Beast in the Pines - A Karthlands Narrative Battle Report

In the northern reaches of the Karthwoods, near the crags, a band of wardens led by Orin Witherhand seek out the ruins of a temple. Once a holy site of Harnor, god of wild places, the toppled bricks still give tribute to their patron. The Wardens range along this trail in search of a beast - one of many that has been sighted lately in the region. Hoping they find nothing, but prepared for the worst, the band of wardens comb through the frigid wild warily.

Wolves howl in the distance - dire wolves if Orin can tell. He tugs at the white wolf pelt that drapes across his shoulders, pulling it close around him and tight against his frozen white beard to keep out the chill.

Upon reaching the ruined temple, the wardens spread out to search for tracks or other signs of a beast. They know not what they hunt, only that the nearby villagers say it is large, and that it eats livestock. Orin signals the men to come to him at the center of the ruins, but at the same moment, a massive brute appears from nowhere between a crack in the rock and ice, bringing a tree trunk club down across young Tarren Halle and turning his body into a pile of blood and bone.

The great thing wastes no time charging Orin, who has a brief moment to register that the thing bearing down on him is an ogre wearing nothing but a chainmail coif and a loincloth, wielding two massive clubs. It swings the clubs as it comes, and only Orin's battle tested reflexes save his life. Bringing his ancient family shield to bear, Orin's arm is splintered, but his life is saved.

Before the killing blow is delivered, the remainder of the Wardens are in the fight, defending their leader with a vicious energy. They hack with swords and axes at the brutal thing, and the hew it to death in the snow. One last blow lands across Orin's back but no bones break, and Orin manages to scramble away.

Laying battered and broken in the snow, splashed with the ogres blood and seeing the steaming gore of Tarren's body, Orin tries to remember the last time a fully fledged ogre roamed this far south beyond the Crags - a tiding if things to come?

The howl of dire wolves sounds again, this time more menacingly, and far closer...

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