The Defense of Lanchester

Previous session: The Betrayal of Taltos Draghul

The party: Anya, a clockwork assassin built in the guise of a young girl; Aries, a devilish paladin pledged to an oath of conquest; Brigid, a barbaric human storm-priestess from the hoary northlands; Vargen, a mutant ranger accompanied by Olaf, his wolf companion.

After spending the night within the safety of a watch tower, the remaining members of the Swords of Avernus marched to the walled village they had spotted in the distance. They arrived in Lanchester by mid-afternoon. They were surprised when the guards posted at the village's gate did not question them too closely before lifting the portcullis; the guards merely wanted to know if the party considered themselves Hunters and advised them to see the village elder as soon as possible.(1)

The party met with Silas, an aged engineer sent to administer the village at the behest of Capital. When questioned about Taltos Draghul, he admitted that the traitorous captain of the Swords had passed through after buying supplies. He also said that Draghul rode with several other cloaked figures who did not seem to need to eat, drink, or sleep through the night. Draghul's party had left several wagons outside the village gates; Silas did not know what the wagons contained, but the party surmised that they might be carrying the corpses of soldiers from the Swords of Avernus who fell in the ambush that devastated their ranks.

Silas had heard of the Swords of Avernus and was astonished that the four adventurers before him were the last of its number. Aries had a different view, stating "There are many more soldiers of the Swords of Avernus out there, even if they do not yet know it. When we find them, they will feel the call to glory and they will join us. Our ranks will swell once more. Our blades are chipped, but they remain unbroken." 

Conceding the point, Silas also explained that the village had troubles of its own: it had suffered raids from a pack of wolf-riding mutants who were stealing food and abducting villagers. A warning from the raiders had been thrown over the village's wall in the form of the decapitated head of one of the abducted villagers; a hastily scrawled note had been stuffed in the mouth. The note said that the raiders would be returning in two days and that if the village's remaining wealth was not handed over without resistance, a massacre would ensue. He pleaded with the members of the Swords of Avernus for aid against this threat.

Silas's pleas for assistance caused discord within the party; Anya and Vargen wanted to continue their pursuit of Taltos Draghul while his trail was still fresh, while Aries and Brigid couldn't abide leaving the villagers to be preyed upon.(2) Ultimately, it was decided that the Swords would stay and fight.

The time remaining before the raiders' return was spent organizing the townsfolk into a makeshift militia and building siege fortifications--a specialty of the Swords of Avernus, who had endured and laid many a siege in their careers as mercenaries. As night fell, the sounds of baying wolves could be heard in the distance--the raiders had arrived to collect their tribute.

The raiders discovered that the village was ready for them. Arrows rained down from the village's walls, but the mutants used flaming arrows of their own to set the walls on fire--adding fire-fighting to the list of tasks necessary for the village's defense. The gate was breached and the mutants rode in on their massive wolfen steads. They met stiff, unexpected resistance in the form of the Swords. The Swords and their militia held them at bay, then began the slow process of pushing the invaders back. The gates were resealed, trapping the majority of the raiders inside the village walls, where they were slaughtered without mercy. There was wolf vs. wolf action, care of Olaf.

In the light of the dawn, it was clear that the threat the raiders posed had been decisively dealt with. The Swords found their cohort had grown; a young man named Pedro Montague had heard Aries's rousing speech to Silas and found that joining the fray in defense of the village moved something inside him--he pledged his life to the Swords of Avernus and rode with them as they left the village of Lanchester, still in pursuit of vengeance against Taltos Draghul. (3)

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(1) From the forthcoming Urazya 'zine: "Hunters are valorous—or reckless—adventurers who earn their livings by killing creatures of darkness and collecting the bounties placed on the heads of dangerous outlaws." 
(2) Aries and Brigid had very different motives for wanting to stay and fight the raiders. Brigid was moved by compassion because the village of her youth had been destroyed by mutant raiders in similar circumstances. Aries, on the other hand, doesn't like to avoid a battle that can bring glory and conquest--tenets he is sword to uphold as a diabolic paladin.
(3) Pedro is getting statted-up as a "sidekick" character as per the rules in the D&D Essentials box.

The Betrayal of Taltos Draghul

Premise: The characters were members of the Swords of Avernus, a mercenary company plying their bloody trade in the Borderlands. The Swords of Avernus was destroyed when the band's commander, Taltos Draghul, betrayed his brothers and sisters in arms by leading them into an ambush. 

Only four members of the Swords survived the onslaught: Anya, a clockwork assassin built in the guise of a young girl; Aries, a devilish paladin pledged to an oath of conquest; Brigid, a barbaric human storm-priestess from the hoary northlands; Vargen, a mutant ranger accompanied by Olaf, his wolf companion.

The game began with the party tracking Taltos Draghul across the Borderlands of Urazya. They knew that Draghul was not traveling alone. As they followed Draghul's trail, the adventurers spied a way station watchtower at dusk. Curiously, the tower's beacon was not lit even though night was approaching. The party argued about whether it was worthwhile to search the tower or not, but ultimately curiosity won out.

The tower eerily silent, but showed signs of enduring an assault: the door had been broken and hastily repaired, some of the furniture inside had been smashed during what appeared to be a pitched battle, and there were blood stains on the floor throughout the structure. However, there were no corpses to be found. While exploring the tower, the party was set upon by a group of degenerate humans and slavering ghouls who were hiding in the upper floor. The battle was brief, their enemies were slain, but the adventurers received dire enough wounds that they decided to rest for the night inside the relative safety of the tower before picking up on Draghul's trail.

Examining the corpses of their foes yielded an important revelation: although they didn't recognize the degenerate humans, the ghouls were all wearing the uniforms of members of the Swords of Avernus. In fact, Vargen recognized one of the ghouls--he had fought side by side with the woman in a past battle fought by the Swords.

In the morning light, the party could see a walled village in the distance. As they rediscovered Draghul's tracks, it was confirmed that the village would be their next destination. Perhaps the villagers would be able to help them find their traitorous former commander.