The Wedding of the Giantess Morwenna Session One

The border between the ruins of the Giant Kingdoms and the Commonwealth's frontier colonies. It was autumn, around the time the rain threatens to turn to snow. Four adventurers arrived at the blockhouse set up by the merchant Ishizaka the Genie to capitalize on the festivities soon to occur.

• The Giantslayer Aldrich Brisbane, following the Giantess Morwenna
• The Mage Laguna Tempest, here to hunt down and kill Gorrister the Great
• The Herdsman Jack Fatherd, here to get drunk and steal things
• The Elf Datura, here to steal things.

The festivities in question, advertised on an enormous billboard: a tournament, to be held in seven days. The prize: Morwenna's hand in marriage.

A squad of soldiers and an Ogre stood idly outside Ishizaka's shop, keeping watch over a group of slaves - mixed Halflings and humans. Aldrich and Jack recognized their uniforms as those Morwenna's entourage wore when she returned home to put down the rebellion in her father's Manor. A soldier came out and the slaves went in to start loading bags into a pair of carts. The adventurers conversed with the soldiers and learned where to sign up for the upcoming tournament: an event venue about twelve miles to the east. 

 

The region was full of activity, with signs of predation by mercenary bands everywhere. Abandoned farmhouses and animals roaming free, owners missing. The road passed through a forest and over a bridge, and it occurred to the adventurers that when it rained the soldiers would have trouble with their muskets. Several landmarks stuck up over the horizon, visible to Datura through the greenery. A hundred foot white stone tower with a domed structure on top, a menhir atop an enormous dolmen, and a hill where stylites dangled on hooks from enormous wooden poles.

Aldrich and Jack realized the dolmen was the tomb of Arminius, Morwenna's father who Aldrich slew on his deathbed. Which meant it would be full of loot. The gang diverted from their course to hike two miles up the hill and dig up the grave. The hill provided a great view of the surrounding terrain. Datura's Elven eyes took in the estate of the Giantess to the east. A huge hillfort with a big earth ramp leading down to a sawmill and dock. Slave lumberjacks floating logs down the river. A walled garden with dinosaurs grazing on cycads. She noted, with trepidation, that a group of dragoons had exited a nearby fort and were on the way toward the group.

Laguna noted with equal trepidation that the menhir over the grave had a carving which looked awfully similar to the Stone Giant that attacked Wakefield when he stole treasure off the altar in the Mountain of the Mad Marquis. Between the approaching horsemen and the potential for a living statue attack, the group decided against digging up the grave. Aldrich pretended to pray in front of the grave, while Jack Fatherd went down the hill to investigate the dangling stylites.

The cavalry troopers warned the adventurers not to dig up the grave, for their own safety. They explained that there were three factions currently contesting the tournament

• Gorrister the Great and his Brigands of All Nations
• The Green Men of One Ear
• Wilusa the Lamia
  

Aldrich was distressed to learn that the tournament was a big team battle rather than a series of duels. He needed to raise an army if he was to wed the Giantess. 

 

Jack Fatherd was surprised to see a number of refugees clustered around the poles supporting the ascetics, along with piled food and drink at the base of the pillars. He surmised that these were cultists of the Tower of Pain, mortifying themselves in imitation of the order's founder Dacian. The refugees (humans, Halflings and a couple Orcs) told him what happened to their respective homes. The Halfling fishing village to the southeast and the Commonwealth farming village to the north were destroyed by Morwenna's soldiers, the survivors eaten or enslaved. The Orc tribes in the area were attacked by Gorrister, who stole their hoarded bones. 

 

Catlin

 

The chief stylite, a Tower of Pain Cleric who dangled higher than the others, ordered Jack to leave before he blasted him to smithereens. He had seen the farmer bow and scrape before the dolmen of Arminius. Morwenna's sycophants weren't welcome here. Jack explained that he was going to rob the grave, but was interrupted by the Dragoons and the Stone Giant. He left wine and a fistful of cave silk bills among the offerings at the base of the pole, and returned to his friends.

The road led to the Giantess' gardens. A squad of soldiers asked the adventurers their business, then told them to go through the gate and around the north side of the steading to reach the event venue. The garden was full of primitive plants, carefully trimmed to look like the jungles of the lost world beyond Isle of Sweat. The garden led down to a beach, and the beach to a lake several miles in diameter. A pair of Utahraptors came out of the undergrowth and ran up to the team, bobbing their heads eagerly. They clearly expected to be fed. Jack gave one a piece of cheese and almost lost a hand. He wisely tossed the next piece to the other beast.

 

A gnome ran out of the foliage and berated Jack for feeding the huge reptiles dairy. She whistled for the other slave gardeners and ran after the beasts, who skipped away from her like dogs with stolen food in their mouths. She was able to wrangle them and feed them flowering plants to induce vomiting. The adventurers noted her ability control the dinosaurs, then continued on their way.

 

The opposite exit from the garden led to the wedding venue: a half-finished collection of tents and gazebos on the lakeshore, worked by slaves and guarded by soldiers. In one of the tents: an enormous glass jar, held aloft by a metal stand. On the glass vessel, sigils smeared in wax. Inside the jar, a purple worm.

The land east of Morwenna's hillfort was a pampa, a sea of grass. The vegetation had been chopped back in places to deny concealment to approaching attackers or escaping slaves. In the distance, a conical structure, like a drystone hut from the Storm Coast. The veterans of the Mountain of the Mad Marquis realized it was a beehive tomb from the ancient empire, like the one they encountered on level three of that dungeon, exposed completely by erosion. They also noted an ominous number of crows and vultures circling over an unknown location to the south of Morwenna's steading, obscured by the hill.

The prospective contestants had been told to speak with Houdini the Mummy at the event venue. The event venue was a wooden stand around a central plinth, with box seats for important guests and a fabric screen to shade spectators from sun and rain. The event was seven days away, but already a set of market stalls had popped up outside, vendors intent on securing the best spots ahead of time. Houdini strolled past the foodsellers and merch tables, dictating event preparation tasks to a mischief of Imps who trailed at his feet and scribbled on sheets of paper.

 

Aldrich flagged the mummy down and told him he wanted to enter the tournament as a suitor. Houdini asked what team name they wanted to enter under. Datura quickly improvised the name Loot Bastards, which the others amended to Lute Bastards. Their theme was the mysterious dark horse candidate entered late in event preparations, which excited Houdini. He explained the tournament rules: on the day of the festivities, the four armies would array in a square around the old beehive tomb. The tomb was the objective, and whoever held it at the end of the day would be the winner. Until then, tournament participants were forbidden from fighting one another, although hiring warriors out from under each other's noses was legal.

Houdini went further and suggested that the Lute Bastards hunt down and either hire or kill two groups of guerillas operating in the area: a party of Halfings who escaped the destruction of their village, and a group of Dwarves operating out of a base somewhere northeast of the lake. If that didn't work, they could try the Iron Cup outlet they passed on the way into the area. A coffee house was always a good place to hatch conspiracies and hire mercenaries.

 

Houdini left the Lute Bastards to ponder their next move. Aldrich wanted to win the tournament so he could fuck the Giantess, and potentially convert her to an alignment where she wouldn't eat humans. Killing the Dwarves at Houdini's behest would improve their standing with him, which could prove decisive since he was the event referee. Plus they were Dwarves, greedy slave traders who couldn't reasonably object if they were killed because they picked a fight they couldn't win. The team debated heading south to the destroyed Halfling village to set up camp, since that seemed to be the only quadrant of the map not already occupied by a mercenary army. But it was getting late and they didn't want to wander around in the dark. they settled on returning to a farmhouse they passed earlier, which it seemed the soldiers were using as a tavern.

They were on their way back, walking along the lakeshore when they saw her. A twenty foot woman clad partially in steel armor, visible miles away, carrying a Duergar in the palm of her hand as she strolled purposefully out of the woods, through her garden and up the causeway to her steading. She carried a treebranch bound in iron on a sheath attached to her thigh, along with enormous flasks full of unknown liquid on her belt. Aldrich felt a violent jealousy that she was carrying another man.

The farmhouse was indeed in use as a tavern by the soldiers. Inside, Ogre pit bosses ran card tables for Morwenna's troops, a blindfolded Yeti and a school of Bullywugs. An important looking mercenary ran the bar counter. Jack Fatherd noted the Sign of the Starhelm on the pommel of his sword and assumed he was a living representative of the order. The bartender clarified that he won the blade in a game of dice. He asked if the group were adventurers, and offered 500 silver pieces if they'd banish the ghost living in the basement.

The team distributed magic weapons to ensure maximum ghost killing potential. Datura gave Aldrich the enchanted sword Bedbug, not telling him the blade was cursed and intelligent. The talking blade immediately told Aldrich to kill the barkeep and take his magic sword. He ignored her. One of the Ogres rolled away the keg holding the basement hatch shut and the team descended.

The Spectre appeared to them once they were sealed in the basement. A ghost made up of the amalgamated souls of a family. It stared and opened its mouth. Jack called on the power of his Gods and turned undead. The Spectre fled but there was nowhere to go. It cowered in a corner and was no longer the combined spirits of a family, but the ghost of a frightened child, bearing wounds from swords and muskets. The adventurers slew the spirit with magic weapons before it could recover from its fear and drain their life essence.

 

The inkeeper let them out of the basement, sent a sacrificial Ogre down to verify the dangerous spirit was banished, and paid them their 500 silver. They used a handful of the coins to pay for rooms and went to bed.

 

Some of them did, anyway. Jack Fatherd was fed up with slavers and cannibals. He was going to do something about Morwenna and her goons. He kicked Datura out of bed and brought her with him. The bar was mostly empty as they stole out into the night. Their destination: the dangling stylites of the Tower of Pain.

 

Datura spotted the Goblins cavorting by a milestone before the Goblins spotted them. They were each missing an ear, and they played a game of toss-the hedgehog around the standing stone. Jack approached and asked what game they were playing. The Goblins asked if he was a tournament contestant. When they learned he was, they asked a bunch of probing questions. The Lute Bastards realized they were being pumped for intelligence when the Goblins broke contact and fled into the undergrowth off the side of the road.

MacDonald

 

Jack Fatherd knelt at the foot of the pole where the Cleric dangled. He asked for help killing Morwenna. He took off his clothes and sang songs of the Liberator to prove he was no friend of tyrants. Trofim, Cleric of the Tower of Pain, lowered a meathook on a length of rope. A trial by ordeal. Jack passed the hook through his hand and Trofim yanked upward. The barb ripped out of his hand, mangling it. The Cleric judged Jack sincere. He passed his hand over his chest, slicing off a layer of skin that fell atop the prone adventurer like a strip of wet leather. A scroll of Finger of Death, scribed on human parchment.