What do you want to do?

What do you guys want to do in the game?

Deal with the armies of the Raven and the Goat (pssst, the goat is Orcus’ army, which is waging war against the Raven Queen’s army)?

The winter raiders who come down out of the mountains and leave villages in frigid desolation?

Seek out a place to store the Wand of Orcus?

I forgot that we stored the Wand of Orcus with Gitta, the Storm Giant on her cloud citadel.

The trio chose to hunt the winter raiders.

• Lowell plays Kayban Silverluck the Thief-god
• Rich plays Marton the Barbarian-god
• Fraser plays Myfanwe the Wizard-god

The trinity was re-united as Myfanwe and Kayban found Marton in the town square, bench pressing a yack. He made his strength roll, having gotten in 52 reps.

I looked over Frost Giants and a relevant Demon Lord (if you know your monster manuals, you know which one) and off we went. It took a while to get going. We all really thought the game was going to be a one-shot, so folks didn’t hold on to much. The game started in Cresthill. Refugees from the mountains were pouring in with terrible wounds and frostbite.

They talked to Gadise, a lovely old lady who led the refugees here, having heard that Cresthill is no longer ruled by a Demon Lord and is a just place with a trinity of fine young gods. I described how the villagers leave offerings of flowers and fruit on their doorsteps, except for Marton, for him they leave offerings on the tower they took down.

I read the Monster Manual entry on Frost Giants that Myfanwe the Wizard-god, who has the Knowledge word, found in the castle’s scrolls. Gadise talked about how the raiders took the town, how the frigid winter winds blew in and the knight was killed and oh yeah, there was a big guy who looked just like Galluk, Marton the Barbarian-god’s brother.

“We’ll need winter gear.”

“The villagers pour winter clothes on you, offering you whatever they have. Do you have anything you want to talk about on the way to the mountains? Otherwise, I’m just going to Indiana-Jones-red-line this shit.”

They rolled to track down a Frost Giant scout and failed.

“A lone scout leads you into the broken remnants of a mountain castle. It totally is not an ambush.”

The Ambush

Frost Giants are 10HD monsters. I didn’t give them strength modifiers to their damage and I probably should have. My bad. The Frost Giants were barraging the trinity with boulders from all angles.

There was a point where I could feel their frustration growing. There was some wiffing but there might’ve been some bad math at hand too.

Anyway, I described the giants growing frustrated too, explaining that most humans stuck in their kill zone die fast and die ugly. The giants weren’t ready for a morale check until the Wizard-god and his summoned undead minions (undead Githyanki, wtf happened in this castle?) took down their first giant and Marton knocked over a tower when his attacks were falling flat.

They got the scout who led them into the mess, letting the rest scatter into the mountains and got directions to the Gateway Mountain. Marton has a cool word all about making friends and so he made friends until Myfanwe gave him a death stare and did damage (for no reason other than the Frost Giant was an evil eff).

We had started late in the evening, after this week, I wanted a game to look forward to tonight. Tired, we ended there.

Lessons

Yeah, have some stats written out, Judd. The stat blocks for the game aren’t that big and with the Monster Manuals as a guide, it isn’t difficult.

Morale is a great way to end combats that are dragging, especially when a Barbarian-god punches down a tower and a Wizard-god summons undead Githyanki, not even to mention when the Thief-god threw a shoulder of a boulder at a giant and it hurt.

These characters can take a pounding.

 

 

 

Art

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “The Elevated Boulder, Bartlett, N.H.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e1-8c44-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

General Research Division, The New York Public Library. “Yak.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1809. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-512c-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99