Chapter 1: Into the Wilderness

[Marullus]

Ok, group test it is. I will need rolls from everyone.

Valdis can invoke Guidance on any one roll but to be most fair in pbp, can apply the result to posted or unposted rolls (not just before).

[Rex]

Did I post all the rolls you need from me?

[Enoch]

As the group treks deeper into the wilderness, Valdís spots a squirrel and begs the group to stop. She pauses and sits cross-legged on the ground, weaving a flaxen outline that resembles animal tracks. The flax sinks into the soil, a pale green glow filling the space that it used to occupy. The glow grows into the ghostly outline of a Kuning hunter, who crouches next to Valdís and speaks into her ear. After several minutes, Valdís nods and the figure fades away. She begins speaking to the squirrel in its own tongue, chittering and clicking.

I'm assuming at some point we're likely to see a squirrel or a bird or a deer or something along our path. If not, ignore this or call for an Animal Handling check or whatever you want. Otherwise, I cast speak with animals as a ritual.

I'd like to ask it if it can help guide us to a wolf, or at least point us in the right direction- I'm assuming any prey animals around would likely be aware of where one could be found. Animal Handling seems appropriate to persuade it:
Animal Handling: [1d20+6]=11+6=17[1d20+6]=12+6=18


Active Perception: [1d20+6]=15+6=21[1d20+6]=13+6=19
Survival: [1d20+6]=9+6=15[1d20+6]=1+6=7
Special CON save with Advantage: [1d20+5]=1+5=6[1d20+5]=1+5=6
my ancestors have failed me

[sastaz]

Vakar stays in the back of the group, always turning his head, looking for some unseen presence behind a stem, a rock or a fallen tree, letting the ray from his hooded lantern dart back and forth. He seems to be disturbed by the Mithal barbarian's endless bantering thoguh.

Perception check: [1d20+5]=4+5=9

"Stigandr, will you shut your mouth for the love of Freya. Not too draw bad spirits here, but to catch a dire wolf we need the silence of Hel rather than roaring thunder. Whisper like a restless spirit, please."

Constitution check: [1d20+3]=14+3=17
Constitution check: [1d20+3]=15+3=18 (so 18)

The Vestri are known for their fortitude and grit, and Vakar seems to be no exception, seemingly alert despite of the freezing cold.

Survival check: [1d20+1]=7+1=8

Hunting and wildlife not being his forte, he leaves that part to the others who are more so inclined.

Mesmerized by Valdis performance he hushes the others.

"See, we still have friends in this forest, even with the times being what they are." As the squirrel leaves, he greets it: "Jump along little friend. Careful now, for the night is dark."

Only the CON save was with advantage, right? The other two checks we only roll a single d20? Or maybe I got the rules wrong.

[Marullus]

Did I post all the rolls you need from me?

I do need the "Mystery roll [1d20][1d20]" just in case.

Also. If you could use that syntax instead of [_2d20] that will help my brain.

Only the CON save was with advantage, right? The other two checks we only roll a single d20? Or maybe I got the rules wrong.

Discussion:

In this case, I am allowing Advantage on the Con Save as a situational modifier. This is just DM discretion - I may decide something applies before or after you roll, which is why I always want two rolls together.

Some race and class abilities also may give Advantage. It is normally up to you to announce when you are using this in play.

There are also options for you to try to create narrative circumstances that result in me giving you Advantage. Good planning and roleplay is one way. Another way that is common is to use an appropriate tool proficiency in your roleplay of a skill check (an optional rule recommended in Xanathar's Guide). For example, Vakar is a skilled Herbalist. If you were to convincingly work your knowledge of wild plants into your Survival check to determine the habits of wild animals, that is something I might allow.

[Stirling]

Ralfwin Edwinsen

Ralfwin: (Wisdom based checks +4): Perception [1d20]=9 Survival [1d20]=3 Constitution [1d20+3]=3+3=6 mystery [1d20]=11[1d20]=2

Labours on the trek overloading with gear and self doubts. He excels normally in Wisdom related tasks but just wonders regarding the decision to commit to this War-party endeavour.

He tries to take it all in as part of 'suffering for the Faith', but in reality, he is cold and miserable, warmed only by the flicking tongues of fire from the torch he wields. He tries to make conversation with Skirfir, speaking in a passable dialect of Dvergr that he has learned. He wonders how the blue skinned humanoid adapts to the world and how they practice religion. Does their God require sacrifice for sins, atonement for wrongdoing, covenants in exchange for divine powers. What prohibitions they follow, eating meat or drinking alcohol. He has his prayer book with him, a weighted tome of faded yellow pages, intricately scripted in neat calligraphy with little illustrations painted by hand into the leading letters of main verses. The hard boiled leather cover proofed with beeswax to keep it dry. Unlike himself who shivers in the damp and snowfall.

[Unsungknot]

Doshea Ulfgar

"Oh, I will lead the way, don't worry your pretty head," Doshea says with a grin. Excited to forge her own way she holds her torch high, out of her direct line of sight so as not to interfere with her view of the surroundings. She brushes her talisman absently as she treks into unfamiliar ground in more ways than one. Being from a farming community survival is not her forte, so while she "leads" she listens to Stig, altering her course when he states she was following deer tracks, and asks questions as they travel. "How do you know what berries are good? What sort of tracks does a wolf leave?"

Perception: [1d20]=11; [1d20]=11
Survival: [1d20]=12; [1d20]=7
Con Save: [1d20+1]=2+1=3; [1d20+1]=18+1=19

She halts and waits while Valdis converses with the wild life. "Did he tell you anything useful," she asks Valdis, "Like where some wolves might be?"

Thinking that if a little squirrel speaks then surely wolves speak as well Doshea lets out howl, hoping to hear something in return.

[Rex]

Skirfir

Mystery rolls [1d20]=6 [1d20]=3

[Unsungknot]

I keep forgetting the mystery roll.

Doshea has the decency to look properly chagrined at her own contribution to the noise when Vakar admonishes Stig and chuckles quietly.

Mystery roll:
[1d20]=7

[Rex]

Skirfir

He tries to make conversation with Skirfir, speaking in a passable dialect of Dvergr that he has learned. He wonders how the blue skinned humanoid adapts to the world and how they practice religion. Does their God require sacrifice for sins, atonement for wrongdoing, covenants in exchange for divine powers. What prohibitions they follow, eating meat or drinking alcohol. He has his prayer book with him, a weighted tome of faded yellow pages, intricately scripted in neat calligraphy with little illustrations painted by hand into the leading letters of main verses. The hard boiled leather cover proofed with beeswax to keep it dry. Unlike himself who shivers in the damp and snowfall.

To Ralfwin, "We do not worship what you think of as Gods or a God. To us your Gods are individuals, very powerful individuals yes, but individuals none the less. We follow the old ways, as do your Gods. The very fabric of creation itself. Some of us feel a calling to some aspect of creation, me to the Smith for example. I am descended from Ivaldi, who along with his sons Brokk and Eitri made Thor's Hammer, Odin's Spear, Odin's Ring, a collapsible sailing ship, and a living boar smelted from solid gold. In some ways your Gods are more powerful than us, but in others we are more powerful then them. Such is the balance of creation."

Mystery rolls [1d20]=4 [1d20]=13

[Marullus]

Music and Ambiance: Blood on Wolf's Teeth
Adjudication:

Stig did not roll twice, so I can't apply any advantage to his Con roll, and he also didn't provide a mystery roll. I have rolled a second die for him:
Stig roll for Advantage [1d20]=13
If I limited to his own rolls, he would have failed. With the second roll for advantage, he succeeds.
...please provide the extra rolls.

Code: Select all

		Perception	Survival	Con
Stig 		Fail		(20) Pass	Pass (with above roll)
Skirfir		Fail		Pass		Pass
Valdis		Pass		Fail		Fail (ignore exhaustion)
Vakar		Fail		Fail		Pass
Ralfwin		Fail		Fail		Pass
Doshea		Fail		Fail		Pass

So, using the group test rules, that's a failure on Survival and on Perception. This means you have an encounter, it is NOT the wolf you sought, and you were surprised by it.

The Con Saves are all individual, however. Everyone passed except Valdis. Valdis gets Level 1 Exhaustion. I will note her symptoms in the narrative but game-wise the special ability of Kunning as northern nomads is to ignore the effects if Level 1 Exhaustion, explicitly.

Valdis succeeds at convincing squirrel to give directions to "wolf" - this will allow the next Survival roll to be at advantage from the squirrel's Help, after the consequences of this scene.

As the feast's rejoiced noises slowly fade away in the dark of the night behind you, the wind picks up and large flakes of snow resume, gradually heavier and heavier. The group slows to the pace of the Gothi of Odin, and after an hour you move beyond the tamer, foraged trees around the town and into the wilder, unspoiled forests of Freya's Mercy. The thin layer of snow that fell that morning was melted off in the heat of the town's bonfire but out here you're in the near-freezing cold and dark of the real Svilland winter and that morning's snow provides a fleeting opportunity to track footprints. As the last of twilight fades, the snows blow heavily around you, beginning to stick to the previous snowfall and obscure the tracks that criss-cross from the day's activity. The howling of the wind among the pine trees makes it harder for you to hear each other; it's time for you to find your prey. With the mounting snowfall, you know you have a limited opportunity to identify tracks to lead you on and it will only get more difficult as the night wears on...

As the last of twilight fades away, the kunning witch whispers an entreaty to her ancestors in her own language, green-tinged tongues of ghostlit flame flickering above her hand. She keeps her hand open, cupped upwards, sharing the too-pale illumination around her. Stig, Ralfwin, and Doshea each produce their own torches from their packs, being able to light them off of Valdis' hand-flame more easily than trying to spark them alight with flint and steel... the ghost flames have no problem lighting the torches even as they cause no harm to her naked hand. Vakar lights a hooded lantern, its illumination shining deeper into the forests as you move into the thick pine boughs.

Doshea takes the lead, out-front with her torch. She listens intently to Stigandr's advice as the warrior, tipsy from his cups, prattles on about the berries, spoor, and quickly fading footprints. Vakar admonishes Stig to silence, for the good hearing of wolves will surely alert your quarry. Valdis huddles in her furs in the middle without complaint, though her fingertips move from bright red to a worrying paleness. Ralfwin and Skirfir, lagging at the rear, chat with each other on the nature of the Nine Realms, Skirfir explaining her family's role in granting the Asgardian gods their most noteable powers. The snow and wind swirl more fiercely, and even with your many lights you find the tracks on the ground are gone.

Stig points out a squirrel's nest in the bole of a tree, Valdis holding up a hand for the group to stop. The witch kneels in the snows, spinning her distaff to spin loose flax to thread, then fingerweaving the thread into a design. You all stand and watch for over 10 minutes in the cold, warming fingers on your fading torches, chills trickling down your spine from more than the cold wind as she weaves literal fabric to alter the weave of life and death around you. The woven flax begins to glow with a pale green light as it disintigrates into dust. The glow, however, grows into the ghostly outline of a Kuning hunter, who crouches next to Valdís and speaks into her ear. After several minutes, Valdís nods and the figure fades away. She begins speaking to the squirrel in its own tongue, chittering and clicking. The squirrel, in turn, emerges from its hole and responds, chittering back to the woodland witch, providing, what Valdis states to you, is a bearing to the wolves den.

Valdis rises from the snow, brushing herself off with cherry-red fingertips, and you press on through the pitch-black forest, your lights brightening the blowing snow moreso than extending your vision into the darkened boughs. You don't make it far from the squirrel, your torches burning low, when the vertical edge of a forest plateau some 8' high comes into view ahead of you. Before you can choose a direction to veer, a howl cuts through the night, clear and bright as a rung bell, and a snarling canine hurls itself off the ledge and at Doshea! It's canine features and grey wolf-fur are instantly visible.

Since you failed the group perception test, it gets a surprise round.

Werevargr has multi-attack for claw/bite. According to the Shoving a Creature rules, it can sacrifice one of the attacks to do a contested athletics check to knock Doshea prone instead.
Doshea's mystery roll was 7, +5 for Athletics proficiency, is 13. The Werevargr rolls its Athletics to try and beat that.
Werevargr Shove [1d20+4]=10+4=14
It succeeds, so Doshea is on the ground. It now has advantage to its attacks on her, she has disadvantage on it, and she needs to spend half her movement (15') to stand back up when it is her turn. She doesn't have to escape a grapple, since it is attacking with its second move here.
...so second move is claws, with advantage.
Werevargr Claws [1d20+4]=18+4=22[1d20+4]=16+4=20[1d6+2]=4+2=6 slashing That has no problem hitting Doshea's AC of 17, so she takes 6hp damage.

Now we'll go to regular initiative. The werevargr's roll is:
Werevargr Initiative [1d20+2]=1+2=3
...so, looks like you are all going first.

The weight of the creature bowls Doshea over backwards and bears her to the ground, its long claws tearing rivulets through the flesh of her shoulder and arm and spattering bright red blood across the snow as she lies prone beneath its bulk. (-6) In that moment, Stig notes that it is not, in fact, the fore-haunches of a wolf, but the shoulders of a man with human limbs, long clawed fingers and thumbs, though the head is entire a wolf's snout, blood dried brown and caked around its maw. It is the sharp-eyed Valdis who notes the creature appears already wounded - an arrowshaft embedded deeply in its side.

Roll initiative and your round 1 actions!

chap1_rnd1_map.JPG (82.89 KiB) Viewed 479 times

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Torches used by: Stig, Ralfwin, and Doshea. (1 hour; each subtract 1 from inventory.) Vakar lights a hooded lantern (6 hours). Only Skirfir doesn't carry a light. Valdis carries eerie flame, no inventory change.

Environment	Initiative Order	Effects in Play
Time: 6:30pm Date: The First Day of Winter (Nov. 1st) Temperature is currently -1c; feels much colder with the high winds and snow. Clouds are 100%, with evening wind and snowstorm.	None.	Twilight at 4:40pm (dim light) Night at 5:35pm (darkness)

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> Enoch as Valdís | Female | Kuning | Seiꝺr (1) | HD (1d8): 1 | HP: 11 | AC: 15 | Current Speed: 30' | Initiative: +2 | Darkvision: No | Spells - 1st: 1/2 | [Inspiration]
> Unsungknot as Doshea Ulfgar | Female | Mithal | Alle [Paladin] (1) | HD (1d10): 1 | HP: 11 5 | AC: 17 | Current Speed: 30' | Initiative: +3 | Darkvision: No
> sastaz as Vakar the Disowned | Male | Vestri | Rogue (1) | HD (1d8): 1 | HP: 11 | AC: 13 | Current Speed: 30' | Initiative: +2 | Darkvision: No
> Spearmint as 'Stig' Stigandr | Male | Mithal | Barbarian (1) | HD (1d12): 1 | HP: 15 | AC: 18 | Current Speed: 30' | Initiative: +3 | Darkvision: No | [Inspiration]
> Rex as Skirfir Uvaldi | Female | Dvergr (Stoneborn)| Gothi (Smidr) (1) | HD (1d8): 1 | HP: 10 | AC: 18 | Current Speed: 25' | Initiative: +1 | Darkvision: Yes | Spells - 1st: 2/2 |
> Stirling as Ralfwin Edwinsen | Male | Mithal | Gothi | HD (1d8): 1 | HP: 11 | AC: 16 | Current Speed: 20 | Initiative: +2 | Darkvision: No | Spells - (C) 1st: 2/2 (B) 1st: 1/1 |[Inspiration]

[Spearmint]

Stigandr Yngvarsen

"Hel's bells, Thor strengthen me to strike this cursed creature."

He says and immediately throws a javelin that he has at hand.

Stigandr: throws Svillander Javelin [1d20+5]=6+5=11 damage [1d10+5]=8+5=13Stigandr: Initiative (Dex +3) [1d20+3]=12+3=15

[Marullus]

If anyone needs help with the 5e action economy, please ask questions on the OOC thread and we will discuss. You get an Action, a Move, a Bonus Action, and a Reaction. You also need an initiative roll, and then add the extra mystery roll for me.

[Unsungknot]

Doshea Ulfgar (running HP count: 5)

Doshea bares her teeth at the werevargr in a humorless, aggressive smile. Holding her shield in front of her she yells at the beast, “Foul creature, now you die!” Slightly off balance from standing too quickly she takes a swipe at the creature with her axe before trying to slam it with her shield.

Initiative [1d20]=1+3=4
Battle axe attack [1d20]=1+5=6
Shield Bash [1d20]=15+4=19 [1d4]=2
Mystery roll [1d20]=9

Move=Standing
Action=Attack w/ battle axe
Bonus Action = Shield Bash
Reaction = any attack of opportunity which presents itself

[Stirling]

Ralfwin Edwinsen

The young cleric moves surprisingly fast as the Werevargr appears. His instinct is to ward and protect, calling upon Odin to strengthen his comrades rather than run headlong into battle himself. He intones a Bless spell which aids a trio of comrades (Doshea, Stigandr, Valdis) as they appear nearest the beast.


Ralfwin: Initiative [1d20+2]=19+2=21 Mystery roll [1d20]=12

Ralfwin: invokes BLESS spell (d4) boon x3 people: [1d4]=3

For other actions he will move away from getting caught among teeth and claws, seeking shelter under the boughs of the tree behind (NW) of him.

[Marullus]

Great! Ralfwin expends a first level slot for Bless. Doshea, Stigandr, Valdis - you should roll and add 1d4 to each of your attacks and saves. It lasts until Ralfwin loses concentration.

To amplify - what kind of prayer does Ralfwin intone? How does it exemplify his beliefs in the Sacrifice domain? (For Inspiration)

[Spearmint]

it looks like Ralfwin rolled a d4 for the bless. Would it be better that way, one roll to rule them all, a standard number given as the blessing or individuals roll to show what they receive?

Stigandr mystery roll:
Stigandr mystery roll [1d20]=15

Bonus actions would be to move towards the Werevargr to melee next round.

[sastaz]

Vakar quickly and silently puts his lantern down, notches an arrow on his signature Yew longbow, takes a step to the right ("south" on the map, one square) and lets an arrow fly towards the werevargr.

Initiative check: [1d20+2]=10+2=12

The arrow finds home but alas only graces the beast.

Bow attack: [1d20+4]=17+4=21, damage: [1d10]=2 (piercing)

Mystery roll: [1d20]=5, [1d20]=1 hnnngg

No bonus actions since they're both melee. No reaction I guess since the werevargr need to move out of reach (which is long for a longbow) until that triggers.

[Enoch]

Valdís shrieks in terror and flings the ghost-light in her hand toward the creature.

Initiative: [1d20+2]=17+2=19 [1d20+2]=6+2=8
Even with a great initiative myself Ralfwin still got the Bless off first!

Spell Attack Roll: [1d20+6]=3+6=9 [1d20+6]=15+6=21 plus Bless
Bless: [1d4]=2
Spell attack roll 11...if for some reason that hits:
Produce Flame damage: [1d8]=1 fire
Mystery roll: [1d20]=5

[Rex]

Skirfir

Initiative [1d20+1]=12+1=13

She moves to within 60 feet of the beast (if necessary, I didn't see a scale on the map) and casts Sacred Flame Cantrip.

No attack roll necessary, Dex save or 1d8 radiant damage.

Sacred flame damage [1d8]=5

Mystery rolls [1d20]=13 [1d20]=2