately shot by Garatha, but she put her hands up and said she was there helping Solveig and Malchor.
Tirolas suggests Garatha use guile when speaking to the ghost and that they are all trying to evade the Horth in here.
Garatha, impressed with their boldness and not interested in the remains of dead honor guard prepares to leave but first tells them “My camp is past the hall of deeds. You must pass through a singbat cave to get through. If you stay in the dark they will not be upset, but they are disturbed by the light. We have sent a scout to go light a torch at either end, which seems to have worked so far. I slew a sea nymph who tried to accost us with her song as well. One day the hall of deeds will record our great deeds as well.”
It was clear that she expects us to just take the axe and warns us against it “Betrayal me and you will meet my blade. Anything besides the axe is yours to claim. Return the axe to me and you can come back with me to the Five Nations as an honored guest.”
Lenk suspects treachery (freedom is never free).
Sraxl wakes and immediately mutters “Are we keep stealing from these dead Nords?” Malchor tries to muffle their shouts but is not fast enough to do it.
Garatha laughs [a have at it kind of laugh] and gives Solveig her torch (the companies torch had just gone out and they carried two) then she headed out towards the room of pillars.
Sraxl opened another coffin. Solveig took the axe, skipping it through the skeletal remains without disturbing it.
Malchor looks inside the coffin to read the runes. They all speak of serving the Seer Agatha. Serving her in life and in death.
Tirolas searches another wall but finds nothing.
Lenk takes the skeleton’s shield and expresses concern that we are siding with Skorgald’s unfavored line and robbing the tombs of brave warriors.
A gentle feeling passes over them all and the skeleton in the coffin stops scratching at it. They all feel peaceful for a moment [Omen]
Sraxl works with Solveig to decapitate the soldier and keep the coins on his eyes (so they can get the chainmail) but it is no use.
The skeleton animated and it’s head from the ground said “Rise brothers to protect our seer once more!” With new strength the skeletons began pushing off their coffin lids!
- Solveig attacked the creature with her new great axe. Bones were broken but it did not relent.
- Malchor fired a magic missile which looked like fiery arrow. It crashed into the skeleton and burned for a moment before the arcane flames flickered out.
- Tirolas hands the torch to Lenk who swung the great axe but the blade would not connect.
- The other five skeletons pushed off their lids and crawled out of their coffins, coins still covering their eyes.
- Their leader tries mangle’s Lenk and calls to their brethren “Protect the seer!”
- Sraxl casts eyebite blinding the creature to them.
- Solveig, trapped behind the coffin backed into the wall behind it and noticed that the stone seemed to shift as she bumped into it. She swung her axe and landed another blow.
- Malchor fired another magic missile.
- Tirolas shot her bow which struck true.
- The skeletal warriors closed in around the company, but their axes could not find purchase. Miss. Miss. Miss. Miss.
- The leader (holding his own head) however smashed Solveig with a boney fist.
- Sraxl tried to blind it again but failed, the magic lost.
- Solveig smashes it again and the body crumples to the ground.
- The other warriors retreat back into their coffins.
Malchor, unaware of Solveig’s findings, continues searching the walls.
Tirolas collects the two gold pieces from the fallen skeleton. He won’t need them now and finds the secret door!!!!!!!
Lenk shook the bones from the chainmail and hands it to Solveig. Solveig claimed the price “Odon blessed this fight.”
“I doubt that” Lenk was not so sure.
Sraxl, with a torch moved through the shifting stone.
Seer’s Tomb
Inside a statue of a woman with a golden wand in her hand stands over a coffin in the back of the chamber.
Solveig opened the coffin, it slides off easily. Inside is the body of a pale-haired woman wrapped in white linen. A blessing from Fulmit has kept Agatha the seer from decaying.
Malchor looks at the wand and sees the word “Wisdom” carved into it. (A solution to the riddle). The wand is a gnarled stick dipped in gold, which he took from the statue. He studied it but this is the tool of a Seer, not a Wizazard.
The rest of the chamber was searched but nothing else remained. Solveig closed the lid on the coffin and the door as they left so that Agatha would not be disturbed again.
Hidden Hoard
The traveled back to the beach where the rules gave them the clue. Malchor taps the the wand to the rules and it is pulled like a magnetic force. The runes become invisible as the stones split open to reveal a natural cave.
SHIMMERNG! GLOWING!
HEAPES OF RICHES! OMG!
Heaps of gold coin cover the floor from wall to wall. Art objects and relics lie amid the pile of riches. [3XP]
- 500 GP
- Twp golden goblets set with sapphires
- Silk and gold tapestries of St. Terrangnis looking skyward
- 6 bejeweled holy symbols of the Four Lords
- Two tomes with lavish ink drawings that each contain one spell (protection from evil and light).
Solveig lights another torch. Tirolas asks Malchor about his belief and encourages him to “Take good fortune when it comes.” Malchor agrees we have put in the work,
Mural of the Gods
Before the shadowdark took too much from them [our session ends] the company traveled to the new room with a grey stone alter in the center. It is carved with owls, wolves, and ravens locked in combat. A deep bowl is cared into the center. Stained by a dark liquid.
Sraxl opens the door and lights the way into a room with three vibrant murals of figures towering over landscapes. Fulmit (east), Odon (center), and Lurga (west).
- A radiant shieldmaiden with white owl wings. She towers high over a sunlit field of war and slaughter.
- An old, one-eyed warrior looks down from the sky onto a stormy sea. Two ravens rest on his shoulders.
- A gaunt, wolflike man howls before a harvest moon in the night sky. Hundreds of wolves join him.
Solveig makes a prayer to the Odon and feels her prayers are heard by the gods. Sraxl feels dirty hearing these prayers. From outside they heard grunting, snorting, and scraping sounds of something very big lumbering about.
Boogie back to base (the goblin camp renamed “our camp”) but on the way they spotted a big looming shadow. Personlike. Not quote human. Dropped into the water and disappeared from view.
Safe!
Artifacts of Play
Thank you Adrienne for notetaking, April for updating the map, Lily for being our timekeeper, Ash for being our caller, and Jozy for being out photographer!
Thoughts on the Game
What a good time. The moment in the Hall of the Honored was tense but Garatha was more curious than angry [Rolled an 11 on the reaction table] and people said all the right things. Too bad they then disturbed the dead.
Some things I should have told Solveig.
- Knowing that burying a warrior without their head is a horrible dishonor to the Nord.
- Knowing that for the prayers to be granted, you have to give blood at the alter. We can retcon this if desired. [Update: Spoke to Jozy and she made the blood sacrifice before the prayer. Odon heard Solveig’s words and granted her +1 Strength]
Work to do for next game:
- Create campfire rules. Both for recovery and for characters connecting with each other.
- Make a second page of the character sheet to include the “crimes” everyone was forced to work, their belief, death second chances, and more details to add about the character (to be filled in by the player).
- Overland exploration (determine what is in the nearby hexes).
- Send options to the players: further exploration of the burial chambers, travel to the Nord camp, or the rotted dock.
