Dramatis personae:
Yémos, a cleric
Anêr, a swashbuckler
Mayhem, a barbarian
Caleb, a wizard
Quid occurrit:
Oh, they've been through the forest with a pony with no name,
And they're about to step into the rain.
Name the fucking horse! — Richard Jeni
The pony got the name of either "Greymare" or "Bill" when the group found him, wandering outside on the afternoon of 3 Blôs. They chose to head northeast to Káddrakos.
After a few hours of walking, though still before nightfall, six wolves suddenly set upon them. The pony, whatever her name is, stepped back, while the wolves rushed to the two fighters afore the others, and got little nips at them before they could gather their wits about them. Anêr and Mayhem started taking swings, while Yémos cast Shield on Mayhem, and Caleb cast Explosive Fireball. The wolves started biting at their legs, and one ran around towards Yémos. Mayhem got a killing blow, and as it died, the wolf turned into a hairy man.
Uh-oh.
 |
| Not quite. |
Caleb threw his Explosive Fireball, but it didn't make the werewolves panic, as it would true wolves. Still, it killed another wolf, but the living wolves cripple the legs of both Anêr and Mayhem, Anêr dropping his sword while trying to parry the blow. Another took a bite out of Yémos's chest, and he falls down.
Now, the wolves tried to drag off the three heroes. They bit on the heroes and started to pull them off. Anêr grabbed his sword and stabbed at the wolf. The wolf must let go of Anêr to get away, but did and then bit on him again. Mayhem swung his axe into the wolf dragging Yémos, while Caleb tried to lob a Fireball at the last wolf, who had run after the now-spooked pony, but he missed.
After a few more seconds, Mayhem and Caleb, who had run up to the others, killed the wolf on Yémos, while the others howled and fled. After a few minutes, Caleb caught up with their pony, then brought her back and did some first aid on the others. Both Anêr and Mayhem found they can walk on their legs, so Mayhem set up camp and shelter.
The night went without issue, though Yémos didn't sleep well. He healed Anêr and Mayhem, then the others loaded him onto the back of the pony, and grabbed their gear. Early that morning, a beetle almost as big as the pony set on them while they walked to Káddrakos. As they tried to kill the beetle, Anêr ran around to the back of the beetle, and it let out a cloud of harmful mist, which makes both Anêr and Caleb, who had run up to the beetle to stick his sword between its plates. Anêr, however, stayed in the mist, and put his sword through the plates in the back of the beetle, killing it.
Yémos healed both Anêr and Caleb, though his spells didn't work well on the latter. Mayhem went hunting while Yémos healed, but didn't catch anything. Yémos cast Create Food on the bug, which gave them both two meals and the farts, much like the bug, though not deadly farts.
They didn't make good time due to the wounds to both spellcasters, so they set up camp that night, still a few miles from Káddrakos. Mayhem set up the camp well, but he couldn't make a good shelter from the reeds and sticks in the grasslands. The next day, Yémos healed Caleb, and that afternoon, they found the body of an orc in leather and bearing a shield and axe. Yémos figured out the burnt Celtic cross on the shield of the orc marked him as one of the Vile Brand band, and they found eight silver pennies on his body. They easily found his cause of death: vines covered him, and had strangled him.
That night, they made it to Káddrakos, storm clouds overhead. Anêr and Yémos went to the Church of Bagóbros, and there, a plump gnome woman named Dīrónē leaned up from her cobbling and healed them for a few pennies. They asked Dīrónē of any quests. She told them that she had heard of a dragon in a ruin in the hills to the northwest, and told them the tale of Atilíā, a thin gnome woman from Dīrónē's youth. She was a peddler who had sold a stone statue of a baby, who, when dipped in water, turned into the lost son of the Duke of Magápos. A few months after this, the other gnomes found Atilíā's body in the middle of the road, stakes nailed in her hands and feet.
Meanwhile, in the Winking Friar, Vískōl, the barkeep, was glad to see them. Allikolía, the one-armed gnome ranger, was not there. In the small crowd of drinkers was a hobbit with deep-set eyes, who talked loudly about going to sell leather to the army in a keep in a land filled with dead trees. When they figured out about whom the hobbit was talking, Mayhem went up to him, and the hobbit mocked Mayhem for being a barbarian, then let him know that, if the wizard in the keep had money, he'd be happy to do business with him.
That night, it rained, which made the roads bad. Mayhem, however, thought he knew how to get to Ōndrûnks without going through too many puddles, and so they set out. However, that morning …
Extra ludum
This ends on a cliffhanger since it was five minutes to four, and we were going to go at four-ish. I gave out two character points since I let the werewolves fail their second morale check, which was a gimme. The next encounter is five bandits, and I have some time to roll them up: 9 November.
It's hard for me to believe it had been so long since they had started a walk and set up a camp that I had trouble remembering the rules in Dungeon Fantasy 16. It took a minute or two to get through that again.
The most creative idea that happened was that, while the wolf was dragging Yémos, Eric wanted to cast Create Food on the wolf. After all, the spell doesn't say you can't cast it on still-living matter. It seemed so wrong but so clever that I wanted to find a way to let it work, but I couldn't. The Butcher spell in GURPS Magic: Death Spells is Very Hard and needs Magery 3 to work. Prerequisites aren't a big balancer, but this is a guideline that says you just can't do this. Still, it was a great idea.
And what do werewolf bites do, anyways? Do they turn the victim into a werewolf? Or into a furry?
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