We opened up with an immediate initiative roll. At the end of the last game, Akoshtar the Deathless, king of the Draconids and self-styled heir to the heritage of ancient Ur, stormed into the cavern with some buddies! He had had two weeks of real time to stew on the PCs wrecking shop all over his caves, and he was pissed! This was the world’s biggest dragon-man, his wings hanging uselessly from his swollen torso, a huge blood-red gem glinting from his left eye-socket.
The vikings, meanwhile, had their backs against the wall. Last time they had found six prisoners, but these countrymen were injured and could not fight. They were stashed in an underground river, but it would be simple for the draconids to find them. They had also been battling through a giant encounter, with healing surges running low and almost all of their daily powers exhausted. But it was time to fight!
Akoshtar screened himself with two brutes, using his reach-3 axe to reach the PCs from safety. The vikings, however, had rogue tricks and some teleportation to get around this. Mendas quickly got up next to the king, while everyone else went after the bodyguards. Those guards, however, had these death-throes that caused them to explode into acid!
The vikings dealt with all the little draconids, but the king wouldn’t quit. Edgar the warforged fighter bravely stepped into the gap, and Akoshtar let himself be marked, rooting him in the spot with a beam from his eye, then delivering blow after blow with a mammoth axe. On the fourth hit, the fighter dropped!
Then, from the metal corpse, a small figure emerged! “What the fuck,” this apparent gnome declared, “You broke my apeship!” The gnome ran to the back of the cavern, but this left the draconid king momentarily confused. The rest of the party laid into him, and in less than a round, he was dead.
So Edgar was a gnome-driven ship the whole time, because, hey, it’s D&D! The party quickly interrogated the new guy, one Terik Taat, player of mind games. This was a little viking guy that had lived on the periphery of the clan, but had apparently constructed “Edgar” as a means of dealing with his general machismo issues. Maybe this needlessly complicated deception could never have been pulled off without Terik’s considerable psionic power.
But this was no time to discuss who did or did not have little men inside of them. The town of Jorvik was still being invaded by the draconid armies! The vikings would have to run at full speed to catch up, and that didn’t solve their exhaustion problem. How could they ever travel the full day’s journey back to town and still have the strength to defend it?
Chrym had the answer when he remembered that Jorvik was built around the portal to the Feywild. The portal could also serve as a teleportation circle! Ten minutes and a few ritual components later, the vikings stepped bleary-eyed from the portal into the un-prepared town.
The PCs quickly worked to rally the town’s defenders. I brought out a map which represented a portion of Jorvik. The sea lay to the east, with the Feywild portal jutting out on a small peninsula. Some portion of the town’s buildings occupied the bulk of the map, including the beloved tavern. On the western edge, the land was broken by piles of ancient stone. These were the remnants of the ancient walls of the city of Drog-Ur. Jorvik had built a wooden wall following that general plan, taking advantage of the materials where they could.
I laid out some terrain powers designed for the fight. Most of these were based around the PCs commanding the defenders. Norsemen could charge and immobilize enemies; Dragonborn (Bax and his friends) could attack, Eladrin could teleport targets, and ballistas could fire, as long as they were manned by Norsemen. The players arrayed their forces across the map and placed themselves in the center.
When they were ready, I deployed the first wave! The force was all fliers, a mix of scouts and tanks. Three chimeras, two wvyerns, and a lone draconid appeared within striking distance of the walls, and threatened to swoop over them!
The chimeras had the high initiative, and they sailed past the walls, landing next to the PCs. They struck in melee combat, nine heads in total, with hits spread out amongst the vikings. Hermiad, Motull, Oddny, and the still-tamed rage drake returned the attention with sword and axe. Mendas rolled on top of one chimera, stabbing the spine while he was there. Varin used an eldritch blast, Eric fired a lance of faith, and I’m still learning what Tyrik can do, but I’m sure he was effective. All of that failed to bloody the monsters! (Which were level 15 elite brutes, so it made sense).
Chrym was on the wall, planning to direct the assault. He shot his crossbow at the approaching wyvern, but didn’t have the firepower to take it down. Instead he directed the nearby Eladrin to teleport it near the rest of the party! Suddenly the flier was grounded and based. But there was no one to respond to the second wyvern, and it crossed the wall with impunity.
Finally the draconid skirted to the south. It didn’t attack, but instead scattered seeds across the ground. Ominous!
That was the bottom of the initiate order. We broke there for the night! Next time, Siege of Jorvik, part 2!
