Beyond the Wall Solo - Bay of Spirits session 4

 

Prolegomenon

When the air turns to ice the return of the hollow ones illuminates the way and sow great misfortune.

Elsbeth the Witch and the Abbess Gallach  listened to  Balinus the Elven innkeeper who had made the journey from Dry Gulch to Winterton, as he related the story of the previous evening to them.

"your young acolyte at first thought it were the undead what did away with the barrow raiders but then thought it more likely barrow wardens the culprits, your five young uns have headed east to find them there Ka worshipers"

  Abbess Gallach spoke next, "he is a wise one young Culdus, I suspect he is correct on both counts though he may not know it, the followers of the old god Ka are few in numbers and use the undead as minions, some of the barrow wardens would view the theft of St Agnus as a matter for the ultimate punishment"

Elsbeth looked grave, "This is bad news and not something I bargained for , I hope they understand what they are getting in to, I am not sure that they will, I fear for them Abbess, I wish we had sent older heads".

Tools used in the session and other stuff.

For this game session we will be using the following Toolkit

Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures RPG
Further Afield supplement.

Bay of Spirits 12pk of adventure maps (link here)
Various other Bay of Spirits pdfs for background.
50 Winter Encounters by Beyond Horizon (link here)
Ford's Faries: A Bestiary, available from DriveThruRPG.com
My adapted Mune/Zathrum Oracle 

randomlists.com to generate verbs if I need a prompt to work out what happens next.

Location -  Road from Dry Gulch towards Rossgull Harbour , Lower bay region, Bay of Spirits

Date - 24rd December 1512CY.

PCs (click on name to open page with full character stats)

NPC in this session. 

Culdus the young acolyte, Hugo d'Winterton the would be knight, Karina Lankrit the local performer, Rhian the young woodswoman, Strawberri Cottoncloud the fae foundling.

The Hollow Ones. Undead resurrected by powerful otherworld magic.  they look very much like they did in life but spells and magic which can detect the undead will reveal them as such.  
Hollow ones have no soul but can remember their past lives, they can speak and will talk to someone they where close to, like knowing the true name of a creature, if you know the living name of a hollow one you can attempt to command it to do something against its will.
Hit Dice 3d8 (14hp)
AC 16
Attack +3 to hit,  1d6+2 claw attack or as per weapon carried (50% chance of using a weapon, 1-2 Longsword 1d8 +1 hits, 3-4 Battle Axe 1d8+1 hits, 5 Great Sword 1d10+1 hits, 6 Great Axe 1d10+1 hits)
Alignment.  Chaotic
XP 100

Hollow ones do not age, 
Unsettling Presence,  A Hollow One can unsettle a creature it can see within 15 feet of it. The target has disadvantage on the next saving throw it makes within the 10 minute. Constructs, undead, and creatures that can't be frightened are immune to this feature. Can only be used once per day.

Dead & Mindless.  Hollow Ones are immune to sleep or charm spells.

Session 4.

Scene 4,  24rd December,   early in the morning

Current Intervention Points = 0

My party of five young adventures set out very early from Dry Gulch, heading east along the pathway used by the traders and travellers who venture to Wnterton, snow is falling but at the moment it is only light snow and they are able to make reasonable progress towards Rossgull Harbour.  Even so it is a two day walk and there are no hamlets or villages on the road between Dry Gulch and Rossgull but they hope to reach one of the few wayside inns that dot the pathway before darkness falls.

(the use of the word 'road' here is a little misleading, between Winterton and the coastal villages, the roads are little more than well worn tracks made by people, horses and wheeled vehicles, wearing a passage through the landscape.)

The party are in reasonable spirits and walk in pairs, Hugo and Rhian with the two hounds lead the way, Culdus and the pack pony (I am calling these two a pair) behind them and Karina and Strawberri just behind Culdus.

Question, does an encounter take place on the road, roll d6 = 6, Yes (+1 intervention point)
Current Intervention Points = 1
Roll d100 for random winter encounter, (from 50 winter encounters pdf) = 76, one hero is hit by a thrown snowball.

Roll d6 to see who is hit by the snowball, 1=hugo, 2=Rhian, 3= Culdus, 4=Karina, 5= Strawberri, 6= a miss , roll = 1, Hugo. 

As they walk the pathway near a wooded area, Hugo gets hit on the back of his head by a snowball, the sound of children laughing comes from the edge of the wood behind them, followed by a second snowball. Roll d6 to see if this hits anyone =  4, it hits Karina.

The party spot two children in fine beautiful clothing, the children look no more than 11 or 12 years old and one is mounted on a reindeer.  A series of snowballs gets hurled at the party of adventures and the two children are obviously taunting the party.

I make a wisdom roll for each character to see how they react to the children and their throwing of snowballs, all except Hugo make the roll.

Hugo loses his temper, drawing his sword he starts marching towards the two children, "how dare you insult us with your snowballs, come here or I will set the dogs on you", Hugo only seems to draw more taunts and derision from the two children and he is again hit with more snowballs.

Culdus has a folklore skill, so I get him to roll a second time against his wisdom to see if he has any idea who these strange children are.  He needs 18 or less on d 20 and rolls a 10.

Culdus shouts at Hugo, "Hugus, wait, they are children of Aurora, do not follow them, they seek to leads us into their trap".

I make an intelligence test for Hugo to see if he heeds Culdus, he needs to roll 8 or less on d 20, its a 10.

As more snowballs come hurtling towards the Hugo, he starts to run towards the Aurora Children, who in turn begin to move deeper in to the woods but still within snowball throwing distance of Hugo, who shouts at Rhian and the children, "get back here you little swine's, I'll teach you a lesson you will never forget, Rhian, set those dogs on them".

The other four members of the party, realising the two children are probably trying to lead them into a trap, stay where they are.

Strawberri has a command skill, so before Hugo gets himself and the rest of the party into a tricky situation, I have her roll against her charisma with a +2 bonus to see if she can command Hugo to come back, she needs 18 or less on d20 roll = 10, she gets Hugo to stop.

Strawberri goes up to Hugo and apologies, "Hugo, ignore them, Culdus is right, there are no houses round here, they are not local, there will be more in the woods waiting for us, waiting to rob us, we don't have time to allow ourselves this distraction, ignore them, they wont follow us and in this weather they will likely get fed up waiting for other victims and go back to their frozen homeland".

Hugo waves his sword at the two children and shouts at them "think yourselves lucky I didn't catch you, you little devil's, this time I will let it go but begone and return to whence you came before I change my mind".

The children continue their taunting but they disappear in to the woods and cause no more trouble, for now.

The party continue their journey East, Hugo is in a foul mood following the altercation with the Children of Aurora and as the snow fall gets heavier so the mood of the party deteriorates and they become desperate to fins a place to spend the night before darkness falls.

Question, do they find a wayside in to stay this evening, roll d6 = 6 Yes (+1 /intervention point)
Current Intervention Point = 2 

Quesstion, is everything as expected at the inn, d6 roll = 3 (roll on d20 table), d20 roll = Yes (surprisingly).

At the end of the day as the night draws in, the party are lucky enough to find a wayside inn, there are lights on and revelry can be heard from within, my adventures open the door and start to enter and find to their surprise that the inn is full of customers, surprising as the heavy snow is keeping all but the fool hardy or heroic from venture outside their villages, surprising as there are no houses any where near the inn.

To try and work out why the inn is packed to the rafters I get three random verbs, I get wink, prevent, paste.  I will be honest here, those verbs don't really help me understand what's going on.

Question, are the patrons of the inn all human roll d6 = 6 Yes (+1 intervention point)
Current Intervention Point = 3, intervention.

roll d6 on Mune intervention table = 1 New Entity

As the party begin to enter  the inn a woman steps out from the darkness and shouts "do no go in there!"

The voice is at once quiet and ethereal, yet commanding and clear in its determination to stop the 5 PC's.  The five stop at once, all of them turn and there in front of them is a tall lady dressed in strange armour and a large two handed sword strapped to her belt, her face is more elven than human and the night sky has an unearthly glow around her.  

An owl glides down and settles on her shoulder, she is recognised at once as a Lady of the Fae

Image by Jim Cooper from Pixabay

Lady of the Fae.

True Name : Natritha

HD 6d10 (29hp)bi 
AC 17
Attack +6 to hit, Magic Sword 1d8 +3 damage
Alignment Chaotic

Awful Presence attempting to attack the Lady of the Fae requires a successful saving roll vrs spell.
Spellcaster the Lady of the Fae can cast the following 4 spells each day -
        Commanding Word, Obscurement, Phantom Skill, Wild Call 
True Name The Lady of the Fae has a true name that gives her foes power over her.
Vulnerable to Iron  The takes double hit points from Iron weapons
(random verbs to use with lady of the Eae, Doubt, Cough, Owe)

Question, Does the Lady of the Fae recognize Strawberri roll d6 = 6 "Yes" (+1 intervention point)
Current Intervention Points = 1
Question, Does the Lady know Strawberri;s True Name roll d6= 3 (roll on d20 table), d20 = 8 "No (but)
I
Roll against Strawberris wisdom to see if she recognises the Lady of the Fae, she has Farie Lore skill, so I give her +2, meaning she needs to roll 15 or less on d20 to recognise the Lady, d20 roll =8, she does.
Question, Does Strawberri know the Lady of the Faes true name, (Unlikely so -4 to Wisdom Roll and no skill bonus) needing 9 or less, d20 roll =5, Yes she does.

"My Lady Natritha" Strawberri bows her head in deference to to Lady of the Fae.

Natritha looks intently at Strawberri, "You seem familiar to me young Fae girl but I know not who you are and I do not recall a time we have met, yet you know me and my name, how is that so?".

I have run out of time with this session, but I am keen to find out why the inn is full of revellers and why the party should not enter on the say so of a Lady of the Fae, more importantly, how does Strawberri know the True Name of the Lady of the Fae.

Until session 5,

Adventure On!