The Battle Brothers hire two new members at the same time as the party’s mage, Grimoire the goblin, is taking a short break from adventuring to work on improving his magestaff. They don’t want to risk Level 5 without their main mage but they feel ready to further explore the city of the (un)dead dwarves on Level 4.

1,5 hours session

Gunderholfen by G. Hawkins: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/265629/gunderholfen

Player Characters (PCs) – The Battle Brothers:

• Aracyne, Elf Hunter, fearless Guild Leader, (Isaac)
• Jedri, Ratman Thief, he rather enjoys his rat-shape curse (Isaac)
• Bumwild, Gnome Mage, studies to become a summoner (Isaac)
• Forka, Dogman Knight, fierce warrior (Edmond)
• Torch, Goblin Knight, not expendable anymore (Edmond)
• Timbo, Human Arcanist, wields both crossbow and lightning (Edmond)

What the other adventuring guilds are doing at the moment:

• Green Imps: Longfelt, adventuring in Uzul’s manor
• The Protectors: adventuring in Gunderholfen, except Delevan (convalesent)
• Widowmakers: Longfelt, recruiting
• The Musers: adventuring in Gunderholfen
• The Ravens: adventuring in Gunderholfen

This session’s main goal: Explore more of the city of the masons

Longfelt

• Back in town, the adventurers rent the best rooms and have the best meals & wine of the Hare & Hound inn.
• Grimoire starts work on upgrading his magestaff, will take a week or so.
• Maeve, the innkeeper and ex-adventurer, has found two rookies for the Battle Brothers to hire, Bumwild the Gnome and Timbo the human arcanist. Both can do a little bit of magic.
• The Ravens show up at the inn! Ranfurly the Depraved, is in a good mood and praises the Battle Brothers for their boldness (on attacking him), but not without a quip on how they needed to be two guilds to fight his. He wishes them all the best and leaves, onward to a long week of carousing & depravity.
• Some basic shopping, some less basic holy water buying at the Temple of Persephone and they’re good to go.

Gunderholfen

• Travel to Ganfal swamp is uneventful.
• The Battle Brother go swiftly through Level 1, take the secret stairs in Level 2 to Level 3, go through Level 3, say hi to the Ogres and reach Level 4.
• They inspect their outpost, it hasn’t been disturbed.
• They go south from there, don’t have any encounters, reach the Flaming Bats’ cave and the surviving couple isn’t interested in a fight.

Level 4C

• They daydream for a second on what they could do with the dwarven ballistae on the wall at the entrance of Nharzed.
• They go directly east.
• A dozen zombies get out of the ruins but the adventurers just walk faster until they reach their objective: a set of double doors they had spotted in an earlier delve.
• The doors are very heavy but with Forka on one side and Timbo and Torch on the other, the PCs manage to open them. They open into dusty room – the air is stale and there’s an unnatural cold. There’s also two ranks of (standing but unmoving) skeletons (dwarves) with spears and wearing rusty chainmail.
• The PCs hurry to close the doors behind them as the (slowly) pursuing zombies are closing in. This activates the skeleton warriors though.
• Those are tougher than the standard skeletons by far, armored and they still know how to fight efficiently in close ranks, using their spears to good effect.
• Fortunately, the adventurers have spent a good deal of money on holy water and now use it generously, throwing bottles on the compact mass of the undead in grenade-like fashion. Timbo tries a Lightning Bolt on the undead and damages two but also harms Forka in the process as the electric shock jumped on him too. Bumwild helps with (single target) Fireballs.
• The PCs got a few wounds from spear thrusts but are victorious and push on.
• There’s another set of double doors, cold to the touch.
• They open the doors to reveal a large ominous room – an ossuary with a tall monument in the middle. On top of the monument, sitting in a stone chair, is evil incarnate: a Wight. The undead foe whispers ancient curses. Aracyn shuts it up with a thrown bottle of holy water right on its face. The Wight screams and then seizes Forka (who was starting to climb the monument) with an invisible force and throws him away like a doll. But then Timbo and Bumwild, one after the other, cast a supercharged Lightning Bolt and Fireball at the undead, destroying him before it had time to make good on its curses…
• Three treasure chests can be found at the base of the monument with a great haul of gold coins and nice dwarven-crafted jewels. The BEST treasure the Battle Brothers have found to date! Very happy with their find, the adventurers get some rest in the ossuary, the cold and evilness of the place having diminished in large part since the demise of the Wight.
• They fight some zombies still lingering nearby and then proceed to leave Gunderholfen and they manage to get back to town without any further hindrance.

Closing Comments:

• The guild had 6 members for this expedition, 7 in total, this means that we might see something of a roster play in the future (to comply with the 6 members threshold). That’s interesting.
• No random encounters rolled, zero, and the boys were laser-focused on one area of their map – so they got there and out fast.
• The wight in the Dragonbane Bestiary is a middling foe, similar in strength to a D&D one I’d think, and per the book this one could summon undead minions each round, but the PCs didn’t mess around and BLASTED him with all they had. Good move.