The Ashes and the Spear

The barghest goes by the name of Gisel. She hunts with her pack, hoping to impress the occupants of Gwyn Onnen, who have little regard for Gisel’s ferocity or prowess. In turn, she resents and hates them, though this does not lessen her viciousness.

The journey skirts a foul tainted swamp full of stinking, rotting vegetation. Ordinary animals avoid the swamp, and there is no life in its muddy waters. Entering the swamp requires making a Conviction test at standard difficulty, with failure meaning the loss of d6 Spirit. There is a reason for entering the swamp — a man, stuck in the mud, slowly being pulled down. He is out of range of any thrown rope without entering the swamp. Pulling him free requires a simple Athletics or Vigour test or a clever solution. The consequence of failure is being pulled into the sucking mud.

The man is Arvel, an Ekel; he is an escapee from Gwyn Onnen prison. He is all too happy to report the conditions within the prison and of the other prisoners. Freeing the prisoners should become an additional goal of the quest. He will, of course, help the player characters, though, at the moment, he is not all that much use. Really he needs time to rest and recover from his trauma.

Gwyn Onnen is a Hollow Hill, entered by stepping between two great ash trees. The trees are now dead. The player characters will have been told of the entrance to Gwyn Onnen by the Ekeli but may have difficulty finding it.

Anyone with the Sense the Unseen or Shadow Shaping talent can find it easily. Otherwise, an Investigate test at standard difficulty is needed to seek it out. If the player character taking the test fails, they still find the entrance but attract attention from within. Those inside the entrance hall emerge, and they are ready for battle.

The entrance hall once served as a magnificent reception area. Now the walls and stone floor are stained with blood, the ornamental pillars chipped or toppled. A group consisting of two draugar per player character is fighting over who gets to eat two corpses drained of blood, while the psoglav guard who drained them looks on with interest.

The group is not keeping watch, but intruders who come to their attention will give them a more interesting amusement. Due to the width of the hall and the remains of the decorative pillars, it is possible to sneak past; this will involve a group test using the Sneak skill.

Tapestries hang in many halls within the Hollow Hill, most notably the Gallery, now full of refuse, and the Old Hall. They are no longer hung but lie in crumpled heaps on the floor. The two most famous tapestries of the Great Hall — one of which depicts an Ekel fighting a dragon, the other a peaceful forest gathering of Ekeli royals from different Hollow Hills — have been removed and dumped in the Gallery. Other tapestries tell more of the history of the Caledor Forest and of events during the Final War.

Collecting tapestries requires sneaking around and hauling them somewhere they can ultimately be removed; they are quite bulky, after all. Resolve this with a group test. Failure attracts the attention of a group of draugr (two per character).

The Great Hall is smeared with blood, and most of the furniture is smashed to pieces, but the wood panelling still has a certain grandeur. At one end is a stone dais; on the throne sits the Deathless King. As the king ordered, standing at permanent attention are three draugar per player character. Owain’s spear lies across the King’s lap; he keeps it ready to hand. Although the draugar are obedient, the psoglavoi require chastisement.

What the player characters do here is entirely up to them. The Deathless King, with the draugar, probably has the upper hand in a straight fight, although only one draugr per player character is near the throne.

The captives are behind wooden fencing reaching from floor to ceiling in what were once the royal sleeping quarters. In total, there are twenty prisoners located here. One psoglav per player character guards the captives. Occasionally, a psoglav gets hungry; it either feeds on a captive or tries to but is stopped by the others. Even if it kills a captive, the Deathless King permits such feeding as long as there is fresh meat for him to raise into undead each day. A psoglav who manages to abstain from feeding is the one selected to take part in the ceremony — a great honour.