The Desperate Counsel encounter plays out just like it would in RHoD. The party argues for Northri to evacuate the town, convincing him to do so, while leaving those able to fight to stand off the horde.
The evacuees will travel north to the ring of standing stones, where the local Druid (Bram, a Druid 8//Wizard 7/Master of the Yuirwood 1) would activate the stones, and teleport everyone to the Niflhenge, where the Hathran are gathering. There are about 150 able-bodied men who plan to stay and fight, as well as Northri, Svala Ashildsdottir, and Jorr. Also, the Wild Hunter, sent by King Briarthorn, had arrived while the PC's were dealing with the bridge. It should also be noted that three of the PC's are now 8th level, while the Rogue//Wizard and the NPC Druid//Scout are not quite there yet.
As a side note, I find it interesting that they decided to stay and fight. Part of it was good in-character motivation, as the Barbarian//Warlock saw this as a duty, wouldn't mind dying and heading to Valhalla, and a small part of me believes he thought that this is where they should make their stand. When I played through RHoD, we just evacuated the town; we didn't stay to fight. But, we also hadn't been running around as much as this party has been, and so had already had encounters such as the Goblin Raids and Chimera Attack (while this group missed the Orge Mage attack, because they decided to sit at the bridge for 3 days.)
The next morning, while the town is starting to pack up to evacuate, I have the PC's start making listen checks around 9 am. The first DC is a 30, and they all fail. At 10 am they make another check, DC 25, they all fail. At 11 am they make another Listen check, DC 20, and one of them noticed a deep thrumming that they felt more than heard. The PC Druid wildshapes and heads off west to have a look, hoping against all hope it isn't what they fear. It is; the Horde is moving, and they will reach the town in a matter of hours.
The PC's scramble to come up with a plan, while the evacuation proceedings get a little hectic. There is a small river on the west side of Eyrrinberg (their water source), but it is not anywhere near as big as the Elsir River's 500 feet in RHoD. This small river is only about 15 feet wide, and there is a single wooden bridge, wide enough for a wagon, that crosses it.
The PC's decide to make unexpected use of the scroll of Mirage Arcana they found in the basement of Vigfus Keep. They use it to make an image of a high earthen bluff/cliff on the east side of the river, so the army will see this wall of earth on the river's far side. The scroll only has enough to cover nine 20-foot cubes, however, so they center that on the bridge, so there is a "valley" between the cliffs, to which the bridge leads. They also lay down a spike growth on the path leading up to the bridge, so the army would have to cross over it to get at the PC's.
The party starts to hear the sound of axes chopping wood. The army is cutting down trees to fashion crude log bridges to lay across the 15-foot-wide rushing stream. The Horde assumed the one bridge there would be destroyed by the time they arrived. Finally, the Horde makes its appearance, cloaked in mist (Troll-wife Warlock 1's with Breath of Night), a vision like a large cloudy serpent snakes its way toward Eyrrinberg, with nearly two dozen fliers circling overhead (the fliers that had belonged to the Niðarós half of the army passed off their captured cattle to normal trolls, and flew north to join this half for the massacre). The party spots the four-armed flier making lazy sweeps ahead of the foggy column, and then see it dart down into the fog, and reappear a few minutes later, having relayed the information his high vantage point afforded him.
The human defenders were arranged into 10 groups of 15 men. Each group was composed of one 5th level Barbarian, two 3rd level Barbarians, two 2nd level Barbarians, a 2nd level Warrior, and nine 1st level Warriors. Just a reminder, in my gestalt world, NPC classes are just non-heroic "adults." The commoner class is used only for children. So, 1st level Warriors are the equivalent of commoner conscripts in typical D&D.
The party lead the group just in front of the bridge, and they had Northri and Jorr with them as well. Svala had taken control of another of the groups. Asdis, the "Angel of Death" venerable Spririt Shaman 6 was also waiting far in the back, in order to heal people. The Wild Hunter would be riding his mount along behind the lines of men, attacking with his bow. (This allowed me to add a little dues ex machina via occasional bow attack from him, but never more than two rounds worth of attacks, as he was continuing up and down the line).
As the sun was setting, the party Druid//Sorcerer let loose with a scintillating sphere, lighting it off just inside the foggy veil concealing the horde. It lit up like a thunderhead, and some tanarukk were damaged, but in the end it didn't really do a whole lot. At this point they were thinking they would make their valiant stand here, at Eyrrinberg, and emerge victorious. Sometimes it takes players a bit to realize that they are outmatched...
With the setting of the sun, on came the first wave, gestalt EL 10, consisting of three Half-fiend Ice trolls carrying three Half-Troll Nothic (MiniHB). Norse myth and folklore is filled with the idea of trolls being unusual in appearance, having extra heads (as many as nine), having extra arms, and seeing with eyes that are not in their heads. As such, I've tried incorporating more unusual troll "species," usually made by applying the half-troll template to a suitable aberration.
The Half-fiends had no trouble flying over the illusory cliff the PC's had erected, and dropped off their half-troll nothic cargo to do its damage. The nothics proved quite nasty, getting two claws and a bite at +10 and +5, plus Rend. They also have that nasty little ability to see invisibility, which disheartened my Wizard//Rogue player. Jorr was brought down to -2 hp, but a lesser vigor from the NPC Druid healed him back after this wave was finished.
While the Nothics tore things up on the ground for about three rounds, the Half-Fiends flew strafing runs overhead, laying down their meager Unholy Blights (at 2d6 damage), but also striking people from above with their battleaxes. The flying Barbarian//Warlock did most of the engaging here, striking hard with some Hideous Blows, but the Confusion spell thrown up there by the newly-8th-level Beguiler helped out a lot too, confusing one of the half-fiends, allowing it to be hit, and dropping it unconscious with just two blows. Looking back at my papers, I can see from the seesaw of the HP totals that at least one of the half-fiend ice trolls lasted for 6 rounds before he was brought to unconsciousness, and the other two, including the confused one, teetered back and forth into consciousness and unconsciousness several times.
Eventually they were all brought down, fires were lit, and the bodies thrown on top to burn them to death. Funny thing though, with Half-fiend Ice Trolls, they have Fire resistance 10. It's impossible to burn them to death with non-magical fire (lava would do it, though). I didn't make this realization until the next morning, but that's okay, the trolls would have just played dead at that point anyway, slowly regenerating, waiting for the PC's to leave before they broke cover and fled back to the horde. Still, they did kill all three Nothics.
The party and their group of defenders fared pretty well, and I mistakenly took that as a sign that the other defenders would be doing well too. The day after this game session I ran a mock fight of one of the other 10 groups of defenders, to see how well they held up. They didn't hold up well at all. In three rounds of the first wave, all 15 men of the one group I ran had dropped (six of those stabilized and were healed by Asdis after the initial attack ended). Regardless, I didn't know how bad it would be during the game session, so the PC's convinced Svala and the remaining men to hold and not retreat after the first wave (in RHoD, they all retreat after the first wave).
The second wave consisted of two Winter Wolves, two Ogre Mages, and two Tanarukk 6th level Wizards. The spike growth the Druid had laid down did its job and got the wolves out of this fight, at least for the PC's group of defenders. All the attackers in this wave were hasted, thanks to one of the wizards, so that made things a little more interesting. I don't remember much of it at this point, but one of the ogre mages was tagged with a ray of enfeeblement, both ogre mages were brought to unconsciousness through regeneratable damage, and thrown on the fire mounds, one of the tanarukk wizards, who was flying, was brought to -1 hp, and fell into the river, where one of the PC's retrieved him and killed him, and the second wizard retreated when brought to 13 HP's.
At this point, over 10 of the defenders in the PC's group had died, and the PC's and the few remaining survivors beat a hasty retreat north to the menhir circle.
I also ran a mock combat the next day for the second wave. Just for curiosity's sake, I threw the second wave against a fresh, unhurt contingent of 15 defenders. The second wave for the other groups was composed only of four winter wolves, who had a high enough Jump modifier that they could reliably leap across the 15-foot stream. In six rounds all 15 humans had been killed, and only one of the four winter wolves had been brought below 0 hp's. In that last round with two human defenders still living, I had the Wild Hunter show up to attack the wolves. With about two rounds of work on his part, he had killed the remaining three winter wolves, but both the remaining humans died.
This did not bode well, and at the start of the next session I informed them how few people actually survived. They retreated and caught up with the evacuees, bringing themselves, Northri, Svala, Jorr, Asdis, and about 20 other men with them. The horde slaughtered about 125 men, while only losing about 15 winter wolves, 20 nothic, and zero half-fiends.
The players felt the sting of defeat, but it did level the Rogue//Wizard to 8th, as well as the NPC Druid, now a Druid 8//Scout 5/Ranger 1/Wizard 1/Master of the Yuirwood 1 - which means he can activate the menhir circles (at least on the "Finland" side of the "Baltic" sea).
