Our heroes — gnome alchemist magician Lendel, from the metropolitan nation of the Spire; dwarf vagabond, trapper and part-time warrior Tony Rockbone, of the Ancients; orc pilgrim Agorak, from the Hordes; and ettin wood troll and medical magician Forram, of the Tribes — had been exploring the abandoned Imperial town of Harzgard. Just recently, they started exploring the eastern district of the town, which, unlike the west, was overgrown with trees and foliage. The western district had been terribly damaged by a marauding ogre. This new district likely had its own ogre, but strangely had a whole forest growing within the town walls.
The group had explored a bit, notably finding a useful wagon, as well as a letter indicating that valuable smithing supplies had been moved to the workshop of Lady Juno Martell, on Brewer Street, before evacuation. They had no idea where Brewer Street was, but it became a goal to check it out. They also noticed a large stone building towering over the rest of the district. They decided to make their way toward it, through the streets of the district.
On the way to the stone building, they found themselves in a neighborhood with large shops and houses, including one building with a massive (destroyed) beer barrel outside. They concluded that this must be Brewer Street, and decided to explore the old brewery first.
Unfortunately for them, they did not notice the webs that lined areas of the brewery’s main hall. They were accosted by a giant (10 feet wide) spider, which led to a brief but tense scuffle wherein Agorak got caught in the webs, but freed himself by burning the webs (and himself).
This is where I should note that this game makes small, skippable fights like this work by giving the players almost nothing for free. This fight wasn’t difficult, but it caused some damage to Agorak’s warrior follower Jana. The spider even poisoned her. None of this heals automatically. Recovering HP and “wounds” like poisoning requires the use of healing spells or potions, or rest and healing in a settlement. And magical spells are not simply recovered for free each day. It costs the magician money to create scrolls — which fuel their magic — during downtime. Healing during downtime is also not free, though it’s cheaper than the potions you bring along on adventures. And since you level up your character by paying a trainer (not by gaining “experience points”), every loss matters, at least a little bit.
They found a little bit of treasure in the brewery: potions, in the form of bottled beer. Then, they set off to find Lady Juno Martell’s workshop.
This reminded me that I need to Google character names before using them. Apparently, Martell is a name from Game of Thrones?
They got to the workshop and found a whole lot of blacksmith gear, then suddenly heard a voice behind them. They turned around and saw the ghostly form of Lady Juno Martell.
She was a haunt — a ghost bound to a physical location, in this case her home and workshop. She was pleasant and fully aware of her current situation. The group spent some time talking to her and learned a bit more about the town.
Ghosts are a great opportunity for worldbuilding, especially in dungeon adventures that don’t normally have a lot of social roleplay.
Juno explained that, as a noble, she was discouraged from pursuing blacksmithing — a commoner’s craft — as a profession. She was ultimately indebted to the prefect of the Military District of Harzgard when he became her patron. During the evacuation of the city, when the creatures started attacking, she was working on her masterpiece. She refused to leave before it was finished.
Obviously, Juno was killed before she could finish her masterpiece. She was attacked by an evil shade that drained the blood of its victims, transforming them into lesser shades. Completing her masterpiece was her unfinished business, but she was not been able to do it in the decades since her death. As a haunt, she had complete control over her dwelling. She could work the forge and all of her tools, but, even in death, she was haunted by the same shade and its spawn. They attacked whenever she lit her forge.
The group agreed to stand guard for her while she worked.
This shade was called an alukah, and it is another creature (loosely) inspired by old Jewish folklore. It was a creature of darkness, looking like a silhouette of a long-limbed humanoid with flowing, wispy, hair-like tendrils. It is clearly related to the lilin, another shade. When the alukah bites its victim, it strikes with a circular maw full of fangs, similar to a leech. I chose to render it this way for three reasons: I wanted to clearly distinguish this creature from the more familiar vampire (which I do not intend to represent in this game), the word “alukah” is sometimes translated as “horse-leech”, and because I think it’s a lot creepier that way.
The actual fight was a little contrived, honestly, with a couple waves of attackers coming up the street toward the house, wolflike monsters and an alukah each time, until finally the greater alukah attacked. It’s a decent way to structure a fight, though, with escalating danger.
Once they defeated the alukahs, Juno completed her masterpiece: she had made a beautiful, lightweight broadsword, and then she blessed it, making it holy.
She thanked them for their help and offered them the weapon. She wanted only to know that she was a master smith before passing on.
Ghost encounters are reliably interesting, even with very basic objectives. I’ll have to work on the dybbuk and ibbur and see how they play, soon.
Next time I’ll show what merchants look like in the game, and talk about why I care so darn much that “shopping is fun”.