Below the Ice in Forgotten Lands (part II)

Holed up and healing their wounds, the party discovered that the health of at least a couple of members (Fil and Panope) had suffered permanent damage to their constitutions. While discussing what to do next, they suddenly noticed a faint light trailing through the ruins and making its way toward their hidey-hole. In a few short moments, they were face to face with a young human woman dressed in wizard robes and leaning on a rather potent-looking magic staff.

Elazti the Magic-User, as envisioned
by Aisha and drawn by Amanda.

A master of levitation, lightning, scrying, and fire, Elazti (new player Aisha!) had come to the Frozen City alone to investigate stories that the ruins contained long-lost artifacts, lore, and magical knowledge. A gentle soul, the sorceress agreed to travel with the party (safety in numbers!) for as long as it suited her.

Over the next day, the party covered a large swath of the abandoned city, encountering and/or (thanks to Elazti's crystal ball) spying out:

• A pen of albino apes who had been enslaved by the Morlocks. The beasts were soon set free by Fil and Elazti, while Indis created another illusion of the Morlocks' six-legged dragon god to befuddle and frighten the ape-handlers.
• A trio of ice trolls in a rough-built tower, ready to pounce on or icicle-skewer any who traveled beneath it. (The party wisely gave the trolls a wide berth.)
• Charred skeletons who rose up from thick, ancient ash that covered one whole block of the city. Beneath the dust of aeons and bones, the heroes eventually found a few magical trinkets.



The spire inside the dome (or something not unlike it).

• The cracked remains of a great stone dome which seemed to be filled with tall, metallic boxes covered in jewels and levers. At the center of the dome was a round, cavernous chamber with a tall spire in the middle. The spire had been cracked and some kind of fire had apparently blasted out of it in the distant past. Smoke and an orange glow still emanated from deep within.  Wrapped around the spire, apparently asleep, was the Morlocks' dragon god itself.

Leery of engaging a possible deity (or even just a typical dragon), the party decided that they had had enough of the Frozen City.  Besides, they had already found more silver than they could easily carry (~600 pounds of coins).  They quietly made their way back toward the entrance Elazti had first used, where three small streams cut through the ice and ran to the outside of the glacier.

Afraid to disturb the water too much, Fil ingested Indis's polymorph potion and transformed into a giant eagle. In his new form, he was able to carry (with a few trips), the party members and their treasure to the exit.  After a treacherous trip down what was essentially an icy waterslide, the party emerged at the base of the glacier, which was, itself, perched on the edge of a tall mountain-cliff.  After countless days underground, even the gray late-winter sun of the frozen north woods seemed blinding.

Below the Ice in Forgotten Lands

Having escaped being sacrificed at the hands of the Morlocks, our battered heroes holed up on the second floor of a long-abandoned building and licked their wounds. Waking the next morning (if morning it was... hard to tell under a mile of ice), Indis the elf sensed cold and death from the next building over.

Image from
http://xxred-haloxx.deviantart.com/art/Barrow-Wight-19347748

The party slipped inside the ancient, crumbling structure and made their way to the second floor where they found a room piled high with rotting wood, chipped stone, and human(ish) bones laced with cuts. At that point, they heard from the floor above the sound of a metal blade being dragged across the stone.  Battle axe at the ready, Indis climbed the steps to the next floor and nearly lost her head to a ghostly knight in ornate armor. Though he had no face to speak of, his helm revealed a pair of glowing, icy-blue eyes. Indis suffered only a minor cut across her forehead but at the same time felt some of her very life-force drain away.

A heated battle ensued. Just as the first wight was defeated at a high cost in life-force (CON points), two more arrived on the scene. The party fled. An unscathed Ambiorix covered their exit as the others sped down the stairs and toward the front door... where they encountered a fourth wight blocking their path.  Pressed to fight, the heroes seemed to rally and quickly dispatched their assailant with a combination of spells and magic weapons. Meanwhile, the two wights from upstairs could be heard making their way down...

In the seconds following the fight at the door, Ambiorix, Fil, and Indis set up a quick ambush at the bottom of the stairs. When the last two wights finally appeared, the party attacked with everything they had. It was a short and brutal battle but eventually our heroes won out.

In all, Fil the halfling and Panope the cleric fared the worst, to the point where the latter's permanent health is now severely damaged. On the bright side, a search of the wights' 4th floor lair revealed something of a treasure trove: chests containing around 12,000 ancient silver coins, an assortment of scrolls and potions, and a magical +3 sword longsword (which was given to Xanna the thief).

At this point, the party decided to barricade themselves into the former wight lair and heal as best they could.

NEXT TIME: a new ally, apes amok, and skeletons, dragons, and ash...

Proselytizing (and Stabbing) in the Name of Herbert the Pig God

Dramatis Personae:

• Indis the Elf, aka "Crowbar" (played by Cori)
• Filibert Fairbarn the Halfling (played by Ben)
• Ambiorix the Fighter (played by Sam)
• Panope the Cleric (NPC, but run in combat by Sam)
• ...and introducing Xanna the Thief (played by Amanda)

Bones vs. Animals vs. Shiny Objects

As the party reached the top of the Treacherous Stair they found themselves face with three possible entrances into the depths of the Great Glacier.  In front of the left tunnel were scattered several broken stone tools and weapons as well as the gnawed-upon bones of many creatures.  The middle tunnel showed signs of entry and exit by a creature or creatures with long, thin lizard-like feet ending in three talons... and what's more, something just inside the tunnel was glittering!  The right-hand tunnel smelled strongly of animals and just inside its entrance lay the frozen and ripped-open body of a large wolverine.  Not-so-surprisingly, the adventurers decided to take their chances with the middle tunnel and its glittery contents.

All That Glitters...

Ice Trolls!

Inside, the glitter turned out to actually be gold.  In particular, half a dozen bricks of the metal (each about the size of a 1/4" thick playing card), stamped in an unreadable language.  It was stacked neatly in the middle of the tunnel, as if left there on purpose.

Further exploration led to a room filled with discarded bones and some kind of carnivorous beast scat* and then another chamber scattered with more gold (coins this time) and contemporary weapons (contemporary for the setting--swords and the like, not AK-47s).  

It was in the third chamber--after Ambiorix and Fil fell through a cleverly-disguised pit in the floor--that the denizens of this tunnel were identified:  Ice Trolls!  As the fighter and halfling struggled their way out of the pit, three of the monsters leapt across it and attacked the rest of the party.  (Fortunately, Ambiorix had a Rope of Climbing to aid him and Fil out.)  Thinking quickly, Indis used a Phantasmal Force spell to create an illusionary cube of fire around the trolls, which not only bought enough time for Ambiorix and Fil to get themselves out of the pit trap, but also allowed Xanna to soften up the monsters a bit using her crossbow.  The illusion trapped the trolls for several rounds and, after attacking them with flaming oil-- and finally swords--the party had dispatched them.

Victorious but bloodied, everyone decided to find a defensible position and heal overnight.  (Aided significantly by Xanna's ingenious "portable heater" made of candles, clay pots, and a tent.)

I Am the Prophet of Herbert!

Morlocks.  Lots and lots of them.

The next day, our heroes decided to exit the troll tunnel and explore the left-hand passageway marked by discarded bones and stone tools.  Descending deeper into the glacier, they eventually discovered a guardroom filled with blue-skinned primitives who also seemed to keep albino apes as pets/servants.  Instead of rushing to attack, it was decided that Fil should try to communicate with them.  Who knows, maybe the creatures would honor the PCs as heroes for destroying the ice trolls?  (You can see where this is going already, can't you?)

Between Indis's ice pictograms and Fil's grunting and pantomime, it seemed like the Morlocks (for that's what they were) understood.  Suspicious but open, they escorted the characters through the tunnels (at spearpoint, it should be mentioned) and into a massive cavern filled with a ruined city, an underground lake, and a village of crude huts.

Just as it seemed that all might be well, however, the party was pushed to the center of town where there stood a crudely-carved statue of a six-legged dragon.  As the party drew closer, the hundred-some Morlocks began to chant "Ch-thisst! Ch-thisst!"  A shaman appeared, covered in tattoos and wearing a necklace made of the same kind of gold bricks found earlier.  Raising a ceremonial stone dagger over his head, the shaman motioned for Fil to step forward.  Not quite ready to be sacrificed to the Dragon God, Fil instead grunted and motioned for the shaman to stand down.  And then he produced Herbert the Two-Headed, Possibly-Enchanted, Golden Piglet Statue from his pack and raised it above his head like an idol, demanding worship. Enraged by this blasphemy, the shaman leapt at Fil while commanding his followers to attack.

And that's when Indis's illusions saved the party once again.  Just as the mob of angry, armed monsters were closing in, she made it appear that the Dragon God itself had come and was about to devour everything in its path.  The Morlock village lost its shit.  A dozen or so monsters (including the shaman) attempted to destroy the interlopers who'd made their god so angry that he decided to show up in person, but most of them ran for cover.

And thus began a running fight to the village's back gate.  It was close a couple of times--Xanna escaped with a single hit point remaining, and most everyone else was battered and bruised--but eventually everyone made it away from the village and into the dark maze of the ruined city beyond.  Taking cover in one of the ruined buildings, the party decided once again to make camp and formulate the next step in their quest for the Frozen City's legendary gold...

The Frozen City.  No, the Coke sign is not really there.
I borrowed the map from here.

Tabletop photo by Sam.

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* Carnivorousness is the assumption, at least, when poo contains teeth and bits of bone.

When Last We Left Our Heroes...

Filibert Fairbarn the Halfling, Ambiorix the Fighter, and Indis the Most Metal Elf Ever (plus assorted henchpersons) had stopped by Frostwyk to visit Ambiorix's family home whilst en route to the fabled Frozen City of the north.  (The city being famous for its supposed hoard of strangely-marked gold guarded by white apes.)

Maeglynn Icewine, half-sister of Ambiorix

At Icewall, Rethel "The Boar" Icewine's estate, the fighter found his father had become older and frailer, though the Lord was happy to see that his bastard son had found and brought home his daughter, the missing Maeglynn. (She had been charmed and then kidnapped by the vampire Polidori.)

After a short stay, the party continued north to the Treacherous Stair leading to the great glacier and the City it supposedly encapsulates.  In the narrow canyon, they were set upon by harpies but destroyed the beasts without loss.

After several days' journey, the group now finds itself at the glacier's edge, the enormous wall of ice stretching for what seems like miles above their heads.  Here at the top of the Stair, three tunnels of man-height burrow into the ice.  Bones litter their entrances and a freezing cold breeze wafts from inside, the air smelling of steel and death...