I’d vote for heading back to town, but I don’t have a strong opinion here, so if Kim prefers sticking around, maybe we should.
Kim hasn’t expressed any opinions on staying around…
OK, Ulf hears no reply; two of the party are happy to go now and there’s a lot of dead bodies, so lets go back to town.
Ulf checks with Guern we can make it before dusk, then we set off in the order (front to back):
Ulf, Bjarni + Jorund / Ivar + Osvald / Guern, Henrik and Redbeard
We are carring 3 baby owlbears and 2 owlbear eggs.
(If it’s possible, bring some Owlbear bits e.g. claws to prove we killed them.)
Ulf has the rest of the treasure.
Hmmm, I seem to be confused. Where did Kim come from?
I suppose we could go back to town, but resting and healing is probably the safest course of action. Also, have we found all that there is to find in this cave? I guessing we have and that the key was picked up by the owlbears and belongs to someone else and the lock is somewhere else too.
Oh yeah, we should take a head or something. That sounds very Viking.
Don’t ask me!
So does that mean the party’s going back to town now? There is daylight enough.
We have signs like these…
Ulf respectfully reminds Bjarni that the person who built the platform may come back to look at how his his Owlbears are doing.
There may indeed be something else to find, but the Fighters are all injured.
The key may have been left for safekeeping…
Let’s head back, with the babies and eggs.
OK.
You have no trouble getting back, apart from dealing with the squirming owlbearlings. The worthy souls of Woolverton are delighted to see you, and there is talk of a reward, but the local economy has just taken a big hit. At least they stake you to a big dinner and roll out a barrel or two of the local ale (it’s not cider country after all) - even mead is none the worse for a change.
Someone suggests that you might be able to find a trainer, and for that matter a buyer, for your little acquisitions in Hamwic, which is a place of some size a few days’ journey to the West by ship - they give you directions. The cubs prove easy to feed with a little experimentation. They can’t manage raw meat by themselves, but Guern guesses that the parents may chew the youngsters’ food for them, and by bashing meat with a mallet you come up with something they can eat.
Initial investigation of the amulet shows that it bears an aura of Alteration magic.
We need to rest up and heal - can we get some accomodation for the night?
Ulf suggests the party uses watches - although he’s not expecting trouble here, it’s very good practice for an adventuring party.
How about putting the three main Fighters on separate times:
- Ulf and Ivar
- Bjarni and Osvald
- Jorund, Henrik and Redbeard
Can the party please replenish their arrows?
Does Woolverton have any missile weapons for Henrik and Redbeard?
We’d also like some rope to make leashes for the Owlbear cubs and some wool, cloth + straw to keep the eggs warm (plus a small wooden box to store them in).
We make it clear to the good folk of Woolverton that all this serves as the only reward we need for killing all those monsters!
Hopefully we can also get the Amulet [COLOR=Blue]Identified in Hamwic (is this a Wizard process and how easy is it?)[/COLOR]
If the night passes and Ivar does his stuff, then we can cautiously open the pouch to see if it is money.
Given the pack is not magic, then unless anyone wants it, we can give it to Guern as a souvenir.
Keep the key (and wonder who built the platform - and why?)
After all that, Ulf votes we offer to help deliver wool to Pevensey, then go to Hamwic to:
- dispose sensibly of the Owlbear cubs and eggs
- get the Amulet Identified
- see if there’s any missions for us (
) - do a bit of trading
Actually, Identify is one of my spells, so I’ll load it tomorrow.
Osvald looks up- “Can I keep an owlie? I promise I’ll take good care of it! Perhaps we can dispose sensibly of the others at a trainer, but maybe I’ll be able to care for one on my own. I could keep him in my quarters in the ship, and I’ll pet him and love him and teach him to be a good owliebear! Please?”
He then points out, "Could we get a map of some sort of the area around here? Maybe one that shows each of the nearby Hills in detail? And we should have someone that’s a tracker keep checking on that Owlbear Cave- to see if anyone returns to it and such- if someone does perhaps we can keep in touch in some way?
And also, can I just visit the Libraries of the area to look up the local area’s lore. Anything of note in terms of things that would be special about this location/ any legendary artifacts or stories of deeds or items being created or forged nearby this place? Basically- get some history on these two villages and the surrounding country side?
After that all, Osvald will just rest up and load up spells tomorrow, since he doesn’t really drink (he was crestfallen to discover this is not cider country), he can let the others have his share of mead while he goes off to read some books and scrounge up information.
O: 4xCure Minor Wounds, 1xTorchlight
1: 4xCure Light Wounds, 1xIdentify
2: 1xFind Traps, 1xSpeak With Animals, 2xHold Person, 1xSpiritual Weapon
3: 2xCure Moderate Wounds
Use that Identify on the amulet in the morning.
Ulf speaks kindly to Osvald.
“Of course it would be great to have a bodyguard / companion. And I know you would be a good owner.
But these monsters are really dangerous, and I have the scars to prove it. Look, if we find an monster trainer and you train one thoroughly, we can consider it.
I think you might be better off with an egg - but then you’ll need lots of time to train it…”
Ulf is inspired to compose :eek: :
I-var is our party’s Rune-Priest
He eats his share at each feast
With his E-S-P
Into men’s hearts he can see
And Identify stuff from the beast!
Of course that wasn’t a mistake … that was when Ulf sings it aloud. :rolleyes: :smack:
DM, can we just cast [COLOR=Blue]Identify, or are there difficulties e.g. casting within hours of finding stuff, swallowing fish and falling unconscious?[/COLOR]
Ulf thinks this is an interesting idea and Guern is the man to ask.
But think on this - if the person who set up Owlbear Cave does return, he’ll be a) dangerously powerful and b) really annoyed.
What if he meets Guern? 
You are found free beds for the night - Woolverton is in slightly better order by the end of the day, with the dead buried and some of the damage cleared away. The parish priest stops by. He is a thorough-going non-combatant but he is able to help out with a little curing and you will be ready to resume on the morrow with his help, Ivar’s care and proper rest. He mutters something about “righteous pagans” which you think he probably meant kindly. 
In case I’ve still not communicated clearly, the gleam that Osvald saw was not the owlbear cave itself, nor the cliff-face where the cave was (which was scrubby and lichen-covered, not brilliant white chalk), but it would have been nearby.
The townsfolk have no real means of keeping an eye on the place, and they would dearly like to ask you to check it out yourselves though they are in a poor position to reward you; they would certainly be unable to contact you once you were gone, except for leaving a message at Pevensey and hoping you happened by some time in the near future.
There are no libraries here - this is the Dark Ages; you might find the odd lordling who actually keeps a book or two in his house, otherwise your best bet would be a monastery, but they are unlikely to have much in the way of records of local towns and villages. Besides, monks tend to be suspicious of Vikings for some reason. Also, maps are hard to come by - most people are uninterested in mapping the area where they have lived all their lives, and plenty even struggle with the concept of a map. There is, however, local gossip concerning a crazy wizard who lived nearby. He’s not been seen for a while.
It might be best for Osvald to take expert advice before planning to make a pet of an owlbear. Full-grown, it would be very difficult to accommodate aboard a longship, never mind trying to feed it.
Identify does what it says on the tin, or else you get something like Reply Hazy… if it’s a really difficult item. In this case, Ivar has no difficulty in learning that the amulet has the following powers:
[ul]The wearer is able to communicate with owlbears, with much the same effect as Speak with Animals would have if it worked on such creatures[li]The wearer is able to transform himself into an adult owlbear as if by a polymorph other spell, and also return to his own form similarly.[/ul][/li]
There are no irritating side-effects or ridiculously hard-to-source material components.
The pouch does contain money - a total of 250 gold pieces in round figures, in an assortment of coinage.
This is interesting. If we give it to Ivar or Myself, you’d have a Magic User that could certainly handle himself QUITE well in a melee fight if things got too hairy.
WAIT a second. Didn’t we discover this ON one of the Owlbears? Does that mean that one was NOT a real owlbear? As I can’t see anyone just “leaving” this around on the ground in a cave full of Owlbears for fun, especially if they’d need it to talk to the others.
Perhaps we should go an investigate one more time? I sadly do not have a [COLOR=Navy]dispell magic or anything, but maybe the enchantment would wear off over time?
This is something to consider.
[/COLOR]
Spells Loaded for Today:
0) Flare x2, Read Magic, Detect Magic x2
- Shield, Colour Spray x2, Magic Missile
- Mirror Image, Flaming Sphere, Rope Trick
Hmmm… Does this allow simple speech to owlbears, or does it imply a level of friendship, or that the owlbear will assume that since the speaker speaks Owlbear, that he must be a friend? Or is it just basic communication, and we can expect hostility?
Also, we found that amulet around the neck of an owlbear- anyone want to lay odds that that owlbear was the person who brought them there?
Finally, will being in owlbear form interfere with the somatic components of spells? How long does the transformation take, and how often can it be undertaken? Many of my spells have somatic components, as I suspect do Osvald’s. Seeing as I have more spells to cast and cannot reasonably engage in hand-to-hand combat during a fight, being needed to heal in the background, not to mention the fact that I have no desire to train any owlbears, I’m willing to give the amulet to Osvald.
Oh, and did I recover the javelin I threw in the cave?
As to communication, normally this can be undertaken peacefully - you can get across the notion that you’re not food, not a predator, and aren’t going to take their food or hurt their young - and may be able to talk them into a friendly attitude.
Any kind of shape-shifting into a form with no hands will make spellcasting pretty much impossible for the duration - besides, an owlbear beak could hardly articulate spells. The Identify didn’t specify how long such a transformation would take, but insofar as such magic is common knowledge you could expect about one round. The amulet can polymorph the wearer once each way per day, but communication is at-will.
I’ll always assume you recover your javelins if at all possible.