WHAT – Cimmerian September (NSFW), Part 1

This post contains photos of 28mm figures of Amazons, many of which are quite topless hence the NSFW – Not Safe For Work rating.

Someone in the YouTube sphere has declared September as Cimmerian September, a month dedicated to reading Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories. With the coming of Fall, I think it’s a wonderful idea.

Almost a year ago I painted some Shadowforge Tribal Amazons as Hyborian Amazons. Now, I have an excuse to play a game with them. WHAT (Warrior Heroes Adventures in Talomir) is a good choice of rules for use in a Hyborian setting. The nations and/or races in WHAT are similar to those of the Hyborian Age where one kingdom is advanced to the use of plate armor and another kingdom is still using stone clubs. It takes very little tweaking to adapt the race lists in WHAT to mirror those of Howard’s Hyboria.

It’s also easy to adapt the magic system, just make all magic Black Moon magic to fit Howard’s concept of sorcery in his stories.

The Defend Encounter

For this game I’ll play a Defend encounter to build a story. I’m a little tired of doing the introductory Patrol types of encounters

Objective

In escaping captivity, the Amazons committed a large amount of mayhem including murdering the Jarl’s son. Knowing they are being pursued by vengeful warriors, they have camped at the ruins of an ancient temple on top of a desolate hill.

Forces

I used the Valkae Amazons table to build my group.

#	Name	Class	Rep	AC	Wpn	Attributes
1	Zorana	Knight	5	4	1S	Star, Swordsman, Nimble
2	Dravina	Caster	5	2	1	Caster, Magic Resistant
3	Valkana	Shooter	4	2	SB	Agile
4	Kelythra	Shooter	4	2	SB	Agile
5	Arvessa	Shooter	4	2	SB	Agile
6	Thalira	Warrior	4	2	1S	Wary
7	Nyssara	Warrior	4	2	1S	Wary
8	Veshira	Warrior	4	2	1S	Wary

Terrain

The encounter takes place in Asgard. The temple ruins are set up in Section 8 of the table. The rest of the table (if needed) is set up per the terrain generation rules.

Deployment

My party is placed in Section 8 and the PEFs also start in Section 8.

Special Instructions

The day part for the encounter is Nighttime. There is only one PEF.

How Many of Them? / Who Are They?

They are eleven Aesir warriors. Howard’s Asgard matches well with Talomir’s Mirholme, so I will use the Mirholme table to generate the enemy band.

#	Class	Rep	AC	Wpn	Attribute
1	Warrior	5	4	2	Leader, Wary
2-4	Warrior	4	4	1S	Wary
5-11	Warrior	4	2	1S	Wary

Game Narrative

Jarl Thorolf Valisson stood on the steps of his hall and looked over the crowd assembled before him, a crowd consisting of his retainers and much of the levy of his lands. He pointed to the smoldering ruins of buildings within his city and spoke, “Two days ago, slave women from the Black Kingdoms murdered and mutilated my son and members of his household. They then set fire to his hall of other buildings to cover their escape. I want these women to pay for their crimes; I want the man who sold them to my son brought before me; I demand justice for my son who was hung like a slab of meat and flayed while still alive.” With those words, the Jarl turned and entered his great hall.

Search parties were formed and marched forth to search all of Asgard if need be. A day later, Ulfrik Bjanisson picked up their trail, they were heading northeast and not south to the Black Kingdoms. By nightfall, Ulfrik and his men had caught up to them. The women were camped in a ruined temple on top of a hill. Ulfrik decided to wait until the middle of the night to climb the hill and capture the women.

However, Ulfrik had made a critical mistake, these were not inferior dark-skinned women suited for the obscene pleasures of the nobility, but Amazon warriors who knew he and his men were coming and had prepared defensive positions among the temple ruins. They were led by Zorana, a skilled swordswoman, and Dravina, the dark sorceress.

Ulfrik halted his men at the edge of the ruins. He could see nothing among the ruins but blackness. There was no fire, but the scent of one which had burned earlier. There was no sound except for the rustling of leaves from an occasional breeze. “Had the women escaped?” he thought. Then he heard a faint chant as Dravina cast a defensive spell. The moment the chanting stopped, the air was filled with the hissing sound of arrows in flight.

One man yelped as he was hit by an arrow, another merely grunted when he hit the ground. Ulfrik ducked behind a tree from the intensity of the flights of arrows. When the arrows ceased, Ulfrik’s men charged blindly into the ruins. Just as they made out the shapes of the women, another volley of arrows was loosed; Jokal the Bald, a huscarl of renown fell before he could raise his axe.

The melee was intense, Zorana roared a challenge and slew Ivar Guntarsson with ease; two of the women fell, the Amazons were pushed back, but Ulrik lost four men and another fled. The Amazons reformed as Dravina cast another defensive spell. Again, when the chanting ended, the arrows flew. Ulfrik ducked behind a wall and watched his remaining two warriors flee. Seeing wisdom in this, Ulfrik Bjanisson fled as well.

Zorana and her Amazons fell back to another defensive position and waited. When a second assault by the Aesir failed to materialize, Zorana sent Veshira to look for the enemy; she also sent Thalira and Valkana to retrieve the wounded.

Thalira and Valkana returned carrying Nyssara. “Arvessa?” asked Zorana.

Shaking her head, Valkana replied “Dead. Nyssara will make it if we can get her somewhere warm.”

“There’s a frost in the air” said Thalira.

“None of us are dressed for cold weather” said Kelythra.

Zorana sighed and turned to Dravina, “I don’t suppose you know any healing spells, do you?”

“Not hardly,” replied Dravina, “but I can stitch her up once we clean the wound.”

Veshira returned, “The Northmen who were able to flee have fled; they left two horses at the bottom of the hill.”

“That means we can expect more of them in a couple of days,” said Zorana, “Thalira, see that giant skull? Prepare a fire, we’ll camp there until morning. The rest of you, bury Arvessa where she won’t be disturbed; dispatch any enemy warrior still breathing; bring any furs, cloaks or blankets you may find. Dravina and I will take care of Nyssara.”

The women scattered to do their work. Nyssara had an ugly gash on her left side where a blade had cut into her hip and then slid up along the bone. Dravina was nearly finished stitching the wound when Thalira called for Zorana.

The giant skull was of petrified bone. The ancients had killed the monster and dragged the skull to the top of the hill where they had built the temple. Zorana entered the skull between a pair of fangs as long as the height of two men. Thalira was kneeling on the ground, she looked up and said “Zorana, I’ve found a sealed passageway and there is warm air blowing through the cracks!”

Summary

Of course, part two is going to be a dungeon crawl! What Conan, Kull, or Red Sonja story doesn’t have one?

This encounter played very quickly especially if you win both the Activation and the Action table and have more than one archer. In this game, the archery was devastating.

There are a few things I’ve decided to carry over from this encounter to the next one. Dravina had successfully cast Defend spells on herself and Valkana. Dravina has 3 Star Power dice and Valkana has 1. Also, since Nyssara is recovering from a wound, I’ve temporarily reduced her Rep from 4 to 3.

And as always, your comments and suggestions are appreciated and treasured. I hope these posts inspire you to play some games yourself.