Naglfar is loose. Over the sea from the north there sails a ship with the people of Hel.
At the helm stands Loki. After the wolf do wild men follow, and with them the brother
of Byleist goes.
Welcome to Episode 14 of the Vikings and Valkyries podcast. Joining us to sail the ship of the
dead are Bill, Steve, CJ, Jay and Evan. Welcome to you, Nailfarers.
Hi, how are you?
We have a new recruit to the ranks today, Evan, who is yet another Hopkins. So Evan,
the question I have for you is what is it like growing up in a family where your uncle
tries to murder you like Richard III?
Yeah, it's definitely not easy from a young age. Fighting for scraps, making sure that
this guy isn't kind of around your back. You know, yeah, growing up as a Hopkins is always
great. There's a certain je ne sais quoi around what we do as a people and really looking
forward to putting that on display today.
Very good. Bill in the background is wielding all kinds of weaponry. So that's an interesting
commentary. I wanted to just take a moment to look at the name Hopkins. Have any of you
various Hopkins on this call got an idea of the origin of the name Hopkins?
That's fascinating.
I've been told it's Welsh, but I don't know.
Well then prepare to be amazed because I've done my research. It's actually from Hobb kin.
So hin obviously being Kith and Kin family, but Hobb being the short form of Robert in
the Middle Ages. And Robert itself has Old Norse origins. It comes from that first part,
Rob comes from the Old Norse name Hróðr being translated as glorious or famed. So your name
basically means Kin of glory.
Wow. So we each get an inspiration point for that.
Not quite yet. I wanted to make sure that everyone knew we were in a lustrous company.
A few famous Hopkins for you. There's Matthew Hopkins, the 17th century witch finder general.
My favorite.
The poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Margaret, are you grieving over Golden Grove and leaving? I know Gerard Manley very well.
Well, look at that. That's Sir Anthony Hopkins, who obviously played Odin. So you are related
to the All Father.
And then of course, Bonnie Tyler, who is still holding out for a hero. Bonnie Tyler's was
born and maiden name was Gaynor Hopkins.
I did not know that.
Gaynor. What a handle.
So feel free to hum holding out for a hero as over the course of this podcast, because
you certainly need one.
As a historian, I would like to contest this honorable, you know, this interpretation of
what the name means. Because if Bob is a is a colloquialization of Robert, then it seems
to me that rather than being these illustrious people, they have a distant ancestor that
happened to be that happened to be perhaps a servant or just had a buddy named Robert.
And then when asked, what's your last name?
Robert, my friend, my kin. Oh, OK. So Hopkins. OK, good.
They are glory adjacent. There we go. Well put.
Well, we're just awful.
That's strong language, CJ, from someone whose character almost won the tug of war.
Yes. OK. Well, point well taken.
All right. Well, a chance for the Hopkins to live up to their illustrious ancestors in the adventure to come.
Now we are playing the second half of the Ship of the Dead adventure. And so my question
to you for the second part is this. This is for your inspiration points. In the Norse
text, Gylfaginning, the gods warn about burying the dead with untrimmed nails. Why is that?
So that they can't dig their way out of the grave.
Yes. Yes. Yes. I think they wanted them to look tidy.
Yeah. You know, you always want to go into the afterlife feeling clean. So maybe just clean up.
You want to look your best, right? First impressions.
Yeah, they wanted the nails for something. Why don't you carry on that thread, Steve?
You're on something. Pull out that piece of thread and see where you get to.
Well, we know that the we were told, I don't remember by whom, that the ship we were looking for was called
Nail Farer or Nail Biter. Maybe it was a fever dream on my part, but I thought there was something about a ship made out of toenails.
Steve, I'm going to give you a round of applause and I'm going to let you know that in that Norse text, I mentioned
a character named High, which is an avatar of Odin, states that that ship, the Nail Farer, is made of dead people's nails.
And so it's worth taking care lest anyone die with untrimmed nails, since such a person contributes to the ship,
which gods and men wish would take a long time to finish. The Nail Farer is the ship that heralds Ragnarok.
So if you don't trim your nails, you bring about the end of the world.
Oh, gosh, that sounds like that ship would have quite the thick hide.
All right. So that was part one. So I'm going to give you half the inspiration point.
The second one is this is so we've done the mythological. Let's do the historical.
The famous Norwegian Viking ship, the Oseberg ship, which was built in AD 820 or thereabouts and then buried in a grave mound
several years later and then excavated in 1904. Can you name me five things found in the burial chamber within?
Coin, mead, lodestone.
None of those three things were found, partly because the tomb had been robbed by grave robbers
and all the obviously valuable things had been purloined.
So the Oseberg specifically had a body in it of a woman who was in her fifties thought to be Asa from the Ynglinga saga.
The connection is tenuous, although it does date to around the right time, the eight thirties or so.
So they found her body and then that of a servant, a couple of animals.
There's also a carriage gets built kind of like a four post bed. And then there's also the prowl that has the actually this is one of the the evidences that we have for Viking hairstyles.
There's a wood carving of a man with with long hair that gives us an idea of, you know, well, maybe they were long hair.
So is that enough? Did I give you enough? I think you got the point.
I'll give you the point. But the only thing that you missed was that was the so-called Buddha bucket,
which I always find interesting personally because they found a bucket with an ornate carving of the Buddha on the side, which shows just how far they traveled.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a picture of it.
That's cool. Yeah, that's really fun.
Well, we don't know if they traveled that far, but they at least had trade connections with people who went that far.
They traded with someone who had gone that far.
So what we've got there then is we've is between Steve and CJ.
They've got the inspiration points and the Hopkins boys.
We know nothing. Yet to get on the scoreboard.
The Hopkins in general.
Just give it a little time. A little some creative answers.
They were about creativity, not accuracy, more fact. Factual.
So pressure makes diamonds, fellas. Pressure makes diamonds.
So in my defense, the digging out of the grave thing was something that I saw recently about like vampires and trying to dig their way out of the grave and that whole thing.
And since the lady ended up being Swedish, do I get the other half point for Steve?
Sure. You've got the full inspiration point this week.
And I was tempted to give Bill a bonus for quoting Gerald Manley Hopkins, but that's far too pretentious.
So no. Wow. Yeah. Keep the point.
Let's kick off this week's thrilling adventure.
So we start on the frozen sea ice.
Several days travel outside of Hjálpmakaar at the coordinates given to you by the Rune Master, Raudr Cerden.
And I'm going to say that naming Raudr Cerdem, not Valdonki.
Sounds like Valdonki to me. Valdonki it is, yes.
The wind is howling and you are buffeted with snow and ice.
A derelict ship emerges from the snow flurries partially enveloped by the icy wastes.
The weak lights of your equipment can barely penetrate the storm, but you make out the stenciled name Falkr.
It creates an ominous silhouette against the stark terrain like an enormous piece of driftwood cast onto a frozen shore.
Above you, the scar in the sky continues to pulse with surreal beauty across the vast black canvas of space,
a ribbon of radiant energy that bathes you in an otherworldly glow of pinks, blues and purples.
It shimmers and undulates with a life of its own like a serpent twisting amidst the stars.
It is little wonder that people mistook it for the Northern Lights.
Now, Jay and Evan, you stand in the shadow of this derelict ship
and then out of the gloom you see three strangers stagger out of this endless white abyss, each with a thousand yard stare,
figures who have cheated death and escaped the freezing jaws of the brutal blizzard.
Why, hello and welcome to the ship. I am Gravebreaker and this...
Snow Thunder, how do you do?
Greetings! I am Grjotgarth, the Magnificent.
You may have heard of me, I won the silver medal in the All Asgard Games for Toga honk.
My friend called me Gigi for short. And these two are a tree and a rock.
Greetings.
I would like to act like I'm at rest, but, uh, far from it, um, what are you doing here and, uh, why should we entertain you?
Ljomi says, be careful with the diamond-encrusted one. He is not to be trusted.
And Ljomi turns to Gigi and says, furious Starkad flies forth into the Danes, killing warriors all around him.
And kind of looks off into the distance.
Be careful with the tree, he is in fact batshit insane.
You're made of diamonds?
No, no, no, that's just a figure of speech.
Eir will, uh, he waves his hands a moment, traces some runes in the air,
and assumes his more normal form of a completely nondescript human.
So, so just to be clear there, then, Steve, you are using a spell slot and casting Glamour Sight and, uh, changing your form?
Absolutely, yes, I am. I'm returning to my normal form. I am a nondescript human.
He is not as he seems.
So just to be clear, have these three gotten into this ship?
Jay and Evan, your characters, Snow Thunder, and Gravebreaker, are looking down at these three new arrivals.
You stand in the kind of loading bay. This is a, this is a ship that is made of ironwood.
It is a bio ship. It's not steel. It's not got bomb bay doors.
It has a pore, a kind of hollow that acts as an entranceway.
And you are poised in that entranceway, having just found this ship and hoping to claim it for yourself.
And they stand outside.
Okay.
Well, Snow Thunder, you a man of war. Do you think we trust them?
Listen, the one that is not made of diamonds may enter. The other two, I'm not so sure.
I believe you mean me. Thank you, Snow Plunder.
Okay.
And Nave Beaker.
You know, I-
Well come and well met. The enemy rises over the hill.
We cannot let these guys in.
Get my axe, Snow Thunder. We cannot let them in.
This talking tree would make good firewood, don't you think?
You may not, sir. Here's my tree. And he's quite useful.
Do you own this, what may be called a vessel?
Technically, yes.
Define technically.
We are here in the doorway, right? It's finders keepers.
Losers weepers.
You who are versed in law, what does it say about a Jarl arriving and taking salvage rights?
Good thing about not being able to read. Ain't no laws.
What would be the custom for a Jarl, claiming salvage rights on all and everything he surveys?
With honor plus seven.
It's not like Ozymandias surveying the Lone and Level Sands. He doesn't just get to claim everything he gazes upon.
It probably is the case that if these two junkers and salvagers have arrived there first, they've effectively planted their flag, so to speak.
That said, Evan, can you give me an awareness roll, please?
Nice 20, and a dice six.
That's nine.
And you also have an awareness modifier on your count, which is probably a plus three, so that should make it a 12 total, right?
Looks like it, yeah.
Something strange happens, because out in the blizzard beyond, out the corner of your eye, instead of where you would see normal shadows, you see a strange caribou-type creature.
And then with a blink of an eye, you look round to focus on it, and it's gone.
Whoa. Was that an elk? Caribou? Possibly a reindeer?
Did it walk on two feet or four?
You get the impression that it was standing upright.
Upright? That is no elk that I have seen.
I believe I know what it is. It's a large, dangerous creature that will kill us all unless we stow away in the ship.
Let's make these negotiations quick, shall we? I'm a very rich man. If you partner with me, I will make it worth your while.
See, we are already rich. We've already got money. What about manual labor? If you come in, can you possibly help us strip parts from the ship so that we can leave with these? You'd better hurry, the time is ticking.
Yes, yes, very strong, as I said. Silver medalist.
Okay, come on in. Get in here then. Get in.
Go ahead and get your butts in.
Get your ass in here.
But, the deal is you must work.
Evan, I'm going to ask you, there's something unnerving about seeing this creature, so I'm going to ask you to make a will roll this time.
A one.
Wow. Perfect. Critical fail. Nice. It carries on with the tradition, Evan. We roll badly here.
Good.
There is an unnerving sensation that comes over you that this creature with red eyes is looking deep into your spirit. I'm going to give you one trauma and you will have the frightened condition for the next minute or so as you wander through the ship.
You are trembling and shaking, unnerved by the spectral apparition of the creature beyond.
Oh, you guys, you guys see that? Holy shit.
Hey, come on, man. Hold it together, man.
That thing is terrifying. All those years in the woods. Bring it back. Bring it back, man. Feel it.
I slap Gravebreaker in the face and say, get it together, baby.
No.
You're right. You're right. We've got to do it for our families.
Yes.
Is he laughing at us?
No, he gets nervous.
It's a stress response.
All right, so we enter the ship. Yes.
So let me give you a brief description because you're going to have to guide yourselves through the interior of the vessel.
Some of you do have a floor plan by which you can navigate, but this first place that you are in here is the equipment lock, which stores the power supply. There's an assembly of gap suits, gap suits being the equivalent of space suits in this universe.
The gap, the Ginnungagap being the name for space or the yawning void.
The room is also the kind of extravehicular pour. So normally it's pressurized and depressurized, enabling gapfarers to venture into the void.
Now here it is inert and remains open to the icy waste outside.
Can you all, though, give me an awareness roll with two woes to see whether you spot anything as you clamber aboard?
Yeah, nine minus six.
Fourteen minus five, so nine.
Thirteen total.
OK, well, ironically, Ayr, it's you who notices a message scratched onto one of the gap suit helmet visors as you clamber aboard. You see words etched into the glass that say, sometimes dead is better.
They're not wrong.
You mentioned one of the other people sort of acted strangely when we boarded the ship. Do any of the rest of us feel strange?
Well, me specifically, but no.
Gravebreaker was the only one looking out over your shoulders at the creature behind us, the only one that spotted the creature and so therefore was the only one that got that trauma.
OK, so that was from seeing the other creature, not from boarding the ship. Although this scratched on the space suit visor is not a great start.
Feel free to give yourself a trauma.
I mean, it goes with I have quite a collection.
So, yeah, that sort of sets the creepiness meter to like one or two. I will show this to CJ and just go, look, my girl, this seems a strange thing to...
Is it carved on the inside or the outside, by the way?
On the outside.
A strange artifact indeed.
Perhaps some of these spacefarers were not, were not greatly optimistic.
Or perhaps already dead, such as our Orcneas friends. Dead and alive again, and dead again.
Yeah, I can relate.
Let me give you a little bit of a description of the vessel itself from the inside. So the interior of this derelict, like I said, resembles a living tree.
The walls and vaulted ceilings are made of ironwood and all of the passageways are kind of organic shapes and structures.
The Norse shipwrights use a range of chemical treatments, heat and pressure, and they make this ironwood stronger than steel. It's a kind of miracle material that is used for these vessels.
The ceilings here are about 10 feet high throughout the ship, although there are a lot of damaged areas that are caked in ice.
And there are tendrils of sap that kind of drip down through any damaged areas.
Are these surfaces on the floor, just for instance, covered in blood and gore?
They are not.
Okay, just thought I'd check.
The ceiling is lit by this slightly orange glow, the result of genetically engineered bioluminescence. So it's very, it's not impossible for you to see. It's a kind of low light.
And as you go through, you're going to be passing through doors that are effectively membranes. They're smart gating membranes that open and close, depending on changes in temperature or magnetic fields.
They're like pores or hollows. They're natural symmetrical cavities in the wood. And as you approach each individual room, then this pore will open for you to pass through.
And it does obviously make Ljomi feel at home. It's like walking around his innards.
Relative of yours?
Yggdrasil, made flesh, made ship, made whole.
I'm going to whisper to grave breaker and say, come, let us do our task. And I would like to poke my head through the door leading into the ship.
The path from this extravehicular pore, this equipment lock, takes you through, you can see on the other side, a kind of workshop area. Obviously ships like this that participate in any significant amount of fighting or traveling require constant repairs.
And maintaining something like the Falkr is a colossal undertaking involving dozens of Wrights, Smiths and Shapers. In the room beyond, you see a forge, an anvil, a vice, a variety of tools.
There's a carpenter's station and the walls are lined with work benches, laboratory equipment.
Most of it is covered with dust and debris. On the far side, you do see several faded photographs pasted to the walls, which look like snapshots of Imperial soldiers at work and play, the kind of things that you'd put up on your desk at work.
What are those nude men doing on the wall over there? So, jarl, tell me what brings you three strange people to the ship?
We are trying to solve a mystery.
What mystery?
A mystery that so far is still none of your business. And since you decided not to partner with me, then it's very much none of your fucking business.
Hmm. Hmm.
Say, uh, Gravebreaker, what do we do to old boys like him back home, huh?
Well, pardon me, I was thinking about the grotesque things that we would do to, uh...
Absolutely grotesque.
Grotesque things to men of his stature back at home. And, uh, I don't think you'd like to know what we'd do. I don't think you could handle it.
I'm not afraid of you. We just took down an entire army of undead orcneas that came back to life the more we slaughtered them. And we still won.
I take my rifle and I, uh, just kind of lick the tip and I say, uh, you better watch yourself, boy. And then I'm going to move into the, uh, into the ship.
Menn, can you make the ship go, Ljomi asks?
Uh, it seems we're not partners and it seems we're not, uh, sharing much information at this point.
So unless you can, uh, give me some kind of olive branch fucking tree, um, then, you know, we could, uh, work something out maybe.
I mean, hmm, yes.
I'm going to give you, going to give you three locations as you peruse this workshop. I'll give you a number of destinations that you can think about going towards.
To the north, there is a doorway to the northwest. Another doorway to the south. There is a third doorway.
So Gigi is going to walk over to Error and he's going to reach into the illusion that's making him an nondescript person and feel around.
This is going to be very intrusive. I'm sorry, Steve.
Oh, hello.
And he's going to pluck, he's going to pluck a diamond from the rock and then he's going to move over to the two new people and say, that's not a diamond.
Listen, I told you I'm very, very rich. And if you partner with me, I will make it worth your while. You think you have money?
Wait until you see what we have in store. Here's your olive branch. And then I give it to them.
Mmm, Snow Thunder. We have not seen diamonds like this before from our homeland. We must, we must agree. We must take this.
Only in our wet dreams did we imagine such diamonds. I think we shall accept, accept your offer. And Mr. Ljomi, no, Mr. Eir, Mr. Eir.
Hello.
Did you produce this diamond out of your anus? Where did this appear from?
He's a shapeshifter. Don't trust him.
I produced it from my pocket.
Ah, much more civilized. Okay.
He's the gift that keeps on giving.
As any ordinary person would do. Yeah.
Appreciate it.
Could I take a keen look around the room? I'm looking for anything, you know, I might like.
I already like the pictures on the wall, but anything else I might like.
You can help yourself to any of the tools that are around, but this is a very practical room. Like I said, for smiths and shapers, it's the equivalent of the engineering department.
Okay.
I, Eir, would like to look for more disturbing messages scratched on things.
See anything?
Nothing scratched here in this room, despite your best efforts. Apart from those photos, shiny, happy, friendly people going about their lives in the Imperial forces.
You said that there were tools in this room. Do you think there was a, there would, there would maybe be a tool that I could get a couple more diamonds off of Eir?
Good idea. We've got one. We've got one. One may be enough. One may suffice for now.
There is movement to the north in the, in the room. There is kind of a scrabbling and a crash as if someone has moved and knocked something over.
Okay. Listen, listen here, Ljomi. You asked me a question earlier. You said, could we get the ship working?
Yeah.
You help us out. We help you out. Okay. We might know a thing or two about how the ship works. So let's, let's make sure the ship is clear of any bad boys and maybe we can figure something out.
Yes. This sounds like a very good plan. I'll wait here and, and you make sure that there are no bad people.
And the most excellent plan.
I must prepare.
Yeah. It means the bugs. Eir would like to just, you know, when, when either Snowbreaker orGraveThunder says that we, Eir would like to, what's the equivalent of an insight check to sort of, are they bluffing when they say they know a thing or two about ships?
How would I go about getting a feel for that?
You could ask the seer in your ear.
Hi, good. I can ask if this is in my head. Yes, that's the spirit. Oh, voices in my head. Well, the one in particular. Oh, voice in my head. Do either of these two have, do they have the knowledge we need to get this ship into space?
Hrani, the spirit of the murdered seer, says yes.
Excellent. Also, crap.
Okay. Thank you, Prani.
The noise we heard, which direction did it come from?
The north.
And it wasn't murder, it was that worst manslaughter.
Well, look, grave breaker and I can pretty much take care of anything. So why don't we just take, take a look ahead here and you little boys can call, follow up right behind us. But if you.
This is how we like to work with men. This is excellent.
You know, snow thunder, I'll follow you. But if it's, but if it's a two legged reindeer again, then I'm out, man. I am out.
And I slap them and I say, come on, baby, pull yourself together, baby.
You're right. You're right.
Okay.
Well, if neither of you has the balls to go, I will. So she's going to walk off toward the noise.
And I go quick, follow them.
You step from the workshop into what looks like crew quarters fitted with six bunks. Each of the beds has a small foot locker at the end. And you may enter that room and look around.
You see a brief flurry of movement and there is something clearly there lurking between the bunk beds.
So she points his flashlight at it.
Okay. Then pointing your flashlight at you see a hunched cowering figure, its hair tangled and matted and a kind of wilt of flower petals wilted around its face.
The creature attempts to bolt, dashing between the beds and upturning one of the lockers in a bid to escape.
Alfkin. Wait.
Tree touched. Wait.
Oh, you recognize it? You recognize it, Ljomie?
Is relative to one of the Alfkin people.
They are close to my kind.
Should I shoot him?
No, no, they're fine.
Are they?
Furious Starkad, stay thy hand.
At the sound of your alfar voice, the creature stops and you do indeed see that it is a wane, one of the three touched people.
And it cowers down again in the torch beam and it says,
Alfar Light One, moves with whisper soft, dancing heart, beauties to form.
You are most welcome.
Friends or allies?
Most. Be careful of the one. He's a shapeshifter. His form is not to be trusted.
And these two, Grunt Barker and Slipwonder, I do not know.
The large man seems fine. Trust me.
Ijiraq, shadow beast, hides in blurs. Moves man, same form. Misty eyes you look, you see nothing.
Yes, we saw a glimpse of this. Do you hunt it?
Aye, adzabo. Moves quick like wind's whisper, hides and waits. You no see it, see you cold heart.
So wait a second, is this a little bunch of leaves telling us that that thing is hunting us right now? Or what? What's he really getting at?
Yes, that is what he's saying. It hunts.
Did anyone close the sphincter?
You're the ones who claim to know how to work with shit.
I don't have any.
Okay, that's...
Yes, good realization no one closed the door to the outside.
Okay, someone's got to go back.
Should I run back and make sure it's closed?
Let me come with you. I don't want you to be alone.
Perhaps we should not travel apart. I shall join.
Okay, let's all go close the thing.
And Ljomi will follow them.
Okay, so you're stepping back out of that room.
So did you want to carry on your searching or are you going with them?
No, I will carry on my search using, you know, normalize as well as thermal sensors.
If I see any large alien eggs on the floor, I will not look in them. I just want to point that out ahead of time.
All right, and Ljomi, are you staying with Eir and the Wane Hunter?
I'm going to stay with Eir and keep an eye on Eir and with the Wane Hunter
because it's nice to see a friendly face and a leafy face.
Let's just do two things then. First of all, we're going to start with Eir, Ljomi and the Wane.
Eir, give me an awareness challenge roll.
Happily.
With three weals.
Oh, that's worth a try. That is really a nine.
Now, I do want to remind you, since you haven't used it for a while or ever, that you do have the hip flask.
It gives you derring do and enables you to re-roll.
My problem is I'm always trying to save it for, no, no, save it when it's important.
And so I end up using it. So you know what? Yes, I will go ahead and use it.
So roll the same, just the same again. Nothing fancy, right?
It enables you to remake a challenge roll that you failed.
Ordinarily, the rules say that you can't do that. Once you've failed, you've failed.
But with this derring do gift through the cigarette case of the spectral soldier,
I imagine you lighting a ghostly cigarette and having another go.
Oh, I like that. Light a ghostly cigarette, contemplate it for a moment,
and then we're going to look around again with new eyes. Same roll?
Yep. Give me a weal, though.
So that adds up to 14.
This time around, nonchalantly dangling the cigarette from your diamond-encrusted blackstone lips,
you find underneath one of the bed covers, you find a Bible,
and then sifting through the Bible, you see a note scrawled on the inside cover.
And this is what it says. It says,
There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand.
I begged you. I begged you to save me. And you did nothing.
I'm sure it's fine.
I feel that deep, yeah. What language is it written in?
In Noor, the common tongue.
Would it be normal for an Imperial ship crew member to have a Bible or to belong to someone else?
The worship of the White Christ is minimal in this universe.
It's a kind of marginalized sect that was almost eradicated as a mainstay belief,
but was then kind of resurrected by some outcasts who fought on the opposing side in the Jotunn war.
Many of the Jotnar tended towards Christianity.
Bit of a long shot, but I don't suppose the scratching matches the scratching on the visor?
It would be impossible without some kind of understanding of calligraphy or handwriting expertise.
Worth a try.
The Wane Hunter taps you on the shoulder, Ljomi, and he says,
Story weaver, watch for the ship, ship alive. Woodheart branches veins.
Yes, I sense that much.
Is the ship healthy?
Yggdrasil's child breathes in cosmos, breathes out life, carries heart in star sea.
It's healthy.
Thank you.
We'll just move to the other three who have wandered back through the workshop to the extravehicular pour and can attempt to close it.
Do you want to give me any one of you a wits roll in order to do so?
With any woes?
Grothgurt, you want to go for it?
No woes, this is just an attempt to work out how you can close that door.
I rolled a three plus two.
Five.
You can't close a door!
I'm a god, this is below me.
Sure, okay, let me give it a try.
As you reach forward, Jay, there is a sudden loud blaring klaxon and a cold mechanical tone begins to ominously echo through the dimly lit corridors.
Detonation in T minus five minutes.
And I won't do the eeee eeee eeee eeee eeee, but imagine that now.
That's the sound you're not doing?
I just want to understand.
Does anybody hear that?
Oh, yeah, that's definitely not good.
Should we get out of here?
Is there a way we could turn it off?
I guess we better try and turn it off.
Is the door closed?
The door is not closed.
I know.
The Wayne Hunter back in the other room, obviously hearing this very discordant, jarring siren, taps you, Ljomi, on the shoulder and says,
Ship knows, Ijiraq on board!
Goes big boom! Big boom!
As Yggdrasil shivers,
Yggdrasil looks at no one in particular and says, Visna, cling tight to the banner.
He grabs you by your shoulders and says,
Lifes well ends, mother tree falls, star path closed!
Yes, I know.
He appears to be dragging you into the interior of the ship.
I'll go with him.
Remember to look at the egg pods.
Can we do something at this point? Are we still with them?
You are probably 50 yards apart in a different room.
Those three are in the crew quarters.
You went back through the workshop to the extra vehicle at port,
with all hearing the klaxon and the countdown is ominously continuing.
Who has the Raven Head skull?
I do.
We're kind of covered if it all goes boom.
Once per adventure.
Within 10 yards of where I'm standing.
Separate recordings are not separate adventures?
This is part two of the same adventure.
Once per adventure. So we've already won the go back in time and try it again.
I think that Pile of Leaves might know something about how we can find this bomb
to potentially stop this detonation, but this door is still open,
so I think we might just have to leave the door open and go find this Pile of Leaves.
I'm going to ask you all, because this is quite a distressing situation, to make a will challenge roll for me,
because there clearly is this death knell warning of an explosive end,
and you have no way of knowing whether the ship will detonate, and I think you win it.
I got a 4 minus 1.
Got 17 total.
Bill, I'm going to give you trauma for this situation,
and because you have your flashbacks that you have been so skillfully weaving into the narrative,
then you actually take two trauma and you are slowed.
So as a slowed person, you can only take a slow turn, your speed is halved,
and you cannot benefit to increase this to speed.
Such is the drawbacks of thinking you are actually in the middle of the Battle of Bravellir .
Yes, I can see how that works.
CJ, you pass, so you shrug off the effects as if it were, and that buzzing about your head.
Steve, what did you get?
I rolled a 7.
You're useless.
Please add a trauma and then immediately fall asleep.
Luckily, you are in the crew quarters and there is a lovely eiderdown quilt for you to tuck yourself in under.
I will fall asleep praying that I wake up in Valhalla.
Evan and Jay, do you want to give me your rolls?
17.
And I had 18.
Look at you two, made of sterner stuff.
The three gentlemen who are in the extra-vehicular pour,
you must make the decision about whether you charge back into the Falkr, the bio ship,
or whether you rush outside.
I mean, look, we don't got much time, but we don't want this thing to blow up, do we?
Preferably not.
I mean, there's no way at all that we can turn off this countdown and survive in the ship.
Well, I think there is. I say we go in, we use our skills with explosives.
We're highly skilled with explosives.
So why don't we get in there and try and turn this thing off?
Talking of explosives, there is an eruption back in that workshop that stands between you and Eir and Ljomi.
Fire floods that space, the whole place raps in flames.
Oh, shit!
What are we going to do now? Looks like we can't go back to them.
Are we waiting outside now?
I guess it's getting hot in here.
Do you know the way to the bridge?
Oh, I do have a map on my little machine here.
The bridge.
Um, ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba.
Take your time, there's no rush.
It's loading, it's loading.
Um, the bridge.
What are you doing on there? Windows 98?
Detonation in T minus three minutes.
Okay, the bridge. What would the bridge be called in a Falkr?
Is it? Would it be called? I'm asking Dungeon Master.
The bridge would be called the Raven's Nest.
The bridge deck or the Raven's Nest is where on these Norse vessels,
especially since the Raven or Crow was an essential part of the Viking navigation equipment,
we used to send them ahead of ships to determine where the closest land lay.
And in the same way as we have a crow's nest and board ships, they have a Raven's Nest.
Can we get through the fire?
You can give me all a sleight roll in order to see whether you can get through it without taking any damage.
Okay guys, we got to get through that fire to get to the Raven's Nest.
So give me those rolls in the background.
Bill, the Wane Hunter, obviously distressed that you are going incredibly slowly,
having failed your roll, says to you,
I go now, Light One. Find help. I go now.
He taps you on the shoulder, pushes you into a little hollow,
and then heads himself through one of them, the pores into the recesses of the ship.
Alright, what did you roll there, gentlemen?
Nothing good. Six.
Eighteen total.
So Evan and Jay, I'm going to both give you 11 damage from the intense flames as you try and rush through them.
Okay.
Gigi, you, despite your heft and your bulk, you vault with great skill and avoid any of the inferno around you.
Detonation in T-minus one minute and counting.
Ee, ee, ee, ee.
So we're just bolting for the Raven's Nest.
Yeah, follow me, follow me.
Run.
I'm running.
You rush through the cruise quarters past the insensitive form of the dökkálfar
who lies propped up on one of the beds,
and you rush almost blundering into the form of your friendly neighborhood alfar
who is slowly meandering in his dressed out form in front of you.
Strangely though, at that very moment, the Klaxon stops the siren's end,
and the self-destruct sequence has obviously been shut down.
Ah, pile of leaves. Where's the pile of leaves?
Yes, Snow thunder. Yes, what is your question?
Anyone see the pile of leaves?
I am the pile of leaves.
But isn't there another pile of leaves wandering around here?
You mean the alfkin?
Yes.
He shall return.
But do you think he was the cause of this alarm turning off?
It seems unlikely.
So that means we're not alone?
Perhaps the time ran out and there's simply no explosives.
Grjotgarth makes an excellent point.
Oh.
Although that one part of the ship did explode, so...
Yeah, that was weird, wasn't it?
Why did it... why was there a fire over there?
Is the fire still raging down there?
It is not.
It is not?
Okay.
I would like to examine everyone, he only says,
to make sure there is no rabboon fever amongst us,
as everyone had their shot.
Rabboon fever?
Rabboon fever. Please, be serious.
I think I've had my shots, yeah.
And nonetheless, Snow Thunder, come closer, let me use some of this equipment to check that you are in fact clean.
And Gravebreaker, if you'll form a line behind him, and Grothgard behind him as well,
we'd better just make sure everyone's quite healthy.
You don't need to check me, I'm genetically enhanced.
Well, you know, it would be a good test for my equipment.
Ljomi is a healer, although when you say equipment, whilst you do have stuff in your medicine bag,
to the immediate south, that door from the workshop, is a sickbay.
We'll go to the sickbay, and I'll check you all for the fever and for any other illnesses.
No, no, no, I don't need it. I don't actually believe in vaccines.
Also, my body is kind of superior, so I don't think I need any whatever you're going to give me. I don't need it.
You do have 11 points of damage that he might be able to help you out with, entirely up to you?
Yeah, it's just that, it's just what, you can't take a bit of damage.
Boys these days can't take a bit of damage. So I'm a tough guy.
It'll be a good test for the equipment. Come along.
Come on, come on, come on, great breaker.
Grothgard, it would be a blessing to my equipment.
I'll be able to use it to test you.
Do your worst.
Okay, test us.
Come along, men.
Like I said, on the other side of the workshop, the sickbay, the pore, opens to a kind of room
that's dominated by a blood-stained operating table that squats in the middle of the room,
and there's a whole set of steel mortuary drawers.
The floor itself is strewn with hypodermic needles and forgotten blood samples,
and then there's a large mirror on the far wall, and as you enter, you can see that the mirror is daubed with some true Norse words.
Gigi, did you want to translate them for anyone, or Eir? Did anyone wake up Eir?
No, he called the top bunk and he just went to bed.
It's been a long journey.
It's been delightfully quiet.
Let sleeping rocks lie. In true Norse it says,
Hel sa munttu enum sma viniminum, which translates as,
Say hello to my little friend.
Don't let the mess bother anyone. It's been a very busy time.
There's been quite a lot of fever and other things that needed to be dealt with,
so if someone could just hop up on the table there in the middle, we'll begin the examinations.
It doesn't look clean to me.
It also looks like this is some kind of biological manufacturing site where they were assembling Orcneas potentially.
Body parts, blood, it's just suspect to me.
They see now you're being fanciful. I'm concerned, Grofgaard, that you're running a fever.
Possibly the explanation. If you could just hop up on the table here, have a proper look.
Start with the other two. I'm going to examine the room with my flashlight.
All right, then Gravebreaker, why don't you get up on the table?
Make it quick. I'm going to go to the crow's nest very shortly.
Snowthunder, you wish to go first? That's fine.
You know, Snowthunder, as I go first, why don't you go ahead and see if you can get to the crow's nest?
Why don't you go ahead as I just, you know...
I don't think I need what this guy's selling. I don't think I need it.
And we got our own thing to do, so I'm going to go ahead.
Snowthunder, you should let me heal you.
You go ahead. I will get in the chair first. I will take the gaze of Ljomi
And as he's looking at me, Snowthunder sneaks off in the back.
Yes.
You climb on and straddle the examination table.
And then there is a hum as a thermal sensor begins to scan you.
And you notice that a cloud of medical nanites, these minuscule surgeons,
25 times smaller than the width of a human hair,
they begin to swirl like a cloud of tiny starlings.
And then they zoom into your burns and begin to attach themselves to the flesh.
The problem is that they're not trying to heal the flesh.
They're actually continuing some cellular disruption.
And you yell in agony as you take nine more damage.
No! Snowthunder, run! Run!
The nanites are swarming all over your burns and dissolving your limbs.
Try and stay still.
I can't. I'm losing my... Snowthunder!
What did I just hear? I heard something back there.
Is there nothing I can do to dissuade you? Please, I need my limbs.
Jay, are you going to return to help your shrieking comrade back in the sick bay?
The medical malfunction is obviously causing him problems.
Yeah, so I heard there's an issue.
So I look back and I have my rifle trained on Ljomi and I say, let him out of it.
It will just be another moment more. Come on back and let me do the testing.
Fire.
At?
At Ljomi.
You're shooting...
You're shooting your father.
Just to be clear.
This is a very Luke and Darth moment, anyway.
This is long awaited.
Why are you doing this to me?
It's to heal you. It'll be fine.
It's not healing me. My limbs! They're gone!
It'll be fine, I promise you. We need to test for the fevers.
Could be other fevers. I don't think it could ever all matter if my limbs were gone.
Oh, so I aim and I shoot. You think it's at Ljomi, but it's actually at the machine itself.
Okay, so you're trying to hit the medical nanites.
Yes.
Okay, give me a sleight roll then, as if to hit.
So I have four plus two, so six.
And weapon attack wheel. I have one.
Oh, God. So I have plus three, so that's nine.
Okay, your rifle bullet fires wide, shattering the mirror, which has that message on it.
Say hello to my little friend, and glass spirals into the room.
Gravebreaker!
Evan, the medical nanites continue to dismember you. Can you take another seven damage, please?
Oh, this isn't good. This isn't good.
I believe that Gravebreaker will be over in a moment.
Is there anything I can do to get the nanites out, or since I don't have any limbs, am I just kind of sitting there getting dismembered?
You're just getting dismembered. So Gigi is going to see this whole thing, kind of in shock, and goes, Ljomi, have you lost your bloody mind?
Grothgard, come here for some testing, please.
He's going to carve bind runes on Ljomi.
Okay, to stop him moving anyway.
Stop him moving at least for a minute.
Bind runes is all about creating a pentagram of runes to prevent someone from moving it, and it does potentially pin him to the spot.
If he chooses to move out of that environment, he will take damage.
Wait a second. Starting to piece what's going on here.
I'm going to keep him in place, and then try and wrestle the machine from him that's removing the limbs of our new friend, and see if I can't reverse it.
Now, now, let's have a lot less fuss, please.
Grothgard, I think they're cursed. The bag of rocks is asleep in the other room. This guy's doing weird shit.
Please help me. Please.
Something's wrong. We need to figure it out. Let's help your friend first.
Evan, give me a will roll with two woes. Having your flesh corroded by these medical nanobots is not a pleasant experience, and it may well give you more trauma.
Oh, no. Okay. That's a 21 ?
No, subtract from 21.
You've got 18.
You shake off the intense nausea that comes with this horrifying situation.
Gigi, you're unable to, even if you grab the machine from, let me, this is a scanner that it's attached to the sick bay itself.
There's nothing that Ljomi has that is causing this. The room itself has issued for these medical nanites.
Oh my God. This would be much easier if everyone would just calm down. I will get to each of you.
There's nothing you can do.
Can I do a trap sense?
You can.
Okay. So search for and resist traps with one weal. So D20 and one wheel. Wow. So I got five.
You are unable to fix this particular conundrum.
Did you give me a wits roll?
Yay. 17 plus 2. 19.
Woo, I'm rolling good today.
It occurs to you that in this world of riddles and clever kennings that the message on the mirror may well have something to do with your predicament.
Say hello to my little friend. So then I lean into the machine and say in true Norse, hello. And it immediately powers down.
Oh, thank you so much.
That is going to slow everything down. I'm not pleased.
But Gravebreaker, your limbs.
Someone must carry me.
Is he limbless still?
How much damage have you taken total now, Evan?
Down to nine overall health. I've taken 27 damage.
Fairly brutal, but not quite as brutal as this because as you stand looking at the alfar, it smashes a branch straight into Snow Thunder's skull.
You take 10 damage and all the more horrifyingly, Ljomi merges and melds and blends into an exact replica of you, Snow Thunder.
The tree is no more, but instead there are two exact replicas of yourself standing there.
That's a fairly horrifying situation and you please roll a will challenge roll with two woes..
Okay.
Okay. 19 minus six. 13.
Despite the fact that you are gazing fearfully into eyes that look exactly the same as yours, reflecting back at you, your doppelganger is smiling as given you that quick and deadly blow.
Don't take any trauma, but the creature in a voice very similar to your own says,
Here in this stolen ship, I stand an abomination born of the war is wind's blood to ice heart to stone orcneas as I am known heroes you see me yet.
What do you truly perceive?
And then it bolts from the room, passing through the bind rooms as if they were not there and scurries straight into the workshop, scattering tools and implements everywhere as it bolts across the work ventures.
Oh my God. Do I have a hole in my head?
You have a hefty branch sized cleft in your skull.
Then the creature transformed into a lightness of you and fled.
Rothgar, should we perhaps wake up the guy that's not made of diamonds? Could he help?
Yes, and we should find Ljomi since that wasn't him and I'm going to venture a guess that that is the creature that's been hunting us because of course it is.
Ah, shit. What have we got ourselves into, Gravebreaker?
How are you alive? You have a branch sticking straight through your head. May I look at it? I'm fascinated.
Yes, please. I think if I lean back a bit I can kind of walk straight. It's like a balancing act.
I'm going to cast Analgesics on him and hope that that does something.
It does.
So they can get 1 by 6 damage per rank of spell expended.
Sweet. How high of a spell can I cast?
You've got level 3 these days but do you want to trade a level 3 spell to heal up these rivals to your claim?
I mean with that terrible thing running around, putting branches in people's heads, yes.
I need them well.
Let's revive the meat bags.
Let's start with the 2. Let's save the 3 for later because I may have to shoot some things and I would like to have my Orlog at top rank.
So let's do 2. So that's what, 2d6? Can I do both?
Kind of a package deal because you heal us both.
You can do both.
9 points healing. Does that remove the branch from his head?
I imagine the branch is a bit like the T3000 when it just stabbed the fluid iron appendage and then withdrew it. It was just in tree form.
So I'm just plugging the hole.
Yeah.
Ah, yes. Okay. This makes sense now.
So 9 back.
How many fingers am I holding up?
5.
That's cruel task, the other one.
So we're both healed 9?
Correct.
Is that the case?
Sounds good. Does anyone want to wake up Eir?
Yeah, let's please wake this guy up. Actually, let me go wake him up. Let me go wake him up, okay? I'll be right back.
Well, Evan has no legs.
Someone's gonna have to carry him.
Okay. Could you carry Gravebreaker?
I could. I could. Also, remember, this is a ship that was run by Orcneas. I wonder if this room has anything that we could use to replace his legs. Perhaps mechanical, biological, fantastical, magical?
Yes.
I don't know.
Can I use my keen sense to look for some replacement limbs?
This does look...
Look around the room for something that may aid? Locking stick? Maybe a wheelchair?
You know, I think that that's a reasonable request. You can... there will be a wheelchair in a sick bay, and so they can lock you in that and wheel you out if you so wish.
Okay, let's go wake up the diamond.
At least the benefit of being cauterized by medical nanites is there's no bleeding.
So Gigi then spots a harness in the corner of the room and says, wait, I have an idea. It's much quicker than the wheelchair.
He gets Stormbreaker, right? Harnesses him up and throws him on his back. Gravebreaker, sorry. Gravebreaker, and he harnesses him to his back so that he's facing backward, right? And then says, cover my rear!
So kind of like a Voldemort situation.
I guess C3PO. Empire Strikes Back, there we go. I don't know, I think of C3PO. Because remember, you're frightened.
I don't know!
Oh, this is great! This is great, and I really...
Alright, so let's go wake up this diamond boy.
Are you still with us?
I'm sorry, I'm making dinner. What was that?
Very good.
Waking you up, Eir
They have decided to wake you up at this moment, having been maimed in sick bay by a shapeshifting Eldritch beast from beyond.
So what does Eir see when he wakes up?
The smiling face of Gigi.
Oh.
He was carrying Gravebreaker, who is now limbless, having been eviscerated by medical nanites.
Aer, my frequently sombulent friend, now would be a fantastic time for you to return to the world of the waking.
What did I miss?
Everything. Nothing really.
My limbs!
What happened to your backpack?
Ljomi.
Your friend Ljomi over there decided to eat off my limbs with his nanites, so we're not really on speaking terms at the moment.
I knew it.
It was a shapeshifter in the form of Ljomi. We need to find Ljomi as well. He is somewhere. Potentially dead, captured, burned. We don't know.
Hopefully he also got his limbs eaten off.
Yes, but his grow back.
Lucky, lucky man. Mine do not. So, looks like I'm stuck on your back.
Well, shall we go up to the Raven's Nest, go see what's going on up there?
That sounds like a plan.
So you will be proceeding from the crew quarters to the north through a mess hall.
And that's where you'll be headed next if you carry on using your schematic to head towards the Raven's Nest.
This mess hall is kind of main recreation area for the enlisted men.
It has grand and gold glimmering post weaponry on the walls, kind of ornate axes as opposed to military hardware or guns.
It's stained by years of drinking rituals on either side.
There are platforms that provide seats for the off duty crew and a high seat reserved for the captain at the end of the hall.
A prominent door on the opposite side leads on towards the Raven's Nest.
Eir will hang back and search.
No, nothing in this mead hall.
Next room is again heading directly north through one of the pores that hollows in this tree.
It looks like a ready room.
There's lots of armchair seats, fold up table tops, perhaps used for crew briefings.
There's an upturned coffee urn.
There's a broken popcorn machine, a loudspeaker and a whiteboard.
And the whiteboard contains presumably a list of crew members.
All of them are violently crossed out.
And then scrolled below those names is some handwriting that says, I am he as you are me.
Oh shit.
He's posing as one of us again, because of course.
Who is?
Oh, yes, the creature that's been hunting us is shape shifting into the image of our friends and trying to murder us.
Eir just kind of laughs nervously and looks from person to person.
So one of you or me.
Maybe.
Oh, last we saw him.
He looked like that one.
He points at Jason.
Is it that one?
Oh, I mean, I mean, it looked like me.
It punched me.
It punched me in the head.
Look, well, there used to be a hole here.
It was healed.
But I can prove I can prove that I'm me grave breaker.
You know, ask me a question that only I would be able to answer.
Hmm.
What was my mother's maiden name?
What?
Give me another one.
We might be in trouble, guys.
I don't know if this is snow thunder.
Snow thunder would have known that like the back of his hand.
Your mother's maiden name.
But do you really want me to reveal your bank information in front of these people?
Yes, yes.
OK, OK, OK.
Your mother's maiden name is.
He nailed it, he nailed it, that's it, that's it.
Yeah, so we're good.
There is a room to the left and a room to the right of this ready room that you can stick your head in if you wish to look.
I would love to poke my head through the room to the left.
All he's got to poke in.
Yeah, that's all I got.
But I guess I need Gigi to agree to walk me in to take a peek.
Just back up to the doorway.
OK, you can you can take a peek from your moving pedestal.
It looks like again some more quarters, perhaps for the skipper.
They are spartan and clean.
There is a locker and there's some look like someone has burnt something in the locker because there was a pile of ashes as well as some fragments of cardboard and paper.
Can we search through the cardboard and paper and see if we can make sense of what's written on any of it?
Yes, it looks like it is a criminal record, a folder containing the details of an inmate with a few scrawled notes of their offenses that have been burned.
The only legible word is Mordvargr, which means murderer.
On the mugshot, the person there, you can't really see the face, but you can see that they are wearing an orange jumpsuit emblazoned with the legend Nastrond.
Guys, do you think this could be our shape shifter here?
Could be. So perhaps it wasn't the mythical beast of whatever the name of that beast was that was in the newspaper.
Perhaps it was this. The figure in the medical room did say that it was Orcneas and not the other whatever the name of that mythical beast creature is.
So perhaps it is guarding the ship because it was here first and claimed salvage rights and whatnot.
Was there not a little leaf guy running around? There was, right?
That could have been him.
He could have...
We haven't seen him in a while.
The loudspeaker in the other room clicks into life with a whine and then you hear over this loud haler an echoing voice that tumbles out along the corridors.
Speak, noble, glorious Jarl, who fancies himself a god amongst men.
What will you be when your sacred flames are doused, when your hearth is but ashes?
Will your bravery echo through the ages or fade as whispers in the wind, forgotten as swiftly as it fled?
Now he's just trying to provoke me.
Don't let him.
Kind of monologuing.
I've already been provoked!
He's just going to pull his sword out.
I bet you he's in the raven's nest.
Forward men, go!
Let's move.
Charge us forward.
Snow thunder, you know what we always say.
Finders keepers, losers weepers, baby.
Let's go.
The loud hailer jerks to life one more time and says,
I am carved of a god's gruesome fancy.
I am the embodiment of slaughter, a testament to regicide, the echoes of the fallen echo in my marrow.
I am destruction, the end of Mimir, the unmaker of worlds.
I am Orcneas, and by my blood and bone, by sinew and scream, I shall be remembered.
Can you say the same?
I already forget your name, darling.
So who was that?
Make an awareness check, everybody, please.
Oh, darn it.
Four.
That's more like it.
Four.
Five.
Oh, no.
Four.
I had four plus three.
I had an awareness plus three.
So I have an awareness plus three.
So seven I have.
Oh, eight.
Yeah.
Follow that up with a will check with three woes.
Eir rolled 24.
Does that help?
You get to see the impending doom.
Oh, so that's not helping.
Okay.
As it unfurls.
So I got 14.
Oh, good.
I ended up with five.
I got four.
Above you, hidden by Seidr spells lurking, contorted and hanging to the ceiling is a dark
and sinister form that flips between the shadows.
It bends over, looking through its legs, tugging its earlobes and contorting its form.
And then it begins to scratch runic symbols onto the hull, then bloods them with a red
dripping claw.
It reveals the dread runes, a fear helm as once worn by Fafnir to afright mankind.
And you immediately drop to your knees.
Is this guy wearing any pants?
Well, he had a jumpsuit.
Because he's looking at us through his legs.
Yeah.
Pulling his earlobes.
Savor spells in the Norse tradition are often cast by means of contortion.
They call it magical mooning.
So, you know, you're on the right line.
My God.
I don't see it something.
CJ and Evan, you fall prone under the fearful impact of the dread helm.
And you are frightened for one minute.
You cannot stand up whilst frightened in this way.
Well, he couldn't stand up anyway.
He just had to point it out as high.
That's good.
CJ has basically been dumbed, toppled backwards and is now smothering you.
Oh, no.
You've fallen down.
CJ!
Would my steadfast gift help me overturn that rule?
It can help you remove the frightened condition.
You can use a triggered action to make a will challenge roll.
So you can remove the affliction if you make that will challenge roll.
14 plus 2.
You shrug off the effects of the spell.
That doesn't mean that Evan is any less immune.
So he is still frightened and gibbering on the back of you.
Grjotgarth looks at this thing and says, aha, another self-proclaimed doombringer.
Slaughterborn, harbinger of world, blah, blah, blah.
Do you all get the same dramatic monologue from the same handbook?
I feel like this is the same speech I've heard the last three adventures.
I also say where I come from, they all bleed the same.
I train my rifle right onto the moonage.
Feel free to make a shot.
Roll a sleight roll.
Yes, please.
5 plus 2.
7.
Your aim is off today and your shot fires into the shadows and ricochets around the room without hitting the faceless creature beyond.
Hey, do you want to do the thing, CJ?
Do you want to do the thing?
I can see the target.
You can.
Bullseye right there.
It's heavily obscured.
Oh, OK.
So in that case, I should.
Yes. OK.
I'm going to use a action and then the with wise counsel do the triggered action.
So two spells.
I'm going to if I'm reading this right, I'm going to use GANDFLY twice because I don't have to roll to hit.
So if it's concealed or obscured or hiding behind something, then yeah, so that's one basic damage each time.
Then it must make a might challenge roll, becoming fatigued for one minute on a failure.
And I think that my would my deep minded cause it to resist it with one roll?
If only it wasn't significant sorcerer in its own right able to count to that will counter weave.
Now, that's probably a problem.
Both of your lead balls fly towards it and appear to have impacted it in the dark.
What do we got here?
Two and five makes seven.
Did it did it notice that?
Apparently, because it turns a baleful eye towards you and laughs before saying,
What of you doughty dökkálfar who clings to wealth as if it could shield you from the inextricable truth?
Will you be remembered as a mighty magician, valiant and tenacious, or will time erode you to rubble and dust?
Probably.
CJ, what do you fancy doing?
I'm going to do a fast turn and I'm going to aim my storm shooter at it.
Gigi is going to say, you know how they say you don't need another hole in your head?
Well, I think you do.
And then that's great.
So I shoot and then because I have Orlog, I can cast it at level three.
And then it's a haunt.
So I get the extra one.
Right. Yep.
All right.
Let's do this roll for damage.
Well, that was a lot better.
Seventeen total.
Nice.
A cascade of bullets as a burst of fire towards the ceiling.
And ordinarily, you might shred an opponent with your fuselage.
But this creature appears to shrug it off as if it has iron sides.
The bullets plink and plonk and disappear, spent and broken.
So then Gigi is going to turn around, show his back to the thing so that Gravebreaker can take his shot.
Gravebreaker.
I know you're frightened, but shoot the thing.
But he's got no arms, but Gravebreaker.
Maybe you can do the reveal weakness that we learned back home.
Yes, and that I shall.
I will target the creature and use my reveal weakness.
OK, so reveal weakness by trying to spot the flaws in the creature's defense strategy.
You can give your companions one wheel on their next rolls.
However, it now takes a slow turn.
And the first thing it does is once again unleash some saver.
It gives you a troll like glance and it casts its head thrust back between its legs.
Look in its eyes is ugly and it exposes its nether regions as it chants its hideous curse.
If you can all please give me a slight roll with five woes.
So just minus six essentially. All of us?
All of you in the room.
Five? Five woes?
So I got 18 and then the highest from my woes was a five, so total of 13.
I might not be too bothered by his wiggly-widdlies.
Who I'm definitely traumatized by looking into his one-eyed trouser snake.
I'm not doing well.
I rolled a four.
Ah, rookie numbers.
Yeah.
Negative four.
Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.
So I got 17 minus six plus two so 19, so 13.
Okay, the two of you who failed the rolls drop anything that you were holding in your case,
Eir, that includes your spell casting implements that has dropped to the floor and slid away from you.
And you rolled a negative four.
Oh yeah.
You also fall flat on your arse and are prone for the next round unable to cast any spells.
The creature then scuttles across the ceiling and disappears from view.
I say you boys aren't used to that, huh?
Where I come from, that's how we say hello.
Anyway, should we look around?
You guys okay?
I'm going to cast Wish Hour.
That way, because this creature is still kind of around, it says you sense the immediate future.
For the duration of your movement does not trigger free attacks.
You impose two woes and attack rolls made against you and you make sleight challenge rolls with two weals to resist attacks and other harmful effects.
Okay, so for the next little while, you have some resistance to these spells.
Did you want to continue along the path to the raven's nest?
You will be relatively close now.
I think so.
Shall we?
Shall we move forward to the ravens?
Yes.
Okay.
That was weird, but let's keep going.
All right.
The ravens nest is effectively the bridge.
It's a room with a raised platform from where a steersman or skipper can con the vessel and control movements of the ship, giving orders to the crew.
On that raised platform, you see the slumbering form of the unconscious álfar Ljomi.
The room is otherwise empty, apart from two sleek black flight visors that rest delicately on hooks near the entrance.
They are a bit like virtual reality headsets used to power the thought and memory drive.
Wait, stay back.
We don't know if that's Ljomi.
It could be the thing.
Oh my God.
I didn't count the rings.
We should test it.
How do we test it?
You know him best.
Maybe you can ask him a question that only he would know.
But he's unconscious.
Poke him.
What about your trap sense, Snowthunder?
My trap sense?
Yes, you're right.
See if there's a trap of course.
Why don't I do that?
Do my little trap sense in the little room here.
Raven's Nest.
Can I do that?
You can.
Give me a roll.
The awareness roll with one weal.
Okay.
Oh yeah.
13 plus three plus.
Okay.
So we did good.
We got 19.
You creep around the room checking the panels and the hardware for any traps.
You don't find anything, but you do glide your hand over some strange runes that have been carved there.
Can you give me a will challenge with three woes?
So I got, okay, I got eight.
The rest of you see your companion freeze and look dazed.
He begins to drool as he has uncovered these bewildering runes, subliminal signals that melt his mind.
For the next minute, Jay, you are going to be unable to take any actions.
You can move.
You can stagger around.
I got to stagger.
Your tongue lolling out of your head.
You are dazed.
I love that.
I'm going to do that.
As someone who knows Runar, would I be able to counter it?
No, but Ljomi does have some dispel magic abilities.
If that is indeed Ljomi.
Or do we just let him drool for a minute?
True.
He's quiet.
Just a minute.
Okay, let's just savor the peace.
Well, your mind may well be made up for you for again appearing from its helm of concealment.
This faceless creature lunges at Jay, its teeth gnashing, whip-like appendages threshing with a mind of their own.
As they tear through his leather armor and through his flesh indiscriminately.
Jay, you're going to take a nice round 15 damage.
Oh, God.
The creature in front of you hugs on him, teeth emerging from grotesque mouths, snapping savagely at you all within reach.
Simultaneously, these sinewy appendages acting like ravenous serpents lash out in a frenzy.
Gigi is going to draw a bear paw and attack.
You lumber forward with Gravebreaker still gibbering on your shoulders.
It causes you to be slightly off balance.
I'm going to make you roll with one woe as you swipe the heirloom sword.
Ooh, 17 minus one.
I'm going well today.
Then the mighty bear paw, a thousand years of Viking history, flies into the neck of the beast or one of its many necks as it has now.
A raft of protuberances and sinewy appendages.
It clanks as if it has just met steel.
Can Gigi just do a sawing motion real quick?
Try and inflict extra damage?
The creature's grotesque jaws begin to chomp violently on Snow Thunder.
Eir will try to retrieve his spellcasting implements wherever they went.
Okay, you may do so, but Jay, you're going to take another 14 damage.
Are you kidding?
You have this whip-like beast rending at you with terrifying speed, a whir of razor teeth and elongated limbs.
Do I have any last words or am I just dead?
Has your damage surpassed your health?
Yeah.
Then make a fate roll, please, which is a die six.
Okay.
Ooh, six.
On a six, you lapse into unconsciousness for the next round.
You will awaken next round with Gods smiling on you.
The Norns clearly have seen some kind of future for you.
You will wake up next round with one health, presuming that you won't be snapped into savage
and the creature that's writhing around on top of you.
And he's not wearing pants.
That's the brutal part.
You may enter into the room if you wish at this next top of the round.
The first chance he has, he will absolutely cast cast. He's going to cast Wounding Wand at the nasty creature.
Okay.
Which attack versus the targets might you have the empowered spell ability to cause it?
If you take a strain, excellent.
You know what? That's an excellent idea.
Yes, we're took. Let's totally do that.
We will empower it. So we get two weals.
Is that over and above the deep minded?
It is.
Okay.
Bill, perhaps you should just snore quietly in the background since no one's waking you up.
It's fairly obvious that Bill is the real Ljomi now because the creature is just ripping Jay limb to limb.
Okay. And really? So that's eight. Ten. Ten exactly.
That is not enough to penetrate the sorceress defenses and the counterweave of this faceless creature.
I will do exactly all of that again.
Okay. So that is really nine. Yeah, it's all gone.
Can you give me a will roll with four woes because you got four strains.
We are killing it here. We are at that is negative three.
So add yet another trauma. Explode with the strain.
And if you wouldn't mind slumping into a corner as your narcolepsy.
I wouldn't mind at all. It's just it's the thing I do.
Also make sleepy sounds, Steve.
Oh, sure. Yeah. Okay.
The ink still shivers.
Valhalla.
So at the top of the round, if you want to make a fast turn, CJ and have another swing.
Or if you've got any other cunning plans, Evan, by the same token, I know that you hitched to CJ's back without any limbs is a little bit of a challenging or playing scenario.
But feel free to shout words of encouragement.
Go get them. Go take them out. And, you know, maybe if you, you know, if you turn the right way, maybe I can do like a energy burst or something, you know, from the back half.
So Gigi is going to how close am I to this thing? I'm really close, right?
You're within you're within sword thrust range.
It is in the process of stabbing violently the unconscious form of snow thunder, just pummeling him and blood and gore is spattering all over you as this creature effectively devours him.
So I'm like real close. Bearpaw didn't do the trick.
So I'm so Gigi is going to reach into his holster and pull out his pistol and push it into where this thing is.
And you know, where its mouth is and just try to shoot it point blank in the mouth.
OK, you got this. And I'm going to roll the hit. Do I have a weal?
Do I have a well, I'm going to give you a weal just for that for the execution style shot.
See if I can get it to like take some damage.
It would be a start. Oh, I don't need the weal. I got Nat 20. Oh, yeah.
All right. Nice.
Challengingly, though, for you and somewhat depressingly again is able to trigger its iron sides ability and your bullet ricochets off harmlessly while it continues the process of eating for snow thunder.
Again, the orcneas are known as the eaters of the dead, the devourers. And right before your eyes, it continues to feast on for Jay. And he never wakes up from his unconscious state.
Evan, can you give me a trauma role at this point? Because seeing your comrade and partner being devoured before your eyes isn't exactly fun.
And I've been asked to do it with three woes because it's an extreme trauma event.
Oof. One .
I'm going to give you pretty impressive six trauma there from watching all of that.
And now at nine. One more and you will have a mental breakdown.
Snow thunder.
Yeah, as is his habit has gone into a sorceress sleep. Ljomi is lying supine on a couch, having been perhaps drugged or even certainly kept for a reason, kept alive for a reason.
And so Gigi is you versus the fitness.
That's fine. I just looked up iron sides in the book and it's a spell and he's going to run out of spell slots. So I'm just going to keep shooting them.
That's nice. He's eventually going to wear it. We just got to wear him down.
All about the grind. So whose turn is it? Is it the beast? The monsters turn? Is it my turn?
He's had his turn to, unfortunately, eat. Poor Jay, who now gurgles his last. You do notice that it is resurgent, having feasted on the body.
It's necrotic cells burst with life.
I'm going to machine gun at point blank range.
You switch out your pistol for your storm shooter and blast away.
Since I'm doing a burst, I don't have to roll, right?
Correct. But it gets a sleight roll to avoid.
And then since I'm just trying to break down its ability until it runs out of spell slots, I'm not going to invoke any additional anything.
So I think I only get three right. Six.
You pepper the creature again. The bullets ricochet off as it uses its iron size ability to withstand the damage.
But you are right. You are clearly winding it down.
And it is a glimmer of concern passes through the grotesque eyes that stare at you.
And it says, the Norns who weave fate will tell tales of the devastation I sowed, the cataclysm I wreaked.
Jokes on you, you bastard. I have plot armor.
The very best armor. It then does look at you.
And a grin plays around its many mouths.
And it says, measure your worth, heroes, against the pallid specter of oblivion.
Fight, bleed, strive. Let your deeds be your testament, lest you be forgotten.
For I am Orcneus and I rage eternal. I was made by the father of monsters and my laughter will echo through the nine worlds.
And then it sprints, scuttering away on these elongated crab-like limbs, leaving a trail of blood and guts as it leaves the raver's nest and vanishes into the ship.
Well, Gigi is honor bound, so he's going to take off his harness and say, so sorry, I have to leave you here because I'm going to go kick the ship out of that thing.
That's fair. Can someone else pick me up? Someone have, you know.
Oh, he's still sleeping, so I guess I'm only talking to Ljomi.
So before Gigi goes anywhere, he's going to go try and wake up Eir.
I'll just kick him as you go by. Yeah. Just kind of a shake, like, wake up, my somnolent friend, wake up. Is he out?
Is there a wake up? You can wake him up. He just needs a swift kick to the midriff and he'll be fine.
Ljomi likewise could take a Jay-style slap to the face to get him.
He's going to go over there and shake him a little bit. I'll take care of it. You chase your target.
I'll need the bag of flares, please.
Ah, Gersgurgrungur, sure, sure. You know, I had the loveliest dream. You were there and oh, Err was there also. Yes, the flares here, the flares. I'm going to go try and get back into my dream.
What would you like to do next?
I'm going to use the internal ship scanners to detect motion. I'm also going to point out that despite the fact that Jay and Evan had the schematic of the ship, you failed to go into the armory.
Well, why didn't they point that out then? I mean, I mean, sounds like a them problem.
I think they were trying to fit in with my group.
Anyway, my point to you is this. If you scan the ship from this command center, from this Raven's Nest, you can tell that there are no other life signs on board outside of the Raven's Nest. Whatever it would detect, motion or movement, it would detect this creature.
It is no longer on your vessel.
Okay, so Gigi's going to scan the ship and take a look and see nothing and say, that's odd. It's almost as if it's left.
But I don't think it has.
I have, I think I have something.
Didn't I cast Wish Hour already?
You did.
It's expired, right? Can I cast it again? I'm out of spells.
There are some people with things like Corpse Charm.
Who would that be?
I've been asleep.
I have Corpse Charm. You call out to your ancestors and 2d6 spirits move into your body for the duration. Whenever you make an attack roll or challenge roll, you can expend a spirit to make the roll with one wheel. I can also use an action to spend three spirits and ask the GM one question that can be answered yes or no.
Make it so. Cast it and we shall see.
Has it left the ship, I guess.
Has the creature left our ship?
The spirits of the land speak to you and they say yes, it has left the ship.
Well, thank you, Gerasithrini. So we are clear.
I was rather looking forward to fighting that thing one on one. Mono a Mono.
I've been looking at the wounded man and I think we should plant him.
Either take me with you or put me out of my misery.
You are in the unenviable position of possessing a ship that utilizes thought and memory drive, which therefore requires two pilots. One of your potential pilots is a bloody pulp in the corner and the other is a limbless paraplegic who is on the verge of a mental breakdown.
Grave breaker, join me. Will you to pilot this thing and get it off the ground before you're broken by a grave?
Yes, please swing me back on your back and let's make haste.
Did the creature close the door when it left?
It will be relevant as we go into space.
Vent atmosphere.
We could close it from here with our thoughts and memories.
Can we use the Raven Skull to help with the ship piloting or anything?
I mean, it's related.
You're really nervous about Gigi piloting, aren't you?
Oh, I'm looking forward to this.
I mean, he's got all the confidence you could ever want.
The Raven Skull, is it not somehow useful?
The Raven Skull will indeed give wheels to anyone who seeks to pilot the Falkr using thought and memory drive.
There is a commotion outside, though, as all of your sled dogs are clearly reacting to something.
How quickly can we leave? How about now?
Now!
Now would be great.
The mighty heroes run away.
Do we put one of those visors on our immobile friend here?
Yes. One visor on Gravebreaker, one visor on me.
Go for it. There's no way for this to fail.
Evan, I'm going to ask you to make a will roll with five woes.
OK. Eight.
So the way that thought and memory drive works is this.
It's a kind of superposition.
It enables two navigators to move ships vast distances, assuming that one of them can accurately visualise the destination.
It becomes the memory to be accessed.
And so donning the flight visor, you can activate the thought and memory drive.
It does require some specialist training.
And in your mental state, you are neither skilled enough nor have the mental fortitude to be able to pilot the vessel.
And unfortunately, the last of your mind dissipates and you sink into a kind of vegetative state,
just sitting there drooling in the pilot's chair, your mind broken into shards.
Is it supposed to do that?
Well, I mean, one of them survived. It feels like it.
One out of two is bad.
Well, not bad at all.
OK, half out of two.
Yeah, I understand.
I think he's dead.
The Falkr remains marooned on the ice, unable to be piloted.
And the dogs run even more loudly, even more wildly out on the ice.
Well, shit.
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