Wilderlands: Session 7

 

This is part of an ongoing campaign. You can find the other sessions over on the sidebar.

This session was run on June 6, 2022.

 3 Sweetrain 4433

I was on leave last week, so this week's session picked up where we left off at the end of the siege of Filmoth Village (hex 2111). Ser Duycken, Stranger, and Gwythian immediately rode a circuit around the village to be sure that there were no remaining goblins waiting for a follow up attack. They found none and returned to town. While they were gone, Vargr helped the townsfolk with the damage to the walls.

When they returned, Duycken spoke with Roderick while Gwythian questioned the townsfolk about the situation. Between the two of them, they learned the following:

The village of Filmoth was established by Onreck Warden, Roderick's great-grandfather. He drove the goblins from the area and built a tower to defend the town. When Onreck died, the village passed to his son Welrek who bent the knee to the Overlord as the City State's power expanded in the Byrny region. Welrek did not live long and was killed in one of the Overlord's battles against Viridistan. 

His son, Sedrick, Roderick's father, took control at a young age and largely mismanaged the holding. He disowned Roderick, his only child, following a disagreement and banished him from his lands. Sedrick died of syphilis five years ago without an heir. Due to Filmoth being at the edge of Byrny's ability to project its power, there has been no urgency on the part of the governor to find a replacement, as the new lord would no doubt demand protection that he will not have the resources to extend. 

Without a lord to manage the estate, the defenses of the village degraded and three years ago the tower was destroyed in a goblin raid. The raids continued with the villagers having a hard time putting up a real defense. In the fall of 4432 Roderick returned to Filmoth with his companion, Son Kau Pang. Roderick and Pang had worked together as mercenaries over the last ten years and quickly set about improving the defenses of the town. The wall was hastily built right before winter set in. 

Despite not having any claim to the village, Roderick felt a responsibility to the people he had grown up with and asked for help from Byrny and the Mistwind Conclave (hex 2010) in the mountains to the west. Neither provided any substantial aid. 

Vargr went to investigate the barrels they saw chained up to a rock to the south of town. He found them to be full of a strange white liquid. Creng, Uggmar's goblin henchman, explained that this was the "white worm milk" that the White Worm tribe would drink before battle. He said that it made them crazy and that no member of his tribe, the Purple Mushrooms, would drink it. Vargr and several of the others took several doses of the liquid.

When the party had finished looting the goblin corpses around the village, they reentered the gates to find Roderick and Pang trying to calm an angry group of goat herders. The goat herders were angry because they believed that a female hill giant named Cozsari promised to protect them from raids if they provided her with five goats a month. She wandered down from the mountains a little under two years ago, and started raiding the farms for food. A little less than a year ago, the goat herders reached an agreement with her where they would bring five goats a month to her cave (hex 2011) in exchange for protection.

Roderick, who was not around when this happened, believes that the goat herders misunderstood what Cozsari meant by "protection". He thinks she only meant that she would stop raiding their farms, not that she would defend the town from goblins. The party volunteered to visit her in the cave and see if they could get a clarification as to the terms of the deal. While Roderick and Pang do not think that it is wise to pay protection money to a hill giant, they don't see anyway around it given the resources currently available to them.

4 Sweetrain 4433

 

The party left the next morning after Stranger summoned up a stock of goodberries. They arrived at Cozsari's cave without incident and Uggmar and Stranger noticed a dead giant ant outside the cave entrance. The ant's head appeared to have been smashed by a large club. Stranger confirmed that giant ants were not native to the area. He also saw a twisted ring of vines on the ground that he recognized as a common druidic spell component.  

 

The party left Gwythian outside to stand guard and entered the cave. They found another dead giant ant inside along with other, unidentified, bloodstains. Stranger reported that he could hear the sounds of giant ants moving around to the west, and the sounds of giant ants along with a human voice to the east. 

Uggmar led the way to the east and was attacked by ants. Ser Duycken charged his turkey into the fray, yelling. 

Vargr cast bless on the group and Gwythian heard the yelling from where he was standing guard and ran to join the party. 

They killed one of the ants, but Uggmar had to withdraw after taking a bad hit. Even as he withdrew, the sounds of the fighting drew more ants from both the east and the west.

Vargr managed to kill one of the ants in the east room with a single, mighty blow, but more were rapidly approaching his companions in the hallway.

By the time they killed the last ant in the east room, the battle to the west had been joined.

Creng was hurt in the initial assault, but Vargr and Duycken managed to take to the front lines and the party defeated the remaining ants.

They continued to explore to the east and the session stopped as they rolled for initiative when Gwythian stepped into view of something.