Category Archives: Warhammer

Session 27 – The Changer of the Ways

After about a day’s travel, we skirt around to Castenea which is Giovanni’s territory. We don’t run into anything except normal traffic. Jean and the elves head up to take Hauptner to Giovanni. The dwarves hit up the first bar and start drinking.

Jean and the elves meet Giovanni who is in a smoking jacket and a fez drinking brandy and reading. The meeting between the two border princes is tense. Hauptner looks a bit guilty, and the catatonic state seems to be diminished.

Giovanni tries to sum up everything that’s happened and Jean asks why chaos warriors may be on his lands. Giovanni won’t answer with Hauptner here. We hear the story about how Hauptner was responsible for the death of Giovanni’s men and they still have bad blood. The old man lunges at Giovanni and Jean holds him back. Finally things calm down and they are talking.

Hauptner says that he thinks Sasha was behind the ork attack.  He says that he doesn’t recall things that happened with Sasha in the last couple of years. Before that she was getting the bandits under control and then she said that Gio was trying to assassinate him. She had the double brought in, and after that Hauptner doesn’t remember much.

Gio says that ships have come into port just two days ago from Duke Edelhard. The men were ordered to go under Jean’s command.

The dwarves see a bunch of men in flowery uniforms that appear to be Britonians in the bar. They have daggers at their belts.

We suddenly see larger and larger waves coming in from the Black Gulf and ships start capsizing in the harbor. A huge tsunami starts coming toward us and the dwarves make for higher ground. The elves, up in the keep, see a water spout and someone is at the top of it.

Brokk slips and falls but Tobruk manages to hold onto him and a stone column with the other hand. We see some strange creatures materialize from the water and start attacking people, turning into liquid and enveloping people. The woman on top of the water spout is wearing strange blue and purple clothes. After a few more waves she moves off and the waters become lower, and the water creatures stop attacking as well.

Giovanni mourns his city. The group starts to help pull people out of the water. Vedasi tells Giovanni to fortify the front gate because we’ve been hit at the back gate pretty strongly.

As we are working we see on the ground near the docks a strange symbol like a wave with a circle over it. Jean and Vedasi see it and believe it is the symbol of Tzeentch. He is the “changer of the ways” and many chaos worshipers follow him.

We continue pulling people out of the water and we see that only a handful of the Britonian soldiers survived. A few lucky sailors pull themselves out of the water, but most of them are gone. The richer area up on the high ridge hasn’t been touched by the water.

Giovanni eventually comes down to the docks by us and asks to talk. We head back to the keep with him and he takes us to a large council room. Two people are waiting for us there. We see a man in white robes and full armor and a huge warhammer. His armor has the sign of a twin-tailed comet (Sigmar) and he has a silver circlet that looks like it is riveted into his head. The woman has golden armor and the symbol of a shield and a spear on it (Myrmidia). They are two of the temple leaders in town. Hauptner is also here, but under guard. Giovanni mentions that they need to bring Celarin, a high elf. He is one of the newest loremasters of Hoeth. The high elves and the wood elves don’t generally get along. We may need to send word to him so he will help.

We start telling the group about what we’ve come up against and we mention the skaven. Gio says that this is how Slanesh will attack. The skaven are probably moving here right now. He needs Brokk as the stoneworker to help check the cellars on every home in the town. Tobruk as the armorer, he asks him to get weapons ready so people in town to wield them. He asks Hauptner for info about Sasha, asks Jean to update all of their maps, and the elves to teach his archers on the wall to shoot straight.

The elves head to the high part of town and visit Phandyth who is helping her neighbors. They ask her to get in touch with the wood elves near our keep and others that she knows. We need to gather all the forces to help defend the town.

Session 26 – Kettle Khorne

The horses thunder toward us and the men who aren’t mounted start going toward the house. We see the civilians on a second story balcony of the house and Vedasi yells at them to get into the house.

They run past us and Jean is struck but is still standing. The others try hitting but none of the riders fall. As they are departing, Maruviel shoots one in the head twice but it doesn’t fall. Tobruk hits one and knocks him off of his horse, dead.

They turn back and come toward us again. Eogard charges one in red armor and it hits him four times. He is dead after the second strike but he continues hitting two more times, bashing his brains out.

After seeing that, Brokk decides that we should do a tactical retreat, and tries to reason with Tobruk, telling him that this isn’t a fight we can win. Tobruk refuses to leave but Brokk restrains him and pulls him behind cover. The riders lose interest and go back to destroying the farmhouse and killing everyone there.

We ride away two hours from here, even though Jean is wounded. We camp but we notice that there are not many animal sounds in the area. Putting our heads together, we think that these chaos warriors are followers of Khorne, who just focus on killing as much as they can.

The next morning, we wake up and there is one bird making noise. It is kind of strange. Brokk heals Jean by 50%. Vedasi heads back to the farmhouse, trying to stay concealed. He sees that the farmhouse has been burnt to the ground and the slayer’s body along with most of the others are gone. The only thing there is the fallen chaos warrior’s body. Vedasi drags it back to us and Brokk checks it out.

Brokk sees that the armor is not fused to its body as has been rumored and it has thick skin like leather, which has been branded with symbols of Khorne. It has one eye gouged out and sharpened teeth. Tobruk chops the body up with his axe.

Vedasi and Brokk look around the farmhouse and don’t see much. There is some blood and the remains of the house. Brokk convinces Tobruk to look as well, but nothing is there.

Session 25 – Be Franc With Us / Cranium Gladiators

It has been two weeks since the battle. We have many refugees at the keep, so many in fact that we are concerned about food.

We get a delivery from Edelhart saying that he will send troops down to Castenea on the river rather than sending them through the mountains. This will just be some assistance and not an occupying force.

We are consistently seeing many haggard people coming from that area. We hear from the wood-elves that the city was breached in three places, but after a while the orks have gotten bored and have moved north through the pass. There was only one more engagement with about a dozen of them, but most of them just moved into the mountains.

Hauptner abandoned the city and started to go south about a week ago. We decide since the city is abandoned, we will go check things out and see what is there. After this we may head south to let Giovanni know that Hauptner and Gilemet are together so this may be a good time to take them both out.

At Groghaven, we hear the sounds of dogs. Some buildings are still intact, but much of it is destroyed. The grain silos have been fired and are destroyed.

Suddenly we see a shape running through the streets. Brokk calls out but he keeps running. Vedasi catches up with him and knocks him down. He has a sack of moldy bread and cheese and a small dagger of orcish manufacture. We check him out and he has smooth hands and tattered, but fair, clothes. We ask him his name and he hesitates a moment before saying “Franc.” He says that he’s from this town and that he’s a scribe. We don’t quite believe him. Jean asks him to show us where he used to work and he takes us to the keep.

The keep itself is in ruin, as most of the furniture and tapestries have been destroyed. We get to the main audience chamber and Jean and Vedasi see a painting that resembles our friend almost exactly. Underneath the painting it reads “Baron Hauptner.” Talking with him more, it’s clear that he’s lost his marbles. We ask him to take us to the Baron’s workplace and he heads downstairs.

We go through the dungeon to what looks like it used to be a safe room. There are some dead people here and we smell a strange smell. We find skaven tracks and Hauptner freaks out and almost goes catatonic.

We bring him out and admits that he is indeed Hauptner. He says that after the attack, he sent his double to sit on the throne and retreated down here. The town was sacked and then his men were attacked by skaven who came through the tunnels.

Brokk binds him and Hauptner takes us upstairs to his desk. Everything here has been ransacked, however Tobruk finds a sack of 25 gold in a false-bottom drawer. Jean finds a scroll case at the back of a drawer. There are some maps and drawings, strategies of how he would attack Giovanni or Sasha, scouting reports, and other materials.

We decide to stay here for the night and then make for the Crossed Lances in the morning. We barricade the skaven hole as best we can and stay in one of the guard barrack houses. Brokk keeps a close eye on Hauptner.

The next day we head back, but Hauptner is getting more and more paranoid. We put a sack over his head and have him in a room to keep an eye on him.

In the morning we talk to the innkeeper and we give him 500 gold to help keep things going in the area. He is astonished but promises to help us.

We head through the mountains toward the dwarven keep of Din Borim and a bad storm rolls through. We stay the night on the road and then get to Din Borim the next evening. The place looks much cleaner and they have gotten the forge going. We stay one night and then continue heading south.

We get into the hilly lands to the south and we can hear the thunder of hooves. We head to a small hill and hide. About a dozen riders come near. They are fully decked out in plate mail that is black, red and bronze. They appear to be riding toward a small village. Tobruk and Vedasi look up to see them coming and they notice Tobruk’s hair. They turn toward us, yelling “blood for the blood god!”

Session 24 – An Arrow to the Knee

Our goal is to patrol our area and harass any orks coming in. Jean is hoping that his sponsor will send help by road or by sea. We continue ranging out and we see signs of a large party up ahead quite a ways. We see one scout and the elves turn it into a pincushion with an arrow through its head, eye, and one through each knee. It bleeds out and we advance past. There is a camp up ahead a couple of miles and we sneak toward it.

We see in the camp a bunch of knight goblins  including a spider rider, shaman, several orks, a  swarm of snotlings, a stone troll, and a squig (a fungus-based animal that knight goblins use for mounts and also food). There are probably thirty creatures here. Some of them are arguing and kicking around the smaller creatures.

The elves approach around a hill to the west and the dwarves go to the east. The elves take out a couple of goblins without anyone noticing, but one of them starts screaming and the orks begin running toward them. The spider rider is also taken out, with Jean burying an arrow up to the feathers in its large abdomen and the elves finishing it off.

Tobruk and Eogard see the stone troll and run straight toward it around a hill. Brokk follows them initially but breaks off when he sees the swarm coming toward the elves. Screaming, the slayers slam into the stone troll and kill a nearby knight goblin. Seeing this, the troll picks it up and tries to eat it. Tobruk promptly cuts his arm off and Eogard finishes him off.

Brokk runs through the middle of the battlefield toward the camp and takes out a knight goblin and an ork. The squig charges up and bites him in the arm.

From out of one of the tents comes a war boss and a shaman. The shaman chants something and a dark aura comes out.

Brokk kills the ork that was on him and bisects the squig.

The shaman fires a magic missile into Brokk’s chest but his armor takes some of it. Jean fires an arrow and it goes through the shaman’s leg.

The war boss is fighting both slayers and strikes Eogard savagely. He is overwhelmed and starts to flee. Tobruk catches up with him and continues attacking, and Brokk joins in. The elves finish him with arrows.

Looking around the area we see a small idol to their god, a bunch of mushrooms, a war chest of 500 crowns (in various types of coin).

 

Session 23 – Scorched Earth

We decide to head back to the keep near the crossed lances and see how things are faring there. The rest of our escort stays at the dwarven keep. Going overland, we don’t pass many travelers. We are close enough to the river to see boats. Later on, we see smoke to the northeast where the Khyprian road crosses the river. Jean references the map and imagines that it’s near Volchbach. We are probably 10 miles away. We can hear the sounds of screaming.

Since this is on the way to our keep anyway (Volchbach is 20 miles away from our keep) we head toward the town. We see fire and flaming things shooting through the air. People are fleeing a massive horde of greenskins. There are probably thousands in total. Everything from orks to snotlings running around, there are boar riders, wolf riders, etc.

We think about what we know about orks. They must have come here for a specific purpose, to sack this city. They are all about fighting so they will probably not be sending scouts toward our keep. We head to the keep quickly and see how things are going. The dock area is more finished than when we were last here.

We have a total of five boatmen (one missing a hand), the two halflings (Sleeves and Thomas) and the lumberjacks and their families here.

We are going to have the lumberjacks create a palisade to protect us from any siege. The elves will talk to the wood-elves nearby to make sure they are on alert, then they will head out to find any refugees and bring them back so we can shelter them and they can help defend the keep. The dwarves look at fortifying the keep and getting supplies from town.

The wood-elves promise to send some supplies. The dwarves get to the Crossed Lances and everything seems to be in order. It is more packed than usual, and we see some people who are definitely refugees. Tobruk looks around and sees another slayer in the corner with a large mohawk. This guy is wider than Tobruk but not taller. The dwarf says that the axe Tobruk is carrying belongs to him, because he got it from his dead brother. His name is Eogard Mungrinsson. He is from Karak Kadrin which is out in the mountains of Sylvania. The name does ring a bell to Tobruk. He knows that the axe does come from a smith that is there. Tobruk refuses to give it back so Eogard decides that he will come along with us. We direct the people at the Crossed Lances to send supplies and also anyone who is able to the keep.

The elves bring bows, arrows, nets and other supplies to us. Civilians start showing up and we start training them. We setup daily patrols and start ranging to the road to see what is going on. We go out four miles all around the keep. We will engage with any parties of 30 or less. During this time we see groups of about 10 and take them out, but haven’t seen any larger parties or groups riding mounts as of yet.

Session 22 – Here Be Dragons

The dark elves are out of cannon range at this point. The elves in our party know that these dark elves attack using huge floating fortresses, and sometimes summon deep sea creatures to help them. These smaller ships are sent out to do smaller raids.

We see Giovanni coming out on a war horse loaded for bear. He has six other mounted warriors with them, all with heraldry of the hound. They have lances and cavalry spears with plate mail. They seem to be surveying the damage.

We speak to Giovanni and Jean asks if the elves raid here often. He says not usually, they must be probing the defenses. He says that we should meet him at the palazzo as soon as we’re ready.

We head back, and they don’t ask us for our weapons this time. Giovanni arrives and shrugs his armor off. He simply says “Dazzle me.” Jean says “We need to talk to the elves, dwarves and others to see what we can raise from them. We need to get some security on the road and also have people come here to help. The dwarves we know are also very fine armorers, which could be a good source of trade. Is there anything you can do to help send the word?” Giovanni says that he has a ship that’s bound for Britonia that is leaving in three days.

Jean spends the next three days copying the maps that he’s done so far and also a letter to Duke Adalhard. Our plan is to follow the trail north and stop off at Din Borim and grab some more of the treasure.

Giovanni calls out for someone named “Guido” and has him bring in a huge box the size of a coffin. He says that he will send some of the Hounds along with us on our trip, and if we run into Sasha’s raiders we will kill them and plant the things in the box on them — they appear to be greenskin weapons.

An apothecary asks to see Brokk. He warily agrees and is led to the man’s office. Apparently he was put up to this by Tobruk. The man explains that he can “cut” the insanity out of him, and explains that he’s done the surgery for others successfully in the past. Brokk finally agrees, thinking that nothing can be worse than the nightmares he’s had. Miraculously, the surgery is a success and after three days he’s gathered most of his strength back. The nightmares seem to have ceased.

In the meantime, Jean has sent off his package and Giovanni’s men have mustered with all of their equipment. The captain’s name is Lorenzo and he has twenty men. They have packed provisions for us as well.

Brokk gets some manacles and a few extra daggers before we leave.

We head north with the company of Hounds and move through the mountains for several days. The night before we arrive we are camping on the road and suddenly we hear a sound of massive wings. A huge dragon comes over the hill and begins attacking us. The group fires off several shots right away, hitting him in the head and arm many times. Brokk runs up and tries to scramble up and hit him, but can’t. It flies down and roasts three of the men and singes a few more. Jean fires an arrow through his eye and kills it. (He has 85 wounds and we killed him in 2 rounds.)

We cut off the head and take it with us. We arrive at the keep the next day and the dwarves go in only. We preserve and mount the head, then we move on.

Later we arrive at the forge of the two dwarves and let them know that the keep is open (and chaos dwarf free) and that we’d like them to go there and run the forge. They agree without question to pack up and head to the keep, and will bring others. Tobruk and Brokk give them the master craftsman tools. They are extremely excited to see it.

Session 21 – Beard-kini

We wake up the next morning, most of us at The Borderlands, and the elves at Phandyth’s Chalice. Maruviel and Vedasi speak with the elf maid and talk to her about their homeland.

Jean hears back from DeSalvo that we are invited for dinner at the palace. Many of us get new clothes and get cleaned up as would be appropriate for a fancy event like this. We come to the palace and they ask to take our weapons. We agree and head inside.

Giovanni himself is a well built older man with salt and pepper hair. He talks like he is straight out of Brooklyn and is quite casual. He asks Jean to explain who we are and seems to have no patience for pleasantries. He certainly doesn’t seem to like Hauptner or Sasha. He is surprised to learn that we were able to get into the keep to the north and that we made it through the mountains, but is concerned that any trade route may be another method for Sasha to come through to his lands. Brokk agrees that we must find a way to secure it.

Jean mentions that Sasha wants the chaos items we have, and Giovanni’s ears perk up when we talk about that. He asks us for the flat truth if we have them or not — Tobruk says that we know where they are but they are safe from Sasha for now. Giovanni reveals that Sasha is a chaos cultist who has a bunch of followers of Slanesh.

About 20 years ago, he was working with Hauptner and was tasked with attacking a stronghold of a group that had a chaos item but refused, and the two parted ways. Hauptner is in it because he is enamored with her — originally he wasn’t aligned with chaos but eventually he became corrupted as well.

Giovanni says that he can’t fight against both Sasha and Hauptner by himself, and he hasn’t been able to get anyone’s attention from home. He has always had a code of honor, and some people have flocked to that banner, but he doesn’t have that many people in his employ.

Giovanni says that there is lots of opportunity for dwarves in the region. He has his own copper mine and is willing to share that wealth with those who help him out.

We agree that we can talk to the dwarves and the elves to help. Jean says that he will get a message back to Duke Adalhard and let him know about the situation and perhaps his countrymen can help as well.

Suddenly we hear the loud booming of distant cannons. Someone bursts into the room and lets Giovanni know that the harbor is under attack. He excuses himself and says he must take care of this situation. We volunteer to help and he thanks us.

We go back to the hotel and grab our gear, then head down to the docks. We hear someone calling that there are dark elf corsairs attacking the city. We see them coming up the docks. The elves in our party are offended by the mere appearance of these abominations. So far they have been attacking the town guards, but they kill them quickly and move toward us.

We are able to take care of them, and we see down the other docks that the we had the highest concentration of them here, and the guards have taken care of the others. The remaining dark elves on the boats in the bay turn and flee.

Checking on the dead dark elves, who call themselves Druchii, we see that they have sea dragon scale armor, which is known to degrade quickly if it isn’t oiled with a slime that the elves use. They also have some good quality scimitars.

Session 20 – I’m a Dapper Dwarf Man

We decide that the dwarven hold Din Borim would be best served as a forge and trade station with the dwarves we met near Groghaven as its keepers. We plan to discuss this with them, and also the improvement of the trade route by widening, etc. when we come by there again.

Our immediate goal is to head into Giovanni’s land, however, so we set of to the south the next morning after a night of rest in the keep.

After traveling for one day, we arrive at a small town called Tefana, the inn here is called the Harper and Goblet. The place looks old and not well maintained. The bartender looks Tilian.

We see a bunch of men at the bar, and after speaking with them they say that they are not in the employ of Giovanni “right now” as they are not on a job. Brokk recalls that Tilia has many mercenaries, and it’s kind of a main export of theirs. In fact Giovanni himself was a mercenary captain, and he still calls himself a captain.

Jean says to them that we plan on traveling to Castinea tomorrow. They say that there are patrols but if we don’t cause any trouble there shouldn’t be cause for concern. Castinea is the biggest city in the region. It has a lot of shoreline for ships and a big stone wall all around it. It’s well fortified. We finish up and stay the night here, then leave for Castinea in the morning.

We go through another small town and continue on to the south. We make it to Castinea and find a place to stay (the Borderland Inn), then spend the next several days finding things out about the area, mostly by socializing and greasing some palms, before we meet with Giovanni.

Giovanni resides in a keep on the east side of town, across the river. His personal mercenary company is called The Hounds, and they are all Tilian. (Other mercenary groups have been from varied nationalities.)

We find out that Giovanni was in the employ of Hauptner, but there was some kind of falling out between them. There was supposedly a failing by Giovanni during a battle that caused the rift, then he came here. This was an abandoned area due to some attacks, but he has rebuilt from ruins in the time he’s been here. He’s been here 20 years, but the city has only been built back up for about 10.

We find out that Urmino DeSalvo, the town castellan, frequents a restaurant called Mazetti’s. We work on setting up a meeting with him. Jean goes to the restaurant and buys DeSalvo a flagon of wine. He explains who we are and how we want to setup trade routes, the issues with Gilemet, etc. Jean passes DeSalvo a map that he made of the region and tells him that he can give it to Giovanni. The man agrees and heads out.

Meanwhile, nearby in the “Steps” (the rich neighborhood) Vedasi sees a door in  a nearby tree and lets Maruviel know about it. It says Phandyth’s Chalice on the door. Inside they find a tavern that is of wood elf design. An elf maid is here and she says that no one has been here in over 90 days. They enjoy the drink and she says that she has rooms to let if they are interested. Vedasi and Maruviel feel at peace here and decide that they will stay.

Session 19 – Smokin’ Pope with a Junk Musket

We continue on through the Black Crags, moving west toward the Desert of Spectres. We arrive at Din Borim, an abandoned dwarven stronghold. The front of it is a giant stone dwarven face with a drawbridge. It is currently sealed shut.

We search around for the mechanism to get inside but it takes a very long time. Brokk finally finds it, which is a small rock to push and there is a loud grinding sound as the dwarven face slides into the ground to reveal the opening.

We head inside and it features the standard dwarven architecture, and it smells terrible here. There braziers along the walls and empty weapon racks. Apparently nothing has come through here in quite some time. At the far end there is another stone door.

We head through the door and see flickering light like firelight up ahead. Vedasi heads up the stairs to take a look and he sees a room with a large table in the center. Two huge creatures are here, and they look like centaurs with the torso of a dwarf instead of a human on them.

Tobruk and Brokk realize that these things are called Bull Centaurs, they are a form of Chaos Dwarf. We defeat them after a brief combat and check the room. Jean looks at some of the tapestries and sees that the ones honoring the god Grugny have been defaced.

We head through the rest of the lair and see a kitchen, barracks, a forge, and finally a bedroom. Here we see a box here labeled “Feldbar  Grimhammer, Forgemaster of Din Borim.” Inside are mastercraft forging tools. Clearly this dwarf was a runemaster.

Jean finds a loose brick and behind it is a key. There is a metal door nearby that the key opens and this is the armory. Some weapons are in here which we take. A switch opens and a breastplate of gromril (star-metal) is revealed. A rune is inscribed on it, which says “fortitude.” Brokk dons the armor which increases his toughness quite a bit.

We continue looking through the lair and find a barracks with three beds that were slept in, so we think that we have gotten all of them. We head back to the main room and suddenly see the tapestries moving. From behind them pop out four chaos dwarves — clearly we didn’t think to look behind! Some of them have blunderbuses. One runs up and fires off toward everyone except Tobruk. A rain of metal shards and old chicken bones strike them but no one is seriously injured.

Brokk comes forward and throws a bola at the man which wraps him up. Another dwarf comes out of the tapestry and he is wearing a pointy hat like the pope. He starts muttering a spell but it backfires on him.

After defeating the dwarves, we check out the space where they came out of. It is a secret door and there is a huge amount of treasure here. There are 14,000 gold crowns and gems worth between 22-25,000 crowns. We also find three weapons – a hammer of returning, a bow and a sword.

Decked out in our new vestments, we spend the night in the stronghold.

Session 18 – Meatballs & Manticores

Jean says, “Now that we know Sasha Gillemet is really just a thug, it is unlikely we will be able to work with her. We may have bought a month from my gift of a map, but it is just a matter of time until she comes looking for the dagger and the mask. As for Hauptner, since he is in bed with her, we will probably also have a difficult time convincing him to help us. That leaves Giovanni. If you look at the map you will see that Gillemet controls all of the most direct routes south, both by river and by road.

“We will probably not be able to sneak by her to get to Giovanni if we go that way. However her forces are not well organized. It is unlikely that she has much control of the western part of her lands, once you get away from the roads and inns. If we can find and chart a path through the Black Crags we can bypass her stranglehold on the region.” He traces the dotted line on the map.

“This could have large trade implications for Giovanni, and is the reason we came to the Border Princes in the first place. For the dwarves, we may find some of your kin in the Crags, or at least some green skins and giants to slay. And for the elves, what better way to see more of nature. Once we discover it, we would not be able to protect or improve the way by ourselves. But if Giovanni is looking for more trade, and is worried about the threat to his north, then he may help us with the manpower to do that. What do you say?”

We complete the planning for our trip to see Giovanni. We will circumvent Sasha’s lands (and patrols) by going to the west, but we will visit the dwarves first to get our armor.

We head south to the Crossed Lances and announce our intent to leave the area and go to the east, to give any potential spies incorrect information. We gather supplies for the trip including food, tools, horses and a mule.

We set off to the east as we had told people, then turn south to go and visit the dwarves we had previously met and pick up our armor and weapons. After a few days we arrive there unmolested and let them know of our plan. The dwarves let us know that there is an abandoned dwarven keep in the mountains.

The next day we come across a group of hill people. We decide to approach them to see what they might know about the area. They speak Kislevite (Russian) and then switch to Tilian (Italian). Only Maruviel knows Tilian but he is able to converse with them. They say that no dwarves have been in the area for many years, but there is a keep about half a day’s march south and west of here. It has been abandoned for many years. He says that a few people have come through here recently, a few dwarves, but not many others.

We ask if we could stay around here for the evening and they point us to a spot which is a flat dry riverbed. They say that sometimes night goblins and bears come through here otherwise it is mostly safe.

After we start our camp, we notice a light off in the distance. It is a light moving up and down like a lantern. As they get closer we see four humans carrying torches and lanterns. They are all armed.

They approach and see us, then call out to ask who we are. They say that they are mercenaries who do business with Giovanni. Jean explains who we are and they decide to come and share the fire with us.

Vincenzio is the leader, along with Nunzio, Giancarlo and Antonio. They are friendly but a bit wary of us so they do not want to share much info on Giovanni except that he is fairly hands-off.

Suddenly Brokk hears a sound like the beating of wings. A giant winged creature with the head of a lion alights on top of a nearby standing stone. It is a manticore! It roars and flies down, impaling Nunzio. Brokk is petrified. The others take care of it with a few swipes.

Maruviel lets the rest of us know that the tail of the manticore is quite poisonous, and they are born of chaos so they are prone to other mutations. This one is fairly standard. The poison gland can be useful, however we don’t know how to find it. We decide to push it off the edge into the crevasse.

The next day we continue moving, saying farewell to Giovanni’s men.