The party had to deal with prisoner kobold women, many of who were pregnant. They were terrified of the group, referring to them as monsters often, and in some cases would rather take their own life than face the group.
Some of the party members were "they are vermin, exterminate them" and other had the opposite mind set. It's a subject that comes up now and again in mature gaming groups: Are we Murder-hobos or not? And sometimes the discussions are pretty eye opening. Especially when I can see the "person" at the table having a hard time behaving in way that their character might, but they are ill betide to behave as.
Write up follows:
We wanted to secure where we were for now. The first thing we did was shut the door from the Nave to the private rooms on the south wall while a few of the party members went about properly securing Skita with ropes to keep her hands bound and hobbled. Then a three count of us went to the Narthax and spent a long time moving the heavy stone pews in front of the door frame to confound anyone who might try to come in that way.
While the rest of us were policing the bodies, Darius, Hjalgrim, and Sybil wanted to check the place over to make sure no one was hiding about waiting to sneak out on us. There were three doors on both of the far sides of the Nave, the eastern center which one was cracked open where Skita had emerged from. On the western wall there was a set of steps that went up to a landing where a statue of Odin and Frigga in an embrace was situated and then continued to the 2nd floor. During the combat at least 1 pregnant kobold had run that way.
Not sure what we were going to face, the threesome drew up together and then proceeded up the stairs with care. After the landing were another 5 steps and then the second floor. There were three doors up here, one ahead of us, one a bit to the right, and a 3rd on the other side of the weak overhang around the railing.
We could hear whimpering from the door ahead of us and we made to enter, Hjalgrim calling out that those inside had a chance to give up and no harm would come to them (Darius’ looked on unbelieving) and then assured them that if they did not surrender, it would go poorly. Then it was door opening time and as the door was shoved open, there was the sound of falling furniture and a heavy dresser dropped down in front of the door, preventing it from opening more than 30% and giving us a narrow view of the room.
There were kobolds in here, some of them crying, bedroom of some sort. Kobold near the entrance with a broken chair leg, another with a shaft of busted wood, a third beyond with a rock held overhead. All of them looked pregnant. There were others, towards the side and out of view but they were screaming and crying and we heard the sound of wood twisting. Based upon this room, it was on the 2nd floor overlooking the front of the Temple. And we knew there were shuttered windows on the outside. Some were trying to escape.
The combat was …short and brutal. Sling stones flew, breaking ribs and shattering hands. The dwarven knight pushed his way further in and as two of the very gravid kobolds in here got the shuttered open, he strode past them all and pushed them aside, dragging the window closed. One of the kobold women was so terrified she slashed her own throat in response to seeing these “monsters” and died at our feet. Another had a length of broken glass and was looking for a place to stab Hjalgrim with it but she dropped it in despair.
Shim was called and the gnomish sorcerer ran up the steps in order to help, unrolling his whip and slapping the chair leg wielding kobold in the side of the face, laying her check open and driving her back to the ground. The remaining 5 kobold women, sobbing and miserable, dropped their makeshift weapons and surrendered, falling in line to Hjalgrim’s gesturing.
Darius led them downstairs with Sybil while Hjalgrim and Shim continued to check the upstairs. One of the three that was gravid suddenly spasmed and her water broke, indicating her eggs were coming soon. Sybil helped her down the steps and when the group arrived at the Nave, she was already dropping eggs. Skita was aghast and wanted to take her immediately to the birthing chambers but we vetoed that. Darius was considering them vermin and we should just lock them in a closet and move on. The two upstairs had found two rooms filled with kobold nesting and an old plaque from the temple wall but little else and they came down. Thalin and Avulstein were studying a fast spell each (sleep and animate dead respectively).
The party was split about the treatment of the kobold women who were tearing up and Sybil was helping the birthing one by putting her eggs carefully in a small sack. Darius checked out the closest room and it was the original confessional that was being used a drying area for lengths of leather and then a closet that one or more of the lynx’s had been using as a lair at one point. Negan was herding them into the closet and it was upsetting to everyone involved when we had a different idea. What if we brought all the kobold women with us and when we were to trade Skita to the next shaman for their help, we can trade the kobold women as well?
It was the best of a shitty situation and Sybil took to shredding old sheets into ties and leads for the kobold women so they didn’t risk running away. As for the rest of the rooms here, Darius found the meeting room and then a lesser priest’s chamber where a wood carver had been making small wooden representations of Odin, but the All-father had a koboldian cast on him. Seeing little else, Darius swept the carvings to the floor with a sneer, muttering disgustedly, “That is NOT was Odin looks like” as he moved on. Inside one of the dresser drawers he did find some older female orcish sized underwear that he took with him, shoving into his backpack and avoiding making eye contact with the rest of the group.
The next chamber was the one Skita had come out of and the furnishings were in better repair. An older orcish shirt with a blood stain in the chest and a short sword busted in half took up part of the armoire. Some armorsmithing tools and a couple of racks of colorful stones on a string necklace. He did find what he assumed was Skita’s wedding veil and garland of flowers (dried and preserved) but left them where they were and looked on. Skita saw him emerge without any “booty” and she seemed to be more at ease.
The last chamber was another priest’s room with some javelins in various states of repair. There were also a long string in the corner with dried dwarven beards strung up on it, and after Sybil came to verify the find, the two of them left and said nothing about it to the rest of the group.
We waited for the 2 mages to finish their studying and then after Avulstein raised the last dead lynx, we all decided to make our way through the rest of the temple and then to the Birthing Caves beyond and under the Plateau. Hjalgrim took lead and we opened the door. A wavering older continual light torch gave off an orange glow here, illuminating a set of stairs going down to a dining area. To the right were a series of 10’ square cells or apartments and to the left was the remains of the kitchen but was now being used as a meat locker.
The dining area was a mass of three large tables with folded blankets and towels all over every surface. As we were checking them out we also looked at the apartments – used as kobold nests but about 5 of them had shredded washed white cloth mounded in the corners and the other two had big wooden tubs with a soupy mixture of water and the soaking shreds of rags.
Looking further about we found some presses under the table, four of them, crude but functioning paper presses for making sheets of paper. That’s what was going on here. Which was interested because kobolds do not have a written language and make no writing that we knew of. So they were making paper? Sure enough, under the blankets were sheets of drying paper. Most were still wet, but at least a dozen were usable. We took them and when Darius went to make to destroy the presses, it agitated the 6 kobold women with us and the group decided to leave the presses and not engage in needless wanton destruction.
The door on the south wall led to the outside and a narrow path through the cleft between plateau and slope of the mountain. We traveled along, almost 200 paces to the cave entrance. Symbols of a beatific orcish woman was looking down on other women who were pregnant was here on the sides of the wall, and a bin was below the image, filled with colorful stones and the ground below was littered with scores of pale yellowy rocks scattered about.
As we were going to pass on through, Skita mimed making an offering to the bin but no one had any stones of color. A burnt out mana crystal was tossed in, but the group continued on, dragging the uncomfortable kobolds with them. The stink of kobolds and ammonia was strong as we entered and the dwarves all reported feeling a faint slope to the ground as we continued. After some dozen plus paces in the gloom we lit a lantern, gave it to Percy to hold, and went on to where the cave sloped up at about 30 degrees.
There was no rope or chain on the side wall to help the party climb, but there were eye-hooks still pressed into the rock. We took our time, pulling our way up the slope hand over hand until the ground leveled out and we could continue on. The corridor continued a few extra paces and then opened into a sizable chamber, with almost 20’ tall ceilings. The entrance was blocked off by a set of saw horses with wood and branches fastened to one side.
The floor of the chamber had a variety of stuffed and simple toys, a few bowls of a paste like paint, and signs that this was a nursery of some sort. There were two side passages, each blocked off by a lowered portcullis and at the far end of the chamber beyond the odd pots of lit candles was another passage leader further out and more under the city. We could hear the low sussuring noise coming from each passage interspersed with the odd yipping noises of immature kobolds.
With great care, we toted the two barriers out of the way and gave the chamber a once over. It seemed the juveniles and their handlers were most likely behind the portcullis – if we could cross without making noises or attracting attention, we should be alright. Hjalgrim took point as we moved the entire mass of us across the chamber towards the opposite side when we heard a querulous noise from the northern side passage.
A young kobold, maybe a foot shorter than the adults, was standing with his snout against the bars, watching the group and cooing. About 30’ past him was another set of portcullis, these half way up, and in there were many many shadowy figures in there. He chirped again in their yipping language, Avulstein and Sybil letting us know he was asking “Sweets?” We pantomimed him returning and he asked again, louder, for sweets in kobold. As we were all moving on, he started whining and shaking the bars, holding a hand out and demanding sweets.
Fuck.
We back pedaled and ran back to where we entered as we heard other kobolds, obviously adults, call out to the younger kobold. “Davierz?! What are you doing there!?!” “Sweets!” he yelled back at the three approaching matrons, “they won’t give me sweets!!”
Once just out of sight we hunched low and waited as the kobolds gave the chamber a brief look. There were some cuffing of the ear and some reprimanding and he was led back to the inner cave and the portcullis there was lowered with a series of ratcheting clanks.
We waited another few minutes and then crossed fast, getting to the other corridor out of here and the faint slope upward again. There was a stripe of dragged feces down the center of the slope here which Skita mimed was crap from the juveniles and was dragged each day up to the fungus room at the top of the breeding chamber.
We once more travelled along until the passage started to slope up again, 30 degrees. An orcish cast of Freya was on the wall here and we picked out way past it, each priest and druid in the group feeling a bit odd as we move on as if we passed by something important. At the top of the slope the group had a chance to see the next chamber which was larger than the last.
The walls and ceiling were covered in long logs of phosphorous fungi, bathing the chamber in a steady wavering blue-green glow. The middle of the room had a 14’ tall representation of Freya or Frigga looking down lovingly at the ground which was covered in a myriad maze of nesting material, in some places almost a foot tall and giving only limited space to walk between them. Again there were two portcullis blocked passages on the north and south part of the chamber and far across the room, the passage continued along and then up again. Running in a line bisecting most of the room were a string of dressers and bureaus all lined up one on the other and roped together, blocking most of the chamber from one side to the other.
We talked about getting by and Skita was growing agitated. She informed us this was the infants area and there should be a few others in the area, the chamber is never supposed to be empty like this.
And then she dropped to the ground, growled in pain and suddenly stood up – her eyes blazing and her voice different. She spoke in plain Common and demanded to know WHO the FUCK we were and WHAT the FUCK we were DOING with HER SUB-SHAMAN!?!?!
This must be her boss, the Shaman Untar. We sparred with her (him?!) back and forth as she informed us that she (he?!) was going to gouge our friends eyes out and skull fuck them for daring to touch any of her people. Branding us murderers and animals, she (he?!) informed us he was coming and they should prepare to die. And then the presence left and Skita stood up terrified, the other kobold women feeling the same.
From far behind us and echoing in our direction, we could hear the clanking or rising portcullis as someone in the chamber behind and below was making their way along. We talked about charging across and setting everything on fire but the bedding was damp. Skita let us know that the infants had guard animals as well, dogs, lynxes, and even a wolverine!
With another portcullis moving behind us, we suspected even more we were trapped between two foes. We wanted to slow one end of them down and move on and up but didn’t want to bring Skita the other kobolds with us anymore. The decision was to leave them behind in good shape to stop the approaching group and the rest of us run across the chamber and brave any foes we might find.
And then we remembered the spell book we had found earlier. One of the spells, a powerful one, was Wall of Fire – and we could center it around Avulstein and stay inside the 20’ diameter center and WALK the column of fire across the chamber, burn the nesting aside, Shimlagesh could use the water wand to deaden the flames as they appeared, and the fierce flames should force any kobolds in the chamber to give way and allow us to make it across the room and to the other side of the chamber.
So we explained briefly to the kobolds what the plan was, had them back away down the passage and while Avulstein withdrew the spell book and we gathered close to the wizard, the group grew ready for the first of the flames to appear and make their way across the room.
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