(Spoilers) My experience with Reavers of Harkenwold - Updated

I'm Running Reavers (sort of)

I'll preface this by saying that this is a looooooong post. You've been warned.

After receiving the DM's kit, I began a new campaign with the intent of running the included adventure, Reavers of Harkenwold. I have a homebrew setting, and rather than write a review of it (because there are already plenty of those), I will instead write about all the changes I made to it to insert it into my home campaign. And there were quite a few changes - most of the places, many of the names, any references to cosmology or the world outside the valley. There were also several plot and character changes made, some of which were plot-driven, others by the actions of the players, and some others on a whim.

The spoiler tag contains the text of the original post, which I now realize is far too wordy to be digestable, and contains more narrative than I initially intended. I'm leaving it in case anyone is interested,, but I am going to append this post with smaller ones with more of the meat of the adventure that I changed.
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Cultural Note - the culture ascribed to many of the elements of this module and the campaign I've based it in are derived from those of real world Scandinavia, Finland, Russia, and other north-Germanic peoples and places. I meant this as an homage to those cultures, so if anything seems like a stereotype or caricature, I apologize in advance. No offence was intended, I assure you, gentle reader.

First off, because this was a new campaign, and Reavers was designed for 2nd level, I had to come up with a bit of 1st level material, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

Setting
The entire valley got a name change - Harkenwold became Graefholm, which was inspired by an adventure from Dragon 375 (Graefmotte - a city in the Shadowfell). I set Graefholm in a part of my world that I call Drakknir, which is an Alaska-sized peninsula jutting up into a northern sea, and inhabited by an offshoot of a viking-like culture (unsurprisingly called Drakkans). The valley of Graefholm (also called the Graefling Vale or Graefmark), is situated in the furthest south region of this land, and is bordered on the west by mountains. The White River and Trollskogen Forest form the border in the south. The eastern reaches are defined by increasingly thick woods and rockier soil unsuited to farming. To the north lies the Graefwood. It should be noted that I inverted the map on its left-right axis (mirror image). The White River runs down out of the western mountains, through the valley, then out to a great bay in the northern seas.

The town of Harken became Graefholm. I left Dardun alone, but I hammed up the pronunciation a bit (by rolling the 'r' a little, and giving the 'u' a distinct 'umlaut' sound. Marl became Marleby (think Hedeby in Denmark). Albridge became Stenbrygga (Stonebridge for sanity's sake), Easthill, now on the west of the map, became Vasterburg. Tor's Hold I also left alone.

Reavers NPCs
This is a quick list of the Reavers NPCs which I converted or altered for this module.

• Dar Gremmath became Darga Grimasson. The jarl's son-in-law and chief huscarl. His role is unchanged - he leads the resistance in the valley.

• Baron Stockmer became Hadrek of Graefholm, jarl of the Graefling Vale. His line has gone unbroken defending the southern border of Drakknir from the savages to the south for 2500 years.

• Malkos the mage became Kalevi the Runecaster. He actually features quite prominently in my version of this module. He became corrupted and fell into the service of Groth (an evil god), becoming the head of it's Death faction (think the Four Horsemen). Unlike the module, Kalevi plays a major role. He is a nasty old man, who exacted the promise of the jarl's granddaughter's hand in marriage from the jarl.

• Reithann became Reikkanen. Her role as chief druidess of the valley remains unchanged. Thorin and Laurel are her human apprentices.

• Bran Torsson - he remains unchanged. He is the jarl (though a lesser one than Hadrek) of the next most major steading in the region.

• Adalbar - Adalgar. His role remains mostly unchanged, though it is revealed through the course of the tale that he and Gretchen were lovers.

• Madera Lirr - mostly the same, but rather than half-elven, she belongs to a tribe of gypsies called the Venjha (ven-yah), which are pretty similar to the Vistani in Ravenloft or the Aiel in the Wheel of Time.

• Old Kellar became Old Kelgar. Name changed because Kellar was too similar to Kellen, an important historical figure for the Drakkans. Everything else the same.

• Ilyana - she is mostly unchanged, but has become a Venjhan settler to better fit the campaign.

• Eriyel - Personally unchanged much, but the "Woodsingers" (lame) become the Nythal, an ancient race of surface-dwelling dark elves (traditional drow do not exist in this world). The Drakkans call them "forest spirits" and are highly superstitious of them. This was a change I made for thematic and story reasons. This is a small tidbit of world history that I've revealed through this module and has little to do with the module itself.

• Israfen - Personally unchanged, but is now a dark elf for reasons listed above.

• Willet Reedfoot - Vili Virtanen. An NPC that I'd changed but he was never interacted with directly. The PCs enlisted his aid by proxy. He was going to be Drakkan human rather than halfling for thematic reasons, and because halflings don't really exist in this world.

• Curwen and Masie - Korhonen (Korho) and Miila. Little changed, but no longer halfling for the above reasons.

• Yisarn became Ysarn. He was changed into a restless spirit bound back into his old body by Kalevi, rather than an independently malevolent entity. He was a powerful jarl from long ago and gifted in the arts of Saidr and rune magic. Dal Nystere is no longer elven ruins, but instead an ancient Drakkan barrow mound, marked on the surface by a menhir.

• Nazin Redthorn became Redhorn. His name may still have been Nazin, but it never really came up. This NPC actually fell rather flat, and he was pretty disposable. He died at the battle of Albridge (Stonebridge).

• Sturmik became Sturmovik. Tieflings don't exist in this campaign, but I kept the stats and just called him human (a southlander). He died "off-camera" while the PCs were storming the castle. He was never even mentioned in-game.

• Kaltis became Reneiris. She became an NPC from the south that was a tie-in to a game I ran in this continent under 3.x. She was assistant to Lord Indurain (also a villain from the previous game). I suppose that he takes the place of Vhennyk from the module.

• Tyranda Falkon became Morda. She was necessary because Redhorn was slaughtered in the battle of Stonebridge. I liked her name a lot, but Morda was much more campaign appropriate (Mord is god of the sea, storms and winter in my campaign). She is a jealous and ruthlessly selfish illegitiamte descendant of the jarl and has always had her eye on the jarl's throne. She threw her lot in with Reneiris for a chance at power.

• Lividius became
  Spoiler

  a nameless death knight. For campaign and flavour reasons, I changed Lividius from a tiefling bounty hunter into a toned-down death knight.
  This part hasn't actually come up yet.

• Snilvor - I liked this character, so I made him a recurring villain and sometime helper to the PCs. He is a coward, but lovable. Speaks with a 'lolcats-like' dialect of common (i.e. "I can haz?"). Simultaneously hated in-character, and loved out of character. I introduced him early, which is fine, since I redesigned the entire portion of the module he came from.

Other conversion notes
The Iron Circle became The Red Legion. I changed the name and affiliation of the Circle because of campaign and story reasons. They are still driven by cultists worshipping an evil god, but instead of Asmodeus, in my campaign the god of monolithic evil is called Groth, and has four cults, like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (though I call them Bringers of Unholy Doom). Their motivation for taking over remains undefined, but has ties to another campaign I ran here. The Legion stirred up goblinoid barbarians to attacking the vale, and just when things were looking grim, they showed up and offered to help. Once invited in, they quickly seized power from the proud leader of the local people. The jarl's own allies to the north were stretched too thin to help (again indirectly because of Red Legion and other campaign world activity).

Asmodeus - All references to Asmodeus are replaced by Groth.

Bullywugs - all references to the bullywugs are gone. Not thematically appropriate for my campaign. I instead replaced them with tribes of fierce goblinoids from the south. Their cave was once the cave of a liason between the Drakkans and the southern tribes. The goblin tribes were enticed to attack by the Red Legion as a "foot in the door" to taking over the Graefling Vale.

Campaign specific NPCs
King Alrek the Wise, ruler of Drakknir, descendant of Kellen. Self-explanatory. Rules from his seat of power, Vathhattan, 350 miles to the north of Graefholm. He is a young and fair-minded king, respected by most Drakkans.

Tyra the Oracle. She is a strange young woman, blind from birth, but with an uncanny gift for seeing into the future.
Campaign locations and background
Vathhattan - Vathhattan is the seat of power in the country in which this module has been shoehorned. It is centrally located on the shore of a great lake called the Drakkanmerg.

Kellen - Kellen is the long-dead Drakkan who founded the colony of Drakknir over 2500 years ago after a failed attempt to claim the throne of Drakka. Drakkans of this area take pride in the degree of closeness that they can tie their heritage to Kellen and his expedition. He is perhaps a Lief Eriksson or Erik the Red type character.

Drakka and Drakkans. The country of Drakka is home to a viking-like culture on another continent that lies to the west across a vast ocean.

Like the vikings they were modeled after, Drakkans are great, if primitive sailors, and fierce warriors. The Drakkans of Drakknir also have a Finnic influence whose roots are those of a culture that may have been native to this land, but were absorbed millennia ago.

Kaz'ralgh. Kaz'ralgh is a lesser demon-god of shapeshifters, and specifically goblinoid ones such as the Barghest. He is wideley revered amongst all the tribal savage races, but has little real power or influence in the world. He is likely just a demon prince from another world. Reference is made to him in several places in my conversion, but this is mostly background, and intended as a reference to my old campaign and also as a red herring.


Houserules and other junk

In my games, I use a crapton of houserules and custom tweaks. Here are some of the more important ones.

Let the dice fall where they may. Normally, I fudge. I'm a chronic fudger. I think it contributed to my rep as a soft, pushover DM. Not this time. I decided to let fate decide. I was still free, after all, to have the NPCs and monsters make bad choices, or to interpret results in any way I liked, but the hard math of the game - I would let lady luck decide. I still generally roll behind the screen, though not always.

Inherent bonuses, with a twist. Wielding a magic item adds its plus to your effective level on the chart for determining your inherent bonus, rather than counting as a straight plus. This is handy since several characters have gained items that are far too powerful to give out with the normal rules. I find this satisfying in that I can still drop powerful magic treasure without worrying about the treadmill at all, and also don't have to worry much in case someone makes a character focused on an unlikely weapon or item.

Two prominent examples are Heidarr and Gretchen. Heidarr has an heirloom +5 Halberd from level 1 (it's ok, he started with only Str 17), while Gretchen will probably never find a magic bow. Hunters do not need any help with accuracy or damage, so neither one of us is crying over it. Plus, we all like the gritty, low-magic feel it lends to the game, and this one in particular.

Reckless Breakage. I use this system ported from Dark Sun with a tweak. If you roll a 1, you can just take the whiff, or you can gamble. Take a reroll on the attack, and hit or miss, you need to make an item saving throw, or your weapon is destroyed, damaged, or otherwise out of the fight. Magical weapons grant a bonus on the saving throw equal to their enhancement. Any other save bonuses you have also apply. Not as severe as Dark Sun, but still fun. The players have been through a couple bow strings, one player has replaced the haft of his weapon at least once, another shattered his axe on a stone floor, and the poor sorcerer has blown through three staves.

Action Points. I have decided that action points are a static item that do not get reset every extended rest. That works both ways - if you're out, you're out, but you can save them too. Every level-up, you get one per tier. You can be nominated for an AP for deeds or actions in-game. I also have a system of enhanced crits through which you can earn one.

Enhanced Crits. I have a system of enhanced crits where, as an encounter power, you can enhance a crit, either one you dealt, or one dealt to you. The effects are all relatively minor and based on the keywords or effects of the power that got lucky. If you enhance a monster crit on yourself, you get an action point for being a good sport. I decided to have this be a player choice because it seemed the most fun; whiny players won't complain, and risk-takers get to take their chances. My group seems to love it.

Do Something Cool. Others have suggested this, and I liked it, so I stole it. As an encounter power, you can Do Something Cool. It is really up to player/DM agreement as to how far this can go, but in combat, I use some guidelines that WotC published a while ago for terrain powers and the like.

Daily Attack Powers and Rituals. Dailies cost healing surges to recover. Four surges for your highest level daily attack, -1 for the next-highest, and so on. The upshot is that you can recover one at any time as a free action, if you have the surges to spare. Makes going nova easier, but at a foolishly high cost.

Rituals are fuelled by surges (like Martial Practices). Two surges for at-level rituals. As you level, the cost for your lower-level ones decreases, eventually to zero. This really encourages their use. They don't cost money, but the ritual caster has to keep a kit equal in value to their highest level ritual's casting cost plus purchase price. Foci and other healing surge costs are extra.

The following rule makes sure rituals and daily recharges aren't done frivolously though.

Extended Rests and Healing Surges. Major changes here. I wanted Dailies to really count, and I wanted damage to be a little more permanent than a night's rest. My solution, in a nutshell, was to only grant extended rests at appropriate points in the story arc, not just at the end of every day. The characters have to be in a relatively safe place in order to get one, or a relatively safe place in the story. Hit points don't come back and neither do daily attack powers - just your surges - so if you're low on both, you have some choices to make. I toyed with the idea of semi-permanent injuries, but it seemed too hard to balance grittiness with ease of play, so I dropped that.

Stats and skills. Humans start with a 25-point buy. Other races are standard. You get more humans this way, and for this campaign, and in this campaign world in general, this is desirable. Drakkan humans are by default illiterate, unless they train in certain skills or buy literacy with one of their language choices. As a holdover from 3.x, characters get a bonus language for every point of Int modifier, even if that means -1!

Also, humans are allowed to train any skill for their bonus skill. Actually, if someone comes to me with a good character reason, I will generally let them train any skill they like with their class skills too.

Backgrounds and Themes. Both are being used. I tweaked both on a case-by-case basis to better tailor them to the campaign and to the individual characters.

Runes. Runes are a powerful element in the culture of Drakka. Each character got a rune reading from me upon creation; a simple 3-rune spread. These runes granted the character 3 boons - +2 to a stat, training or focus in a skill, and a gift from the Norns. Each of the 24 runes was assigned to an attribute based on its meaning, and the player drew them at random from a bag. I didn't tell them about the meaning until afterward. Most drew their primary stat for their stat bonus, and if not that, their secondary.

The skill was pretty much left up to the player - they could take any skill or focus which was linked to the stat associated with the rune they drew. One player with low intelligence drew an Int-rune for his skill, and surprised me by asking to become literate. Awesome.

There are some other ones, but these are the biggies. On to the characters and story!


Players & Characters

There were 6 PCs for this adventure.

Gretchen Thalmasdottir - played by "the Firkraag"
Human Hunter. Granddaughter to the Jarl of Graefholm, and cousin of the King of Drakknir. An attractive, tomboyish and very spoiled young girl. A crack shot, but not particularly intelligent. She made a pact with Letha, the goddess of vengeance, against Kalevi, one of the major villains, to whom she was betrothed against her will. Letha has granted her power, but at a cost. A dark voice whispers inside her head, urging her to do hateful things.

She drew a rune that enhanced her Dex, took Bluff as her skill, and her Fate rune governed her pact with Letha. For that, I said that she would be marked by any creature to hit her with an attack. In exchange, she got the benefit of Hunter's Quarry against anyone marking her. She took a modified version of the Escaped Slave theme from Dark Sun. Her player used this ability cheesily many many times. Pretty much nothing has a decent passive insight. Keep your eye on that! I found some clever ways around it though.

Hjotvar Svarrison - played by "Masaryk the Mad"
Human Sentinel (MC Bard). This character is a custom-made Winter Sentinel with a raven companion named Valdis. I gave winter sentinels proficiency with axes and the raven's aura prevents those in it from making OAs. Its attack is a tiny amount of damage and triggering an ally within 10 squares to make a free basic attack. The character is a respected godi among the scattered settlers in the region. He is a wizened man of few words, but when he speaks, people listen.

He drew a rune that boosted his Cha (not bad for a MC Bard), took Endurance as a trained bonus skill, and his fate rune was linked to travel and a journey, so he got terrain walk in natural settings, and Mark of Handling as a bonus feat. He took a custom theme - Runemaster. This gave him an encounter power that lets him incite berserk rage in his allies in a burst 5, or protect them with a defence boost (this has never been used). I also let it poach powers from Runepriest, like a free multiclass.

Heidarr Kjeldsson - played by "Ficksquoose"
Human Warden (MC Shaman). This character can speak to the spirits of his ancestors (manifested by both his MC spirit companions, and also his warden guardian forms), a line he can proudly trace back 2500 years, to the time when his people first settled this region. He wields a great halberd passed down his family line. It is said to be indestructible (and pretty much is). Hates wolves and wizards.

His rune boosted his Wisdom (teritary), he took Intimidate as his bonus skill, and his Fate rune was linked to possessions, hence, the juicy halberd. He took the Gladiator theme from Dark Sun.

Arodus the pjotato farmer - played by "Progenitus"
Human Slayer. Arodus is a simple farmboy. Very simple. But quite strong, and handy with a great maul (mordenkrad) he calls his "pjotato-masher." Despite his intellectual shortfalls, he can read the runes, and has an uncanny luck about him.

His stat boost went to Charisma, took training in literacy, and his Fate was linked with inner strength and the Legendary Hero. His uncanny luck comes from the goddess of Luck herself, Dechtire. I gave him a power that lets him reroll bad rolls once per encounter. He also took the human reroll power. When this character does wacky things, he usually pulls it off. He took the Wasteland Wanderer theme.

Hergar the Firbolg - played by "the Waynerd"
Firbolg (refluffed Dragonborn) Dragon Sorcerer (lightning). Hergar is a Firbolg with a strong connection to storm magic, feared if not respected by all in the region, he answered the call to prove himself and improve his power.

He got a strength boost from his rune (secondary), took training in athletics, and his Fate was tied to initiation, so he knows the runes and rituals, and even possesses cantrips like a southlander wizard. I also have friendly NPC spellcasters react favourably to him. He faces much derision for this from Heidarr.

Kara, daughter of Emania (goddess of the moon) - played by "Kiel Thorn"
Human Paladin. Kara was an orphan raised in the south in an Emanian monastery, but returned to the north and her people when she became old enough to leave on her own. She bears the arms and armour of a southlander, but the courage of a valkyrie. She had the Wasteland Guardian Theme from Dark Sun.

He drew a Con rune (tertiary, but vital for paladins), took training in a Wisdom skill (Insight, I think) and drew the rune of Death for her Fate. I let her cash in Divine Strength, which was useless to a Chaladin, for Pulse of Life and Turn Undead. Little did I now that the rune was actual prophecy. She died in the second battle of the campaign before her initiative count could come up. She was burned as a heroine, and replaced by...

Kjar, the Shape-leaper.
Longtooth Shifter Barbarian (thaneborn, with MC druid). Kjar, a strapping young lad of 15 winters, is a shapeshifter (from his druid MC as well as his race), but he can take only the forms of worty beasts whose hearts he has eaten after defeating them. This was something passed down to him by his grandfather. He began the campaign being able to take bear form. He is much stronger and tougher than he looks. While he is a fair shot with a spear in boy-form, when battle is joined, he prefers to take other forms and tear his foes limb from limb.

This time he drew a strength boost (primary), took training in Perception, and his Fate was linked to harvest, sequence, and the cycle and outcome - I made him a True Lycanthrope. He has natual weapons and armour when shape-shifted (which he can do at will thanks to his multiclass). His theme is tied to this as well.


The Hook

It is spring time in Drakknir, specifically the eve of the spring equinox festival. The King has called upon all free swords to attend if they wish to pledge their allegiance and join the royal huscarls. He is actively recruiting because times are harsh and strange happenings have begun in the region. Goblinoids have begun pushing down from the mountains, bandits have begun attacking steadings, and some wild animals have gone feral, or worse. A shadow is creeping over the land and it must be stopped.

During the ceremony (which is presided by the character Hjotvar, druid of Winter), both Heidarr and Arodus make their pledges to join the huscarls. Later on, the King's cousin (the character Gretchen) arrives, bursting unannounced into the king's mead hall, with a message and dire warning of things happening to the south. She has been pierced by many goblin arrows, and is weak, but the druid recognizes her plight and patches her up.

Upon delivering her message, it is realized that the goblins pursuing her are imminently planning to attack an otherwise preoccupied Vathhattan! Just in time, the heroes bolster the defences at the gate, and defeat a rag-tag squad of goblins and wolf-riders. They handily defeat the raiders and take one of the minions captive (this turns out to be Snilvor) for questioning.

The group is thanked by the king, and offered what assistance he can lend. The group volunteers to travel south to help Gretchen's family and earn the favour of the king. In the morning, they question their captive. Hints about a cult of Kaz'ralgh are dropped, and a "bossman" to whom Snilvor answers. The druid (called "ravenman" by Snilvor) to let him free in the hopes that he will lead them to his leaders. Their deception works, they think, and they follow him south. He travels fast and is wary, providing quite the challenge (*ahem* skill challenge, that is). Gretchen and Hjotvar manage to follow his trail, and even gain on him with some forced-marches (I have houserules for this).

En route, the group is attacked by some savage bandits, all of whom are bedraggled with a madness that cannot be explained. I used some level 1 creatures from Darksun, refluffed as nordic bandits. They gained surprise and hit the party hard. Kara the paladin was killed below negative bloodied by a lucky critical hit by one of the bandits. I had a feeling that 4d6+6 was a lot for a level 1 monster. I posted about it here as well, and it was suggested that those creatures were actually doing 5th level damage. Lesson learned. Too late for the poor bastard playing Kara though

The fun part about this is that I have a reputation for being a weak and/or lenient DM. This fight set the tone for many of the battles to come. I think this ruthless player kill was just enough to sow the seeds of doubt about my DMing reputation with my players. There was a downside to this, however, in that one player needed a new character, and quickly. We conferenced and came up with an idea.

After having a sighting of a mysterious stranger in robes (Kalevi watching them), the group continued on, and followed Snilvor's tracks off the beaten path to a small steading in the forest. Against a background of howling wolves and the fetid stench of death, they investigated, and found all the inhabitants dead of an apparent plague. All but one. Amongst the human wreckage, they found poor young Kjar.

The villain Kalevi was about, and ready to lay ambush (he had a secret tower not far from here), but the players were vigilant. They torched all the bodies before Kalevi's foul magic could animate them. They also made a pyre here for Kara. She was honoured with verse and song, then burned. They kept one of her spears for Kjar to defend himself with. I was disappointed that I didn't get to run the encounter I had planned, but I was impressed that the players had outsmarted me and my plans. Kalevi had planned to sneak up on them, shut them in the steading with his animated zombies and burn the place to the ground with them in it, but alas...

The group found two sets of tracks leading away from here - Kalevi's and a set of goblin tracks (presumably Snilvor). Kjar provided the group a vague description of Kalevi and what he had done, and also some hints about an ancient and long-abandoned dwarf-built tower not far from here that he may have dragged off survivors to. They followed the tracks through the wood for another day, arriving at a stream. They could see the silhouette of the crumbling tower through the mists and against the backdrop of the sunlit mountains in the west. There, they were also ambushed by Snilvor and his entourage. He was no longer a minion, and had been given some power by his "new master" (Kalevi). I used the stats from his appearance in the Reavers module for this fight. I added some more goblins and an extra wolf or two. The party took this encounter apart, despite the thick tree cover and difficult terrain provided by the stream. Snilvor tried to get away, but failed miserably. Hunters are potent controllers. The group coined their motto in this fight - "nobody gets away!"

They questioned Snilvor again. This time, he promised to show them to his "new master's house" but refused to go in, out of fear of reprisal. The group camped here overnight, and set out for Kalevi's keep in the morning, with a tied up Snilvor in tow. He did as promised, and led them to the tower's front door, but refused to go in (the tower also had a back door which he neglected to tell them about, and they did not find). The druid drugged the goblin with sleeping potion and tied him to a nearby tree before proceeding into the ruined tower.

The tower itself was very old and carved seemingly from a single block of stone. It was a square, black edifice sitting atop a large rock outcrop. No signs of life could be seen from outside. I used floor plans I found on the internet for some old tower, and modified them into a dungeon map. I then also included four levels of basement to the tower, and then a winding tunnel and catacomb, which led both to the stream outside, and also deeper underground. The passage underground was sealed with an ancient dwarven door. They failed to find it. It may become relevant later on.

They thoroughly searched the tower, first going up, then descending into the basement. They uncovered the first hints of the Iron Circle/Red Legion, and the involvement of a dark cult - a set of ceremonial robes and a sacrifical altar to a dark god. Searching the tower took for freaking ever. I really could have done a better job with the pacing here, but Gretchen's player was late, and I was stalling because I wanted him to be there for the showdown, because it was Kalevi, and his character had lots of reasons to hate him.

Continuing down further, they eventually found that below the basement, someone was heard conducting some kind of ritual. I again borrowed from Dark Sun for this one, using the final encounter from the DSCS, though modified for fluff and a party of 6. The group happened upon Kalevi and an assistant in the midst of creating some undead! They rushed to the attack, putting down the first wave as Kalevi and his assistant finished the ritual for raising a large, powerful juggernaut of a zombie. For flavour, I had the zombies be the reanimated relatives and workers on Kjar's steading, and made the minions child-zombies. Creepy! The group seemed to like it.

Long, drawn out battle. Arodus yo-yoed several times during the fight as he took on Kalevi without much backup from the rest, who were all busy dealing with other zombies. Kalevi decided that he'd had enough, dropped Arodus again, and fled deeper into the catacombs. The group pursued. I was a little nervous. I wanted him to get away so he could be a recurring villain in Reavers. The group had their new motto though, and they were sticking to it. Sure enough, it was pretty clear to me that because of the hunter and her at-will proning and slowing (save ends) and whatnot, there was no way Kalevi was going to get away. Fortunately, I had developed a contingency for precisely this reason. A little planning goes a long way.

Kalevi turned and made a final stand, swinging away with his bloody, runic axe. He dropped Arodus again, which was the opportunity I was waiting for. While both he and Arodus lay unconscious, he used his magic jar (did I mention that I love exception-based monster/NPC design?) ability to force his spirit into sharing a body with Arodus. I slipped the player a note with some vagueries on it, and concluded the fight, "disappointed" that my villain failed to get away. The group pretended to be sympathetic to my cause, pointing out that 'because of controllers, recurring villains are hard to pull off in 4e,' and that I'd better get used to it. Heh. I let them have their smug little victory.

Arodus came to, and claimed Kalevi's runic battle axe, which was called 'Bleeder.' It was a nice axe of Wounding, and also happened to serve as a focus for Kalevi's Magic Jar. They played right into it. Heidarr took Kalevi's head as a trophy and proof for the jarl if he doubted their word. They freed the survivors of Kjar's farm, and led them back to the surface, finding their captive Snilvor had given them the slip. They found a puddle of puke and some chewed through ropes and a set of tracks leading away. They cursed themselves for not killing him when they had the chance. He was just so pathetic though, they couldn't all agree to it

When they returned to the farm, Kjar decided to travel with the group and help them, in exchange for all they'd done for him. They pressed on south toward Graefholm once more, however, there were no signs of Snilvor's tracks, as the snow was fast melting and the rains were only helping his escape.

Something else I'd always wanted to do was to have a party fight a dragon at first level, so that was my next arrangement. The party came to another steading (I think I called it Ravensburg or something like that), where they found that the pass south to Graefholm was blocked by a fierce blizzard, and a horrible monster, and possibly goblins. The group rounded up all the willing warriors they could and set forth to slay the beast! This was one group that would not shirk from danger. They passed a wilderness skill challenge and managed to arrive on the good side of the encounter map. I think I stole this one from an early 4e module as well. The one with the frost goblins.

The group found a frostwyrm and its tribe of worshipful goblins nesting around a hotspring geyser. They brought the fight to the beasts, wiping out the goblins handily, then focusing on the dragon. I thought the poor visibility, snow, ice, and hilly terrain would pose a more serious threat than they did. I was so wrong. This is where I learned just how advantageous the range of a longbow could be, how powerful it is to be able to ignore cover and concealment, and just how few combats are designed with a bow-wielder in mind.

One dead dragon later, I had something scratched off my DM bucket list, and the players were feeling pretty good about themselves, though they were still just shy of level 2. Fine by me. They looted the dragon's treasure, and I provided some nice upgrades to their items by making some of them magical in the context of the fight. Arodus' armour became some kind of frostmail from his being spattered in frostwyrm blood, then bathing in the hotspring. Gretchen's arrows that she retrieved from its hide had become enchanted as well. Kjar ate its heart and learned some new powers, including the ability to take dragon form! Hjotvar just collected the dragon bits for later item-manufacturing, and Heidarr claimed its skull as a helmet. About half their recruited warriors survived the battle. They buried the dead in rock piles and continued on.

Coming down the mountain pass, they came upon their second clue about the Red Legion/Iron Circle - the scene of a bloody battle between them and goblins. I just threw this in there to confuse things. The goblins were in kahootz with the Red Legion, but I guess they got a little unruly. Or perhaps the Legion wanted to stop them from going any further just yet. In any case, I think the scene injected some curiosity into the players.

Harkenwo-- er, I mean, Graefholm!

Encounter E1 - The characters descended out of the pass, coming into Graefholm from the north. From their vantage point, they easily spotted the smoke from poor Ilyana's homestead. With their surviving hireling warriors in tow, they attacked the mysterious reavers. I added an extra reaver to make it an appropriate encounter for a 6 player party, but it wasn't enough. The fight was a cakewalk. A nice change of pace from the dragon, I suppose (which also wasn't as challenging as I'd hoped, even using updated math). The encounter was pretty simple, and did what it was supposed to do, I guess. Though, again, the advantage of range that a longbow (in this case refluffed superior crossbow) provides in most fights cannot be understated. Between Gretchen's arrows and Hergar's range 20 lightning bolts (refluffed and keyworded Acid Orb), none of the reavers survived to warn Redhorn of a new threat in the vale. That also meant that nobody survived for questioning either.

There is a pattern developing here :/

Party hits Level 2.

The party continued on to Reithann/Reikkanen's grove, where they learned more of what was going on. Gretchen was afraid to face Darga Grimasson, her father (Dar Gremmath), so the rest of the party crept to the edge of Stonebridge to meet with him. Gretchen watched from the shadows. Despite their prowess in battle, none of the players wanted to risk being seen by the mysterious Red Legionnaires. So basically, they kept to the shadows and didn't engage with ANY of the town's NPCs, outside of a few meetings with Darga.

From here, they had both word of trouble at Tor's Hold from Darga, and also the Bullywug Nivram's cave from Reikkanen.

I should probably explain why I ditched the bullywugs (besides the fact that they're silly). In a previous campaign, which takes place slightly in the future from this one, the barbarian goblinoids to the south were destabilized after their tribal liason to the Drakkans in the region was killed. The liason, a Drakkan who'd married an orc woman, was the father of one of the PCs (a half orc). I decided to include part of his backstory in this campaign, just for fun, so this is where I put it.

The group went straight to Tor's Hold. Rallying support was high on their agenda, and that seemed like the best place to start. They found that Tor's Hold was occupied by a force of goblinoids in the east, and unable to come to the aid of the rest of the vale. On top of that, the fosterson of jarl Torsson was captured in a raid. Poor hapless Hymling (replacing Heron the halfling). The party agreed to help them out in exchange for the backing of Tor's Hold when D-day arrives.

Encounter E3 - They ambushed a Red Legion caravan en route to the cave. Turns out that this was a supply caravan. They steered it back to Tor's Hold as a show of goodwill, and used the wagon to sneak in the back way of Nivram's cave.

For this, I used a map for a bandit cave I found online. I think it was from a 3.x-era Dungeon adventure. I never bothered to look into it further, but it served my purposes. The map featured a long, winding stair up to a front door set high on a cliff face, with convenient archer platforms to either side. I designed it such that if the PCs tried the frontal assault, they would get creamed by the alert hobgoblin guards, both archers and polearm soldiers. Fortunately for them, they thought up their little ruse, and bluffed their way in the back door - a cave with a stream coming out of the cliff. Inside was a winch and platform, with none other than their old pal Snilvor, beaten black and green, on winch duty. He eagerly helped them up and told them of the layout.

Encounters T1, T2, and T3 - What followed was one of the biggest fights of the module. They just marched into the main chamber of the cave and started fighting. I threw all three (heavily modified) encounters at them in waves as more gobbos and hobgobbos joined the fight. There were even some bugbear shapechangers, and a powerful tribal sorceress (an NPC cameo from my other game). I thought for sure I was going to get a TPK here. The players used almost no tactics or caution. Hjotvar, their only leader, dropped and nearly died from damage, and I was halfway through making my contingency plan to just have them captured for questioning when my dice just went cold. Cold as ice. One of the players even thought I was cheating for them. I wasn't. They prevailed, and true to their motto, let none survive (though that in itself nearly killed two of the characters from drowning! Snilvor saved one of them, but was repaid by treachery from Gretchen. He ran off licking his wounds. They haven't seen him since, but he will be back later, I'm sure. The sorceress fled at the earliest opportunity, using her signature move of turning into a raven and flying out the hole in the roof of the cave. Heh, at least some of them get away.

They freed Hymling, who turned out to be another shape-leaper like Kjar, and also one of the Grimbold clan, from Graefholm. For this, Torsson was extremely glad. They eagerly pledged their aid when the time came, though they were saddened to learn of poor Nivram's grissly fate (crucified on the back wall of his own cave and left up as a decoration).

After this, the characters returned to Stonebridge, looking for Darga. He was gone "on business" but everything was quietly proceding according to plan. They found the guard at the Bridge had been increased, and rumours were circulating about rebel activity. A caravan failed to report and nobody had heard from the barbarians holed up in the eastern cave for too long. Gretchen risked an encounter with the loose-lipped innkeeper and fed him some false information to see if he was a traitor. I don't know if the player had read the module and was trying to get one-up on me, or if it was a lucky guess that he was an informant for the Red Legion. I had him leave and report the false information that she passed along. The game was afoot.

On top of that, during a meeting Hjotvar had with Reikkanen in the grove, she hinted that there are some forest spirits far to the south, in the Trollskogen, that might be willing to help. Hjotvar was very intrigued by this, and so was Hergar, when he caught wind of it. However, by now, the group had formed a plan to raise the entire north end of the valley, take the bridge, then push on to Graefholm and beseige the fortress. Next stop: Vasterburg/Easthill.

Encuonter E4 - When they arrived, they were feeling cocky and decided to just attack the first sign of guards that they saw. I described it very cinematically, all slow-motion as they rode into town in the rain, butchering hapless guards left and right, then I ran Encounter E4.

They stomped it. I decided that I didn't want to run E2 like that, and had an idea. I set it up such that the rest of the force holding Vasterburg was out on patrol in the hills pursuing Adalgar's rebel rangers and wouldn't be back for days. I told the group straight up that there was another encounter (E2) I wanted to run, but because the outcome was pretty much guaranteed, I would let them just have a "storykill." They would win the encounter and get the (meagre) XP for it, but they still had to earn it. I made them describe things in detail, the planning, the setup, the execution (no pun intended), with full narrative control. I only interjected here and there, where necessary.

They were into it, and most of the villagers were on board. Sarken Toldorff (a southlander merchant retired here and elected leader of the local Thing), however was not one of them. He had words with the group, but was berated a coward. He retreated to his home to hunker down and avoid the battle. Gretchen had words with Adalgar here as well. They had a very public lover's quarrel in the street, but eventually settled on a truce. They concocted a plan to send innocent-looking Kjar into the hills to inform the Legion that the townsfolk had captured Adalgar and some of his men in town and were holding them for judgement. Meanwhile, the rest of the group set a trap. It was amusing and rather nasty - they would allow the Legion back and let them openly capture Adalgar. To celebrate their victory, they threw a party, at which the druid would serve up drinks and food laced with herbs to give the guard the runs. In the meantime, they'd boarded up the old outhouse and dug a new one, where polearm-wielding Heidarr would be waiting to skewer them in their most vulnerable moment. Once enough of them had been killed this way, the group would just surprise and finish off the rest of them, after which point Adalgar would be freed and the real celebration would begin. In the time running up to the fight, Gretchen tried several times to convince Toldorff to join them. He
refused. Her last attempt was to tell him to "do the right thing" and handed him a dagger.

Encounter E2 (Storykill mode) - The plan went off without a hitch and was one of the funniest sessions of the campaign. Afterwards, things got even more interesting. I decided that it was time to sow a little chaos and to remind Arodus that he was carrying around the malevolent spirit of a necromancer inside his head. Gretchen and Adalgar had a tumultous reunion, culminating in a passionate yelling match - Gretchen being the entitled little firecracker that she is. She threatened to burn down his house. Perfect.

I had a very jealous Kalevi compel Arodus to do just that. After their fight, he snuck back and burned the place to the ground with poor Adalgar inside. He had an escape hatch, but I made it appear to have been sabotaged. I left his fate looking grim, but unprovable. This encounter really engaged the party, but it killed nearly an entire session with them playing CSI: Graefholm instead of D&D. I was horribly bored. In the end, they got a torn scrap of a Red Legion cloak as evidence. I neglected to mention to Arodus or his player what had transpired since Arodus got falling-down drunk with a fiery villager named Hjalavar (another cameo from the other game). He was just as surprised as anyone when it was discovered that the captured Red Legion cloak he used in the infiltration of Nivram's cave had a corner torn out of it that could have been a match for the scrap of cloth found at the scene of the burnt out house. I kind of decided that Adalgar had actually escaped and would become another NPC from the other game I ran. He had a grim outlook and didn't speak of his past, though it was clearly tragic. I'm leaving it open still.

In addition to that, they discovered that Toldorff had not been seen since the battle either. It turns out that he interpreted Gretchen's "do the right thing" as "here's a knife - if you're not going to fight like a Drakkan, you might as well kill yourself." Which he did.

Gretchen felt horrible. The spunky young thing might be starting to learn of responsibility after all.

Anyway, after that fiasco, they found a new leader for the rangers, and as the people of Vasterburg continued preparations to free the vale, the party slipped out of town. At Hjotvar's urging, they began heading south along the edge of the foothills, then following the forest until they came to the game trail leading through it. He wanted to find out about the forest spirits. Gretchen agreed, as it was one of the last things Adalgar had mentioned before the incident.

Encounter D1 - The PCs eventually found the elven camp, though not by accident. After a fruitless daylight search, they set up camp and prepared to search again the following day. They were awoken in the middle of the night by lights and music in the forest. I drew inspiration for this meeting from the scene in the Hobbit where Bilbo stumbled into the elves' camp in Mirkwood. This had a less hostile feel to it though. The group was instead welcomed to the elves' fire by Israfen (on perimeter guard) and flat out told of the elves' plight.

I really liked tying the dark elves into the story and geography of this part of the world. I don't know if anyone else gave a crap. I think Masaryk the Mad did, since her and I share this campaign world. To anyone else though, it was probably just a tidbit. The cool thing was that everyone really roleplayed like superstitious vikings, which was gratifying to me as a DM.

So Eriyel did her thing as Quest Giver, and told them of Dal Nystere. This part I changed. As mentioned in the pre-blurb, the "woodsingers" (lamest. name. ever.) became a group of surface-dwelling dark elves (again, no drow in this world) called the Nythal. They are an ancient tribe and native to this land, though they have been displaced from their ancestral home, several hundred miles to the south. So the party would not be kicking a skeletal mage out of an elven ruin, but rather (and I think far creepier), delving into an ancient Drakkan barrow mound to rid the forest of a great evil unleashed by Kalevi several months ago. It turns out that the fell necromancer went in there and disturbed the bones of his ancestors and bound some of them to his will in order to keep the Nythal busy and out of his plans. Eriyel promised the Graeflings her help if only they would undo his evil. They agreed, naturally.

The next day, the group delved into the barrow mound. Again, I was inspired by Tolkien, but this time it was more the Peter Jackson interpretation of the scene where Aragorn goes to seek the assistance of the oathbreakers. I even stole the whole "the way is shut" bit, but altered it for my purposes. It instead read "the way is shut - it was made for those who are dead - none shall pass, save for..." and the rest is obscured. The idea being that the elves couldn't go in there and deal with it themselves because the ancient Drakkans warded their tombs against robbers by making it so only Drakkans could enter, but I left it fairly non-specific, just in case I needed some wiggle-room.

I wanted to use the map provided for the Yisarn encounter, but I wanted more dungeon first, and since I wasn't using the whole Snilvor/Daggerburg goblins angle for this, I wouldn't need the first room or encounters D2 or D3 either. So I went online and grabbed some more generic tomb maps. I got a couple I could use from a site called microdungeons. They worked really well, as they were simple, and had descriptive words without much meaning in the spaces for the rooms. I ended up combining two maps, then adding them to the side of the map that came with the module.

The group entered the barrow through a stone archway set into the side of a hill marked with a menhir. Once inside (they had to crawl), they began to hear dire whispers. Arodus and Heidarr most of all. The passage opened up into a larger room with a circle of stones and a shaft dug straight into the earth. The hole looked fresher and disturbed. There was also a hidden side chamber (marked armoury on the microdungeon map), which the players discovered, but didn't have the time or inclination to loot. While some were looking at that secret room, others had slung a rope down the hole and begun to descend. Here is where I decided to be a prick. I filled the place with spectres and wraiths, so they could phase through the walls and attack characters who were descending the rope. Did I mention they could prone at will? Heh.

Only one character fell for it, but he took lots of damage. It was the Warden though, and he could take it. Arodus' player decided that the spectres scared the heck out of him and he was paralyzed with fear. He played it well, and the group rewarded him by nominating him for an Action Point. Everyone else descended and helped the fallen Warden, except poor Hergar, who soloed the lead Spectre. The others down the shaft were victorious, and moments later, Hergar managed to bloody his spectre as well and it retreated into the floor.

The group at the bottom found themselves in a big chamber with two halls leading away. One led to a dead end where the tunnel had collapsed years ago. The other led through a labyrinthine catacomb, and eventually into a burial chamber where they had another showdown. This time it was Hergar's spectre that buggered off from before, a couple phantoms, and a pack of skeleton minions several levels above the group (hard to hit, but easy to kill). I did my fair share of damage, but the PCs prevailed again, though not before the spectre could escape with his last handful of hit points. Phasing and insubstantial are awesome good fun.

They continued to explore the tomb, until they found a chamber which had been marked 'mural' on the microdungeon map. I described an ancient and faded (but magically preserved) mural about the hero Kellen and his Crossing of the great sea to found the colony here. This was a hint of the nature of this particular tomb. It showed another great hero, Lofthaena Norn-touched - someone that Heidarr claimed as an ancestor, and Ysarn, a runecaster and advisor to Kellen. I implied from a few history checks made by Hjotvar and Hergar that there may have been some kind of love triangle there, also implying to the wizard-hating Heidarr that he may be descended from a mage, but I think he missed that one. After admiring the artwork for a while, they continued on at Kjar's insistence.

They came to an important-looking chamber with several pedestals, braziers, and a great set of double doors. They expected attack and readied themselves. Ysarn is more patient than that. He waited for them to press the assault, having made preparations of his own.

Encounter D4 - When they finally decided to open the door, he was ready. I added another two skeletons and replaced the Glimmerweb Spider with the spectre from before - now empowered by Ysarn to an elite. This was another tough battle. I had the dragon carcass on the map represent the remains of Ysarn. I was worreid about the challenge of this fight, so I made it that his animated form only took half damage, and that his "real" body would take full damage (and be much easier to hit). Nobody even got close to it. The group immediately identified Ysarn as a big threat and 4 of the PCs focused on him, while the other two dealt with the skeletons. Ysarn did some damage, but it was the Spectre doing the heavy lifting. I kept forgetting about Ysarn's damned immediate reaction! I always do that! Just as well though, since I likely would have wiped them out had I played him at full strength. The Spectre was devastating. Both Arodus and Heidarr dropped multiple times that fight, with the Spectre dropping Arodus nearly to negative bloodied. I decided to have another nasty trick kick in as well - Arodus was going to be taken over by Kalevi again and lash out at Gretchen. The Spectres' last attack allowed Kalevi to assert full control, and he revived on his own to clobber Gretchen.

I flubbed the wording and the timing, and Arodus' player is new to 4e, so he fumbled it too. Gretchen's player got wise to what we were up to before it could be executed. I think he realized how dire things were and pulled a stunt like in chess where your move isn't final until you take your hand off the piece. He changed his action from something that would have allowed Arodus/Kalevi to probably flatten her, to what amounted to a glancing blow.

The group finished the fight somehow. I think I had the spectre dissipate when Ysarn was destroyed. I call that fair after the prick move that I pulled on them through Arodus. Gretchen, Arodus, and Hjotvar had a little bit of drama out in tha hall. Arodus was so shamed by his behaviour that he almost swore off violence and weapons for good. I think he was nominated for another AP for his performance there. He deserved it for playing along with my nefarious schemes. They started to get what was going on, but of course picked the wrong solution.

They smashed Kalevi's oddly-not-rotting-head, assuming that was where he was lashing out from. Hjotvar shattered his own axe in the attempt, so Arodus gave him his trophy axe, which he no longer wanted anyway. Good, that's where I'd intended it to go in the first place!

Meanwhile, the creepy whispering ceased for all but Heidarr, who could now clearly hear the voice of his ancestors here, but could not understand what they were saying. Hergar claimed Ysarn's staff when nobody was looking, and cantripped it to look like an old stick. It was a handy find, because he'd just finished having a bad streak of luck with natural 1s and lost his third staff to Reckless Breakage. Heidarr claimed an old signal horn from the remains of his ancestor, Lofthaena Norn-touched. I had some ideas for that horn, inspired by the Horn of Valhalla of prior editions, and the Horn of Valere from the Wheel of Time. I even had marked in runes, "the grave is no bar to my call." At the time I couldn't even remember where I got that from. Hehe.

Party hits level 3. Playing into what was going on, Heidarr retrains one of his feats into multiclass Shaman, which gave me lots of great ideas. MME had just come out and I was going to make the horn work like the bottle that summons a shadow minion, but with different flavour, however I have since had a different and better idea - once per day, the horn will let him summon a Spirit Companion as a minor action, and grant it an aura, depending on whom he summons. I figure I'll let it call back anyone dead and willing that he can name. So far, that's Lofthaena, and Kara. He didn't really play around with it though.

Returning from the barrow, they are given the promise of help from the elves, and as a gift of kindness, they grant Hergar several elvish rituals. The group hears from Thorin, who came in bird-form to spread the word of what was happening. He replaced Seranna from Encounter B1.

Encounter B1 - The group still had populations to rally, so after leaving the Trollskogen, they skirted around Graefholm, and headed for Marlby, where they somehow convinced Korho and Miila to join them, even though they're just old farmers, and not warriors. They then bee-lined across the vale (they had horses) for Dardun. Of course they encountered a column of Red Legion troops pulling back in preparation for the assault. They harried the column (who were mostly horseless) in another fun "storykill" fight.

They arrived in Dardun, convinced Madera Lirr, a pacifist, to lend her support when it was clear that they had all the winning cards in this hand (and they pretty much did). They then made Stonebridge in time to help with preparations. Gretchen had a nice roleplaying encounter with her father where she realized that she should not be hiding from him, as he is actually proud of her and her actions, rather than angry or ashamed.

I gave the group full credit for B1, even though they didn't do what was laid out there. They did their own thing, which I judged to be equally effective. Seemed fair; XP and victory points awarded.

I wasn't really prepared for this next part though. They had a plan. It was a logical plan, but oh boy did it screw me up. They came up with a real brainwave of a plan to split the party - half of them wanted to be on the front lines, while the other half wanted to sneak around and alpha strike Redhorn. I thought, "no problem, these encounters will be easy for them, so I'll just have the frontline group do B2, and I'll have the strike team (which contained no strikers - should have been my first clue) take B3 as the rearguard before they all meet in the middle to take Redhorn and his entourage in a pincer attack." Oh, and I decided to let the half of the group not taking part in the battle to run the baddies. Big mistake.

Encounter B2 - The front line group, which contained not only all the strikers, but also had the weakest players (that being a 4e noob, and two others that are not remotely good at tactics) was facing a battle of mostly minions. They got creamed, even though the XP budget wasn't out of their league. By the end, two of them were on the ground making death saves while the third was starting his last turn with 1hp and 4 minions and the bloodied commander still up. Fortunately, it was the Sorcerer. Unfortunately, he had no powers that could hit them all. Eventually, they came up with a way to use Do Something Cool to expand his AoE spell enough to catch all the baddies. He killed all but one last minion, who failed a "morale save" and fled.

Encounter B3 - The alpha strike group also did fairly badly. They wiped out the Dark Adept in short order, but had a lot of trouble with the Tar Devil soldiers. It was a real nickel-and-diming. Eventually they won out, but it was excruciating. The Cutthroats *almost* got away.

Encounter B4 - The final battle with Redhorn was, as I predicted, a cakewalk and very anti-climactic. If I have one complaint about this module, it is that not enough was spent building him up, and he was a pushover. The first round of the fight, things were looking like a potential challenge, but after that, it went downhill quick. The others coached the Sorcerer on how to nova effectively, after his last dismal performance, and this time his first and second round he managed to drop most of the baddies on his half of the map. After that it was a dogpile on Redhorn and he went down in two rounds. Then another round of mop-up and it was all over.

Because the group crushed every encounter and did all the sidequests, they got full VPs, and ended up with a very decisive victory. Without taking a breather, they moved straight on to the keep. They skipped K1, and questioned Kellar/Kelgar, who pointed them to a plan for doing K2. Here is where I thought things were going to be tough for them. They managed to get themselves over the wall (despite a close call) without being detected, and they managed to storm up to the main keep quickly enough that the defenders were not able to raise the drawbridge. Then things erupted into another multi-stage fight, but this time in very tight quarters. This battle took an entire session and was fairly tough for them. A couple of them had dropped, and the group's healing resources were completely spent.

Encounters K2, K4, K5, K6, and K7 - Anyway, phase 1 was taking out the minions and the dragonborn guards (again, they were refluffed as Firbolgs), and was not too hard. Before they died though, they sounded a general alarm like it says in the booklet, and reinforcements began arriving. First, the hobgoblins from upstairs, then Tyranda/Morda (whom I completely redesigned to be harder - based on the Duelist from MV), then the basement guards. Once this fight was almost done, then Kaltis/Reneiris and her demons showed up. I just had her retreat for story reasons though, but the demons stayed. The Tar Devils weren't too bad, but due to the tight quarters, the Spined Devil had difficulty using its only good power. In the end, the players were, of course, victorious, but it was a bloodbath.

At this point, the module is more or less over. The group rescued the baron/jarl, and received their rewards. I handed out some juicy items and alternative rewards and enjoyed an entire session of roleplaying. Due to the way in which I was working the module into my story arc, I was having a bunch of time pass before running the very last encounter.

In my version of this, Kalevi still had not been revealed, being still trapped inside Arodus, and he has no intention of giving up. He made his move by dominating Arodus into asking the jarl for Gretchen's hand in marriage (to which she naturally objected). When that failed, Kalevi played the rest of his hand - he snatched the jarl's body, imprisoning his spirit inside Graefling, his heirloom blade. He left it behind and fled to the south. Arodus was released finally from his grasp.

It took the party some time to figure out just what was going on, but by then he already had several days on them. They geared up and pursued him to the south. Gretchen took with her Graefling at her father's insistence.

Eight days out, they encountered a random warband of orcs heading north. The group decided to ambush them - all 44 of them. They were not intended to be important, so I made them all minions, but Orc minions are still plenty dangerous. The group gained surprise and acted far quicker than the orcs, despite me rolling a 20 on their initiative. The party wiped the floor with the orcs, though they did manage to drop Gretchen past negative bloodied. Her player was anxious to change characters and was deliberately playing off his game in order to get her killed, but I wasn't done with him quite yet. I had her grandfather's spirit contained by Kalevi's magic jar within Graefling now enter her body, so the jarl woke up in a 17 year old girl's body with no clue how he got there. Hilarious!

Character death #2. Party hits level 4.

That's more or less where we ended, but my plan was to have them pursue for a little while longer, then give up when it becomes obvious that it will fail, and a more urgent goal (unrelated to the module) becomes more apparent. When they return to Graefholm, I was planning to run a version of the last encounter. [/sblock]

Sorry for the excessive post length, and thanks for reading to the end!

Encounter E1

I didn't change much for this introductory encounter. My group has 6 PCs, so I added an extra Brigand or two to keep the challenge of the encounter at an appropriate level.

They still stomped this encounter into the dirt. I may have bloodied one or two of the PCs, but it wasn't really challenging for them, even though it was a Level +1, while the module is intended for 2nd level PCs.

My party has really strong control, two characters that fight well at long range, and with 6 PCs, their capacity for focus-fire is increased.

The hunter class can really pin down the baddies, and at such range that many monsters will have trouble reciprocating. Even though it's usually single target control, with the group's capacity for focus fire, it virtually ensures that at least one of the enemies won't be surviving each round.

The biggest fault with most encounters is that ranged PCs usually have a huge advantage, and on top of that, they often force a PC to start in a given location, which may be unrealistic. At any rate, it causes some of my players to complain a lot about it - usually the ones that have long range attacks.

Encounter E3

I also ran this encounter with few changes. I may have added an Iron Circle Enforcer to make up for the larger party size, but it's been a while, so I can't remember, and my notes are not clear. One change I definitely made was to the Iron Defender; a construct like that would not be very flavour appropriate in this campaign. This is what I used instead;



Shadow creatures, black tentacles, nethermancy (before it was called that) and my world's equivalent to the Far Realm are recurring themes in the campaign outside of this module, and tie into the larger goings-on of the campaign world, currently. Creatures tainted by these effects often exhibit shadowy tentacles and other such dark powers.

Encounter T1

For flavour and story reasons, I basically rewrote this entire section of the module. I still had the quest inserted in the same places and by the same NPCs, but the backstory was a little different. Instead of bullywugs, which were a little silly for what I had in mind, I instead used a group of goblinoids, members of a savage tribe that worship a shapechanger demon called Kaz'ralgh. This was kind of a red herring, and a nod to my old campaign run in this area under 3.x.

I changed the backstory so that the Iron Circle had these savages invade the region in order to destabilize it so that when the 'Circle showed up, the baron would be glad to have them on as hired mercs. It was a 'foot in the door' kind of idea.

The tribal cultists came in and killed a family of mixed heritage that had acted as liaison between the Harkenwolders and the tribes to the south. With the diplomatic link gone, the goblinoids would run amok again and the Iron Circle plans for conquest would begin.

The first change I made was to the map. I didn't like the simple one in the book, so I used this one instead.

I think it is a map from a 3.x-era Dungeon magazine, or perhaps Kobold Quarterly. In any case, it was about perfect for what I had in mind.

For the first encounter, I made a couple modified Hobgoblins to guard the front door. There were 4 Sentries (artillery) and 2 Guards (soldiers). The artillery was well hidden and had cover from everything on the ground, while the soldiers were well protected by the Hobgoblin phalanx ability and the fact that the characters could only reach them via a long winding stair. Even then, the soldiers were equipped with longspears so that they could reach PCs a level down from them without reprisal. The artillery was patterned after the hunter's abilities, rather than go for flat out damage. This encounter was supposed to be hard if the group tried a frontal assault, but at the same time, I wanted to give them a shot at retreat.

Fortunately, they had a different plan, and I didn't even run this combat.



Sorry about the images. I'm still screwing around with how to get them to appear right.

Encounter T1-B

So the PCs used a clever idea to get past T1 - they correctly guessed that the caravan from E3 had been on its way to resupply the Hobgoblin cultists, so they used the wagon and uniforms captured in that raid to bluff their way past the main entrance and on to the back door.

When they got there, the winch and lift was ready, so a few of them hid inside barrels while the others loaded their "cargo" onto the lift and got the hapless goblins working the winch to lift a payload of death straight into their compound. Fortunately/unfortunately for them, their old pal Snilvor was waiting for them at the top. It wasn't too hard to convince him to help, especially after they dispatched his fellow wincher.

They had a short rest, and after gathering some limited information from Snilvor, formed a plan. They had planned to have Snilvor ask one of the gate guards for help with the cargo, and when he showed up, the entire party would jump him. Most of the action went down in chamber 7 and its adjoining hallways.

The plan went well enough at first, but they ended up fighting all the front door guards more or less at once. Without the support of their superior position, however, they were much easier to defeat. They were dispatched quickly enough that it didn't attract any undue attention.

That wouldn't last long.

Encounters T2 & T3

I basically decided to run these two encounters overlapping, in two phases. The idea was to make it hard. Maybe I was still smarting from them having bypassed my cliffside murder encounter from my version of T1, or maybe I was just feeling sadistic. Actually, I probably just wanted to see how tough a 4th edition party could be.

The group entering chamber 3 on the map triggered the T2 combat encounter to begin. The group managed to sneak into a somewhat favourable position, gleaning some information on the enemy and their positions, but they didn't know about the reinforcements.

I ran T2 mostly stock, though I refluffed all the participants. The croakers were recast as goblins and Gloorpk as a hobgoblin Kaz'ralgh cultist. I made the oozes into Barghests, some of Kaz'ralgh's favourite servants.



After a couple rounds of combat, the reinforcements started to arrive from T3. Ugloor, I refluffed as a hobgoblin champion, the leapers became goblins, and the two giant frogs I changed to tainted wolves. The main reason I chose to use the wolves and not the frogs was due to feedback I'd been hearing about this encounter - the frogs were apparently a major source of grind and frustration. The wolves did not pose that problem.

I also took the liberty of inserting a cameo by an NPC who would play a recurring role in my old 3.x campaign from years ago (that game takes place a year and a half ahead of this one). Her inclusion (a raven shapeshifter sorceress) served to engage the players who were present for that old game, and also a way to rub in that, contrary to the players' increasingly popular belief, sometimes the baddies *do* get away. The sorceress had abilities that ensured she would not be pinned down.



As noted in my first post, this encounter was pretty close to a wipe. The healer went down halfway through the fight, and the players weren't well prepared for wave after wave. Then my dice just went cold. The healer, down and into negative hit points, would have died, which would have certainly led to a TPK, but I rolled an unlucky 1 on an attack for an area burst in which he was caught, so he survived. Someone else (the defender, I think) was able to get him mobile again, and they pulled it out of the fire before all was lost.

It was close though. Everyone was out of powers, low on hit points, and unable to do much by way of healing. As the sorceress fled, she knocked another PC, one of the strikers, into unconsciousness. Some more of the villains tried to flee, but the PCs would have none of it. Two of them pursued, nearly drowning in the process, but they killed all the other monsters.

Among the more interesting uses of PC powers was one of the group using a cold power with Do Something Cool to freeze the pool in the chamber, along with a couple of baddies unlucky enough to be standing in it at the time. That was pretty effective and saved a couple players from losing characters, probably.

Other changes I made included substituting Hymling, a shape shifting warrior lad for Heron, the hapless halfling boy. My campaign doesn't use halflings, and their substitute, brownies, were not flavour appropriate in this case.

Also of note, Snilvor got away and has not been seen again since. He was stabbed while trying to save one of the characters from drowning. Some gratitude. He'll be back.

More coming tomorrow.

Encounters E4 and E2

When I ran this, the group's next destination after clearing out the Toadwallow area was to head to Easthill to liberate it, and secure the help of Adalbar. One of the PCs had a story tie to him, and I'd hinted that he had some rangers that would make good allies in the struggle to free the valley.

So, that's when I decided to spring Encounter E4 - though I just set it up as the garrison guarding/oppressing the town. The reason I did this, rather than use the suggested set up, is because no enemies survived the other battles to even be able to tell Nazin what was going on. I mean, sure, I'm the DM - I could have just said someone they didn't see witnessed one of their Iron Circle massacres, but they were proud of their "no one gets away" strategy, and I wanted to reward them for that.

They made my life easy, because they just marched into town and attacked without saying a word, even to each other. We all knew the encounter would be easy for them (they were becoming pretty familiar with the opposition), and I liked where this was going. I spent more of my time on descriptive text than strategy this fight - I emphasized the weather (rain and drizzle), the atmosphere, the reactions of their enemies, and so on. I tried to describe everything with as close to a "bullet time" flair as I could.

I only made a few changes to the fight; I added an enforcer to make up for the large party size as usual, and I refluffed the rage drake as a corrupt wolf (I didn't bother using different stats this time).

I managed to divide the group up tactically, and actually managed to bloody the hunter. I think her player may have been getting cocky, because after that he played much more strategically once again.

Anyway, this encounter gave me a good idea for something: the "story kill."

In a case where everyone knows what the outcome is going to be, but where it doesn't make sense to avoid the fights, nor does it necessarily make sense to throw something unexpectedly challenging at the group, I raised the idea of Story Kill Mode with them. In this mode of play, I would relinquish much of my narrative control and let them decide how things play out, no rolling required. XP is granted as normal, provided the descriptions keep everyone entertained.

They seemed to like the idea, provided that, as mentioned, the narrative was good enough to forgo the fighting and didn't just consist of, "yeah, we kill them; slit their throats and stuff."

For the storykill encounter, I wanted to use the only E-series encounter I hadn't yet used. I, or they, rather collaborated with me on setting this one up. We decided that the local Iron Circle commander was out on a sortie with some of his men to try to round up Adalbar and his rangers from the surrounding hillside. They set a trap for him, having the group send word to the enemy commander that Adalbar had been located in town and that if they hurried back, they could catch him.

The plan was that when the Iron Circle forces returned and "captured" Adalbar, they would have a celebration for "putting down the insurgency" - meanwhile, the party druid would concoct some herbs for the food and drink they served the enemy to incapacitate them. Basically, the combination of food and drink would cause stomach upset - forcing the soldiers to use the outhouse, at which point the PCs would take them out, one by one.

For this trap, they enlisted the villagers' help to dig a fresh outhouse (since that would otherwise be quite gross). They then hid the polearm-wielding Warden in the hole. When the victim came to relieve themselves, *stab*

That part of the session was zany, amusing, disgusting, and full of role playing. I would consider it a success.

Encounter D1

After Easthill, the group decided to pursue a lead they'd gotten on some "forest spirits" to the south that might be of help.

This was another section that I'd radically redesigned from the module. It wasn't because I felt the section was bad, per se, as it had some excellent potential (Snilvor, the plot hook with Daggerburg, Yisarn, a fae connection, etc.). My issue here was that I wanted something that would make more sense with my campaign world and the arcs that I was running, which didn't include Daggerburg (though you could argue my redesign of Toadwallow and the motivation behind it were pretty similar).

I felt that Yisarn on his own was a little two-dimensional, and the whole encounter felt like it. I had already decided on a different path for hapless Snilvor anyway. I also wanted to use dark elves (as opposed to drow), as there were campaign reasons for it, however, the name "woodsinger" did nothing for me, so I also changed that.

In the end, I had changed the elves to dark elves, who called themselves the Nythal. Dal Nystere was instead changed to a barrow mound for the viking-like people of the region, and rather than Yisarn being some malevolent being out for destruction, I made him a symptom of the greater evil going on. In my version of this module, I made heavy use of the character Malkos (though I changed his name). He became a mastermind, the brains behind Nazin Redthorn's brawn. I also adapted Kaltis to this role (again by a different name), but this one was specifically Malkos' fault. He was meddling about in the barrow and raised Yisarn from the dead to keep the dark elves busy while he worked his other machinations.

As a result, encounters D2 and D3 got scrapped entirely. I also needed some extra maps. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

The encounter with Israfen and Eyriel worked pretty much as in the module, though the motivations differ, and I skipped the part about the vial of dragonblood. I instead had the elves point the heroes at the barrow, and made a mystical reason why the elves could not deal with the issue themselves. It worked well enough and didn't get any flak from the players, so it must have been a good enough "story patch."

So, for the barrow mound, I hit up microdungeons via a google image search. Here is the map I used:


Simple enough to run through quickly, and vague enough to allow me a lot of freedom to ad-lib. The keyword-like labels on the rooms provided me just enough to go on for description and inspiration. Overall, it worked perfectly.

Replacement encounters for D2 and D3

I didn't want to skip out on the experience provided by those two encounters, so I added my own. Being in a barrow mound, I figured the best thing to use would be undead. Since I also decided that this tomb was also very old, that ruled out anything fleshy. Even skeletons would be pushing it, but I found room for a few in here. To go for the creepy feel, and to take advantage of being in tight quarters, I went with incorporeal undead - Wraiths, Phantom Warriors, and Spectres.

The first encounter started pretty much right inside the doorway, with creepy whispers, seeming to come from nowhere. The players knew something was up, but not what. Keep 'em guessing.

I made the room labelled 'cold swords' an armoury for the dead warriors - something put there by their descendants to keep them safe in the afterlife, and something to use come Ragnarok or whatever. I had the room be a secret chamber, and the players found it, but they didn't get to explore it. While half the group was opening the armoury, the other half was interested in descending the shaft toward the room marked 'visions.'

This triggered the encounter. It was mostly designed to take advantage of the fact that the PCs descending the rope were vulnerable, and also to leverage the ability of wraiths to phase, and their ability to prone. I know - that was kind of mean.

This encounter was with 8 Wisp Wraiths, and one Spectre (I don't think I changed anything from the DDI versions). The spectre used its close blast proning attack against characters climbing down the rope, while the 8 Wisp Wraiths made harrying attacks, then descended on the unfortunates at the bottom. After that, the spectre went back up to pick on any who stayed behind.

It ended up that only one character fell, and he was in trouble for a brief time, but the others climbing down came to his aid in short order, and they made quick work of the wisps. The spectre stayed at the top and picked on a couple of the strikers who'd stayed behind in hopes of scoring some loot from the 'cold swords' room. The sorcerer managed to inflict enough damage that it retreated after becoming bloodied. I had a plan for this anyway.

The second encounter came when the group was exploring the chamber labelled 'spite.' The spectre made a return here to further harry the group, and was backed up by two Phantom Warriors, and half a dozen Skeleton Soldiers. This encounter felt pretty good to me - the insubstantial phantom warriors were able to absorb a lot of damage, while the skeletons' defences were high enough that they were hard-ish for the group to hit and accurate enough that they rarely missed, without being so deadly as to cause a problem. The spectre made a few more harrying attacks before retreating through the floor when his hit points went into the single digits. Fortunately, phasing allowed him to shift into the floor to avoid any attacks at this point. He was really starting to earn the group's ire!

Encounter D4

Back to the regularly scheduled module... sort of.

I heard bad things about the glimmerweb spider in this battle, so I got rid of it. I also had the players come into this one from the west side of the map - through the doors the module suggests you use to add a bigger dungeon for exploring after the encounter. I did it the opposite way. I had the area on my microdungon map labelled 'crypt' lead to those doors.

Yisarn knew they were coming. The spectre told him. I also added two more skeletons to the battle. In addition, I made Yisarn insubstantial - I was finding that with the focus-fire ability of 6 PCs it was hard to keep even elite monsters alive long enough to be scary. To compensate for the added challenge, I had the altar with the dragon on it represent a slab with the ritually laid out remains of Yisarn. Attacking it would cause him damage with the extra benefit that it was considered helpless and really easy to hit. Nobody took advantage. Oh, and when the PCs showed up, Yisarn "zapped" the spectre, and turned it into a Wraith, at full hit points.

This was a tough fight for the group. Satisfyingly tough. They did prevail without any deaths, but several PCs had dropped in this fight and their resources were stretched pretty thin. Some of that was probably due to their questionable tactics - two of the group went one way around the pillar, while the other two went the opposite way, and two remained in the back (hunter and sorcerer). I forgot to use Yisarn's immediate reaction half the time. I have a lot of trouble with that on monsters.

I modified him thusly:



The PCs hit level 3 after this fight.