Review 01/20/2015 (The Donkey, a Giant Crab, the Forest Drake and an Illusionary Bucket)

With most of the men of Nargenstal deceased save for three, it was the elders that the villagers looked to, and the elders to us for guidance and purpose. Among the male survivors were Leiknr and Hlodvir, both stone and woodcrafters, and Skallagrim a proud adept who venerate both Freyja and Feyr. The elderly mothers, Hildagunn and Fastvi gathered us together to discuss several things.

Over or palaver we put together was that the shaman likely recruited the ogres for Viking style raids looking for the Javalins of Thor, and that old Nargenstal is positioned for ship forays across the sea to the south. What was left of the Moss-back reavers after our attack had likely fled back into the wilderness.

We revealed the Shadow Door to the elders who were surprised, both Hildagunn and Skallagrim recognized it as a Shadow Door but did not know of this phenomena.  Orathian was successfully able to open it himself whereby it opened into a druidic seeing pool including a path, just like the other times it opened although the setting was different.

Meanwhile Sven Seithr investigates other areas under the Inn observing what poor supply the food was in. He also came across three old headstones of the founders of Nargenstal that read:

Captain Hengir Lokison- Beloved of the Fishing god.

Mottia Almasdottir- Daughter of Sif and beloved of Freyja.

Thornar Von Runkelstad- Mage and Smith. Eye of Volund.

That night the five elders call for everyone to stay at the Inn, as there is safety in numbers. Evening watch is established and the next morning arrives uneventful to a sorrowful day as the dead are identified and counted. Elisa Berit gathers the most comely and skillful of the women, gathers the horses, and rides off to deliver the horses and hopefully lure men to Nargenstal to rebuild the community.

Voreware Undhin gathers and utilizes the children to begin barricading the Inn and setting up simple alarms. Orathian takes stock of food reserves and speaks of slaughtering the only remaining beast- the donkey, Draco works with Leiknr and Hlodvir to modify some of the large weapons down to size, and Arnum sits down with Skallagrim.

Unconvinced the adept and Hildagunn were completely forthcoming, Skallagrim admitted to Arnum he withheld a valued Nargenstal resource: a diadem that was linked to the village ‘pet’ a giant crab. Skallagrim was apologetic and embarrassed.

Around noon we were told that ten people were still missing and unaccounted for: a fisherman on his boat has not been seen since the raid, as well as a missing family of six, and three neighborhood adolescents; and the oxen and various livestock.

Thinking the family is more of a priority, we pack up the donkey and visit their home to find that they left to harvest honeycombs in the forest four to five days ago. Orathian has Ghost pick up the wife’s scent which leads us unerringly to the woods whereby Ghost picks up on another scent- a predator.

After much skillful reconnaissance we track how the Robinsons were ambushed and killed by a large forest drake that now slept peacefully sated. With the advantage of surprise we converged on the drake. It was able to utilize his breath weapon, but after Sven's brilliant use of a silent image spell, creating an illusion of a bucket over the drake's head, the creature was outlasted and killed at the end of Draco’s large braced spear.

The rest of the day, Draco and Orathian harvested the large forest drake’s meat (400 lbs) and hide enough for a medium sized suit of hide armor and shield. We also were found in a nearby lair a masterwork great axe, which Draco took; and one other undefined masterwork martial weapon. After fixing a skiff to Old Number-Seven we transported the meat and hide back to Nargenstal.

That night was celebrated with relaxed food rations and general good feelings. At around 3 am, during Draco’s watch, Orathian suddenly awoke to bouts of laughter for the briefest of moments. Down the hall, Voreware is also awakened by his own manacle laughter. Nothing else happened that night, however Ghost indicated a female scent, isolated and in each of our sleeping areas.

The next morning we ask and discover villagers were not affected by the strange laughter effect overnight. We split up today, Arnum plans on a day of prayer and fasting while the rest of us- Orathian, Voreware, Drago, and Sven Seithr venture out with Ghost looking for the rest of the missing people.

At the end of the day we pieced together that the adolescents must be with the missing boater, possibly held up on one of the small islands nearby. We did however find and bring back a dozen oxen and livestock of Nargenstal, which made the donkey very happy.

 

Arnum, during his fast and prayers, receives an image of a tapestry on a loom that is no moving, possibly indicating our fates are not yet woven. In his meditations Arnum learns the Shadow Door is new and was why the shaman and the Dampier converged on Nargenstal. He also learns that this new Shadow Door was a result of Loki and Thor working together.

That evening Voreware accommodates the entirety of the evening’s watch hoping for a repeat of last night’s phenomena. As it turns out during the night Arnum suddenly awakes in a fit of idiotic laughter, as does Voreware and Orathian who also laugh fitfully; however, they also hear a female elven voice say, “They are coming, I am bringing them.”

This phenomena repeats for the next two nights during which Orathian and Draco work 32 hours on the forest drake hide armor and after which Elisa is due back with her Estrogen Riders. 

Loki's Laughter

Loki's balls! This band i find myself teamed with are a frustrating lot! Vikings who fear the sea and hide in the shadows during a fight so as not to be injured! We shall not live forever, better to die as a viking than as a cowardly southlander. I for one will spend my next two days working in a forge and my nights feasting, drinking and fucking. All Hail Wotan!

Nargenstal wrap up

This is to serve as a game note to record numbers killed and treasure gathered. If these numbers are different from what I said saturday night, this post is meant to be the record. Let me know of discrepancies, though.

Killed: 14 kobolds, 2 trollkin warriors,  1 ogre, and 1 dhampir hunter.
Escaped: 14 kobolds, 1 trollkin warrior, 1 trollkin shaman although these escaped, full XP will be awarded
Treasure awarded
Hunter
     light warhorse
     compound longbow +3 strength bonus
     20 arrows
     hide armor
Trollkin warriors
     2 leather armor
     2 longspears
     6 javelins
Ogre
     +1 large longspear
     3 large throwing axes
     large size hide armor
Kobolds
     14 slings, with 50 lead bullets, and a bunch of rocks
     14 medium sized daggers
     14 small sized spears
     14 small sized leather armor
all the above had a few coins in a pouch, after all it is a reaving party.
after some random rolls a total of 162 cp, 66 sp, and 12 gp were found amongst the reavers.
The villagers reward the party with 200 sp.
this list does not include the orog encounter at the outpost, that is detailed in an earlier review.

Machinations of Loki

The quiet whirring of gears and minuscule piston-drives busily rotating and churning out what looks like life from automatons and clock-works constructs is the back ground noise of most of Asgard, emanating from the palaces, homes, bridges and constructions. Huge machines rotated nonstop, providing constant power to the physical and magical gridirons of the realms. Mechanical messengers buzzed back and forth in the open starlit areas between holds and castles. All the clicking and clacking blended to make a soothing drone that Loki took great pleasure in. Seated across the chess board was a personal construct, a gift given him not long ago. The clockwork was quite advanced, with a speciality in strategy games and logic.  It was created with an intelligence to learn patterns of opponents and evolve plans, mainly in chess.  It was a mastercraft construct, built on equations and principles that were stringently rigid, a paragon of true harmonious law. Loki had spent weeks locked in strategic combat with the automaton, an ebb and flow of wins and losses flowing like tides. But the last few hours, the feel was different. People had begun to gather to watch a game of growing legend, and Loki called for a pause. He implored the construct to consider that they had played to a stalemate, and they had only one choice to declare one a better master of strategy- change one rule in the game, play one game. The best player will make the adjustment to win. The spirit within the clock-man was intrigued, and agreed. Loki would make one rule change, and the clockwork would have first turn.after three hours, the clock-man was starting to overheat, but neither man had achieved an advantage.  In six hours, loud squeals and squeaks had turned to a cacophony as the clock-work was under extreme stress trying to win a game that had been sabotaged by Loki.  The rule change put it so that it was practically impossible to not end in a tie. Loki laughed as it was torn apart by it own rules and laws.

It was a clever Sif who saw the reality of what Loki had done. He changed one rule, halfway through an arranged plan, and the entire construct, the whole exercise completely fell apart. She watched Loki laugh maniacally, just as happy to destroy the construct as he was to own it.

This was the lesson Sif was thinking of when Thor first told her of Loki's plan to build a team of Nortlander Raiders to spread and strengthen their masks in the southlands. That was a reasonable and believable reason to commit to mortal heroes, to be sure. But what was the second part of the plan? Why did he need this team of mythic heroes?