So, when we gathered last week, we were all set to get to our dragons, do the (pre-)wake, see Monwír step into Dry Lands, and ride out the consequences of all of this.
The party has not Camped in rather a long time, and we will get to Turn 20 before they do.
But achieve any of the planned objectives above? Nah, not this time round!
How did we get to this point? See here.
…
Oddbjorn is keen to see what he can assess about Monwír from where the party is hiding, discovering (with the assistance of Bricks and Osric) that Monwír is a Black Dragon, whose wound drip a foul acid-like substance. They discover that Monwír is still “living his life”, albeit heavily restricted by the nature of his terrible wounds: no easy out on an ethical / moral basis for the characters here!
Tösk, for his part, cannot be bothered with this nonsense, and wanders off alone to check on the boat, candle in hand (he’s also Sick, so wants to definitely avoid some of these tests).
Meanwhile, our spies are onto a good thing! Time to assess the dragons’ combined hoards, with Oddbjorn being in the lead!
This goes… less well. Oddbjorn takes in the scale of nature of the hoard (gold and silver, sure, but also a helm, several magic-looking gems, not to mention multiple spellbooks!).
However, Monwír senses that the pair of dragons are being spied upon, and Æglæckír starts breathing fire into the various corners of the complex, making Oddbjorn Afraid.
Bricks and Osric, wisely offered Help from their Wises, so they are in the clear!
Choosing discretion as the better part of valour, they head off to catch up with Tösk.
…
Over by the river, Tösk has checked over the boat, found a simple carving/engraving of 2 dwarves fighting a dragon (with a magic spear), and he has now started bailing out the boat, so that it can be used.
However, when the rest of the arrive, he trolls them, pretending that he has lost his memory having drunk the water of the river, and a whole thing ensues, about they are, what to do about the boat, the quality of the water, and whether Oddbjorn can be in Tösk’s boat, or will have to swim.
Oddbjorn and Bricks lean into this, but a blind Osric is quietly concerned about what is actually going on.
The Grind has also been taking its toll, so whilst them others drink drink waterskins or the river (to relieve Hungry & Thirsty), Osric does not, very concerned about the water, given the effect it has had on Bricks before, and this new issue with Tösk seemingly losing his memory.
This will be problematic for them all shortly.
…
Eventually, they are all in the boat, Tösk has admitted the prank, and they have decided that they need to head further upstream through these dangerous waters to reach where the dragons and the Tree of Yðunn are.
Oddbjorn is unable to help (being Afraid), so it falls to the other three to get them to their destination.
Bricks uses their Pathfinder, along with magic compass, help from Tösk (who is using Bricks’ spear as an impromptue boat hook), and Osric (who, whilst blind, is perfectly capable at the oars).
They succeed, but, by this time, Osric is both Hungry & Thirsty and (now!) Exhausted (and can still only see in the Other World, and only souls at that).
…
It is then that a giant eel makes a v-line for their boat (unbeknownst to the players or characters, this is Andvarri, transformed by Æglæckír’s fiery breath into his Fylgja).
Tösk fails to spot the V-like ripple fo a rapidly approaching giant eel, and the first thing they know about it is when the whole boat is hit from below, sending Oddbjorn and Bricks into the water (failed Health test to stay onboard).
At this point, I break to point out what this will mean: all of Oddbjorn and Bricks’ stuff will be waterlogged. The critical parts, though, are not necessarily just the items written down as being in their backpacks / satchels, but those papery bits that won’t survive contact with a rapidly flowing underground river.
Like, say, Oddbjorn’s beautiful harp, or all of Bricks’ maps. On which the party relies for all of their travelling. Of which there are no copies.
The looks I got were quite something.
…
I did offer them a choice:
- They could roll 1D for any specific thing / collection that they wanted to preserve
- They could roll an appropriate Skill to preserve said thing / collection
If they got a Success, then that was fine, as they’d somehow managed to get it back onboard the boat.
Every roll, though, would cost them a Turn on the Grind.
Or, of course, the players could choose to go with it, and their stuff would get soaked / ruined, (as appropriate).
Oddbjorn chose to preserve his harp (successfully rolling Peasant, with his grey dice), and Bricks chose to preserve their maps (successfully rolling Cartographer). And the Turn advanced by 2 Turns.
…
Oddbjorn and Bricks are still in the water, Tösk and the blinded Osric are in the boat, and (given the Grind continuing), they have 1 Turn of light left in their lantern.
Eek.
Oddbjorn is Afraid, but Bricks takes charge of the situation. They roll their Protecting Nature to get them both back in the boat, with Tösk reaching out with the spear for them to grab hold of, and Osric trying to hold the boat in place.
Success, but then their lantern goes out, and Andvarri the Eel rushes back at them for a second go, his jaw unhinging as he lunges upwards, partly out of the water.
Tösk pulls of an excellent Good Idea: their only light is his 1 candle, so he uses a scroll of Aetheric Appendage to send the lit candle straight down the gaping maw of Andvarri.
The sudden surprise of “your mouth is full of flaming candle and dripping wax” is enough to surprise Andvarri, and put him off for the briefest of moments.
This is buys them enough time to cram oil into their lantern, and for Bricks to desperately try lighting the lantern in the dark, on raging waters, with a killer eel at large.
Success!
Time to decide what to do.
…
Circumstances are Not Great, but they need to deal with this giant eel before they are drowned and lost.
They choose to go for a Drive Off conflict, aiming to chase it away.
I’m using the Devil Boar (LMM p250) as my giant eel, recolouring the descriptors and weapons to fit.
They roll terribly for their Dispostion, and I have the edge over them.
However, the entire Drive Off goes for 2 volleys:
- They Manoeuvre against my Attack… and Gain Position.
- Osric Attacks against my Feint… and we’re done. With no compromise.
As Osric attacks, he sees not an eel, but a dwarf, with feature like those of Hreithmarr.
Just as they work out who attacked them, they have driven him off!
…
They continue upstream, and (finally!) reach the Tree of Yðunn, Æglæckír, Monwír,and their hoard.
They desperately need to camp, and manage to convince the dragons to allow them to make camp in the corner out of the way. Being able to present the token of Hreithmarr’s death (which nets them their second apple!), and the party’s assurances that they will seek out Andvarri went a long way to helping this work.
We’re now at Turn 20, with Conditions weighing the party down (especially Osric). Still, they have 9 Checks in hand, and can make camp.
Unfortunately, whilst they set a watch and have Bricks’ Guide ability, the sounds of the nearby dragons is… worrying (Camp Event - Ancient Ruins: Whispers +1Ob to recover from Afraid and Exhausted).
…
They’ve all acumulated conditions, so the decision is taken to Cook one of their precious apples to help the whole party.
There’s no real other ingredients: no flour for a pie, not meat for a stew, not even any cheese or wine.
Still, Bricks proves to be Ingenious, gathering salty deposits from the water’s edge, and making… “apple soup”.
This, however, is a success, and the Tree of Yðunn apple soup revitalises them all, clearing Conditions, relieving Burden and… well, let me sidebar this.
…
One of the aims of getting these apples (from the characters’ perspective) was to cure Bricks’s “mind problems” and help deal with Osric’s split soul.
However, the two players affected flagged to me a couple of weeks back that “magic apple cures the whole problem” wouldn’t be much fun. Especially as they have a decent lead to something back in Bricks’ “hometown” (a travelling caravan), and they’ve been mooting that Plodinus Kest (longterm bad guy to the party) might be tied up in that, and had a decent lead to him that would follow on from the stuff that they had for Bricks.
This meant that, when we got to this point, as GM and players, we agreed on a fun way forwards. See below.
…
For Bricks, they get some partial restored memories, enough to know that their mind has some wrong concepts, that “ground water” is not good, that their relationship with Marcus the Shield is difficult, and that they need to look into the properly… back at amongst their caravan of Hendri.
For Osric, as his body heals, he gets a connection, a vision, perhaps, of where the other part of his soul is, and what’s happening to it. The soul is trapped in a glass flask, and at the moment of the vision, it is being handled by a distorted-looking Plodinus Kest, who smugly gives the flask a whirl before putting it back on a shelf…
…
The rest of the camp is a careful orchestration of getting themselves ready and together.
After cooking, Bricks maps (Instinct), dries out their (soaked) fireworks, fear grenade and torches by the fire (with no boom), and uses the last candle the party has to wax their backpack (to protect from future “falling in the water”).
Tösk scribes a replacement scroll of Aetheric Appendage (from their other scroll… of Aetheric Appendage), which makes him Exhausted. He then makes a net to capture Andvarri (excellent fun idea!), and recovers from Exhausted.
Osric scavenges for (much needed) lamp oil, Mentors Tösk as a Theologian, and then wants to make sure they have some sort of weapon to help them against Andvarri.
They discussed making a harpoon or adding a harpoon rope loop to Bricks’ spear (with armourer), but Osric’s player thought that “get the dragon-killing spear out of the dragon” was a much cooler approach.
He was not wrong.
The final test from the camp, and from last week’s session was a high Ob (5, I think?) Manipulator test to convince Æglæckír to let the party take Nothung, the (dragon-killing) spear stuck in her left hind leg.
This is the spear that Andvarri used during Hreithmarr and Andvarri’s attempt to retake the dwarven hold from the dragons.
The symmetrical poetical nature of potentially using Andvarri’s spear to capture Andvarri appealed.
The roll was Not Easy, but I offered up a Help dice from Halja, as she had promised Osric to get him the weapons to kill a dragon, if it should come to that.
They failed, but, given Halja’s promise, I went with them getting the spear, but it making Osric Afraid and Tösk (the one non-Wise-using helper) Angry.
…
I would note that the party Have Plans for Andvarri.
The main part seems to be to capture Andvarri, and offer him to Monwír to kill to get his final revenge.
However, eel-skin is waterproof, and the party is very much appreciating the concepts of “waterproof” and “maps don’t get ruined”, so we’ll see what they do here.
None of us are convinced that there would be much eel skin to salvage after either Black (Acid) Dragon Monwír or Red (Flamey) Dragon Æglæckír (or both) “deal with” Andvarri.
We’ll see what tonight now brings.