Session 11: January 30, 2024 (31st Day of Springrise, 1165 AS) Good Night, Sweet Death Knight

Session 11: January 30, 2024 (31st Day of Springrise, 1165 AS)

Dramatis Personae:

• Echo, Wolfkin Hunter, played by Mike "If It Moves, Shoot It" P.
• Kelter Tealeaf, Halfling Rogue, played by Mike "The Kite" Y.
• Vinny Boombatz, Dwarven Fighter, played by Eric "Dwarven Loremaster" M.

Quod Occurrit:

The party gets wanderlust shortly after clearing Weatherstone, and decide to see what else is in their neighbourhood. They decide to skirt the mountains and head southwest. Vinny decides he needs to get better with his equipment management skills before setting out, and tries unsuccessfully to improve his packrat talent, even with a bit of guidance from Kelter. 

The dice had no encounters in store for our intrepid explorers, and in the distance they see what appears to be Dwarven city. Vinny confirms that it is indeed Dwarven architecture. He states that this must be Wailer's Hold, a settlement that was taken by humans in 867, after the Merromanian Dwarves abandoned it, leaving their Orc retainers to defend against the human incursion.

Echo notices the city appears to have had some recent but very sparse habitation, perhaps a few months ago, probably a small group of Dwarves. Echo attempts to track them via what bare rock can tell, and concludes that they probably went into the mountains. Vinny leaves a message in Dwarven trail markings at the now abandoned campsite, stating that they could be contacted at The Hollows if needed.

Further investigation of the city leads them to come across what appears to be an ancient barrow. Truth be told, I used a map from Barrowmaze (Barrow 5) and plunked it spontaneously down for funsies, since Wailer's Hold is not officially detailed in the core books, leaving it a black space to develop. There's a version in PDF on drivethrurpg, but I decided not to use it for reasons that now escape me. Anyway, since nothing ever bad happens in the environs of ancient barrows, our heroes decide to explore it, digging out the entrance and gaining entry. 

Dwarves really aren't so much for barrow building, so this barrow is certainly incongruous. It appears to be even older than Wailer's Hold proper. A mystery for later. 

The central chamber has a large statue of a crossbow-bearing warrior. After some investigating, they notice the trigger is actually moveable, and when pulled opens a compartment in the crossbow, revealing a desiccated leather pouch, with three gold inside. Nice!

There are doors on the east and west ends of the chamber, which are blocked with brick and mortar. They chip through the east door, stopping mid-way for a night’s sleep. In the morning they finish and enter, finding a chamber with a sarcophagus. Surely this sarcophagus is sealed shut with mortar for no reason in particular, so the party makes short work of it, releasing a Friendly Neighbourhood Death Knight, who is Rather Upset, and attacks the party. The death knight is apparently not a morning person, and does not to well for initiative. Vinny pulls a 1, going first with Rustbite. Fortunately the death knight has good armour, and doesn't take too much damage from the one Dwarf in Barrow 5 that still draws breath. Kelter then bravely charges in, stabbing the undead monster with his dagger. He pushed the roll, trying for more damage, but only ended up damaging his own strength instead, giving the death knight a scratch. Echo then lets loose with his arrow, doing a couple of damage which the armour did not absorb. Having finally realized that he's in a fight, the death knight tries to go all Darth Vader on Kelter by force-throwing him away, but Kelter is a Halfling with maxed out Willpower, which makes him very Hard to Catch indeed. The knight shrugs off another of Echo's arrows that just glances off his armour. What follow are a bunch of ineffectual attacks from the characters that are easily absorbed by the death knight's bronze maille armour. The knight goes after Kelter again, this time with his Crippling Cold ability, which poisons Kelter. He might be Hard to Catch, but gaze attacks can't be dodged like a physical attack. Of course, Nirvea cured him right away because that's literally why they took her on this trip. I can't complain if the PCs plans work out perfectly. The death knight is then brought down by Echo's arrows. Note to self: give "monster" type adversaries additional Initiative counts like in Dragonbane from now on. These PCs are tough. And the death knight rolled like utter crap. Oh well, that's life. Or unlife, I guess.

Most importantly, Echo took the death knight's badass armour. Can't possibly be cursed or anything, can it? It's probably fine. Yeah, it's fine.

Then they camped, reasonably certain that a barrow couldn't possibly have two death knights. We've had one, yes, but what about second death knight? I don't think the GM's heard of second death knight, Pip.