Friday Fantasy: Doom of the Savage Kings

The village of Hirot stands besieged, its inhabitants cowering and scared at who they might have to give up next. Standing atop a hillock, jutting up above windswept moors and rain sodden forests, for the past six months a monster, a devil-hound, has climbed over its palisade walls every night and stalked its few streets looking for victims. Once found, the creature from hell butchers and plays with them, before vanishing into the mists leaving a bloody and rent corpse for the survivors to render funeral rites to. No one is safe and to date, neither the Jarl, master of Hirot, nor his thegns have been able to kill the best, for every time they do, it quickly returns another night to kill yet another victim. The Jarl’s seer, Sylle Ru, has advised that a random villager should be sacrificed to the killer very third and this has been taking place over the past few weeks, reducing the population of the village by a third. It is one of these sacrifices, being driven forward by a village mob and overseen by the Jarl and his thegns, to be placed upon ancient altar stones, that the Player Characters come across at the start of Dungeon Crawl Classics #66.5: Doom of the Savage Kings, a scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game published by Goodman Games.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #66.5: Doom of the Savage Kings is a special scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. For although it was not the first to be published as a standalone scenario—that would be Dungeon Crawl Classics #67: Sailors on the Starless Sea—Dungeon Crawl Classics #66.5: Doom of the Savage Kings was the first scenario that many players roleplayed, for it was included as a separate item in the rulebook for Dungeon Crawl Classics as the first scenario to be played after they had played through the roleplaying game’s signature feature, a ‘Character Funnel’. Written by Harley Stroh, It is designed to be played by between six and twelve First Player Characters and mixes the classic ‘village in peril’ set-up of so many a fantasy roleplaying scenario with the classic tale of Beowulf and the Sherlock Holmes novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles with more than a dash of Hammer Horror. Much like the author’s later Dungeon Crawl Classics #72: Beyond the Black Gate, it has a grim, northern European feel to it that suggests Saxon or Scandinavian influences upon its dark Swords & Sorcery.

When the Player Characters offer to help deal with the creature, nicknamed the ‘Hound of Hirot’, the Jarl seems oddly disinterested in offer of aid, rebuking them for their meddling and suggesting instead that giving themselves as sacrifices to the creature is the best thing that they can do. In comparison—and despite their pessimism, the thegns and the commoners will be welcoming, looking to the Player Characters for hope and perhaps a solution to the ghastly situation in which the village and its inhabitants find themselves in. Both Jarl and his thegns will tell the Player Characters why the situation is hopeless. Simply that the ‘Hound of Hirot’ cannot be killed. Of course, this is not the case, because the creature be dealt with. It is not easy though, and will require some investigation and interaction, some exploration, some brute strength upon the part of the Player Characters. Or combination of all three. The scenario provides multiple means—shackles woven from the hair of the dead that will bind the hound, the Wolf-spear of Ulfheonar which can pin the creature in place, and simply wrestling with it—and it is just up to the Player Characters to find out about these methods and decide which ones they want to use. Of course, in the first means, they will need to find some dead men with hair still on their heads and bring it back, whilst in the latter, they need to find where the Wolf-spear of Ulfheonar is and how they can get it.

The scenario consists of three distinct acts. In the first, the Player Characters arrive at Hirot and investigate the village, talking to the inhabitants, and winkling out some rumours and secrets that might help them defeat the beast. To that end, the Judge is furnished with a table of ready rumours and a detailed description of the villager and its inhabitants. The descriptions nicely brings to live the morose sense of hopelessness that pervades Hirot whilst also providing the players with plenty of opportunities to roleplay. The encounter with the village’s old crone, known as the mad widow, is a delight and has a fantastic payoff at the end of the scenario. What is also great about the encounters in the village is that none of the NPCs are truly evil. Venal, desperate, resigned, and most of all, fearful, but not evil.

If the emphasis in the first act is on investigation and interaction in the village of Hirot, the second is on exploration of the ‘Tomb of the Ulfheonar’, where hopefully the Player Characters will be able to find the other primary means of defeating the ‘Hound of Hirot’, the Wolf-spear of Ulfheonar. The barrow-mound is quite sparse in look and feel, all rough stone slabs and earth and roots. It is quite small and barely—and only recently—inhabited by a nasty trio of monsters, that lurk in the dark ready to ambush intruders. The tomb also narrows towards the end setting up a really nasty, claustrophobic ambush that should really scare the players, let alone their characters. Combined with a deadly trap at the end—this being a tomb after all—the Player Characters will likely be very relieved to get out of the tomb. And the moment when they exist is when the Jarl strikes, ambushing them as threat to even the dark situation and his hold over it in the village of Hirot. Of course, if the Player Characters decide not to hunt for the Wolf-spear of Ulfheonar, then the entire dungeon is optional. (In some ways, this spoils the adventure for the Judge, denying her the opportunity to throw some horrible little encounters at her players, but that does not stop her from repurposing the dungeon-tomb and placing it elsewhere in another adventure.)

The third act of the scenario is the confrontation with the beast, using whatever means the Player Characters have gathered. Here the emphasis is on exploration and combat, a slog through the mire of a foul swamp and down into the maw of the creature’s lair. The sinkhole is a nasty place to have a fight, but it makes a great scene for a grand climax.

Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics #66.5: Doom of the Savage Kings is a good-looking book. For the most part, the artwork is good, but the cartography is excellent. The adventure is well written and explained, making it easy to prepare.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #66.5: Doom of the Savage Kings packs a lot of adventure, a good monster, and plenty of decent NPCs into its sixteen pages. It also includes quite a bit of treasure, all nicely unique and different as well as lots of little details that might play out well beyond the pages of the scenario. Finally, Dungeon Crawl Classics #66.5: Doom of the Savage Kings has atmosphere aplenty, grim and foreboding, a genuinely epic mini-saga for First Level Player Characters.