1.1.0 - Introduction: Hammerfall Catacombs

You came to Hammerfall as nameless soldiers in a horde, and you went into the dark beneath it because the men in black robes said there was another way in.

The fortress on the river had never been taken. You watched it prove why. The first boats of the Great Barbarian Army surged forward with a warcry, Norse and Ork rowing side by side for once in their lives, and an outer tower opened up with elemental fire. The front line burned and splintered and sank, and the oars of the boats behind hung still over the water. The commanders screamed for the assault to continue. The boats that obeyed met the same end. Then new orders came down the line.

A scattering of vessels broke south up a tributary, following a lead boat crewed by figures in black robes that fell to within inches of the deck. The Chosen, the man at the oar beside you called them. Nobody had seen what was under the cloth. They said they knew another road in. The river narrowed until you carried the boats by hand, and the Chosen stopped you at a wet black gap in the rock and told you to go down.

You were soldiers, and soldiers are spent. When one of you fell in the dark, the next one down the hole picked up where they left off. One such body wandered into a side chamber it had been warned away from and learned what the Chosen keep under their robes. Deformed things with too many limbs came out of the black and tore the party apart. Whoever saw it did not live to carry it back to the army.

Deeper in you found the kobolds of the Scree-Scree-Rah, barricaded behind their own rubbish and rigged noise-traps, braced for the Chosen who keep coming to drag them off for sacrifice. Talking failed. The fight was long and ugly and ended with the kobold king dead and the rest on their knees. You took their mage prisoner, and he proved more useful alive. He knew the way up toward the elven city, and he untangled the puzzle of the three columns and the one-eyed mural that none of you had cracked. Through the wall it hid, you came on elves at last, guards at their ease and workers tending their dead, none of them expecting a fight. You were out of everything and people dropped fast. It came down to Hanzt, alone, standing over the last guard as it fell. The workers raised their hands.

Remember For Next Time

• Who you are: nameless soldiers of the Great Barbarian Army, the Norse tribes and an Ork horde joined by one thing, their hatred of the elves. Fall, and the next soldier down the hole takes your place.
• The Chosen: black-robed guides who promised another way into Hammerfall. Under the robes they are deformed, monstrous things. Your characters do not know this yet. You do.
• The kobold prisoner: the Scree-Scree-Rah mage you spared, now your guide toward the elven city.

Where We Are

Through the elven burial chamber and climbing toward Upper Hammerfall, low on resources, a captive kobold leading the way.