Thursday, January 6, 2011

Releasing the Chains - Part 2

After the battle with the Troll Shaman and his pet Ogre, the party moved into the rooms at the other side of the cavern. Here they found orcs lying in wait for them. The orcs had been besieging the last group of the Shadowed Chain dwarves. The party could hear them chanting, evidently to keep up their last magical defence.

The party, now adept at dealing with a few orcs quickly dealt with the enemy and came to the 4 dwarves and explained who they were and that they were sent by Rangrim.. The elderly dwarven leader Gwendar, magnificent in his tattoos of servitude introduced the others; Serka, devoted apprentice of Gwendar, and entirely disapproving of the ramshackle party, Rigdin, the young recruit racked with panic of their situation, and Duggin, stout and tenacious warrior.

"Thanks the gods you have come!" exclaimed Gwendar, clearly exhausted. "Now that all the orcs are dead we can finally seal in Stonefang forever" He explains that the body parts of the earth titan Stonefang must be placed in the magic circles around the Pit of Doom to confine the angry beast under the mountain. Without it he would surely rampage the region bringing all manner of giants and ogres to his call.

He goes on to tell the story of how the Shadowed Chain cult was brought into existence purely to bind Stonefang and that they had to call upon Torog, the terrible evil god of jailers and torturers to be able to accomplish the awesome task. With it the freedom that dwarves love so dearly was lost and so only the secret cult was created. In truth the Shadowed Chain was as tightly bound to the Underdark as Stonefang was to the bowels of the mountain.
But, everything went wrong when a stupid jealous member of the Glintshield clan found the Pit of Doom and stole the rib, igniting a civil war among the dwarves. Dwarf fighting dwarf over accusations of theft and sacrilege of Moradin. Worse still, the civil war allowed the orcs to gain the upper hand in their eternal struggle, resulting in the sorry mess that is found today.

The party, hearing the full story, is eager to help and explain that of the four parts they only have the Stone Hand. With Gwendar only having the Stout Rib it quickly becomes clear to the dwarf that the battles are far from over. He urges the party to search out the other two items and bring them to the cavern so that the mighty titan can be bound. he even offers that Duggin could accompany them to lend his axe to the cause.

Never shying from adventure the party agrees to regain the Heart and Eye of Stonefang and even decide that Duggin might be useful, stout dwarf that he is.

They march to the Citadel!

2 comments:

  1. OK, so we rescued Gwendalyn and his three dwarven girlfriends.
    We’ve finally worked out that the earthquakes are being caused by a massive but crippled Stone giant.
    Four items torn from his body are the keys to keeping him trapped: a Rib, a Hand, an Eye and his Heart.
    How is it that the only ‘part’ the Dwarves have is the one that was stolen by the ‘Glintshield’ clan?
    Vogir will ‘hand’ over the item that we already have and will help regain the missing two pieces…
    Perhaps not eagerly though.
    And as for Duggin…
    I suppose a guide will be helpful.
    Let him lead.
    :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Although Niema likes the clan members more than your average dwarf (the "shadow" before the "chain" and the awesome tattoos might have something to do with that), she also noticed that the stolen rib seems to be the only part those dwarfs have. Why not one of the not-stolen items? What exactly happened to the other three items? Who stole those (assuming that the hand was taken by orcs after it got lost?)? How did the rib come back?

    All these questions spark suspicions but Niema agrees that getting to the citadel is the best way of action. Having a dwarf with shadow chain tattoos with us? Sure, no problem :)

    ReplyDelete