Session 066

# Odin's Chosen is Reforged

**Age of the Wolf, Year 5, Autumn, Laelun Toil 1, Day 9**

*The heroes face the vilderaven and his minions, and Nygaar falls. A new ally cloaked in shadow is well met, and the party succeeds with his help. The heroes meet the half troll and learn his story. An ancient relic of an extinct clan is obtained. Esbjorn uses the power of the god rune to return his king to life, yet the rune claims its pound of flesh in return for this boon.*

PREVIOUS --- NEXT

## Player Characters Involved

* King Nygäär the Fey Blooded Rogue/Fighter/Crusader played by Dana
* Esbjörn Fireforge the Fire Giant Blooded Barbarian/Cleric/Surtr's Chosen played by Greg
* Heiða the Mother Fucking Veleda the Dökkálfar Blooded Dread Necromancer played by Justin
* Valindr Ymirsdottir the Frost Giant Blooded Human Scout/Ranger/Cleric played by Donnie
* Jor the Emberwrought the Giant Blooded Human Transmuter/Beguiler/Human Paragon/Ultimate Magus played by Jason
* Irrian the Human Shadowcaster played by Koski

## The Raven Knight

Valarian the vilderavn wasted no time, moving at superhuman speed to act while the heroes remained flat footed. The black knight touched the pommel of a massive great sword he possessed, and three ghostly and incorporeal warriors appeared before the party, screaming silently in berserk rage. Looking up at the party, all of whom (with the exception of Nygaar) were ensorcelled with the power of flight and were at various altitudes above the fray, the berserkers fired magical spears made of lightning. The missiles ricocheted from one hero to another, scorching their flesh and making their hair stand on end. Meanwhile, the vilderavn was not done; he pointed at Valindr and uttered some seidr words in an attempt to turn her flesh to stone. Luckily Hermod stood vigil over his servant, and Valindr was able to shake off the effects of the attempted petrification.

The heroes moved in to strike, with Nygaar closing with the vilderavn immediately. Unfortunately, Nygaar soon fell victim to an unholy fear, brought about by the evil knight's presence. He felt alone, his companions had seemingly abandoned him, and the skills he had honed as a crusader of Odin were no longer his to use. As he and the vilderavn traded blows, Nygaar was sliced by a number of vicious sword strikes, leaving him with wounds that refused to heal. As the fight continued, Esbjorn also fell victim to the vilderavn's trickery, falling under an evil hex which harmed him every time he struck a blow against his enemies. Calling upon his own reserves of power, Esbjorn was able to break free of this hex, giving up a portion of his life force to shake off the effects. With arrows flying from the trees, the heroes felt hard pressed on all sides, as the dark elves rained death down upon them and the incorporeal berserkers slashed at any who came within range.

Meanwhile, a captive of the dark elves sat at the base of a nearby tree, and struggled to free himself from his bonds. A man from the Skullsplitter clan, Irrian the Shadowcaster studied dark seidr known as shadow magic, and had sought out the Boar's Wood as a place where the boundaries between the nine worlds were thin. In his dealing with the dark elves of the shadow lands, he had run afoul of them, and was being taken to "feed the spider" as his betrayers laughingly revealed to him. Fortunately for Irrian, Droog recognized a potential ally, and the tiny quasit set to work gnawing through the shadow wizard's bonds. Finally free, Irrian joined the fray, pointing upwards into the trees where he had seen one of his elvish captors clamber up not long before.

Valindr flew high above her foes and rained force arrows down upon them, while Nygaar and Esbjorn bore the brunt of the berserkers axes and the vilderavn's falchion. Valindr sent Glaer back into the forest, recognizing that the horse was not safe against such dangerous foes. Jor attempted a number of seidr tricks to no avail, finally finding a way to drive a wedge into Valarian's arcane protection so that he could force eldritch energy through to impede him. Meanwhile, Heida unleashed a pronouncement she had foreseen from the Norns, and weakened the vilderavn with at least a modicum of indecision. She then moved in to engage Valarian, withstanding the effects of the creature's aura. The battle continued to rage, and Nygaar and Esbjorn were finally able to strike down two of the berserkers, whose ghostly forms simply returned to the sword from whence they had sprung. The half troll suddenly staggered to his feet, his wounds slowly healing themselves, but any hope of aid from that potential ally was quickly quashed as he was riddled with arrows and fell face down once more. Eventually, Valindr was overcome with wounds from a hail of arrows as well, and plummeted to the ground near death. Heida was able to stave off her companion's death, using her seidr to keep her alive just in the nick of time.

Meanwhile, the vilderavn had fallen back in retreat, diving down into the deep hole nearby that inevitably led to the spider. Jor flew high above the fray, and attempted to peer into the passageway, but could not clearly make out where their enemy had gone. The battle outside continued, with the party covered in a layer of protection in the form of a seidr-derived fog cloud. After a time, a strange creature emerged from the hole, some sort of wolf-raven hybrid that the party suspected was the vilderavn in another form. The creature peered at Nygaar, seemingly waiting with bated breath for him to fall as it licked its wicked fangs. Nygaar continued to bleed, and eventually succumbed to his wounds. The damage Nygaar suffered was insurmountable, however, and even Heida's attempts to bring his soul back resulted in failure. As the vilderavn made ready to pounce, Irrian the stranger frowned darkly. Shouting in anger, he raised his hands, and called the winds to form a full blown tornado which erupted all around them, infused with shadow.

Everyone outside the small circle that formed the eye of the storm became engulfed in the maelstrom, with winds blowing harder than any the heroes had ever seen. Massive trees were uprooted, and any caught in the vortex were immediately pummeled and destroyed, including all but one of the invisible dark elves in the trees surrounding the party. The vilderavn huddled in the hole, finding himself exposed to the unnatural tornado. Roaring his defiance, he sprung out and was struck by debris; nonetheless he was able to take flight in his beastly form and fly directly at Jor, hoping to kill what he saw as the most powerful wizard in the group. Amazingly (and acting completely out of character), Droog flew to Jor's aid, making himself visible long enough to distract the horrifying creature. Jor gasped in terror, and took permeable form to narrowly avoid the closing fangs of Valarian. As the last of the ghostly barbarians were struck down on the ground below, most of the party moved towards the edge of the fog and peered upwards, afraid that the creature would slay their sorcerer companion. In desperation, Jor attempted to counterstrike, firing a thin green ray from his finger that he hoped would turn the creature to ash instantly. The vilderavn shrugged off this attack, and Jor was forced to dig deeper into his bag of tricks. Plummeting to the ground in front of his allies, he uttered a single esoteric phrase, and created a momentary distortion that changed the flow of chance. For Valarian, time seemed to move backwards for just a split second; time enough for the spell to somehow work. The vilderavn dispersed in a cloud of black ash, utterly destroyed. The only item that remained was the great sword from whence the barbarians had sprung; it clattered to the ground with a dull thud and lay still.

## Skofnung

Within the blade, which bore the name Skofnung, twelve warriors feasted in an ornate mead hall. A small number of them recounted to their fellows what a magnificent battle they had just engaged in, and laughed riotously at their former master's demise. Nygaar blinked his eyes in puzzlement, peering about and wondering why he was not yet in Valhalla. His questions were soon answered; a warrior who spoke the ancient tongue and was adorned in out-of-date battle array approached him and introduced himself as Bödvar Bjarki. The berserker told Nygaar a tale of honor and loyalty. It seemed that a hero of legend, named Rolf Krage, was once the king of the long extinct Yngling clan. Rolf had the loyalty of twelve faithful berserkers as his bodyguards, and upon the king's death his men bound their very souls to his mighty blade Skofnung, that it might be passed down to his descendants.

Bödvar gave Nygaar a choice; he could join the company and perhaps be able to return to Midgard, or he could be released to Valhalla. He claimed that if the sword were offered as a sacrifice and cast into Njord’s well in the Nóatún temple in Seagate that any souls bound to the blade would be free, to live out their lives in Midgard or move on to Asgard. Nygaar thought long and hard, and ultimately concluded that the All Father must want him to remain, otherwise he would already be feasting in Godheim. As he informed the berserkers of his decision, a large face seemed to intrude above them; it seemed Heida was attempting to call his soul back to his body. But the ancient magic of the artifact would not allow it, and the face of Nygaar's loyal volva frowned in puzzlement and disappeared. It would be up to the rest of the party to travel to Mixin lands and free Nygaar, unless there was some other way.

## Fireforge is Born

Meanwhile, the party peered down at Nygaar's body, and wondered what horrors might await them in the bowels of the earth where the spider surely lay in wait. A large grunt distracted them from their thoughts, and they turned to see the massive troll begin to rise once more, his wounds slowly knitting together. Standing some twenty feet tall, the party was momentarily distracted from the grisly scene of their fallen king. The half troll introduced himself as Runganir, and marveled at the handiwork of the destroyed forest all around him and the news that the vilderavn was no more. He claimed to be two thousand years old, and said he had been tasked as the guardian of the forest by Odin long ago. It seemed this responsibility was laid at his feet to pay for his father's sins; he claimed to be descended from Hrungnir, a jotun of legend:

*Hrungnir was a Jotunn whose heart and head were made from stone. He used a stone shield for protection and a whetstone as a weapon. One day, Hrungnir and the all-father Odin were engaged in a horse race, which brought them to the edge of Asgard. Odin invited the giant to join him for a drink, and before long, a drunken Hrungnir began insulting and berating his divine host. An infuriated Thor threatened to kill Hrungnir on the spot, but the unarmed giant appealed to Thor’s sense of fair play, and the two agreed to a duel on a neutral site between Asgard and Jotunheim. The moment that Hrungnir had armed himself with his whetstone, Thor hurled Mjolnir toward the giant. Seeing Thor’s hammer quickly closing in on him, Hrungnir flung his whetstone toward the incoming Mjolnir. On impact, Hrungnir’s whetstone shattered into pieces, and Thor’s hammer flew on undeterred, obliterating the giant’s skull. Although victorious, Thor was injured from this fight as a piece of the giant’s whetstone had lodged in Thor’s head and was never to be removed, serving as a permanent reminder of his battle with the giant.*

Runganir warned the party that they must hurry; all creatures of evil would now be converging on their location with the slaying of Valarian. The heroes were badly wounded and near the end of their strength, but the half-troll assured them that with the vilderavn dead, the spider would not be a threat. He claimed he spoke to the Norns, and that one wise in the ways of prophecy and one descended from the Trickster must make the spider, who he named Spindel Drottning, see past the trickery of Loki and his servant Valarian and leave the forest to return to her home at the base of the world tree with her mistresses the Norns. Esbjorn frowned menacingly, wondering if this troll was telling the truth. He peered once more at the body of Nygaar, as Heida struggled to fit his magically preserved corpse into her bag of holding. Esbjorn gripped the god rune tightly, and commanded that Heida lay Nygaar's body before him.

Heida meekly obliged; she knew that nothing Esbjorn could do would bring Nygaar back. Surely if the task of restoring Nygaar was beyond the power of Jor and herself, Esbjorn was out of his depth. Yet Esbjorn seemed confident, and the party watched with curiosity as the giant blooded warrior gripped the god rune tightly, muttering in dwarvish. Bellowing that he would reforge him, and referring to himself as Fireforge, Esbjorn drew his sword and willed it to burst into bright flames. Grabbing Nygaar's limp body by the scruff, he held it in the flames. Slamming the rune down upon the corpse, Esbjorn collapsed. Within moments, Nygaar's spirit was drawn out of the sword, and he gasped in surprise and pain at being back in his horribly wounded mortal body. Jor moved quickly, checking Esbjorn's pulse and finding him near death. It seemed that Esbjorn had given up some of his power, his very life force, to bring Nygaar back. What's more, he had actually succeeded! The party looked on in awe as Esbjorn struggled to his feet.

Inside Skofnung, the berserkers knew that they now served the bloodline of a new master; the one known as Fireforge. They felt his sigil burn a deep brand upon their chests, and swore they would serve Esbjorn's son loyally. The mark upon Nygaar was more subtle; near the tattoos of his various battles that he wore upon his head, three narrow claw marks appeared, looking to the casual observer as nothing more than old faded birthmarks. Esbjorn welcomed his king back, yet stated his price; every town Nygaar conquered must now build a temple to the new-made god named Fireforge. The other members of the party peered at one another, unsure if Esbjorn was really destined to be a god or was descending into madness and hubris. But at the present it made no matter - Nygaar had returned and they still had the spider to face. The heroes turned towards the hole, and made ready to descend and rid the wood of the evil that had plagued it once and for all.

PREVIOUS --- NEXT