Agnar's Band of Faire Men
From 4th Edition
| Agnar's Band of Faire Men | |
|---|---|
| |
| |
| Status: Infiltrating The Noble's Base |
These guys are bad-ass mother-fuckers who aren't afraid to go into battle with only their fists and can survive a point-blank explosion.
Contents |
History
All four memebers of Agnar's men hail from the small icy village of Scelf-byr, deep in the Silver Marches. The four grew up together, growing strong wrestling ice ettins and other local fauna. At age 18, the four left the village to visit Silverymoon to compete in a contest of strength and skill. The four came in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th respectively.
Recognizing for the first time their considerable power, the four decided to venture out into the world to bring back treasure and honor to their village. Strength alone was not enough to see them through, however, and upon arriving at Baldur's Gate, they found themselves treated like uncouth foreigners. Jobs were scarse for "uncivilized" Northmen such as themselves, and Agnar's men were hard pressed for work.
Dealings with the Thief
Down on their luck, the four were contacted by an agent of The Thief to find four elemental daggers, which they took despite their misgivings about the nature of the task. After delivering the fourth, they were attacked by Messengers, which they promptly defeated. A few days later, they received a message from The Thief, telling them that the Messengers were part of a rebel faction within his organization and that civil war had broken out. He asked Agnar's Band to enter the Shadowfell and retrieve the key to their destruction in the shadow version of Wimpington Manor where they were later trapped for about six months before being rescued.
Current Activities
Chapter 1
After escaping the sinking ship and swimming to shore (a distance of one mile) the four found themselves in a strange and hostile land. Without the slightest clue about where they were or how to get back to the material plane, they decided to start heading north along the coast, figuring that sooner or later, they were likely to find the shadow version of something they recognized and hopefully navigate their way back to where they entered the Shadowfell.
The band made their way, killing and eating any inhabitants of the shadow plan unlucky enough to have a corporeal body, while keeping their eyes out for any signs of civilization. Eventually, they caught sight of a tall castle, emerging out of the foggy landscape. Eager for a short, respite, the foursome made for the building, only to find its inhabitants in some distress.
The castle was ruled by a shadar-kai king who had gotten on the wrong side of a powerful wizard, now holed up in the catacombs below. To make things worse, the wizard had used the powerful necrotic energies to turn himself into a lich. The king welcomed the band, pleading for their assistance in the matter.
Eager to help, Agnar and his men delved into the catacombs that very night, and found the lich standing in a vast chamber filled with millions of bones. Laughing, the lich taunted them, explaining that he had hidden his phylactery inside one of the bones in the room and that without it, the men could do him no harm. Agnar rebutted this argument with his fists, demonstrating that while perhaps he and his men could not harm the lich, they could hurt him pretty significantly. After several hours of brutal pummeling, the adventurers stuffed the lich in a small chest and wrapped it with thick chain before dumping it into the ocean, bidding the lich to live as long as he wanted on the bottom of the ocean.
Agnar's men returned in celebration to the castle, where they were welcomed to stay as long as they liked. The people are friendly and the accommodations are comfortable, so the band has decided to stay for a little bit, though they vow to set out for home again soon.
Chapter 2
For the next month, life was good. Agnar’s men were celebrated as heroes and enjoyed all the hospitality the castle had to offer. The king’s daughter and Otto had even begun to fancy each other and were spending more and more time away from the rest of the party. At this point, Agnar concluded that things were going too well, and began to make plans for the group’s departure. Prying Otto away from the princess was a task to be sure, but Agnar successfully convinced Otto to follow his lead by beating him in a wrestling match in an arena of burning coals (as was their custom).
The band set off once again into the Shadowfell wilderness, having traveled north for a day before reaching a tremendous forest that stretched as far as the eye could see. Undaunted, Aganar's men forged forward, following trails where they could find them and making their own where none existed. Despite their persistence, the four found themselves walking in circles, encountering their own marks and trails again and again.
Stopping a moment to ponder their situation, the party was set upon by a band of shadow dryads, who offered the men a place to rest and rejuvenate themselves. Agnar is nobody’s fool, however, and immediately recognized that these dryads were up to no good, intending to lull the party into complacency before sucking away their life force. Hatching a plan, he told his men to accept the offer anyway, following the dryads back to their grove.
There, Agnar met with the village elder, whose great oak was thousands of years old, and asked her for guidance in navigating the forest. Thinking to make a quick meal of these foolish adventurers, the elder promised to provide the band with directions, but urged them first to take a break and sleep in the grove. Having secured this promise, Agnar and his men made quick work of the dryads, subduing some with their mighty fists and setting the rest of the grove ablaze, using the broken trees of their initial victims as kindling, but sparing the elder dryad.
Frightened beyond measure, the elder agreed to do whatever Agnar wanted but explained that it was useless to rely on her directions for navigating the ever-changing forest, offering instead to lead them herself for part of the way while they remained close to her oak. For Agnar, who needed guidance for the entire journey, this wasn’t good enough, and he quickly organized his men around the elder’s great tree. With a mighty heave, the four tore the entire oak out of the ground, roots and all so as to keep it alive, hoisting it onto their shoulders for the journey ahead. The dryad elder had no choice but to stay with her tree, and was forced to guide the men as they wandered through the forest until they reached the opposite side. Out of consideration to their helpful, if unwilling, guide, Agnar and his men replanted the oak on the edge of the forest and continued their journey north.
Chapter 3
Though the road was long and grueling, Agnar and his men were cheerful as they trekked northward across the dreary planes separating them from the portal they used to enter the Shadowfell. At last, the four reached a range of mountains that appeared to be the shadow analog of the Cloud Peaks. After celebrating, the party made for the western pass.
There they came across a terrible sight. A band of titans had gathered up a great pen of shadar-kai villagers, clearly with the intention of eating them. There were too many for a frontal assault, so Agnar and his men crept closer to observe and concoct a plan to free the captives. While hidden in a nearby thicket, the band overheard the monsters talking and discovered to their great surprise that the titans were slavers, intending to deliver these captives rather than eat them. The titans worked for an individual they referred to only as The Noble, whose base of operations was somewhere deep in the Elemental Chaos.
Apparently, the titans had gathered their prisoners here so that they could open a portal to their home base and transport them back. Realizing that the situation was more dire then they had first imagined, Agnar consulted his band about what they should do next. Home was just past the next bend, but the party couldn't just ignore the injustice being committed in front of them. By a unanimous vote, the four decided to free the slaves from the hands of The Noble.
After some careful thought, the four hatched upon a daring plan. Waiting in the brush, the band watched as one of the titans left the group to go relieve himself. Striking as soon as he was a suitable distance away, the four fell upon the monster and quickly subdued him. They carefully removed his armor, his breastplate in particular, and set upon him with their knives. Splitting his chest open, they removed most of his organs and much of his fat and muscle until only a hollow shell remained.
Holding their noses, the four climbed inside, with Gauss and Josep each controlling a leg, Otto controlling the titan's two arms, and Agnar guiding the beast and puppeting the head. The four carefully redressed the monster, making sure that its breastplate completely covered the seam running down its stomach. Then, with skill and coordination, the four guided their disguise back to the titan camp.
They arrived back just in time. The titans had already opened the portal to The Noble's home dimension and were beginning to shepherd the captives through. No one took any particular notice as Agnar's men came shambling back. Calling upon his best impersonation of a titan, (an easy task for the deep-throated Northman) Agnar pretended to urge the slaves forward while getting ever close to the portal himself.
They had almost reached the glowing circle when disaster struck. As the band past by, one of the titan's underlings turned towards him and saluted. For panic-induced second, Otto struggled to bend the titan's arm upwards, finding that he could not adequately control the beasts forearm to return the gesture. Fortunately, with a deft pull, Agnar saved the day, wrenching upon a dangling tendon and sending the monsters hand snapping against its forehead while Agnar himself issued a commanding bellow. With the ritual completed, the underling marched off, continuing its task, leaving Agnar and his men free to dash through the portal towards a brand new adventure.
Chapter 4
Having risked life and limb to rescue the captured slaves, Agnar and his men now find themselves trapped on a floating island, hidden deep in the Elemental Chaos. Captured by the infamous slaver known only as The Noble, they find themselves now locked in a prison cell deep in the island.
Sadly, the titan disguise didn't last very long once the group had passed trough the gate. The moment of disorientation induced by the sudden change in location resulted in a nasty spill on the other side of the portal, and their ingenious deception was quickly discovered. Chained up with the rest of the slaves, Agnar's men now await inspection by the servants of The Noble for the sake of determining their suitable use and selling price.
The Noble's island is a tremendous earth mote, floating in an asteroid cluster carried about by fierce elemental winds. The top of this particular rock has been leveled off, leaving only a high plateau on one side on which rests The Noble's opulent palace. From this high vantage, The Nobel can look down on a wide field, filled with slaves, preserved in stone form by his army of gorgon servants. Underground, his servants work to prepare his slaves for sale in one of the many major auctions taking place elsewhere in the planes.
Sitting in an underground cell, our heroes ponder their situation. Listening in on guard's conversations, they've discovered that The Nobel has recently returned from a three year sabbatical with new orders from his boss, The Crime King, to begin an aggressive new enslavement campaign across the planes, almost quadrupling The Noble's typical influx of slaves. Concerned for the safety of innocents, Agnar and his men resolve to do whatever it takes to disrupt The Noble's operations.
Their efforts begin that very night when Otto was chosen to exchange fond words with one of their female gorgon jailers. The guard, unaccustomed to male attention responded positively, and took Otto to an adjacent cell so that they could be alone together. While keeping the guard distracted with his rugged charm, Otto carefully picked her pockets and tossed the cell key to his nearby friends, making sure that the guard's attention was focused on him while the other three made their escape.
After a brief search, Agnar found a storeroom filled with Oil of Flesh Returned and quickly gathered up as much as he could. Heading towards the surface, the band quickly began to apply the oil to all of the petrified slaves stored on the surface. Before the guards could react, a slave rebellion had suddenly broken out, with the majority of The Noble's petrified assets returning to life and taking arms. As the situation devolved into pandemonium, Agnar returned to the cells below to rescue Otto before fighting their way to the top of the mighty cliff and assaulting The Noble's palace.
When the band reached Otto, however, they found that the guard had taken quite a liking to him and had agreed to show the four a secret passageway that would allow them to access the palace without getting involved in the battle being waged outside. Although it pained them to avoid an honorable battle, the band recognized the wisdom in the guard's suggestion and proceeded upwards, with Otto leaving her with a kiss and a promise to return.
Reaching the top of the plateau, Agnar's men found it deserted, with almost all the guards involved with the fighting below. The palace was not without defenses, however; several stone obelisks surrounded the building, covered in protective runes and barring the passage of the adventurers. Not one to be stopped by mere stone, Agnar ordered Josep to draw his mighty sledge hammer, and with a single mighty swing, he reduced one of the obelisks to rubble.
It was at this point that the four discovered that the obelisks had an additional responsibility beyond defending the palace from intruders. Apparently, they were also exerting a force on the asteroid field above the floating island, keeping the heavy rocks at bay. With one of the pylons demolished, the carefully arranged cosmos suddenly came raining down, sending huge chunks of rock tearing through the palace and the ground all around Agnar and his men. As one particularly large asteroid crashed nearby, the chunk of rock the four were standing on was suddenly forcefully ejected from the earth mote. Hanging on for dear life, the party suddenly and unexpectedly finds themselves flying into the Elemental Chaos!
