Doom of the Savage Kings, Chapter 5

On By MagicJMSIn Dungeon Crawl Classics, Tabletop Roleplaying

“So… she’s human, and old,” Umur asked, pulling at his beard. “How old?”

“Let’s talk of something else, please,” Hilda said, pulling her robe free from a bramble that had snagged it as she stepped over a fallen log.

“She’s so old!” Joane Cayhurst cackled. “And hideous!” She picked her way through the forest beside the dwarf, on the other shoulder as Hilda. “I can’t believe you’re going to marry the mad widow!” Behind the red-haired young woman, two other Hirot residents snickered.

“Hilda agreed, not me!” Umur growled. “I haven’t said I’ll do it. She can marry her.”

“Can we change subjects, please,” Hilda begged, and her tone made Joane and the others laugh all the more.

The group made their way slowly through the tangle of the forest, following a trail so forgotten and overgrown that they were forced to frequently pause and argue where it was. Umur, Hilda, Erin, and Haffoot were joined by Joane and seven other villagers from Hirot who had volunteered to help the brave adventurers on their quest to find the tomb of Ulfheonar.

Each of the Hirot villagers had his or her own reasons for being there, most of which were unknown to the four outsiders from Graymoor. Some had been inspired by Joane’s tales of heroism. Some were concerned citizens prepared to do anything, no matter how fantastical, to help Hirot. Still others were searching for something to bring a spark of hope into their wallowing seas of despair. Six of the eight were human men and women of varying ages and trades, and they were joined by a halfling merchant woman and dwarven carpenter. None seemed particularly capable foresters, yet they were certainly brave enough to accompany what many–surely including the Jarl and his thegns–would call a fool’s errand.

It was Briene Byley, Father Beacom’s assistant at the church to Justicia, who had first mentioned the existence of the trail to Ulfheonar’s tomb. Her late father had been a hunter in Hirot his entire life, and he’d long suspected that the earthen mound at the end of the trail was the fabled chief’s burial site. Yet Briene’s father could never convince others to explore the mound, and the man had no desire to do so alone. Instead, he’d long ago marked the trail just in case and had taught those markers to his daughter. Thus it was that the girl had led their ragtag dozen at dawn’s light through the trees and moors north of Hirot. It was now nearing midday, but they had made decent time despite the sparse trail and large group.

“Briene,” Erin asked, casting an annoyed look at the snickering villagers. “How much further to the mound? If this is not the tomb, I fear we have wasted a precious day.”

“I haven’t been here in years,” the young woman admitted in conciliatory tones. “But I believe it– ah! Yes! Right here!” She pushed forward through a thicket, revealing the forest breaking on a ledge, with a narrow vale below. Set in the center of the valley was a long, earthen mound topped with tall grass. As the others gathered at the forest’s edge to see, Briene pointed excitedly. “You see? The mound there… my father said it always looked like a serpent to him.”

Sure enough, from above the mound wound in a snake-like line, flanked on either side by slender, silvery streams that glistened in the midday sun. It was the first time they had been free of the dense forest since leaving the clearing around Hirot, and stray puffs of cloud crawled overhead upon a blue field of sky.

“What do you say, Master Pearlhammer?” Erin asked, fingering the pendant at her neck. “Could that be the tomb?”

“I s’pose it could at that,” the dwarf said, rubbing at his mouth. He raised his voice. “Haffoot and I will take the lead, then our cleric and wizard behind. The rest of you follow but keep yer eyes open for threats.”

“What sorta threats we watchin’ fer?” one of the humans, a rough-looking fellow of middle years with a scowling face and a dagger, asked.

“Dunno,” Umur grunted. “But I don’ trust open spaces. Watch the skies. Watch the trees. Watch the grass. Just keep your eyes peeled.”

The group made their own serpentine line, winding their way down the grassy slope into the vale. It was not a precarious way down, nor a deep valley. Soon they gathered on the vale’s floor, facing a shallow stream and the broad “head” of the mound, though this close nothing about the place seemed particularly snake-like.

“Look there,” Briene added enthusiastically, pointing with a slender finger. “Set into the hillock there! That’s the door, my father said.”

They approached, eyes casting up and around everywhere upon Umur’s warning. Yet by all accounts it was simply a picturesque location on a pleasant, mild day, with no danger about. Sunlight glittered off the shallow pool between them and the mound, and a slight breeze ruffled the tall grass all around.

The round stone was large, perhaps as tall as either dwarven man, and from this distance they could make out faint spirals carved into its flat surface, worn by time to be almost indiscernible.

“It’ll take some work to move that stone,” Umur grunted and looked around at the rest of their ragtag gathering, none of whom looked particularly strong. He opened his mouth to say something but thought better and snapped it shut. Instead, he simply muttered, “A good deal of work.”

“Shall we examine it, then?” Haffoot asked brightly, and then without waiting for a response splashed into the pool.

“Wait! Dammit, halfling,” Umur complained, and splashed after her. Erin was at their heels, while the rest, including Hilda, waited apprehensively at the stream’s edge.

The pool was not deep, only reaching Haffoot’s knees. A white sand bed stirred as the three adventurers moved, clouding the water.

“Oh, what’s this, then?” Haffoot paused and reached down to pull something from the pool. It was an old–perhaps very old–animal hide wrapped around something bulkier, secured with rotting leather straps.

“There’s more here. Come, lass,” Umur said, moving his foot experimentally. “Bring it back to the group. Let’s see what these are, laying in the water.”

The bundle was indeed ancient, and the leather and hide sloughed away as they unwrapped it. Inside was a nicked and pitted bronze sword, a handful of tin and bronze coins, and a cracked, humanoid skull. All were badly treated by time and the elements.

It’s finally time to roll some dice! As with all puzzles in a solo game, I find myself deferring to Intelligence checks. In this case, however, I’m going to say that the only three individuals who can make the check are Hilda, Erin, and the church apprentice Briene, because this bundle has both mystical and religious roots. In general, DCC allows anyone to make this sort of skill check if you can justify it with the character’s occupation and background. I’ll set the DC at 12, slightly higher than a normal task.

Hilda rolls a [10+0] 10, which is close, but she can’t quite grasp what’s going on.

Erin rolls a [1+1] 2. I like nat-1s to hold a negative consequence, so she’ll have a wrong interpretation with high conviction.

Briene rolls a [6+1] 7 and simply doesn’t know.

Nobody figures it out. That could be bad for them.

“What do you make of that?” asked Hilda, peering over the others’ shoulders with the Hirot villagers. “A sacrifice of some kind, for some sort of ritual?”

“No,” Erin announced, a fierce grin of satisfaction on her lips. “It’s a burial ground. Ulfheonar’s tribe buried their warriors at the foot of his tomb in honor of their chieftain. This is blessed news. It means you have led us, by Shul’s will, to the correct spot, Briene.”

“Oh,” the comely young woman blushed. “I’m glad.”

“Let’s go, Master Pearlhammer,” Erin splashed back into the water. “Any of you with strength, come help us roll the stone aside.”

To gain entrance to the tomb, the PCs must move the stone, a Herculean task requiring a DC 25 Strength check. Fortunately, the module says that up to 5 PCs can add their strength modifiers to the check. Unfortunately, only Erin and Tor Goldfinger, the dwarven chest-maker, have positive Strength modifiers, which makes the task effectively impossible. After some struggle, I’ll say they use a log as a lever, increasing their action die to d24 and lowering the DC to 22.

The PCs attempting the check are Erin, Umur, Tor, Joane, and the gongfarmer Anthol. Combined they have a +2 to Strength, so will need to roll 20 or better. Whew. Unless they critically fail, what repeated rolls costs them is time, and too many failures may result in fatigue.

It takes six rolls to beat the DC, which isn’t terrible but represents, I’ll say, several hours of the day. If any other delays hit them, they’ll need to camp outside before returning to Hirot.

Meanwhile, I have not yet taken advantage of Haffoot being a lucky Halfling, which is a huge part of the class. She does things like find the wrapped goods in the water, but let’s have her luckiness start to matter more. During the time that the others are throwing themselves against the stone door, I’ll give Haffoot a chance to discover something else.

Haffoot rolls a straight Luck roll: She also rolls a nat-1! For a Luck roll, however, you roll under the attribute score (which for her is 12), aiming to roll low instead of high. It’s an element of DCC that I can imagine being difficult for beginners, when a 20 or a 1 is terrific or awful. Anyway, that is a very lucky roll indeed, because if she had failed, the party would encounter a threat at the door that would surely kill several of them. Because of her extreme success, I’ll say that she makes her discovery well before the others can pry the stone loose from the entrance to the tomb, saving them a watery fate none of them yet suspects.

It was a task easier spoken than accomplished. Five people could fit around the circular stone, and after some discussion the strongest of the group seemed to be Erin, Umur, the girl Joane, the dwarven chest-maker Tor, and a human gongfarmer. Yet even with their muscles straining, the group could not move the heavy slab even a hair’s breadth. It was Umur, sweating and near collapse in his black armor, who eventually suggested they use a lever of some kind. The others went in search of one within the vale while the group at the stone recovered.

While Hilda and the other villagers scattered, Haffoot made a slow perimeter around the mound itself. She walked in the clumsy saunter brought on by her club foot, scratching at her chin and allowing her instinct to guide her. As she scrutinized the mound, she absently whistled a tune her brother used to sing.

“Now, what’s this?” she grinned, stepping through the shallow stream to examine something pale caught in what appeared to be a cleft in a stone. Haffoot bent down to tug out a shred of homespun cloth. Pulling it free caused the stone to shift somewhat. She bent down and, tongue protruding as she squinted, peered closely.

“Oy!” she called out to where she could hear Umur cursing and complaining about how bloody hard it could be to find a bloody tree in a bloody forest. “Umur! Come see this, yeah?”

Hilda was the nearest to the halfling. “What is it?” she called from up the hill towards the forest’s edge.

“Go get the dwarf and Erin! I found somethin’!”

Amazingly, the halfling had stumbled upon a collapsed section of the structure beneath the earthen mound, and seemingly a way to enter the tomb without moving the impossibly heavy stone door. Umur argued that using a tree trunk as a lever would have worked, but he could see his own fatigue mirrored on the others’ faces and gave up the protest with a grumbled murmur about “halfling luck.” Everyone else was more than happy to clear away the more manageable pieces of rock, clearing a gap large enough for any of them to squeeze inside.

“We dwarves, Erin, and Haffoot can see in the dark,” he grumbled to the humans. “Best light a torch or two for the rest o’ you. Now let’s go… we’ve lost enough daylight with that fool door. If we waste much more time, we’ll be sleepin’ in the forest tonight instead of a warm bed.”

One by one, they began to get on their hands and knees to push themselves feet first into the gap in the earth. First the four Graymoor residents disappeared, then Joane, then, with murmured nervousness, the others. The last two were Briene and an older man with a pinched face and white beard.

“What is it, Riffin?” the woman asked him. “You seem reluctant.”

“Fools, all of them,” the man spat. “Did you not see the cloth? Not one mention of who or what it belonged to. I don’t expect an empty tomb, waiting to be plundered, girl, and neither should you.”

“Oh!” she gasped. “Let’s go talk to them, then.”

“They won’t listen,” Riffin shook his head, disgust woven into every word. “They’re desperate, Briene. If the tomb is already plundered or the spear is not there or the witch cannot make good on her promise… well, they have no other options. They’ll leave us and escape the Jarl’s justice and Hound’s jaws.”

“No! Riffin, they’re heroes!”

“Don’t be ridiculous, child. They’re travelers who surprised the Hound and were lucky to beat it once. They’ve no loyalty to Hirot. Stay with me here. Don’t follow foolishness.”

Briene straightened and set her chin. “I will follow them, but if you won’t, I understand. Are you heading back, then?”

Riffin made a face and spit into the water. “Nine hells, girl. I’m only here for you. Go then, and I’ll stay here as lookout. If you don’t return, I’ll tell the Jarl of this foolish expedition and wait for the Hound to come for me.”

“Oh, Riffin,” she lay a hand on his shoulder. He looked down on her slender fingers, the pain of longing in his eyes. “You’re always so dire. We’ll all be back, with the spear. You’ll see. We have Justicia and Shul watching us!”

“Go on, then.”

She flashed him a bright smile and shimmied into the cleft. Riffin, frowning and eyes glittering with frustration, watched the darkness for several heartbeats. Then, with a curse, he wandered a few paces from the stream to sit in the grass and wait.

On the other side of the gap was what had once been a square catacomb of some kind, its ceiling canted towards the opening and piles of rubble littering the hard-packed earth of the floor. The walls still stood and were simply immense stone slabs set into the ground. Contrasting with the bright sunshine outside, the place felt damp, huddled, and dark, even by torchlight.

“Truly, Shul smiles down from his moonlit throne today,” Erin whispered once they had all gathered, her voice echoing even using hushed tones. “Well done, Haffoot.”

“Are you sure it’s Ulfheonar’s tomb?” Briene whispered fervently, eyes darting everywhere. She had been the last to arrive, but the other villagers were more than happy for her to move closer to the front with the four outsiders.

“It’s a tomb, alright,” Umur answered. “Let’s find where the chief might be buried.”

The room led to a long, narrow hallway with the same stone-slab walls and packed-earth floors. Given the collapse, several people eyed the ceiling warily. It was a cramped experience, and the sounds of their feet, armor, leather straps, and shuffling cloth crowded out any opportunity to listen to ensure they were alone.

Thankfully, the narrow corridor met a larger hallway with a slightly raised ceiling. Umur and Erin, in the lead, scanned both directions and sighed. To the left, the hallway appeared to open to a much larger, lower-ceilinged chamber, while to the right was an even larger, higher-ceilinged chamber. Two smaller corridors, like the one they’d just exited, branched off as well.

“Lotta options,” Umur grumbled. “Stands to reason the left is where we woulda come in through the stone door.”

“Yes,” Erin nodded. With a whisper she added, “We can look there last, to see if perhaps there is a way to open it from the inside. In the meantime, shall we check the side corridors?”

“Maybe later. If we’re looking for the chief’s tomb, it’s gonna be somewhere grand.”

“To the north, then,” Erin announced, slightly louder so the others could hear.

They could walk two abreast here, so Umur and Erin took the lead, with Haffoot and Hilda close behind. Joane and Briene followed most closely, with the others paired off after that.

None of them sensed the gray-skinned figures in dull rags that crawled, spider-like along the ceiling behind them. Their overlarge eyes reflected in the torchlight, and forked tongues ran along too-wide mouths filled with sharp teeth.

Doom of the Savage Kings, Chapter 6