I knew that the end of the Westeros arc was going to focus more on the final struggle between the League, Dracula, and Frostmourne, so I wanted to use this episode as an opportunity to showcase the overwhelming forces of the undead army. I also knew, however, that RPG sessions like that can become a monotonous slog of mook fight after mook fight—tedious with many groups and especially boring to an audience listening in. As a result, I made the fights quick and small in number, culminating in something epic, while the majority of the undead forces were taken on by the wildlings. For more such secrets, read on!
Check with the players to see how they’ve each spent the last eight hours or so before the wildlings march in the morning. Then we move on…
By the time the sun rises, the wildling forces stand ready to move, and they are an impressive sight. Along with the thousands of warriors, men and women alike, a small portion of whom are mounted, there are also a handful of giants mounted on mammoths the size of houses. Many of the tents which had been set up as part of the camp have been taken down, but many more have simply been left to stand—clearly, some of the wildlings don’t expect that they’ll last long enough to need to set up shelter tonight, but none of them seem overly upset about it. They seem to have no real fear of death, merely a grim determination as hard and cold as their homeland.
Flemeth comes to you after consulting with the numerous generals, warlords, and leaders of the wildlings. “The legion stands ready to move, and their forward scouts have reported the location of the main undead force. With a steady march, we should arrive just past midday. Are you prepared for what is to come?”
(Room for roleplaying here)
The wildling army moves, marching through the ice and tundra, winding its way north in a force that leaves the earth trembling. Every now and then they will encounter zombies, or even some of the mounted Others with their armor and swords, but those that don’t avoid the army are quickly cut down by arrows or the forward soldiers. It seems that nothing can stop the inexorable march of the wildlings.
Eventually, the League, along with the wildling army, stands at the top of a ridge of stone and ice overlooking a snow-covered valley. The valley is filled, as far as the eye can see, with the dark, shambling, blue-eyed forms of the undead. They are a force without number—hundreds of thousands of the wights on foot, tens of thousands of mounted Others, and a scattering of stranger creatures which the curse of the undead has affected as well.
But the undead aren’t the only thing your senses are presented with—Nico and Dante can now hear the otherworldly, tuneless song which has been beckoning them from their dreams for weeks now. They can tell that the source of it is coming from the other side of the army. What’s more, Stitch and Mordin can also hear this strange call seeming to echo equally in their mind as in their ears, and Geralt and Flemeth seem to hear it too.
The vast horde of undead has clearly seen the opposing wildling forces, but there is no visible reaction in their movements, at least none that would be expected from living foes—no call to battle, no hasty formation changes, no charge to melee—just a slight shifting in trajectory as the undead change their irresistible, inexhaustible shuffle toward the living.
Geralt pulls you aside for a quick talk as the wildling army begins to beat their weapons against their shields. “We’re all hearing the song, yes? We know that’s the source of this whole army. We find it, we can stop this whole thing. Now we have ways of getting there pretty quick—Mordin, you have your doorway device; Nico can use her magic to get us there; we could probably talk Flemeth into going draconic and carrying us there. Only problem I see there is, we could end up isolated and surrounded by the undead forces, especially if they realize we’re going for their boss or whatever it is. Option two, we help the wildlings to fight. This could draw the undead into an attack, pull their forces away from their boss, and then we head there, either the easy way or the hard way. Hell, if we make enough of a dent in the undead, might be some of the wildlings could get there with us. Problem with option two is that it draws out the battle for longer, we risk losing some of our resources before we get there.”
The players ended up going for the first option, teleporting to the rear of the undead. Mordin was able to get a fairly good result on his check, so I decided to cut down on the number of encounters they would encounter before running into the final boss of this episode.
As a side note, if the PCs had decided to stick with the wildlings and fight their way through the bulk of the army, I had a list of possible tasks that they might need to take care of as a way of breaking up a possible monotony of fights. The table didn’t end up getting used, but you can take a look at it here:
Tasks (1d6)
1: The League needs to break an opening in enemy ranks to allow stranded and surrounded wildlings to escape and regroup
2: The League must clear a path for the wildlings to get some siege weapons into place
3: Take out one Other controlling a large number of zombies
4: Take out an elite unit—a zombie mammoth or giant
5: Trigger an avalanche in one of the nearby mountains to take out a section of undead
6: Intercept some fleeing wildlings and either convince them to rejoin the fight or take them out so they can’t break others’ morale
You’ll note that there’s not a lot of detail or specifics in those tasks—I just wanted something that could inspire me in the moment to set up an interesting scene, and I would improvise the rest based on what the heroes were doing at that time.
One other thing I wanted was a way of communicating the physical slog of mass combat without actually forcing the players to play out 12,000 rounds of turn-based combat. That’s what this next table is: I would roll on this whenever I felt like we were between action scenes and call for whatever check was dictated. Usually a Yellow or Red result would mean the player escaped unscathed, a Green result would mean the PC took 10-20 damage, and a White result would mean 30-40 damage.
Transitions between scenes (1d10)
1-2: Endurance checks to endure the physical punishment
3-4: Fighting checks to hold your own in combat
5-6: Agility checks to get through an area quickly
7-8: Strength checks to break enemy lines
9-0: Perception checks to notice weak points or sneaking enemies
And finally, I came up with a few different types of enemies that they could encounter, which I could pull out as necessary:
Wights
F: Ty
A: Pr
S: Rm
E: Rm
R: Fb
I: Fb
P: Fb
Health: 70
Unholy Scent: Animals must make a Psyche check to approach a wight
Vulnerability: Double damage from fire
Others
F: Rm
A: Rm
S: Rm
E: In
G: Gd
I: Ex
P: Rm
Health: 130 Karma: 60
Body Armor: Gd
Crystalline Sword: Str+10 damage; living targets hit by it must make an Endurance check or be paralyzed by cold; instantly destroys nonmagical objects it hits
Zombie Giant
F: Gd
A: Pr
S: Am
E: Am
R: Pr
I: Fb
P: Fb
Health: 114
Club: Str+10 damage
Earthquake: All within area and on the ground take Rm damage and must make Endurance check or be knocked prone and drop weapons
Zombie Mammoth
F: Gd
A: Ty
S: Am
E: Am
R: Fb
I: Pr
P: Fb
Health: 116
***
When the League decides that they are ready to take the fight to the source of the undead, they find that, as they get close, a gigantic skeletal dragon with ragged wings and glowing blue eyes comes diving from the sky and lands before them. An Other is mounted on the creature’s neck and leaps to the ground, facing the League with its glowing blue eyes.
“You are called, are you not?” he says in a rasping, whispery voice. “Why do you resist? What is offered is the power of the deathless. Are you so deluded to think yourselves immortal? Give in and you can truly live forever. Resist and be extinguished.”
When the heroes decided to ride toward the source of the undead on the back of Flemeth’s dragon form, I decided to recast the above encounter to take place in the air. It ended up working out well and being quite dramatic. Anyway, the stats for the Other (Baron Rivendare) and his dragon mount are:
Zombie Dragon
F: Ex
A: Ty
S: Am
E: Un
R: Fb
I: Pr
P: Fb
Health: 176
Body Armor: Gd
Frost Breath: Mn damage
Baron Rivendare
F: Rm
A: Rm
S: Rm
E: Mn
R: Gd
I: Ex
P: Rm
Health: 165 Karma: 60
Body Armor: Gd
Crystalline Sword: Str+10 damage; living targets hit by it must make an Endurance check or be paralyzed by cold; instantly destroys nonmagical objects it hits
Cleave: Can attack all targets in melee for Rm damage
Mortal Strike: Am damage to one target; that target can’t be healed for the rest of the fight
Shadowbolt: In damage
Unholy Aura: All within melee range must make an Endurance check at the end of each turn or take 10 damage
Death Pact: Destroys a zombie, healing Rivendare
Raise Dead: Creates skeletons
As the heroes are prepared to close in on the source of the undead:
The battlefield goes suddenly dark as a cloud passes in front of the sun—but the cloud is getting closer, and it becomes clear that it is a cloud of shrieking bats. A dark center appears in the cloud as the bats gather together, forming into your old friend, Count Dracula. His formerly elegant clothing is tattered and he sports vicious and painful-looking scars on his body. He glares at you with his remaining eye. “It will take more than wolves to destroy the Lord of the Undead, you fools. I have followed the call to here—there is power to be had, and it is Dracula’s to claim!” With that, he transforms into a hideous, horrific, three-headed nightmare demon, huge clawed hands reaching for you.
Smash Fiction 