The ongoing playtest of Bodil’s Gap continues! In the previous installment, the party finally faced Kettil Sea-Strider, the slayer of their fallen kinsmen, and won their vengeance by laying him low—only for the roof to cave in on them as the ancient, glowing stones of Alfheimr supporting it vanished into snow and ash.
The Cast
Ingvild Scoreslayer, Dýrsark - Ingvild is an old and bitter warrior, cunning but prone to the rage of a berserker. Having fallen in combat with the ancient ghost of a long-dead giant, Ingvild now lives only by the grace of his bargain with that giant's spectral kin, and his soul bears the giant's mark as evidence of the deal they struck.
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.
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
Though Hrafn takes shelter under the strong arms of the statue he animated to aid himself, the other members of the party are not so lucky. Falling debris batters them, and Ingvild has the particular misfortune of taking a beam studded with protruding nails across his shoulders, gouging his flesh.
Injured but still alive, the party digs their way out of the rubble and begins patching their wounds and sorting out Kettil's treasures from the mass of fallen timber. Very quickly they realize that they have become wealthy indeed even accounting for the shares of plunder they owe to their crew and mercenaries, for Kettil's hoard boasts an extravagant array of glittering treasures in silver and gold alongside sacks weighty with gleaming coins. The bigger challenge will actually be getting their plunder down off the cliff, for the tower they ascended on the way up has vanished just as the temple did.
Sifting through their prizes, Hrafn discovers an intact wagon of ornately carved wood buried under a mound of fallen beams and heaped up treasures, and the party immediately begins loading it up. As they heap up their spoils, other wonderous items come to light. Ylva uncovers a spear with a steel blade of trollish craftsmanship, the slightly oversized weapon heavy in her hands. Nearby, Ingvild discovers a large kirtle cut for a troll's frame, which seems to be woven from vividly green moss instead of flax or wool, while Mundr finds an iron-banded chest filled with apothecary's tools—everything necessary to produce medicines, unguents, or poisons.
With their new wagon loaded up, all that remains is to get it down the cliff. Hrafn whispers words of galdr to the stream that plunges over the cliff to fall into the pool below, and the party are able to ride the current down held safe in the water's grip.
Exiting back out from behind the greater waterfall of Kettil's hidden lair, the party reconnects with what remains of their crew waiting outside aboard the ship to see what—if anything—emerges. The crew are understandably concerned following the berserk fit in which the party slaughtered seven of them while the rest fled, but the treasure goes a long way toward satisfying the survivors. When Harun al-Azraq returns from his circuit of the island and reports that none of Kettil's men escaped from the far side, he too is well-pleased with his crew's share of the loot. Arvid the Younger, however—many of whose men were also slain by the berserking PCs—is nowhere to be found.
Believing that the fallout of this incident should be dealt with as soon as possible, the party decides to sail back to Songheim instead of returning directly home. The trip back is uneventful, and after a few days' sailing they arrive once more in the city. There on the docks, Harun al-Azraq bids the party farewell, having decided that the time is right for he and his men to return to their homeland. Parting in friendship, he wishes the party good luck and goes to prepare for the long voyage back across the sea.
The PCs, meanwhile, elect Hrafn to go and speak to Jarl Arvid the Elder. As the only one among them who managed to resist Bolgmót's curse and the berserk fury brought on by it, his hands are clean of the blood of Arvid's men. Ascending up to the Jarl's hall at the city's peak, Hrafn is greeted at the doors by several armed huskarls who escort him in with no little amount of tension visible in their frames. Entering into the Jarl's presence, Hrafn can see that Arvid the Younger has indeed made it back ahead of them, for he is seated now at his father's side.
Arvid the Elder begins by asking about the fate of the ten men from his son's crew slain by the other PCs, and Hrafn willingly explains what happened, speaking of the War Goddess' curse and the sudden violence everyone in the chamber descended into. He describes Arvid's men succumbing to the curse just as his allies did, and says that although it's true the ten men died, so did seven of the Laxbrynjung clansmen, and that it is difficult to say who slew whom.
Arvid the Younger looks as though he wishes to interject, but his position is a difficult one—Hrafn recognizes that Arvid would appear in some measure a coward if he spoke about his own survival, for he won his life by fleeing from the orgy of violence. That same knowledge now holds Arvid back from insisting that it was Ingvild and Mundr who did the bulk of the killing, both of his men and their own.
Arvid the Elder also seems to recognize this, and with Hrafn's persuasive influence makes clear his willingness to put the whole affair behind them. As Arvid says, though a warrior may be held materially accountable for the things done while berserk, it is wrong to hold them morally culpable, for the berserkergang steals all wit and volition when it descends. Though ten warriors were slain, he asks weregild only for five to call matters even between his clan and the Laxbrynjungs, and Hrafn readily agrees—even the weregild for five men is a major sum, and far better than paying the full ten.
Arvid has one other request, however. Though he and Hrafn have judged it fair to assign weregild for five slain warriors in light of the difficulty in determining whether any of Arvid's men were responsible for the deaths among the Laxbrynjungs, there are still ten of his retainers' households that find themselves without a family member. To alleviate their burden, and to bind their two clans more closely together, Arvid asks that the Laxbrynjungs take in a child from each of five households for fosterage.
Hrafn also agrees to this request, recognizing the opportunity presented by greater closeness with the powerful Jarl of the preeminent city in their region. Hrafn, in fact, goes even farther. With Kettil Sea-Strider dead, the party have done a great favour for Jarl Arvid and his city, ridding them of a ruthless and prolific bandit who preyed almost exclusively in their waters. This is cause for celebration, and what better celebration could there be than a wedding—and who should be a young and unwed Laxbrynjung kinsman of impeccable character but Mundr, Hrafn's dear friend? Does the Jarl by any chance have an unwed daughter of a similar age?
As it transpires, he does. Arvid glances over to the corner of the hall, where a girl of no more than eighteen has been coolly watching the proceedings from amongst his other courtiers. Though pretty and with some resemblance to Arvid the Elder, she does not resemble the Younger, and Hrafn intuits that she is an illegitimate child—someone the Jarl is likely quite eager to see married off, to prevent strife in his own household.
Jarl Arvid is willing to entertain the idea, but he wishes to meet Mundr again and speak with him before he agrees to the match—and to have Mundr meet Gudrun, his daughter.
Before that, however, he wishes to see the proof of Kettil's death. Accompanying Hrafn down through the city, he and a procession of his retainers make their way to the docks, where the other PCs bring forth Kettil's head in a box. Hauling it out, Arvid lifts it for all to behold, the crowds of people gathered on the docks and having followed the procession down gasping to see it. Proclaiming the threat of Kettil Sea-Strider ended, he spits on the head and casts it into the water. The party's star is on the rise in Songheim, it seems.
That night, a feast is held in the Jarl's hall. While the others draw lots to determine their seating partners—and to a man find themselves paired with people they can't stand—Mundr is deliberately placed with Gudrun to see how they get along.
Mundr, barely older than Gudrun herself, is left very much flatfooted by the suggestion that he be married, and doesn't quite know how to react to the flirtations of a pretty girl—nor to her quiet questions about the shimmer of heat she claims to see about him, as of iron fresh from the forge. Deflecting, he asks about her life, and she speaks of her isolation as an illegitimate child, of being starved for news as she seldom leaves her father's hall, and of the solace she takes in her dear Auntie, who is her tutor and the source of what news she does receive.
Over the course of the feast Gudrun appears to be quite taken with Mundr, but she persists in asking provocative questions about his past and the strangeness about him. Finally, to put him at ease she puts her finger to her horn of mead, freezing its surface solid and intimating that like him, she has an unusual knack or two. She even suggests they should meet privately to speak about it, and that she will sneak out in the night, once the revelers at the feast have all fallen asleep. Mundr agrees.
As the feast winds down, Arvid the Elder comes to speak to Mundr and Gudrun. Gudrun states that she has no objection to the match if Arvid thinks it a good one, while Mundr is beginning to warm to it as well. Settling down has always been his long-term objective, and having someone who understands his giant-touched condition is greatly appealing to him—though he does not voice that consideration to Arvid.
Arvid questions Mundr briefly about his plans, and then proposes that the wedding be held before the Alþing, where the union can be formally announced. The party is returning home to name Rurik Þejn and collect him for the Alþing—on their return they will stop in Songheim instead of carrying on directly to the assembly ground at Logberg, in the north—the wedding can take place then.
Things are moving very quickly, and Mundr is swept up. He agrees to Arvid's proposal, and departs from Gudrun at the feast's end already looking forward to seeing her privately in a few hours.
Later that night, he arrives at the meeting place Gudrun proposed, a barren spit of rock behind the Jarl's hall, overlooking the ocean on the sea-facing side of the city. There they sit together, and Gudrun is even more forward than at the feast, curling into Mundr's side as they admire the moonlight on the water. When Gudrun moves to kiss him, he allows himself to be seduced, and they pass some time practicing for their wedding night.
When the deed is done, Gudrun sighs from her patch of rock beside him and says that she supposes now is the time to introduce Mundr to her Auntie. Waving her hand, the stone of the cliff—damp from sea-spray—freezes into a shimmering mirror of ice, which fogs with condensation and then clears to reveal the great, pale face of a gigantic woman peering up at them from the frozen surface, her ice-white eyes pinning Mundr like spears. As Mundr looks on, transfixed, Gudrun smiles and introduces her tutor and confidante, Hvít-Rán—a frost giantess, denizen of the Primordial Realm of Ice and ancient enemy of the gods.
Sitting there, it dawns on Mundr that perhaps Gudrun is not like him after all—he gained his powers of óttimáttr through direct exposure to the Realm of Fire, and wields it despite the attentions of that realm's denizens. Gudrun, it seems, has been taught her tricks, and is still directly under the influence of her giantish instructor.
And Mundr has agreed to marry her.
Behind the Scenes
When Hrafn asked if Jarl Arvid had a daughter, I had him roll to Lean on his Luck, a custom move for the setting of Bodil's Gap. He roll a 6-, of course. Instead of there being no conveniently unwed daughter at all we I thought it would be far more interesting for there to be one, and for her to be dangerous—so we have Gudrun, the cunning and ambitious student of giants. Hopefully Mundr can deal with her entanglements without dooming the world or—more importantly—spoiling his marriage.
This was a fairly Mundr-focused episode, and it's mainly Hrafn's fault—he's always pushing Mundr to the forefront of events, and I find that relationship really interesting. Hopefully the poor lad isn't in over his head this time!
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