Revenge for the Laxbrynjungs! Part 5 - Sailing Home

The ongoing playtest of Bodil’s Gap continues! In part four the party raided the cramped and waterlogged warren of the monstrous crabs that destroyed the ship of their kinsmen, and recovered both its sail and figurehead from the warren's depths—at the cost of a grave injury to their steersman, Froda. Now they must deliver their prizes and return home with their cousins' newly constructed replacement ship in tow in time for the raid against Kettil Sea-Strider, killer of their clan's Þejn.

The Cast

Ingvild Scoreslayer, Dýrsark - Ingvild is an old and bitter warrior, cunning but prone to the rage of a berserker. He was brother-in-law to the murdered Þejn, Arnolf, and was once a close advisor to the Laxbrynjung clan's leadership. However, he has since had a falling out with the new Þejn, Trond—Arnolf's younger brother—over the execution of Arnolf's will.

Mundr Ivaldisson, Óttimaðr - Mundr is a promising but untested young man endowed with the strength of giants by a mysterious incident during his travels abroad. A Laxbrynjung by birth, Mundr is the only child of the late Ivaldi, the youngest of Arnolf's brothers. Since Arnolf's death, he has ingratiated himself to his uncle Trond in an effort to keep the family from splitting apart.

Ylva Blood-Cup, Seiðkona - Ylva is a sorceress endowed with the power to see and speak with spirits, and uses her magic to curse her enemies with great misfortune. Though dwelling apart from the clan in the woods, Ylva is an ally of the Laxbrynjungs, having been a close friend and confidant of Arnolf's murderd heir, Steinar.

Hrafn, Skald - Hrafn is a travelling merchant and irregular trading partner of the Laxbrynjung clan. Left with neither trade goods nor coin by an accident on the road that destroyed his cart and belongings, Hrafn was saved by a chance encounter with a single drop of the Mead of Poetry. Now endowed with the magic of galdr-song, he must find a way to recover his fortunes.

The Game

Returning from the nárikrabbir's mound, Ingvild, Mundr, and Ylva must first recover their shore party from the beach, where the shield-maiden Valdis commanded the defenders and used Ylva's cursed cup of overflowing whale's blood to draw the crabs away from their nest. The party have to pilot their rowboats through waters being churned to a froth by sharks drawn to the battle's bloodshed, but on the shore they find Valdis and her men alive and well despite their injuries. In a celebratory mood, the PCs collect their kin and prepare to row back to Askarfjord to return the sail and figurehead recovered from the mound to Valdis' mother, the local chieftain and sister-in-law to their self-declared new Þejn, Trond.

Meanwhile back in Askarfjord, Hrafn the travelling merchant stumbles into the local fields bereft of his cart, his goods, and his wealth after trekking through the woods for weeks. His possessions lost when a storm washed out his road and sent his cart careening off a cliff onto some rocks, Hrafn finds himself in need of a new fortune if a merchant he wishes to remain.

Fortunately, some of the local children are able to guide him to Skadi Battle-Brand, the chieftain of Askarfjord, who offers him hospitality—but only for a few days. When her nephew finishes constructing their replacement ship, most of the Askarfjorders will be sailing for Ymafjord to join the raid that will avenge the murder of Þejn Arnolf and his son, and Hrafn will have to move on. Recognizing an opportunity to find renewed fame and fortune, Hrafn settles in to wait for the returning Laxbrynjung contingent, so that he can offer his services and hopefully get in on the raid himself.

In short order, Ingvild, Mundr, and Ylva return to Askarfjord, and upon their arrival must answer the crew of their ship as to why Froda is not among them. Faced with a crisis of confidence in his leadership, Mundr must explain Froda's injuries and the intervention of the selkie they encountered, and can only relay her promise that Froda will be returned home when his wound has healed. Despite Mundr's speech some suspicion still lingers among the crew, but the imposing presence of his uncle Ingvild at least prevents it from turning into anything more.

Still, despite the ambiguity of Froda's fate, the monstrous crabs plaguing the local waters have been almost wiped out, the sail and figurehead have been recovered, and the warriors have returned alive from battle—all causes for revelry. While Skadi's nephew and his carpenters go to work finishing their longship, everyone else begins preparing to throw a feast in the evening, to celebrate before tomorrow's departure. The fighters, meanwhile, avail themselves of a luxurious bath in an artificial pond warmed by hot stones.

Ylva helps the carpenters with their work, applying tar to the underside of the ship as it rests in the water to allow the boards to swell tight, and advising them what kind of offering to leave under the figurehead when they mount it in its socket.

Meanwhile, Mundr speaks with his cousin Valdis as both cleanse themselves of crab blood, and learns that her mother Skadi doesn't actually have as good an opinion of her brother-in-law Trond as Trond might hope She and her kin will sail to Ymafjord for the sake of Skadi's sister—Trond's wife Þruðr—but the family loyalty doesn't extend much beyond that. Mundr is pleased to hear that Trond's expected allies are not about to help him rule with an iron fist, but fears that his family is continuing to fracture and split apart.

Lastly, Hrafn finds himself drinking with Ingvild and Skadi, and makes his introduction to the grizzled warrior, as well as his offer to join the raid. Little is decided as the descend deeper and deeper into their cups, and come morning Hrafn finds himself waking bleary-eye in Skadi's bed, while Ingvild appears to have slept on the beach. Slipping away before the chieftain wakes, Hrafn makes his escape.

Gathering in the morning for their departure, the Laxbrynjungs and their allies are pleased to launch their ship alongside the new ship of the Askarfjorders, commanded by Skadi and her kin. Sailing home to Ymafjord, all is well—until what can only be the very last of the nárikrabbir in local waters begin tearing the strakes of their ship apart and swarming into the deck.

The crabs are few but vicious, and their tearing pincers are a threat not only to the PCs and their crew, but to the ship itself. Battle is swiftly joined while members of the crew attempt to prevent more crabs from entering the ship, get a patch into the existing hole, and bail water from the hold to prevent everyone from sinking to a briney grave.

Mundr and Ingvild both lay about with their weapons, cracking through crab shells with somewhat greater ease than previously. Hrafn demonstrates his worth by lacing his voice with the magic of galdr and commanding several crabs to leap off the ship. Ylva, meanwhile, fresh from mastering a new form of her seiðr, works a spell of transformation and deprives one of the beasts of its pincers by turning its body into that of a pig. Everyone on board is horrified when the newly-made chimera scuttles away on its clattering crab legs, squealing piggy squeals the whole way.

Ultimately the creatures are defeated, but the ship must be beached for repairs, delaying the trip home by an extra day. When the PCs and the Askarfjorders finally arrive back in Ymafjord, it is to discover two unwelcome truths:

First, though it is now three days since they entrusted him to the selkie's care, Froda has not yet returned.

And second, because of their delays, they have arrived right on the eve of the raid. There is no longer any time to prepare or to or negate Trond's influence in favour of Arnolf's son Rurik. In a few short hours, everyone assembled must set sail again, and bring their revenge down on Kettil Sea-Strider.

Behind the Scenes

Most of this session was downtime for the PCs, and offered a few new opportunities. Having reached a good in-between spot in which to introduce a new PC, we were able to bring in a fourth player who had been waiting in the wings. This also provided the first opportunity of the campaign to Carouse, which perfectly suited the party's new Skald.

After a fair bit of roleplaying without much action, the trip home turned out to be far more exciting than I had planned for. Scoring a partial success on the roll to Ride the Whale Road, the players chose to be ambushed by an encounter—and then rolled yet more crabs on the random encounter table.

The last battle against the things was a fitting end for this mini-arc, and with it concluded, we now move into the crux of the campaign: finding revenge for the murder of the party's friend and kinsman. Next time, they'll cross the sea to the northern shore where Kettil Sea-Strider is said to lurk, and prepare to hunt down their foe.

Revenge for the Laxbrynjungs! Part 4 - Into the Crab Warren

The ongoing playtest of Bodil’s Gap continues! In part three, the PCs battled giant-spawned crab monsters on the beach at Askarfjord, the creatures having been drawn by Ylva's out-of-control seiðr leaving the sand and water awash in whale's blood.

The Cast

Ingvild Scoreslayer, Dýrsark - Ingvild is an old and bitter warrior, cunning but prone to the rage of a berserker. He was brother-in-law to the murdered Þejn, Arnolf, and was once a close advisor to the Laxbrynjung clan's leadership. However, he has since had a falling out with the new Þejn, Trond—Arnolf's younger brother—over the execution of Arnolf's will.

Mundr Ivaldisson, Óttimaðr - Mundr is a promising but untested young man endowed with the strength of giants by a mysterious incident during his travels abroad. A Laxbrynjung by birth, Mundr the only child of the late Ivaldi, the youngest of Arnolf's brothers. Since Arnolf's death, he has ingratiated himself to Trond in an effort to keep the family from splitting apart.

Ylva Blood-Cup, Seiðkona - Ylva is a sorceress endowed with the power to see and speak with spirits, and uses her magic to curse her enemies with great misfortune. Though dwelling apart from the clan in the woods, Ylva is an ally of the Laxbrynjungs, having been a close friend and confidant of Arnolf's murderd heir, Steinar.

The Game

With the beach cleared of the nárikrabbir and the PCs satisfied that their conjured whale's blood is an effective bait for drawing the creatures out, the party turns to preparations for their trip to the crab's lair. There they will need to find and recover the sail and figurehead of the Askarfjorders' wrecked ship so their kinsmen can join them on the raid that will be taking place in a few days' time.

The crabs' half-submerged mound is just up the coast, but getting there poses a challenge. The creatures have already proven they can wreck a longship, and the PCs don't want to put their own vessel in danger unnecessarily. At the same time, getting to the mound out on the water will require a boat of some kind.

Ingvild, who has the most experience planning raids and fighting enemies, proposes a course of action: the party will take two smaller rowboats up the coast while sending some men on foot to shadow the boats along the shore. In the event of danger the rowboats can quickly land, and the crabs can be fought on the beach by greater numbers instead of by a few out on the water. When they get to the mound, one team of warriors will form a shield wall on the shore and use Ylva's cursed goblet to draw out the crabs while a smaller team ventures into the vacated warren to find the sail and figurehead.

Pleased with their plan, the PCs solicit volunteers to go with them. Various fighters from their own crew and from among the Askarfjorders sign on, but only two are of note. First is Froda, the steersman of their own ship and the veteran sailor who is showing Mundr the ropes of his first command—and a loyal partisan of Trond's, keeping an eye on the potentially rebellious PCs for the new Þejn. Second is Valdis, the daughter of the chieftain of Askarford, Skadi Battle-Brand. A young and brash shield-maiden, Valdis is eager for battle and impatient of any delay in finding it.

With their crew assembled, the PCs set out for the nárikrabbir's lair, which is a massive mound of half-submerged timber somewhat akin to a beaver lodge. When they get in sight of it, Valdis and majority of the men disembark to prepare the defensive position on the beach, and take Ylva's cup, still sealed inside a barrel, with them. Once ready, they crack the barrel's seal and whale's blood comes pouring out, tell every crab nearby that dinner is served. As the sea begins to froth with scuttling horrors pouring out of the nearby mound, the PCs and Froda take the other rowboat out to the crab's lair and prepare to delve.

Ylva starts out by separating her spirit from her body in order to scout ahead. Travelling in spirit-form down towards the mound, she's drawn to one side of the structure, where she can sense another spirit in distress. Passing through the rough wall, she enters a chamber where what appears to be a soaked and naked woman sporting several bleeding wounds huddles behind a makeshift barricade, clutching a flint knife.

Approaching softly, Ylva learns that the woman is indeed a spirit of some kind. She claims to have entered the mound seeking her stolen skin, which was in the possession of some sailors whose ship the crabs wrecked and used to expand their warren, but that she underestimated the beasts' viciousness and has since become trapped, unable to recover her skin or to leave.

Ylva's knowledge of spirits helps her recognise that the woman before her is a selkie, a seal-spirit of the sea that can take human form by shedding its skin, but that cannot transform back into a seal without it. She promises to recover the skin if she can, and the selkie offers her a boon if the skin is returned to her.

With that, Ylva returns to the rest of the party to report. The PCs decide to forge onward, and enter the mound through one of three apertures visible at water level. They land their rowboat in a chamber filled with sticky silt and mud washed in by the tide, and have to struggle through the muck to get deeper. Moving past, they enter a chamber filled with deep water through which a strong current appears to be flowing, as evidenced by the dragging leaves of the branches that hang from the ceiling down into the water.

To avoid the current, Mundr begins to cross the room hand-over-hand, climbing from one branch to another while trailing a rope to help the others cross. There is a moment of peril when he almost slips, but manages to cling on and reach the far side. Aided by the rope, the others have an easier time, and soon everyone is able to press on.

The way forward seems to be a tunnel, but as the party get farther in it slopes down and submerges. Scouting ahead once more, Ylva turns into a fish to investigate the tunnel, and finds that it does indeed emerge into air once more. The way is dark and murky, however, and progress requires a hair-pin turn that would be almost invisible in the gloom for someone who didn't know it was there. Forewarned, the party is able to swim through without getting trapped, and emerge into a chamber that appears to be constructed mostly out of a large, intact section of a ship's hull. Near the back, a jumble of chests seem to comprise the ship's cargo, while three bloated and waterlogged corpses seem to be all that remains of its crew.

Remembering the selkie's words, Ylva goes to investigate the chests, but as she draws near, the corpses leap to their feet as draugar, and battle is joined. Ingvild and Mundr lay into the revenants with their weapons aided by Froda, while Ylva curses them. The draugar are tough, but their weapons are corroded, and everyone escapes with only minor injuries when the last of them falls. Alongside the selkie's sealskin, which Ylva takes for safekeeping, the wreck's cargo also includes some more mundane treasure, in the form of trade goods—most notably, a small earthenware jar of rare spices.

Forging on, the party passes through a chamber that appears to be a larder, where pungent carcasses of sea life are laid out next to mounds of mouldering bones. The party have to dodge some territorial moray eels that have taken up residence in the submerged tangles of the uneven wooden floor, but are able to pass on, ascending a rough tunnel shaped out of planks torn from wrecked ships, the walls and floor bristling with rusting nails that protrude from the wood. Ylva uses her seiðr to blunt their points, while the others pick their way through carefully.

Arriving now near the top of the mound, the party emerge into a chamber positively swarming with crabs, where the creatures are hard at work expanding their home. A swath of the mound stands open to the sky, while even as the PCs watch, crabs drag water-logged timber up to continue constructing the chamber.

There is little time for talk, as the party is quickly noticed by the crabs. Scuttling swarm of the things descend on them, and the fighting is close and brutal. The crabs' tough shells prove as difficult to penetrate as before, and it takes Ingvild's berserk fury and the magic of Mundr and Ylva to dispatch the creatures.

During the fighting Froda is badly injured, his side torn by a crab's pincer and his blood splashed liberally across the wet floor. Ingvild, always opposed to any follower of Trond, is in favour of letting him die, while Mundr feels a sense of loyalty to the man who has helped him learn the ways of the sea. Ultimately, they bandage him as best they can, but little else can be done; he cannot continue on with them, but nor can he turn back unaided. Froda volunteers to remain behind in the chamber, propped against the wall with sword and shield within reach, and promises he will stay alive long enough for them to come back for him once they've found the sail and figurehead. Concerned about both Froda and the party left to fight crabs on the beach, the PCs are without time to dither, and are forced to press on.

Fortunately, immediately upon moving on from the chamber where they left Froda, Ylva recognizes the next passage—the barricade to the side, there, marks the entrance to the room in which the selkie is holed up!

Breaking through the barricade, the PCs find the spirit still lingering. Ylva takes out the selkie's skin, and the spirit is overjoyed to receive it again. Thanking the party, she promises again to grant them a boon, and as what they wish of her. After some debate, Mundr asks the spirit if she can do anything to help Froda, who is still inches from death and lying only a short distances away.

The selkie agrees, and together they venture back to the previous chamber. There they find that Froda has passed out, and is lying unconscious. Seeing his wounds, the selkie says that she will have to take him away to heal him, but that she will return him to his home once he has recovered. Ingvild and Mundr are dubious, but with Ylva's reassurances that selkies are not usually malicious, they finally agree. The selkie wraps herself in her seal-skin, takes Froda in her grip, and dives out the open wall of the chamber to disappear into the sea without even a splash.

Carrying on, the three PCs, now totally alone, cross a passageway where the wood underfoot is rotten and threatens to give way, managing to reach the far side without mishap—there to discover a pulsating mound of the nárikrabbir's eggs, strung from dangling branches and seaweed everywhere about the chamber. While Ingvild and Ylva hold the creatures off, Mundr conjures primordial flame to destroy their spawning groups, hopefully ending the threat of the creatures in these waters for a long time.

And beyond that chamber, at last they find what they're looking for.

The cracked mast of the Askarfjorders' ship seems to be partially supporting the roof of the chamber, and from the crossbeam the sail still hangs. Below, sunk beneath the deep water, the dim outline of the figurehead can be seen.

While Ylva transform into an octopus to haul the figurehead up, Mundr climbs the mast, but neither task goes smoothly. Mundr almost slips on the slick wood, while Ylva struggles with the figurehead and ends up cracking the wood. In the end, however, both are able to recover their prizes. And without needing to recover Froda, they are able to depart the mound without too much additional danger, retracing their steps back towards the rowboat.

It only remains to see how Valdis and the warriors on the beach fared, and to return the Askarfjorder's items back to them so their new ship can be properly outfitted. If all goes well, they and their kin will be able to sail home to Ymafjord just in time for the raid, and find Froda alive and well, waiting for them.

If all goes well.

Behind the Scenes

This was the party's first dungeon crawl of the campaign, and rather than lay out the mound as I might for another dungeon, I wanted to use a random generation system that I've had some some success with in the past. I wrote some descriptions for six different chamber nodes and six different linking passages, and turned each into a table to roll on. Then I wrote the following move:

Whenever you try to find your way through the mound, roll+WIS. 

• On a 7+, you reach a new Chamber. 
• On a 7-9, you must cross a Passage first. 
• On a 12+, you must cross a Passage but reach a Goal Chamber. 

For every two chambers you've visited, take +1 on your roll.

I had initially kept the sail room and the figurehead room as two separate Goal Chambers, but we only reached the first one towards the end of the session, after I had run out of normal chambers, so I ended up merging them into one.

All in all, I'm pleased with how things went—especially the drama with Froda, who they've been very conflicted about. Ingvild especially started out keen to get rid of what he considered Mundr's babysitter and a spy for Trond, but after Froda fought at their side and risked death against the crabs, everyone became a lot more fond of him. When the PCs used their boon from the selkie to save him instead of asking for something to benefit themselves, I was incredibly proud.

Revenge for the Laxbrynjungs! Part 3 - The Blood-Soaked Beach

The ongoing playtest of Bodil’s Gap continues! In part two, the PCs sailed for Askarfjord, the home of their new Þejn's kinfolk, seeking allies for their retaliatory raid against the slayer of their previous Þejn. They arrived to discover that the Askarfjorders had recently had their warship wrecked by monstrous crabs, and agreed to set out to recover its sail and figurehead so a new ship could be completed.

The Cast

Ingvild Scoreslayer, Dýrsark - Ingvild is an old and bitter warrior connected to the Laxbrynjung clan by marriage: his sister, long since deceased, was the first wife of the clan's Þejn, Arnolf, and Arnolf's eldest children and heirs are Ingvild's niece and nephew. Cunning but prone to the rage of a berserker, Ingvild is a veteran warrior and close advisor to the clan's leadership.

Mundr Ivaldisson, Óttimaðr - Mundr is a Laxbrynjung by birth, the only child of Ivaldi, the youngest of Arnolf's brothers. The death of Ivaldi when Mundr was still a child have made Ingvild and Arnolf Mundr's only father-figures, however. A promising but untested young man, Mundr has spent much of his youth away from the family holdings helping out in the surrounding settlements, and has only returned home recently in the wake of a mysterious incident in which the barrier between the Mortal World and the Primordial Realm of Fire was torn open, exposing Mundr to the stuff of other worlds and endowing him with the strength of giants.

Ylva, Seiðkona - Though dwelling apart from the clan in the woods, Ylva is an ally of the Laxbrynjungs, serving as a close friend and confidant of Arnolf's eldest son, Steinar. Ylva is a sorceress endowed with the power to see and speak with spirits, and uses her magic to soothe the difficulties of her allies in the clan, despite frequent clashes with those who see her magic as wicked or unnatural.

The Game

When the PCs learn of the misfortune that has befallen their allies, the first thing they do is wrack their brains about the creatures plaguing Askarfjord's waters. Ylva recognizes the creatures as nárikrabbir, the spawn of ancient lice that used to live in the giants' hair before their bodies were used to fashion the Mortal World.

As the spawn of lice, they still crave blood—especially the blood of whales—so the party decides to use whale's blood to try and lure them out of their burrow for battle, rather than assaulting them in their own lair. They flirt with the idea of catching a whale, but instead Ylva turns to her ritual magic to provide a solution. She secures a golden goblet from her hosts and begins to work her seiðr to transform it into an enchanted object, a cup that will pour out whale's blood on command.

Sadly, the magic goes badly wrong, and the spirits that Ylva calls upon are whipped into a frenzy. Her seiðr warps, and the cup fills and then overfills with blood, pouring out in a tide that seems impossible to stop. The beach is stained red as blood pours down the sand and into the surf, and the waters are dyed crimson with gore. As Ylva leaps to stem the tide, surf is churned to a froth as a dozen of the dog-sized nárikrabbir scuttle up out of the sea, snapping pincers as sharp as swords.

The battle that ensues is fierce. The monstrous crabs have grips as strong as iron and shearing jaws that leave ragged and bloody wounds, and they swarm the beach in a crawling mass. Mundr and Ingvild engage the creatures in melee at one end of the beach, while their hosts join the battle at the other end. Ylva wields her curses, while from the the PCs' ship, their crew let loose with arrows into the crustaceous tide.

Things quickly get out of hand, however. The warriors find that the crabs' tough shells are difficult to overcome, and make little progress. Ingvild is forced to rely on his berserk rage to smash through, while Mundr calls on the primordial flame within, and benefits from Ylva's malediction causing the crabs to suffer greater misfortune at his hands. The crabs, meanwhile, give as good as they get. Mundr is assailed by several of them, which latch their vicious jaws into his flesh and begin to drain his lifeblood, swelling like ticks, while Ylva is dragged into the waves by another. She finds her opponents thinned by a shark drawn to the shallow water by the continued outpouring of blood and the floating gore of those crabs already slain, and is forced to flee not only the nárikrabbir but the shark's thrashing jaws as well.

By the time the crabs have all been slain, everyone is wounded, and several men of Askarfjord lie dead. While their hosts begin funeral preparations, Ylva finally manages to seal her miscreated cup into a barrel, which groans under the pressure of the blood fountain contained within but ultimately holds fast.

Satisfied with the effectiveness of their bait, the PCs prepare to set out for the nárikrabbir's den, a half-submerged warren built of wrecked ships and trees uprooted from the shore, a day's sailing away from Askarfjord.

Behind the Scenes

This was the party's first encounter with the giant-spawned crabs, and it made them properly cautious about attacking their lair. The crabs had very few hitpoints each, but enough armour that it took a decent damage roll to kill one, and the party's rolls that night were anything but decent. Meanwhile, the swarming crabs manage quite a bit of carnage of their own, making good use of their ensnaring pincers and bloodletting bite to catch and drain their prey. Preparing to delve into the creatures' burrow as their first dungeon crawl of the campaign, the party had a lot on their plate to deal with, but pressed on undaunted.

Bodil's Gap Actual Play: Revenge for the Laxbrynjungs! Part 2

The ongoing playtest of Bodil’s Gap continues! In part one, the Laxbrynjung clansmen buried their murdered Þejn, Arnolf, and discovered that his brother, Trond, had claimed the Þejn’s office instead of allowing it to pass to Arnolf’s son Rurik. Not only that, but Trond claimed the bequests left to each of them as his own. The game picks up in the aftermath of that pronouncement.

The Cast

Ingvild Scoreslayer, Dýrsark - Ingvild is an old and bitter warrior connected to the Laxbrynjung clan by marriage: his sister, long since deceased, was the first wife of the clan's Þejn, Arnolf, and Arnolf's eldest children and heirs are Ingvild's niece and nephew. Cunning but prone to the rage of a berserker, Ingvild is a veteran warrior and close advisor to the clan's leadership.

Mundr Ivaldisson, Óttimaðr - Mundr is a Laxbrynjung by birth, the only child of Ivaldi, the youngest of Arnolf's brothers. The death of Ivaldi when Mundr was still a child have made Ingvild and Arnolf Mundr's only father-figures, however. A promising but untested young man, Mundr has spent much of his youth away from the family holdings helping out in the surrounding settlements, and has only returned home recently in the wake of a mysterious incident in which the barrier between the Mortal World and the Primordial Realm of Fire was torn open, exposing Mundr to the stuff of other worlds and endowing him with the strength of giants.

Ylva, Seiðkona - Though dwelling apart from the clan in the woods, Ylva is an ally of the Laxbrynjungs, serving as a close friend and confidant of Arnolf's eldest son, Steinar. Ylva is a sorceress endowed with the power to see and speak with spirits, and uses her magic to soothe the difficulties of her allies in the clan, despite frequent clashes with those who see her magic as wicked or unnatural.

The Game

Trond’s announcement on the barrowtop leaves the party angry and confused. Ingvild was promised a talisman of Arnolf’s as memento of his friend and brother-in-law, and Ylva was promised a silver circlet, both of which have now gone into Trond’s own hoard. Worse off is Mundr, who was promised one of Arnolf’s ships, the famously swift Vágarhlaupna, which has now been given to Trond’s sons, Gunnar and Finnar. Neither Ingvild nor Ylva is subtle about how little they care for this decision. Ingvild vocally questions Trond’s judgement, but Trond maintains the properness of his decision based on the legal status of Arnolf’s union with Rurik’s mother. Ingvild storms off in a fury to speak to the woman herself, trying to find some answers. Ylva takes things even worse and immediately brings her seiðr to bear on Trond, cursing him in front of the whole clan with the following malediction: Cursed be you, to have all your ambitions to turn to dust. Cursed be you, to have you sons slain by their own men. Cursed be you, to have your seed turn to water. Cursed, cursed, cursed! Then she turns into a raven and flies off to plot further—only to discover that her magic has drawn too heavily on her, and that her hands have remained scaly, bird-like talons even after turning back to human form. Meanwhile, Ingvild speaks to Rurik’s mother, Kara, and learns that her matrimonial status is something of a grey area: when Arnolf was still married to Ingvild’s sister, Kara was still a slave of the household, captured on a raid by Arnolf’s father when Arnolf and Kara were both children. They became close as they grew up together, and after the death of his first wife it was in Kara’s arms that he found solace. Twenty years and two children later, Kara had fully assumed the role of wife and partner, but because of her origins had never brought a dowry from the household of her parents nor sat at a marriage feast at her mother’s table on her wedding night. As such, though Trond’s pronouncement is cruel, it isn’t without legal merit, and overturning it might require debate at the local þing—which won’t take place until after the retaliatory raid against Arnolf’s killers. And at that point, it may be too late to contest; if Trond can win the acclaim of the clan through his leadership during the raid, who will be left to support the party’s challenge when the þing arrives? Meanwhile, Mundr decides to take a much more subtle tack. Approaching his uncle Trond as a loyal nephew, Mundr convinces the new Þejn that he supports Trond’s cause, and through a passionate request—reinforced by the primordial flames of Mundr’s link to the Realm of Fire bolstering his force of personality—Mundr is able to persuade Trond to grant him Gunnar and Finnar’s old ship, which will allow Mundr to go on the raid being planned, and potentially support Rurik in enough heroics to win him a reputation to rival Trond’s. Trond is not entirely convinced of Mundr’s loyalty, however, nor of his ability as a sailor, so he proposes an errand on which Mundr can prove himself and learn the ropes of captaincy: to sail two days away to Askarfjord, where the kinsfolk of Trond’s wife dwell. Allies of the Laxbrynjungs and dwellers in the region over which Arnolf was Þejn, they too should be called to battle against Arnolf’s murderer, Kettil Sea-Strider, and his forces. And with seven days between now and the launch of the raid, that should be ample time for Mundr to fetch them and return. Of course, Trond's deeper intention is not lost on Mundr: as his own in-laws, the Askarfjorders are as much Trond’s personal allies as they are allies of the clan as a whole. Struggling with the idea of preparing for the raid but strengthening Trond’s position, that night Mundr confers with his allies—who cannot travel openly with Trond’s men, who still crew Mundr’s new ship. Ylva resolves to travel to Askarfjord on her own, and transforms once again into a dolphin, preparing to swim all the way and meet the other PCs there. Ingvild opts for the more direct approach and simply stows away, preparing to reveal himself on the ship’s arrival in Askarfjord. On route, however, Mundr steers the ship perhaps a little too close to the coast, and the crew is surprised when a cliff crake plunges down from above, missing its dive into a school of fish to smash into their deck. Mundr and the crew quickly drive it overboard, but not before it takes a bite out of one of the men. Mundr can tell that his leadership has not so far inspired much confidence from his crew. Arriving in Askarfjord, party discovers that things will not be so simple as fetching Trond’s in-laws and turning around; though they are welcomed by the chieftain of Askarfjord, a veteran shield-maiden named Skadi Battle-Brand, it turns out that Skadi’s warship has been wrecked in an encounter with a swarm of monstrous crabs that have taken up residence off the coast of the fjord. A new one is under construction, but cannot possibly be finished in time for the raid unless the sail of the old ship is recovered, since a single sail represents a whole winter's worth of textile production. Her carpenter also asks that the old figurehead be brought back if possible, claiming it was blessed with good luck.

The second session ended with the party preparing to sail to the crabs’ nest, a half-submerged warren built of wrecked ships and waterlogged trees uprooted from the shore—and preparing for the first time to go into battle with the inhuman spawn of the ancient giants.

Behind the Scenes

In general I’m very pleased with how the game went in this session. The tension between the need to unite for the coming raid versus the desire to oppose Trond has put the party in an interesting position, and playing that tension out has been very rewarding so far. This session also saw the debut of Bodil’s Gap’s sailing mechanics, which have continued to plague the party ever since. The ocean is a dangerous place, and because of their poor luck they have yet to take a trip that doesn’t include an encounter with some kind of dangerous creature out on the water.

Announcing Core Decay

When you got hit by a bus, that kind of sucked. It was already a bad day, and then wham: spinal fracture. But hey! You got this cool new cyborg body out of it. And if the government makes you fight giant monsters from time to time, at least you're famous. The people love you! You punched out Mecha-Gorilla on the six o'clock news and got a hundred fan-letters the next day. 

So it's not all bad. It's not like the uranium core of your new heart is slowly decaying and ruining your mind. Right? That would be laughable. Hahaha. It's not like the other nuclear-powered robo-heroes are constantly conspiring to undercut you on national television in an effort to steal away your fans, right? Nonsense! Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. It's not like your government handlers are putting drugs in your food and recording your thoughts through these fucking brain interfaces, right? ABSURD! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

A Game of Failing Systems

                                          

Core Decay is the result of a contest I participated in back in 2013, wherein contestants randomly selected three prompts from a list of five hundred, and then had twenty-four hours to design a functioning rpg.

My three prompts were Nuclear Power, Paranoia, and Rabid Fans, and from those three prompts was conceived this game about misfortunate souls transformed by catastrophe into pulp heroes, cyborg champions of Earth battling monsters and gathering fans while slowly (or not so slowly) losing their minds.

The original draft wasn't honestly very good. Now, with the benefit of seven years of experience playing, running, and designing games, an almost totally rewritten version is available to play.

Fight giant creatures straight out of the most ridiculous dime novel or creature feature! Hold onto the last dregs of humanity within your cold metal shell! And try not to let the hunk of uranium powering your heart drive you insane! This is Core Decay.

Bodil's Gap Actual Play: Revenge for the Laxbrynjungs!

For the past couple of months, I've been running a playtest game for the setting and mechanics of Bodil's Gap, which I've been posting about for a while. What follows is a report of how that game has gone. I'd like to get through the backlog of sessions fairly quickly and catch up to the campaign where it stands, so here we go.

The Cast

When I pitched the campaign, I wanted all of the PCs to be members of the same clan—the Laxbrynjungs—whether by direct blood relation, by marriage, or by some other alliance. The idea was that they'd be bound together by common cause right off the bat, and also have a quick and easy way to figure out their place in society and their relationships with the NPCs of their starting steading or of rival clans.

These are the characters my players came up with:

Ingvild Scoreslayer, Dýrsark - Ingvild is an old and bitter warrior connected to the Laxbrynjung clan by marriage: his sister, long since deceased, was the first wife of the clan's Þejn, Arnolf, and Arnolf's eldest children and heirs are Ingvild's niece and nephew. Cunning but prone to the rage of a berserker, Ingvild is a veteran warrior and close advisor to the clan's leadership.

Mundr Ivaldisson, Óttimaðr - Mundr is a Laxbrynjung by birth, the only child of Ivaldi, the youngest of Arnolf's brothers. The death of Ivaldi when Mundr was still a child has made Ingvild and Arnolf Mundr's only father-figures, however. A promising but untested young man, Mundr has spent much of his youth away from the family holdings helping out in the surrounding settlements, and has only returned home recently in the wake of a mysterious incident in which the barrier between the Mortal World and the Primordial Realm of Fire was torn open, exposing Mundr to the stuff of other worlds and endowing him with the strength of giants.

Ylva, Seiðkona - Though dwelling apart from the clan in the woods, Ylva is an ally of the Laxbrynjungs, serving as a close friend and confidant of Arnolf's eldest son, Steinar. Ylva is a sorceress endowed with the power to see and speak with spirits, and uses her magic to soothe the difficulties of her allies in the clan, despite frequent clashes with those who see her magic as wicked or unnatural.

The Game

The campaign opens with the PCs all at home in Ymafjord, the region controlled by the Laxbrynjung clan. Arnolf and his son and heir, Steinar, are due to return any day now from their trading trip up to the coast to Songheim, the de facto capital of the province and the seat of the Jarl to whom Arnolf pays tribute. Instead of a convoy of ships, however, what returns is a lone vessel crewed by the survivors of a raid on Arnolf’s convoy—a ship carrying the bodies of Arnolf and Steinar home for burial. The survivors report that when Arnolf and Steinar’s convoy beached their ships at a pair of islands to camp for the night, they were set upon by the notorious pirate Kettil Sea-Strider and his son, Olaf Mangler, who slew the Laxbrynjung Þejn and stole their goods and several of their ships.

The PCs are immediately devastated and furious. Arnolf was brother-in-law and dear friend to Ingvild, uncle and father-figure to Mundr, and patron to Ylva, while Steinar was Ingvild’s nephew, Mundr’s cousin, and Ylva’s close friend. Their outrage is mirrored in the rest of the clan, and immediately plans for revenge begin forming.

A more pressing need must come first, however: Arnolf and Steinar must be buried.

Immediately the PCs are put in charge of the funeral preparations by Arnolf’s brother Trond, to whom the role of executor falls, while Arnolf’s remaining son, Rurik, takes charge of planning a retaliatory raid on Kettil, aided by Odd Crooked-Brow, an ally of the clan and the local hersir, whose expertise in planning raids is invaluable.

Funerals for men of Arnolf and Steinar’s station are not simple affairs, and they cannot be properly interred until a barrow is prepared for them—but such an earthwork is the labour of three days straight digging and mounding stone and soil. In the meantime, the dead must be placed in temporary graves and provided with offerings of salt and honey to keep their spirits placated until the funeral and final burial in the mound. Salt is on hand, but the honey must be gathered from the wild. Seeking the numbness of work, Mundr takes a turn at the shovel and pick, while Ingvild and Ylva set out into the woods.

Ylva, who makes the forest her home, happens to know where wild bees can be found in abundance; there’s a particular tree deep in the woods that is home to a vorðeik, a guardian spirit that dwells in the ancient ash and defends it, and the bees, from harm. The PCs arrive there in short order, but when the spirit presents itself, Ingvild has little patience for its interference and prepares to climb the tree to collect honey with little regard for the bees or branches. Ylva is forced to intervene before the vorðeik takes action against them, and bargains with the spirit, promising to weave her magic such that any harm that befalls the tree will be mirrored on her flesh. Satisfied, the spirit allows Ingvild to climb, and in his impatience he breaks a few branches on the way up, opening bloody wounds on the seiðkona waiting below.

Ingvild does manage to secure the honey without rousing the bees, at least, using a torch to smoke them into a stupor, and returns safely to the forest floor while Ylva patches herself up with the party’s supply of bandages.

That night, Arnolf and Steinar are placed in their temporary graves with their offerings of salt and honey, and the PCs sleep the fitful sleep of mourners while other clansmen stand vigil over the Þejn and his son—except Mundr, who has worked himself to exhaustion and sleeps like a log.

The next day, the funeral itself is set to begin. Everyone continues to construct the barrow in the morning, but in the evening the clan gathers to feast. Arnolf’s surviving children are all there, as is his second wife, mother to Rurik and his younger sister. Ingvild’s niece Ranveig and her husband have arrived from abroad, while Mundr’s uncle Trond and his sons are also in attendance, along with Mundr’s own mother. Countless clansmen and friends gather to feast, but it is only the closest friends and family members who are expected to toast the dead.

Each of the party members has a toast to make, and must drink to the toasts of their comrades and kin, but tonight the vigil over Arnolf and Steinar’s graves falls to the PCs, so they must take care not to become too drunk to stand watch. Ingvild and Ylva manage to keep their heads while sharing toasts to Arnolf and Steinar, but Mundr passes through tipsy directly into hungover. Fortunately, his two comrades are able to get him to the vigil in one piece, and the three spend the night standing watch over their kinsmen’s graves. Until, at midnight, Arnolf’s spirit emerges from the earth to go about his business, his death forgotten. 

The three PCs are stunned, but quickly rally, engaging Arnolf’s unsuspecting specter in conversation and quickly fetching a tafl board to keep him occupied. It isn’t until he asks where his son is that they’re forced to remind him that he and Steinar both died. As the memory returns to him, his spirit disperses, returning to its temporary rest in the grave.

Shaken by the experiences of the night, the three aren’t at their best the following day when the interment proper is set to take place. During the day a bull is sacrificed, and the temporary graves are dug up so that Arnolf and Steinar can be placed in their barrow alongside their grave goods, while the protection of the gods is invoked over their resting place. At dusk, the mound is sealed, and all that remains is for the mourners to assemble on the barrowtop to drink the memorial mead, after which Arnolf and Steinar are formally numbered among the departed, their possessions and offices now free to go on to their heirs. 

As the last of the mead is poured out on the soil of the barrow, Trond makes his pronouncement: that Arnolf’s surviving children cannot inherit; the eldest because she married out of the clan, and Rurik and his younger sister because their mother was a slave woman and never properly married Arnolf in a legitimate and legally binding ceremony. All of Arnolf’s wealth will go to Trond and his sons, and the office of Þejn will fall to Trond instead of to Rurik.

The PCs, allies of Rurik and each previously promised a bequest from Arnolf that has now been stripped from them, immediately descend into furiously plotting how to oust Trond and put Rurik on the throne.

Behind the Scenes

Setting up this kickoff to the campaign, I wanted to give my players two semi-conflicting goals to pit against each other. One the one hand, family honour demands revenge against the murderers of their kinsmen Arnolf and Steinar, but on the other had, Trond’s treachery divides the house against itself in the very moment it must come together to mount such a retaliatory raid. What will they prioratize? Will they play nice with Trond for the sake of gaining their revenge, or will they initiate a conflict within their own family to right the injustice done to them and their ally, potentially weakening their efforts to attack Kettil later? Who in their family can they trust, and who is arrayed against them?

For my reference and theirs, I sketched out a family tree of everybody in the upper echelons of the clan; there are a bunch of allies, tennants, and bondsmen below them, but these are the members of the Laxbrynjung bloodline, as much nobility as exists in the setting of Bodil’s Gap. For your reference, here is the family tree as presented to the players.

The image is fairly large, so opening it in a new tab is probably the best way to view it.