Longwinter Nights - Session 1

It's shaping up to be the coldest winter Brezim has ever seen, and two men find themselves far, far from home. 

Meet our poor, lost souls adventurers: 

Toshiro - The sensible and practical exorcist that hails from the quiet Tensia Town. 

Furio - A mysterious assassin with a shadowy past. 

A local researcher who specializes in old architect ruins, one red-haired Sigma Delmar, has finally secured funding from the Whiteyes Institute to investigate an old unsecured bunker near the Dimnaya stream. Our aforementioned fellows have been sent to accompany her and provide any extra security she may need on this project. Allegedly, this bunker houses an untouched seed vault left behind by the Old Architects. 

Our expedition starts in the middle of the winter season, just twelve days after the Winter Solstice. Furio and Toshiro share a wool-covered snowjeepney, driven by Rufus Scarborough, an honest man who runs a taxi line from the metropolitan hub of Barston, to the regional capital of Gomiliy, making a trip into and out of town once a week. Usually, the Winter Solstice marks the downturn of winter, but not this year. This year has seen record-setting snowfall and uncharacteristic flash-coldfronts. 

Once in Gomiliy, the two set to task, and quickly secured a local guide named Thorne (accompanied by his pet direwolf and lifetime companion Gorne) to help them make the trek to the northernmost village of the Barony, the picturesque Pey Dimna. Thorne very obviously had oldsettler blood in him, the light patterned markings across his neck and face gave him away. 

The first leg of the journey was relatively quiet and uneventful, with the exception of the faux pas Toshiro nearly committed when asking Thorne about the 'Skintakers' (a harmless nickname for Wolffolk for some, a racially charged locution some use for Oldsettlers). While the two shared an awkward conversation, Furio nearly slipped and fell off a narrow cliffroad, but his ninja-like training kicked in as he flipped through the air with balletic grace and fully recovered safely. No one saw him. 

The group stopped for the night in Belna, where Thorne apologized profusely for the weather causing such severe delays in their original plan. What was supposed to be a one-day trek turned out to be taking much longer than that, pointing to at least two more days of travel. 

While unwinding in Belna drinking wine and eating buffalo cheese at the Foaming Giant, a womanly scream was heard outside. A ghost made of ice, stepping out of a pond was approaching a raven-haired young woman, and was quickly cut-down by the Demon Slayer, Toshiro. She thanked him, and tipped him two cash to boot (per his request). 

On the way to Pey Holzey, a father-son duo of trappers sporting similar big-game hunting pants, safari hats, and matching handle-bar mustaches (as well as matching elephant guns) crossed paths with the group, and regaled tales of old hunts, magniloquently waxing poetic of exotic dishes, and just all around talking their ears off. Another uneventful day. 

Afterwards, Thorne to the trio on a detour, as they had spotted no less than a dozen separate ape-cat trails dangerously close to the hunterway they were travelling on. They also found a frozen pile of corpses off the main path. At first they thought a large family or group of people must have been caught out in the cold, but upon further inspection numerous large, round, stab wounds were found in each person. Between the signs of an unseen danger, and the growing unwelcomeness of the weather, the group decides to march through the night to Pey Dimna. 

Unfortunately, an encounter with a quartet of unsavories with large knives and larger egos came to a standoff which ended with blood drawn and life loss on both sides. Furio nearly welcomed the sweet embrace of death but narrowly avoided it by regaining consciousness via a well timed adrenaline rush. Gorne the direwolf was not so lucky. The bandits were dispatched, and Thorne silently led them the rest of the way to Pey Dimna.

A somber goodbye with Thorne, a late booking at the Last Hearth Inn, and a hazy start the next morning, the session drew to a close talking with Sigma Delmar about the details of the expedition. 

Adventure: Longwinter (Written by Luka Rejec of WizardThiefFighter)

System: Whitehack RPG (Written by Christian Mehrstam)

Characters: Toshiro - Level 1 Deft Demon Slayer, Furio - Level 1 Deft Ninja-Assassin