Encounter - Nosnra's Cousin

Nosnra's Cousin

When I first DM'd G1 I fleshed out the surrounding area so that Nosnra could draw on reinforcements from neighboring hill giants.


Nosnra's Cousin


Only five leagues north-east of Nosnra's steading stands the hall of Karnash, Nosnra's cousin. His is a large and ancient hall though not on the same scale as Nosnra's.

23 hill giant warriors are sworn to his service. His dire wolves are numerous and they have a fearsome reputation, his ogre retainers are loyal and well treated and have been settled in the nearby caverns for generations.

In case of trouble Nosnra would first call upon his cousin and these forces would be the first to arrive at the steading.


Karnash.


Karnash is a powerful hill giant, large and fierce. He is not noted for great intelligence, but he has both cunning and experience. He dotes on his pack of dire wolves and they are the envy of the hill giants of the Jotuns. These dire wolves are larger and more intelligent than the normal breed, and pups from his kennel are sought after by other hill giant clans.

He is young for a chieftain, having inherited his father's position (after defeating all challengers, including his elder brother), but he is a proven warrior and leader. His wife, Krilla, is beautiful (for a hill giantess), but not physically imposing. Karnash went on a great quest to win his bride and returned after more than a year, barely within the time limit set by her father, Geffed, a powerful chieftain himself.

In the end Karnash returned with the head of some fierce and terrible lizard, and the tale of his quest was matched by the scars he bore from it. The skull of this monster is hanging from the rafters of his hall, a testament to both his courage and the great value he set on his bride.

Karnash has five children, three daughters and two sons. His oldest boy, Kariff, is a warrior apprentice but much prefers to spend his time with the dire wolves. He is small for a hill giant, taking after his mother, and Karnash does not view him as a likely candidate for chieftain. Karoak his younger brother takes more after his father and is likely to be apprenticed years ahead of time. He is his father's favorite but is a bit of a spoiled bully, though Karnash either doesn't see it or doesn't care.


The Hall


Karnash's hall is typical of the old style hill giant steadings. A long main hall with wings branching from the ends and private quarters branching from the center of the hall. It is in remarkably good repair and one wing, including guesting chambers and expanded married quarters, is a recent addition. Karnash spends a great deal of his treasury on upkeep and expansion of his hall. Upon becoming chieftain he went to great trouble in obtaining dwarven slaves and has put them to use in both his smithy and in supervising construction of new buildings and re-enforcing the structure of the hall itself. His kennels are large and extensive and are continually growing.


Population.


Hill Giants


Karnash (chief)
23 Hill Giant Warriors (12 Married)
Krilla (Karnash's wife)
12 Hill Giantess Matrons
15 Hill Giantess Maidens
37 Hill Giant children (17 male/20 female)


Ogres


The ogres live nearby in a natural and expanded system of caverns and have served the hill giants for generations. Their leader is Gruush who is only of average ogre size but is very good with the dire wolves. Karnash made it clear that the ogre chieftain is who he wants the ogre
chieftain to be, end of discussion.


17 Males Ogres
32 Female Ogresses
53 Immature Ogres (male and female)


Bugbears


The Bugbears live in a warren of huts outside the main hall. The slave compound, similar to, but not as nice as the kennels, is between the outer wall of the hall and the bugbears' huts. A combination of factors whittled down the original clan of bugbears and recently Karnash induced (after only a handful of fatalities) a large tribe from the outlying hills to take up residence outside his hall. The survivors from the original tribe ( the Bloody Fang ) are a down-beaten lot and are considering wholesale desertion. The new tribe (the Bone Crackers) are not very pleased to have joined the hill giants' service but their newly appointed chief ( the old one now just a smear under Karnash's boots) is smart enough not to show it. They've been taking out their anger on the Bloody Fang tribe who Karnash seems to have forgotten about.


17 Bugbears (The Bloody Fang)
72 Bugbears (The Bone Crackers)
112 Bugbearlets +/- (high mortality rate)


Dire Wolves


The dire wolves live in a set of kennels built next to an outer wall of the hall. Karnash has a private entrance into the kennels from his personal quarters. These wolves are extremely well treated and well fed. Karnash as well as the other hill giants of his hall take them hunting on a daily basis. More than most other steadings Karnash's supplies itself by hunting rather than herding. A good percentage of hill giants and ogres will be out on the hunt continually, some arriving and some departing at all times. The pack is led by Fang and Claw, Fang is a gigantic dire wolf twice the size of an average dire wolf, but almost a lap dog when he is around Karnash who raised him from a pup. He is usually found at his master's side and will be at Karnash's feet during any meal. Claw is Fang's mate, a huge dire wolf bitch. She is young and has produced only two litters so far.


Fang, Claw
77 Dire Wolves
128 pups +/- ( pups are a source of trade with other Hill Giants)


Slaves


Karnash considers his slaves as a resource and because of this they are actually treated much better than the average slave held by hill giants. He especially prizes dwarves for their usefulness as smiths,
engineers and masons. He is always interested in obtaining dwarven slaves. Karnash will always lame one leg of a newly acquired dwarven slave ( by severing the tendons) some will then die from infection and some will fight (hopelessly) to the death rather than allow this to happen. Since these rebellious fellows make poor slaves anyway Karnash sees this as a win/win situation. The dwarven slaves are kept in a special stone building next to the smithy and are segregated from the other slaves. They provide the know-how and skilled hands while the other slaves provide the blood and sweat. Because of this they are hated by the other slaves, sometimes more than the hill giants themselves.


The rest of the slaves are mainly orcs but there are a smattering of humans as well. The humans have banded together as much as they can and are led by a cleric who has managed to keep his abilities hidden from his hill giant owners as well as the orc slaves.


11 Dwarven Slaves (all lame in one leg)
183 Orc Slaves
39 Humans slaves
(1 cleric, 1 high level ftr {unknown to anyone except the cleric}, 3 mid-level ftrs, 7 low level ftrs)

Guests


Recently the hall has been seeing more and more guests arriving. Some come to trade, others to seek alliance or mediation with Nosnra and feel safer talking with Karnash first, while some bring slaves to sell.

At the time of module G1 Karnash has a group of 3 hill giants who have brought 5 dwarven slaves to trade for some of the dire wolf pups. Another male hill giant who has come to seek permission to go on a betrothal quest for one of the hill giantess maidens of Karnash's hall. Lastly, a neighbors son with 5 other hill giants and 12 ogres have arrived to go on a hunt in woods to the south which are shared by both Karnash and his neighbor.


Reaction Force


If Nosnra summons help Karnash will respond immediately. He will go in person and leave the hall in the charge of his sub chief and leave 5 of his own (disappointed) hill giant warriors behind.

Some hill giants will always be out hunting and Karnash himself hunts at least once a week, but his sub-chief will respond as Karnash would, except that he would send 1 hill giant out after Karnash and leave the most experienced hill giant warrior behind at the hall while he took the rest out to aid Nosnra.

1D4+5 Hill Giants, 1D4+4 Ogres and 1D10+12 Dire Wolves will be out hunting at any given time. These hunters will follow the first group to relieve Nosnra (though 5 will relieve the other 5 left behind
by the first group, since now it's their turn to be disappointed)


Karnash
17 of His Hill Giants ( 1d4+5 hill giants out hunting)
10 Hill Giant Guests
15 Ogre retainers ( 1D4+4 hunting)
12 Ogres ( his guests' retainers)
Fang, Dire Wolf Pack Leader
40 Dire Wolves ( 1D10+12 hunting)

After the Giants The Ruins of Nosnra's Steading Part 2

The Demi-Plane of Dreams (Dreamland)


Whenever we sleep we enter the Demi-Plane of Dreams, but only our dream-selves and our oerthly bodies are untouched. It is possible to cross over with our physical forms but the Demi-Plane or Dreamland has its own laws which are not those of the Prime Material Plane. Physical traits such as Strength, Dexterity, Charisma and Constitution become meaningless, while Intelligence and Wisdom are paramount. Magic and the Divine power of the Gods in most ways function as normal but the Demi-Plane is so thick with illusion that the effects of spells are hard to judge. A mage, for example, might cast a fireball only to find that the distance judged by his senses is actually inches rather than feet and find himself consumed in his own spell. Material components become unnecessary as there is no physical world around him only a shifting dreamscape.


Travellers entering the Demi-Plane will find themselves adrift in a world of translucent spheres. Within each sphere is a unique dreamland created by a dreamer from the Prime Material Plane. The Demi-Plane has no existence in itself only in relation to its intersection with the Prime Material. The great power and the great danger in entering the Demi-Plane is the ability to cross into the dreamscape of others. A skilled traveller may enter into the dreams of others and injure or slay the dreamer, but what they may face in such a dreamscape might also consume the traveller. To die in Dreamland is to be lost forever.

Losing oneself or becoming trapped within the Demi-Plane is far too easy. Dreamscape may revolve from pleasant fantasy to hellish nightmare without warning. Dreamers may be children, the demented, the weak or feverish on the Prime Material Plane but their Dreamland may present them as nigh invincible, or a twisted land that makes no sense and have no exit for the traveller.

Those who deal in illusion find the greatest rewards from travelling through the Demi-Plane and the dreams of others. The experience they gain from such a journey is twice that of any other. They may discover new spells or ways to increase the power of spells that they already possess. Treasures and artifacts that might be taken from Dreamland normally fade upon leaving the Demi-Plane but there are said to realms within that belong to no single dreamer and items of great power within to be won within these dreams.

Some of these dreamscapes existing outside of the normal dreams of others are said to belong to creature which have taken form within the Demi-Plane. Others are said to be dreamscapes taken over by travellers who have become lost within Dreamland. Somewhere among all the spheres of dreams is said to be a land ruled by the Dreaming King and a species of beings native to the Demi-Plane, but no traveller who may have found this land of dreams that live has returned to confirm such a legend.


Nosnra's Lands

The land surrounding the steading is not quite the Demi-Plane and is no longer the Prime Material. It is as if a thick fog has descended upon the area and all within it is distorted. Some of the laws of the Prime Material still operate such as the physical attributes of creatures, but both time and distance have become greatly affected by the Demi-Plane of Dreams. Illusions have become real and the physical world has become illusion.

Without aid a creature trying to cross the physical landscape of the hills will become confused and lost. Time will speed by or slow. They will find themselves reliving moments, seeing themselves at distances, or fading from the land altogether and slipping into the Demi-Plane of Dreams completely. While it is possible to wander free of the hills and back to the Prime Material this becomes harder and harder the closer to the center of this distortion is reached. Once nearing the steading there is really no return for an unaided traveller.

Slivers of the Demi-Plane fill the landscape. They are impossible to avoid. They cannot be seen but once entered they are self-contained like the spheres in Dreamland. Crossing through these slivers is a matter of confronting the dreamer or dreamers who inhabit these areas. Unfortunately many of these creatures are the spirits of the dead returned to the Prime Material. Their dreams are mostly strange, distorted and nightmarish. Because of the merged nature between the Demi-Plane and the Prime Material these creatures are a combination of life, dream and undeath. They are similar in many ways to the undead of the Prime Material, mostly in appearance, but with different strengths and weaknesses. They also exist in a series of layers, their dreamselves, their memories of life and their undead form. They are the Unshriven.

Progress toward the steading even for those aided or guided is difficult. The slivers of dreamscape lead forward only with certain types of resolution in each encounter, but the party may slay those who seek to help and find they can flee from dangers without resolving conflicts. To reach the steading may require traversing only a few of these slivers or the party may find itself having to cross many more or even returning to the slivers of dreamscape they may have escaped previously.

A dozen encounters before the players reach the steading are provided. It is recommended that at minimum the players successfully resolve three to five of these encounters before they reach the steading.

(Some handy terms)

Dreamer - Within the Demi-Plane the various spheres are normally created by a single individual who may be the only real inhabitant of the sphere. Within the area around Nosnra's steading there is often more than a single dreamer creating the sliver of Dreamland that is encountered.

Dreamscape - the landscape within a particular dream created by the dreamer

Sliver - The area of land around Nosnra's steading has merged with the Demi-Plane of Dreams but in a fragmented way. The slivers are a combination of the Prime Material Plane and the Demi-Plane of Dreams and the physical laws within them are also a combination of both Planes.

Sphere - Within the Demi-Plane spheres are realms created by dreamers. They can be of any size and the nature of reality within is illusion. They normally are inhabited by a single dreamer.

After the Giants: The Ruins of Nosnra's Steading Part 1

After the Giants: The Ruins of Nosnra's Steading
(With revision work inspired by Robert Holdstock)


The Ruins of Nosnra's Steading is a 1e AD&D (pre-Unearthed Arcana) Adventure for 8-10 player characters levels 8-10. It is recommended that players run at least 2 characters or more to meet this number of PCs rather than run fewer, higher level characters. Possession of Module G1 is necessary to run this adventure.

A storm lashes the Jotens. Lightning flashes and thunder cracks. Torrents of rain cut through the forested slopes and valleys like miniature spearpoints, piercing, stinging and cold.

Night has fallen early and even the predators of the dark have hidden themselves from the wrath of the storm. An almost completely overgrown path leads to the bald head of a great hilltop.
In the gloom walls of wood rise at its center, a gigantic structure, a small forest of roughly trimmed tree-trunks.

In the flash of lightning the scars of war can be seen. The doors of the mighty steading lie asunder, the wood split and burnt. A great portion of its roof now naught but a gaping hole charred around
its edges. On closer inspection the wear of unkempt years lies heavy upon the timbers of its outer walls. Vines and shrubs climb, root and dig at the dead wood. Mold and fungus spread unchecked. Gaps between one trunk and another gape open by this invasive growth, but it is between these broken boles that the life existing among the corpse of this once mighty hold gleams out. Fire, a warm light which flickers amid the gloom. Somewhere within the ruin the spark and beat of life still pulses.


Nosnra is gone and his steading in ruins but while its walls may be broken it does not lie empty. Here is a scenario dealing with the now ruined steading.

The Dead That Dream

Nosnra and his clan fell to their foes and lie unshriven amid the fields and ruins of the steading. The great war against the giants went on for years with both human, demi-human and giantish populations decimated. The spirits of these fallen giants were never released to dwell among their ancestors and Nosnra's spirit more than any other is greatly restless.

Upon the oerth lost souls often rise again, and so it happened with the giants; their flesh, their bones, their dark spirits animated, but the spirit of the clan with Nosnra as its focus became so lost that they have warped the land around them. Nosnra and the spirit of the clan in death have begun to dream.

It is years since the giants invaded the human lands below their hills and years since they were driven back again, but hill giants have been seen again along the edge of the wilderness. Giants that raid and kill, loot and burn, but giants that blades will not cut, though wounds appear and fade across their flesh, that arrows will not pierce, that magic used against them does not touch or slow.

A force of several dozen hill giants attacked and destroyed a frontier outpost, a small fortress and the town that was being built around it. A group of rangers tracking these giants saw them make a rough camp for the night, but as the moon began to rise they watched the flesh peel from the raiders bones and rot, or some fade till they were a translucent haze or others darken to till they were wavering blackness deeper than the night. By morning they were gone; the loot they had gathered left were it had been placed and their captives half-mad with fear.

The land further up into the hills has become a place of restless dreams and nightmares. Time does not pass as it should, night falls and lasts for days or for hours or moments, daylight can find the sun overhead as if at noon and in an eyeblink set or rise or hang in the sky unmoving. Men who sleep fade before waking or are beset by nightmares that drive them to madness or leave them torn or bleeding, or dead. Giants, ogres and wolves drift across the hills. Some are gathered as if to raid. Others walk the hills alone or in groups of hunters. They may pass by men in the open and not see them or track them down only to disappear in the midst of battle. Few who have entered these cursed hills have returned. The land blinds the eyes of sages and the divine who look from afar. Wizards who have used the power of flight or creatures who can fly or ride flying beasts lose themselves quickly beyond the border of civilization, some crashing to the ground, others circling back only to find that hours or days have been lost.

What Has Happened.

The spirits of Nosnra, the clan and the individual giants slain in and around the steading have, in their restless unlife, caused a sliver of the Demi-plane of Dreams to intersect with the Prime Material. The Demi-Plane of Dreams is easily fragmented and impinges constantly with the Prime Material through dreams, but normally it has little to no effect to most dreamers themselves and especially not to the reality of the Prime Material. But the invasion of the giants and the wars that raged above and below the oerth weakened the barrier between the planes and a fractured piece of Dreamland has become stuck.

Reality is warped around the hills and the borderlands. This rift between the planes has been growing slowly over the years but only recently has it become strong enough to spring into being, and slowly it is spreading.

The great druid Cathabach is the only person to have passed into the hills, reached the steading and returned. He has crafted a dozen charms from the bones of dead giants and the wood of the steading that will allow others to enter into this fragment of dreamland without suffering the worst of its effects. Cathabach is gravely wounded in both body and soul and cannot return, but he can offer advice and is sending a lesser druid Caithach and a ranger Manandoun as guides.

End Part One