Sellswords and Spellslingers in Jotunheim 2

 I had the chance to fit in another game in my new Sellswords campaign, technicaly it's game three as I didn't have a camera to hand for the second game.

Book Three – Crossing the Land of the Dead

Basic Scenario: 5 XP per player plus individual XP rewards

The mystical runes gained so far have enabled the party to decipher the ancient map that leads to the Lost Horde of the Dokkalfar King. Unfortunately, it shows that the map is actually incomplete! 

On consulting a wise Seer, the party learn that there are in fact two more parts to the map. The Seer has ascertained the location of the two parts, one is in the lands of the Frost Giant, far to the North, the other is closer, in the Haunted Lands to the West. 

The party decide to travel west first. Once they have secured the map fragment they will continue beyond the Haunted Lands to the coast and find a ship to carry them north.

After many days travelling they finally enter the Haunted Lands. The area is a cursed place, the site of a war between rival Necromancers eons ago. The spirits of lost souls haunt the land, nursing a deep hatred for the living. The party must journey deep into the Haunted Lands to reach the cavern identified by the Seer.

Terrain: An area of icy wilderness with 6 randomly placed pits. PCs start along the Southern table edge.

Foes:

2 Ice Wraiths

3 hordes of 3 Draugr

Ambush: 1 Draugr emerges from the nearest pit to the active PC.

Reinforcements: 3 Draugr enter from a randon table edge.

They are at our Backs: 4 Dokkalfar enter on the Southern edge.

Traps: A pit opens at the PC’s feet. The PC falls down, hurting legs (-1” to movement until healed) if he fails a DL 10 Dodge roll. A friend can help him out or he must pass a DL 10 climbing roll. The pit will act as an ambush point.

Complications: none

Wandering Monster: enter from random table edge.

1-4 - 1 Ice Wraith

5 – Ice Troll*

6 - Ice Worm*

*Ignore these rolls if already in play.

Foes Interacting:

Undead ignore monsters and Dokkalafr (who carry talismans to protect them).

Dokkalfar and monsters will ignore each other and concentrate on the adventurers.

Dokkalfar  avoid the Undead and will not move with 4” of any undead.

Victory Conditions: Leave from the northern edge.

Other individual rewards: A PC carrying an out-of-action PC off the table gains 1 XP. Killing a Troll/Worm gains 1 XP.

 

The table, viewed from the south (the players entry point is just out of shot).

The party got off to a slow start, both Shield Maidens rushed ahead, whilst the Rune Priest and the Huscarls took a more leasurly approach (failed lots of activation rolls!)

Verborg: "Harald! Gothi! Will you two stop your posing competition and get a move on!".

They quickly attracted a lot of interest from hordes of undead. Thorbjorg the Sorceress blast a couple of the shambling corpses, but when Gothi tried to use his rune magic the gods turned their back on him (rolled a "1" for a casting roll, no more magic in this game!). Looks like Gothi is reduced to the role of healer for today.

So it was left to the Huscarls to do things the old fashoned way! By the time Torstein had chopped down the Draugr baring the party's way he was reduced to one HP. But he had a healing potion, so drinking that and a quick heal by Gothi, restored the lost HPs before he charged into another horde of Draugr.

Then a bunch of angry Dokkalfar turned up behind the party.

And an Ice Wraith moved up to block the PC's escape route.

Thorbjorg blasted the monster with her icy magic as Verborg moved up to support her and throw an axe at the foe. She hurt the undead, but it charged them before Thorbjorg could cast a second spell.

Fortunately, Greta and Harald were close enough to join in the melee. Harald cut the foe down with a mighy blow of this axe. Verborg was aware that Wraiths often accumulated interesting objects from their victims and quickly looted the remains.

At this point Greta noticed something sparkly at the base of a nearby rock and ran up the hill to retrieve it. Not the best idea with two more Ice Wraiths moving in the PC's direction, but she is impulsive!

From her vantage point she noticed a new arrival. "Ice Worm! We're getting out of here."

Yet more Dokkalfar turned up behind the PCs, so everyone turned a ran for the agreed escape point.

With an Ice Wraith in hot pursuit, Greta just made it off the table in time!

  

In fact the table was swarming with foes!

It seemed a narrow escape as we played it, with some tough fighting, but looking back only Thorstein suffered any damage (he had been reduced to 1HP again by the time he got off the table). We were lucky in that we failed a lot of activations early on, when the foes were mainly Draugr and had better dice once the stronger foes had started making an appearance. 

The PC's had picked up three useful items, a magical sword that inflicted an extra point of DAM, a potion of Spider Climbing and a Luckstone with allows the wearer to reroll any die roll, once per game.