Play report - Steed of the Moon

[Lugija]

Since there was talk some time ago of how to include HotW stuff in adventures I think this might interest some of you. I took most of the plot-hooks of the Vales of Gundabad and mashed them together. I am taking my first steps out of the Loremaster door and this adventure was actually the first I ever wrote and the third I have GM'd.

My small fellowship has found Óin and Balin from the old ruins and travelled with Balin, a merchant Baldor and his son through the Elven-path.* After helping Balin to invite the Lord of the Eagles (thanks for the adventure Rich H!) they settled in the new Easterly Inn for the winter.

*Óin stayed in Esgaroth. The Dwarves found out that since he lost his ear trumpet in the ruins he has become a great negociator with the Elves: ”We'll take these travellers on our rafts for fifty.” ”What? Did you say fifty?” ”Fine, forty.” ”WHAT?” ”Thirty, then! Oh you are a shrewd opponent.”

The members of our fellowship are:
Nimrodel, an Elven scholar from the Mirkwood
Windy, a Hobbit wanderer from the Shire
Brúr, a Dwarf treasure-hunter from the Lonely Mountain

Steed of the Moon

When the snows melted and Anduin started to rise the small folk of the Easterly Inn decided to make a grand party to celebrate their first year in Wilderland. They sent invitation letters to all the farmsteads and villages near them (some of the letters were actually read). The players could help with the party by using their common skills. I kept track of how they did like it was an Encounter. The decorations by Brúr were grand but Windy accidentally burned many dishes, Dindy and Agatha had to cook them all again. Nimrodel sang a funny song of a merchant who kept disobeying clear orders.

After midnight when the noise started to wind down characters found themselves in a table with a couple of Beornings and an old woman who smoked a giant pipe and told how one of her more useless relatives Sigis had seen a white horse in the Vales of Gundabad. But Sigis sees all sorts of things, others commented. But that horse must be real, as the Elvenking himself has offered a big reward to whomever catches it.

That wakes a young guard Odo up. ”Well if the elf is too lazy to go catch it himself he has to pay that reward. I'm leaving, first thing tomorrow.”

Next morning Odo leaves after a big fight with his friend Merovech, who doesn't see any sense with this sort of adventuring. Odo takes Baldor the merchant with him (”He has experience of travelling in the Wild”). The players were laughing hard at this point, and when Merovech asked them to go and look what's happening in the Vales they agreed to go. Wolves and possibly goblins too were apparently on the move on the Vales, the Beornings needed information if they were a threat.

Beorn and his people have a good friend in Amfossa the Trapper who lives in the River Fork. After the journey north (shout-out to Elfcrusher, your Journey Calculator is great, no, extraordinary!) the characters meet her. Surprisingly the best speaker of the group, Windy, couldn't get a word out of her mouth and Amfossa almost sent them away. Only the awesome words of Nimrodel made her reconsider.

As they didn't get 7+ successes Amfossa didn't take them to the Rock in the Fork, wherein she would have shown them the starlight reflecting from the melting ice. ”The Elves call this star Eärendil, but for me it is the Star of Hope as it shines most on Spring, when the hardships of Winter are finally ending.” It would have raised everyone's Hope by one. I'll save this to some other time.

Amfossa informed them of the situation in the Vales. After the death of Bolg the goblins have been mostly silent, but now the Chief of the Wolves has become more bold. There's also the matter of Hillmen who mostly live in their hidden villages. One of them is Amfossa's friend and Amfossa sends a bird to her so the fellowhip can meet her in the ruins of the ancient city of Eotheod. She apparently knows where Isilroch (as Amfossa calls the horse) is. The Elf Nimrodel thinks that the horse should be free if it wants to be, she only wants to caress it a little. Windy and Brúr don't really care, they just want to find Odo and Baldor and make sure they don't disrupt the situation here.

The fellowship leaves Amfossa's house nicely rested and travel to west. During the night they are attacked by red-eyed wolves. All five of the wolves fall but by next morning their bodies have disappeared without a trace.

The next evening they arrive in the City of the Eotheod and search it. They find nothing until they enter the ruins of a great hall on top of the hill. There's an old skull of a toothless dragon lying forgotten but looking like it watches the trespassers. Then they hear ”Boo!” and a laugh as a young woman steps out from behind the skull.

The young hillwoman is named Hwalda, and while she is very doubtful of the strangers, being sent by Amfossa works on their behalf, and after the Hobbit makes her laugh she agrees to help them. If they get the horse out of the Vales it will help the Hillmen as well. The wolves seem to be looking for it, and while the Hillmen and the wolves have some kind of peace it may not last.

They stay in the ruins for the night but don't make fire. During the night Nimrodel finds out that a couple of goblins and wolves have come to take the dragon skull away. Nimrodel decides to let them take it, it's just a skull and confronting the goblins would just make unnecessary violence.

Next day Hwalda takes them to a small canyon at the roots of the mountain where the horse should dwell. They find only tracks of an attempted trap and a stampede. Brúr searches around and Windy solves the riddle: Odo and Baldor tried to trap the horse but got the whole herd on them. They still caught the horse but were themselves quickly arrested by Hillmen. Hwalda doesn't like these news at all. She tells that her brother is the chief of the Hillmen. Their father was killed some years ago. Hwalda thinks it was the wolves but nobody believed her.

Then Nimrodel spots a goblin sneaking away. Windy tries to catch it by sneaking but fumbles. Nimrodel rides after it and catches it. The fellowship interrogated it with Awe but didn't hurt it, not even after it spat at them. After they found out everything they needed (the wolves have a big meeting in the Werewolf Gorge tonight, there's some big orc from South coming, the goblin doesn't know about any horse) Hwalda takes her knive and tells that they don't need the goblin anymore. The group quickly told her that killing a prisoner is wrong, and that they would make sure it didn't escape.

At Werewolf Gorge Nimrodel, Windy and Hwalda sneaked up the hill to see what was going on. Brúr stayed back to guard the goblin and because he wasn't much a climber nor a sneaker.

The Chief of the Wolves had his court in place and the skull of the dragon set in the middle of the dens. The big orc had just arrived and introduced himself as ”Dread Ubhurz, an Emissary of the King in the South”. He and the Wolf Chief had a conversation, Wolf was proud and didn't promise anything, even though they had already got the horse the King wanted. The Hillmen guarded it for the wolves, but the Wolf Chief couldn't figure out why it was so important. Ubhurz explains that this king planned to use the horse as a bait to get the Elvenking into a trap. After the Wolf Chief laughed about how this ”king” couldn't even get a horse without help Ubhurz makes a showy performance and the skull's eyes suddenly glow red. It moves a little and speaks words of dread. The wolves panic and the characters sneak away, touched by this Shadow. Just as they leave they hear the Chief of the Wolves say to his lieteunant ”Gather our forces, we'll get that horse and finish this quickly.”

(So the king Ubhurz is working for is the Gibbet King, who makes a little cameo here. The players meet Ubhurz again in the next adventure when he is recruiting a goblin chief in the High Pass but gets distracted by a travelling company. There will be a red herring, the players will surely feel that after taking down Valter the Bloody the matter of ”the King in the South” is dealt with and they can accompany Irime in peace.)

Back in their hiding spot Hwalda is very angry and kicks the goblin in frustration. Apparently her brother has allied with the wolves and guards the horse for them. Fool! The Hillmen have to be raised against the wolves. She will take care of the main ”town” of Hillmen, the Hidden House, and sends the fellowship to gather more men from a nearby village and bring them to the Hidden House.

At the village heroes use all their inspiring and awing skills, but the folk don't want to anger wolves. Until Nimrodel sings a song not unlike Mob Song from Beauty and the Beast and people join it and grab their swords and bows. The goblin is locked up and everyone capable of fighting marches to the Hidden House.

(I forgot about the goblin, I should have had it "repay" the good treatment it received. Perhaps later, let no good deed go unpunished)

Before the hidden gate of the Hidden House a battle already rages. The Wolf attacked at once when it saw the cowardly Hillmen taking up arms. The fellowship stays at the outskirts and fights a group of wolf-riders. After dealing with these foes they find Hwalda who says that the horse is in her brothers room in the Hidden House, but the brother had left before she got there and is apparently somewhere with the Wolf.

Then comes a word from the Hidden House: The enemy has got inside! It has to be Hwalda's brother, because when the doors of the Hidden House are closed only the Hillmen can open them since they were originally dwarven-made. Hwalda curses that she has a battle still to lead, and sends the heroes to capture her brother (”But don't kill him, I want to punch him before this is over!”)

The gatekeepers let the fellowship in and close the door behind them so nobody can get out unnoticed. The Hidden House still looks dwarven under all the changes the Hillmen have made during the centuries. In the main hall they meet Hwalda's brother, the Chief of the Hillmen of the Vales, Hwaldor son of Hwaldor. After laughing a little at his name the fellowship confronted him of his deeds. ”I know when I have bet and lost. I'll leave my people, I'm sure the King in the South will take me if I bring him his horse. You stay here and we can depart as friends. Regards to my sister.”

A quick battle commences because the fellowship won't let him leave. First they fight his Guard, three strong Hillmen, and after knocking them unconscious they move toward Hwaldor. He uses the red-eye scare trick and Nimrodel cowers with fear. But then Windy strikes with her short sword and wounds the chief. The fighting is over before anyone can take a breath.

At this point Hwalda enters the hall and says that the battle is done, the wolves retreated. Then she walks to her brother and asks if the wound is bad. ”No, I'll make it.” ”Good.” Punch! ”I don't want you to die before you can be banished. Take him away.” Then she falls to sleep.

The horse is found, and so are Baldor and Odo, still alive because Hwaldor didn't want to kill anyone. Hwalda takes charge of the tribe with no objections. The fellowship gets to stay with the Hill-Men until they are rested. Of the wolves there is no word, until the guards hear howling in the night. The Chief of the Wolves sent a message: ”Long live the Chief of the Hillmen. We won't trouble you for a while, we have got our share of kings now. But while you wait, think this: Your father didn't want to ally with us and so we took him down. Your brother wanted and so you took him down. What do you plan to do?”

When the fellowship, Odo and Baldor left the Vales of Gundabad they took the horse with them. ”Better it leaves this place”, Hwalda said when they departed. The Steed of the Moon didn't allow anyone to ride it but it followed quietly, even a little curious.

Back at the Easterly Inn Merovech hugged Odo and said ”I hope you liked your little adventure, because now you have to do most of the shifts near Stonyford this year and the next to cover your holiday.” Baldor's son had stayed with the hobbits in the inn and said that he likes it here, could they live here? Baldor says that it might be best, he has had enough of adventures. Luckily he is taken as a helping hand in the inn. Dindy is soon leaving to Bree, he could use a hand in the carts. All is well that ends well.

Nimrodel has took taming the Steed as her long-time goal, but she is nowhere close to the skill level it needs. Windy and Brúr worked with the weapons Hwalda gave them as rewards.

How to continue? I plan to play through Tales from Wilderland now, and perhaps re-enter the Vales at some point in the future. There are several plot-hooks that can be tied into one or several adventures:
- The wedding of Beorn and Amfossa
- The son of Bolg returns to Gundabad and plans to avenge his father with the help of the Chief of the Wolfs
- There's the lost keys of the lost watchtower, lost with the lost vassal
- The Hillmen won't ally with the wolves as long as Hwalda leads them, but what if they get an emissary from Dol Guldur?

[Dunkelbrink]

Lovely Lugija, this is exactly the kinds of reports/ideas I want to see on this forum. I was also thrilled about the story of the Steed of the moon in Heart of the wild and have been thinking about doing something with the plot hook. You have given me many good ideas now. I'll try to think about your questions of the continuation of the story as well.