Iron & Gold
Lost in the Borderlands is based on the module Borderlands of Adventure, by J (who I presume is Walter J. Jones Jr., the copyright holder) and published by New Realms Publishing as NRP 31001.
It was written for Labyrinth Lord and I have converted to Iron & Gold by Precis Intermedia Games. It follows a few other adventures with these characters.
Lost in the Borderlands
Previous Chapter 4. The Mound —[]— Next Chapter 6. Outside The Old Keep
5. The Hobgoblin Lair[0]
They overslept and got a late start.[1] Hrelgi pushed Ninefingers to the top[2]; Ninefingers fastened the rope and Felewin climbed up, then hauled the other two people.
The zombies, now just corpses, lay on the ground. Flies were already on them; for some reason, flies never landed on a zombie, but only on a corpse that had died the true death. They ate a hasty meal as far away from the flies as they could find, used the water from the marsh to make their toilet, and headed back to the junction they had crossed yesterday.
This time they went north and then when it forked, they went east, mindful that their eventual destination was east. The grass was not as high or as difficult here; they made reasonable time, and suddenly it became a lightly-traveled path.
Ninefingers noticed it because he wasn’t having to dodge grass every step, and he could see that Felewin’s face was tight with worry. Finally Felewin called for a halt and said, “Have a drink if you can, because I suspect it will be hard going soon.” Felewin did not get a drink; he was stringing his bow.
“Do you expect trouble?” Ninefingers said.
“Well, we are in an area where hobgoblins live, and there is a giant rat by that tree. I don’t know if it’s a regular rat or perhaps a swamp rat, but either way, we don’t want it distracting us if we meet hobs.” He nocked an arrow, aimed, and let go.[3]
He hit the rat in its hindquarters. It darted away, and he couldn’t find it again.
Felewin looked up at the sun, which was high overhead. Rats were creatures of dusk and night time. That wasn’t a swamp rat; he had said that to cushion the news for Hrelgi and Uthrilir. If a giant rat was out around noon, its nest was near or there was something else exciting the rats.
He said, “Just to be cautious, please have weapons ready. Between rats and hobgoblins, we don’t want to be surprised.”
Ninefingers said, “Hobgoblins are essentially orcs. Both enslave goblins. Other creatures sometimes enslave them.”
“Like humans enslave each other,” said Felewin.
“Yes,” said Ninefingers.
They diverted to the place where the rat had been. “Keep aware,” Felewin muttered to Ninefingers, and examined the trail. “It was hurt but not badly. Some blood. The hobgoblins already know we’re in the area, so I don’t think there’s any point to tracking it.”
“I am quite tired of rat jerky,” said Ninefingers as they headed on..
Felewin grinned. “You’ve barely had any. Vengis wouldn’t let me kill and smoke more than one rat.”
Hrelgi interrupted. “Hey, do you hear that?”[4]
They stopped and listened. Something was eating nearby. Felewin looked at Ninefingers, who set down his pack and slipped into the forest.
Less than a minute later, Ninefingers was back and running. “Swords up,” he said. “Rats and a wolf.”
Felewin scanned for something he could shoot.[5] There was nothing. “A wolf?”
“That’s what’s eating. Rats are waiting for leftovers but I stepped in—”
A rat appeared, as long as Ninefingers was tall. Felewin let the arrow go. The arrow sank into the rat.
Uthrilir hit it with his mace and dashed its skull in[6], killing it.
Three other giant rats appeared and leapt at Ninefingers.[7] One managed to land on him but its teeth hit armor.
Hrelgi said a spell,[8] and the rat fell off Ninefingers, squeaking and clearly badly wounded.[9]
Uthrilir hit one of the other rats, crippling it; Ninefingers[10] hit a second one, hurting it badly, while Felewin[11] drew his sword, and Hrelgi cast the spell again, at the third rat.
Now they had four badly wounded rats, none of which could run away. The beasts snapped at the adventurers but could not move.
Felewin said, “Finish them; I’ll stand guard in case the wolf appears.”
Ninefingers beheaded one, saying, “Sword work is too close for dealing with a wolf.” Uthrilir and Hrelgi finished off two more rats.
“An arrow from this bow would only annoy it. It’s for shooting coneys and birds and maybe wounding a deer,” said Felewin.
“Don’t let Kagandis hear you say that,” replied Ninefingers as he finished off the fourth rat.
“She’s a better shot than I am, to be sure.” Uthrilir bent down, but Felewin said, “No. Rats out at this time of day are disturbed, maybe sick. Don’t touch them.”
“No rat jerky? Thank the gods,” said Ninefingers.
“Keep your weapons out, in case they were running from something.”
They made sure to give the wolf a wide berth, and found their way back to the “trail.” It branched off to the right, but Felewin looked at the ground and said, “That’s where the wolf came from. We’ll avoid it if we can.”
“How can you tell?” Hrelgi asked.
Felewin looked at her. ‘Footprints. We’ll go that way if we have to, but not until then.”
The path led to the ruin of a house, but there was no path beyond it. The house had been partially burnt, and parts of the roof had caved in. Ivy covered the walls they could see, but there was an empty doorway on the west side.
Ninefingers said, “There’s no path beyond. There’s no reason to go there.”
“The hobgoblins tried to kidnap you.”
“We don’t kill preemptively. Do we?”
“No, we don’t,” said Felewin. “The stories of knights are wrong in some ways, but knights do not destroy preemptively. If a state of war existed, that would be different.”
Uthrilir asked, “So we’re not going after the hobgoblins?”
“They might be slavers,” said Hrelgi, “and you said you were after slavers.”
“She has a point,” said Felewin, “but I have newfound respect for goblins, and hobgoblins have ‘goblin’ in the name. Are they different, Ninefingers?”
“I would have said yes, but…” Ninefingers shrugged. “Kagandis told me that the goblins, the non-Aprak goblins, have been breeding with the hobs and orcs to create gentler ones.”
“Dogs in general are good,” Felewin observed, “but sometimes a bloodline is so nasty that they must be destroyed.”
“True enough,” Ninefingers nodded. “But hobs are not dogs.”
“Because you speak up for them even though they tried to kidnap you, we shall not fight them this day.” He held up a finger. “Should they trouble us again as we try to get back to the tower, they are bad dogs that must be destroyed.”
“Self-defense is allowed, by the Maiden and by others,” said Uthrilir.
Ninefingers nodded.
“We could just burn the house,” said Hrelgi.
“Or we could turn around and try to find out way back to the tower.”
“No burning?” Hrelgi sounded disappointed.
“No burning, young one,” said Uthrilir.
They turned around and began trudging back to the last fork in the road. Hrelgi said, “Look! Centipede!” It was as long as Felewin was tall: it was huge, bigger than any other centipede they had seen since the goblin lair under the Sanctuary, weeks ago. “Can we kill it?” she asked.
“Good eating on a centipede,” said Uthrilir.
Felewin said, “It is a riskier meal than I would prefer, but if you think you can take it….”
“You will not help?”
Felewin grinned. “I’ll help if necessary.”
“First, we need to stop it,” said Hrelgi. “I can do that.” She flipped pages in the grimoire and then said an incantation.[12].
Uthrilir moved to its head, where its pincers clicked menacingly. He swung his mace[13] and hit, then swung again, and once more.. “We did this when traveling alone,” Uthrilir explained.
“Impressive,” said Felewin. “Take what meat we can use, and leave the rest for scavengers. We’ll be away by nightfall.”
“I’ll show you how to make a basket from segments of its shell,” said Ninefingers.
“Centipede. Yum,” said Hrelgi happily.
Monsters
I have written up both giant rats and giant centipedes for Iron Gauntlets but here they are for Iron & Gold
Centipede, Giant
| Abilities | F3 A3 C0 R0 I0 |
|---|---|
| Skills | Athletics 4 (≤7), Brawling 4 (≤7), Stealth 4 (≤7) |
| Gimmicks | Oversized, Venomous, Natural Weapons (teeth 2 inj), Natural Armor (2) |
| Weapons | Teeth (2 inj), Venomous (+2 inj if fit+composure < diff 2) Armor: Natural Armor[2] |
Rat, Giant
| Abilities | F2 A1 C0 R0 I0 |
|---|---|
| Gimmicks | Disease, Musclebound, Pack Fighter |
| Skills | Brawling 6 (≤5), Stealth 6 (≤8) |
| Weapons | Bite (2 inj) |
Game Mechanics
[0] Mythic suggested theme: Assist Prison (Move Toward A Thread)
[1] After 6 hourse of travel, a random encounter rolled: 5 rats.
[2] I’ve never said they had rope but I’ve never said they didn’t. They knew they were going into orc-infested caves, so they probably had some but let’s let Mythic decide. CF 7 now, Likely: 90% yes. Rolled a 51. Hrelgi rolled a 4 for the spell and 8 for the athletics (aiming) task. Felewin rolled 8 to climb up, and the rest needs no rolls.
[3] Felewin rolls 3, and the difficulty is 4 (for distance) +2 (for undersized). That gives him a net margin of 1, so he makes it. After this one, we’re switching to the “roll high” method, described in the Optional Rules file in the Research folder.
[4] Awareness rolls, difficulty 2 (target number 16). Felewin gets a 10 (using Survival); Ninefingers gets a 15…almost good enough; Hrelgi gets 15, but her dice are boxcars, so she succeeds; Uthrilir rolls 13 (using Survival)
[5] Felewin rolls an 11, so he won’t get anything until it’s point blank.
[6] Called shot (the head), Fitness+Melee skill+7 is 17 vs 16. And that rat takes 3 Inj, but since it was the head, I’m calling it dead.
[7] First hits (rolls 15 but Ninefingers rolls 18), but second hits (rolls 16) and third misses. The one that hits rolls 1 and 1 on damage, so no damage.
[8] Opposite of Salubrity sucks four levels out (16), and then she easily makes the composure+reasoning roll (15)
[9] Reactions: Felewin 12 Ninefingers 9 Hrelgi 8 Uthrilir 13 Rats 6
Uthrilir 17, Rat 11
Hrelgi 15
Rat 15
[10] Ninefingers 16, Rat 13
[11] Felewin draws sword
[12] Hrelgi rolls 18 on the spell, for a margin of 8: it’s Fabrica Motus, Latency, and 16 on the Reasoning+Composure roll (makes it by 4)
[13] Uthrilir rolls Fitness+Melee-2 Called Shot +2 motionless, for 15, makes it by 1, does 3 damage.
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