Story

Continuing on from last time…

Ghada comes into the Tavern the next morning as Treb and Scrabble are having breakfast. Recognizing his old adventuring partner, Scrabble says “hi” and introduces Treb to Ghada. Aghell, a giantkin (that’s the ToV term - goliath in D&D) walks in, stubs his toe and everyone in the bar notices him, but as he goes to the bar to get a drink, Ghada, Treb, and Scrabble play a game of dice rather than interacting.

Miralou, a bearkin, enters and asks if the adventurers will help. Scrabble notices Aghell taking interest and invites him into the group. Ben Alric (sp?) is a dwarven keep that is said to have had many struggles with spirits from the sea who may have slain all the dwarves who lived in the keep. MIralou’s lord (Jarl Bearagorn Shipkeeper) wants to reclaim the island where the keep was built. It’s been 100 years since the dwarves were massacred. Miralou doesn’t believe that the ghost stories are real. The Jarl is offering 500gp for the group upon completion of the task. They need a ship to get there, so Scrabble writes a letter of introduction for Miralou so she can hire their ship, The Flaying Harpy.

While they await Miralou, Scrabble sells his leather armor and helps Treb find spell components. Flint attempts to earn money from the taverngoers by trying to get them to bet on his being able to perform a stunt. In the end he simply ends up wet and with a shell as payment.

In the evening Miralou returns with word that she has contracted with The Flying Harpy to take the adventuring party to the island. Scrabble clarifies the task - it’s to clear out whatever happens to be there keeping other, previous crews from settling the keep. Also, Miraculou is coming with the party on the task.

They get to the island and Ghada leads them through difficult terrain. Eventually they find Ben Alric. It is bone white and there are arrow slits on each level. They arrive at iron doors. Scrabble, Ghada, and Aghell attempt to open the door, but are unable to as it is frozen shut. Flint has everyone combine their torches to try and clear the ice. The ice melts and they are able to enter.

As they enter, Flint’s shoelaces are suddenly tied to each other and he hears laughter. Scrabble also almost slips on ice that wasn’t there before. Flint spins a bottle to see which way to go (leaving it up to fate) and it points out the front door.

They continue exploring and Scrabble’s flute gets painfully cold and he hears laughter again. Scrabble asks out loud “Spirit, are you trying to get our attention?” The room becomes full of dense fog where the members can’t even see their hands in front of their faces. It appears that ghosts attack. Once the fighting is done, it turns out it was ice mephits. Some of the crew harvest the corpses for parts.

Player Commentary

Our group - 4 players from the previous campaign, our prior GM, and a new guy - are gelling well in this new campaign. It’s more or less a perfect table from my point of view. Everyone is contributing to the roleplay and working together on the combat. Our GM does a great job keeping things moving, but also allowing us time to roleplay. The campaigns are a lot of fun. I look forward to playing every month.

It had been a while since we played the first campaign, so I forgot I had chosen a “true scale” kobold. In Tales of the Valiant that means instead of being a tiny guy, I’m the same size as the average human. So that’s why there’s some discrepancy in the images that Flint’s player has been generating to illustrate the campaign.

This “movie poster” for the campaign is fun. I keep getting Peter Pan vibes from Flint’s character.

• Tales-of-the-Valiant