Session 31: The Barbarians of Fredricton 2

Player Characters, Henchmen, Hirelings, & Animals:

The Viking Raiders

Ivar - Level 1 Human Barbarian, Neutral Evil

Konan - Level 1 Human Barbarian, Neutral Good

Erik - Level 1 Human Barbarian, Neutral Good

Odd Job - Level 1 Human Barbarian, Neutral Good

Tribesmen Fallowers:

Bunga, Tunga, Rex, & Tex

Sledding Dogs:

Chilly, Billy, Dusty, Husky, Chow, Doug, & Garbage

4/14-22/24 Erik the barbarian will be showing up late to the session, so the party decides to get some meat to sell to the village until he arrives. Barbarians love meat and even if they rake in a ton of treasure, without meat the tribe will be displeased with them. They also need the cash to level up, since they are XP locked. Ivar has made a giant turtle trap in down time, which they will try to use to trap a giant snapping turtle from a group the party saw last session. (Session 27) They spend a day fishing and get 15 pounds of fish from the river to bait the trap.

On the second day of waiting, a giant snapping turtle falls for the trap and finds itself ensnared in the floating cage of wood. The party pelts the turtle with spears as it thrashes in the cage, chomping at the logs until it destroys the trap. It charges to the shore to devour the humans, but it is overwhelmed by the spears, battleaxes, and bastard swords wielded by the party. The Giant Snapper misses three powerful bites on Ivar before dying to Odd Job's Axe. The crew drag the turtle carcass onto the dog sled and transport the beast back to the village. The meat and shell sell for an equivalent of 1,000 gold, but the necessary meat is priceless. Ivar and Konan are able to level up from the spoils. The other party members make spears and heavy spears during this time.

4/23/24 Concern is spreading around the tribe because their preferred food supply, mammoth meat, has not been enjoyed in over a month. The mammoths to the Northeast have not been seen alive, or even dead in some time...

The Viking Raiders head out to the Northeast, in order to snag their favorite meal, or find out what has happened to the mammoth population. They search the tribal hunting grounds, but find nothing say a pack of wolves, which the party avoids.

They know that wolves will only attack mammoths if they are desperate and outnumber the goliath beasts, so they do not think the wolves are behind the mammoth decline. They come across some tracks in the snow that look like somebody had been pulling a large sled here. They follow the tracks which lead to the water, where they find evidence of hand axes and an extinguished fire.

They see smoke coming from the mountains on the other side of the river, so they return to the boat and sail across chasing the smoke in search of more clues. They suspect a rival tribe is encroaching on their territory. They leave 2 of their tribesmen behind with the dogs and the boat, then head towards the smoke on land. Eventually they find footprints in the snow, one path goes up the mountain, and another goes into a cave. They head towards the cave.

Above the mouth of the cave are three birds, a mother and two chicks. They each have 4 legs, and the tribe recognizes them as gryphs, terrible birds that can impregnate humans by jamming their sharp taloned hind legs into their stomachs, then implanting eggs that will hatch and kill them in a few days.

Since the party is made up of barbarians detached from any cure disease spell, an impregnation will always be fatal. Ivar luckily lasso’s the mom and the party pummels her unconscious. One of the chicks is slain and another is pummeled unconscious as well. Their wings are clipped and the 2 living birds are tied up. The party thinks maybe they can sell the birds or use the mother to impregnate and kill somebody. Very metal, very barbarian!

The barbarians enter the cave and split up at a fork in the cavern. The party that goes to the right finds a map of the first floor of the cave. They’re barbarians so they can’t write it down, but commit it to memory. They circle back to the half that went left and find a wooden locked door. They smash through with axes and stumble into an encounter with 6 hobgoblins.

The ruthless barbarians slaughter the hobgoblins who try to run, but get decapitated and stabbed in their spines as they flee. The party finds 60 copper, 12 gold, 2 yellow gems, as well as a nice halberd for Odd Job and a composite bow among the hobgoblins. The bow is a rare find in Brunswick, so the party takes it as well. There is also a statue of a magic user in this room, which Ivar topples, revealing a wrought platinum bracelet hidden in the statue’s pocket.

They walk down the hall and smell sulfur before coming into a room with two exits and a trapdoor. Erik notices a couple skulks, nearly invisible men blending into the walls of the room, even hiding their stenches in the sulfuric fumes. He points them out to the party and the skulks flee to room 4.

The party gives chase but the room they entered is blocked by a locked wooden door. They smash through the door and come into what looks like an empty room. The skulks take the opportunity to backstab Konan for 12 damage. (3x damage since they backstab as lvl 5 thieves) Konan cries out in pain.

The party responds and is able to massacre the skulks after they reveal themselves. They find handfuls of gems and jewelry like they have never seen before among the skulk bodies. It makes the 1,000 silver under the trapdoor of room 3 that Erik soon opens seem like peanuts. The Skulks were probably waiting around for someone to find the silver and start counting it, opening up for a sneaky backstab on unwitting targets.

They continue down to room 6, where they find some skeletons without femurs. Erik decides to venture alone into the archway to room 4 where he sees a pentagram in a circle in front of an opened chest. There is a glowing sword in the corner.

He uses his barbarian senses to detect magic and feels the most powerful essence of magic he has ever felt in his lifetime. His magic perception is like switching to night vision in broad day light. He walks into the room and the symbol on the ground lights up, making his joints all over his body burn in an excruciating pain.

Despite this distracting pain, he is able to hear snoring coming from the same corner of the room as the glowing sword. (He rolled for surprise, and got 5 turns of surprise!) He decides to leave this room and never speak of what happened again. He simply tells the party that they don’t want to go in there while hunkering down and barely able to walk. They are skeptical because he is writhing in pain, but don’t question him too much about it.

They avoid the painful passageway and instead head into room 8. There is a closed portcullis in this room as well as a lever. Erik pulls the lever and an arrow whizzes past his head, nicking his arm for half damage.

They go through the portcullis and come to a large octagonal room with urns scattered about. Some urns have lids, and some don’t. The party searches and finds a yellow key in one of the urns, and finds that one of the sealed urns is full of beer.

Erik downs the entire beer urn and becomes slightly buzzed, which helps mellow him out from his painful encounter with the pain symbol earlier. The pain symbol coincidentally runs out at this point, so he feels like the beer has cured him of the ailment. They continue North from memory of the map at the entrance in find a folding chair in room 18. Ivar sees the opportunity for some dirty pummeling and takes the chair for later.

They continue down the hall to some stairs and descend to floor 2. The first room they come into has a column and two doors. One of the doors is locked so they open the other one and come to room 28, which has an empty gryph nest in it. They destroy the nest and go South.

They enter into room 24 and oh shit, they activate an elevator trap! Konan was weary of the room so he didn’t jump in at first, but seeing his party start to fall he decided to hop in after them. (The elevator will keep descending until the party can successfully open a door.)

They open a door after the elevator has fallen 2 levels. They are poking around on this deep level of the dungeon when they run into 14 bandits. Battle begins and the party takes some damage but the bandits flee after they start losing the fight. The party ends up chasing them into a corner. Konan kills the second to last bandit, then Ivar pulls out the chair he has on his back and strikes at the last bandit, narrowly missing. Erik is able to run in for the clutch KO however and they tie the last bandit up.

The party applies first aid find 1,100 platinum among the slain bandits. They do not speak a common language with the living bandit, but they point up and are able to communicate that they want directions out of here, or they will kill the bandit like the others. He obliges and leads them to through a few rooms and up some stairs until they are at the elevator room 24. They use their barbarian leap skills to jump across the elevator chasm and return to the beginning of the dungeon without encounters.

They make it back to the tribe uninterrupted and Erik conscripts a local barbarian to help make a cage for the gryphs. They store all their treasure in Erik’s giant snapping turtle hut and call it a night.

Treasure:

60 copper

12 gold

2 yellow gems 310 gp

Halberd

Composite bow

Wrought platinum bracelet 2k gp

Skulk Gems and jewelry 8900 gp

1100 platinum 5500 gp

Monster XP:

Giant snapping turtle (only Odd Job gets 551 XP cause rest of party was XP locked)

3 gryphs, 2 taken alive (one mom, one chick) 226 XP

6 hobgoblins – 198 XP

6 skulks – 322 XP

14 bandits, 1 taken alive – 186 XP

Rankings:

Ivar - E - Lasso Bird killed things, smashed statue

Konan - E - Killed things and tanked damage.

Erik - S - Failed to secure any meat for the tribe.

Odd Job - E - Got kills