Eastmark 7: Halls to the Wall

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This week, the players in my Eastmark campaign cleared their first multi-session dungeon. There have been a couple of adventure locations with more stuff to poke around in, but this is the most thoroughly explored anyplace has been. I thought it might be a good exercise to rundown what that exactly looked like.

The First Session

One of the first sessions in the game saw a group of PCs determined to find the fabled Tomb of Torme Halfbeard. Not knowing where that was, they instead sought out a nearby settlement to poke around. In a stroke of incredible luck, they happened on Shimrin-on-Dum which they'd learn was tangled up in the Halfbeard's history.

Come for the turnip-stew, stay for the ancient Dwarven ruins lurking just beneath the surface

A couple of things (none subtle) hinted at the town's connection with Dunirr Dwarven history. First, the bailey keep at the top of the hill had been built in the Dunirr style. It wasn't Dwarven made, but someone had tried to make it look Dwarven made. More overtly, the PC Dwarf was able to point out that the town's name "Shimrin-on-Dum" could be taken to mean "Holdfast standing over/protecting a gate".

This only became less subtle when they met the town leader, whose title was Ushmar Dumul ("Gate Guardian").

The town's story, they learned, was that it had been settled about a century ago. Refugees fleeing Imperial violence had taken shelter in some caverns beneath the hill, in front of a massive Dwarf-craft door. The Imperials didn't find the refugees and a certain reverence for the Dwarven architecture which had protected them took hold.

Examination of the door indicated it was a gate to an underground Dwarven complex, several centuries old (and therefore squarely in the time period that Torme the Halfbeard lived).

The PCs went underground and found Dum Malektarg, the Hall of Weathered Stone (or, if you're using Old Dunirr, the Hall of the Halfbeard).

behold! a satan

I shamelessly stole the map from an old 4e module, Thunderspire Labyrinth (specifically the "Horned Hold"), for entirely aesthetic reasons.

In their first trip the PCs explored locations 22, 21, 20, 19, 18, 23, 24, and 25. Of note:

• The Holdfast Gate (22) and Guest Quarters (20) The PCs fought some "Anak", magical creatures compelled to destroy and defile. Just the absolute worst. Think Reavers mixed with a Sam Raimi Deadite.
• Shrine to Dzhurd, Thane of the Final Night (24) The PCs found a lovely shrine to a Dunirr god, Dzhurd. Supposedly, the 'Thane of the Final Night' rules the lands after death; Dunirr who die are led to him by his son Khen Sweet-Tongue who sings a ballad of your life. To live a good life is to receive a long and impressive song from the Sweet-Tongue
• The door to the Crypts (25) was magically trapped; it had a prompt ("Where are all Dwarves welcome?") that needed the correct passphrase ("Death is the land of all Dwarves"). Knowing a bit of the morbid Dunirr sense of humor helped puzzle that one out.
• The Crypts (25) The PCs fought some restless dead. But! They got to haul out a bunch of fancy ceremonial pickaxes.

The Second Session

The next group of PCs took a different route to get to Dum Malektarg and ended up popping up at the Chasm Path (1). They had very little specific ambition other than to keep poking around the place to see what else was there. They ended up exploring the entire southeast complex with locations 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. They poked their head in at 10 but noped out after seeing the monster there. Of note:

• Deepwise Gate (2) and Armory (3) The PCs fought a 'Glassflesh Blightbeast' (semi-transparent acid-spewing centipede thing) which presaged several other types of Blightbeasts in the ruins.
• Shrine to Bruhim the Loyal (6), The Forge of the Dum (7) and Thime Flametouched's Quarters (8) The PCs discovered a shrine to another Dunirr god, Bruhim the Loyal, who was in love with the deity Khaz of the Forge. Bruhim gifted Khaz an axe as a show of loyalty before diving beneath the waves to wrestle with a dragon for all eternity.
• The forge had iconography to Khaz along with materials for forging an axe.
• Thime's quarters contained his angry and sorrowful shade; the PCs (accidentally) antagonized it and a fight ensued. Its defeat merely banished it back to slumber on its bed, however, and the PCs figured there must be another way to put the shade to rest.
• Someone made a connection that Thime had been Torme's "forge-spouse" and that the axe had perhaps been intended for Torme, but unfinished.
• Foyer (10) The PCs saw a Flameflesh Blightbeast and decided that they were done exploring, locked the door, and ran.

The Third Session

Between sessions, the PCs had taken an interest in the half-finished axe. Their collaboration proved fruitful; Thime's plans called for a "half-bearded" axe (which validated their supposition about Thime's relationship to Torme, as well as the importance of the axe). They figured they'd need to reforge the weapon, possibly with Thime's help.

The group started in location 22 and checked out (in order), 27 (Anak), 26 (more Anak), 7/8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 13, 16, 15, 28 (using a key found in 16).

Acting with better information, the PCs managed to get Thime's shade to speak and got the following:

I match my heart to heartbeat’s fervent clime

To which there now an emptiness has come

Though I do count the clock that tells the time

I am to its full-steady pace too numb

My flesh hath long resigned itself to dust

E’en so my soul doth bear the thirst to make

Yet all my tools at hand are rimed in rust

For proof of love my self and soul do ache

I bid thee be a friend to this poor soul

Thy hands my hands, thy work my final toil

Thy skin bequeath to honor’s safe parole

Thy flesh lovers’ lamp an ardent oil

When I depart to Dzhurd's all-greeting land

I’ll brag to Khen; “a friend lent me their hand”

They also discovered in Khatrana Hearth-Spouse's Quarters (16) another shade of another of Torme's loved ones. With some experience now, they cajoled her shade to talk and got the following:

        The meat on which we fed has lost its sweet

        And wholesame taste; the wine so too is sour

        By hallfgast's gate no longer do I greet

        Your fight-wan face on day's last awful hour

        Thy battle done, you shed your steel-shod boot

        No more hauberk and helm aside are lain

        No warmth to feel, my hearth bears only soot

        Thy absence cold like battle-wound and pain

        I look for thee no near the wedding bed

        I look for thee not near the Full-Plump's croft

        I hear no song, there is no tale that's read

        To bloodline's sleeping ear spake joyous soft

        If thee would see me take Whelan's reward

        Speak to my babe what once did spake my lord

It was a bit of a puzzler, but seemed to involve another Dwarven deity Whelan Full-Plump, a goddess of domestic protection and authority within the home. They found a key to location 28, Torme's room.

There, they discovered the existence of--but importantly, no shade--of a third spouse of Torme the Halfbeard. This spouse was not tied to any Dwarven deity, symbolically or emblematically, like the others had been. Instead, carved into the wall, they found the following:

I

    I am Bhomir Barrowhelm and I do not write lightly. May Khaz of the Forge break my hand on his anvil if I am untrue.

    Torme the Halfbeard is dead. Torme the Thaneless is dead. Torme the Law-Shield is dead.

II

    They shall not find the hall of Torme the Halfbeard and its treasures, for we will seal this place and live until we die with closed mouths. Those who killed him shall not know of his hall, shall not touch his gold, shall not read the tapestry of his great love.

    Torme in the Heartmire is dead. Torme in the Redmarsh is dead. Torme in the Stonehell is dead.

III

    They shall not find the tomb of Torme the Halfbeard and its treasures, for we will seal that place and live until we die with closed mouths. Those who killed him shall not know of his tomb, shall not touch of his gold, shall not read the Law in the metal there.

    Torme killer of centurions is dead. Torme killer of giseth is dead. Torme killer of ard-beasts is dead.

IV

    If you are the kin or the kith of those who killed Torme the Halfbeard, these words are a curse. May your nails split and your lips fray like cloth. May your hair bite the head that grows it, may your bones splinter in your meat. These words are a curse from those who loved and were loved by Torme the Halfbeard.

    Torme who braved oceans is dead. Torme who braved war is dead. Torme who braved love is dead.

V

    If you are not of the kin or the kith of the killers of Torme the Halfbeard, these words are song. Fill your hands with his gold, fill your throat with his elegy. Fill your heart with his love, fill your knowing with his ken. These words are a song from those who loved and were loved by Torme the Halfbeard.

    Torme beloved of Thime is dead. Torme beloved of Khatrana is dead. Torme beloved of Bhomir is dead.

Yet another puzzler. The final thing they found in Torme's quarters was an amphora of fancy Dunirr wedding wine, and a stack of 'marriage ingots'. In Dunirr culture, two Dwarves to be married traditionally give their parents fake ingots of gold to ceremonially 'purchase' themselves and pay off the debt incurred in their rearing. 

Putting Things Together

The PCs took the wine and ingots to mean that the third spouse, Bhomir Barrowhelm, had not gotten to actually marry Torme before he died-- but I don't mind telling you that's not true.

For one, if the wine and ingots were for Bhomir and Torme's wedding, they'd be in the possession of Bhomir or Torme's parents.

I think the PCs will put it together at some point, but those items (along with the crib in location 16) imply the existence of hitherto unknown offspring of Torme's line. There are, in fact, living heirs to Torme's legacy!

They're still in the dark about how to put Khatrana's shade to rest (spoiler: they have to finish the story Torme was reading to the child before he died), but they've parsed out things with Thime. They need to let him possess one of them in order to complete the forging of the axe.

Bhomir's song should point them in the direction of the Heartmire, a swamp northwest of Shimrin-on-Dum. There they are likely to discover a) how Torme died, b) the final fate of Bhomir Barrowhelm, who did not die in Dum Malektarg, and c) the resting place of Torme the Halfbeard.

Closing Thoughts

Long post, without my usual avalanche of dick jokes, but I think this is a good showcase of how my players are interacting with adventure sites in an iterative fashion. None of the groups were entirely the same PCs-- and by the end of it, everyone who'd entered the halls was invested in finishing Thime's axe and figuring out details of Torme's life.

Overall I'm pretty happy! Some of the combat encounters turned out to be easier than I'd anticipated, and I can't tell if it was just awful luck with my dice or that I'd simply evaluated poorly. I'm leaning towards the latter. It's not a proper concern--I kinda don't give a a shit if my monsters get rolled--but it is something that I can work on.

There's still more to the history of Torme; Dum Malektarg was largely a location about who Torme was in the private sense of the word. Other locations will flesh out his significance in the history of the Eastmark-- his resistance against the Empire, his Dunirr politics, etc.