Struggle and Strife- A scarred lands storyhour

[Lars Frehse]

Plans- part 3

On the next morning, everyone but Niklas was badly hung over. They had celebrated with Donnangar throughout the night, rejoicing that in spite of all adversity they were still alive and well. Torn vaguely remembered that at some point, they all walked through the alleys of Mullis Town, supporting each other by leaning on each others shoulders, arms slung around their neighbors. Chamberpots were thrown after them as they chanted orcish songs and battlehymns.

Now they had to pay for it, and it took them well until noon until they had returned to the digsite and entered the Halls of Dunai through the underwater entrance. They lead Donnanangar through the halls, and the warchief told them that he was certain that orcs weren't the creators of these halls. After all, everything was way too orderly for orcs- no matter how advanced his people may have once been, they should still have felt the rage of Khadum in them, and even though that made them a fierce and independent people, they would never construct something that was so orderly.

However, like his friends, he had no idea why Orcs were allowed access to those halls and why orcish runes had been applied here. Maybe the orcs of those days had been allies of the slaves. "Or maybe worse: Slaves", Donnangar said. "That could explain why I can read the runes. Maybe when the ancients had been defeated, their former slaves picked up elements of the culture of their former masters- like the written language.".

Torn nodded:" Or maybe the ancients had worked some magic or psionics on our ancestors. Maybe they have prepared the race to become like them at some point in the far future, when the danger of their opponent would be gone..."

"There is nothing we can do but speculate right now, though", Trepat said, "As long as we find no further evidence of what had happened here long ago... However, whatever this "sunkiller" had been, it must have been incredibly powerful to destroy a people that could build something like these halls...".

Eventually, they reached the central hall. Looking around, Donnangar found more orcish runes beneath each of the scrying mirrors.

"That is fascinating", he said "you see, here this one, in the pass where you had seen the Calastians, is the old orcish name for the irontooth pass. Likewise, this mirror, that shows the shore of the bloodsea, seems to point to a former rockformation which had been destroyed in the titanswar. Oh, and this one, showing a hill in the plains, is the scorched rock... Maybe the most significant point for us orcs in the plains of Lede."

"How so?", Jan asked.

"There is a prophecy, that says "The ruler of the scorched rock shall rule supreme.". Right now, the Scorchskulls are ruling over the rock. This gives them great prestige, and because of that, many of the smaller clans swear allegiance to the Scorchskull. However, if we would be able to take it for us, I am certain that many of those clans would fall from the Scorchskulls and join us..."

"And do you think that you could take it?", Niklas asked.

"I am not sure... We are outnumbered by the Scorchskulls. For each of our warrior, there are two of them. If we would mobilize all those who have sworn loyalty to us, I should be able to gather about tenthousand warriors. The Scorchskulls are about twice as many... It would depend on us getting to the rock quickly. I think that once we would be on top of it, we could win the battle. After all, most of it is pretty steep, and there are only a few ways to get up there."

Donnangar fell silent, brooding:"I would like to try whether this crystal is a portal as well. What do you think?".

Trepat, Niklas and Torn were eager to join Donnangar, but Ben and Jan decided to return to Cyri. After all, someone had to inform Captain Strohmann that he could return to Mithril, and furthermore they both still had their mouns in Mithril.

So, they decided to meet at the Gravelfists' wintercamp and the four of them stepped through the crystal, which indeed turned out to be a portal to the Scorched Rock.

Immediately after touching the mirrors, they were transported to the middle of the oval shaped hill. The scorched rock consisted of dark stone that was almost barren of plantlife, except for some hardy shrubs and mosses. It rose about thirty yards over the flat plains, and was a few hundred yards across. From where they looked now, the adventurers saw nothing but the endless horizon- the plains were so flat here that they were able to see as far as if they were on the high sea, and only the deephanging and dark autumnclouds prohibited them from scanning the entire plains.

After searching the horizon for possible threats, like patrolling platoons of Scorchskull orcs, and seeing that they were the only souls within a radius of several miles, they looked around on the rock. In it's middle, there was a circular hole that was about twenty feet across. About ten feet down, there was water, and Donnangar told them after casting a spell, that it was clearly potable.

Mostly, the rock was very steep, and there were only four paths that allowed easy access to the level plateau of the rock's surface. After looking around, Torn adressed Donnangar:" You are right. The rock could indeed be held against a stronger foe... All that would be needed would be little walls here at the entrance of each path, and it might just work.".

"You are right", Donnangar answered, "we should talk about that with my advisors once we had reached our camp. But I think we should get going- we don't want the Scorched Skulls to know that we took a look around here...".

And with that, they went down the western path, leaving the rock behind. As they turned around about a mile away, it hit them for the first time just how out of place the scorched rock looked. Everywhere were monotonous steppes, and the biggest things jutting out of them were occasional weak looking trees. The rock looked like it didn't belong in a strange way- as if it had fallen from heaven and came to rest in this enviroment.

Donnangar lead them westwards with a hurried pace, and the friends were soon glad that they had left the slower Jan and Ben behind- without their steeds it would have been nearly impossible to keep up with them. The night was rough and cold. The earth had already begun to freeze and some snow fell down on them, covering everything with a white blanket.

On the next morning the wind picked up, and like a gigantic broom, it blew together the snow, making some patches snowfree and heaping up small hills at other places. Soon, the cold wind had penetrated their clothes and the only way for the friends to keep reasonably warm was to keep up their high pace.

But that wasn't the worst of it. Where the snow was freezing over, their tracks were similarily frozen, making them easily detectable by any scout. And so, in the afternoon, when they had almost left the territory of the scorchskulls behind, they finally noticed that they were being followed. Their, behind them, ten orcs were running towards them, their breath like steam in front of their faces and their battleaxes ready.

Seeing that there was no chance that the friends could outrun the orcs, they turned around and got ready for the battle.

 

[Lars Frehse]

Plans- part 4

The tribesmen, used to life on the plains, came running towards them at an even and seemingly tireless pace, like a pack of wolves chasing it's prey. Before they had reached them, however, Trepat had already thrown an acid arrow and a lightning bolt at them, dropping down one of the barbarians.

A moment later, the Scorchskulls, who were all clad in furs which hung over chainshirts, had reached them. Donnangar fought like three men and Niklas and Torn warded off the others while Trepat supported from the rear with spells. Their opponents were all raging with battlefrenzy, swinging their axes with brute force as they were fueled by the fire of Khadum that was burning in their veins.

Even though the heroes were outnumbered they stood their ground. While the Scorchskulls were superior to them when it came to sheer strength and brute force, they had better discipline and equipment on their side, and eventually, they overcame the opposition, the dead bodies and the gore spread out over the dirty melting snow.

In the evening, they passed several mounds made of scorched humanoid skulls- marking the border of the Scorchskull territory, and late at night, they reached the camp. It stood at the shores of the Blood Basin, about fifty miles from Mansk, and it was basically a small ramshackle town which was surrounded by wooded palisades and overlooking the now harvested fields.

It was here that the orcs had planted and harvested the special seed that the heroes and Donnangar had brought The harvest had been a great success, and there had been plenty of surplus which the orcs had sold to Mullis Town and Mansk. The houses in their town were mostly made with heavy logs and the roofs were covered with reeds. They usually consisted of one big room in which both the orcs and their animals would sleep- often only seperated by curtains which were hanging from the roof and there were no windows.

When the friends arrived, they were waved right through by the guards at the gate, and they walked over the packed dirt that made up the grounds, past puddles of mud and sleeping pigs. Donnangar's own house was just a little larger than the rest, and except for that, it was the same cruel affair as every other house. When they entered it, they were enthusiastically greeted by Plainsrunner, Donnangar's dire wolf.

The roughly horsesized wolf immediately pounced on his master, and resting his forepaws on the chieftain's shoulders, he licked his face. After Donnangar had rolled around on the floor with his animal for a while, they all entered the house.

It's inside was more refined than the other houses. For once, there were seperate rooms and rugs made from animal hides covered the floor. The first room was dominated by a large table, but Donnangar lead them on through the house to a small shed in it's back. In there, he had a large wooden tub, and after he had heated the water, they all took a bath, feeling how the cold was driven out of their bones.

That night, they slept long and well.

They settled down for the winter and helped them negotiate for needed goods and weapons with the traders of Mansk. Two weeks later Ben and Jan arrived, and together they started planning an offensive in the spring.

Then, one day one of the officers challenged Donnangar for leadership. Many members of the tribe were unhappy- to them farming was something that had to be done by those who they raided and not by them. And even though Trepat, Torn, Jan, Ben and Niklas had gone through the rite of associatons, many were sore about there mere presence. To them, you had to be born an orc or an enemy- there was nothing inbetween.

As Donnangar entered the circle in the middle of the camp, the adventurers knew that he was not only fighting for his life or his leadership, but for their lives as well. All orcs of the camp, young and old alike, had gathered to watch the fight, and those who didn't find a place on the place had climbed onto the snowcovered roofs around.

The challenger was a huge orc. He was almost seven feet tall and as broad as a bear. It looked bad as he towered over Donnangar, clad in a black breastplate and his hands clamped around his doubleaxe. The battle would be to the death, or until one of the contestants would admit defeat, in which case he would be exiled. But, as Gortak had explained to the friends, that almost never happened.

The fight itself went over surprisingly quick. Neither the challenger nor Donnangar wasted any time apprasing their opponent and whereas the challenger was the stronger of the two, the chieftain was more agile and quicker. For each time he had to block an attack of the doubleaxe, he was able to swing his falchion twice. After less than a minute, Donnangar, who was already bleeding and bruised himself, slashed the shaft of the doubleaxe, breaking the axe. The challenger fell backwards, and just as Trepat noticed that he was about to beg for mercy, Donnangar's falchion came down on him, neatly cutting of the head.

After that, Donnangar's position was as strong as ever before again, and he promoted all of the heroes to officers for the upcoming military campaign. In private, he admitted to them that he had noticed that the challenger was about to give up. But Donnangar couldn't risk a powerful barbarian like that to switch sides, and maybe even join the Scorchskulls, and so he decided to kill him right then and there, even though he was surely not proud of it.

With the portal in the halls of Dunai, an advance troop could secure the Scorched Rock while the main force would march overland. If the advancetroop would get merely three days, they should be able to fortify all four paths that lead up to the plateau of the rock. Eventually, by the time snow covered all of the plains and the bloodbasin was frozen over, they decided that they would indeed go ahead and invade the scorchskull's land by the time of the spring thaw. This way, they should be able to cross the plains when they were still hard and frozen, but any opponent would have to deal with the muddy spring ground when the Gravelfists would be on thehard surface of the Scorched Rock.

Of course there were many unpredictable factors, but Donnangar was willing to risk it. After all, if his and Gortak's vision of a unified nation of orcs were to be become reality, they would have to risk it all. Like his friends, he knew that in a few months they would all be victorious heroes or rotting corpses.

 

[Talix]

Thinking on a larger scale now, are they?

Interesting way to introduce psionics into your campaign - did the characters agree beforehand, I'm assuming? Will Niklas give up the way of the Monk forever, or are you going to allow him to multi-class back and forth?

 

[Lars Frehse]

When I introduced Psionics to the players, I basically told them that they can now pick up psionic classes, but that they don't have to. The dragon simply discovered a potential.

Back when the characters fought against the slarecian shadow under Mithril, I secretly made saving throws for them. Niklas was hit by the thing and failed his saving throw and got the language virus then. However, I decide to make it dormant, for I wanted to wait a little longer until I introduce pisonics. (After all, I intend to let that discovery have quite an impact on the campaign. In a way, it constitutes a piece of the puzzle of the slarecian legacy).

So, when the dragon probed the characters, he uncovered the potential, triggering the language virus. Then Torn failed his saving throw, getting infected and gaining psychic potential. (However, if one of the other characters will mention that they are very keen on getting psionic abilities, I will let them have that as well, of course).

Niklas will be able to freely multiclass. I think the restriction for the monk is a little bit silly, anyway. It is not as if the class would be too powerful and has to be curbed in because of it. Incidentally, at the point where we are now, Niklas has already picked his first level of psychic warrior, making him Monk lvl 7/ Psychic Warrior lvl 1. And that is quite a neat combination.

 

[Lars Frehse]

Battle of Scorched Rock, part 1

In the late morning of the second of Tanot in 152 AV, the Gravelfists crossed the border, entering Scorchskull territory.

About tenthousand pairs of hooves and boots trampled down the newly fallen snow and the breath of the warriors and their mounts formed small clouds in the cold air. Most of the orcs were on their feet, but there was cavalry as well- about half of them on horseback and half on the backs of dire wolves. The sky was blue and there was no cloud to be seen. The wardrums were beating a steady rhythm as the juggernaught made of thousands was slowly marching ahead.

Wherever they found the pyramids of skulls which marked the border, they tumbled them down, sometimes fooling around and playing football with the skulls. There was a feeling of expectation and excitement throughout the ranks. No matter how young or old, novice or experienced, man or woman, everyone was held together by an invisible bond and they all shared the same lightheaded feeling of what the orcs called "Shoor-Tak", best translated as "joyous excitation before the fight". Jan, Niklas, Trepat and Torn, who were all leading units of fivehundred warriors each couldn't help but share the feeling as well, and their connection with the tribes of which they were honorary members had never been stronger.

The storms of the late winter had gone and were now substituted by constant fresh winds, which kept the banners flying in the air making it look as if even the lifeless equipment was sharing the optimism of their carriers.

Around noon, two of the scouts came riding back towards the main army at full speed.They had seen a large Scorchskullarmy to the north, which they would encounter in an hour. Immediately the word spread among the warriors, and soon there was no holding back. As the orcs were seeing that their first battle was merely and hour away, they moved at ever greater speed, changing their direction to where they expected the enemy to be.

And then, as they saw the first tips of the Scorchskull banners on the plain ahead, the mass of warrior turned into a tidal wave as they all rushed ahead at their enemies, tearing their non-orcish friends with them. Now, that they had been fully taken by Shoor Tak there was nothing that could possibly stop them and they had turned into a force of nature.

The ground trembled as the two armies thundered towards each other, the sound of thousands of hooves and boots almost drowning the battle shouts and wardrums. From what the friends could see, the scorchskull army was significantly smaller than their own force- maybe half the size. Still, there was no indication that the scorchskulls would act with special consideration because of that disadvantage. If they had noticed that at all, it merely seemed to spur them on to be even wilder and more savage than normal, if that was possible at all.

Meanwhile, about sixty miles to the east, Ben was supervising the construction of the fortification of the four paths that lead up to the flat surface of Scorched Rock. At each of the points where the path reached the plateau, they were building up brick walls which they were reinforcing with heavy beams. Behind those, they were assembling small trebuchets which would be used to fire several fistsized rocks in the case of an attack.

At that point, Ben and his fivehundred pioneers had been working straight for three days, sleeping in shifts. Near Mullis Town, he had influenced the scholars to do him a favor by faking an emergency at the dig site, sealing of the entire area. Then they had constructed a make shift tunnel through the morass to the drowned head and taken bricks, mortar, beams and everything else they needed down there.

Next, Ben lead the awestruck orcs through the halls of Dunai, right to the central chamber, where they stepped through the proper crystal and began their work.

Now, as he watched the orcs put the last finishing touches to their improvised fortifications, while the main force which he expected to arrive in two days fought the first battle of their war against the Gravelfists, he was approached by one of the scouts.

The orc was about as old as Torn and even broader than the halforc. As he made his report, Ben remembered his name: Tak' Rath:" Sir, there is a small troop of maybe four hundred gravelfists marching towards our position. They are marching ahead at a rather leisurely pace, so I suppose there is no indication that they know we are here."

"Very well", Ben replied, being fluent in orcish by now:" Then we should have a little surprise for them, once they are here!".

In the afternoon, the Scorchskulls arrived. H'Treck, the chief of a small tribe that paid tribute to the Scorchskull clan, had been sent there with his men in order to build up a defense while another army would delay the Gravelfists. In a way, H'Treck was glad for this assignment, even though he wouldn't admit it, because his reasoning was highly dishonorable for an orc.

He was already old and weary, and the way he saw it, the assignment to guard the rock would keep him away from all major battles, giving him the chance to spend the last bit of his life in peace and quiet. H'Treck knew that if any of his men would find out about his dreams of peace he would be slain right away. His attitude would be considered cowardly by most orcs, but for the Scorchskulls it was more- it was a sign of godstaint, as they called it.

As the sun was setting, he lead his men up one of the paths, thinking of building a camp around the waterhole up there. He never quite finished contemplating the layout of that camp, though, for suddenly arrows and fire rained down on him and his men. H'Treck was among those hit by the first volley, and pierced by several arrows, he died right away, never knowing what had hit him.

In the end, in spite of his contrary nature, he had died as was proper for a Scorchskull.

 

[Corwyn]

Now we can't have this exelent story dangling down here, so let's prod it onwards!!

 

[Lars Frehse]

Thanks!
Anyway, I had been pretty busy lately, however I will be able to post some updates this week, starting with tomorrow.

 

[Talix]

Cool, I like the occasional alternate perspective, like H'Treck.

 

[Lars Frehse]

Battle of Scorched Rock- part 2

Those Scorchskulls who weren't killed right away tried to save themselves by running away. After all, half of the soldiers and their chieftain were dead before they even knew what was going on. As far as they were concerned, it was impossible that any enemies could have gotten to the scorched Rock. After all, there were scouts all along the border, and they would have had to be invisible to get there in the first place.

Nothing had prepared them for the slaughter they were now experiencing. There wasn't even a real chance of fighting back, since their opponents were killing them from fortified positions above. So, they ran, carrying their wounded among them.

Ben and his pioneers cheered as they shot a few last arrows after their fleeing enemies. Their first battle had been a full success and they hadn't even lost one orc. When the enemies were gone, Ben's orcs looted the dead that had been left behind and seeing that there was little chance that more enemies would come this night, they celebrated well into the night, using the beer that they had brought through the portal as well.

Two days later, they saw the main force of the Gravelfists approaching from the west. Niklas, who had scouted ahead, was the first to arrive on the rock, and immediately he told the incarnate about the battle he had witnessed himself.

The orcs had attacked their enemies with the unstoppable force of a tidal wave, and for two hours, he and everyone else wasn't able to judge just how the battle was working out. Like all other officers, Niklas had fought alongside the men in the front row, and there was no tactic or planning. The only rule was that whenever you saw an enemy, you attacked him.

Eventually, though, there were less and less enemies to attack, and the only ones left standing were Gravelfist orcs. When the battle had died down and the sun was setting, they roughly estimated that they had lost about a thousand orcs and another thousand were severely wounded and would need at least a few days to recover.

For the Scorchskulls, however, the battle had been a disaster. Most of the five thousand warriors who had attacked were dead. Those who were wounded were killed as well, for even though the Gravelfists had reached some civilization, they were still orcs, and just like they would never expect mercy from an enemy, they would never think of giving any either. They considered mercy to be a sign of weakness and for them, taking prisoners was just wrong and against nature.

Once they had climbed onto the rock, the army settled down. Even though the plateau of the scorched rock was big enough for a town to be built there, it was still crowded when the nine thousand remaining Gravelfist-orcs settled down there. Fortunately, the waterhole in the middle seemed to offer an unlimited supply of water and their food would last them for several weeks as well.

After sunset, Jan was approached by one young orc who had been close to him ever since he had settled down in the camp. His name was Chirra, and to the paladin's surprise, he seemed to be genuinely interested in Corean. "Sir", he said breathlessly, "I and some other of the orcs had seen strange lights in the waterhole."

"What lights?" Jan asked in common, since he was the only one of the friends for whom the orcish tongue appeared to be unpronounceable.

Chirra spread his arms, indicating his own puzzlement:" I don't know. It looks like there are eerie lights deep down in there"

Jan, who had been sitting on a stool in his small tent, pushed his hands on his knees and got up: "Alright, I will take a look, then. Come along".

He picked up his friends and Donnangar, and together, they went to the waterhole. And really, there, somewhere deep in the water, they saw pale lights, which seemed to be slowly moving. However, from up there, it was hard to tell whether the lights were right under the surface or somewhere in the far deep of the unexplored water reservoir.

"I'll take a look", Ben announced and jumped down, turning into a shark as he hit the surface of the water.

For a while, the shaft went straight down. Then, after a couple of dozen yards, and well under the surface of the plains, Ben suddenly found himself in what seemed to be a giant underwater cave. Except for the rock above him, he saw no end anywhere.

The dancing lights were still far away, and for a moment Ben wondered whether he had discovered an underwater ocean. Lead by an impulse, he decided to swim deeper towards the lights, and soon he reached the first swarm of white and blind fish.

He ate some and noticed that he liked their taste, and then he noticed that there was something strange here. There was a scent, which he had never smelled before. It was almost as if everything down here had taken on the scent of something living, as if this one living being had been around for long enough that even the fish had taken on it's smell.

It was then that he saw the giant tentacle shooting towards him.

The thing was about as thick as he was, and he was a big shark, after all, and it moved at a speed much faster than his own, that much was clear. Yet, something in Ben kept him from running. Somehow, this whole situation seemed to be of no threat to him. In a way, it was almost familiar.

"So, you have returned, as you have promised", a voice suddenly boomed in Ben's head.

Staying calm, Ben thought, addressing the source of the voice:" You know me?"

"Yes, sure", the voice boomed, and then it "said" something that no humanoid tongue was supposed to pronounce- it was Ben's shark name.

Now Ben understood. He must have been here in one of his previous lives, and assumed his shark form back then as well. "Well", he thought wistfully, "So much about discovering this ocean.".

"Pardon?" the voice boomed again, and Ben realized that the thing must have thought that he had addressed it.

"I am sorry", Ben thought, "but I don't have any memories of the last time I was here. So, who are you?"

 

[Nightfall]

So let me guess Ben was a shark that served Queen Ran huh?