The ongoing playtest of Bodil’s Gap continues! In part six the party sailed from their home fjord to raid the lands to the north, where the murderer of their dead þejn and his son dwell. Unfortunately, on the way their convoy was interrupted by the arrival of the kraken from the ocean's depths.
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 blessed by a drop of the Mead of Poetry. Left with neither trade goods nor coin by an accident on the road that destroyed his cart and belongings, Hrafn has joined the Laxbrynjung raiders to avenge their Þejn and enrich himself.
The Game
The sea under the party's ship is churned into foam as the kraken rises from the deep. The overpowering reek of brine and seaweed and rotting fish pours from the frothing waters as the beast emerges, sickening almost everyone on board—crewmen start vomiting their guts out, while the PCs' vision swims and their hands grow shaky. At the same time, great waves start pounding against the side of their ship, threatening to overturn the vessel and hurling unlucky crewmen into the water.
The toughest members of the party steel themselves agaisnt the smell through sheer grit while others hastily tie strips of fabric torn from their cloaks around their faces as makeshift masks. Rallying the crew, they quickly set to turning their ship agaisnt the waves and hurling lines towards those in the water. Ylva works her magic to transform one man into a pufferfish, able to float upon the waves, while the others fish more men out with ropes and oars.
The heaving force of the kraken's arrival has swollen the sea with battering waves and an upwelling of detritus from the ocean floor, and the formation of the raiding party is now scattered by its ascent in their midst. When the PCs are able to turn their attention from rescuing their own men towards the monster itself, it is to discover that hardly any of the other ships are still in sight—and worse, that the kraken is moving towards them, the swell of water pressed forward by its massive bulk only serving to push their ship even further off course as it draws nearer
Acting quickly, Ylva cracks open the raw scab that's formed over the mouth of her magical goblet of endlessly overflowing whale's blood, and hurls the artifact into the sea. As the cup sinks out of sight, trailing growing plumes of crimson through the water as it plummets, the kraken dives to follow it—and the cataclysmic maelstrom that forms as water rushes in to fill in the massive wake of its sudden, vanishing descent almost destroys the PCs' ship.
When the sea calms again, the party looks out over the waves to see what remains. On the horizon, a lone sail stands unidentifiable against the sky, while in the middle distance nothing but floating wreckage can be seen. Most notably, the sail of Trond's ship flutters on the foam, draped over a broken off section of mast. Of the other ships, there is no knowing whether they fled, were scattered, or were simply dragged down by the kraken.
Deciding to investigate, the party steers their ship back towards the visible wreck. Coming up alongside it, they begin to pull the sail in, hoping to salvage it, and discover their kinsman Finnar lying underneath, unconscious but sill clinging to the mast. Sail and cousin are both taken aboard, but Finnar's presence is something of a mystery—though Trond's son, he and his brother Gunnar were captains of their own ship, not crew aboard Trond's. Perhaps more concerning, Finnar is bleeding profusely from a visible wound to sharp and clean to have been made by anything other than a sword or other blade.
An argument quickly breaks out among the PCs as to Finnar's fate. Ylva believes that her curse on Trond that his sons should be killed by their own men is coming to pass, and doesn't wish to interfere with a fate she herself wove. Ingvild, meanwhile, merely sees this as an opportunity to be rid of one of Trond's supporters. Arguing agaisnt them is Mundr, who doesn't wish to lose any more of his family. Though not a Laxbrynjung himself, Hrafn is moved by Mundr's plea that they aid his cousin, and offers up a rare healing potion from his pack.
As the others look on in disapproval, Mundr pours the concoction on Finnar's wound and into his mouth, and rejoices as the bloody cut starts to close and colour returns to his cousin's cheeks. Leaving the still-unconscious Finnar in the care of the men who used to sail under him on the very ship that now belongs to the party, Mundr turns to Hrafn and swears to repay him a debt that Mundr values equal to a person's life.
With the raiding party scattered and potentially even destroyed, the party must now decide what to do next. Without knowing the fate of the other ships, it seems their best course of action is to continue on to the site of Olaf Mangler's fort, there to confront Kettil Sea-Strider's son. With luck, they can reconvene en route with Rurik and his crew, who know to travel to the same location, and decide afterward what to do about the rest of the expedition.
Behind the Scenes
Mundr's continued efforts to preserve the unity of his family have been a really interesting throughline for the campaign. When I set up the conflict with Trond, I wasn't sure where it would go, but I think maybe I expect it to be resolved with some kind of major confrontation between him and the PCs' faction. Mundr has consistently played peacemaker among his family, however, and with Trond's disappearance in the kraken debacle, it almost makes the clan's internal conflict moot.
The destruction of Trond's ship isn't something I had entirely planned either; when the Kraken emerged, I determined randomly who it would attack. I think I'm pleased it went for Trond, though; having the family feud almost defused by this outside-context problem makes the world a lot bigger than the provincial problems of the PCs' family, while also leaving an even more tangled succession question. If Trond is dead, who is the þejn? Who can claim to be, and make it stick?
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