The Black Campbell

The D&D gang started a fight with a bunch of Quadi (hobgoblins) — a tribe of folks moving into Germania Magna, and who had followed a band of Celts (elves) they had jumped and killed half their numbers to the shore of the Moenus River at Wolfsangel, where the characters had been staying for a few weeks after their run-in with the Dark Man creature.

After finding the warband of 30 or so, Marcellus had noted their discipline and skill at setting camp, but had underestimated their skill and professionalism. Their leader was highly confident, politick, but firm that they had the right to be in the forests near Wolfangel. After setting off a conflict with the Quadi, the characters and their 30 or so supporters (towns guard and a dozen of the Celts), the fight quickly went badly for the players. The Quadi was professional (I’m using the 5th ed version of the creatures, who are a martial race) and using their martial advantage and their heavy armor allowed them to quickly cut through the NPC support, and injure the monk, Icio — probably the group’s heaviest hitter.

We ended last night with the fight going downhill fast, but tonight the gang turned it around with judicious use of spells from the bard and cleric — the combination of bless and fairie fire really tipped the balance in their favor — and a rally by the monk and Carrus the dwarf allowed them to cut through their foes. The fight was only two miuntes, but took the whole session tonight to complete.

Afterward, the characters pressed the Celts on what happened. They claim to have been a hunting party (about a Roman century strong?) and found the Quadi camped near Locoritum, where they had either set up or were in the process, a siege of the Roman-friendly Vangiones there. The Celts were returning to Lenta and their king to tell him about the situation…the characters were leaning toward joining them and pressing south to Lenta instead of risking crossing a siege at Locoritum. They are hoping to win the troublesome King Priarius of the Lentienses over and craft a treaty with Rome.

I still am not a fan of d20, even the 5th ed. version, and the nostalgia factor is starting to wear off for the mechanics. The world and story are holding us all; I just find D&D a bit too wargamey and fiddly. I also need to start punching up the big bads and the main plotline.

The Dungeons & Dragons campaign picked back up with the characters being stuckin Wolfangel for three weeks due to inclement winter weather — bitter cold and heavy snow. The characters have been given the decamped blacksmith’s home to reside in as thanks for their efforts in destroying the Dark Man. During the stay, Carrus the Dwarf made money doing smithing, like his father…he’s both pleased and worried to find he’s good at it. Carona the satyr became a celebrity on the celebration of Faunus, playing guest of honor to the feast. The rest of the time, she and Calvinus the Bard have been playing music in the taverns. The monk, Icio, has been conducting Christian ritual for those interested, while Augustinian is aiding the local priest in getting ready for Saturnalia, and trying to pick through the writing and mind of Valdo, the former wizard who is now old and half-senile. Marcellus and the soldiers have nothing to do but wait, so they have been training the town guard.

Then one evening, the guard spot a man out on the frozen Moenus River, and there looks to be more people camped in the burned out buildings of the former town of Morhenburg that once occupied the opposite bank. When they’ve found is an injured party of Celts (elves) who have been attacked by some new foe they’ve never seen. They were man-sized, ugly, and tactically proficient. After questioning them, they learn that these creatures were camped near their next destination, the city of Locoritum — population 20,000 or so, with a guard of maybe 2,000-3,000. The camp the Celts saw was about a legion’s strength (1000-3000 men!) They also think they were being pursued by the creatures.

The next day, the party goes out with the elves — now healed by Augustinian — and 20 of the town guard under the mayor, Stellan Hanau. They find the creatures camped in the woods east of the river. Marcellus takes the elves and flanks the camp, setting up to use their bows on the grotesque, gray-skinned, red-eyed creatures. Their camp shows discipline and organization, with good walls of snow, and men paired for guard duty. they are wearing heavy metal plate armor, and when the town guard is stopped, they set up guard along the edges of their camp, using cover well. The Roman legionnaire was impressed with their professionalism.

The leader met Stellan, flanked by Carrus (who thought them goblin-like), Augustinian and Icio, and Calvinus. After a tense bit of talk, in which the leader was calm, polite, but also imposing and unafraid, they were told to — essentially — piss off back to their town. Marcellus then gave a fateful order to strike and the elves let fly…five of the 30 or so creatures were dropped, but their organized counterstrike dropped many of the elven archers (some lucky crits happened…)

This led to a full-scale attack by the creatures, who were slowed by Calvinus’ use of shatter, but which saw half the town guard mowed down in the first few rounds, and the elves all but destroyed. Even with their leader down, the creatures fought with precision and fervor, even managing to injure the previously nigh-untouchable monk, Icio, badly.

The blood bath was reaching a crescendo — Icio surrounded by assailants, Carrus trying to reach him, the mayor of Wolfangel down, half their forces destroyed and the rest ready to flee, and Marcellus isolated from the group and facing more of these creatures —  when we knocked off for the night, to pick it back up again next week.

We opened the evening with the town guard of Wolfsangel looking south toward a forest fire that was smudging the low gray overcast with black. Trees on fire spreading quickly to ward the river under a leaden sky. And trudging toward the town, beaten and tired, the party. When asked about the creature — if they’d seen it, if they’d killed it, if they seen the missing children — we had short flashbacks to remind the players what happened.

Then we jumped back to the fight with “the Dark Man”, a creature used by the locals to control their bratty kids…except this one was real and kidnapping/murdering them. The creature is black-skinned, black-eyed, and apparently can stretch itself out like a shadow. It hides in the dark and seems to use the water to move about. It also uses the dead children as a weapon, having the wee zombies lure the Dark Man’s victims.

They were setting fire to the trees to light the area, especially after it looked like the creature was sensitive to light. While doing this, the creature rose up and pushed the bard, Calvinus, and the cleric, Augustinian, into the water of the pond it seems to be inhabiting — a pool of black, still water that doesn’t even reflect the lights around it. Once in the water, the two were grabbed by the dead children that were taken here, and they tried to drag them deep to drown them.

Meanwhile, Carrus the Dwarf — a relatively local person, got an excellent roll on his Arcana — the legends of the Drak Man say it’s a person either evil and executed, or wrongly-accused and executed; ether way the spirit remains to seek vengeance. They are supposedly susceptible to silver. He warned the monk, Icio, who filled his fists with coins and fired up his radiant soul feat, flaring with holy light, wings and all…and actually seemed to do real damage. The creature slunk back into another puddle and disappeared.

Meanwhile, the light from radiant soul caused the dread children to release the others, who swan to shore and the party retreated to regroup and rethink their actions.

Back in the town, Carrus got to work in the blacksmith’s shop (the family having decamped) adding silver filigree to their weapons with the help of Steven, the Down’s Syndrome animal handler, and Carona, their satyress.

Marcellus, their nominal leader, met with the town elder and questioned him about the notion the creature might have been one of them, or someone they executed. A drifter came through a few months back — a rapist and murderer. They hung him, then dumped him in the refuse out near the barrows.

Icio, Calvinus, and Augustinian went to see Valdo, the old man who was once allegedly a wizard, and were surprised when he and his female caretaker were waiting for them. Screwed up, didn’t they — going in unprepared and not knowing what they were up against. The creature is stuck between life and death, the body dead, but the soul unable to go to its rest…and those souls are his, Valdo told them. The adversary of Icio’s god — and his — somehow trapped the spirit here, and it has been collecting them, denying him his rightful prize. With some prising, they realize they are talking to Pluto, who is not happy about the Dark Man situation.

The creature is, indeed, susceptible to silver, but that will only stop it for a while. To end it’s reign of terror, they must release the spirit. In the mountains of papers hoarded by Valdo is the answer, a spell to release the soul. Pluto gives them the ability to read the Nordic runes, so they can translate the spells into Greek. Instead of the spell disolving off of the page as D&D rules say, these simple become unintelligable again, once the INT check has been made (successfully or no) and the words transcribed. He also tells them that the demon, Aiton, that Icio is seeking may be the Adversary himself!

Pluto simply disappears, but the old caretaker gives Icio some suggestions for how to work together with his party to be more effective and reduce the chance anyone is hit by the creature. He realizes the kindly imposter — for Valdo and his caretaker are fast asleep in their beds — may have been Minerva!

After four hours of searching, they find the banishment spell, as well as one to detect good and evil, speak to the dead, and detect magic — all were successfully transcribed. Returning to the smithy, they started to work out their plan of attack. But everything was thrown into turmoil when in the midst of their dinner, the creature rises out of their water barrel to take one of their men! Suddenly, they are in a fight with the creature in the smithy.

This time, they kick ass — the silvered weapons do damage, use of radiant and fire-based spells wore it down and apparently destroyed it. Quickly, they formed up and raced out to put an end to the creature. They found the rope he was hung with, a necessary part of the spell, and Augustinian started the exorcism. The creature, once again, cmae for them, but they were easily able to fend it off. The spell completed, the creature disappeared.

Having ended the wave of murders, they were feted by the town and allowed to stay in the blacksmith’s shop while they recuperated and prepared to press on to Locoritum.

Overall, I was pretty happy with this one: the characters all got to do some of their schticks — Marcellus got to do stealthy stuff, Carrus used his family-learned blacksmith skills, Icio had a crisis of faith after meeting the gods which was reflected in shitty rolls for a while, Augustinian got to read a bunch of Norse stories of their gods. The atmosphere and story were appropriately horror-tinged and seemed to go over well with the players. Lastly, the idea that the fallen angels are not in Hell (Hades), but on Earth, and that they are playing around in the old gods’ affairs has started to flesh out the world.

We opened this week’s Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition game with the party on the other side of the Limes Germanicus — the series of walls and berms that separate Germania Major (Roman territory) from Germania Magna (where the Alemmani barbarians live.) They have entered these lands close to where modern-day Mainz is, at the conflux of the Rhine and Moenus (Main) Rivers and are pushing east into the lands of the Chatti.

A recap of the characters and their mission: they are led by Legate Quintus Marcellus, a former legionnaire who has been asked to act as an envoy for the empire by the Augustus, Gratian — the 16 year old heir to the throne who is battling for the same against the machinations of his largely Frankish and Alemmani general staff. He was, a few years ago, the boy’s mentor while they were on campaign. Next is Decurion Carrus Zwergi, a dwarf of the Jurazwergi tribe in the mountains near lake Constance. Known as Carrus the Goblin or Vandal Killer, he was given a commission leading the troop of irregulars protecting Marcellus on his mission. The are aided by a priest, Aurelius Augustinius of Hippo (know to our world as Saint Augustine) who apparently is under the protection of Apollo, as is the senatorial-class bard/brat Marcus Calvinus — both of them magic users empowered by Apollo. There is a former anchorite monk, an Aasimar, named Icio Zaccharius, who is being led by the archangel Michael to find and destroy a tiefling looking for some kind of powerful magic-user to aid the Adversary. They are joined by several Roman auxilliary troops and a satyress named Carona, whose people were destroyed by this tiefling, known as “the Seeker.”

Their first stop of note was a small trading town on the other side of the border, where they got their bearings and spoke with the elder of the town about the situation on this side of the wall. This is an area of foederati — treaty-bound Alemmani, mostly Chatti and Matteucci tribes, but further are the Vangiones…also currently allied, if only marginally, with Rome. they were told the area was safe to Romans, and press on to the Chatti “capital”, Stragen, (after a fashion) to speak with their King Pilenses.

On the road through some forest, however, things go awry when the party is attacked by a group of what they think are bandits…these guys, however, are skilled and led by an assassin. The fight was vicious, with most of the PCs catching some form of injury, minus the Cavlinus and Augustinius, who were far enough back to not be directly in the fight until near the end. The characters were generally doing poorly with their rolls, while the bandits were wracking up a surprising number of criticals. Fortunately, most of them were at disadvantages thanks to the bard’s “vicious mockery” and bad terrain.

Eventually, they were able to take down the bad guys, with Carona dropping two by using her “ram” advantage and hitting them with her horns. The assassin, on the other hand was holding up despite an onslaught of multiple characters, before trying to escape. He was put to sleep by the bard.

Now captured, the bard and satyr interrogated the men — she used the “frighting strain” as per the Monster Manual. (I built a Satyr PC race for the Fight Club 5 app using the MM data, but made her a bard and for her spell slots gave her all the alternate spells from the “Panpipes” sidebar.) Terrified, they got a disadvantage vs. the bard’s high charisma and spilled it: They had been hired by one of the tribunes that had been against the mission, and had thought elevating a simple Roman like Marcellus (who left the legion under a cloud, but mysteriously with a military diploma and his retirement land and pay…) to a senatorial rank was folly for the new, and not quite yet, emperor. Trying to kill a legate is  treason under Roman rule, and Marcellus has the ability as a legate and commander on detached duty to render judgment. Carrus then executed them with his axe.

But, wait…these guys are supposed to be “good!” That’s their alignment — Marcellus is lawful good, and did everything by the rules; Carrus is neutral good and these guys were “all bad”, to quote Harry Tasker in True Lies. This is another instance where the moral issues and legal issues of the Roman period clash to a point with the typical D&D alignment system. Is it possible for something to be “good” or “evil” by our standards, but the mores of period would say differently? Slavery is “evil” today, yet until 1792, it was normal and ubiquitous around the world. People would even willingly enter into slavery to have a job/housing/security. Executing traitors or assassins without a real trial might seem “evil” today…but it was the law, and most would have considered just, in 375AD.

Eventually, they get to Stragen, the seat of King Pilenses, where after some tense introductions — What are the Romans doing showing up out of the blue? Did he bring a legion with him, and if so, why are they not here..? — they were able to sound him out about the goings on in Germania Magna.

They found out that there is a lot of migration of tribes from the East, moving ahead of the Ostrogoths and a group of Sarmatians that appear to be led by someone called Aiton (the Seeker.) They have heard that traveling with them is some kind of horror which has been destroying whole villages. The main troublemakers for Rome out here are the Lentienses, a Celtic tribe (elves) who are trying to win the Alemmani tribes over to their side. Led by King Priarius and based south near the Danube, they are claiming to have the means to stop Aiton. It is convincing a lot of those tribes not wedded to peace with Rome to consider his offer. Even Pilenses has been courted by these Lentienses.

The key, he thinks, is the Vangiones tribe of the Alemmani. They hold Locoritum, once a large Roman town on the Moenus, about three days travel through the river valley and the heavily forested Spettus Hills. The group stayed the evening and the next morning were planning to set forth.

Some of the character beats included Carrus getting lucky with Carona…then the bard, Calvinus, getting lucky after a night of debauched music-making for the Chatti king. Now the dwarf is confused, angry, and jealous. Also, she had given them presents for saving her from her attackers…most of it lifted from some people (like the set of figurines of the Greek gods for Augustinius and the lovely gold beard bands for Carrus), or paid for with money she’d pickpocketed from people (like the new lute for Calvinus.) There’s no way this could go wrong…right?