The Great Dungeon Crawl, Session 13: Attack of the Jotunns!

September 27th, 1084 Korlai Reckoning.
Recap written by Vic

Characters:
Krusher as "Fleck"
Omegaman as "Kojack"
Vic as "Buckles"
Teragen as "Bea"
A Paid Actors off the Street as "Gary" and "Steven"

        Kip Ironhead, a female thief, approached the delvers and came with a peace offering of a single blunt of orcweed. (Orcweed reduces the user’s IQ to 7, but gives the user extra levels of ST equal to the amount of IQ lost for a number of minutes equal to 10 x IQ-20.) Kip explained that her group is planning on sharing the cost of the Old Watcher Keep with the party as well, with Bea also funding the work on the keep.

        There is a cave system underneath that meets up with the wine cellar, and Kip explained that she would like that to be her own personal base. The other group is planning on clearing it out later, but they want the cave, or at least part of it, once it is fully restored. They also want to split the cost of the base.

        Kip also indicated that they have a magic cooking pot of heating that always stays lit, and indicated that the party could use it. Bea, the group’s patron, decided to come along on the delve with Fleck, Buckles, and Kojack.

        About a mile into our four-mile hike, the party saw four Ice Giants (Jotunns) that began sprinting towards the party. Buckles levitated himself and Bea up, Kojack used his Heroic Grace (+10 DX!), and Fleck used an Agility Potion (+6 DX!), and readied for battle.

        The Jotunns charged, and it was a decisive and frightening battle. Buckles and Bea were not quite high up enough, and two giants attacked them. They both managed to dodge out of the way, with Buckles critically succeeding on dodge, leading one of the giants to lose his balance and fall to the ground.

        Kojack and Fleck did a mighty job fighting off the giants, with Fleck bringing one down with a savage strike to the Jotunn’s leg. Buckles set one’s shield on fire with a fireball, but was otherwise not terribly effective.

        Kojack blocked two mighty club hits, but those combined broke his shield, and another hit resulted in a very serious injury. Kojack managed to stay up, though. Bea could not do much, but did pull out a scroll to heal Kojack.

        Meanwhile, Fleck put down two of them, one with some face shots and another with a skull shot. Unfortunately, one of the two remaining giants—all of whom had Luck, and used it to great effect—smashed Kojack into pulp, well past -5x HP.

        As one giant picked up a boulder and got ready to throw it at Fleck, the half-orc warrior downed a third giant with two savage strikes to the torso. The last one threw the boulder at Fleck and hurt him some, and then ran away. Buckles tried to hit the fleeing giant with a fireball, but missed, and the Jotunn got away.

        They polished up the loot, which was over 100 lbs of furs and a silver torc with a huge ruby, and carried the three skulls back to town. After they got back, they got a reward (bounty) from the Count ($8,000 each), who also offered them another $8,000 total to get the remaining Jotunn. In the end, each of the three surviving delvers gained a tremendous amount of wealth.

        After ensuring that Kojack got his proper burial, the group spoke to some visitors to the town, who were some Sternmen (Viking types) and some Antresians, who were hired as guards to Sir Jonas of Kent.

        Buckles talked to the head Antresian, Nicholas. He wore heavy mail armor, a lamellar harness, and carried a two-handed axe. Nicholas says that he came from Antresia, but his allies don’t come from Antresia, explaining that the Sternmen are proud folk, an interesting group, and quite warlike.

        Buckles and company learned that Sir Jonas wanted to have an audience with the Count. After some discussion and exchanging of information, the party—now called The Giant Slayers—retired for the day.

Author's Notes 
    No notes were provided.

GM's Notes             

    Wow. A random encounter shaped the entire session! They got a bunch of treasure, learned a bit about the world, and even spoke (indirectly) with the highest ranking local noble! It was fun, despite the death of Kojack, and the party has resolved to hunt down their enemies in two weeks time, after our hiatus next week.

Character Advancement
    +2-3pts from Loot
    +1pts from Roleplay
    +0pts from Exploration
    +0pts from Freeing Prisoners
    +0 Bonus Points
    -1pt: Kojack died.
    Total: +3 to +4 points.