Fuck-It List
With an upgrade to Lieutenant Colonel and a new mission, Freya gathers her team and departs. They have been commanded by their queen to assemble the rare ingredients to create a tathlum, a weapon of unknown destructive power. Unknown because the Queen’s list includes far more powerful variants of the items historically used by the Kellid Barbarians who are believed to be the originators of this darkest of rituals.
They strike North. Passing within sight of Citadel Gheistano but daring not to trespass, they head into Nidal. They easily avoid the Nidalese patrols for even though they are allies, they wish for no delays.
Visiting a town in search of the Cave-Giants lair, Draymus murders a man, and animates him. He forces his new thrall to show the party where the Cave-Giants latest attacks took place. With Reese tracking and scouting, they easily locate the creatures lair and use their new thrall as bait. Taken by surprise, the giants are no match for them. Freya defeats several in single combat, unlocking new runes on her dwarven-champion’s belt.
Turning back South into Cheliax and then East towards Isger, they follow a thin history of clues that there are Frost Giants living in the mountains between Isger and Molthune. Unfortunately between them and their goal lies a massive undead army, assembled by the Wight Mother who is a true Chosen of Urgathoa. Draymus explains that she was such a powerful and inspiring necromancer when alive, the Goddess Urgathoa rewarded her with unimaginable power in unlife. She has been steadily amassing troops in these mountains for almost a century.
Draymus is able to cut a deal with the Wight Mother that allows the group passage through, as the Wight Mother is very interested in the Frost Giants utter removal from even the least desirable parts of her land. To this they agree and they travel farther up the snowy peak. They have never felt cold such as this, and they struggle to endure it until Reese alone slays a Dire Polar Bear and crafts winter clothing out of its thick hide.
Traveling on, they ask themselves why a demigod with a massive army of undead would have any trouble dispensing with a small community of Frost Giants and they soon have their answer.
The skull of a truly great dragon lies before them. Well beyond the size of any known dragons that roam the world now, Draymus theorizes it is a fallen god from an age passed 10,000 years ago. Standing before it, they find several greater undead frozen harmlessly in place. One is an animated skeleton of a Storm Giant, and the others are greater winter-wights.
Draymus feels a tinge of the oppressive aura that has trapped these undead. He surmises that as he is still technically a living being, he is not directly affected but the dragon’s bones emit a powerful magical aura not unlike the spell “halt undead.” He guesses then that this must have been an ancestor of Gold or Silver dragons, being of such pure good that even in death it wards against evil.
They pass through the skull and successfully locate the Frost Giants home and thoroughly scout their defenses. Rather than fight them, the team opts to try to cut a deal. Draymus uses his extensive library of illusion and deception magics to momentarily amuse the Wight Mother, who they believe is watching them.
Freya, Jamal, and Reese travel forward and ask to speak with the chief of the Frost Giants. They meet “Skadi,” a tall and slender female Frost Giant who is their leader. She carries a long steel chain that appears to be made of glowing blue ice, and she demands they leave. Freya stands firm and offers her terms of their passage, and on a whim, requests a formal meeting. Skadi accepts.
The team eats and drinks, while Freya and Skadi enter an ever escalating legal argument about property, trespassing, hereditary rights, international borders, and old feuds between the Frost Giants and various other entities. This argument rages back and forth for some time, with the Giants and Jamal becoming intoxicated while Freya remains strong. Eventually she gains the upper hand in the argument and not only wins passage through the area, but earns several cultural items the Giants have recovered but have no use for.
The only thing Skadi required of them was to remove a nuisance. On the North side of the mountain range, down a long slope leading into the country of Molthune, there lives a remorhaz so large and fierce, it’s like has never been seen or documented. It has claimed the lives of three of Skadi’s tribe, but still they would keep the monster in tact. It does not come farther up the mountain, and acts as an impassable barrier to any would-be trespassers from the North, while the dragon bones & undead army protect the only other path.
What she wants removed is a box. She alludes to it’s contents and after some near-fatal scouting by Reese, they learn it is an ornately carved and magically reinforced coffin. Draymus quickly surmises that it is the travel coffin of a Nidalese vampire of some import, a Noble or other VIP.
Using the rotting bear carcass as a zombified distraction, they lure the Remorhaz away from the coffin and fly it down the slope. There is a further danger however, as they leave the suppression zone created by the dragon skeleton, the Wight Mother perceives their location and their betrayal. Portals open up before them and massively powerful undead lumber through. In the moment of surprise caused by this, they drop the coffin.
It opens slightly and quickly closes again, but Freya sees a shape dart out of it and hide behind a nearby building. It appears to be a young woman, totally normal in appearance.
She quickly assesses the battlefield and says to Freya “we should go.” The party takes this queue and flies quickly out of reach of the powerful undead, resolving to not return to the pass of Dark Rain until they are much better equipped to deal with such powers.
Stopping to breathe, the girl introduces herself as Lady Violetta Pavel of Nidal. She is a Noblewoman, appointed diplomat sent to represent Nidal to Queen Abrogail II herself, and yes, a vampire. She has been trapped in her coffin for nearly a year and as such is very thirsty for blood. Freya obliges her with a cup of her own.
She quickly surmises that after having been stuck in the ice for a year, she will have been replaced. Her responsibility is still to report what intelligence she has to Queen Abrogail II and to her masters back in Nidal. Given her rank and authorization papers she shows them, she could command them to escort her safely to either location except that Freya is on a mission ordered by the Queen herself and nothing may interfere. Violetta recognizes this, and wishes to assist.
Even with time pressing down on them, the party splits up to teleport Draymus to Nidal to seek a doctor skilled enough to put his brain in a jar. Meanwhile, Freya, Jamal, Reese, and Jason head to Citadel Dinyar to recon the situation. The Glorious Reclamation took this fortress nearly a year ago and has held it ever since.
Built fairly recently, Citadel Dinyar is nearly unassailable. It is built as two separate keeps joined by a bridge between them over a deep chasm in a very rocky area. A visit from Corrine earlier revealed to them that there was one survivor of the Glorious Reclamation’s initial assault: a young hellknight-signifier commanded by his superiors to flee and inform the capital of what transpared. He did so and also spent several hours with Corrine revealing all he knows of the secret door.
Jamal and Reese find it with relative ease and the party begins plans to assault the rebels from the bowels of their stolen fortress. They hope that some Hellknights of the Godclaw may still be alive in it’s dungeons.








