Vartelion's House

The blockhouse was built by an old trapper named Vartelion who vanished in 698 TR. The trappers use it to gather their pelts and for protection from Gargun or Pagaelin raids. The house is a stout wooden structure, surrounded by a 12 foot palisade with three platforms for defense. The interior of the hut is surprisingly comfortable. A three tier bunk bed behind curtains serves as sleeping place. An iron brazier is used for cooking and warmth.

The trappers are armed and quite tough. They have taught the Pagaelin and Gargun to stay well out of the range of their arrows. Visitors to the house are well advised to approach openly and to clearly state their business to the guard.

Anyone spotted sneaking around the compound or otherwise appearing untrustworthy will be shot at without warning.

The Scavenger

For some time the trappers using Vartelion House have been bothered by an unusual disappearance of their catch from the traps. While they regularly find their traps triggered, the catch has quite often disappeared. The trappers suspected a predatory animal or the Pagaelin to be responsible for the theft of the prey. They have laid several ambushes to catch the culprit in the recent past. While they have never seen let alone caught anyone, several mysterious occurrences have worried them even further. On several occasions the trapped animals were stolen from right under their noses; sometimes some of their number were found in a state of dreamy doze, just smiling stupidly with wide open eyes. The tracks found nearby the traps were large and vaguely human, although the trackers could not agree whether they belong to feet or boots.

Although none of their number has been hurt by the mysterious thief, the trappers are deeply worried about the incident, suspecting demonic activity or evil spirits or even a werewolf being on the rampage in the Anadel Hills. They have asked for help in the village and may approach the PCs.

The Truth

Experienced GMs will have guessed that no decent Hârn adventure module can exist without an appearance of a Nolah. Here it is: The scavenger stealing the animals from the traps is a lazy Nolah, named Gmulch, who has discovered the traps as an easy source for food.

The Nolah lacks the skills to build traps on its own, but is intelligent enough to understand that the trappers are responsible for maintaining them. Consequently, it has avoided hurting them and has even gone so far as to scare away or eat Pagaelin hunters and Gargun whom it rightly suspected of intending to harm its food suppliers.

Possible Solutions

While the PCs may try to hunt down the Nolah, once they have discovered its existence, this is not automatically the best option. The Nolah is quite good at determining which humans to spare, so it will not show the same reluctance to kill PCs as it shows to kill trappers. Another point is that its protection, though yet unknown to the trappers, might prove very useful if tensions with the Pagaelin increase.

Kora the Madwoman [see the adventure section of this module] may aid the characters with information about Nolahs at GM's discretion.