Session 27: The Barbarians of Fredericton

Player Characters, Henchmen, Hirelings, & Animals

The Viking Raiders:

Ivar - Level 1 Human Barbarian, Neutral Evil

Konan - Level 1 Human Barbarian, Chaotic Good

Erik - Level 1 Human Barbarian, Chaotic Neutral

Unga - Barbarian Dog Sledder

Bunga - Barbarian Dog Sledder

Tunga - Barbarian Dog Sledder Captain, looks after the sled dogs

Husky & Dusty- Well trained sled dog

Chilly & Billy- pups

3/16/24 The party starts out in the region known as Brunswick asking other tribesmen if they are willing to make a deal. They convince half level barbarian dog sledders Unga, Bunga, and Tunga with their two prized sledding dogs, Husky and Dusty, as well as their two pups in training, Chilly and Billy, to travel with them. Ivar seals the deal by allowing them use his row boat for fishing and water travel when asked. In exchange, they let the party use the dog sled for land travel over snow. Since the sledders are in the tribe, they’ll help if attacked while they’re with the party, but they are independent and can leave at any time. Conan’s high charisma makes it easy to get them to come along, success will persuade them to stay (hirelings are not bought and paid for within the tribe)

The party starts off hearing rumors of mammoths to the North (the preferred food and fur source for the tribe) and sightings of a possible magic user and other outsiders toward the Coast to the South. The party decides to hunt down the magic user encroaching on tribal lands to protect the tribe. They spend the rest of the day rowing South to where the magic user is rumored to be located.

3/17/24 The barbarians scan the coastline until they see evidence of someone landing on the side of the river. They beach the boat and investigate the tracks, which are easy to follow due to the snow. They decide to set up the dog sled and fallow where the tracks lead.

3/18/24 It is about mid day before the party comes to a cave entrance, with the tracks leading into the cave. They leave Tunga with the sled and dogs outside while they explore what lies within the cave.

The cave has a 30' x 30' opening with a boulder on the South side. Dirty wet footprints lead up to the boulder, so the party attempts to muscle the boulder. It rolls it out of the way, revealing another room. Most of this room is natural cave rock with a passage to the East, but on the South side they see a 20' x 20' wooden floor with some metal urns, and a door. Being skeptical of the floor, the party lasso’s an urn to see what’s in it. As the first urn is snatched by the lasso, then the wooden floor drops out and sends the remaining urn down a chute. The urn lassoed has 375 electrum within. They take it outside and leave it with Tunga before heading deeper in

They go East through the cave and come to a room with some rocks, a stone door, and a dead-end passage way. They turn around and try the stone door in room 2. As they come down this hallway, they step on a pressure plate and hear a click from the door they just came through. Is it trapped now, or locked?

They ignore the door to room 2 clicking for now and continue East to room 4, where they find a desk with some notes they can’t read due to their class. They do recognize a drawing of a skeleton on a page but nothing else. They burn the notes and Ivar smashes through the desk with his fists.

They continue South and it smells like rotting sausage. They enter a room with a large tapestry of a wizard casting lightning spells. They howl like monkeys and tear it down, revealing a secret room with 750 electrum in 2 small coffers. They plan to take this cash out and leave it with Tunga, but they’re skeptical of the door they went through. (since they heard it click) They try to come back through the door to room 3 instead. They find it is wizard locked, so they go back to the door to room 2. They find that the door is now locked, and since it’s a stone door they turn back hoping to find a key deeper within.

They go back through room 6 and go down the hallway into room 5, where they find three fire beetles. These beetles put up a surprisingly good fight and the party starts to regret leaving the dogs outside. They prevail over the beetles and stop to apply first aid after finishing them off. (First aid is a class ability on page 20 of Unearthed Arcana) They continue down the path to room 13 and find Erik, a fellow tribesman, fighting a skeleton alone.

I roll a 5 for the skeletons initiative and tell Erik he has to roll a 6, which he does, but he blows the opportunity by missing with his club. Luckily Ivar comes in using pummel from unarmed combat rules and double fists through the bones of the skeleton splintering them; causing the skeleton to deanimate. Ivar pounds the bones again making sure he has finished off the skeleton for good.

Afterwards, Konan arm wrestles Erik to test Erik's strength. Konan is able to tell Erik is a strong Fredericton warrior. Erik explains he was hunting in the area and met with Tunga outside. Tunga told him about the magic user rumors, so he came in to help fight the magic user. He fell down the chute in room 2 chasing after a metal urn, which landed him in this room with the skeleton.

The party goes back through the smelly hallway and comes to room 7, where they find a broken pickaxe and a wheel barrel. They stuff their loot onto the wheel barrel and head North to a room with a statue of evil Santa. Somebody has cast magic mouth on this statue, causing it to laugh “ho ho ho!” This frightens the party. They throw lassos around the statue and put their strengths together to topple the statue. They struggle for a few rounds, but eventually are able to knock over the 2,000 pound laughing statue. It’s far too sturdy to actually destroy with what they have available, so they leave it toppled and go South.

They travel through a winding hallway that leads to the door to room 8. They bust in and find 9 bandits with a few sacks of coin. They roll a good reaction on the bandits, so the bandits act friendly to the party. The bandits tell The Viking Raiders what they know about the magic user the party tracked here. Mostly that he’s somewhere in this cave, and is researching some sort of frost magic. Ivar, who is on the evil side, takes advantage of their kindness and stabs two of them in the throat, once the party has gotten enough information from them.

Erik and Ivar take damage in the upcoming brawl, but Unga pays the ultimate price! Unga is slain by the bandits. When there are only 3 bandits remaining, the party opts to wrestle them in hopes of capturing and throwing them into the tribal slave pit. Ivar headbutts a bandit unconscious and puts him into a figure 4 leg lock. The other 2 get pummeled into unconsciousness. As the bandits are being tied up, a bandit awakens. He is quickly knocked back out by Ivar and tied up and stripped with the other 2 bandits.

They apply first aid, then they find 1,000 copper, 45 gold, 300 platinum, and a key on the bandits. The party load up the wheel barrel and cart everything back to room 2 hoping this key sets them free.

They try the key on the locked door, and it opens allowing them to escape the cave. They meet up with Tunga, letting him know what happened to Unga. They leave the loot and prisoners with Tunga and go back into the cave, taking Husky and Dusty this time.

They open the door North from the bandit's room and enter to room 9, where they encounter a group of kobolds. Erik and Husky take minor damage, but the party rolls a lot better for hits on the kobolds. They pick up 275 copper in some coffers and 108 loose copper from the kobolds. They throw it in the wheel barrel and continue to room 10 to find an open portcullis with no lever nearby. They try to go through, but trip a trap causing the portcullis to close. Since they are burly strong barbarians, they line up and try to bend bars, struggling at first, but Konan is able to power through using his exceptional barbarian strength.

They continue through a winding hallway, when they hear orcish banter in room 11. There is no door to this room, so they light oil flasks and pepper the room with throws to initiate combat. Erik misses his oil flask so badly, it lands in the hallway leading to the orc room. Somehow, this works to the party's advantage, since the orcs run towards the party through the fire, taking burn damage from the oil. The orcs chop with battleaxes, but get slain by the party. The party has been hankering for some battleaxes, so they collect those and find a loose stone with 275 gold loosely strewn about underneath.

Continuing North to a door they are stopped by a caveman painting on the wall. It looks familiar and safe until its lips start moving, which freaks the magic fearing party out. It tells them to not disturb the wizard, but they are obviously not going to listen to that. They burst through the door into a magic laboratory.

The wizard was currently studying a spell, so he is automatically surprised. He is accompanied by 2 clerics, who negate the surprise and engage with the party. The party starts by throwing from a distance, hurling spears.

When the wizard gets into the fight, he points his staff at the party from across the room and it extends right at Erik, striking him in the chest breaking three ribs.

Next turn, Eric responds by putting his bastard sword through one of the cleric’s torsos, slicing from the neck down to the bottom of the lung on the opposite side.

The living cleric “causes wounds” for 8 damage on Husky, which freaks out the party because his gentle swat seemed to snap the leg bone of Husky. “Spooky magic shit!”

The magic user blasts Husky with his extending staff for 7 damage, leaving the dog on it’s last inch of life. The party responds by slaying the second cleric with another impressive bastard sword blow. The magic user doesn’t like how things are going, so he casts spider climb and attempts to crawl out a vent in the ceiling.

The party gets their last opportunity attacks on him. The thrown spears hit, but fail to stop him. The wizard gets about four feet up the wall when Erik comes in with a bastard sword swung over head with two hands. The sword chops 90% of the way through his femur bone while completely severing his femoral artery. The wizard's lifeless body falls from the ceiling above.

Now that the threat is gone, the party decides it’s time to desecrate this lab. They pick up the Cleric’s gear and freak out realizing the banded armor is magical. They place the staff of striking, spell book, and magic armor in a pile then throw the kitchen sink at them. They throw the lab’s potions, acids, scrolls, and everything else they can into the magical pile. 2 of the potions mix together causing the armor to come to life and beckon to the barbarians not to kill them.

This only increases the ferocity of the party. They try smashing the objects ,but that doesn’t work. Eventually they try a powerful acid in a vial that splashes over the items. The acid is able to burn through the magic items. One of the potions in the pile doesn't break, so Ivar throws a spear at it, smashing the vial. This potion coats the pile and as it dries, the substance magically sharpens all of the metal edges.

They chop the wizards head off and take it with them as proof they killed the magic user. They find a one-way secret door back to room 3 from the lab, which normally would be wizard locked, but they’re holding the locking wizard’s head. They exit the dungeon to apply first aid and rest up before setting back home.

3/19/24 On the way back to the boat, they run into a giant white furred arctic python. They throw spears and it gets chopped into bits by the bastard swords, as it attempts to put Konan in a death-lock. The snake is slain and the party thinks, “That’s a whole lotta snake meat and leather,” so they take the whole beast with them in chunks.

3/20/24 The Viking Raiders return to the boat and set course up the river for Fredericton with no encounters.

3/21/24 The party encounter some giant otters midday. They win surprise, so they decide evade the creatures by beaching then boat, then dogsledding around the giant otters pulling the boat along the river shore. After they make it a safe distance away from the giant otters, they then continue nautically down the river.

It is close to dusk when the party runs into a group of 4 giant snapping turtles. Humongous slow beasts with a deadly bite!

The Viking Raiders try to use the giant snake meat as a diversion, but it only 3 of the giant snappers take the bait.

The fourth giant snapper heads to engage the boat, as the party prepares to fight. This turtle has 62 HP, good grief! It props its arms up on the side of the boat and goes in for a chomp. It can’t get a good grip for a couple turns, while the party attempts to damage it with spears and bastard swords.

Eventually it locks int jaw into the boat. The giant snapper is able to shear the figurehead of the boat clean off! Then it starts munching down into the hull. Ivar has been unable to land any hits for a while now, but then he finds his mojo and gets a perfect hit with a spear right between the cracks in the turtle’s shell, stabbing directly into the meat of the beast.

Erik and Conan chop as well with their bastard swords. The dogs are even get their licks in, thrashing at the turtle’s appendages that are still holding onto the ship. This goes on for many turns, and water begins to come aboard as the boat rocks side to side. One more good bite on the spine of the boat, and will surely sink it!

The turtle has taken a lot of damage, Billy the pup almost finishes him off, but he doesn’t deal enough damage. The next round begins, and it quickly ends from a bastard sword wield by Erik, finishing off the large amphibian. The turtle’s lifeless jaw relaxes, releasing the hull of the ship as it dies. Water is seeping in at a manageable rate and the ship has sustained some permanent damage, yet it is still seaworthy. They are only an hour or two outside of town, and are able to make it back safely.

The crew brings the damaged ship back for repairs, and have a feast of turtle soup in memory of Unga. The tribe pogs off about the magic user being slain, and Fred, the high chieftain himself, hears about the adventure.

Treasure & XP: Note that barbarians receive XP for destroying magic items, potions, and spell books. (Unearthed Arcana Page 19)

Giant Snapping Turtle Shell / Meat - 1,000 XP

1,125 Electrum - 2,250 XP

1,108 Copper - 6 XP

45 Gold - 45 XP

300 Platinum - 1,500 XP

Tapestry of Wizard Casting Lightning - 100 XP

2 Broad Swords - 16 XP

3 Battleaxes - 24 XP

275 “Copper” 275 XP

Wizard Head, with Hat / Robes - 50 XP

Destroyed Magical Items:

Crumble Undead Recipe (Notes Skull) - 140 XP

Banded Armor +1 - 800 XP

Staff of Striking - 6,000 XP

Spell Book Three LVL 1 Spells, One Cantrip, One LVL 2 Spell, One LVL 5 spell - 5,500 XP

Potion of Ventriloquism - 200 XP

Philter of Beauty - 250 XP

Oil of Sharpness - 100 XP

Inkwell of Magic Ink - 200 XP

Monster XP:

3 Fire Beetles - 86 XP

1 Skeleton - 6 XP

6 Bandits - 85 XP

3 Bandit Prisoners (Alive) 45 XP

7 Orcs - 94 XP

Magic-User - 120 XP

2 Clerics - 71 XP

9 Kobolds - 66 XP

Giant White Furred Arctic Python - 369 XP

Giant Snapping Turtle - 1,602 XP

XP Totals:

Total Treasure XP: 18,756 XP

Total Monster XP: 2,570 XP

Grand Total Combined XP: 21,000 XP

XP Split 3 Ways Even: 7,000 XP Each