The Heroes of Gralion - Session 1

Vincenzo Riccardi
The Dragon is coming...

The Party

• Earna Thorne (Level 1 Fighter). A grizzled house-shield of Brocdwell, Earna is strong but envious.
• Kingsley of Brocdwell (Level 1 Fighter). A ranger who hunts in the Black Forest, Kingsley is perceptive but lazy.
• Father Wesley (Level 1 Cleric). A sword cleric who travels the land slaying monsters for money. Father Wesley is fearsome but greedy.
• Mother Wren (Level 1 Cleric). An old lady and a sword cleric, Mother Wren is fast but cruel. She has 1 HP.

The Prelude

    The Dragon has awoken from his century-long slumber and is now terrorizing the kingdom of Gralion. Terrible creatures are crawling out of Fire Mountain, including drakes (basically kobolds), drakehounds, and skorns, eight-foot tall draconic spellcasters. The king sent his four greatest knights, the Paladins, to stop the Dragon, armed with the legendary shield Artus, which is immune to the Dragon's dreaded flame.

    The Paladins disappeared upon entering Fire Mountain, so the king put together a secondary, lesser team composed of Earna (his childhood friend), Kingsley (the best tracker in the Black Forest), Father Wesley (a local folk hero), and Mother Wren (Arloch's old nanny who he wanted to get rid of).

    They are the kingdom's best hope last hope.

The Session

    The Last Hope sets off from Lindum, the capital of Gralion. After debating between the Black Forest and the port city of Valburn, the Last Hope decides to head to Valburn. On their way there, the party spots a fancy looking carriage being robbed by a dozen bandits. Hoping to get gold and more valuables, the group sets into action. Kingsley sneaks by the bandits and sets himself up atop a tree, before shooting one straight through the head with his bow. Mother Wren charges into the middle of the bandits and is stabbed to death. Father Wesley intimidates some of the bandits by bashing in the skull of one of their fellows, causing some of them to flee. Finally, Earna kills two bandits and rescues the noblewoman trapped in the carriage.

    The noblewoman introduces herself as Aldora of House Belle. She gives them each a single copper piece for rescuing her, but the cleric demands more. She relents and gives them a second copper piece. The group escorts Aldora to Valburn, but find the city burning; two massive armies, one composed of the house-shields of House Fisc and the other composed of half-draconic flesh abominations.

Jacob Portillo
The Drakes of Fire Mountain

    The group hurries into the port-town, where Father Wesley steals the coin satchel from Aldora and threatens to kill her. Swearing revenge, Aldora flees. The group notices that the denizens of Valburn look sickly and discover that a sickness has hold of the city. Father Wesley visits the local church of Aeon and reads there about the ways to kill the Dragon. Long ago, the first king of Gralion slew Maw, a colossal dragon. From its body the king created four draconic artifacts: the shield Artus (lost in Fire Mountain), the sword Lankyr (currently missing in the northern highlands), the dagger Marlian (possessed by the mage Marigold), and armor Morgded (in the treasure horde of the Dragon). As Wesley is reading, Earna and Kingsley get drunk at the local tavern. Kingsley catches the sickness and starts violently vomiting.

    The Last Hope decided to venture to Fire Mountain, recover Artus and Morgded, and somehow use those to slay the Dragon. As the group continues to Fire Mountain, they stop at a village to rest one evening. The small hamlet is empty of people, but Kingsley could here screams coming from the woods around the village. He investigates, only to find himself pushed into a ring of ancient stones, where he is confronted by an eight-foot tall skorn and its two drake minions. He is sacrificed to the Dragon amid the terrified whispers of the townsfolk of the village, who seek to placate the dragon through human blood.

    Father Wesley breaks into a lonesome cottage near the village and discovers a spellbook. Suddenly, an old man appears at the doorway of the cottage." What have you got there?"

Notes

    For the beginning of this campaign (Four-shot? Five-shot?) I am running Our Is The Kingdom by Old Raging Barbarian. I am testing out a new OSR system for this campaign, which I might post about if anyone shows any remote interest.