A. Information Gathering.

1. What Duran learns from his sister.

Duran spends some time having dinner with his sister, Gabria, who seems quite taken with Athron and asks Duran to tell her everything he knows about the cleric. Duran also learns from Gabria what life has been like for his family since he left. Some people gossip that he must have stolen the three horses set as the wergild price for his cousin’s death, or that he was too much of a coward or too arrogant to accept the punishment set by the tribal council.

Gabria tells him his oldest brother, Breen, has been angry because the shame cost him his engagement – he was betrothed to Nadi, a girl of the Talon clan and sister of Mehtar, who will head that clan’s team the next day. Though Mehtar thought his sister should be permitted to choose for herself, their parents disagreed – they did not want her to marry into a family that had been shamed and was about to lose all of its property.

Finally, Gabria tells Duran that their mother has had to deal with her own younger sister, their Aunt Hilia. When Jubal was killed, their uncle and chief was left heirless; Breen would ordinarily be next in line, as Alena was the chief’s next sibling. However, with the family shamed , the youngest child’s family – Hilia’s – has taken the ascendancy. As a result, Hilia’s son Marek is now considered the chief’s heir.

2. What Boeden sees.

Most of the adults avoid Boeden, though a number of the children ask him why he did not compete in the wrestling contest: “You could have beaten all of them,” one boy tells him. The Jotunn spends some time with the children, showing them how many he can lift in one arm and listening to them talk about their own people.

At one point, Boeden notices Breen step away from the campfire and look around to see if anyone seems to be watching. Breen slips through the tents into the shadows beyond the firelight. After a few moments, a young woman with the dark hair and eyes of the Middle Redding horse clans slips through the shadows towards him.

Boeden cannot see her face in the darkness, nor the color of her cloak, but watches from the corner of eye with the two embrace, whisper to each other and then kiss passionately. After a few more minutes, she slips away, again keeping to the shadows. Breen watches her go, and then returns to the revelry around the campfires.

3. Trina’s request to Athron.

Athron commands a sizeable audience that evening of old and young alike, all of whom want to know whether his victory over the barbarian Lodur during the wrestling contest was granted to him by the power of his god, Hamal. He holds the audience spell-bound by his storytelling and preaching.

During a break in his oratory, Athron is approached by a young woman with a red scarf – the color of the Kesten clan, Duran’s clan – wrapped around her black hair. She introduces herself as Trina, and explains hesitantly that she is the one over whom Jubal and Duran fought. “I … I toyed with both of them,” she tells Athron, looking down at the ground. “I am so ashamed of my role in what happened that I cannot … I cannot approach Duran.” She takes off her scarf and hands it to Athron. “Please, give this Duran. If … if he wears it tomorrow, then I will know he has forgiven me.”

After she leaves, Athron prays for Hamal’s guidance, to tell him whether the scarf bears any enchantment – and finds that it does not. Only then does he give it to Duran, who recognizes the scent of Trina’s perfume on the cloth.

4. Vermillion and Cassick watch two of Duran’s brothers drink.

Vermillion and Cassick spend most of the evening in the Duran’s family’s encampments talking with Duran’s older brother Cullen and his youngest, Gabran (Gabria’s twin). Vermillion and Cassick learn about Marek becoming the chief’s heir. They also learn that Duran’s father delivered the wergild payment himself to the chief’s seneschal, Galar – that Galar has sworn he waited at the appointed time and place, but their father never showed up.

“It has been hard for mother,” Gabran says in a low voice when he sees his mother return and enter the tent where their father stays in seclusion. “Everyone says she married a liar.” Cullen points out that their father was “tested for truth” by the clan shaman – but Galar was as well.

“Breen blames himself,” Cullen explains. “If he had gone with father, then he could have been a witness. But father went alone, and the weight of witnesses was against him.”

“Trina wasn’t worth all this trouble,” Gabran adds. “It took her no time at all to take up with Marek once Duran was gone.”

5. Lodur and Broc bond over broads and booze.

Lodur and Broc go out in search of drink and women, and swap stories about their adventures while pretty girls sit on their knees. When Lodur learns the name of Broc’s great-great-grandfather, he is surprised – and impressed. “Hegart of the Frozen Lakes,” he says. “Be worth of the legacy of the Winter Wolf – live bold, and let no Shal bend your knee.”

Broc tells Lodur that he carries his great-great-grandfather’s sword, but Lodur is skeptical. “This is the fang of the Winter Wolf? It is too plain.” He continues, as if quoting from a poem, “Hegart’s blade sings death to the Shal, it takes their blood as payment for their betrayal.” When Broc tells him how the sword apparently told the Shal mage, “Death is the price of your lies,” Lodur acknowledges that the sword might indeed be Hegart’s.

B. The Obstacle Course.

In the morning, the PCs surrender their armor, and with the other competitors undergo a blessing ceremony so that they can inflict no lethal damage on those in the contest. As they wait by the tents, they can here the crowd cheering the first team to depart. Cullen and Breen then escort them to the beginning of the obstacle course. For the first stage, they are told they must run through a 120-foot stretch of tall plains grass while the spectators line either side armed with blunt-tipped spears. In the distance, the PCs can see a wooden structure of some sort.

When they are told to go, the PCs run into the grass – and all but Vermillion are almost immediately tripped by the gopher (and many man-made) holes hidden by the grass. Vermillion speeds through while the others dodge blunted spears and attempt to stay on their feet. Cassick is the next out, and he follows Vermillion over the next obstacle (planks laid over a 15-foot wide trench). Behind, Boeden drinks a potion of haste and decides to crawl through rather than risk the continued trips experienced by Duran and Athron. Broc makes it out of the grass next, rages, and takes a running jump to leap over the trench – and when he falls short, in his rage climbs out the wrong side.

Vermillion is stymied for a bit by the third obstacle, a 20-foot high wooden wall, but eventually makes it over. He shouts a warning that Middle Redding warriors wait behind it in case anyone tries to go around the wall. Behind him, Cassick starts up the wall and Boeden leaps the trench. Behind, Duran and Athron are still in the grass; the cleric stands, falls, stands and falls over and over again – leading some in the crowd to shout that he should prostrate himself before the gods of the Middle Redding and simply crawl.

Cassick is boosted up the rest of the wall by Boeden, and takes time to knock off the shards of broken pottery that line the top. Beyond, Vermillion has already faced and run through the last obstacle – a strip of grass with a long bed of coals in the middle and spectators prepared to bull-rush runners into the coals.

Broc attempts another leap across the trench and fails again; this time, however, he manages to climb out he correct side and heads for the wall, where he scrambles past Boeden and down the other side. Duran emerges from the grass and attempts to balance his way across the planks. As he wavers, two warriors standing in the trench use blunted spears to bang on the planks, knocking him into the trench. Athron is last out of the grass, and successfully jumps over the trench.

Beyond the wall, Broc is pushed into the coals – and in his rage simply decides to simply run down the 60-foot length to where Cassick and Vermilion are donning their armor. Duran and Athron, and then Boeden, climb over the wall and easily resist any efforts to push them into the coals. The PCs don their armor as the crowd starts to cheer the next team starting at the beginning of the obstacle course, then mount their horses and ride out.

DM’s notes: The obstacle course is taken from the first four (of five) parts of Training Grounds by Jeff Quick.

C. Ambushed By the Team in Black.

For most of the day, the PCs ride north through the plains, towards the stockade used for the contest each year, with no problem. Late in the afternoon, they follow the course of the river on their right (east) and see ahead of them a large herd of pronghorn elk a few hundred feet west. As the PCs pass, something spooks the elk, and they start running east, spreading out to follow the river bed to either direction north and south. Several of the PCs see two black bears harrying the herd; Vermillion spurs his horse forward to outride the disturbance caused by the animals, but turns back to fight when the party comes under attack.

As the elk rush forward, Boeden notices the grasses at his feet twisting, attempting to wrap themselves around his lower legs at the same time the bears drive part of the herd to stamped over and around him. Two horsemen, wearing black coats, rush out of the back of the stampeding herd; one knocks Broc out of his saddle to the ground. The other does a ride-by-attack with his mace, and both ride away. Two archers at a distance start firing at Duran as the elks clear. With Broc on the ground, a rogue attacks from invisibility – and finds himself wounded to unconsciousness as a reward. Athron and Duran focus their attacks first on the shaman, who manages to get off only another entangle spell cast at Broc before Athron’s summoned black bear finishes him off.

The PCs quickly finish off the two horsemen, the archers, and the two bears. However, in the midst of the fight they see another further to the west, spurring their horses forward to take the lead.

DM’s note: This last fight took a lot of planning as well, figuring out what spells the magic-users in the opposing group might use, how the herd of pronghorn elk could complicate the fight, and how Ride feats could be used. It involved a lot of notes on index cards. But I learned that trample by a horse – especially a warhorse – can be pretty deadly to the PCs at this level.

DM’s Note: This photo used under Creative Commons license.