Emperor of Ice - Sellswords Campaign Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - The Tower of Teuton

Gunnar trudged disconsolately at the back of the party. “I bet that’s the Tower of Teuton”, he said, pointing at a tower.
Sir Robin looked at him. “How do you know?”
“It’s the tallest.”
Christos laughed. “Well you’re right – it must be the one we are looking for. It is the one that glorifies the Lord of War, Bane of the Unnatural, the Great God Teuton. Well spotted.”
“Nah, because it’s the tallest one round here, it will have the most steps up.”
“Steps are a cultural enemy to dwarves,” whispered Sintamo to Eldarondo.


View of the table set up.

Viewed from the PC's entry point.

The three floors inside the Tower.

The heroes in their starting positions.

 But danger is waiting for them.

 Sintamo eyes up the distant skeletons, allows for the wind and takes a long shot....

....Thunk! A skeleton bites the dust!

As the rest of the horde shamble forward, Eduardo (giggling to himself) starts to gather this magical energy....

....FIREBALL!

 As the PCs move forward, a horde of bandits led by a thug, move onto the table behind them.

In the meantime Brother Christos rushes on ahead of the rest of the group and encounters a horde of skeletons, but they didn't last long!

Only to be ambushed by a giant Ice Serpent. Christos misses his attack, but just parries the snake's jaws with his shield.  His counter strike crushes the beasts skull.

The PCs hear a distant howling, a werewolf has arrived on the scene.

The bandits hang back, keeping downwind of the werewolf, which rushes towards the party.  Eddiesdrew himself up to full height, pointed at the beast....and sent forth a small shower of sparks! Intrigued, the werewolf moved closer to the pretty lights.
Sintamo called to Eldarondo, "We'll have to do this the old fashioned way!" and promptly stuck two arrows in the beast.
Gunnar stepped up to shield the bemused Eddie, who just stood by, muttering to himself.
Eldarondo added an arrow to the werewolf's collection of feather-related jewellery, before the enraged monster charged Gunnar. The dwarf was knocked backwards by a viscous swipe, but the beast's claws just scrapped off of his armour.
Gunnar promptly relied by splitting the werewolf's skull with his axe.

Emboldened by the arrival of another horde of their friends, the bandits used the distraction of the werewolf to rush closer.
Eddie suddenly looked up, wide eyed.
"I've got it!" he cried to no one in particular.
"I should have done this" he explained to his invisible audience, and promptly blasted the oncoming bandits with a large fireball!

In the distance Christos was heard to call "I've found the door".
Eldarondo yelled "Come on everyone, run for it."
As Gunnar ran past the giggling wizard he called out.
"Eddie, what's the most important rule?"
Eddie paused for a moment, pushing thoughts of fire out of his mind. "Urrr...if I'm at the back, run."
"You're at the back, laddie!"
With a startled yelp, Eddie ran after his comrades.
More bandits and more armoured skeletons now entered the table.

Turning to aim at he skeletons, Sintamo was surprised by a giant snake emerging from a nearby pile of rubble. He avoided the serpent's strike and shot it through the throat.
"I thought you'd have a better way with endangered species" Sir Robin said innocently.
Sintamo glared at him.
"I'm a ranger, not a snake charmer!"
"Scorpion charmer more like!" Robin muttered.

And now a wandering Ogre entered the table!

As the party drew together, Eldarondo called to Eddie.
"Don't look now Eddie, but you are being chased by a giant spider".
With a frightened squeal, Eddie increased pace and overtook the rest of the group.
Eldarondo shot the creature as it scuttled towards them.
"You should have checked with Sintamo, he might have wanted to keep it as a pet."
"Shut up!"
At this point the party too a brief rest, to allow Christos and Eldarondo to use their healing skills and patch up the wounds suffered so far by the party.

Now came the real challenge, every time a PC touched the tower, it would turn in a random direction. This would only happen once in each PC's turn, so the group realised that as soon as the tower stopped moving, they needed to jump onto the tower quickly, before it moved again.
Sintamo, Eddie and  Eldarondo managed to get onto the staircase leading to the door (unfortunately, so did two hungry wolves!)......

While Sir Robin and Christos elected to scale up the wall. Gunnar found himself on the far side of the tower to the rest of the party, with multiple hordes of bandits closing in, so started to climb the wall on that side. Fortunately, as soon as one of the bandits started to follow him, the tower turned, carrying him out of reach of his angry foes!

Having dispatched the wolves, Eddie, Sintamo and Eldarondo climbed the staircase. The ranger was muttered as he rummaged through his pack.
"What are you doing?" Eldarondo asked.
"I've got as set of lock picks in here somewhere, I knew they would come in handy".
The elf gently tried the handle as Sintamo triumphantly brandished his lockpicks.
The door swung open with a low creek.
"It's unlocked!" Eddie explained unnecessarily.
In the meantime, Sir Robin and Christos climbed in through the window.
"Where's Gunnar?"
Two sets of fingertips could be seen, grasping the windowsill across the chamber. With an accompanying grunt the top of a helmet came into view, only to slump back down out of sight.
A second time the helmet came into view, then dropped back out of sight.
"Perhaps it's some kind of Dwarven exercise regime." Robin mused.
"Just give me a hand you two, will you."
"And stop laughing!"

Venturing up to the second floor, Gunnar was sudden attacked by... giant frogs!
"Hop along you lot!"
"Gunnar, that's not really funny."

The dwarven axe made short work of the over-sized amphibians.
"That last one's croaked!" Gunnar chuckled.
"No, no more jokes Gunnar."
"I TOAD you it would be alright."
"Seriously, stop it now!"

The rest of the party followed Gunnar up the stairs.
"Where do you think this relic is going to be?" Eldarondo asked.
"On the top floor, of course." Christos replied.
"It would be" Gunnar mumbled.

As they climbed higher they encountered more aggressive frogs. As Eldarondo finished the last one off, Eddie paused for a moment, looking quizzical.
"I think something is coming up the stairs....."

"...Wolves!"
"What are they doing in here?" Eldarondo asked.
"Hunting frogs?" Sintamo suggested as he shot an arrow over Eddie's shoulder into the throat of one of the beasts.
"Oi, watch my ear!"

By now Sir Robin and Christos had reached the top floor and there, on a stone pedistal, was a bejeweled book with a red and green cover.
"Is that it?" Robin asked.
"I think so." Christos replied.
"Only think so, what does it say".
"I'm not sure, I can't really read it."
Robin raised an eyebrow.
"It's in a secret code know only to the most senior priests of my order, but I do recognise some of the characters."
"Just grab it and let's go."

As the rejoined the rest of the party, Sintamo was musing on the tower's ecosystem.
"I can see why the wolves would come in to hunt all these giant frogs, but what are the frogs eating?"
"Insects?" Eldarondo suggested.
"They'd need to eat bucket loads of insects to survive."
"Big insects, then?"
"GIANT SPIDERS!" Eddie screamed.
"Yes, that would work, no need to shout I'm right next to you."
"NO, GIANT SPIDERS!" Eddie repeated, pointing at the ceiling.
Looking up the party suddenly noticed the amount of cobwebs sprawling across the high, ceilings. From all four corners, a black mass of  writhing creatures scuttled forward.
"Everybody out, now!" Christos yelled and led the race for the door.

Once outside the tower, they saw that all the bandits were gathered together at the far side of the tower, so the PCs leapt of the steps and escaped into the ruins before they were sighted.

More Cruel Seas Action.

Mark came around the other day and I got the chance to put a couple of my new boats on the table, a pair of Fairmile Bs, one in the minesweeper configuration and the other kitted out as a gunboat with a semi-auto 6 pounder up front.

The scenario was that a small German convoy, escorted by little Kriegfischkutters, is ambushed by a mixed British force of MGBs and MTBs. While the gunboats approach the convoy head on, the Vospers swing around to come in from the seaward, hoping to get a clear shot with their torpedoes. In the meantime a pair of S Boats have been dispatched to aid the convoy to get past the British.

The Fairmile Bs move up.

As do the S Boats.

The waiting Vospers start their engines.

As the convoy moves on.

As the Vospers speed forward, they split to attack from either side of the island.

One of the Kriegfischkutters peels off to engage the nearest Vospers.

Whilst the Fairmiles increase speed to get to the action.

The right hand Vospers get into range of the brave little Kriegfischkutter. It hits with it's quad 20mm and sets off one of the torpedoes!
First shot of the game...BOOM!...scratch one Vosper. Not a good start for the British.

The second Vosper launches torpedoes whilst it still can!

Things getting rather busy. One of the German Merchant's fulls some fancy turning to try and avoid the torpedoes in the water, the S Boats shoot up one of the left hand Vospers as they line up to launch torpedoes, but take damage in turn from the incoming Fairmiles.

Some fancy manoeuvring lets one of the merchants avoid the British torpedoes, but it's not looking so good for the other ship.

Around the other side of the island it's up close and personal as the Vospers and S Boats blast away at point blank range. One of the Vospers is sunk and the other damaged, but both S Boats are also in a bad way and a direct hit for a Fairmile's 6 pounder send one of them to the bottom.

A torpedo connects with one of the merchantmen and hits....

...it's not a dud BOOM!
The ship is still afloat but multiple critical hits mean that the engines are taken out, so it's dead in the water.

Which means it also takes a hit in the stern.

So now it's just dead!

 

We played another turn after this, which saw a Kriegfischkutter and the last Vosper sunk.

With no torpedoes left and two German escorts still packing quite a punch, the British decided to call it a draw. A good, fun game was had by all.

More new 3D toys for Cruel Seas

I recently picked up one or two 3D printed ships for Cruel Seas! I actually forgot to take a picture when I first unpacked the box, so there are 5 more ships, which were outside in the sun with their undercoat still drying when I took this shot. I assume the original owner got carried away with enthusiasm, but then got bored with the idea. I now just need to get hold of some weapons for most of these (I think he'd found printing the weapons too fiddly).

And here are the first batch of ships painted.
A couple of  British Fairmile Bs.

A British steam gunboat.

And a couple of freighters.

They are not the best quality prints I've seen, but for the price I can't complain.

Emperor of Ice - Sellswords Campaign Chapter 4

Chapter 4 – Into The Frozen City

The party have finally reached the fabled Lost City of Magic. Following Brother Christos’ directions, they move towards the city’s central plaza. From there six routes lead on into the depths of the city, one of which is the true path to the Tower of Teuton, the PCs ultimate destination.

As the party moved deeper into the city, Eduardo's manner became even more manic than usual. 

"The mana is really powerful here" he muttered.

Gunner looked enquiringly at Sintamo , who pulled a face and tapped his finger against his temple.

Suddenly Sintamo held up his hand.

“Hang on, I think there’s something up ahead” he whispered.

Using a ruined building for cover, the party cautiously peer at the roadway ahead.

Suddenly, a man dressed in grey clothing that blended in perfectly with the stone ruins around them, dashed into sight. He snatched up a small wooden chest and ran back to where he had emerged from, but he had hardly taken a dozen strides when an arrow flew across the open space a buried itself in his back. Dropping the chest, he fell to the ground. Looking up Eldarondo spotted a brown-clad archer high in a ruin to their left. From the right side of the road a red-clad man with a long grey beard stood up a pointed at the archer. The archer flew high into the air, seeming to dangle in mid-air for a split second, then dropped. With a high-pitched scream, the bowman fell to the ground, landing on the stones with a wet thud.

Another wizard, this time wearing blue, stepped into sight and launched a searing blue lightning bolt that exploded near the red wizard, causing him to duck. A heavily armoured warrior sprang forward and ran towards the chest. Now, from across the street, another armoured man stepped up. Yet another red wizard, a younger man this time, appeared next to him and placed his hand on the warrior’s shoulder. A faint blue light appeared to shimmer around the warrior’s armour as he ran forward to intercept the first armoured man. As the two warriors battered at each other a fourth wizard came into view, a younger man in blue, who launched another lightning bolt across the open space.

More men appeared as the road dissolved into chaos, arrows and blue lightening flew back and forth and armoured warriors hacked at one another.

Sintamo: “They seem a little bit busy, I think I can find another way around”.

 (Scenario: 4XP per player).
Eventually the party emerged into an open plaza, dominated by the base of a great ruined tower, and dotted with piles of rubble. The ruins of once grand buildings line the edges of the plaza. Along the northern edge stand 6 stone obelisks, spaced 6” apart. Each obelisk marks a roadway exiting the plaza, the PCs must identify the correct one that marks to path to the Tower of Teuton. It takes an action to read the sign to reveal its associated marker.  Characters who exit at the wrong point can come back on in the next turn, otherwise they have to do the adventure again without those who used the correct exit road.

When the AMBUSH! card is drawn, 1 skeleton jumps out of the closest open tomb/vault.

Treasure:  If a That Will Come In Useful card is drawn, the PC has noticed an ancient wooden chest. It takes 1 action to open the chest. Roll 1 d6 once the chest is opened:

1 – Trap, a magical blast pushes the PC back 8” and they fall to the ground. DL12 dexterity check or suffer 1HP.

2  - Trap, a Bear trap. Damage 1, target is knocked down and requires a DL 12 Strength roll to break free. The PC loses 1” of movement until healed.  

3  - Trap, the PC is caught in a snare, may not move and has -2 on all rolls until he breaks free. Breaking free requires either a DL 14 Strength roll (1 action) or using a blade and 3 consecutive actions to cut the snare. An adjacent friend may help the PC giving a +2 on his Strength roll or contributing his own actions to cut him free.

4 – Treasure, a random potion.

5 – Treasure, a random spell scroll.

6 – Treasure, a random magical weapon.

Deployment: Deploy all PCs 2” from the southern edge, there are no starting foes.

Ambush: A random foe (Column 1) appears from the nearest cover and attacks the nearest PC.

Reinforcements/They are at our back/Wandering Monster: Roll 2d6

Random Encounter table
First D6 roll	1-2	3-4	5-6
Second D6 roll	Level 1 Encounter	Level 2 Encounter	Level 3 Encounter
1	Skeleton   1d6	Armoured Skeleton 1d6	Ghoul 1d3
2	Skeleton   1d6	Ghoul 1d3	Minor Werewolf
3	Armoured Skeleton 1d6	Wolf 1d6	Wraith
4	Armoured Skeleton 1d6	Wraith	Troll
5	Wolf 1d6	Bear	Werewolf
6	Ghoul 1d3	Minor Werewolf	Stone Elemental

Scenario Specific Rules.

Frostgrave is awash with mana.  Spellcasters have the following special rules.

A 1 is still an automatic failure, but it is no longer a complete loss of Mana. Rather it indicates too MUCH Mana has been channelled. Roll Below

1 – Passes Out. Must be awoken by another character.

2 – Lose 1 HP and knocked over by the back blast

3 – Lose 1 HP

4 – Knocked over by force

5 – Still standing, but spend next action being violently sick.

6 – Spell goes off in a random direction. Roll d6 for height at maximum range. If the line of travel (from casters shoulder) crosses anyone/thing it goes off there.  With area effect spells if the head or more of a model is in radius they take the effects. 

Victory Conditions: The PCs must exit the table from the Northern edge, ideally by the correct exit to The Tower of Teuton.

Other individual rewards: A PC carrying an out-of-action PC off the table gains 1 XP.

The table layout at the start of the game, the players will enter from the near edge.

The PCs move forward as a group, except for Gunnar who has been ambushed by a lone skeleton, which he quickly disposes of.

Brother Christos reaches the first monolith without incident.

Gunnar "I thought the plan was to stick together?"
Eduardo ("the Magnificent") "Don't worry, it's really quiet around here."
"Shut up!"
"Eddie, you troll's arsehole, you've done it again!"

As if in response to Eddie's words, things started to get "interesting".
A minor werewolf wandered on close to Christos. Sintamo stuck an arrow in the beast, but then his bow string snapped!

A snarling wolf leaps from the ruins onto Gunnar and takes a bite out of the dwarf before his axe cuts it in two.

And Christos stood on a poisoned scorpion!
Recoving, he cuts down the werewolf but take another wound in the process.

More and more foes start turning up, two hordes of skeletons and a pack of 3 wolves. Eddie, cackling quietly, steps forward and prepares a fireball spell. But in his over-excited state he fails to cast it.

Multiple activation fails see the nearest horde of skeletons close in on the wizard at speed. Fortunately Gunnar rushes up to his aid. He slaps the wizard with the haft of his axe.
"Concentrate, you daft bugger!"
The dwarf makes short work of the horde, but takes a wound in the process.

Sintamo and Eldarondo give covering fire, taking out the pack of wolves closing in of the flank, but the Ranger is ambushed by another skeleton.

Sir Robin finds himself facing an earth elemental. He launches a blistering attack, striking the creature 3 times, but his blade just bounces off. Seeing his peril, Eddie rushes over in his direction.

Sir Robin pulls back from the beast, taking a mighty blow as he does so, but is only winded as his armour holds firm.
FIREBALL!

FIREBALL! FIREBALL!
Eddie's practically gibbering now as he launches successive flaming blasts against the elemental until it explodes into burning pieces.
Eldarondo "This place is making Eddie really weird."
Sintamo just raises an eyebrow.
"OK, weirder."

The party pause as long howl that chills the blood echos around the ruins. A huge werewolf charges towards them.

It leaps over the stones, onto Sintamo and rips into him with it's claws. He desperately parries, but his buckler is smashed to pieces by the force of the blow.

Leaping backwards, he drops his sword and pulls out his bow, sending an arrow into the beast's chest.

Eldarondo aims at the monster, but it spins and strikes at the already wounded dwarf. Gunnar collapses to the ground, unconscious. Yelling in anger, the elf puts two more arrows deep into the werewolf.

Eddie turns to help his friends, but is ambushed by a ferocious wolf...twice!

Somehow Eddies kills both the beasts, using his unique tactic of closing his eyes and waving his sword in front of him, yelling "GITOUTOFIT!"
In the meantine Sintamo finishes the werewolf off with two more well aimed arrows. Eldamondo rushes to the dwarf and using his healing skills to bring him around. Gunnar is alive but can barely walk.
Behind them Sir Robin calls "I've found the right stone!"
Sending Gunnar hobbling off to join Sir Robin, the two turn to look for Eddie.

Opening his eyes, Eddie slides the second wolf off of the end of his sword and sees a huge horde of skeletons rapidly approaching. He draws himself up, laughing manically as he prepares to launch another fireball, but steps on a loose stone and falls backwards to the ground!

Christos rushes forward to block the horde's path to the fallen wizard, but in his hurry he had forgotten to heal himself from his earlier combat and soon falls as he is surrounded by undead.
Eddies gets back to his feet, pauses to gather his thoughts, them blasts the remaining skeletons to ashes.
Sintamo and Eldarondo join him.
"Eddie, go back and join the others, we'll deal with this".
Now more foes have appeared, two ghouls move towards Christos' fallen form and a pack of wolves move in from the side.
Sintamo runs towards Christos while Eldarondo moves to the left for a better shot, shooting the leading wolf as he does so.

Foes keep emerging from the ruins, this lot arrived in a single turn, 2 skeleton hordes, a pack of 3 ghouls and a wraith, fortunately on PC's starting edge!

As he makes his way to join Gunnar and Sir Robin, Eddies sees an ancient looking chest, patially buried in the rubble. Intrigued, he moves across to examine it further.
"Don't touch that Eddie" Sir Ronin calls, but it's too late, Eddie flings the lip open and takes out a long object, wrapped in velvet.
"It's magical! I can feel the mana" Eddie crooned.
"Come on, you daft sod, you can play with it later"

Sintamo hoists Christos onto his shoulder and, covered by Eldarondo, he rapidly moves back to join the rest of the party and together they escape, following the marked path to their ultimate goal.

Once they found somewhere to rest, Eldarondo checked Christos' wounds, but they proved to be minor. Whilst temporarily disabling, Gunnar's injuries were also not serious.
But, is the dwarf infected with Werecurse from the werewolf's attack?
We will find out at the next full moon!

Eddie's magical find turned out to be a sword. 
"It's mine! It's magic, I'm a wizard, I use magic!"
In his current, semi-deranged state, none the others felt like arguing the point, so they let the wizard keep his new toy.
"It's my precious sword, my preciousss OUCH!"
"Stop that nonsense or I'll slap you again" Gunnar growled.