Strange Giants

June 1, 2020

The group continues north after the battlefield.  It's still cold out but bearable.  They find a trail that is often used with a lot of tracks.  They all only go north.  They don't find any tracks heading south on this trail.  It's a mix of giant and human sized boot and foot prints.  After a few hours, Drewgan returns from flying ahead as a hawk.  He says that there are two giants standing guard at the dwarven structure they had found before.  The group decide to have one group that can move more silent go first and see if they can take them out while the others hang back.  

The group can't pinpoint who made the noise that alerted the two giants.  One of them went to the doors and started trying to open them while the other charged forward to slow the party down.  Volhoric used the power of the sword to go invisible and watch what the giant at the door was doing.  The giant kept trying to select various runes on the door and looking at a pendent he had.  Volhoric doesn't know how close he ever came because spells and arrows kept hitting him, interrupting any progress he made!  Volhoric noticed the giant restarted once without any interruptions.  Once he had that figured out, Volhoric took care of him and helped finish the other giant.  

The group stood in front of the door.  The pendant the giant had shows two symbols, one of Auril, the goddess of winter, and the other an unknown one that no one recognizes.  It's this second one that will open the door.  Fortunately, knowing it isn't needed and soon Volhoric figures out the correct pattern to open the door.  The interior looks as Volhoric remembers it.  Daxker and Marcus are sure that when the pendant is put into a pedestal, the floor will lower and the door will shut.  The group goes inside and the pendant used.  

The floor sinks down into the earth.  Ten feet, twenty feet, forty feet, sixty feet.  Finally, at over eighty feet, the floor emerges in a room, coming down to the floor in here.  The ceiling is twenty five feet high and three two headed giants wait them.  

"Um, where giants with you?" one of the ettins asks in gaintish.  

"We go on our own.  They come down later," responds Raz, using giantish as well.  

"You go on your own?  You offer yourselves?  You brave," says one of the ettin's heads, looking at the group in awe.  

"Yes," says Raz, striding forward.  However, he falters and when questioned, falters more.  Finally, he gives up trying to convince them and attacks!  

It's a big fight.  More and more ogres, a giant, ettins, and an ogre mage keep arriving.  And all of these giants look strange to the group.  Pale blue skin, blue eyes, and other smaller things makes them wonder about them.  The ogre mage almost gets away but Raz isn't having that and charges forward, finding him and cutting him down.  

The rooms on this level operate on different lights.  The rooms can't be seen until they enter them and once they do, they can't see behind them anymore.  Marcus ponders that but keeps going.  The first rooms contains mundane gear.  Clothing, boots, belts, and the like fill crates that have been sealed.  More of the same dominates the next room, along with some cages.  Raz can smell giants, ogres, ettins and humanoids have all traveled these corridors.  The final room contains stairs going down, cages that aren't in use, and two large statues.  The hallways should have contained dwarven history or lore but it has all been marred, defaced, or ripped out of the walls.  Even the non dwarves can tell something has been lost.  One of the statues has also been marred.  Probably a statue to Clangedden has been turned into something demonic or fiendish.  A new statue is devoted to Auril.  Raz hears cries from the stairs across the room and heads toward them.  As he steps between the statues, the Auril statue turns slightly and a cone shaped blast of cold slams into Raz!  He shivers as he continues toward the stairs but does pause to listen at the top, as well as motion the others forward.  The others decide to go around the statues.  

After getting healed by Dakxer, Raz continues down the stairs.  When he hears more, he signals the group to stop and keeps going.  The stairs probably drop another thirty feet into the ground before opening into a room of cages.  Raz hears voices speaking in giantish.  He motions the group to come down and then hides near the hallway.  When the giant enters the room to check on the cages, Raz moves the way the giant came toward the ogre mage.  He doesn't want another to get away!  The group can only stare in shock as the ogre checks the cages and turns toward the stairs, seeing all of them.  In that moment, Marcus mutters some words and the giant slumps to sleep.  Volhoric makes sure it's permanent.  

Raz attacks the ogre mage and cuts him down!  And then sees more giants!  Even as Volhoric comes forward and tells him to move back and let them come to them, Raz nods.  Then screams and runs off to attack the giants!  Volhoric face palms and signs.  He directs some of them to go and back up Raz while he and others will hold at the tee intersection.  

It's mostly ogres and Raz cuts several down in the room.  He's vaguely aware of a half ogre but cuts that one down as well.  The others take down more ogres but can hear one ogre start to execute people!  Meanwhile, another room filled with cages filled with half ogres.  And the other half ogres aren't attacking.  They plead with the group to stop!  

And we end there.  

2350 xp

GM Notes

• I like that Raz has the Scent ability.  It really makes me think about those senses more.  I need to do better but I like it.
• Same for the different shapes that Drewgan can take.   
• I do hope that it's not too much combat but when it is combat, it's fun. 
• Again, I really like the mixing of several different systems to make it fun, instead of getting hung up on pure RAW. 
• My computer ran out of hard drive space!  That really caused some issues, so I will need to clean up my drive and make sure to reboot before each game.  

BACK