So the rounding out of it ended up being 1,000 Brass Bits to 100 Copper Commons to 10 Silver Nobles to 1 Gold Crown. Coins are about the size of a nickle and a bit thinner, 50 of them make up 1 lb. Electrum was purged and that left Platinum. The work around for me was Platinum was the type of currency the noble houses exchanged for value and would never enter the mainstream of purchasing. 10 Platinum Bars would equal 1 lb, and each bar was worth 50 gold each. Platinum bars are stamped and sealed at time of forging so there is a definitive serial number that could be tracked through all the machinations back and forth between noble families.
The Keep they are in IS that of a Lorded Orcish nobleman and I hid 1 real treasure in here - the castle's stipend of platinum bars. The group has uncovered it and there are 28 of them, stamped and sealed by Kaizer Gruuntush Rand. The Orcish empire collapsed due to the dwarven assault 123 years ago so these bars are "open" and uncirculated. But there presence spells a serious problem for the group - they can't spend them in normal places, their presence will attract every thief, robber, exchequer, Reeve, taxman and bailiff everywhere they go.
It represents about 1,400 crowns - a sum that puts them firmly on the "rich" side of things in my world - even if they have to give half to House Illytch.Right now the thought is to keep it hidden and then when given the chance, pass it on to House Illytch and let them deal with the headache. Can't wait to see how it plays out.
Write up follows:
We figured (thanks to Merica’s helm and our own count) that the 1 lone kobold adult in the basement most likely has no idea what’s gone on with us killing the rest of the Warren, and won’t know anything until he is relieved or his shift is over and he comes up the stairs looking for someone else. So we left Einar, Shog, and Bruce here to keep watch while the rest of us went back to the Great Hall and then down the east wing to the stairs on the 2nd floor. We wanted to give the places the kobolds’ had been in a once over to make sure we didn’t miss anything.
Sybil gave some listening to all the local doors identifying one of them with a foul fecal odor, another had the stink of a rotting corpse, two were silent, and the last had the sound of clicking and movement within. From the main hall, one door was quiet and the other also had a distant clicking movement – letting us know that this door connected to the other one and was most likely a large chamber.
The group went back to the stair, up to the Solar, and then took stock of the rooms up here. When the K’Morat came out, they didn’t shut the doors behind them so the group took a look from here. To the west, down the long hall, was a single door, closed, with wooden wedges beneath it. North of here were two doors on the left (the first leading to the Water closet), two on the right, and one at the end which is where the Altern had come out of. We decided to hit the northern corridor first and in order.
The Water closet showed us nothing new, but just to be sure, we dragged all the bodies out and into the Solar, checking them over for anything of interest. Most of it was nothing, but the Shaman did have a bag with 4 keys in it, old and tarnished, but still in good repair. There was a smattering of colored stones and little else except for a disk of gold that showed a lizardman’s face, left hand holding up 2 fingers, the other hand had been torn free of the disk.
From the water closet the next room on the left was a bedroom originally for the orcish lords who lived here, but had been repurposed to the kobolds’ needs – with some nesting of assorted trash that would sleep 8. However, the nesting was old, misshapen, and worn as if it hadn’t been used properly in months.
The next chamber was another bedroom and also reused with nests. We did look it over and there was a fireplace in here that we could hear the whistling of the wind above. Hjalgrim was giving the fireplace a once over while the rest of the party poked through the nesting with spears looking for anything of interest. The cavalier lucked out and above the fire line there was a section of stones that rattled hollow.
Sybil lent the dwarf her dagger and he worked and scraped at the stones, eventually pulling them free. Inside the hollow was a rusty metal box that looked like it had been here for over a century. 8” wide, just about 4” tall, and almost 2 feet long – they dragged it free and placed it on the ground. The piano hinge was rusted solid and the lock had long ago rusted away. The cover didn’t lift free and some oil went to trying to help, but had no impact.
Dizzy took over at this point, borrowing Sybil’s dagger from Hjalgrim he worked the blade in and out of the metal box, breaking the rusty metal and prying the lid up bit by bit as he did so. The dagger became scratched and nicked but the cover eventually popped off and he sheepishly returned the now damaged weapon to the open mouthed Sybil who muttered, “You owe me a new dagger when we get to town.”
The interior of the box had some folded dark cracked leather that was pulled apart – to reveal 28 orcish stamped and sealed by Kaizer Gruutush well over a century ago platinum bars. The monetary street value was over 1,400 CROWNS. However, although platinum was valued tender, it was not “legal” for commercial or mercantile purchases – limited for value exchange between landlords, land holders, and royalty. 99.9% of people never SEE platinum, to say nothing of 28 bars of it.We closed the lid, eager and gleeful, wrapped the box closed, and then made an express decision to dump this into the lap of House Illytch as soon as possible to get this potentially dangerous haul off our hands quickly.
With much better spirits we went to the next few rooms, giving them a solid look over but outside of finding the arm guard of the missing (and eaten!) Randari Ranger that one of the K’Morat had brought back here as a memento, there was nothing else of note discovered in the rooms. This left the one chamber with the wedges under the door or go back to the 1st floor and eventually the basement.
Sybil was voted to go and listen to the door, and she was able to hear movement from within – slow and dragging and it sounded like breathing. We chanced to knock on the door and ask if whoever was there needed help, and the knocking followed back. We established 1 and 2 knocks for yes and no, got a few questions asked, and even had a “shave and a haircut, 2 bits” reply knock at the end. The thought was whoever it was was intelligent, honest, and willing to talk with us. The fact that it was communicating with us was enough to spur the group on to opening the chamber and seeing what was what.
Sybil kicked the wedges free and with care, opened the door. On the other side was the fleshy skeletal remains of what was once a fairly large orcish individual. He was wearing red and blue ragged raiments and sported a 5’ tall marble pedestal. The two of them stared at one another while we took in what was once the Master Bedroom of the Orcish keep, now long ago worn out. There was evidence the shutters had been nailed in place from the other side and the room was sealed closed.
Sybil and the orcish skeleton stared at one another and then there began a series of pantomimes where the Halfling was offering to help the undead and the undead was pleased at her offer. There was no malice, no evil, and the telltale signs of necromancy around walking corpses was absent from this one. He did try to speak often, making breathy sighs and working his jaw, but the dried and rotted flesh of tongue, pallet, and throat didn’t allow anything to be made.
For her efforts to help and getting him to understand that we needed his help killing the kobolds, he gifted Sybil with a livery shirt from his armoire that a page or squire might wear, and then tapped the busted end of a broken sword on her shoulders. From there he followed and we did the same. He stopped in each room and made moans and sighs as he saw the wreckage and destruction that not only time had wrought, but the kobolds had done as well. His boney fingers traced broken glass and other busted pieces. At the stairs we had to brace him as one of his legs was lame, the bones twisted, so we went on each side and helped him to the main floor where he once more was just stunned at what he was seeing. Hjalgrim gave him a weapon to use instead of the busted blade and for that, the undead orc made the motions of knighting him as well.
At the main room the thought was to take him to the clicking movement sounding room and take a look and the undead guy made signs that it was an aviary and not a problem. We had a hard time getting him to understand the sheer passage of time and his own faulty memory, especially since we could get him to talk. At this point Dizzy thought and performed a mending on the dead guy’s tongue and he was able to speak. It was growling and rough sounding but we were able to talk.
He was Lord Gurunts Irontusk and was the lord of Irontusk and the surrounding lands. We retired to the dining room where he wove a tale that was 125 years out of place. The dwarves had declared war on the orcish people and were eating babies and raping their women, killing them all when Kaizer Gruuntush ordered a mustering of 50 able bodied warriors from every keep, holdfast, town, and village. Lord Gurunts was please to muster 60 and sent them over – three of them his own sons – two from his first wife, one from his second.
As word from the war came back and it was poor, the orcish people were growing despondent. Lord Gurunts had made a pledge during the Woden’s Day ceremonies that he wouldn’t rest if the day came that enemies took over his lands and keep. He made the oath and the people rejoiced. Then that night word came of his 2nd wife’s child’s death and as she was screaming at him, he tried to get her to relax and when that didn’t work, smacked her to calm her down. She was stunned at that and he took her mewling as being receptive to marital relations. So he did.
He came to briefly after sleeping it off to find her stabbing his repeatedly in the chest with a knife and then he felt nothing for a long time until he “awoke” to find anklebiters in his keep! His guards didn’t answer his call and he noticed the sad state of his keep and body. He fought hard and pushed his way out of the room but there were too many and the anklebiters forced him back to his chamber where they wedged it closed. Then they sealed him in from outside and he was forced to wait. Many many days have passed, he doesn’t sleep, eat, or rest – and has been waiting for the chance to get free.
We gave him VERY broad strokes as to what’s happened; let him know 123 years at least have passed, and that we needed his help to clearing the keep of the last kobold and all the young in the basement. He agreed and we then went through the keys we had taken from the Shaman, Lord Gurunts giving Sybil the key to the Armory – one of the locked rooms over here. Inside though was NOT the orcish weapons he was hoping, but 20 stone axes and 70+ spears. As for the room with the clicking, it had 3 fire beetles within so we closed the door and went back.
A tour of the Gallery followed and he showed us how to turn off the spear trap, Lord Gurunts describing each person in the picture (including one of himself) and some history of the land and the people who lived here over a century earlier. We did ask him eventually if he knew Lysil and he wanted to know Lord Lysil or Lysil the Younger? Lord Lysil was in his 50’s and was a stout no nonsense orcish military man with a keep on a bailey about 7 miles south of here. Lysil the Younger was his foppish son who took on some of his elven tutor’s softer ways at one point and was fond of being a petty bully and exchanging hugs – mush to the embarrassment of his father.
Nice. We filed that away for later.
Our plan for the basement was to move all the stone axes here, set up a table from the dining room at the top of the steps as a secondary barrier. Oil was going to figure but for now, we had Lord Gurunts, Hjalgrim, and Merica at the bottom of the steps. They moved the kobold barrier and then littered the floor with caltrops. Then a yell followed and the wave of immature kobolds charged us.
They hit the caltrops and were rolled over by the mass behind while Hjalgrim and Lord Gurunts manned the front, hacking bodies with wild abandon. Hjalgrim found himself in trouble, his weapon tangled up, the cavalier falling over and then smashed to the ground as dozens of foot and a half tall kobolds swarmed over him. The barrier was already failing as they crawled through our legs and hit the stairs. Merica took front and hacked at the kobolds as Lord Gurunts and he dragged the groaning and badly bleeding Hjalgrim up to the landing, shouting for help. Oil flasks were hurled past the three as they hit the top of the steps and Dizzy and Einar smashed the table in place, propping it up with pots filled with broken cobblestones. The kobolds hit the barrier and were stopped but tried to jump up, unable to crest the top of the table. Meanwhile more oil was tossed and the party hacked at the top of the table and over the edge while from around the corner the wavering yellow light grew closer and a Fire Beetle made the corner along with a wave of immature kobolds.
Thalin’s sleep spell shot off dropping the beetle and a half dozen of the kobolds who were run over by those behind. More hit the table and they were jumping, ones and twos making the top while the table shook and Einar held it in place. The oil was lit and a flaming Molotov went off, killing more but still MORE made the stairs and were climbing. A summoning spell shot off and a wild stallion appeared, trampling kobolds on the landing as they leapt up and eviscerated the whinnying equine. Another fire beetle made the flight and this time it was Merica’s sleep spell that ended it and more kobolds.
Percy managed to heal up Hjalgrim enough for the cavalier to rise to his feet and join the front line. The kobolds that did jump to the top were tearing into Lord Gurunts, Hjalgrim and Dizzy while draughts were dispensed. Heavy stone axes were hurled over the table, flattening more immature kobolds. And then Thalin held the busted Dryad’s finger branch and tried his own summoning spell – the spell over powered and an Ogre appeared on the landing, slowing the tide down while the party bolstered Einar at the front and the table was shaking.
The dead count was over 70 we suspected but the Ogre was in the midst of the swarm and the lone adult kobold had been cut down and when the ogre fell, the kobold young swarm hit the table with a pounding groan…and the table eventually moved! The swarm had reached the first floor and the party was backing up, hacking and slamming and slicing as the kobolds filled the floor and spilled towards us.
A split decision was made and the party hit the stairs going UP here to the roof of the 1st floor, Dizzy slamming the trap door open and the group spilling up onto the roof. Lord Gurunts was the last one up, the undead Orc lord barely staggering free before the trap door was slammed closed and the group sat on the door.
We had a view of the main courtyard and the oversized pig and then the pig was squealing as kobolds came out of the opening in ones and twos. He stomped on them and then a dozen came out and were crawling on the pig. The pig grew nutty and charged the main door where we saw it disappear inside the keep followed by tons of squeals, screams, and the cicada yipping noises.
Looking out at all the broken wood, dried plants, and wreckage in the courtyard, the party had a fantastic idea and started throwing lit oil into the mess, eventually setting the courtyard on fire and guaranteeing the pig AND the kobolds would be stuck here and inside the keep for a few hours – giving us a chance to heal up and then come up with a plan on how to deal with 100 – 200 swarm like immature kobolds.
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