Session 2: 3/14/14

The party: Zrax F:1,Sabbitha MU:1 (mother of Chains the Cleric), Brother Burkey C:1, Halt Th:1, Honest the Bear(Elf with a Comb-over) E:1, Tika F:1 Alera F:1, Mordechai Th:1

The Summary:
Over drinks at the tavern, the original party met several other adventurers who had come into town to followup on rumors they had heard about the dungeon. In typical D&D fashion, everyone decided it would be great to join forces to head into the dungeon as soon as possible.

Still, only Zrax, from the first expedition, was able to get himself out of bed early enough to make the trip in the next morning with the group of newly arrived explorers and ne'er do wells.

Over breakfast, he chatted with Burzum about the mysterious people in black robes the party saw on their return trip. Burzum could offer no help, other than that there had been some reports of raids on caravans and prisoners appeared to have been taken and maybe they were somehow related.

In the predawn hours the party set out. The air was cold with a light drizzle, which turned to a downpour as they reached Trelleborg.

In front of the dilapidated tower, lay two limbless corpses of the type of goblinoids encountered on the first delve, with a large chunk missing from each of their abdomens. The bits of bloody rope gave away that these were, in fact, some of those that were left tied up.

Although Zrax urged the party to head towards the stairs to the dungeon proper, much of the party wanted to explore the tower, and so that was the approach taken. Highlights included:

• Setting off a sleep gas trap on a metal box containing some silver and knocking out half of the party.
• Discovering a side view painting of a map of what appears to be the dungeon under Trelleborg
• Mordechai made an impressive dive under the billowing tentacles of an Air Jelly to reach a chest, and suffered only a minor electrical burn when the party pulled him and the chest out via rope.

Having secured the tower to their satisfaction, they descended the steps they had found previously.

Two goat headed spiders descended upon the party, but were unable to do more than offer some weapons practice for the group. The cleric and Mordecai hacked off the goat horns, for use as daggers or possibly for sale. 

In the second room they entered, they found a skull of what appeared to have been a unicorn (horn cut off), surrounded by a weird goopy substance and some bloodied rusty manacles. A disconcerting, disembodied gurgling sound which seemed to bounce around the room, stopped for a moment when Honest the Bear called out to "Master." The goop was promptly lit aflame with torch and oil, although not before the skull was stowed safely in Halt's backpack.

Not far from that room, they came to a portcullis blocking their passage. Beyond, they could see a room with a 10' wide hole in the center that had been obviously and purposefully placed there. They easily found a lever, for what is presumably the portcullis, but a key hole near the lever dashed their hopes a bit - especially when neither thief could pick the lock. Tika and Zrax tried to lift the great gate but with little success.

Undaunted, they explored one of the junctions they had passed previously and entered into what appeared to be a large dining room. Here they found the remains of a vile feast of rat tails, giant centipede and what appeared to be large humanoid forearms. The wooden cups, and empty keg from the Haunted Keep Brewery, gave evidence that whoever ate this mess washed it down with some good ale.

In addition to the Iron Chef selection of delectables, they took a moment to marvel at the two large murals: one a propaganda type piece showing Dwarven miners toiling at excavating the earth, and another of a beautiful many-spired city of gold, that appeared to be in a cavern of sorts. The latter bore some runes in the lower right but none of the party speaks/reads Dwarf, so the cleric copied down the runes for later translation. 

The attached kitchen bore witness to the party's slaughter of a giant hydra-pede. During their exploration of the kitchen and attached cistern room, a patrol of 5 goblinoids arrived, but they too were outgunned by the party, who promptly killed and robbed them - including taking their armor and weapons. The bodies were left for the rats. 

At this point,with time running short, the party retraced their steps out of the dungeon and back to town to rest.

A More Prosaic View of Gorgoroth

Gorgoroth

Located on the large island of Nattefrost, Gorgoroth is one of several semi-autonomous border towns in federation with the city-state of Hedeby. In exchange for tax revenue, the government of Hedeby offers nominal protection of the citizenry of the villages and towns, and long term jailing for its criminals, on an as needed basis.

Gorgoroth’s government consists of a town council of elected representatives of local trade unions. Order is kept by a town watch, headed by an appointed sheriff and deputy.

The most well-known export of Gorgoroth is The Haunted Keep’s brews, but its lumber, harvested from the Carpathian Forest  is of superior quality to anything to the south and is the primary employer of the citizenry. Demand keeps the wood moving downstream on a steady basis until the cold and cruel Nattefrost winter sets in, but the growth of its logging industry has been held in check by Hedeby contracts for lumber with other city-states (diplomatic maneuvering, you know).

Situated on Morgan’s Creek, tributary of the Tanaelva River, itself a tributary of the Volvo, Gorgoroth is 10 days north of Hedeby by land. Downriver passage on a logging barge to Hedeby can be arranged, but travel north is generally by land, as this is far less expensive than hiring enough rowers to fight the currents.

Session 1: 2/28/14

The party consisted of a halfling, elf, magic-user, cleric and fighter.

The magic-user attempted to recruit some street urchins for the role of torch bearer or porter, but the offer he made was abysmal (his below average charisma didn't help) and the result was that the urchin spread the message to avoid working for this guy. 

This would prove to be unnecessary.

The party left Gorgoroth in the pre-dawn hours to make the half-day journey to Trelleborg. 

Upon arriving and doing a brief reconaissance of the only standing structure remaining, the party entered the old tower - and the magic-user promptly fell into a covered pit trap and died. (Malieger T. Borias, we hardly knew ye) The party learned a valuable lesson in caution. And then looted his body by lowering the halfling into the pit several times, leaving the body for the rats.

He was replaced by a promising fighter.

They explored much of the tower and found a trap door down into the dungeon, but opted to postpone a descent, until they had secured the tower. This lead to a brief encounter with some goblinoids, who looked a lot like this:

http://necr0w.deviantart.com/art/corpsepaint-II-129752482

The aforementioned promising fighter was run through with a yari and died before the elf had a chance to cast Sleep and take out the entire group of goblin-y creatures.

A debate ensued as to whether or not to burn them all alive while they slept wake them all and then burn one while forcing the others to watch, and other such tactical considerations. In the end, they decided to go Reservoir Dogs, sort of, and cut the ear off one of the underlings, to try and get the leader to talk, but really, he couldn't have cared less and he just laughed.

Still, he had been shamed by the encounter, and so, requested permission to die honorably by his own hand (sepuku). The party agreed, in exchange for information, and then, the information obtained, promptly left the ruins, leaving the goblinoid leader (and underlings) bound and alive, to face his shame, and whatever should come along and find them.

On the return trip, the party spotted a procession of creatures in hooded black robes headed toward the ruins. They smartly avoided any contact and made it back to the village later in the evening.