UrWarrens, Session 2

Last month we played the second game in our new Paragon-level adventure, UrWarrens in my notes, King of the TrollHaunt Warrens by Wizards of the Coast in its original form. This week, Marcus provided the text, and Matt took the pictures. Thanks!

This week our Viking adventurers started off arriving in Motuhl's home town of Jorvik, which was populated by another group of refugee Vikings, mostly Orcs, but without as many Obvious Heroes as our home town. Jorvik had been under occasional assault by groups of Draconians, prompting last time's distress call. Our heroes arrived in style with their longboat propped up on a floating disc conjured up through Chrym's magics.

They found in the town a drunken, woebegone Dragonborn by the name of Bax, who was the only survivor of the Draconian-fighting expedition led by the acting earl Skalmad. Bax had been attempting to keep himself awake and drunk to avoid memories of the carnage and his cowardice (with little success). The party attempted to cheer him up in a fairly clumsy, Vikingish sort of way, and got some information out of him about the general location of these Draconians. Finally Oddny tried to heal him of his drunkenness, which only partially worked in that he immediately passed out from exhaustion.

Impatient to get moving as only Vikings with action points to burn can be, the party hit the road immediately with the unconscious Bax in tow. Their path was difficult; at one point they were blocked by odd plant/creature things, which they avoided by racing past with some difficulty, and it later led across a swamp, where they were nearly lured into crocodile-infested waters by will o' wisps. But the most unusual part of their journey was when they ran across a group of eight Dragonborn, that the party thought were preparing an ambush. Tempers flared and things looked close to bloodshed, but eventually everyone calmed down and the party discovered that these Dragonborn were good guys, just searching for their lost Prince... Prince Bax! Evidently Bax had been missing from his royal station for some time, and the Dragonborn were stunned and delighted to find him here. The party returned the still-unconscious Bax (wow, he's gonna have one doozy of a hangover) to their care, and Chrym even built them a magical shelter to top it off.

Finally, the Vikings reached the Draconian-infested ruins. They checked out the initial area carefully, then rushed the defenders and slaughtered them with ease. The next area was part of a giant cave complex, and had more defenders, tougher and better equipped, and this was the only real combat of the night. Still, the party had been spoiling for a fight; something like five encounters had gone by without any combat, and the bloodlust was maddening. The party wiped out the first cave-full of defenders in only two rounds of leaping, action-pointing madness; but at least one of them escaped to warn the rest of the complex, and we had to call the game for the night at that point. Next time around the party will find combat a great deal tougher against fighters ready for them, no doubt.



More photos… we spent more time on skill challenges than miniature combat!

UrWarrens, Session 1

Last month we played the first game in our new Paragon-level adventure. I’m calling it the UrWarrens in my notes, but it will end up being a mid-to-loose adaptation of King of the TrollHaunt Warrens by Wizards of the Coast. This week, Matt provided the text, and Zach took the pictures. Thanks!

The story starts during the winter following our previous adventures. Rurik and Bartix are running Vinland with the party as great heroes / retinue. Motuhl is acting as the liason from Jorvik, mainly to get him out of the way.

Story of the Lion Man
Motuhl hears a story about a giant lion-man who came to Jorvik from out of the West while Motuhl drinking away the winter in Vinland. The giant lion-man was looking for help, but somehow a scuffle erupted and the lion-man was killed. His silver weapons and armor were collected by Skalmad, the acting earl after Jorvik and his retinue was killed in the same magical assault that hit Vinland and Earl Gaermund.

Plan to rob armor
Seeing an opportunity Motuhl, Edgar, Varin, Mendas and Hermiad concocted a plan to steal the armor. Edgar and Motuhl would cause a distraction while Mendas broke into the keep for some burglary. The fighting part went off without a hitch but Mendas' burglary left a bit to be desired. His failure is averted by the intervention of a great Crystal Pimp who gave him a magic bag of holding.

(Brian’s interjection: This was the dramatic introduction of Chrym, Goliath Artificer. Zach decided to give Bartix’s story a rest for a while. And no one objected to another leader for the party. We played a bit with the visual elements of Goliaths and ended up with something more like a huge Genasi. He also has a giant robot, or self-forged, hand!)

Winter research
After stealing the armor the party retreated to the Seven-Pillared Hall for the winter to drink, rest, and translate the mysterious runes on the armor. Surprising all (including himself) Motuhl recognizes them as coming from an extinct race of lion-people who were servitors to some big thing. These lion folk traveled around looking for champions. The party decided to meet up with Chrym and track down the lion people so as to rob them.

News of attack
The party led their people down to their village site when spring broke. There they met Chrym, who had arrived in Vinland a bit behind an animal messenger sent from Jorvik. This magical crow told the party that Jorvik has been attacked by draconian, and that Skalmad had been killed. Seeing an opportunity to fill a power vacuumn and acquire females, the party hopped in a longboat to head south. After a pitiful excuse for Viking sailing (failed skill challenge), the boat was wrecked in a storm some three hours north of Jorvik on foot.

Battle with Draconians
On the outskirts of Jorvik the party ran into a bunch of shiny lights and a group of draconians eating a human and a horse. The party rushed them and a fight ensued! The party killed most of them but one broke free and brought in reinforcements. Those were promptly dispatched as well. See pictures for details!