The Velikimrav Nest

October 15, 986 Outskirts of Altengard

Even though Mattis gave Randell some ideas on how to locate a velikimrav nest, Randell hadn’t had any luck actually locating one. Of course, with the rarity of said velikimrav nests, he wasn’t discouraged. Hopefully with a little luck, one would be found before too much time had passed. With the Lycans still at large, time was precious…

Game Notes: "Quest: Is it here?" Result: 4 – Not in the area. Roll for an encounter normally. Result: No encounter

November 2, 986

After weeks of searching, Randell has finally found the signs of a velikimrav nest. He and his current band venture into the cramped tunnels below the earth. The ground gapes open to reveal a fairly large chamber with a single exit. After a quick look about, the party heads deeper into the lair. Moving off into the side passage, the party heads down a very large passageway that ends in a right turn (T1: 2/4). Due to the difficult terrain, it takes them a bit to move down the corridor (T2: 6/3, T3: 2/4). So far, there hasn’t been any sign of occupants.

In a second long corridor, a section of the floor gives way under Andus, a swordsmen. He falls hurting himself very badly (in the second corridor, there was a level 5 trap. The trap randomly attacked a party member, which was a swordman. The trap rolled 5d and the swordsmen rolled 4d. The trap got 4 successes to the swordsman 2. On the firing table, it was determined that he was OOF). After getting Andus out of the collapsed tunnel, Randell orders the party to continue. He can’t turn back now; too much time has been lost in search of this nest.

Continuing down that same corridor (T4: 5/2), the lone passageway continues as it weaves under the ground (T5: 4/1). As the party turns the corner and sees a end to this passageway, a part of the ceiling gives way and Daniel jumps out of the way barely escaping from harm (Again there was a level 5 trap. It randomly attacks a different swordsman, but the trap scored no successes and the swordsman scored 1 stating the target was unharmed and the trap disarmed) – Of course, since there is no humanoid enemies in this dungeon, I continue to make the traps more accidents).

Entering a very cramped chamber (T6: 1/3), Randell and the party discovers some velikimrav sulking about. Blades are drawn with the hope of eggs (Two of the 3 PEFs were to be resolved in this room. The first PEF was nothing, but the second was considered the main body. A roll determined there would be 1.5 times more than the party. Since the only thing to be found in this nest was velikimrav, I kept adding them until the maximum CV was reached. In this case, there were going to be 4 in the room. To determine if there were any eggs in the chamber, I rolled on the Loot and Booty chart modifying as follows. Roll 2d6, for every point over 7, one nest containing eggs were to be present. The roll was a 4 so no eggs were in the chamber).

Game Notes: The room is only 2w in area (1.5 x 3 inches – I modified it to be 2x4”)! I continued to map the passageway so the velikimrav would have enough room to be deployed (yes, with the passageways all at 3w, they are considerably larger than that of the chambers). To make things easier on my self, I changed the 3w passageways to 4” which allows me to use some stuff I got laying about for the rooms and passageways!

4 Velikimrav, but no eggs to be found. At least not in this part of the cavern!

Randell and the party see the velikimrav and with a battle cry, charge blandishing their weapons. The velikimrav that is charged by Randell senses the magic sword and rout! Seeing one of their kind retire, two others also leave leaving a single enemy (The test of wills has the party pass 3 more successes and then the velikimrav only get a single success in the charge test – due to Randell being a star, he picks 4 so the party charges and that velikimrav routs. Due to the rout, two more also flee). Randell and the creature battle each other, but it’s obvious that the Randell is out matched and is wounded and OOF (Randell gets only 4 dice against the velikimrav who gets 6 dice – 4 for REP, 1 due to protected and another 1 for larger base. After a couple of pushes back and forth, the velikimrav scores 2 more success than Randell. The following hardiness test has Randell passing 1D causes him to lose his last two dice putting him OOF). Two of the swordsmen see Randell downed by the creature and retire from the nest, but the lone arquebusier runs out of the cave screaming!

(T6a:5/2): Tealwood grabs Randell’s body and attempts to get out of this nest with their lives while having Daniel pickup Andus. The velikimrav charges Tealwood and wounds him twice in a row putting him OOF. The rest of the party flees the cave once Tealwood is downed!

Tealwood attempts to pull Randell from harm to no avail! The velikimrav win this day!

Randell wakes up on the cold ground of the cave. Surprised to be alive, he looks over and notices Tealwood close by. It looks like the velikimrav are nowhere to be found. Randell quickly wakes up Tealwood, grab their dropped gear and they stagger back to the Compess. Perhaps I need a bigger party before I head into the second nest thought Randell has he recovers his wounds. The days drawn on, but soon the entire party is back on their feet (some of the party is worse off, but there is nothing one can do about that). They have lost precious time since they had to journey back to Compess. Once it all said and done, seven days pass before they are well enough to head back out on their quest to destroy the Lycan.

Game Notes: Both Randell and Tealwood survive their OOF result without any issues, but one of the swordsmen (the one I called Andus) and the arquebusier (now called Tobus) lost a point of REP. Between encounters, a number of days pass equal to the roll on 4d6 (so on average two weeks pass per encounter). This is a change of the rules, but I have my reasons. Since my star went OOF, it adds recovery time to the roll for time between encounters depending on the amount of ‘care’ that can be provided. Compess is a town and it takes an additional 2d6 for recovery (cities are 1d6 and wilderness is 3d6).