Dramatis Personae

Previously . . .

The PCs are all on a chartered airship heading toward the Span.The airship becomes under attack, crashes, and now the PCs are in one of the wildest, least inhabited parts of the Span – The Hinterlands. The PCs save a few people, but not many (3 passengers and 2 crewmen), and it’s beginning to snow heavily. The PCs have managed to pull some items from the hold, and have camping supplies. The Captain and a a yeoman survived; the captain is in a coma. The survivors other than the PCs are:

Devdan Keabalar: traveler and widower
Ricc Zes: a human tanner and fur trade
Bruges Ashseeker: a yeoman and airship sailor
Feyrith Faris: an Imperial captain of the airship
Rellik Greygrace: an old retired guide and woodsman

Lost and Cold

Fyadhiel, Gaffer, Galen Fallowhide, Ryeleah Lopek, and Waraxe Mandrake
??? (First Month), 11th, 981 F.R., 4th Hour of the Sun (10:00 am)
The Hinterlands, Abolethe (“The Span”)

The PCs are in the middle of the Hinterlands (a huge swath of forest, mountains, and hills with a climate similiar to contemporary Alaska). Ryeleah sends Twerp (her kid) out to scrounge. He is afraid to go on his own, but Ryeleah says she’s not going. Waraxe volunteers to go with him. She casts Sense Danger. (THERE IS DANGER). Fyadhiel sees wolves circling.

Waraxe asks for light. Ryeleah casts Continual Light (full daylight that will glow for 11 days) on Waraxe’s shield. Wolves attack. Fyadhiel shoots one, another and it charge him. Waraxe moves forward; a wolfcharges him, slams into his shield, and is badly damaged. Another bites at him, and Waraxe parries with his axe, slicing the wolf up as it comes in; it dies. Gaffer aims his crossbow. Galen draws a knife.

The alpha wolf starts checking the PCs out (using an Evaluate maneuver). Fyadhiel pierces a few badly with arrows; one (“Jesus Wolf”, because Jesus always saves) survives. A wolf tries to attack Waraxe, rolls and 18… and falls over. Jesus Wolf goes in for the bite. A wolf is coming through the woods towards Gaffer and the other squishies near the fire. He shoots at a wolf, but it dodges. The wolf moves to attack, and he steps back and just barely dodges. A wolf tries to run past Waraxe, who kills it. Another wolf attacks him, and he blocks it. Wolves are closing in on the campfire which is far from Waraxe, and Waraxe feels bad about that. Fyadhiel shoots one near him, 17 impaling to its vital organs, and it dies; he shoots and kills another one near him. The alpha dire wolf shoots past and goes to attack Fyadhiel. It’s fast! It fails to hit. Ryeleah unleashes a magical sunbeam at the Alpha, who doesn’t drop, but who’s burned badly. A wolf tries to bite at Galen, but it fails (critically fails) and fails on its face. A second wolf comes at Galen, who attempts a small incision to the neck … He hits, and the wolf dies, blood spraying everywhere.

Another wolf comes at Fyadhiel. One comes up behind Waraxe and bites at him, but gets a mouthful of armor. Yet another wolf runs at Fyadhiel, but misses. Galen slices at another wolf’s neck veins, and kills that one as well. Twerp, Ryeleah’s son, runs towards his mom, throwing his torch at the alpha, hitting it. Fyadhiel steps back and starts firing arrows again at all the wolves in front of him. Three arrows hit three wolves; that kills the alpha and two other wolves. Waraxe whirles and slashes Lydia at the wolf that bit him in the butt, chopping off its head. Wolves defeated. All dead except for Moon-Moon the Derp Wolf.

Galen, who is very empathetic to animals, tries to make friends with Moon Moon. He also makes an amazing wolf stew out of one of the dead bodies (Cooking roll of 4). Ryeheah again uses magic to try to sense danger; she doesn’t sense anything this time. Gaffer scolds Waraxe for letting his shield get damaged.

One of the passengers is a tanner and skins the wolves. Ricc Zes stays up all night; she’s too freaked out from being attacked by the wolves. When all done, the PCs got the equivalent of 264 rations . . . of wolf meat. For all 11 people, that’s like a week of food.

Ryeleah casts Watchdog. The next day the skies are incredibly overcast. It’s 25 degrees below zero. In the distances there are huge thunderclouds. Fyadhiel tells us there’s a blizzard coming in. We’ve got 8 or 9 hours before it gets here and starts pouring. Fyadhiel tell us that there’s a hot spring to the South of here. From this, Gaffer is able to figure out that we’re in one of the biggest, hugest, most sprawling forests in the span – called the Hinterlands. Ryeleah tries to search for fire, excluding the one that we’ve made. The nearest one to us is over 200 miles away.

The PCs head towards the hot spring that Fyadhiel knew about. There’s a smallish cave next to the hot springs – looks like the wolves’ den. There are six wolf pups there. We start moving our supplies to this cave. Ryeleah, using apportation, assisted by Gaffer (who knows what he’s doing), create a tunnel in front of the cave, a covered area that will let us have access to the hot springs even if multiple meters of snow get dumped upon us. 8 or 9 hours later, it begins snowing bigtime.

Aftermath

Ryeleah casts Sense Spirit, and senses that there is some kind of spirit here in the cave. Looking about and casting Seeker, Ryeleah finds a map that was hidden somewhere on the airship; it was about to go into the fire. This could be interesting . . .

After Action Report (GM)

Footnotes

None.