An RPG of Thrones part 5 - A Misuse of Maesters
Castle Black
The party had arrived at Castle Black, after returning from Grim’s Mound with the ancient Coldaxe, a massive finely-wrought weapon of dragonglass bound to a mighty haft of mammoth ivory by ancient bands of imperishable bronze, proudly carried (and brandished at anyone who stayed still long enough) by Edmun.
Not to be outdone, Turnpyke too had a stone tied to a stick with a piece of string.
Edmun spent his time before the Council Of War talking to Brothers of the Watch about Wights and Others, and how he had slain many of them in his time. He also went to talk to his friend Ethan Bolton, but the door was locked.
Justyn went down to Mole’s Town to see his old Mum, who was very pleased to see him at last, and had been getting by quite nicely on her own while he was away having fun, and would do perfectly well for the next few years until he bothered to stop by for a bit again.
Bran had a bit of a chat with the kitchen staff, who were always glad to see someone not in the Watch, if only because his waistcoat was a reminder that there were other colours in the world than the black of a cloak and the white of ice.
************
MINUTES OF THE WAR COUNCIL
CASTLE BLACK
11TH HOUR
The Council was attended by:
Lord Commander Quorgyle of the Night’s Watch
Maester Aemon, not King of anywhere
Willem Tallhart, Captain of Eastwatch
A mysterious cloaked figure, introduced as the Captain of the Shadow Tower
Ethan Bolton and Lord Flint, lieutenants of Lord Karstark, commander of the Army of Skagos
Bran of the Old Ones
Edmun Darnell of Selador
Jacob Armstrong, Master at Arms of Selador
Normal Ken, the Lord Commander’s confidential servant
Preamble
The buffet of cold meats, bread, spiced wine and ale was set out by Normal Ken.
Introduction
The Lord Commander welcomed the delegates to the meeting, and took the chair. The other delegates took the benches, except for the Shadow Captain who remained in one corner.
Edmun Darnell set out a broad overview of the situation:
Slavers have been operating on both sides of the Narrow Sea, out of Skagos and Lys. They have been kidnapping folk of Westeros and selling them as slaves in Lys. Iron Islanders are involved somehow, and ships are being built on Skagos to Iron Island designs; they also seem to be arming the Wildings out of the profits of the slaving.
Large numbers of Wildings have been gathering near Grimmup under a leader called Coldaxe, who has been seeking to gain power by obtaining Grim’s Axe. This would allow him to proclaim himself chieftain and unite the Wildings against the Watch.
Darnell and his companions have however thwarted this by going to Grim’s Mound before Coldaxe could, fighting the living dead, and retrieving the Axe to keep it out of Coldaxe’s hands.
Darnell then threw said Axe at the buffet, but it was caught by Captain Tallhart before making contact.
Discussion
The Lord Commander enquired of Bran what the Axe might signify. Bran explained that in legend Grim and the Axe held back the Others. He is not certain what will happen in reality (other than that it will be Bad), but he would expect the Wildings to be worried that the Others will now be coming South. Which they may in fact be doing.
The Council agreed that it would all depend how the Wildings would react.
Darnell suggested that if Coldaxe thought the tribes could be united by the wielder of Grim’s Axe, Darnell could take on that role. This suggestion was parked for the moment.
Tallhart noted that Ranger Anton has already set off to see what information can be gleaned from Grim’s Head and the surrounding area. A report will be forwarded when available.
Darnell and Armstrong expanded on the Wilding threat:
- Numbers are unknown, but are in the thousands
- Arms are being provided by a party or parties unknown
- It is suspected that said parties may include Iron Islanders due to the ship designs used
Flint raised the question of the raiders up and down the East coast: who are they, and where are they based.
Darnell explained that they are based on Skagos and use Greyjoy colours. However, only one vessel bearing Greyjoy colours has been identified, and it is possible that a third party is fraudulently passing itself off as a member of House Greyjoy in order to put the House into disrepute. Darnell postulated that House Tyrell and/or House Redwyne may be attempting such misdeeds, although he confessed he had no basis for casting such aspersions on noble and trustworthy Houses.
Rivers noted that the raiders are based on Skagos, although the timber is not suitable for boatbuilding. It was hypothesised that the location was chosen for the sake of discretion and solitude.
Darnell raised the question of who might benefit from destabilising the North, and suggested House Targaryen or the Dornish, although he did not slander House Martell by name.
It was also suggested that there may be a disaffected faction of Iron Islanders acting outwith the auspices of House Greyjoy.
Conclusions
The fleet from Dragonstone under Admiral Connington, and the army under Lord Karstark, should be sufficient to eliminate the raider base on Skagos.
A small squadron should scour the coast of Westeros to locate and destroy any additional such bases. This could usefully be done as the fleet moves South after pacifying Skagos.
The Wildlings are considered not to be a threat, and may be dispersing. It would be interesting to obtain further information regarding them, but in view of their inability to threaten Eastwatch in any way this is not a priority. The capture of Coldaxe or one of his henchmen would be desirable.
The Others are not considered to be a threat. Lords Flint and Bolton wish it to be minuted that the lack of threat is related to the lack of their existence, although other members of the Council abstain from this view. A majority of the Council (Lords Flint and Bolton abstaining) agree that further information regarding the Others would be of use.
Action points
Lord Karstark to pacify Skagos
Lord Connington to eliminate raiders throughout the coast, including any on Skagos not pacified by Lord Karstark.
Lord Flint to request of Lord Stark that he enquire of Lord Greyjoy concerning the purported Greyjoy ship which has allegedly been seen in these waters.
Ranger Anton’s report on Grimmen’s Head and the environs thereof to be promulgated among all members of the Council.
Bran to venture North to identify any ecumenical matters which may be of concern, and to take such steps to rectify them as he sees fit. Darnell and his party to accompany him, along with The Axe, to provide local knowledge and such other support as may be required.
The Lord Commander thanked the delegates for their assistance, and adjourned the meeting until further notice.
**************
Following the meeting, Bran and Jacob had a friendly bout of sparring so that Jacob could establish how good a fighter Bran was (not very).
Jared went to the kitchens, and by cunning guile and deceit fraudulently obtained a chelsea bun (and, more importantly, a Bluff point).
The party then headed back to Eastwatch. On the way a flock of crows (not rooks) was seen flying west along the Wall and then turning North, in an ominous fashion. A day or so later movement was seen atop the wall.
When they arrived at Eastwatch a day after that, they found that there had been a minor attack on the Wall two days previously, but it had easily been repulsed.
Uncle Anton said that he’d managed to sail up past Grimmen’s Head. He’d seen a lot of activity up there, with a lot of Wildlings up near the Mound. He couldn’t tell what was going on, but they’ve certainly not dispersed.
The party decided to have another trip to Grim’s Mound, but this time to land on the other (seaward) side of Grimmen’s Head, disguised as Wildings. Bran would go ahead, being accepted by the Wildings as one of their own, and discover what he could; the rest of the party would follow at a safe distance in case of need.
Grimmen’s Head
As the party’s boat approached the shore, two patrols (of two Wildings each) were seen wandering along the shore. They met and spoke to one another briefly, but didn’t seem to have noticed the boat. Turnpyke slipped quietly into the water to swim ashore and create a distraction to allow the party to land unobserved.
The Wildings seemed to get suspicious that there might be something out on the water, but as they weren’t sure they carried on with their patrols - until, that is, the party got sick of waiting and decided to row in to shore.
A brief battle ensued, in which Edmun loosed off several fine shots into various Wildings, Jacob leapt ashore to engage the Wildings’ archer with no thought of saving himself from the spear jabbed at him, Gelert the mastiff failed to bring down his man, and Charlie the loving father of three got very confused as to why his mate Dave (normally life and soul of the party and friend to everyone) was lying on his back with an arrow in his chest.
Dave managed to clamber to his feet and give out a loud warning cry before being brutally butchered a second time, but there was no apparent response.
Justyn took a nasty arrow-wound in the fight, but was healed up by Jared (after Bran had poked the wound enough to make Justyn scream). Jared has nice soft soothing hands.
After a huge amount of debate over the course of a couple of seconds, the party dragged the boat up above the high-tide mark so that it would look as if it had simply been washed ashore, and the bodies were concealed beneath it.
Looking around, the party could see many fires to the north-west, a few around the Mound to the south-west, and a few more scattered across the headland in between. They decided to strike directly inland, to see if they could find some Wildings to talk to.
Bran, leading the way, went moderately close to a fire and overheard a bit of fairly unedifying discussion. He then went to another fire to tell the Wildings there that he was friends with the Watch: they were a bit upset with him about that, but he smoothed over the situation. Discussion was mostly about whether it would be better to go South, or to go off to join Merick, or what.
The party reconvened in a hollow to discuss progress to date. During this Gelert found a rabbit-hole, and Jared found what could be a collapsed arch rudely made of flat stones. Nothing was done about either of these, but Bran prayed to the Old Gods for guidance, and claimed that the party would find answers somewhere to the North. Jared therefore headed off to the South-west, and found a fire surrounded by sleeping Wildings. He and Bran then visited another, at which some of the Wildings were awake, and had a nice chat.
The overall thrust of the discussions with the Wildings was that things were about to kick off soon, and people were looking forward to being South of the Wall. A popular topic was whether it had been decided who was going to go on the boats and who would be going on foot: it was generally thought that going on foot would be safer, but the boats would be more fun. The Ironmen up north were felt to be uncivil folk who would put an axe in your head rather than talk to you. Apparently it’s very nice down South, and everyone has a stone house, but it’s not clear how you pack them up when you want to move somewhere else.
The party then decided to head off to the Mound again, but changed their minds when it became clear that there were a fair number of people doing interesting things up there.
Bran therefore led the party back to the boat via an odd-seeming route that presumably the Old Gods thought would be rather more interesting, but Turnpyke pointed out the more direct one. Reaching the beach slightly north of the boat Bran headed confidently north to get to it, but Jared saw a couple of Wildings coming down the path from that direction (albeit distant, indistinct and possibly non-existent ones) and led the party south instead.
The boat was recovered, with a little help from Gelert, and the party returned to the Wild Goose leaving the bodies Charlie, Dave and their friends exposed and unmourned on the beach.
From the Wild Goose a message was sent to Eastwatch (via Rosie the Raven):
Skagos fleet under Merrick expected to mass near Hardhome. Expect imminent Wildling attack by sea and land probably at Eastwatch. We go north
Sailing North
Following Bran’s interpretation of the Old Ones’s instructions, the Wild Goose sailed north through the night, close enough to land to be able to see any fires. The party slept while the hard-working crew kept watch, with orders to wake people if they saw anything interesting like a boat, some fires, or the sun.
Shortly afterwards the instructions were repeated, with a more detailed description of the number of fires which would be “interesting”.
By the dawn’s early light a boat was seen silhouetted against the eastern sky, apparently sailing north-west. After some debate it was agreed that the dark shape of the Wild Goose would be less visible against a backdrop of dark mountains and dark sky than the dark silhouette against the sun, and so it was decided that they would try to keep close to the land and follow the other ship without being seen.
After a few miles the other ship turned west and disappeared into the land. The Wild Goose was at the time level with a river mouth, about 3 miles south of where the other boat turned, and the party beached her there to proceed all sneakily on foot..
Over lunch the party examined the various rings and amulets recovered from Grim’s Mound. They were distributed among the various PCs, but no NPC was allowed anything.
After lunch the party, accompanied by the various men at arms (Jeren Ellott, Andar Lyle, Robb Brook, and Raymun Farsyth, Chett & Edric) headed off north-west. The assumption was that the other ship had sailed into a river mouth, and so would be best found by finding said river a few miles inland and following it down to the sea.
Jared noted that someone had been cutting down trees and bringing them down to the river, creating a network of paths.
Justyn saw a squirrel - a melanistic grey one, by the looks of it.
Once the watershed had been passed and the party was heading down through the woods into the next valley, a group of Iron Islanders was heard approaching from the west. The party concealed themselves and the unprepared Iron Islanders passed just in front of them talking idly about general gossip, such as what had happened to the Iron Shark: one school of thought was that Jorun had simply headed off to do some raiding on his own account; the other was she had been captured and had in fact been seen nosing around Skagos.
After the Iron Islanders had left the vulnerable spot just in front of the party, where they could have been cut down in a moment, it was decided to ambush them.
The ambush consisted of following them until they’d left the cover of the trees, passed the heavily-scuffed bit of riverbank, and started to follow the path downstream along the river. At this point Jared broke a fallen branch loudly and made a number of direwolf impressions, and succeeded in attracting their attention.
As the Iron Islanders made their suspicious way back up the path Turnpyke shot one a couple of times. The Iron Islanders charged and the party counter-charged - except for Bran, who started praying, and Edmun, who started trying to climb a tree. Justyn made first contact with the enemy, who proceeded to hit him quite hard with an axe and then tell his wounded minion to run and sound the alarm.
After a certain amount of running, thumping, shooting, tripping and couping de grace the Iron Islanders were wiped out, although the faithful (but ineffective) mastiff Gelert was killed by an Iron Islander that he had chased but failed to bring down. One Iron Islander was captured, and after a brief interrogation was sent back to the Wild Goose, guarded by Raymun and his boys.
The interrogation suggested that this was the only patrol out. The Iron Islanders were there to cut lumber, under orders from one Blacktyde. Blacktyde himself also lived there, away from the Wildings and certainly well away from Skagos.
The party then snuck down the path, and found a beach with a dozen or so longhouses and a beached longship. A number of people were visible at the ship, apparently putting it to bed, and several more were wandering around between the huts with bread, barrels, and so on.
A chap with a horny helmet took a short walk near the treeline, chatting to a maester. Turnpyke and Jared tried to overhear their conversation, but only caught snatches. What they heard suggested that things were starting to kick off rather, and the maester returned to his hut saying he would send a raven: the chap in the horny helmet said it was OK to send it without running the message past him first.
Jared crept up behind the maester’s hut, and then in through the door without knocking. This rather irritated the maester, who threw him out muttering something about “how many times have I told them not to disturb me?”.
Jared then went back to the party to report. One rather ordinary Iron Islander was felt not to be all that much in the way of convincing evidence of perfidy, and so a plan was hatched to capture the maester, which would also have the benefit of interrupting the communications with whoever the raven was to be sent to.
Jared returned to the hut, where the maester was busy getting a raven out of its cage to attach a message. The maester got slightly suspicious and asked Jared who he was, and unfortunately Jared’s answer that he was one of the logging crew only made matters worse as it seemed that he loggers had been gone for weeks. Luckily Edmun and Jacob had been coming up behind the hut while this went on, and so were able to respond to the maester’s cries for help by rushing in as if to help. There they were able to restrain the maester and induce him to persuade the approaching Iron Islanders that all was well, but unfortunately he was rubbish at it. In the end they fled, although Edmun did manage to grab the message capsule that had been lying on the table, and Jared discouraged pursuit by shooting down the foremost.
After a brisk jog the Wild Goose was reached, and they returned to Eastwatch to show the vital message:
My Lord, Downport is falling. Southern fleet is nearing Skagos. Eastwatch attack expected in week to ten days. You have perhaps a month.
Eastwatch
At Eastwatch they found Admiral Connington with the fleet, and most of Karstark’s army (although not Karstark himself as yet). There was a debate as to what should be done.
While the party had been in the North, the first squadron of the Dragonstone fleet had reached Skagos, but had been overwhelmed by a large enemy fleet and only a couple of ships had managed to escape to Eastwatch. It appeared that this enemy fleet must have gone round to Downport to attack the Thane of Crowl (Cave Brian) there.
Connington, Flint and Bolton had been intending to avenge this defeat, and fulfil the primary mission objective, by embarking all available troops to destroy the shipyard on Skagos and then advancing on Driftwood Hall. This would eliminate the source of raiding ships, and force the Thane of Stane (Evil Brian) to fall back from his wars with the Thanes of Magnar (King Brian) and Crowl.
It was agreed that the enemy fleet must currently be trapped in the long fjord in the north of Skagos, and so sailing the Dragonstone fleet round there should result in the destruction of the foe and final victory.
Jacob however was worried by the imminence of the attack on Eastwatch. He felt that if the attack was to come at least partly by sea then the enemy fleet would be involved, and in that case it might already have left Downport. The Dragonstone fleet might then miss it, and end up being well away from Eastwatch when the blow fell. He therefore recommended that all forces should be concentrated on Eastwatch for now, while a more substantial raid was made on Blacktyde’s camp up north to capture the maester and as much information about Blacktyde’s plans as possible.
This was agreed. The party would proceed north, accompanied by three galleys. These would land troops and destroy the camp, and the party would simultaneously attack the maester’s hut from the land side in order to prevent his escape. They would then immediately return to Eastwatch to confer with Karstark, who should have arrived by then.
Sailing north again
The squadron set off immediately, keeping well out of sight of land this time. Unfortunately this meant they came in to the camp from the north, which had not been intended, but it was concluded that attacking from the other side would probably be a good thing.
The party landed and headed south, arranging the attack for an hour hence. They then came to the river, which had been neglected in the plan. Turnpyke found it was barely six feet deep, but Jacob the 5’11” heavily-armoured non-swimmer thought this might yet prove a problem. Luckily a ford was found not far upstream, and the party made it across safely. Jacob ended up with damp trousers, but Chett went flat on his back and was far worse off.
The party made its damp way to the camp in good time to see a perfectly-executed sea assault on an empty compound - the kraken had flown the nest, and it ended up a bit of a damp squid. However, in the empty maester’s hut they found a raven message:
You are raiding too close to the Neck. Stop. We don't want people awake there.
As they returned to the boats, a raven was seen approaching. It’s not clear whether it was Turnpyke’s arrow or Edmun’s that killed it, but in any event it was found to be carrying a message:
Excellent. Do not fail me now. BG.
The squadron sailed south again, intending to stop off at Grimmen’s Head again to see what was going on. However, towards dusk, as they approached the Head from the north, a large fleet of at least 30 longships was seen a little south of it and heading south. It was concluded that this must be with Iron Island/Wildling/Skagos fleet off to attack Eastwatch, and so a final raven was sent off with the message:
We are at Grimm's Head. We have spotted 30+ longships heading south. Intercepted raven "Excellent. Do not fail me now. BG"
The party considered that this, together with the earlier discussions, should be enough to warn Eastwatch to be on the alert for an attack by sea. They therefore considered landing at the Head to see what was going on, but decided that it might be better to continue down to Eastwatch instead - partly to see what happened, and partly so as not to seem as if they were shirking the battle. Though they were a bit nervous that sailing the Wild Goose into battle might just mean they’d get sunk by the wrong team.
Denouement
So the Wild Goose and the three Dragonstone galleys followed the fleet south, keeping a good few miles back to keep out of sight and avoid running into any stragglers. This meant that they arrived at Eastwatch an hour or so after dawn.
Sailing past the Wall the party could see a huge crowd of Wildlings massed in front of it, making generically hostile gestures and taunts but not actually attacking it, while a small number of black figures on the top hurled stones and abuse at them. Then, rounding the point into Eastwatch Bay they came across the seaborne assault just as it reached its peak.
The enemy fleet had attacked at dawn, but hadn’t expected the Dragonstone ships to be there. Their initial attack had been disorganised by the Dragonstoners, and so instead of a large force of several thousand men sweeping into the defenceless rear of Eastwatch, only a few individual ships had managed to land their men. The rest were tied up with the naval battle, meaning that the small knots of men who did land could be crushed by Lord Karstark and the full weight of his army, now fully assembled at Eastwatch and alerted by the timely warnings from the party.
The last straw for the Wildlings was the arrival of four fresh enemy ships in their rear, three of which promptly charged in at full speed and rammed longships while the fourth hovered to the rear, cutting off the escape route to the north. At this last setback their morale wavered and they broke, but were helpless against the skilfully manoeuvred Dragonstone galleys and few if any managed to escape. No Iron Island ships were among those captured, however.
Once the naval mopping-up was done, the fleet landed troops to join Lord Karstark, who then marched north through the wall to face the demoralised Wildling army. Although small groups stood against him, most fled when it became clear that the Wall had not been taken and the fleet was destroyed. One band led by a large man in a glittering gold crown did stand for a while, but as the main host melted away he finally turned and fled before Karstark’s charge.
Epilogue
Shortly after this battle, news came to Eastwatch that rather than reply to Lord Stark’s questions, Balon Greyjoy had indeed raised his banners in revolt, sending the Iron Fleet to Lannisport and landing forces on the Neck
Lord Stark had however passed on the party’s warnings about Greyjoy to King Robert and the other lords of Westeros. The Iron Fleet sailed into a trap and was badly mauled, and the land forces were unable to make any headway against the garrisoned strong places of the Neck.
When a crimson and gold fleet appeared off Pyke, Greyjoy realised all was lost before it had really gotten started. He quickly bent the knee to King Robert, who was happy to have the affair nipped in the bud before it flared up into a properly destructive rebellion - after all, no real damage had been done to Westeros. Greyjoy gave up his eldest son as a hostage to Tywin Lannister and the youngest to Eddard Stark, leaving him with only the rather pointless second son; and many of his best surviving captains left his service for “free trading” in the east.
The war in Skagos was quickly extinguished by the intervention of Lord Karstark’s army, which struck at Driftwood Hall and broke the back of House Stane. However, this was not before Stane had penned the Thane of Crowl in his fortress of Deepdown and defeated Magnar’s forces near Kingshouse. So all in all Skagos was left a bit of a mess - no longer in civil war as such, but the already precarious social order was broken down further.
So, overall:
- The North survived more or less unscathed, apart from the burning of Widow’s Watch and the general harrying of the coast.
- Dragonstone lost a few ships, but otherwise demonstrated exemplary military preparedness
- The Greyjoys have been humbled, and their best ships lost or dispersed, but the Iron Islands themselves escaped without much damage
- The Lannisters came out fairly triumphant, having fought and won the only serious battle of the revolt
- Skagos is much the same as it always was, only more so.
- The Night’s Watch is more in Lord Stark’s mind than perhaps it was - though not really enough to make any significant changes
- Beyond the Wall - who knows what happens up there? The Wildling hosts have disappeared into the trackless wastes, and whatever strangeness there may be up there is still doing whatever it does.
Within the House: Lord and Lady Darnell are glad to have you all back, safe and sound.
- Edmun has set up Ariston as court philosopher, and they are starting a small college to study snarks grumkins, and things that go bump in the night.
- Jacob’s prowess as military advisor is well known, and even Lord Stark is known to seek his counsel on occasion
- Jared is happily breeding ever more varieties of dog. He always seems to have the latest gossip these days - and, for some reason, a bun.
- Justyn’s scars seem to be troubling him - well, he seems to get a lot of nursing and tlc, at least
- Turnpyke has been given the Wild Goose to captain, and is having a merry time chasing pirates
- Barn is - what is Bran doing? No, that’s the wrong question: *what* is Bran doing? What *is* he doing? What is he *doing*?