I recently started a Pathfinder game set in the Judges' Guild Wilderlands. Seeking adventure on the "Pagan Coast", the heroes are fated to become embroiled in the tumultous politics of the region, where treacherous Skandik reavers struggle for dominance and the distant Invincible Overlord seeks allies. Will they rise to find fame and power, or fall, destroyed by the snares of corsairs and kinglets? Only time will tell...
The Corsair's Deceit
The party began aboard the Naga, a cog bound out of ice-shrouded Valon. Eager to escape the northlands before Valon’s harsh winter froze them in, they were forced to dare the cruel tempests of the Uther Pentwegern Sea. Winter’s icy claws raked the ocean, its frigid waves covering the ship's decks and rigging with ice. Weary crewmen slaved watch-and-watch, endlessly battling the shifting, treacherous winds.
Fortune favored the battered vessel, safely carrying them into Skandik-held waters near Armagh. The grizzled Avalonian captain had bribed the Skandik king to secure safe passage through the waters of the Pagan Coast, gaining a writ that protected his ship, passengers, and cargo from being despoiled. Captain Vani still felt uneasy when a Skandik-built galley overhauled the Naga east of Armagh, for many of the region’s corsairs refused to honor Ossary’s king.
When the raiders sent their men aboard the Naga, the Naga's crew was briefly relieved to discover the corsairs’ captain was kinsman to the King of Ossary. Their relief turned to dismay as the avaricious man reviewed the king’s writ, declaring that since the ship’s crew was not mentioned, he would press the most skilled hands to bolster his own ship’s complement. Some of the Naga's crew considered resisting, unwilling to become thralls of a cruel Skandik reaver. A few Skandik sailors actually looked forward to the change of ship, prefering a cut of pirate loot to the meager seaman's wages paid by Captain Vani.
Angered by the reaver’s betrayal of his kinsman’s promises (and fearful that the remaining inexperienced crew would wreck them upon a lee shore), the party furiously scrambled onto the deck. The Skandik reavers fearfully fell back as a demi-giant squeezed out of the companionway, howling with battle fury. A holy maiden of Athena followed, her bow flinging bright death among the reavers. An acolyte of flame appeared behind her, his arrival shrouded by billowing smoke. Humble sailors revealed themselves as hardened adventurers, their weapons slashing cruelly into the reavers. Moments later, a cheer rose from the embattled cog’s crew, their foes’ ship fighting for distance before the vengeful adventurers could carry their battle aboard it.
The World Tree Inn
Forced to change course to avoid potential retaliation from other pirate vessels, the Naga’s crew faced a grim choice: The northwestern winds carried dark clouds, suggesting stormy weather ahead. To find shelter from the storm, they would need to seek a Skandik port. Captain Vani preferred to try his fate against the storm, but the ship’s exhausted, wounded crew left his passengers with little confidence in such a plan. Begging the captain to make port, they urged him to seek shelter in Croy’s harbor. The rulers of Croy held little love for Ossary’s ruler, so the Naga might find a safe harbor there.
Arriving in Croy just as the storm's arctic winds broke overhead, the Naga's company slogged through damp snow to take shelter in the World Tree Inn, gratefully lifting warm horns of spiced hypocras. They shared the inn with several other groups, including a band of nobles from the City-State. The party had barely shaken the cold from their cloaks when an elderly Skandik entered, a priest of Wotan hefting a spear of blackened iron and carrying a massive raven on one shoulder.
Intrigued by the stranger’s arrival, the party idly listened to his conversation with the nobles. The main speaker had first seemed a servant or hanger-on, his garments plain and unadorned. In a hoarse, conspiratorial whisper, he warned the priest of treachery among his sect's ranks, traitors bringing a warband to Croy to slay the island’s leaders and seize control of the island's famous temple, the Seat of Wisdom. Unfortunately, before more could be learned, the strangers noticed the party members eavesdropping. They moved across the tavern to a more private location.
Seeing a chance to ingratiate themselves to local leaders, the party members introduced themselves and offered their services. The aged cleric was hesitant, reluctant to involve strangers in his church’s affairs. Eventually, the party prevailed upon him to hire them to cross the island and reconnoiter an inlet on the far side, discovering whether Skandik drakkar longships had landed there recently.
Into the Storm
Frigid winds howled through the hills, the winter storm rising as the band trudged through the snow. Nearing the inlet, they spotted a flicker of light from nearby ruins, half-hidden in a stand of snow-covered pines. A band of orcish brigands rested within, their master a huge, brutish ogre with an equally-massive mongrel dog for a pet. Mangy rat-kobolds scurried among the brigands, eager to curry their favor. A brief battle followed, after which the party seized a surrendering kobold as their thrall and torchbearer. The frightened creature knew little, but made it clear that his fallen masters were soon to join several other bands in an assault against the temple of Wotan and its masters.
Resting among the ruins until dawn, the party found the inlet. A sharp-eyed guard among the invaders shouted a warning, and two longships pulled swiftly away from the shore. Only a handful of mariners crewed each one, and the party soon spotted tracks in the snow, the trails of four separate groups. The bands had headed in separate directions, some headed for the valley stronghold of the Wotan worshippers, while another headed for the village of Croy.
Hastening to return with their news, the group noted a raven ominously watching them. They weren’t sure what to make of this omen, but suspected that it was the priest’s familiar bird, monitoring their progress.
The party soon spotted signs of one of the war bands, taking the same trail they had chosen. Noting from the tracks that they faced a group of over 20 hardened warriors, the adventurers hesitated to tackle such daunting odds. Staying hidden, they waited until their foes reached a narrow defile, hiking along the bank of a half-frozen stream.
The Raiding Party
Planning an ambush, the party raced to take their positions. Unfortunately, the archer-maid of Athena stumbled as she clambered up one of the defile’s steep slopes and an alarm cry rose among the Skandiks. Racing to the choke point, the demi-giant unleashed his hellish, pent-up rage onto his onrushing foes. They stumbled in the snow, crushed and dying with every mighty blow of the titanic warrior’s huge warclub. Magical webbing and supernatural grease trapped the invaders, throwing their ranks into disarray.
Seeing their men fall before the party’s wrath, a pair of heavily-armored leaders flung themselves into the fray. Their breastplates graven with runes promising battle glory, they rushed forward to face their foes. All their battle skill came to nothing, however, as the party’s elvish enchanter drew upon the ancient runesongs of faerie to bedazzle their minds and blind them with strange flashing colors.
Unwilling to be trapped in the party’s killing ground, a mighty pair of berserkers struggled out of the defile, one charging the archer maid while the other fought through tangled briars to get behind his stubborn foes. All looked bleak but, in desperation, the archer executed a cunning throw to knock one frenzied warrior back down into the defile. Before he could recover, magical power bound him motionless, sinking down through the stream’s shattered ice. His compatriot fared little better, leaping downslope upon the demi-giant, only to lose his footing on the icy stones of the defile and fall to the ground in the midst of his foes.
With their leaders slain, the remaining raiders broke and ran, yielding the defile to the adventurers. Not long afterward, the heroes stumbled back into Croy, sharing their warning of raiding warriors in the nick of time. Three of the party members were sorely wounded, but all lived. Given warning, the temple’s guardians repelled halfhearted sorties by several groups, raiders unwilling to press home their assaults against forewarned foes.
(Six third-level characters had overcome a force of two third-level fighters, 17 second-level warriors, and two sixth-level barbarians… Luck was definitely with them!)