The city of Valenskald was a small but prosperous frontier town, ruled by the dwarven Baron Raminathis. Their first charge upon arriving in the city was to report to the Baron.
The Baron was an old but strong dwarf, who had ruled the barony for a long, long time. He was speaking with Gunthik when they arrived and appraised them silently before striding up to Bjorn, cracking his knuckles, taking Bjorn’s hand, and then squeezing for all he was worth. He was a strong dwarf with good technique, but this was hardly Bjorn’s first experience with such contests. He squeezed back until the Baron winced. The Baron pulled back his hand, let out a loud laugh, slapped Bjorn on the back, and vowed a rematch at a later date.
The Baron informed them that for the time being Gunthik and his squad would be working for him. All of his best soldiers were off to the battlefield, and so matters at home were being neglected. They were tasked with filling in for his deployed “special operations” crew – which meant both directly attending missions for the Baron and seeking out trouble in the barony and bringing it to the Baron’s attention.
His first official mission was for them to investigate the abandoned Forthwith Outpost. A small company of Gallivan irregulars had detached from the front and settled in there. He wasn’t clear why, as he believed the outpost to be “strategically useless”. But nevertheless it was still an enemy force camped out in his territory. They were to scout the situation, engage if practical, and report back. With one additional complication – the company included a double-agent – an elven woman named Iselyn who was acting as a spy for the Snow Alliance out of distaste for the Soraks. They were to ensure neither her safety nor her cover were compromised in the mission.
Next they stopped in at the library to visit Penelo. She was *very* interested when they mentioned hearing the woman’s voice keening behind the carved door – saying she had heard no such thing. She started asking questions about the exact description of the door, so Shea pulled out a parchment and sketched a drawing for her. Penelo was *extremely* impressed – as Shea’s memory for detail and reproduction was impeccable. She insisted upon paying them for it, and then dove right into researching the carvings. They figured they’d leave her to it and come back later to see if she got anywhere with it.
Finally they stopped in at the “Frosty Hag Tavern” – hoping for dinner and a place to stay the night. It was also theoretically the location of the “Lorelei” to whom they were supposed to deliver Cerulean’s letter.
The Innkeepers were a married dwarven couple named Christof and Kadne. They claimed Gunthik had already spoken to them, and they had a room set aside. However, they were under no circumstances allowed a drop of alcohol at the tavern – as they “didn’t want their establishment to follow in the footsteps of the Roaming Board”. Sigh. It seemed that incident was going to follow them everywhere.
Marcus attempted to make small talk to ease the tension a bit, and hopefully get off to a better start with them – given they were likely to be staying here for some time. In the process he learned that Kadne had two brothers – Tibald and Osgar – who often got into trouble with the law. And Osgar hadn’t been seen recently and Tibald was avoiding them. So Marcus promised to look into things as a favor. Couldn’t hurt to smooth things over a bit.
Lorelei paid well for delivery of the letter, after checking carefully to make certain they had not disturbed the seal. To be honest Marcus had considered it, but decided against it because Cerulean did not seem to be the sort of man that it would pay to antagonize.
They spent the night at the Inn – sadly sober – and then got up early the next day to resupply and head out for the Outpost.
Before leaving town, they stopped into the Old City to see Tibald. Unfortunately the story they got from him was not encouraging. It seems there was a wealthy widow named Esther who lived outside of town, who had lost her husband a few years ago and recently lost her daughter to illness as well. Osgar had decided this made for a prime opportunity for robbery from someone who “had already lost their will and wasn’t long for the world anyway”. They were rapidly losing all sympathy for Osgar…. Tibald said he hadn’t wanted to do it, so Osgar had left without him. And never returned. He didn’t want to tell Kadne because of how bad it all looked. How bad it *looked*?!?! Marcus certainly wasn’t above skating back and forth over the boundaries of “legal”, but this was despicable. They agreed for Kadne’s sake to look into things further. At the very least they could make sure the widow was okay.
As they approached the Outpost, they came upon a small camp with two travellers : Eadwald and his daughter Bethany. They were both priests. Eadwald served Misaye – the same as Marcus. His daughter served Pakri, the goddess of knowledge and Misaye’s polar opposite in many things. They made an odd pair. But apparently Eadwald was making a pilgrimage which involved visiting ‘ritual stones’ dotted around the area dedicated to Misaye with a special medallion. Touching one of the stones with the medallion brought a random bane or blessing from Misaye, and finding and braving them all was considered especially favored by her. His daughter was accompanying him to “keep the fool from losing his head on the mad quest”.
Marcus just could not resist. Eadwald had several of the medallions, and so he bought one – determined to complete this task himself. The first stone was quite close by, and was the reason Eadwald was here. When he had touched it, the pair had had to fight off a raging Minotaur. When Marcus touched it, however, a bewildered Dryad appeared. She curtsied, pointed to herself and said the word “Amaryllis”, and then pointed to the medallion. Then she stood next to Marcus and waved her hand forward. Apparently she would be accompanying them for the time being. She could not – or would not – utter another word.
They had their first run-in with the Gallivan irregulars not too long afterwards, as they were exploring the area around the Outpost. Amaryllis helped by summoning entangling vines and hurling splinters, but they were still nearly overwhelmed. Tiana attempted to quickly bring down an enemy druid, and was isolated from the others and surrounded by veteran Gallivan scouts. Bjorn broke through just as she went down, and was able to force the enemy back until Marcus could get close enough to tend her wounds. They would have to be more careful engaging the rest of the troops. These were *not* disorganized, poorly trained bandits like they had fought at the crossroads.
Exploring outside the outpost they found a number of alternate ways inside, and opted for climbing a vine-covered partly-collapsed wall. A bit of reconnaissance and they found Iselyn holed up in the Outpost tower – ostensibly “searching for usable loot”. She gave them the rundown on the outside forces, and where an how to engage them.
Tarikus the Jackal was the leader of the band, a conniving man with orcs, wolves, assassins, archers, and a mage at his disposal. The Company attempted to approach from an angle sheltered from long-range view, but Tariku’s pet mage found a position high on a battlement where he could attack from cover. So they quickly engaged Tarikus’ troops at close range to prevent the mage from being able to employ Area attacks. Marcus and Shea exchanged fire with the Mage, while Tiana and Bjorn held the line with the ground forces. And once the Mage went down and Tarikus found Bjorn in the open a far different challenge from ambushes from stealth.
Heleria the Silent Strider was a mercenary ranger with a flaming bow. She reacted quickly and intelligently to their assault – having her skirmishers spread out and attack from cover while her footmen attempted to keep the Bjorn and Tiana tied down. Fortunately between Amaryllis’ vines, Marcus’ black clouds, and Shea’s grease spells her archers were tied up – literally – and she was eventually forced into close range with Bjorn and Tiana. Which did not end well for her.
Finally, they approached the forces of Smilin’ Bogak – a large Half-Orc with shock troop henchmen backed up by a war-mage. Rather than engaging this crew on the ground, they took up a defensive position on a nearby tower. Bjorn guarded the top of the ladder while the others sniped from above – concentrating initially on the war-mage. For all his strength, Smilin’ Bogak was not strong enough to force Bjorn back from an entrenched position at the top of the ladder. And a hold-person from Marcus combined with a push from Bjorn put an end to the final leader of the Gallivan irregulars.
Checking back in with Iselyn, she said it seemed the Gallivan company had been here primarily as a diversion, as the infamous Jade Scar Kindred made their way to the jungles to the south. She had no idea what their purposes was there, as she knew of nothing important in the area. She also wasn’t sure whether or not the leader of the Jade Scars had been replaced with a Sorak infiltrator. She intended to catch up with and rejoin the Jade Scars while they reported back to the Baron.
But first, they wanted to explore the site thoroughly. There had to be some reason beyond distraction for Gallivan to be here. Exploring the underground lower level of the Outpost they found more questions than answers… a patrol of Soraks backed up by a Gallivan druid!! But even after defeating these fearsome foes they found little obvious reason for them to occupy this Outpost. There was clearly something they were missing. They would report back to the Baron, and see if he could shed any light.
On the way back they stopped at the Reginholt Estate to check on what had happened with Osgar and the widow Esther. They found a seemingly abandoned manor with no signs of life.
Searching thoroughly they did find a dirty, dwarf-sized set of garments folded in an upstairs drawer.. and packed them away to show to Tibald. Exploring outside they found a burning barn and dead, burned dryads – which Amaryllis stared at wide-eyed.
They followed a path from there back into the woods, and came upon a cryptic elven druid named Wolgrif. Wolgrif initially believed that the “pale man” had sent them, but Marcus was able to convince him that they knew nothing of this. He told them that they had not seen Esther in some time, and knew nothing of Osgar. But the “pale man” lived at the manor and came to the woods to steal bodies from the graveyard. They had tried to confront him, but he had proven too strong and killed several dryads.
They went back to search the manor and grounds again, but still found no sign of any inhabitation or any hidden areas. They resolved to return to the city and see if Tibald could identify the clothes, and then find out if the Baron or Gunthik knew any more. They needed to report what they found at the Outpost anyway.
Author’s Note: I love how this mod campaign organically uses the backgrounds, classes, stats, etc. of the characters. Rather than making a big deal about it, in Red Crow such things simply come up from time-to-time. Bjorn will happen to understand mercenary slang and references. The Baron can’t resist testing himself against Bjorn the big strong barbarian. Marcus will have options to respond to many characters cursing/praising Misaye in relation to good/bad luck. Or to respond to the wandering priest of Misaye by quoting scripture back. Shea had the “artist” background, and the “drawing a picture for Penelo” appeared as an option. It never hits you over the head with *congratulations!!! you picked ARTIST!!! here’s a pat on the head!!!”. It just… comes up when it comes up.
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