The lockdowns happened and we were unable to continue the Cabal of Eight campaign due to limitations involving Cris. He has no internet or smartphone. However, three of us were able to get together in the dining room, my wife Jenn of course, and my sister-in-law Isis as we had remained isolated since the quarantine first began. Gil though, came through via a laptop at the other end of the table as he was still in quarantine. It would take another couple of weeks for me to set up a new game and finish my game materials but soon enough we gathered around the dining room table again. Well, for the most part.
The new campaign taking place in the Eastern Frontier of Arvan in a desolate region named The Crown-Mesa Desert. The characters would be the survivors of a doomed caravan traveling along the main trade route to the southeast. For the first time, all the players had their characters completed and ready to go at the first session.
Jenn’s character is a Southlander human female paladin named Canica armed with a bastard sword and broad-axe. She also had a loyal mount. A horse named Draica. She also happened to be a new convert to Kazoo’s cult granting her the Smite clergy ability. This happened over the months the two had spent together on the road in the hire of the caravan. Jenn’s character’s flaw of gullibility and a paternal (maternal in this situation) personality played heavily into her conversion.
Isis’s character is a young 19-year-old male half-naga-human outcast from somewhere in the Eastern Frontier. He’s Dragon Shaman named “Kazoo” (but spelled the Arvanian way – Khazu). His personality: “FYO emotional vengeful loudmouth maniac with more bark than bite”. Kazoo worships the dragon deity Agbyzz’Tallasch (see Arvan Ch.12, the Draeken Gods). And is an aspiring dragon-cult leader and wielding a pair of iron claws.
Gil’s character is a male Southern Barbarian Naga Totem Warrior nicknamed Bloodfang. He’s armed with a Guan-Dao and was also a fresh (though reluctant) convert, his spirit animal being a dragonsaurus. He’s another native of the Eastern Frontier, although his adventure-seeking had taken him into the Eastern Woods and eventually the small lawless city of Skullhead.
All three (Canica, Kazoo, and Bloodfang) had been hired by Keast, a caravaneer almost over-eager to get his goods and wagon-train to the Great Delta selling along the way through the Eastern Frontier to finance and supply it. He was a short, fat, bald, and moderately successful Westlander merchant. He had hired several guardsmen though the best armor among them was studded leather and weapons being short spears with a few crossbows here and there. However, Keast’s reasoning was that he was able to hire more than enough warriors to make up in number the shortfalls in experience and quality arms. The caravan was carrying mostly jars of honey, a few barrels of high-quality Hill-Lander whiskey, several sacks of oats & grain, several loads of wood-ware, and a few carboys of noxious Poisonwood herbs as well as many amphorae of fragrant oils and perfumes.
The trip had run smoothly up until they passed over the borders of the Eastern Frontier and passed into the Red Pillar Pass, following the trade road into The Crown-Mesa Desert. The long, rich caravan was a day into a deep chalk cutting where white dusty cliffs rose on both sides when they came into a section where the cliffs became low and melted into an uneven ridge.
It was from this ridge that a howling mass of arrow & javelin-slinging savages spilled over into the cutting and overwhelmed the trapped caravan its inexperienced guards. These were the warriors of the Scrub-Tribes, probably from the Eastern Woods having tracked the caravan along the road waiting for the right time to pounce. The paladin, Dragon-Shaman, and Totem Warrior happened to be next to the caravan-master’s wagon at the time, which was in the lead. They were able to defend it against attackers and clung to it when fleeing the massacre. The three had observed a few Scrub-Tribesmen who were large, muscular, with the heads of bulls. Beings that they had never seen before.
Days later, the four wanderers were moving slowly finally reaching the end of the chalk cutting as the ridges to their northeast and southwest sank quickly. They had run out of water, there had only been a small barrel in the wagon. The repetitive creak of the wagon wheels was the only sound the heat-exhausted group could hear in the utter silence on the arid plain unrolling before them as they finally stumbled into the Eastern Frontier.
The chalk dust covering them stained their bodies white. All could feel it sucking out the moisture from their already parched skin. The oxen pulling the caravaneer’s covered wagon suddenly stopped, moaned, and then collapsed. Bloodfang rushed over to the animal finding it stone-cold dead. It had taken a couple of arrows to the belly during the ambush days ago and none of them had noticed. Bloodfang lamented the poor animal.
Suddenly, a loud dust-raising plop centered their attention on the caravan-master Keast. He had fallen face-first to the ground from the driver’s seat. Canica turned him over. He too was dead. They inspected his corpse. It seemed he had been dead for about a day. However, finding no wounds they could not tell what had killed him (it was a heart attack). Bloodfang pulled the folded map from the dead man’s hands and stretched open the stained parchment. Immediately Kazoo snatched at the map, missing and earning a scowl from the Totem Warrior. The Dragon-Shaman went into a screed and eventually convinced the naga to hand over the map. Kazoo then poured over the map for several minutes then handed it back to Bloodfang.
Kazoo: “Now you can prove your worth to me by guiding us with the map!”
He had realized the map had several labels on it and he was illiterate.
Bloodfang: “Whhat!? Prove myself to YOU?”
Again, Kazoo worked magic with his quick wits smoothing over the potential argument. Bloodfang was sure where they were, at the end of the Chalk Ridge on the map somewhere in the burn hole. The information on the map for their location was missing; long ago, the paper had had a hole burned through it. However, he had the same problem as Kazoo, he was illiterate as well.
Canica: “*sigh* I can read, give me the map.”
They looked over the map and realized how big the entire area was. In addition, they realized how thirsty they were, their tongues were like sandpaper and starting to swell. They tossed the wagon but found only the empty water barrel. The adventurers had to find water quickly or face dying of thirst very soon. They remembered that Keast had mentioned the next stop was to be a fort. It should have been just beyond the mouth of the Chalk Ridge. But they could see no fort in the distance and had no idea how far away it lay.
Canica used her Spirit Contact skill to converse with the spirits of the desert. She was able to gain some guidance and visions of where she could find water. It was off the road immediately south in a small cluster of low rocky hills. After a chorus of sighs, the trio began to move with the paladin in the lead.
To Be Continued…
