In the Thyation year of 1008, a group of villagers in Whitehart fought valiantly against some trolls and kobolds. Amazingly, the village withstood the terrible onslaught ("We're first level and we have to fight trolls and kobolds specialised in crossbow?").

The group of adventurers including Thorfinn Treefoot (a priest of Frey), Hrothgar the Mountain, Zim Skyfarer, Ulfang Ulgorson, Amora Duncan's Brat and a few others, foolishly went to scout on the kobolds for the Jarl.Several trolls and some frost-breathing wolves later (still first level!) they came across two adventurers from Thyatis who were looking to make their fortune, but had run into bad luck: Malor Hedge-fiend and Julara Wolfslayer. Then they met a Muldor Dwarf.

Muldor Dwarves are famed for their insanity, and their wonderful ability to make magic items. This dwarf proceeded to prove the point by shooting his crossbow, which promptly felled a nearby tree. Furious, the environmentalist party attacked. Both Ulfang Ulgorson and Hrothgar the Mountain died, after Hrothgar and Julara smashed the crossbow, causing a terrible cold to spread forth from the dissipating magic. (This was the beginning of a spree of dead PCs for me in both this campaign and another, it was a troubling time.)

A quiet woman by the name of Katya joined the party. She was a priestess of Freya, and also had some other interesting abilities - she was a psionicist and could see well at night, gifts from Freya surely!

Zim had a map to some old Gnomish caverns, caverns which had been overrun by kobolds. Katya got separated from the party a few times in the caverns, but did manage to survive for a while, while the party explored the caverns and tried to work out how to deal with the kobolds. In the end however, Katya died, victim of kobolds (best as I recall).

Next came Rodin the Forsaken from Norvick, a mage and valiant fighter. Rodin wore a strange runed bracelet about his wrist and wielded a broadsword. Unfortunately, when Rodin cast spells he became tired, but his powers, channeled through the bracelet, enabled him to cast more spells in a day than a normal mage.

After further travels in the wilderness, and scouting on some gnolls, we met Safranna, a centaur who's clan had been killed by the gnolls. In this time, we met Or'lan, a ranger, who had somehow been disturbed by the gnolls who had possession of his gear. We equipped Or'lan who made light work of the gnolls and got his stuff back. The Jarl sent some men to kill the gnolls, and while some gnolls were killed, many escaped.

Some time later, near winter, the party came across a runed archway, with stairs leading beyond that. They travelled through the archway after some difficulty and experimentation, and eventually came across the land of the Shadow Elves - where Rodin promptly killed an engineer who was standing on top of the edge of a wall, because Rodin believed the engineer to be a mage reading a scroll.

Taken in for judgement by the Shadow Elves, we were sentenced to helping a priestess by the name of Phoranin to explore some sections underground. Rodin's comments about virginity did not go down well with the two-hundred year old virgin elf, but then Rodin always had a rough tongue since his days as an outlaw.

Helping Phoranin, we came across a magical broadsword that would make the owner berserk. After some wrangling, Rodin asked that he be able to take the sword to a friend who would be interested in it, rather than Thorfinn having the blade destroyed. However, Thorfinn was not to be challenged by this, and took back the sword. Consulting Phoranin, she divined that the blade should be destroyed. Rodin left the party in dismay, having failed to make friends or treasure, he stayed with the Shadow Elves to study their magic and do some magical research for them (exit Rodin). We also met Or-den from Rockholme, a dwarven crossbow sharpshooter, while with the Shadow Elves.

The party was then sent to the surface with Phoranin and another Shadow Elf by the name of Tessarael - a scout and warrior.
Some battles occurred as the party adventured, and at some stage Or-den's arm was broken or chopped off. Fortunately we met up with Or'lan, who took us to see Aegon, a priestess of Vanya, who fixed Or-den's arm in exchange for Or-den teaching her specialisation in the crossbow. Tessarael also spent some time with her, teaching her the hand crossbow. Or-den took up the worship of Vanya.

The next year the party returned to the Gnomish caverns to find some worshippers of Nyx mining through the flowstone with undead zombies and skeletons, having cleared out the kobolds, looking for something. We found out that by charming one of the mages with them, Shannon, that they were apparently looking for a part of the Sundered Man.

After travelling back to Serraine, Zim's home, and picking up a priest of Garal Glitterlode called Aratna Skyratchet and a windsinger faenrie called Lani, they returned to try and stop the followers of Nyx. They tried to prevent the followers of Nyx finding this part of the terrible necromancer, the Sundered Man, who would come back to life if the seven pieces were assembled. However, despite defeating several vampires, we were thwarted by a terrible Night Giant, who laughed and took the urn with the remains, thanking us.

The party was not to be laughed at, and proceeded to annoy the Night Giant sufficiently, that he said "Eni mini miny mo ... Die!" pointing at Julara. Julara collapsed, dead. The Night Giant having done his work to clean the gene pool, proceeded to fly away.

The party started mining through the rest of the flow stone, detecting magic to try and find stuff underneath the rock. Indeed, they found much of value, but they also found trouble. Amazingly, Tessarael and the party managed to survive meeting a beholder. The dragon was a different kettle of fish.

Dragons in the Northern Reaches are singularly unpleasant. Aratna found this out when he was dissolve by acid. Thorfinn tried to fight the dragon, and managed to survive by the strength provided by Frey.

Despite all this, the party decided to try and kill the dragon again. Amora and Tessarael wisely ran away, unfortunately they came back to try and help Thorfinn. Thorfinn and Tessarael became lunch, but the rest of the party was saved by the timely arrival of Talib.

Having killed the dragon, Talib proceeded to reincarnate Thorfinn and Tessarael. Thorfinn came back as Thora Greywallker, but Tessarael somewhat to his horror came back as a green elf - a surface elf! (The Shadow Elves hate green elves, specifically the Alfheim Elves.) Thora also arrived with a wolf companion by the name of Remus.

In the next couple of years the party cleared out the Gnomish caverns, and proceeded to mine through the rest of the flowstone to see what might be uncovered, left behind by the gnomes. We found the crystal crossbow and some other interesting items.

Flying through the Heldanic Freeholds, we were accosted by one of the flying ships of the Heldanic Knights. We tried to fly away in the Falcon, but were too slow. It fired some terribly destructive beams at us, partially destroying a wing of the plane, and we crashed into the ground.

The Heldanic Knights from the flying ship advanced upon us, but we put up fierce resistance. Or-den repeatedly firing the crystalline crossbow at the leader typified this, firing repeatedly, even when the leader was upon him. Or-den was cut down, killed by a blow from the leader of the Heldanic Knights.

We were captured and taken back to their ship, but managed to escape. Tessarael and the party took some of the Heldanic sailors hostage in the hold, and threatened to kill them - the Heldanic leader did not respond, so Tessrael killed two. The Heldanic leader then responded saying that he had Phoranin ... Tessarael would not surrender, and demanded the the knight surrender or let us go, which was refused.

The Heldanic Knight went to the control room of the flying ship and proceeded to raise it several hundred feet in the air and then let it drop. Somehow we survived, but many of us were unconscious - only living due to the ministrations of Thora.

Back on the ground we forlornly tried to make repairs to the Falcon. We were approached by some locals, who Tessarael assumed would be on the side of the Heldanic Knights, and tried to pass himself off as a spy from Wendar who had survived the ship falling. Unfortunately the locals were rebels.

The rebels attacked Tessarael, but Thora cast a spell which entangled all but three of them. The three then proceeded to try to kill Tessarael, who clearly outmatched them as a swordsmen. Tessarael called for their surrender, they ignored him, he killed one of them, and then they surrendered.

There has been much debate about Tessarael's actions in these incidents, with killing the two sailors held hostage (keep in mind that Tessarael was terribly wounded himself, only having been roused to consciousness by healing from Thora while in the brig of the Heldanic Knight flying ship) and killing one of the rebels.

Fortunately, the carpenter amongst the rebels still helped the party mend Zim's flying ship, and the party was then able to continue their journey.

Major spoiler, not for players in this campaign:
Tessarael's bitter tale, in the Serraine jail cell. Covers Thyatian years 1010 to 1012.

Major spoiler, not for players in other Mystara campaigns:
A summary of the rest of the journey from Tessrael's perspective, may be found by reading through Tessarael's Notebook.
Written by Tessarael, in Heldanic and Alphatian, for his fellow party members in the Norse Campaign.

Back to Glenn's Norse Mystara campaign.

Back to main page.