Fate of the Norns

So everyone knows that fighting one kind of enemy at a time or fighting whatever combination of enemies in a more or less featureless environment can be pretty boring. So my question is twofold. What are some combinations of enemy types that you’ve used and found to be really fun/difficult/interesting, and what are some environmental features or enemy/environment combinations you and your party have had fun with at the table? I’ll even throw in a couple of my own terrain examples.

My party decided to split up. Two wanted to explore a cave, and one wanted to test out the boat he’d just built. I ended up doing one session just the cave explorers and one with just the black smith. In the cave, they found, along with lots of treasure, traps, and other goodies, 2 encounters that I really enjoyed. The first was a room with 2 trolls playing hneftafl. They could either fight the trolls, talk to them, or sneak past them to the door. They chose stealth, got caught in the net trap on the door, and the trolls challenged them to hneftafl. If they could beat both trolls, they could go further in, if they only beat one, they could go back the way they came, and if they lost both, they would be eaten. They ended up playing and winning. Later in the dungeon, there was a huge cavern with about a dozen Ulfhednar wearing collars that kept them stuck in wolf form and rage 4. The ground was littered with sharp bones. All creatures had to move at half speed or take damage from the bones. Weak moves then became 1/4 moves. Unfortunately, no one bothered taking a collar off in the heat of battle, otherwise they would have found out that removing the collar instantly killed the wearer.

Another example was the final battle in the mines for the Cornerstone of the world saga. I made that final cavern a series of stacked plateaus so people could get knocked off, there were pillars that could be toppled onto people, an energy field around the Hvergelmir well that incinerated things, a wall of fire and force that kept people trapped in the room. My druid even decided to hack away at the spectral chains I described binding Dreki, in an attempt to free him (it was actually the soul chains spell, but it was creative and I decided to allow it). And there were the wight monoliths obviously.

To reiterate the questions:
1. What are some of your favorite combinations of enemies for your players to fight?
2. What are some environmental features that you’ve really enjoyed using?
3. What are some combinations of enemies and terrain that you have enjoyed?

Angungri + wood effigies = tanky front line with barrage artillery from the back along with stitch kindred
Shadow Skui + Rusalki = taunted and treading water in darkness
Berserkir + Berserkir + raging cohort passive = wall of death
Skraeling Shaman + Silver Stag = mobile arcane turrets
Karst + Catacomb Dragon = Area damage/heal death chargers
Karst + Fossegrimen = Mobile song buffed death charger in an area covered in alkas

...and SOOOO many more. I'd love to hear more Norn combos.



Confined spaces
Open areas
shallow and deep water
narrow bridges with hard falls
lair alkas that reset every round
Beckon Svartalfheim for blocking line of sight
An area that applies x intensities of a condition every round
Areas with many innocents who could be caught in the crossfire
A boss monster that talks and taunts the dwellers (Social Combat from RGS3)



Boats + kraken is a classic (add waterfalls and whirlpools for added fun)
A borghild that *IS* the terrain... one of my players can claim to this day that he "parried a mountain"
Flight combat with Valkyries and Golden Eagles... don't fall
Dwellers going into Niflheim for their quest and meeting up with their former dead dwellers that failed their afterlife Wyrd (one player joined midway in the adevnture and just played his dead dweller helping out the party in Niflheim)

What have you guys done that was memorable?

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Karst + catacomb dragon is terrifying!!! My players have t encountered either of them yet, but they’re gonna freak out when they do.

Narrow bridges is an interesting idea. I can see how a series of 1 hex wide bridges over a chasm of varying depth might be really cool against a creature with lots of knockback. Like maybe a golden eagle that’s been locked in a subterranean cavern, or even just a reclusive galdr or Seithkona. Unless you spend 4 runes to counter knockback on on power over wind, you’re going over the side.

Borghild as the terrain is a cool idea too, gonna have to use that at some point. How large does a creature need to be for that to be doable?

I would absolutely do the dead former PC idea, but my players were a little upset that “their actions didn’t matter if they were just gonna die every few sessions,” so our game has become a little more dnd style with more consistent PCs. That said, if someone does die, the situation you described is gonna HAVE to happen because that’s awesome.

What kinds of lair alkas do you like? Things similar to the normal alkas in the books, or is there a less standard alka that you like better?