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.
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