The Riddle of Midnight (3/04/04) New Post!

[Paka]

Dark Tower's Shadow II - The Riddle of Midnight
Post 1

Previous Story Hour - Dark Tower's Shadow

Dungeon Master’s spoken intro to players:

99 years ago the finest army the Dwarves, the Elves and the nations of humanity could muster gathered on the southern shore of the Pelurian Sea to fight the armies of the Shadow. They lost.

The Elves defend their forest that is being cut down, tree by tree. Orcish forces are decimated by Elvish arrows and magic just as fresh new recruits are brought to the Erethor Front. The Dwarves are trapped in their mountain keeps. It is said that for every inch the Shadow wins is paved with the blood of a hundred Orc. It is a price Izrador is willing to pay.

Elves and Dwarves are often lynched in small villages, or even handed over to Legates or Orcs in order to curry favor with the Shadow.

The gold, silver and copper economy that we’ve known from our junior high D&D games has collapsed. The concept of value is different in this broken world. Halfling children hunt rabbits with diamonds in their slings, using them as bullets, because that is all those stones are good for anymore.

Carrying weapons is illegal. Reading is illegal. Teaching someone else to read is illegal. Being an Elf or a Dwarf is illegal. Casting spells is illegal as is owning a magic item.

The punishment for the above crimes is death but sometimes the Shadow Legates get creative.

Orcs and Shadowspawn rule the world and your characters are living in it.

Welcome to Midnight.


Baau - Sea Elven Sailor/Soldier (Marine?)

Philosophy - All things are in my own hands.

Drive - To find kidnapped lover

Passion - Love of Aoen (he was stoned and he had just seen Two Towers...hence Eowyn as Aoen)

Passion - Hatred - Shadow

Luck


Baau woke up from his dream, holding his belly, happy that there was no Orcish spear in his gut, barbed point sticking out of his back. It wasn’t only a nightmare. Baau knew that the two others he met in the dream, the grim Northman and the Wood Elf were real people. He could feel the power of their oath to destroy the Shadow, the same Oath he had sworn.

He had left the safety of his people’s warm crystal bay to find his love. He caught the tracks of a band of Orcs, heading north as fast as their feet could take them. There were rocks piled up next to their camps, tiny stones the Orcs didn’t notice and it was a Sea Elf ritual, leavings for the spirits. They had a prisoner with them and maybe she had been his love.

In his dream he was sitting at a fire with the bald, scarred Northman and the scarlet clad Elf. They had caught the same trail he had. They knew each other from some previous adventures. They invited him along, sensing his oath in his just as he sensed theirs in them.

The party had met with an Orc in a crow’s cage by a crossroads. The Orc had one arm, the other torn off. The Elf and the Northman dealt with him and eventually agreed to let him free. Together, they would ambush the Orcs while they slept.

From a ridge above the camp, Baau waited for the Northman to enter the camp with the one armed Orc and then rained hell upon them with arrows. He had fired three shots, three arrows plunged into Orcish faces when an Orc noticed him. The spear was tossed quickly, a hard under-hand chuck.

It was the most terrible pain imaginable. They say a spear in the gut is the most terrible wound a warrior can receive. From then on the dream was nothing but gut wrenching agony.


Vorden Qell, The Crimson Prince - Elven Sorcerer

Philosophy - The shadow will fall even if I have to kill, rape and pillage to see it done.

Conscience - Help the Poor

Drive - To see the Shadow Fall

Faith - In my Father

Destiny - To Redeem Father

Passion - Preserving nature

Vorden woke up from the dream, pleased that it was only a dream. He checked his chest, happy to find no spear buried in his sternum.

It had all felt so real. He remembered summoning the spirit of a dead man whose skull was under the crow’s cage. He had asked the dead to watch the Orc, make sure he didn’t betray them.

Vorden had promised, “Watch the Orc and I will bury you in the Elven forest. You will be put to rest in a green place, under a fruit tree.”

From the skull’s eye socket a whisper sounded out, like the sound of the sea in a shell it said, “That would be nice.”

They tied the skull around the Orc’s neck, like it was a necklace of some kind.

In rushed hurried whispers they made plans to assault the camp, save the girl. She was tied to a log in the middle of camp. They agreed to kill all of the Orcs and then free the girl. When they talked about freeing her first the Orc, who they called Lefty disagreed. “She’s been used roughly by five Orcs. Do you really think she is in her right mind by now? Please. She has no idea where she is.”

Elves had not faired well in that dream, none of them had. It was Vorden’s loud steps that alerted the Orcs. The spear had flown out of the night and plunged into his chest.

By the time the Crimson Prince had summoned a Fire Elemental to do his battling the fight was all but over. The Northman, Karhoun, was nearly headless and the Sea Elf with the dreadlocks was slowly dying of his gut wounds.

He had piled the bodies into the maw of the Fire Elemental to appease it and then he awoke.

In the end of the dream it had been just him and the one-armed Orc they had freed from the crow’s cage. Was it just a dream or would there really be such an Orc waiting for them down the road. Had he been through the same dream?

Had the Orcs heading north had the same dream?


Karhoun 'The Knife' Esben - Northerner Huntsman

Philosophy - My last breath will be driving my blade deeper to the heart of the shadows.

Drive - Oath to Destroy the Black Tower of Theros Obisdia (capital city of Evil)

Destiny - To restore Karhoun's Keep for our people of the north

Faith - Honor your ancestors and their gods

Passion - Shadow hunting

Passion - Love - Elaylee - Dark Dryad of the Black Oak

Karhoun woke up from his nightmare glad that his head was still on its shoulders. It would be a tragic thing to have survived all that he had, only to die by the Vardatch of an Orc. The north was filled with such tragedies, though.

It was a shock to see Vorden again but good to be in the company of those who had sworn an oath. Vorden had sworn the exact same oath as him, to bring down the Black Tower of Theros Obsidia, where they had been raised. Karhoun had been sent there by his black-hearted father. Vorden’s father, a Night King Wizard of immense power, had fostered his son there too. Baau had sworn a more general oath in some oath room in Eredane but as long as it was an oath to bring down the Shadow it was an oath that bound them all together.

“I heard you put Bastion to the torch, my friend. Good work,” Vorden said, complimenting the rumors he had heard concerning the work of an Ironblooded Northman who had led the Fey, set fire to the breadbasket of Eredane.

Karhoun shrugged.

They talked about old times, how the last time they had met, Karhoun had kicked the Elf off of a roof and then fell to the cobblestones himself.

“The Manticore,” the Elf remembered, “That beast is going to come looking for us.”

Karhoun smiled, “We have much to discuss.”

They turned to the crow’s cage at the crossroads.

The Orc from the crow’s cage was a proud creature. It had challenged his pack’s leader for the alpha spot and lost. The lead Orc took of the challenger’s right arm, left it outside the cage with a stick in its hand. On the stick were carved the runes for Vardatch.

Vorden stood outside the cage, eating flesh from the Orc’s arm to intimidate him. Then Vorden beckoned the Sea Elf to put his torch under the cage, letting the heat do its work. The pack of Orcs was heading northward to kill a Dragon. None of them wanted to deal with Orcs who aspired to be Dragonslayers.

But they had an Elven woman with them. When Vorden asked why they traveled with such a guest the Orc only laughed and said, “To stay warm.”

“You rape her.”

The Orc spit. “No, we respect her and have pleasant conversation. What do you think, you mad Elf?”

The one-armed Orc had agreed to lead them into the camp so long as he could kill the leader himself. They had agreed and freed him. Vorden reluctantly gave him a knife when he explained how heavily armored the leader would be.

Baau had taken position on the ridge above the camp. Karhoun and the one-armed Orc crept into the camp. Vorden had agreed to create some fiery problems for the Orcs once the watch and leader were dispatched. Karhoun and the Orc silently padded into camp and then everything went to hell.

Vorden had left the ridge for some reason and was entering camp from a different direction. That wasn’t what Karhoun had remembered agreeing to. The watch saw him, raised the cry. Karhoun charged and drove his Dornish hand and a half blade into the Orc’s leg, hoping to take his legs out from under him and stop the spear before it started. The spear hit Vorden in the chest with a wet thud and the blade only grazed the Orc’s leg, stopped by his well-maintained suit of chainmail.

Behind him, Karhoun could hear the one-armed Orc struggling with his former leader, vainly trying for revenge.

The Orc that had thrown a spear drew a knife and turned on Karhoun when an arrow flew out of the night. The creature’s head exploded, covering the Northman in warm Orc-gore. Not wanting to venture deeper into the camp without his back being secure he turned to their Orcish confederate and the leader. The chief had his fingers deep into his challenger’s stump, driving his fingers into the one-armed Orc’s bone. The beast’s screams were loud and terrible.

Karhoun took his blade and drove it into the leader’s armpit, where his full-plate was lacking. The creature died quickly.

Then he turned to the rest of the camp. Another Orc died with another arrow to the face. Then another.

Karhoun clashed with the last Orc as the flames in the middle of camp rose into the shape of a fiery beast. The fire was raging, talking to Vorden, demanding bodies to feed it when Karhoun and the Orc swung at each other.

Neither the human nor the Orc had a mind for defense or prudence. Orcish Vardatch and Dornish Bastard Sword swung. The Vardatch hit the soft part of Karhoun’s throat even as his blade took off the jawbone of the Orc. They both fell, one without a face and the other nearly without a head.

Karhoun rubbed his neck, happy it was just a dream, knowing that some of lucid dream had truth in it and wondering how it would affect the waking world.



DM’s notes:

We were trying a new system, The Riddle of Steel by Driftwood Publishing, so I decided that their characters were having a lucid dream, giving the players a chance to get used to it. The characters all knew they were having a dream from the beginning and they had caught the track of a band of Orcs heading in the same direction has Karhoun had planned to go, North towards the Fortress Wall. There was evidence of a Sea Elven Maiden with them.

The combat, as you could see, was brutal. I am still getting used to the new combat system but I think it will work nicely, once we get used to the new system.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Jeph]

Whooo! Yeah! A TROS SH!

Not half bad writing, neither.

 

[Tuerny]

Whooo! Yeah! A TROS SH!

Not half bad writing, neither.

Looks good so far.

Have you seen the Midnight HQ conversion?

Jesse D.

 

[Jeph]

You've had a second session, and I don't see an update...

"Fezzik, tear his arms off."
--Jeff

 

[Paka]

Dark Tower's Shadow II - The Riddle of Midnight
Post 2

Varduk's Revenge

I am Varduk, Orc of the Bitter Mother tribe. One day ago I challenged my chief, whose name I refuse to utter until his last breath says mine. The chief took my sword arm and locked me in a cage on the side of the road, a cage put there by Father Izrador to show the world what becomes of the weak.

My arm is outside of the cage, holding a stick to remind me of my loss. It was right to challenge him. If our illustrious chief hadn't made grevious errors back in Baden's Bluff we wouldn't have been sent across the water, sent north, sent to kill the Worm of the Fortress Wall. It is suicide and we knew it.

Last night I dreamt of two Elves and a Northman letting me out of the crow's cage that is now my home and would likely have been my grave. They let me out and we killed the Orcs in this dream but our blood spilled the ground in great quantities.

I was bleeding badly out of the ruin that was my arm, now a stump right to the shoulder.

When I opened my eyes the Northman was standing before me. He tested my strength with the stick, asked if I was going to be trouble.

"Let me out and we will hunt my tribesman like we did in my dream," I told him. He struck the cage with his blade, a hand and a half Northman's blade these humans of the North favor. Their blades are relics but I didn't tell him so. In this age, the Last Age, the Age of the Orc will know the Vardatch, as symbols of victory. In the Black Tongue Vardatch is translated into Cleaver but the word is changing. Some tribes are already saying that Vardatch has always meant one thing: Flame of God.

The Elves came next. One was bundled up in leathers and fur, skin a dark brown, hair in braids. The other walked as if he had a crown on his head rather than just the red skullcap. He was clad in a dark crimson, like blood that has stained leather.

They walked away to speak, letting me gather my strength. I used this time to gather stones and make a sling. I was quickly realizing that I would be useless as a Halfling in battle. When they walked away the dusky Elf and the Northman kept their eyes on me but the Crimson Prince showed me his back. He let me know that he didn't believe I was a threat. It was a hard truth to realize that he was right, blood loss had left me a babe. He was right for now. Izrador willing, my strength would return.

The red clad Elf returned and spoke to me. He took off his skullcap and proclaimed, "I am Vorden Qell, son of the Sorcerer of Shadow, the Night King. If you serve Izrador you will now serve me.

"If you serve me well, I will put your arm back on and make you whole again." As he spoke I examined the mark in the middle of his forehead and it was a Night King's sigil, burned into his head, black like a brand. He cast a magic on my severed arm, taking the stink of rotting meat off of it.

He could make me whole, return me to my strength, better to serve Father Izrador.
I fell to my knees at the thought of my sword-arm. "I will serve you, Crimson Prince and together we will spill blood for the one true god."

The Prince put the skull around my neck, just as he had in my dream. He had made a pact in the dreams, told the spirit he would bury the skull under a fruit tree in the Elven forest. The spirit was to warn them if I sought to harm them.

We found the remains of the camp that we had ambushed in our dreams. The chief had broken camp early and they were heading north towards the Karhoun Keep, wherein the Worm of the Fortress Wall resided. The Northman knew of a Shadow weapons cache and he thought the band would visit on the journey north.

Sleepless and cold we made our way northwest to the cache, to ambush the band again, hopefully with less blood offered to the earth.

On the journey I had time to study my new companions and my new Prince, son of a Night King.

The Northman was called Karhoun Esben. I knew the family name, a cursed family of Northern humans whose patriarch, Vildar Esben had sworn fealty to the Shadow first in the North. He had been given unnatural long life for his kind and is widely known for his paranoia and bloodlust.

Karhoun knew the lay of the land and could track a goose through a snowstorm. He was built like an orc, not frail and weak like so many humans. I was eager to meet him once my prince put my arm back on, show Izrador the strength he had given his son.

Karhoun shared a name with the keep that the Worm of the Fortress Wall laired in. This fact didn't escape me. The keep was where Karhoun was headed when we all met at the crossroads.

Vorden Qell, the Scarlet Prince walked the trail as if it was a red carpet leading to a throne. He held a staff that perhaps once had iron shods at the ends but now they were gone, broken off but he held it like a scepter. He was prone to rants, loud and long displays that showed his fears and worries before furrowing his brow and casting powerful magics and taking action.

Baau was from far away. I had never seen an Elf like him and they referenced his home, a bay. He believed his wife was the Elf my former band traveled with. He was sullen and focused, prone to chills created by the north wind. He didn't talk about his home but it was obvious they were warm.

I never mentioned my own use of the Elf he thought was his wife. I didn't tell him that there wouldn't be much left of her. She cursed us during the first days, telling us in gruff tones how she would kill us and something about her sister. After the third day she stopped talking, her eyes seemed to focused on something we all couldn't see, shock had set in.

We arrived at the cache, a dark stone marker the size of five men with the sigil of Izrador on its face. I saw the sigil, a black crown with the rune for North upon the crown's highest point.

There were two hills, upon one was the cache and the other was clear. Thick fir trees sat at the bottom of both, breaking the white, snowy plains. I put my left hand to the sigil and pushed, opening the cache for my Prince, as they were worried about the possibility of a Legate's ward, doing them harm.

The cache was stocked with good Orcish full plate, barbed javelins with iron rings for looping rope, five lengths of a hundred foot of rope, and ten good Orcish daggers and five Vardatch. We split up the booty from the cache and set our ambush, not knowing how long a margin we had before my former comrades arrived.

The Crimson Prince spoke to the trees, communed with them like a Legate would speak to his sniffer-demon. The Prince, like his father, had powerful magicks at his disposal. He handed them spears, armed them as if they were soldiers. They swayed in the wind, eager to throw the rusted metal javelins clutched in their branches, eager to spill Orc blood. Never again would I feel at ease in the forest, among the bloodthirsty trees.

Karhoun swept up our trail with the branches of a fir tree, making your footprints through the snow smooth. Baau, the dusky spear-Elf glamoured a pit with a javelin tip in it, in front of the cache entrance. Karhoun buried himself in a nearby hill. Across from the cache, near the second hill, the Elves took to the trees with their bows in hand.

I waited among the trees near the cache, sigil of Father Izrador watching over me. I prayed for His blessing, hoping I could cover the distance, close and get my dagger to their throats before their Vardatch and spears could hack at my limbs. But if I did die, I knew that I would speed on my way to the Halls of the North, to feast forever on Elf-flesh and drinking Dwarven blood with the One True God sitting at the head of the banquet table.

Wind howling, ambush set, Karhoun in the snow, Elves in the trees, trees with spears clutched in their branches and their lone, one armed Orc hidden nearby we waited.

Baau waited to save his love's life after she had been used roughly by Orcs for days that, for her, would have stretched out for eternities.

Karhoun waited to finish his hunt, kill his prey. He held the claw of the Manticore, claimed to have taken it from its corpse.

Vorden Qell waited to see if the trees would indeed go to battle for him.

I, Varduk, waited for revenge.

 

[Harri]

Damn, Paka!!!

Your thread was good enough to persuade me to register here. You have really got me interested in the Midnight setting. I'm considering buying the set on Monday and using it in my own TROS game.

Great writing, BTW.

Regards

Harri

 

[Paka]

Damn, Paka!!!

Your thread was good enough to persuade me to register here. You have really got me interested in the Midnight setting. I'm considering buying the set on Monday and using it in my own TROS game.

Great writing, BTW.

Regards

Harri

Nice to see someone else who actually knows what the Riddle of Steel is.

Thanks for reading, Harri and thanks for posting your compliments. It is appreciated.

Midnight is a well-written world and the main book and accompanying supplements are well worth picking up. I generally hate published settings and only got this one because it was a gift but this one really grabbed me.

This is only about a fourth or less of what happened at the last game. I hope to post some more this week. It was a whopper of a game and I get the feeling that we are all just getting warmed up.

The Riddle is a great game for taking new and old D&D settings and putting a new brutal spin on them.

 

[ShawnLStroud]

Nice to see someone else who actually knows what the Riddle of Steel is.

Ahhhh.... There's more people than you'd think. I think folks just lurk. I've got a copy of the Riddle and had actually been thinking about running Midnight using its rules.

Your writeups so far are putting me back in the place where I want to play in someone else's game. Keep up the good work -- I'm hooked now!

 

[Broccli_Head]

I thought that I was subscribed to this thread!

Well, now I am. Keep up the good work!

"The Riddle...of Steel..."

I gotta go and check it out. Thanks for the link.

 

[Paka]

The Riddle of Midnight - Varduk's Revenge Part II Post 3


Only two hours later they arrived over the ridge. Our scout, no, their scout made his way to the second hill, surveying the land. They walked right past where Karhoun had buried himself in the snow and overlooked the Elves, perched in the fir trees.

The trees were swaying gently in the wind, almost seeming to twist at the bough. If my former friends had been astute they would have noticed the way the trees didn’t move with the steady northern winds while javelins lay hidden in their branches.

The first volley of javelins hit the five Orcs with terrible force. Three died immediately, almost before their bodies even hit the snowy ground. The remaining two Orcs used the corpses as cover, keeping their heads down while they took stock of the ambush. The spear-Elf took aim; one of the remaining Orcs had his wife-to-be on his back, tied up like a calf at feast-time.

Baau fired his bow after taking some careful aim. The tree was swaying, the Orc shifted, the wind from the north blew and the arrow flew. Baau must have been holding his breath, praying that his own arrow wouldn’t be the one that killed his love after all they had been through, her being kidnapped by some Demon and him following her all this way to the Northlands.

The arrow found the Orc’s face, an audible metal ping was heard as the arrowhead hit the back of the dead bastard’s helm. He slumped to the ground.

The last orc was the chief who took my arm. Karhoun had already begun to make slow, silent progress from his hideehole when the chief broke and ran. He ran around the hill with the cache at the top. When he turned the corner I was there, waiting, knife in hand. His eyes became large and he swung at me. I deflected the blow and sunk my dagger into his chest. Together we fell into the snow.

Karhoun’s bastard sword struck the back of the chief’s head, human blade finishing him with a half-blade thrust.

In the cold and the snow a Northman killed my foe. Were I a whole Orc I would have killed Karhoun for such a thing but my stump was still raw and my left hand was dumb with a Vardatch, unsure as a Halfling with steel.

My heart was eased in that I was the last thing he ever saw before the Northman’s steel, bastard sword in a half-sword grip, was thrust through the back of his skull.

We piled the dead beneath the trees, allowing the firs to drink their blood. The trees were still now; they dropped their javelins to the ground. Having served my god in the butcher’s block that is called the Erethor I’ve never felt comfortable among trees. I always thought it was the Elves’ arrows and magic that was to be feared but now I knew better. The trees themselves wanted Orcs dead. I would never walk with comfort in the shade of trees again.

Baau took off the Elven maiden’s hood to find that it wasn’t his wife to be but his love’s sister Laeli. Apparently Laeli left their sunny bay to find her sister but it was impossible to find out too much more. She had been battered and used beyond words. I should know.

The girl had left little markers near where my former warband had tied her up. Apparently there a Sea Elf way of piling stones that tells passersby that a storm is on its way. She left markings of a storm, her storm, all across the northlands. This was how Baau tracked her, how he knew it was one of his people in the clutches of the Orcs.

The Northman and the Scarlet Prince didn’t believe me that this party was to hunt a dragon, the Worm of the Fortress Wall. I explained, “We failed in a hunt for a Channeler in Baden’s Bluff and so the Legates sentenced us to hunt the dragon. It is a death sentence but a glorious death. If our chief hadn’t been inept, would have never happened. That is why I challenged him and why he was so harsh in his reprisal. If he didn’t put my down hard he would have been met with a different challenger every step of the way.”

Karhoun asked, “Why didn’t you run away once you were out of Baden’s Bluff, find a way to run?”

I responded, “Legates told us to kill a dragon. Legates get their law from Father Izrador. To disobey them is to disobey the Shadow in the North.”

We piled the bodies under the trees that threw javelins for us. Karhoun lopped off the heads, hands and feet to avoid creating Fell.

Baau saved his fellow Sea Elf, maiden sister to his true love. Fool.

Karhoun got to hunt the Shadow, something he seemed to enjoy. Dangerous.

Vorden Qell, the Scarlet Prince and my lord, communed with trees and turned them to bloodletting. Powerful, but a gut instinct, something deep inside me cannot stop being disgusted at taking orders from an Elf.

I got my revenge, saw those who crippled me, made me less of a useful tool to father Izrador die and bleed.

We camped that night a few miles west of the cache. They were all deathly afraid of the road, scared of gaining the attention of a Legate. The Scarlet Prince wanted to work a spell on the cache’s stone that bore the sigil of the Shadow. We made a cold camp and were awakened in the night by Laeli’s screaming. I wondered how long before Baau would call me out, looking for my blood on his spear in vengeance for what I had done with his love’s sister before I was in service to the Scarlet Prince.

The Elves didn’t sleep so much as meditate. When the sun rose, we moved back toward the northern road to Karhoun’s keep. But first we stopped again at the weapons cache and Vorden Qell stood before the stone with the One God’s sigil upon it and began to cast powerful magicks.

When he was done the Shadow’s sigil was gone and some other symbol was there. Karhoun revered this sigil, said it was his House, the Esben family crest. They reasoned that this cache was once a burial mound for his family. The Northman did his petty rituals to his ancestors, leaving tiny clay figures that represented something important to him.

We traveled at an easy pace towards the road to Karhoun Keep, Karhoun’s Road, which led to the Fortress Wall. The girl was slowing us down but they seemed to have great mercy for her. We camped in under boughs of a great fir tree, not unlike the ones that threw spears in our battle. My sleep was uneasy, filled with nightmares of axes and blood.