The Grey Wanderer in Mystara
by Not a Decepticon from Threshold Magazine issue 30
Far in the North, an old man, clad in all gray, walks the frozen land. He may walk to your household or camp, requesting hospitality and shelter from a snowstorm. If you welcome him, he will offer the gifts of songs, knowledge, story and vast wisdom. But beware angering him. For his wrath is mighty and he can be as spiteful, lecherous and petty as Odin himself. Some believe that’s exactly who he is…
The Grey Wanderer adventure can be purchased at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/229390/Journey-To-Ragnarok--The-Grey-Wanderer
Introduction
Created by Mana Project Studios for 5th Edition D&D, “Journey to Ragnarok” presents a very interesting setting for Mystara fans. It mixes both the Norse Mythology and real-world cultures that followed it with Dungeons & Dragons. As such the prospect of adapting elements of it to the Known World, particularly to Northern Reaches, is quite tempting. I have made an attempt myself, not with the titular adventure, but a shorter “introductory” module, “The Grey Wanderer”. Below I will lay out my process of adapting the adventure and all the issues I’ve run into. Be warned, that this will spoil the whole thing, so consider the following text for the Dungeon Masters’ eyes only.
Base Premise and Location
The story of the Grey Wanderer is set in Viking territories ruled currently by Queen Thorunn Horrikdottir. On the north there is a wall and a fort, Danevirke, separating her lands from those of the Franks, militaristic people with a different faith, who are led into battle by knights and priests. The adventure deals with the quest of discovering what is happening at Danevirke and finding its captain, Thorunn’s cousin, Erik Knutson.
Close to the Northern Reaches the best analogue for the Franks would be Heldannic Knights; located on the northern border, this military order of religious zealots is already pushing away worship of Norse Pantheon from their lands, in favor of Vanya, Immortal of War. They fit perfectly to the antagonistic role that Franks are playing in the story.
Queen Thorunn is a bit harder to adapt. Vestland does not have a named queen, it has a king, Harald Gudmundson. There is no mention of him having any named children or a wife within the GAZ7: “The Northern Reaches”. Thorunn could therefore easily be slotted as his daughter or even a wife. You could also easily replace her with Harald or any of the Jarls as you wish.
Alternatively, and I have gone with this approach, you could make her one of the northern Jarls. In my game she has inherited the position of Jarl of Skaniscost. This had provoked an uprising of those who did not feel like taking orders from a woman. Some of these rebels even had a “brilliant” idea to show her weakness by assisting Heldannic Knights in an assault on the Jarldom. Of course, when you give Heldannic Knights a Jarldom, they’ll take your country, so this led to a full-scale invasion. To the surprise of everyone, Thorunn has dealt with both the uprising and an invasion, and even led a counterassault on Heldanic Freeholds. Upon her return, she had gained enough reputation to be given the commanding role of the northern part of the Home Guard. Eyvind the Odd of the Namahed Clan is serving as one of her closest allies and advisors, lending her his experience and also advancing the position of his clan and Tromso through her continued successes. It is in Tromso where a heavy winter locks both of them away from investigating worrying news that something bad may be happening at Danevirke. And this is where the PCs come in.
Classes and Subclasses
“Journey to Ragnarok” provides us with a set of subclasses and a whole new class, the Runemaster, that bring the flavor to the Nordic adventure. Let us give it a quick overview:
Barbarian gets Path of the Storm Wielder, which is very similar to official Wizards of the Coast’s Path of the Storm Herald, but more limited in flavor and also self-damaging. It is a Barbarian who has attuned to the primordial force of the storm. This may be among the hardest subclasses to implement into the setting. However, a potential blessing of Odin could serve as an explanation. An option to discuss with the DM is that the PC somehow got one of the Runes allowing them to call storms, but damaging themselves in the process, could also be a possibility. Alternatively, a connection to a Storm Spirit could be used, if a DM wishes to have Spirits included in the campaign.
Bard gets College of Valhalla. I like its flavor, reframing the bard as a figure singing of the legends as they watch said legend being made. Personally I think it fits well with the Northern Reaches and such Bards would be rather welcome, traveling from settlement to settlement, bringing news of heroes and their deeds.
Cleric gets a Sacrifice Domain. Which sucks. I had to rewrite it to even consider it an option because it demands players to willingly take permanent (at least until you get access to high-level spells like regeneration) nerfs to their characters for temporary buffs, something that is just a bad trade for the sake of being edgy. It makes an intersection of mechanics and roleplay in such a weird way I do not see anyone willingly using it. Aside from people who intentionally make characters bad at their job and call anyone who does not do that a minmaxer. And I refuse to believe this is a common thing. My advice? Make buffs and nerfs from this subclass last the same time and allow the PCs to decide how long that is.
Druid gets the Circle of Yggdrasil. As it is concerned mostly with traveling the planes and being able to more easily adapt to the changing environments, I do not see much of a reason in discussing it here, within a small campaign where the only border to cross will be international, not interplanar.
Fighter gets the Warden. The subclass is recommended to use a shield, but it is not necessary, and utilizes a number of passive, and a smaller number of active, combat abilities. Within 5e it is comparable to Battlemaster, but not as powerful. The class emulates, in theory, the fighting experience of Northern warriors and does not need any adjustments.
Monk gets the Way of Glima, based on the Nordic folk wrestling. There isn’t much to comment here, this is part of Nordic culture, whose addition could help ease up having a somewhat out-of-the-place Monk in the Northern Reaches. I will also mention the proximity of the Northern Reaches to the Ethengar Khanates and the fact that Mongolians are also known for their wrestling traditions. If someone brings Glima to your table, I think you should give them an Ethengarian wrestler as a rival.
Paladin gets Oath of the Chosen—someone born with the calling from the gods to perform great deeds and become worthy of their seat in Valhalla. I do find this overall appropriate, with only one issue—the 20th-level feature. Which for some reason attempts to divide by genders what forms do the Paladin gets, similar to how Warden makes a note female Wardens are called Shieldmaidens. Except here male Paladins become Einherjars and female—Valkyries. I’m no expert on Norse mythology. But even for me “Journey Into Ragnarok” making Valkyries and Einherjars male and female versions of the same thing feels like a gross oversimplification at best. I would just call them Einherjars. That being said, this is a 20th-level feature, while even the main campaign only goes to level 15, so it will likely never come up.
Ranger gets a Wolf Pack Conclave. This is a Ranger that specializes in fighting with a group, emulating packs of wolves. In my opinion, this not only does not need adaptation to the setting, but can be easily put anywhere, not just the Northern Reaches.
Rogue gets the Unshapen subclass, which gives it minor magic abilities functioning similar to a Warlock, but with an even more limited number of spell slots and only allowed to learn specific spells. An interesting aspect of this class lies in a strong implication that Rogue is basically the Warlock of Loki, or at least that they learned knowledge of their specific magic with Loki’s subtle help or blessing. As Loki in Mystara seemingly does not do much to incite open worship and is very secretive, a possibility he could secretly empower more sneaky agents seems at least probable.
Sorcerer gets the Jotunn Origin. It draws power from the body of the primordial frost giant, whose bones were the foundation of Nine Realms in Norse Mythology. It even comes, at later levels, with power to call upon an ice elemental. Dungeon Master will be required to think how exactly this myth relates to their version of Mystara, as it does impose strongly on cosmology in a way that cannot be dismissed as just “what the Norsemen believe.” An easy way out would be to say that, since Odin and Hel are among the most ancient Immortals, there is a possibility some sort of entity of Ice (maybe an Outer Being) was once slain by Odin and its corpse (resonant power?) used in the creation of Mystara.
Warlock gets two patrons, the Norns and the Endbringer. As such, it shares similar issues with Sorcerer. Norns as a patron can be tied to Wise Women, mentioned in the Northern Reaches Gazetteer, due to sharing many similar themes. Endbringer is much more of an issue, as it ties the Warlock to entities such as Fenrir, Jormungandr, or Nidhogg, whose existence once again strongly affects the whole setting. I’m already using Jormungandr in my other campaign, but once again, DMs need to think what role these creatures could play in Mystara, before allowing use of this subclass. Saying that they are powerful entities created by Loki for the prophesized day of Ragnarok may work just well enough. Another possibility could be that, just as Zugzul is said to pose as Sutr in fan materials, some Immortals may do the same for these monsters. Nidhogg, described as either snake or dragon, could as well be Atzanteotl, Prince of Corruption, or Pearl, patron of Chaotic Dragons. Fenrir could be any of the humanoid Immortals or maybe, thanks to his connections to lycanthropy, trusty, reliable Orcus. Jormungandr could be Demogorgon, patron of primal savagery and destruction. Another possibility would be to tie these three to local manifestation and forms of the Three Entropic Princes, as described in Havard’s Entropic Alliances1. Jormungandr is Prince of Destruction (Orcus), Fenrir is Princess of Death (Nyx) and Nidhogg is Prince of Deceit (Atzanteotl).
Wizard gets School of Wanderers. It draws power from being both a storyteller who knows the people, and a traveler who knows the land. There is a part that discusses how to be a wizard without a spellbook, as Vikings weren’t writing things down. But I do not believe this applies to the Northern Reaches, so we may skip it. Overall, this is a very thematic subclass and explains why a squishy wizard is traveling the dangerous land.
Finally there is the new class, the Runemaster. Runemaster vaguely fits the same role as the Godi in the lore of the Northern Reaches, that of a fortune teller connected to the gods. However, the runes on Mystara work differently and the class names gods who do not have been listed among Immortals in Mystara the way Thor, Odin, Loki, Hel, Frigg, Frey and Freya have. Both issues can be explained, however, in rather simple ways. Loki not making Clerics makes it a precedent that people of the Northern Reaches worship Immortals who do not grant spells. So it’s not impossible they may worship members of the Norse Pantheon who aren’t yet known in Mystara and Odin is simply keeping an open spot for future Immortals. Alternatively, titles like Heimdal could be names assumed by other Immortals, similar to how some fan content lets Zugzul play the role of Sutr. Runes themselves may lack the divine power of full-fledged runes, either serve a purely ritualistic role to commune with the Immortals, or their use in augury may be the result of them invoking the image of true runes.
Having gone through the classes, let’s get into the proper adventure. Be prepared for unmarked spoilers from this point on.
About the Difficulty
Reading some of the encounters in this module, I got the impression the writers did not really get a good grasp on the combat balance in the 5th Edition. I do not fault them for it, there is a good argument that even Wizards of the Coast did not fully grasp the issue of “early game hell.” To explain simply, characters at the first 3 levels are extremely squishy and can be brought down really easily, even by accident. There is a reason why the opening dungeon to Lost Mine of Phandelver has probably killed more player characters than all other 5e adventures combined.
In “Grey Wanderer”, there are few ways to deal with the balance issue. I would assume most DMs will run it for a party of 4 to 6 players, so a quick fix would be to either run it as a level 4 with midpoint advance to 5, or just entirely level 5, adventure. My recommendation is to run this for a level 5 party of experienced players, who will welcome a challenge. Though even then there is a lot of work to do if the DM wants to hide the railroad a chunk of this adventure is on. As someone told me when I wanted to run Against the Cult of the Reptile God, in old-school modules “for levels 1 to 3” on the cover meant “for level 3.” And in this case it is safe to assume the Grey Wanderer is very old-school. Due to that, it may translate better to less forgiving editions of the game or OSR, but in 5e it is pretty jarring, as if the adventure is frustrated with the very ruleset it is confined to. However, when discussing challenges it provides, I will assume that the potential DMs will run it in 5e, as this is the system I’ve run it in. I will also provide some quick alternatives to scale down the threat level for weaker parties, and maybe some Mystaran flavor, to more challenging encounters, so that they actually feel challenged and not just straight out unfair and spiteful. My policy is that if you want to wipe out the party, at least do it in a way that they do not feel the deck was stacked from the very beginning.
The Backstory
A year before events of the module, Odin, as the Grey Wanderer, has lured Eric Knutson to venture to Frank…I mean, the Heldannic Territories. There Eric discovered ruins of village Silasthorp, where he was supposed to recover a pendant from the tomb of an ancient warlord. Instead, he robbed the place, stealing a pretty strong magic sword (which my players nicknamed “The Viking Sting” after a similar weapon from Lord of the Rings), and awakened a draugr, who killed his companions and turned them into ghasts. Eric fled without the one thing he came for and Odin has cursed him, promising that after death he will not see Valhalla. Years later Eric decided to undo his mistake…and promptly got possessed by the draugr that is now turning him into his host body. In the meantime, Danevirke’s command chain collapsed, with different subordinates of Eric fighting for power, and Heldannic Knights seized the opportunity to attack. Wounded messenger reached Thorrun, but died before he could explain the situation. So now she wants the party to investigate what is happening. She will demand the party to swear an oath to her to carry this task and discover what happened with Eric. This is something you may consider dropping, as it effectively puts the party on a blatant railroad that the players will eventually notice. Due to how the combat encounters are set up in this module, once sworn the PCs cannot at any point run to fight another day without being labeled oathbreakers.
Silasthorp could stay as it is, with the cause of its destruction being, of course, Heldannic Knights, who may have not just burned the city, but also destroyed historical records of it, possibly out of fear of the clearly magical tomb. While not necessary, it may be a nice touch to make the buried individual, who is now a draugr, be actually a Nithian, to potentially confuse the party slightly as to why there is a dead Egyptian guy in the land of the Vikings.
[Image: Nithin draugr]
http://pandius.com/NithianDraugr.png
Caption:
Draugr, original drawing by Jeffrey Kosh
(https://jeffreykosh.wixsite.com/jeffreykoshgraphics/home).
Journey
North
The journey to Danevirke is described as travel through, and this is no exaggeration, famed Fimbulwinter, the eternal winter to precede Ragnarok, itself. The towns and cities on the way are packed with refugees and camping outside during this multiple-days-long journey, grant only benefits of a short rest. While we do not need to go as far as to attribute this to the first sign of Ragnarok, an extremely harsh winter could grant the same narrative effect. It may also serve as an explanation as to why the party cannot travel by sea to the nearest city and from there to Danevirke, but later the winter can ease up a bit, enough to give PCs an option to travel from Danevirke to Silasthorp. Although rules for sailing provided by the module are so unforgiving, you may as well drop sailing as an option entirely.
The party may choose if they wish to travel fast, slow or at medium pace. Depending on their decision, they get a number of random encounters and make a number of checks to avoid exhaustion. Exhaustion is the most dreaded condition in 5e, as it provides a whole set of detrimental, cumulative effects. It is very easy to push a character into a death spiral with exhaustion or to cause them to get killed by things normally far more trivial. While this works great to establish the harsh, unforgiving nature of the grim north, a lot of the random encounters are skill and/or roleplay challenges that, if failed, punish the PCs with a level of exhaustion. It creates a bit of illusion of free choice that makes it feel less as if creators of this module tried to develop the atmosphere and more as them being very determined to give the PCs arbitrary nerfs before a big battle. What’s more is that the final encounter of the module is dependent on how long the party traveled. If the journey was fast, Eric is still in control and will aid the PCs. If they take their time, he will be driven mad and controlled by the draugr as an additional enemy. If they decide to travel at a slow pace or take a long rest in one of the settlements on the way, he is transformed into a CR 6 monster so strong the module flat-out admits this fight will likely be a Total Party Kill. I don't really like deciding the outcome of the whole adventure based on the early decision, especially one the players must make while they cannot know the consequences or even if there are any. If you have to go to such an effort to punish the players for taking a specific choice, why even bother giving it to them in the first place?
I would personally implement a simple way to ease the travel, while keeping the challenging aspect. Namely, that if players cast spells or use other limited resources on any task that, if failed, would result in gaining exhaustion levels, they succeed automatically. This way they still use up their resources, but in a much less punishing way. If you run this for a party below level 5, don’t be afraid of granting inspiration or letting go of some exhaustion tests, as a reward for creative thinking. For example, my players suggested using a sled pulled by reindeers, instead of horses. As they all played small races and reindeer are better suited to harsh winter conditions, I didn’t even roll saving throws for exhaustion of their mounts. Random encounters that involve civilians may earn the party some extra rewards, like potions of healing. You may think I’m too generous here, but trust me, once they reach Danevirke, they will need that stuff.
An important event on the way is meeting the Grey Wanderer—disguised Odin who will challenge PCs to the game of riddles and give them the quest to bring him that pendant. A DM should be prepared for the possibility players will immediately guess this is Odin, mine did before I got to finish a sentence. I also advise being prepared that, even if you do “as Odin would” and cheat at the contest, you will likely fail. I was literally googling replies to riddles as the players came up with them and still got flabbergasted at least once. I suggest having Odin be a good sport and find it amusing that someone managed to beat him at a riddle.
Danevirke Must Not Fail
This encounter is where I realized this adventure needs a basic rebalancing. After a journey, during which they can amass multiple levels of exhaustion, the party is immediately, and a bit clumsily, thrown into a battle. Against a Knight, a Priest and 8 Guards, with more Guards coming each turn. Having put it through Kobold Plus Fight Club calculations, this is a hard fight for a well-rested party of four 5th level adventurers and a deadly challenge for 4th level one. Running it for 3rd level, less alone 2nd, is a guaranteed TPK. A Priest alone can one-shot pretty much every 2nd level PC with Spirit Guardians. That spell dropped my group’s Barbarian to 2 HP, and he passed the saving throw.
If you plan to run this as written, I suggest having the Guards engage NPCs soldiers (who may literally be there to die of a single hit, just to keep the Guards busy) and help their buddies up the wall. Meanwhile, the party may face only Knight and Priest. I recommend establishing the two as somehow related—father and son, brothers, uncle and niece or something like this. This way, if the PCs are still getting massacred, you can have them “win” by dropping just one foe. The other will then carry their relative’s body and command a retreat. It may feel like going easy on the party, but I am the type that finds the party gaining an enemy for life much more compelling than being curb-stomped by two no-name NPCs in an unfair fight. Of course, if the party kills both, you can decide to have Guards retreat, demoralize, or fight, if you decide the victory was too easy. It is unlikely but it may happen, with good rolls. An issue with balance in 5e is that at early levels PCs can dish far more than they can take.
I find Danevirke rather underdeveloped, so I suggest coming up with a few NPCs, such as two to three warriors competing for command, with all higher-ranked people either dead or too wounded to take the position. After a hard battle, the players may find meddling in internal politics of the stronghold and deciding who will be in charge, a refreshing change of pace. They may even feel like taking command themselves. But, with clues to Eric’s location AND Grey Wanderer’s quest both pointing in the same direction, the party will eventually have to venture into enemy territory.
A New Journey
There are two ways to get to Silasthorp. Sailing there is pretty much going to get a PC or whole party killed, unless it is a large party. If you don’t run this for a large group, you may as well say that the sea is in the middle of a storm and sailing is too dangerous right now. The other option is to sneak at night through enemy camp. There are few interesting events that can happen to raise the alarm, and in this case I do not mind the overwhelming force that will be thrown at the party if they do get spotted. Stealth sequences require a fight you cannot win in case of failure, after all. However, few of the events that can happen could be utilized by the party itself to divert the enemy’s attention and in such cases, they should make the stealth easier, not harder. My players decided to distract the Heldannic Knights with arson; I could see a group of Berserkers being used similarly. In fact, if the capture of the party seems inevitable, I recommend having the Berserkers show up and draw the bulk of the Heldannic forces, allowing the PCs to escape. That is, unless one has a whole sequence for escaping capture prepared, as the book does not provide an option here.
One issue I have with this module is that it really does not provide any good means for the players to discover what is actually going on. I would recommend either having the party find notes from Eric’s journal somewhere in Danevirke or Silasthorp. Or at least have them find a dead traveler, killed by Heldannic Knights or the cold, whose journal may shed some light on the history of Silasthorp.
[Image: Ghoul]
http://pandius.com/Ghoul.png
Caption:
Ghoul, original drawing by Jeffrey Kosh
(https://jeffreykosh.wixsite.com/jeffreykoshgraphics/home).
Ghostly
Horde
As the party approaches the ruins of ruined village Silasthorp, they are going to be ambushed by 10 specters. An extremely deadly fight for even a party of 4 5th level PCs, and the module expects them to be level 3 at this point. My alternative is to instead use an unique Mystaran monster—the ghostly horde. Ghosts of defenders of Silasthorp manifest themselves to travelers, forcing them into duels to make the story of their last stand against the Knights be remembered. It is a very climactic encounter, which pits the party against a far more even fight and doesn't risk killing them in what is basically a warm-up before the main battle. To borrow a cooking metaphor, you want to tenderize the meat here, not grind it to paste.
The fight in the tomb is not much better. Once again, four ghasts and a Veteran is an epic challenge…for a level 5 party. If you run this for a lower-level group, I recommend replacing the ghasts with ghouls and making Eric an agarat. The origin of agarats is unknown, so one being created by a draugr is plausible, and they command ghouls, making them a perfect addition of Mystaran flavor to the adventure. Mind you, this option can backfire if anyone in the party can turn undead and effectively trivialize the encounter. But if the party lacks Clerics or Paladins, this is a more balanced option for a low-level group. And honestly, if you do have someone play either of those two, just let them turn the ghouls, especially if the DM wasn’t pulling punches earlier, as the players earned a moment in the spotlight.
Once Eric dies, the draugr will spew a few words about how his kingdom of undead was the only salvation from the horrors of Ragnarok, and flee. It's a good opportunity to foreshadow anything the DM has planned for the future. I ended up referencing events of Wrath of the Immortals, for example. The draugr may also become a recurring antagonist, causing similar trouble and not engaging the PCs directly, before the party is strong enough to take it head-on. He makes for a perfect campaign villain as well.
One last advice I have is to make the pendant very visible during the final encounter. Call attention to it so the players cannot blame the DM if they do not take it. Which is likely, seeing how the tomb begins to collapse with Eric’s death and the draugr’s departure. If the party did not take the pendant, furious Odin will put a pretty nasty curse on them, with the only way to remove it being to give away all treasure they did take from the tomb to his priesthood. It feels way too mean-spirited, considering how the module itself forgets to give the players any hint to the pendant’s location or importance.
Overall, I like the ideas of Grey Wanderer, but it clearly wants to be a much grittier, brutal game than the system it is written for. It contrives itself to make the players’ lives harder in a way that is likely to frustrate and make them not want to play with you anymore. It may work better either by buffing the party up to a higher level, or transplanting it to something like B/X, AD&D or OSR games that are better at handling its brutality. Even then, I think the DM will have a lot of work to do. That being said, my players had a lot of fun and the adventure was a very atmospheric introduction to the Northern Reaches. So I’d say the effort was worth it.
1“Entropic Alliances” by Håvard in the Vaults of Pandius http://pandius.com/entralli.html