It's a simple trip into the mountains. The Dwarves are fighting the Goblins, we're delivering weapons and food to the dwarves. Lots of references to the mines of moria, and cousin Barrin giving us a fine welcome. We know what to expect, it's all been done before.
When your players assume they know what to expect you have an opportunity to push your story to new heights. This week's game was one such chance for my campaign, and because I seized that chance we had one of our best sessions.
It was an exercise in pacing, storytelling and foreshadowing. Leaking out the information slowly at first with more realizations coming in waves as the night progressed.
My six players were to discover this was no standard dwarven outpost, and they weren't dealing with familiar dwarves either.
Reveal One – We don't do things like you do
The party has never met another race in it's own borders before, this was their first foreign country, and I wanted to show that there were diverse social models in my world. Here they aren't just finding a new race of humans, they are in the sunken tunnels of a different species. I wanted them to have to second guess a few of their preconceived perceptions.
Dwarves on my world live a segregated life. The men are free and proud, any male can follow his own plans for life and strike out to achieve his ambitions. Dwarven law supports the rights of the individual and adjudicates where conflict or disputes occur. But their society oppresses their women, leaving them uneducated and restricted in their power and freedom.
The party arrives and late as it is are soon given bunks for the night. But the women are led away to a separate hall where they share a room. They find that the dwarven women only speak their racial language and at that they speak it in simple terms and concepts only. Miri speaks dwarven and has to translate for Lily. They find one dwarf, Merel, who seems more educated and enlist her as their guide.
Overnight as they sleep the whole party awake together and face a beast from the far realms, the combat is very one sided though they can land some blows and do a fair amount of damage it's hardly even wounded as it slides away. This feels very much like they have been tested by the beast.
When they awake in the morning the men are invited to meet the Alder General who thanks them for their service in delivering the food, and asks for the weapons to be given over to his quartermaster. Arwen explains that the swords are being held by Lily and magically guarded. Though perturbed by this he sends for the women. Each of the men turn to talk about the coming war. Kurtis, the merchant they have been escorting explains he intends to return home to Palanquas. Our four heroes all pledge to assist in the fighting. The Strophean Captain adds his sword and those of his remaining six soldiers, as a first sign of support from the prince.
Reveal Two – There are Enemy Factions within Factions
Merel arranges for Miri to have some space in which to practice her martial arts. The dwarven maiden has never seen a woman able to defend herself like this and when Lily joins in Merel formulates a plan.
She explains to the girls that there are cultists who are hiding here in the womens quarter they are gathering and plotting and maybe having seen what these humans are capable of maybe they could capture one of the cultists and take them to the men. No male dwarf would listen to her, but the strangers have given Merel a chance to do something about these zealots.
She leads Miri and Lily deeper into the womens region and points them to a cave where there are five of these bad dwarves. Face to face with the threat Miri and Lily see these dwarves are crazed snake cultists, bald and tattooed with snake skin patterns over their scalp. They kill four and take the fifth prisoner.
Collected by the General's men Miri and Lily deliver their captive and he is led away to be dealt with. Arrangements for the weapons to be handed over are made, and then talk turns to the coming feast.
Reveal Three – You never know enough, but you soon know too much
At the feast the party begin to swap tales and very soon Arwen is telling of their encounter in an abandoned dwarven hostel. They show the axe head, book and magical staff recovered and some interest rises from nearby tables, a bard at their table promises a legendry tale if first Arwen will tell what they found in this ruined hall.
The damaged hall came to their attention after they encountered a clutch of death jump spiders, after dispatching the arachnids they took rest in the valley and discovered a Warlock stone circle pulsing with impenetrable energy. Exploring the area they found a dwarven hall behind a waterfall and began to delve deeper. They found many signs of fighting, the scortched bodies of fallen dwarves, and eventually a cavern badly damaged from a great and mighty combat.
In return for these details the bard tells of an ancient dwarven hero, something of a rebel, a warlock who allied with the powers that dwell beyond the stars. This star-locked mage was known as Garram, and he freed the dwarves from their masters the Gnolls. But the power he used was wrong in the eyes of the Alders and they raised up a party to kill him. This group of wizards and clerics fought him across his many bolt holes until they tracked him to the hall that Arwen had described. Here Garram fought and lost all his students but with a sudden burst in his power punished his enemies and ascended growing and shifting into a Shadow-form dragon. The dark dragon Gar still remembered his dwarven brethren and continued to protect them. Eventually he amassed a following and then, projecting himself on their worship, climbed into the heavens. He defeated the then neutral goddess of shadows to take the Throne of Darkness for himself.
As all the pieces fell into place every jaw in the room dropped. The evil god of darkness, once a dwarf himself, is the patron deity of the dwarven nation, a nation with restrictive views on gender roles and female freedoms and rights, a nation with which the two neighboring human nations of Palanquas and Strophea have allied to join in the war against the Goblin uprising. Earlier that very day they had all pledged their swords/bows/knives and spells to that self same cause. A pledge they now had to evaluate in a new light.
And so we ended that nights session on that revelation… and there was much post game discussion.
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