Campaign Log: A Doe Among Wolves

[coronatiger]

Hello everyone! I have done my duties as GM (hopefully to my players' satisfacion) and now the time has come for me to be a full-time player again. I'm looking forward to that.

The previous campaign was set in the world of Feidvang (mainly my creation, but players from both my groups have contributed). This is a TL 3-4 fantasy setting where the main culture bears strong resemblances to norse/viking culture, although Feidvang is more feudal than what was actually the case during Scandinavia's viking age.

Strange phenomena were observed, and the seven goddesses tasked the PCs with investigating them. (Actually, each player chose one goddess to align with, and the chosen goddesses were naturally more central to the campaign.) The PCs discovered that the phenomena were caused by an alien race using dimension portals to research Feidvang and prepare to launch a full-scale invasion. By befriending powerful people from one of the dwarven kingdoms, the PCs got access to the military might and technology required to launch a counter-attack against the aliens. An explosion was set off, destroying the alien portal machine; one of the PCs bravely sacrificed himself so the rest of the PCs and the dwarven commandos could return to Feidvang before the portals vanished.

The new campaign is set in the same world, at approximately the same time. We had our session 0.5 yesterday, where we put the last finishing touches on our characters as well as playing through the introduction of how we met. This campaign began in the city of Rødvik, which the PCs from the last campaign had visited, so naturally, a question was raised of whether our new characters had heard of the old party's exploits there. After consulting the calendar, we discovered that unfortunately, the old party hadn't arrived in Rødvik yet, so there were no exploits to be heard of. We'll have to see if we run into references from the old campaign later. That could be fun, but I expect we'll have a great time playing through the new campaign even without encountering people or stories from the old one.

I intend to log the unfolding campaign here on the forum in my usual fashion, i.e. by describing people and places, events and encounters from my character's point of view. I'll also post a character sheet for my character, as well as short descriptions of the most important NPCs, although I may not update these after each session. I may also make short writeups of some core topics from the Feidvang world; this will often be things my character won't have much knowledge about, so I can't discuss them naturally in the narration, but which may help the reader immerse themselves in the story.

Many names of people and places are in Norwegian. That's the language we speak at our gaming table, and it's close enough to the language spoken by the vikings a thousand years ago that it suits the campaign world (or at least the region where our campaign begins). I'll leave it for the foreign-speaking reader to hit up Google Translate or similar tools if they are curious about a name's meaning, although I may discuss some names if I can weave it into the story.

The character creation requirements given by the GM were that we had to end our backstories in Rødvik as prisoners about to debark on a sea voyage to a penal colony and give reason for why we had been arrested and convicted, i.e. we had to come up with a sufficiently serious crime that our characters had been found guilty of committing. I'll tell you about mine when I present my backstory, and I'll hopefully learn about the others' during the course of our adventures.

Warning: All members of our group are adults, and our games feature topics that some readers may find inappropriate or disturbing. I will use the literary technique called "fading to black" where necessary. Please be respectful in your comments. Explicit descriptions of sex/nudity are not allowed on this forum, and will be deleted.

[coronatiger]

The Party:

• Edel Blinkborg (played by me) - Street urchin. Human, but my purple eyes and almost white hair makes me look like an ice elf, if you don't look too closely at my ears.
• Koldan Antonov (played by MK) - Brawler. Brown-eyed mountain dwarf. His red hair and beard haven't known the gentle touch of a comb in recent times. Used to be very protective towards Karya; they clearly have history. Seems to have transferred those feelings to Grimleif after Karya drowned.
• Grimleif (played by JKS) - Alchemist. Dark dwarf with gray eyes, gray skin and gray-white beard. Looks older than Koldan, and not only because he's bald. Intolerant towards non-dwarves, but I don't mind keeping my distance, because he reeks! A different odor each day.
• Karya (NPC) - Brawler. Possibly an ice elf; looks like a taller version of me, but with pointy ears. Extremely chummy. Deceased. (Drowned when Sindre dragged her into the dark depths during a psychotic episode.)
• Sindre Sild (NPC) - Gangster. Human male. Talkative and companionable, but wants everyone to join the Claw. Deceased. (Suicide by drowning.)
• Torkil (NPC) - Brute. Huge mutant hybrid of orc, human and possibly something else. Has perhaps taken one too many blows to the head. Deceased. (Presumed to have gone down with the Southern Wind and drowned.)
• Rune Mørk (NPC) - Soldier (Jaggard). Human male. Disfigured from burn/acid scars on his head, has a glass eye. Leader of the Jaggard.
• Lulla (NPC) - Soldier (Jaggard). Human female. Short, blond hair, crooked nose.
• Snurre (NPC) - Soldier (Jaggard). Human male. The youngest of the Jaggard, he is blond and has a face that could be mistaken for a girl's.
• Bjørn (NPC) - Soldier (Jaggard). Human male. He only has one arm. Did he lose the other in the battle where he and his friends were taken captive?
• Karl Egil (NPC) - Soldier (Jaggard). Human male. He has a scar on his lip and is missing a few teeth. Despite his youth, he's the Jaggard's second in command, and their weapon master.

[coronatiger]

Personal Info
Name: Edelkint Missandra Lorelei Glintburg
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Age: 15
Occupation: Street kid

Point value
Total points: 51
Unspent: 16

Primary Stats
ST: 8
DX: 12
IQ: 10
HT: 10
SM: 0

Secondary Stats
HP: 8
Will: 10
Per: 11
FP: 10
BS: 5.5
BM: 5
BL: 13

Advantages
Ambidexterity
Attractive
Fit
Signature Gear (medallion)

Perks
Fast Undraw

Disadvantages
Charitable (12)
Enemies (Unknown, same power level, Hunter)
Light Sleeper
Pacifism (Reluctant Killer)
Social Stigma (Minor)

Quirks
Doesn't like to break the law, at least not personally
Low Alcohol Tolerance
Timid
Very possessive of medallion
Wants to find Mom's killer and get payback

Culture/Languages
Familiarity with Viking culture
Ardisk (Native/None)
Vulontsisk (Broken/None)

Skills
Acrobatics 12
Area Knowledge (Rødvik) 10
Climbing 11
Gesture 10
Holdout 10
Observation 11
Savoir-Faire (High Society) 10
Scrounging 11
Shadowing 9
Sleight of Hand 10
Soldier 9
Stealth 12
Streetwise 10
Survival (Woodlands) 10
Swimming 10
Throwing Stuff! 12
Tracking 11
Urban Survival 10

Techniques
Juggling Performance 15

[coronatiger]

Backstory

My name is Edelkint Missandra Lorelei, but only my mother called me that, and only when I’d misbehaved. Everyone else knows me simply as Edel. My surname sounds a little like Blinkborg, but my mother has instructed me that a curse lies upon our name and danger would befall me if I ever spoke that name out loud. Nobody I know has more than two names, so I would feel pretentious if I were to claim four, and I’m not the kind of person that wants too much attention.

I’m fifteen years old, and until recently, I lived in Rødvik, the capital of Ardaland and seat of the empress. Some say that Rødvik is the largest city in the whole world, with over two hundred thousand inhabitants. I’ve known no other place, and I can’t imagine what a forest looks like, or mountains, although I have heard stories. I have spent countless hours standing on the docks, looking out over the huge bay after which the city apparently was named. The water is blue, and sometimes green when the weather is right, but never red as the name would suggest. My friends have called me odd for pondering such things; to them, this is how it is, and why it is so is not important.

Despite having had a bed to sleep in, at least most nights, I consider myself a street urchin. During the daylight hours, I used to run with the Grey Cat Crew, providing distractions for their shoplifters and pickpockets. At nightfall, I returned to the Perfumed Halls, waiting to see if my mother had an overnight client or if she was too strung-up on her drugs to be around. If my luck was in, I had a safe night in my mother’s embrace. If not, I went back out to find some Grey Cats to hole up with.

When my mother wasn’t busy or high, she was the best mom in the world. All her attention was on me, then, to make sure I had clothes on my back and food in my belly. And she told the most wonderful stories, usually about our homeland, where we came from.

My mother was an excellent storyteller, but as I grew older, I figured out that most of her tales were made out of whole cloth, and I believed several to be inspired by drug-induced visions. My mother might not always be dependable, but there was nothing wrong with her imagination. With my mother spending most of her earnings on drugs, we didn’t have much, but her stories allowed me to dream myself away to a better place. I never could decide if any of the fantastic places she described was actually where we came from, but if I were to bet, I would put my money on Vulontz. There was a kind of sadness that sometimes came over my mother when she mentioned that land. However, I have never heard anyone else mention the place, so either it is far away from Ardaland, or it existed only in my mother’s stories.

Often, my mother’s stories were spurred on by me asking why something was the way it was. When I asked why our family name was cursed, she could have said simply, “We fled our homeland Vulontz because an evil wizard wants to kill us. If we say our true name, he will find us and call down lightning upon us.” When I asked why our eyes are purple unlike every other human I’ve seen, the short answer would be, “We have ice elf blood running through our veins,” but my mother always dreamed up elaborate answers that took minutes, if not hours, to narrate.

Once, my mother gave me a gift, an intricately carved medallion depicting a stag rearing over a wolf. She threaded a leather cord through the medallion and made a necklace, telling me this medallion was a family heirloom. I doubted the veracity of that statement, for I had never seen it before. More likely, it was a gift from one of her customers, and she wanted me to have it before she sold it for drugs. I thought it looked very fine, but it couldn’t be worth much, or my mother would have taken it back the next time she got the cravings.

I think I was about five or six when my mother decided I was too big to stuff into our closet when she couldn’t find a babysitter among the other working girls. She put me on the street and told me to come back when the sun went down. It was a scary experience, but I quickly found friends among the street kids. A boy named Arn took me under his wing. He was only a few years older than me, but he seemed to know everything about living on the streets.

The Grey Cat Crew stole to survive, which I understood very well. I regularly went to sleep on an empty stomach. My mother had taught me that stealing was wrong, though, so I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it. The crew found a workaround for me, in that I could make a distraction while the others did the actual stealing. I decided that this had to be acceptable. I felt so bad for my friends! I would have preferred if we didn’t have to steal at all, but when the alternative was starvation, I convinced myself I could go along.

At first, my distractions consisted of me running around, screaming and bumping into people, but Arn commented on my habit of tossing a pebble from hand to hand when I was bored and said that I should try to learn to juggle. If I got good at it, I could make a few coins by performing, and whether I got good or not, he thought it should make an excellent distraction. Over the years, I got pretty good, if I say so myself. Perhaps I have a talent for it, or maybe it was just all those hours of persistent practice.

I was twelve when my mother died. I returned one evening to our room, only to find a black-clad man standing over her lifeless body. He must have heard me come in, for the man turned and clobbered me over the head with a heavy fist, knocking me out. When I woke, he was gone. My head hurt, and I couldn’t wake my mother, so I wept silently. The owner of the brothel didn’t take kindly to the disturbance of children crying.

While I had been out cold, my mother’s killer had ransacked the room. I wasn’t sure I was still alive, when I woke up, with the blinding pain radiating from the side of my head. The strike had cracked my head open, but the bleeding had stopped by the time I woke up. The killer hadn’t thought that was enough, for he had stabbed me in the gut too. That wound had also stopped bleeding. How long had I been unconscious? And why hadn’t anyone come by and found me?

I had enough street smarts to figure out that this had not been a business deal gone wrong. That man had come with evil intent. When I thought about it, I concluded that he must have come to kill my mother. Why, I did not know, but there could be no other explanation. We owned nothing of value, so the ransacking of the room had to be for show. He had done a thorough job of it, even turning out my pockets. My medallion was safely tucked away under my shirt, and the killer would probably have taken it, had he found it, for it looks like it could fetch a good price, particularly if the buyer could be convinced the brass was actually gold.

I went out to find the Grey Cat Crew again, and Arn. I dared not stay, not even to see my mother buried. If she had been killed for something she had known, the killer could easily conclude that I knew it too. Some of the ladies at the Perfumed Halls might have taken me in, but they were liabilities now. I couldn’t let them know where I went, let alone ask them for help.

[coronatiger]

Arn convinced me it would be safest for me to stay with the crew. I had considered leaving town, but he pointed out that I knew nothing of the outside world, and since I wouldn’t stoop to stealing, I wouldn’t get far.

For most, membership in the Crew was for life, as short as that may be, but some retired when they found jobs, usually at the docks, where the boys became laborers or sailors, while the girls became prostitutes. Most who survived to adulthood continued a life of crime, though. Some left Rødvik altogether to seek fortune on their own, but most were accepted into the Honorables, who controlled the crime around the harbor district. I know the leaders of the Grey Cat Crew sometimes had dealings with the Honorables, but I’ve not been involved in that.

If someone died, be it from hunger or cold, sickness or drowning, we all found out soon enough, and those who left voluntarily always said their goodbyes before leaving. Thus, it caused much talk and speculation when Arn disappeared without a trace. I was distraught with the sudden loss of my best friend, but life had to go on. I looked for Arn whenever I could, but my other friends needed me, and I couldn’t let them down.

It was only a few months later that my life suddenly took another turn for the worse. A heist went wrong and we had to flee from the city watch. Turhild stubbed her toe against a cartwheel and would be caught if the coppers didn’t slow down, so I turned around and barreled into the pursuers, screaming madly at them. It didn’t take them long to subdue me, but those few precious seconds allowed Turhild to get away and hide.

One of the coppers took me by the scruff of the neck and marched me back to the guardhouse, where I was thrown into a cell with three others. The sleeping man reeked of cheep booze and the other man nursed a broken arm. While they looked big and strong, I wasn’t afraid of them, or at least not too afraid. The drunkard would probably be released when he woke up and if the brawler tried anything, I’d hit him in the arm.

It was the third person who terrified me. I recognized the woman from the Perfumed Halls, and I was scared out of my wit that she would recognize me as well. My worry was unnecessary, for the woman just stared blankly at me. Three years must have altered my features more than I had believed. If there was any emotion behind those glassy eyes, it was pity. A guard came and dragged me away almost before my racing heart had quieted down. The prostitute opened her mouth as if to protest, but she remained quiet.

The guard deposited me in the captain’s office and left us alone. I heard a click behind me as the lock was turned in the door, and while the captain sat behind his desk, it suddenly felt like he was looming over me. “Well, well, what have we here? A thief?” The captain had a slight accent, a seemingly familiar tinge to his voice, but one I couldn’t place. Who was he? Had we met before? “What’s your name, little girl?” I may look younger than I actually am, and if I wasn’t so intimidated I would have taken offense at that moniker.

As a street kid I saw this man as one of our sworn enemies, so I wanted to be as uncooperative as possible, but somehow, my mouth opened on its own and the words “Edel Blinkborg” escaped my lips. The captain sat there, calmly cleaning his nails with a dagger, but my brain was frozen with fear, my eyes fixed on the cold steel.

“You’re quite the pretty one, aren’t you,” the captain said, now twirling the dagger absentmindedly while he scrutinized my face. “Are you just as pretty under your clothes? Take them off and show me.” I hesitated, but I knew there was no way I could escape, so when the dagger stopped twirling and the captain sat up straight, I peeled off my shirt and dropped my pants. “Underwear too, little girl,” the captain said, standing up and crossing the room. I closed my eyes prayed to Jevne for protection. I’ve never been very devout, but if there ever was a time to pray, it was now.

“What’s this, then?” the captain asked, hooking his dagger under the cord around my neck. As he fished out the medallion from my breast band, Jevne answered my prayer. The captain’s dagger slipped, and his thumb was sliced open. The swearwords that poured from the captain’s mouth rivaled some of the best I’d heard on the streets. He hurled the dagger away and rushed back to his desk to find a handkerchief to wrap his wound.

The goddess of justice had truly spooked the captain, and he stared me right in the eyes for a full minute while clutching his thumb. “What did you say your name was again?” he asked. “Edel Blinkborg,” I repeated, this time with a little confidence. “Are you sure about that, girl?” he pressed on. “Um, not entirely,” I replied, my confidence gone once again. The captain swore again, looking down. At his thumb, I imagined. I had once cut my own finger, and I still remembered the pain.

Still staring at his thumb, the captain told me to put my clothes back on, and I happily obliged. I tucked my medallion back into its hiding place. When the captain’s pain faded, he looked up at me and declared, “You have been convicted of theft, and you are sentenced to penal transportation. A ship lies at the docks at this very moment. It will take you to a place where you will work off your debt to society, punishment for your crimes.”

The captain made me stand in the corner while he handed out orders to his men. Then I was taken back to the cell. My former cellmates had been moved elsewhere while I was away. Basking in the luxury of having my own room, I didn’t wonder very much what had happened to them.

In the privacy of my cell, I removed the leather cord from my medallion. Despite being a late bloomer, since receiving the medallion from my mother I have developed a small storage space under by breast band. Unless I am totally reckless, the medallion shouldn’t fall down even without the cord. And as I had just learned, the cord would only indicate that something was hidden. I couldn’t think why the captain hadn’t confiscated my medallion; he clearly thought it was stolen. I could just hope he forgot to mention it to anyone, and if the goddesses smiled on me, I might hold on to this one thing, my only memento of my mother. I wrapped the leather cord around my ankle and tied it off; it could come in handy.

[coronatiger]

1. An Old Galleon

2nd of Høylys

After spending a couple of days mostly undisturbed in my own private cell, something finally happened. Two guards came and told me to go with them. I put on my shoes – the only objects available suitable for juggling – and approached the bars. I was handcuffed and then they opened the door.

We made a brief stop before exiting the building so the guards could sign some papers and talk quietly to the colleague who produced the paperwork. The sky was gray, but the light drizzle that fell from the clouds was hardly enough to get me wet as we walked across town.

We arrived at the Hand of Jevne after a brisk walk. I had never been inside the large complex of buildings, but I knew several who had, and this was not a place I would have sought out on my own volition. This was the central hub for the city guards, but there was also a prison and a court of law where magistrates handed down justice.

I was brought through to a central courtyard. A line of prisoners was chained together, and my handcuffs were attached at the end, right next to a bald dwarf. He exuded a peculiar mix of perfume and old sweat. I decided that what time he didn’t spend on bathing, he spent on his beard instead. The beard was cropped shorter than any other dwarf’s I’d seen – not that there are that many non-humans in Rødvik – and it varied in color from gray to almost white. He scowled at me for staring, so I pretended to focus my attention elsewhere.

An officer wearing another type of uniform than the city guards ordered everyone to shut up, but not many had been talking in the first place, so I thought he just wanted to assert his authority. The officer announced that we were going to march off. Nobody was to open their traps or try any funny business, or there would be punishments.

People stopped to watch while the long snake wound its way through the city and down to the docks. It wasn’t a common sight, but I had witnessed it a few times myself. The bald dwarf tried to hide his face from the crowd as best he could. I assumed he was ashamed for having been caught at whatever crime he had committed.

The largest ship I’d ever seen waited for us. It was a three-masted galleon that definitely had seen better days. The hull was covered with barnacles and the big red letters announcing the ship’s name, Southern Wind, had faded. I couldn’t read it myself, but someone nearby must have had good eyes and the training to discern words from what to me looked like random squiggles. It might be useful to be able to read, but I had never seen the need to learn, nor had I had the opportunity.

We marched up the gangplank. Unlike us prisoners, the crew looked to be all human. The officers stood on the bridge watching as we lined up in front of them, and I noticed that several had rapiers, not at all a common weapon, and what the Southern Wind lacked in its appearance, the officers’ uniforms more than made up for. The ships armaments were nothing to scoff at either. Two large ballistae pointed right over our heads. If I had ever had any ideas about making trouble, those vanished at the thought of having a large spear shot through my frail body, pinning it to the deck while I bled out.

“Silence! The Captain is going to speak!” The Captain was a big, round woman. She didn’t have much to say, only that there were rules aboard the Southern Wind; the rules would be posted, but someone would read them to us now, since most of us low-class scum probably couldn’t. Another officer produced a sheet of paper and read from it.

Food would be served in the evening. If we wanted breakfast too, we had to pay for it with coupons. We would be confined to our cells most of the time, except for a period of four hours each day when we were to work. Doing the job well would earn us coupons that we could use to get breakfast or luxury items like tobacco, beer or spices to season our food. Equipment we used in our work was to be returned before we went back to our cells, and we were never to possess weapons.

The first hour after returning to our cells was to be used to clean ourselves, our cells and our eating utensils. Every fourth day, we should hand in our clothes for washing, and new clothes would be dealt out. We were to always wear our prisoner’s uniform. In case of an alarm, we should lay down on our stomachs, hands behind our head.

In addition, a number of rules were listed concerning common courtesy and abstaining from using violence. Those were rules that I would have followed anyway, but I guess there might be barbarians among us that needed to hear.

After the rules were read out, we were assigned to cells and taken below. I was to share a cell with four others: Sindre Sild, a human whose name I’d heard mentioned but never met personally; Karya, a tall, pale elf with white hair and purple eyes like me, so I assumed she was an ice elf since wood elves typically display a more earthy color palette; Grimleif, the smelly dwarf; and Koldan Antonov, another dwarf, who had red beard and hair that no comb in Feidvang could untangle. It isn’t uncommon not to have a last name, but I found it odd that mine was omitted. Maybe the guard captain had figured out that the name I told him wasn’t my actual name.

Our cell had four two-tiered bunk beds. Grimleif picked the top bunk on the right, closest to the door. I waited to see if the others had any preferences, but when nobody took action, I sat down in the bottom bed, as far from Grimleif as possible. I curled up in the corner, with my chin resting on my arms on my knees where I could watch the others. Karya and Koldan took the bunks across from me, with Karya above and Koldan below. Sindre took the bottom bunk of the last bed.

Sindre and Karya struck me as the most extroverted among us. Grimleif scowled at everyone, and Koldan looked like he’d employ violence against anyone who messed with Karya. Sindre suggested we all made our introductions, which he thought should include something about why we were there.