Across the World's Spine

The World's Spine is the name given by the nomads of the Weeping Wastes to an enormous mountain chain that sits between them and the lands to the east. Last session, the characters cleared out a set of ruins containing a strange, glowing blue tower in a valley right on the World's Spine as it leads down to the sea. Now they are moving into the eastern lands proper. I've based most of this on a scenario included in Lawrence Whitaker's Elric! supplement for the region. He must have come up with this to fill in some of the background for Avan Astran of Old Hrolmar, an adventurous nobleman who meets Elric at one point - there is a suggestion in the short story in which he appears that he journeyed into the East as well. Cue the characters...

As the expedition emerges from the World's Spine, they traverse some low-lying woodlands before entering a rather harsh savannah environment. They continue in the same direction, partly guided by Alexia, who originally came from a land even further eastwards. She travelled through this area when she was with the dream thief whose staff Marion now carries. A couple of days into this part of the trip, they ascertain quite a large column of dust in the distance. The duke says that it looks like a cloud kicked up by at least fifty riders, and it is coming straight towards them. He knows this because the cloud doesn't veer off to the right or left, nor does it diminish.

Rather than risk a direct confrontation with a large number of riders (and an unknown agenda), the party heads off to their left (i.e. northwards) to find somewhere they can lie in wait to see what happens. Eventually they find a sheltered desert valley between several sets of high dunes, possibly a dry river valley. The dust cloud in the distance is now more to their right as they look at it. Marion shimmies up the dunes to have a look, and sees what does indeed look like around fifty camel riders, led by a tall man and a smaller, rather skinny individual who seems very ill at ease on his beast. They head off more to the south and then turn back to the south east, almost as though they are following an anti-clockwise path or pattern.

Marion returns to the others for a discussion; from their perspective, the dust cloud has more or turned around upon itself. Avan Astran says that this is a reasonably standard military patrol pattern; they are circling round what might be a base location of some sort.

The characters then hear some rather feeble cries somewhat further to the north, and find an emaciated older woman stuck in a hunter's snare. She is delirious, and sports a sword slash across the scalp, and another on her left ankle. By the look of her, she has probably been wandering for at least a couple of days, and will die in the trap if she is not released. She is crying in what must be the local dialect, a mix of Weeping Waste Mong and 'pande, the language of the East. The characters give her a swig of a healing potion and, in broken communication, offer her safety, food and shelter.

It turns out that they have rescued Gad-Ad-Gan, shaman of the Owl tribe of the Valni, the tribes people who inhabit this region. She doesn't entirely seem to trust the unfamiliar strangers who surrounds her, but they have been kind to her, so she tells them a tale of her people being wiped and the remnants enslaved a couple of days ago by a large group of evil camel riders. She tried to remonstrate, and was cut up and set loose to wander in the plains for her trouble. The last thing she remembers was the slavers riding off to the southeast, which chimes in with the characters' earlier observations. She tells the players that there is a much more powerful tribe, the "Scaled People", living to the north; it might be possible to join forces with them to destroy this threat to everyone, and release her people. The group agrees, and everyone settles down for the night.

In the morning light they find that Gad-Ad-Gan has gone, but every so often they hear (and at one point catch sight of) an unnaturally large owl that leads them towards the kraal of the Scaled People, in broad daylight. Avan Astran, Nadjana, Alexia and Ehlessa remain with the horses at a safe distance while the others move northwards. They are hoping that they can make a deal with the Scaled People and assault the slavers.

The northern group comprises Destiny, Marion, Bomilcar and Sir Blanque. They approach the village of the Scaled People openly with no weapons drawn to show trust; a couple of guards on the palisade gates wave their spears at them in greeting and then head off to get the chief. Bomilcar is the one most able to communicate, due to his own mastery of Mong, his native tongue, combined with the knowledge of 'pande given him by Merut of Chaos, so he greets the chief and tells him their news. He in turn is disturbed by the knowledge of a growing threat, and of the destruction of the Owl tribe, who are friends of his. He invited the characters into his hut for a meeting. He introduces himself as He-Who-Slithers-Carefully.

The parley is opened by the shaman, Eye-Open-Wide, who brandishes a snaky stick at everyone and then goes off to consume something hallucinogenic so that he can commune with the spirits. In the meantime, the chief asks Bomilcar to fill in the details for him, and various delicacies are presented: fruits, berries, nuts and some rather tasty cuts of smoked antelope. Eye-Open-Wide returns with a rather goofy grin on his face; his eyes are indeed open wide, although they now mostly seem to consist of pupil. He has obviously been having a good time. He says that Yig, Father of Serpents, gives the alliance his blessing, man. He-Who-Slithers-Carefully says he has heard of these interlopers; they have arrived recently, and seem to be building a strange stone tower in an area of scrub and small trees to the southeast. They are obviously growing in power, and must be stopped. He offers the services of 150 warriors. However, one good turn deserves another: if he helps us, we should help him.

He-Who-Slithers-Carefully says that his people pays annual tribute in kind to the nearest town of the Valederian Directorates, which is, coincidentally enough, the direction in which the group needs to go for the next part of the Runestaff. A bandit gang is located in the lakeside forests next to the route to the city (it's called Karakose, and it is the capital of S'aleem, the least important of the confederation that constitutes the Directorates). These bandits have been growing in power and are now a serious threat to travel. It turns out that they have captured the caravan carrying the tribute, which is in the form of an ornate shield made from the hide of a great boar. The tribute is really only symbolic, but the pride of the tribe requires it to be recovered and delivered safely. "You have probably realised that we are plains people," continues the chief, "So we aren't very good in dense forests. We will give you our warriors if you promise to return and relieve these brigands of our property. Since you are travelling to Karakose yourselves, you can then deliver it for us." The players agree.

The warriors can run for days on end and fight at the end of them; the chief reckons they would arrive at the site of the enemy on the evening of the third day. He is a bit too old (and portly) to join in the fun, but he is quite happy for the characters to lead his men into battle; the Blessing of Yig seems propitious.

Everyone has off the next morning. The warriors spread out into a very wide skirmish formation so that they do not kick up a coherent dust cloud; this means the opposition won't know they are coming. Clever, that. On arrival in the target area, Marion sneaks off to have good look and reports back:



A large gash in the ground looks like a very old quarry, and the slavers must be taking advantage of it. There are some miserable cages containing quite a large number of slaves down there, along with some horses and other animals. The slaves look as if they are just being worked to death. A path winds it way up the face of the quarry, and comes out in a large encampment of at least fifty tents, with a large pavilion for the leaders in the centre. This is more like a travelling tribe than just slavers, and there must be more than the fifty riders the characters saw previously. However, they do have the benefit of surprise, so they sit down to concoct a plan.

Destiny will use elementals to help one group of fifty warriors go down into the quarry at its northern end, as far away from the tents as possible. The intention here is to save the slaves. Marion and Sir Blanque will lead another group of fifty in an assault from the southwest, while Bomilcar brings in the rest from the east, catching the slavers in a night time pincer attack. Destiny's group will need a head start to get around the site and then into the quarry.

In the event, it all goes like clockwork. By starlight, the three groups move into position, and then the warriors go in at full tilt. They achieve total surprise and start quite happily to massacre the slavers. The scrawny individual Marion saw earlier tries to make a getaway by running away from the tents along the eastern edge of the quarry; he is obviously intending to try to make it into the scrublands to the north. He seems to be some sort of sorcerer, because he keeps pointing at random stones and making them explode; this is definitely discouraging any pursuit. Unfortunately for him, though, he is silhouetted against the night sky from the perspective of the warriors led by Destiny in the quarry, and she brings him down with a well aimed arrow through his left shoulder (major wound; he collapses almost immediately from blood loss and shock). Destiny's group saves the tribespeople.

The leader of the slavers makes a run for his tower, screaming abuse at all and sundry: "The Lords of the Stars will take you all! I shall sacrifice myself to them and they shall burn everyone! I am the messiah! You will all die in glory - HAHAHAHAHAH!!!' And so on. Bomilcar and Marion get a couple of missiles off at him, but he keeps climbing. Sir Blanque goes after him, and the nutter obviously realises his time is up. So he chucks himself off his tower in the full expectation of approaching godhood. He goes splat.

It is now clean-up time. There are fifteen casualties amongst the warriors - five fatalities, five serious wounds, a couple of whom will be badly scarred or maimed in some way, proudly. Five others have debilitating wounds, but they will recover. The slavers have been wiped out, and the people freed. The characters do the traditional thing and loot the pavilion of the leaders. Marion gets a really good quality sword of a kind none of them has ever seen before (+1 Longsword - basically, a katana) and decides to keep it. She likes her daggers, a little too much to be honest, but she is beginning to feel the need for something a little more hard hitting. They also find some coinage that will come in handy in the East, as well as some bearer's bonds drawn on a bank in the Valederian Directorates - these are settled states immediately to the east of their current location. There is a really useful map of the whole of the East, which is described as 'Menastree', along with some rather valuable gemstones - all in all, around 1,000 Large Bronze equivalents in local currency. Destiny comes across the atlas and journal of the nut job who pancaked himself outside; named Dandridj, he seems to have been some sort of religious astrologer. A quick scan of the contents (written in Low Melnibonean) shows that as the entries progress he becomes more and more insanely messianic.

Destiny also saves the life of the sorcerer she took out earlier, and the characters settle in for a good old bout of interrogation. The man disappoints them, however, by spilling everything without even being threatened. Bomilcar is particularly upset by this development. The man's name is Gorjin, and he is a nervous little specimen; a bit unhinged, one might say. He is some sort of renegade, and explains that magic in these lands is a combination of elemental and mental rune magic. Destiny is especially intrigued by this. He says that he is on the run from the warrior-priests of Chaos (as is Alexia!) and threw his lot in with Dandrij, for lack of anything better. He is very willing to transfer his allegiance to the party - Destiny scares the hell out of him, and he really doesn't want her to be his enemy. He is probably well aware that she is capable of sacrificing him to something nameless so that she can get a shiny sword or something. The good thing about this is that he can help Avan Astran on the occasions where the players need to split off from the expedition to find bits of the Runestaff for Marion. They don't let Gorjin know any of this, of course.

The players take a few days to regroup and allow the wounded to recover sufficiently for travel. They also fetch the rest of the expedition, filling them in in what has happened in the time the have been away. They all then travel back to the kraal of the Scaled People. There they are joined by the Owl shaman, and come to an accommodation. The remnants of her people will join with the Scaled People, and the characters have a full alliance with the people who control the area just to the east of the valley they are planning to use as their way across the World's Spine. The players also allow their new friends access to their fortress with the blue tower - there is plenty of water there, and it would make an excellent site to control the trade route. The peoples of Menastree call the range the "Ragged Pillars".

It is now time for the characters to fulfil their part of the bargain, and collect the big boar shield from the bandits. The standard four head off eastwards to the forests: Destiny, Sir Blanque, Marion and Bomilcar. The forest is really gnarled and ancient, with all sorts of strange noises emanating from its murky depths. The characters have, though, seen a lot worse, having been into the Forest of Troos. They cast around carefully for tracks, knowing that it may take them several days to pick up enough traces of the bandits to find their base of operations - they will obviously be trying to make sure nobody can follow them. Bomilcar is good at this sort of thing, though.

Their first full night in the forest is not much fun. There is a lot of movement in the undergrowth, along with various sets of baleful red eyes, howling and so on - the usual sort of thing you'll find in a haunted woodland. The pack seems to be led by some sort of demonic hybrid, and she taunts the party from the shadows. She is obviously trying to spook the characters, at least enough that one of them freaks out and runs into the forest, but this doesn't happen. The wolves skim around a lot, howling away happily, but when Marion goes into full Shadowdance mode the pack leader realises these people have sorcerous capability, and so orders a retreat.

The next day, the group is still having no luck finding enough traces of the bandits to be able to follow a coherent path. They do, though, find the local witch, in a hut in clearing. Gamuth invites them in for some rather disgusting gloop in a bowl, and fills them in on what has been going on in the forest. She says she is friends with the wolves, who are led by a creature called Voka, and she also knows the bandits quite well. "Their leader is the beastman Gorgling, son of Arstanos the forest spirit," she rather unhelpfully explains. "He now has a large following, something thirty beastmen and humans." The characters take advantage of Gamuth's hospitality and get a good night's sleep.

The next day sees little improvement, at least in terms of trying to find the hideout. They do, however, find the grove of Arstanos. He is able to take physical form, which looks like some sort of satyr thing. He welcomes the characters, and asks for news of the outside world; he is intrigued by the fact they have obviously come from so far away. He doesn't actually like any of his children; he is the father of all of the beastmen of the forest. "Who counts, anyway? Children are such a pain. It is fortunate that it is so much fun making them" he says, winking at the women in the group suggestively. The characters ask him for directions and then head off; Destiny in particular doesn't want to spend the night with a beastie like this. As they leave, they see him falling asleep; his physical form becomes translucent.

The compound of the bandits is very large, and it looks as though they are in the process of becoming a clan of sorts; there is evidence of family life. Instead of trying to fight them or even sneak in, the characters just walk straight up to the front gate and say hello. This really surprises the guards, who go off to fetch Gorgling. He appears on a makeshift platform to one side of the gates and welcomes the characters to his domain. Bomilcar does all the talking, and manages to convince Gorgling to be friends by saying what they are here [Good low roll on language followed by a critical success on Persuade.]

Gorgling invites them in, and then says it doesn't matter anyway; ironically, the bandits can't get to their own treasure because it is being guarded by the spirit of a nobleman they captured along with the big boar shield. "He went a bit nuts, shrieking about failing in his duty or something like that. Anyway, he ran into our store room, took out a hidden dagger and stabbed himself with it. Every time one of goes in there, he tries possession so that he can attack the rest of us."

Marion simply says, "My turn." She opens the door, the spirit manifests, and then she sucks him into her dream staff. "I've done this before," she comments laconically. "That's it?" asks Gorgling incredulously, and then calls for a party in celebration of the fact the bandits can now access their own treasury. The players now have a friendly bandit group in control of an important part of their trade route.

The players wave goodbye to their latest group of new friends, and take the boar shield back through the forest. At one point Marion spots a strange little man up ahead [Critical See roll]. He has emaciated limbs and an enormous belly; she reckons that anyone who can wander around this place on his own like that must be bad news, so she advises the party to take a different route.

The party returns to their tribe, and are welcomed with another party. They regale the chief and his pals with the stories of their adventures in the forest, and when they get to the little guy at the end there is a communal gasp of surprise. The shaman fills them in: "That was Bapele, He with the large empty belly! He is a hungry ghost, the spirit of a great explorer who died of starvation in the forests. He can swallow anything up to the size of a water buffalo, but is never satisfied. You did well to avoid him."


Umpire's Notes
For the boar shield, I tacked on a scenario for Runequest by The Design Mechanism, mostly as a way to help give things a slightly freakish edge:



I also got the players rolling for encounters. I'm not going all D&D on them, but it is nice to spice up the travel a little bit with encounters and mini-locations taken from Yoon-suin. I want them to be reminded that to them, this is a strange land, with unknown potential dangers. I'm using the D8 because it is nicely chaotic, and the chance of an encounter is an 8 on the die once per day. This is why they were able to see and avoid Bapele; they are enjoying this so much that they wanted more of the same!

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