A Sundered World: Wolf Mountain, Part 2

Cast

• Dymlos (level 1 human monk/level 4 spellsword)
• Miyoshi (level 5 nekobito shaman)
• Yao Lao (level 5 human monk)

Session Highlights

After killing the ash wolves the party continues their ascent; it takes at least a half-cycle to reach the bone tunnel's exit. They're once again greeted with blinding snow, but a steep mountain range shields them from some of the biting winds.

In the distance they spot a very faint light, and checking it with Thordrun confirm it's where they need to go. As they travel towards it they realize they're on a gradually sloping plateau over looking a labyrinthine canyon.

The paths are mostly obscured by snow and fog, but when they hear what they're pretty sure is the draugr howling gleefully in the distance, decide its best to not try walking atop the canyon walls any more than they have to.

After climbing down a cliff they manage to find an entrance pretty easily. When they get close they can feel a rhythmic breeze issuing forth from it, like breathing. It's also humid, but inside the canyon its considerably warmer: any snow that falls within quickly melts. So, another good reason to keep low.

As soon as they step into the canyon they notice something else awry: both the ground and walls are...spongy and moist. They also seems to slightly pulse. Miyoshi checks it with her claws: she's able to gouge into it fairly easily, and it not only slightly trembles, as if in pain, but "bleeds" a clear fluid. Disturbing, but not much more than what they've seen thus far. Plus it's the only obvious route they found: due to the weather, draugr, and dwindling supplies they don't want to risk trying to locate another.

Though they observed a number of paths from above, they realize that within there are many, many more. Some are quite narrow, forcing them to travel single file or even squeeze their way through. Others dip down underground, or are otherwise fully enclosed tunnels. Most paths terminate, others loop around, but they aren't exactly sure where they are going, and only vaguely sure what they are looking for.

Periodically Miyoshi scales a wall to check the direction of the light, and they make sure to mark walls and passages (both to note that they were here, as well as which way they want). They can only hope that they aren't lost, are pretty certain they aren't taking the shortest route to...wherever it is they're going, and after another half-cycle stumble upon about a dozen corpses.

Due to their size and general skeletal structure Thordrun figures them to be dwarves. Their chests seem to have been torn open, ribs reaching outwards, but due to a combination of decay and the fact that no one wants to touch them they can't tell if that was the cause of death, or if something just happened by since then to feed.

Something like a giant raven.

Miyoshi hears it, and scampers up a cliff to see what the noise is about. The raven looks more or less like a normal raven, just the size of a house and with a neck covered in eyes that wildly look about. She can sense that it's a spirit, but spirits can be benevolent or malicious, and you can't always tell by looking: even the beautiful ones can be cruel. In any case it's coming their way, so she dashes back to Lao and Dymlos to tell them what she saw: she has them at giant raven, and they cram into a random passage.

Fortunately the raven is too big to fit into the canyon, unfortunately that's not a problem because in addition to all the eyes its neck can apparently stretch a considerable distance. It pecks at the corpses for a bit, and then opens its mouth. Its tongue is seemingly composed of numerous gelatinous bodies: a few sets of arms reach out to tear the rotten eyes from the corpses. Once the tongue finishes its grim harvest the raven's head retracts, but before it can leave Miyoshi calls out to it.

Yep: she sees a giant raven covered in eyes, with a tongue made of bodies that want more eyes, and figures its one helluva conversation starter.

The raven stops, feathers ruffled, and its head stretches back on down. It looks about and seems confused. It pecks at the bodies some more, likely thinking they were the ones speaking, before making a clicking noise and asking in a monotone, almost robotic voice, "Where are you?" It's only at this point that Miyoshi reconsiders her choice. The raven just continues to repeat the question while searching about, so Miyoshi eventually relents and asks what it wants.

In a shocking twist of events...it wants eyes.

Probably their eyes, so they wriggle even deeper into the passage while the raven keeps repeating its question. They continue waiting and waiting until...the raven just leaves, which would be good news if it wasn't only leaving because half of the dwarven corpses begin shaking and violently coughing; a black sludge burbles out of their mouths, which grows into several tendril-covered, floating spheres.

These spheres clump together, but remain attached to various dwarves with thin, wiry limbs, controlling them like puppets. The dwarves begin shambling towards the characters' hiding place, and with nowhere to go they burst out and begin attacking. Also, they don't look nearly as big and dangerous as the raven. About as creepy, but not as dangerous.

Due to the coughing Lao covers his mouth with a strip of cloth, and Dymlos follows suit (Miyoshi doesn't because due to her ability to command spirits can just hang back at quite a distance). Good plan, because as the black spheres are ruptured they release a cloud of toxic spores. They destroy the zombies without much trouble, and since the spheres' tendrils aren't terribly long they have to remain close, so all Dymlos and Lao have to do is jump about while swinging at them until they pop the rest.

There isn't much to be found on the bodies, not that anyone is particularly interested in rotten, likely diseased equipment. They don't walk away empty handed, however: both Dymlos and Lao feel an odd tickle in their throats, and a burning sensation within their chests.

Design & Development

Calling this section of the wolf either the Lung Labyrinth or Bronchial Badlands. I figured at least one character would get infected by the streptococcus zombies, so had to work on diseases, which I talk more about over on this post.

Red Book is currently at 523 pages long, and we still need to add in all the new wizard talents, the sorcerer's new bloodline, the aforementioned rules for poison and disease, some GM advice, and a few new random tables to make things even easier to deal with. Also needs about 100 new illustrations, which will be the primary focus of the upcoming Kickstarter.

We have some ideas for stretch goals—more art, some added content, paper minis, and the like—but feel free to let us know here, on social media, or via email the kind of stretch goals you'd like to see!

Announcements

You can now get a physical copy of Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book in whatever format you want (the PDF is also on sale on DriveThru)! We've also released the first big supplement for it, Appendix D, so pick that up if you want more of everything.

The first issue of The Delver, a magazine featuring fungal-themed content for both players and GMs (including an adventure in which myconids find religion), is available!

Our latest Dungeon World class, The Ranger, is now available.

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By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).