Right, well, Tuesday night was a blinding success!
Malakor - thanks for the affirmation that I should post here. Each week I'll be doing the write up on RPGgeek then cutting and pasting here and my LARP/RPG forum also.
I've taken out the background info that I put into the post elsewhere however as you all know how my setting is run
But a small recap on magic:
Common magic is available to most everyone, but the spells each person knows is limited to his field of work, so a wood-worker would have spells to aid him in felling trees, transporting these, crafting and selling the items. He wouldn't have a spell to sharpen swords or cook meat quicker.
Divine magic is open to anyone willing to travel the path of their God(s) but again is specific to that God with some leeway.
Sorcery is Elite only, and very very rare. In fact anyone who has Sorcerous abilities will have turned away from the Gods and so most, if not all, Divine magic users abhor them.
The Hook of our Session
My three players are as follows:
David playing 'Jeffy Lightfoot'. 19; a Tracker; one half of a twin; his twin robbed him of his inheritance and left him bringing up his dead father's 7 other children; itchy feet - wants to adventure and find his own way in life.
Naomi playing 'Lyra'. 17; a Gypsy Carter; Married with two children (left with his grandparents); travelling on own for a few months, happens to be staying with our tribe for a few days.
Alex playing 'Brynn'. 19; Shaman; Apprentice to my NPC Witch - Corinth; Pushed into the Divine Magic line of work by parents so rebels slightly and goes down the Shaman route rather than the Witch route so he is much more rebellious, more talky and more volatile!
Our starting place and base of operations is Hors' Field, (pronounced Horse) and our Wise-One, Corinth (a Witch), calls together a small band of men and women from the tribe. Specifically he asks Jeffy, Brynn and Lyra to sit closest to him. He proceeds to explain that rumours and worrying stories have reached his ears regarding happenings in the local area. He wants a group to get together to discover more and if possible stop the causes.
Our three players start in the same way they then carry on through the session: bickering, moaning and being typical spoilt 'young adults'. Lyra demands to know why she should join the others when all she wants to do is sell her trinkets and make money before going back to her children. Jeffy, despite growing up as head of the house hold is still a petulant lad and doesn't want to work with anyone else. Brynn will do whatever his master tells him to but is still very vocal about working with these two.
All three seem to have forgotten that they were not the only ones asked to do this, but in fact it doesn't matter as their bickering and squabbling has driven the others away! So the three are persuaded to journey fourth and find the problems. They start, of course, by asking Corinth what the problems are. He tells them:
1. The local standing stone, and one of their holy places, has recently been desecrated. Blood daubed on the stone, and teeth and skulls littered around and on it by person(s) unknown.
2. The pond at Melks Ham has someone been causing the villagers there to become badly ill. Find out why.
3. A forest and Mound to the north is said to have recently become haunted or over-run. Strange things were seen late at night by Seb, the tanner.
Into the forest!
Interestingly they did not chose the most local of the three tasks (the stone) but instead headed through the forest towards the settlement with the pond. Walking through the forest on a path the tracker, Jeffy, knew well they were startled by a rabbit bolting past them (the tracker wasn't bothering to pay attention to his surroundings). Lyra tries to use her sling to "get lunch" but fumbles and her hand goes numb from the pain of the miss. They then heard an angry snort behind and turned to see a wild boar with rather nasty tusks. Jeffy shot off the path and readied his hammer and shield; Lyra bolted up a nearby tree; Brynn stood his ground and positioned his spear aiming down.
Enter combat mode! The boar charges and when it gets to Bynn gets a spear through its shoulder, which Brynn promptly lets go of and side-steps away. Jeffy has moved in to swing at it but the boar turns, enraged, and slices Jeffy's leg open with a tusk on the second attempt. Jeffy goes down. Lyra is unable to use her sling from up the tree. Bynn hollars a shaman like warcry causing enough distraction that Jeffy wollops it one and takes it out. NOW they have dinner!
While Brynn uses Divine intervention to heal a crippled leg (leaving a nice scar) Lyra makes a fire and cooks the boar, storing some in her pack for later.
The water's source
It is now an hour or so after noon and they are ready to carry on to Melks Ham, which they manage without further troubles. Cresting a hill they look down onto a dozen or so huts and workshops set in front and to one side of a Oval shaped area of worship, marked out by massive tree trunks stood upright in the ground with an avenue at the East end. From up here they can see there is something in the West end, but can't make out what. Beyond that is the pond, or small lake, fed by a tributary from a stream that runs past it to the North. The group head down towards the huts and are met by capering and screaming children who usher them towards town. They are met by the local Witch and his son.
Greetings and explanations over they are taken to the holy place and it becomes obvious that as well as an alter there are reed mats laid down with ill villagers laying on them. No one knows what caused this except that it happened after people had been in or drunk the water from the pond. Byrnn examines one and discovers blood in his vomit, but as he is about to try Divine healing the man coughs and expires. His wife, who was nursing him, keens and releases his soul safely to her Gods. So Brynn moves over to the next mat where a girl of about seven summers lays. She is not as bad and Brynn talks to her. She and her brother (nods towards the next mat) who is a summer younger than her, went swimming three days ago. Brynn makes a healing herbal drink up and feeds it to her. Her laboured breathing eases slightly and she falls into a fitful sleep. Lyra casts a sleeping magical aid on the others there and they all rest easier for a few hours.
The group decide they need to head upstream to find the cause and set off. The Sun marches on and the banks of the river get marshy. Rain clouds are moving their way. They come to a part of the river which is crossable with a very good jump but decide to carry on up their side. Soon the marshy land expands outwards then contracts and as they hit the river they can see that up here it is clean of pollutants. They decide to backtrack, Lyra finds a decent branch and drags it with her. They use this to cross the stream. The heavens open and drench them in a five minute downpour. Getting back to where the stream ran clear they are much closer to the waters edge.
Jeffy thinks he sees something but isn't sure so he uses his knowledge to make his way across the marshy ground (going in up to his knees at one point much to the other two's amusement!) and Brynn follows at a small distance. Getting to some gorse bushes he parts them with a stick and discovers a corpse half in and half out of the water (feet out). Brynn catches up and tramps down one of the bushes to make a half-way stable base but then also grabs Jeffy's shield and puts that down to kneel on also. Lyra throws over some twine which is wrapped around the legs and they attempt to pull the body out, failing several times before Lyra casts a Pull spell (used to goad horses and mules along with carts attached) and gets him out.
There are two arrows embedded in the man, one in his shoulder and one in his next, severing the spine and this was the killing shot. The arrows have Raven Feathers as flights and to Jeffy's trained eye looks slightly larger than they should be.
Brynn meanwhile has seen a hand sticking out of the water on the other side of the stream. Jeffy goes upstream a small ways then wades down to it. Trying to lift it out he discovers it's in two halves and he gets covered in muck, blood, gore and filth. Even mroe so as he tries twice to throw it towards Brynn, failing miserably each time and getting more gore covered than before. In the end he hauls it over manually rather than trying to be cocky. He then goes back upstream and cleans himself off.
The river clear of its pollutants they study the arrows. Brynn yanks them out, leaving the heads buried in the corpse. He sticks his hand into the shoulder and manages to free one of them - a nasty barbed thing it is. He stores these away to show the Wise-men. they then build Cairns over the two dead bodies and Brynn gives them a quick religious send-off. Jeffy works out the bodies were dumped there on purpose by discovering boot tracks nearby.
They head back to town, and tell the wise-man that the problem was caused by two dead men, who are now buried safely. He knows not of any missing men but is glad the problem is solved. He does not recognise the arrows but the Raven's feathers cause him to cross his fingers in front of his face to ward off evil spirits. The corvids are evil Gods!
Jeffy and Brynn head to the fighters of the village, one of whom is massively tall and carries a spear twice Brynn's height! Name of Gul. They show him the arrows too and he thinks they are used by the Claw clan, a small group of warriors. He knows nothing else.
After a nights sleep the group decide to head along the road North to the next tribe to speak to Seb about the 'ghosts" at the mound.
Social niceties and a Anger Management Problem
Reaching this village Brynn goes to speak to the tanner, Seb. Seb starts to explain that he was in the forest late one evening when he saw ghostly figures roaming around. The conversation is going well until Brynn insinuates that he may have been drunk, which gets Seb's goat right up! Brynn hits a brick wall so tries to use common magic to win him over.
Enter Social Combat Mode!!! As a GM I love social combat. I find it more exciting and purposeful than physical combat. You stand to lose or gain more in Social combat I think.
Anyway, Brynn makes a total hash up of his magic roll whereas Seb passes his roll, and only manages to annoy Seb further! Seb turns his back on this "supposed Shaman wise man", walks over to his tannery vats and promptly starts to piss into the vat to up the levels of urine. Purposefully in full view of Brynn. By now Brynn is getting angry so ramps things up and tries to cast an even bigger spell....and fails that roll too. Giving up he storms off with no further information other than what Corinth originally told them.
Meanwhile Lyra has done allright for herself by trading some bits for a pair of soft-leather bracers which she is shown how to wear.
The three of them head over the road and into the forest heading for the Mound which is visible over the trees. They are on a deer-path, having missed the locals well-worn route to the mound. Along the way Lyra, who is the last in the trio, spots something on the ground and picks up a lozenge of gold with a small hole in either end where it can be strung onto a chain. She asks Jeffy if anyone has been along this track. He thinks possibly as there are a few signs of human use as well as deer.
The trio arrive at a fork in the deer path. Brynn and Lyra are distracted for a second, and in that time Jeffy disappears using his bush-craft. Brynn heads off along the right hand track. He's back in a foul mood for some unknown reason. Jeffy meanwhile had gone along the left path and finds some red wool on a twig. He calls Lyra to his side and shows her the wool which she pockets. Jeffy calls out to Brynn that he's gone the wrong way but Brynn stubbornly ignores him and presses on.
Jeffy and Lyra carry on along their path which turns in towards the mound and they enter a clearing. To one side there are a number of small trees bent over and formed into a shelter of a kind. the earth is tamped down but with a small raised area that was probably used as a mini-alter. Some wandering witch had no doubt passed through and stayed here a few days sometime in the past. A few trees further on past the clearing the mound rises steeply up to its plateau. They climb this, taking their time.
Going back to Brynn.... between Jeffy shouting loudly and Brynn himself stomping around in a temper it's no wonder he attracted attention. His deer-path widens out and becomes a proper path and a short way along it an arrow whizzes past his ear in an obvious warning shot. Brynn calls on Hors to aid him and protect him, and at his first attempt he fails, which makes him all the more angry! He calls on Hors again, this time promising that if he aids him he will find a pure white horse and give it to a shrine's priests to do with as they wish. This does the trick and his armour is boosted! Just in time too as an arrow aimed right at his head hits a temporary shield and shatters.
Two men rush out of hiding towards him, one wielding a short sword and shield (S&S), the other a short sword and dagger (S&D). Brynn lets them come. He also lets them attack without Parrying! (If they hit they need a 5 or 6 on their D6 (short sword) to do any damage at all) The S&S guy goes first and hits but the sword skitters off the armour harmlessly. The S&D guy hits and his too does no damage! Brynn then casts Fear onto the S&D guy with a success. He pisses himself and runs away screaming into the forest. Another arrow hits Brynn and this one goes through his armour and embeds itself in his arm! The S&S guy gets a solid hit across Brynn's chest, putting a nice clear slash through the armour but doing no damage to Brynn himself. He then kills the guy rather brutally. The archer runs off like a coward.
Brynn lobs a javelin at the archer but misses massively. He pulls the arrow out (a normal one), heals and bandages his wound, then takes the sword and the shield (he will keep the shield and give the sword to one of the others), checks for any clan markers on him (finds none) and anything else of note (nothing) then retrieves his javelin and heads up the mound.
Meanwhile Jeffy and Lyra have looked around the top of the mound. The top is flat in a circle and then tapers down slightly in rough long grass before dropping down properly to the ground. They came up at one end of an oval hill and by the steepest part. The other end is nowhere near as steep, but the two main paths run down from either side. On the flat section the grass has been trampled down by numerous feet and rising up out of the ground, towards the back edge, is a pole. A huge tree was once felled, stripped of branches and then raised to stand upright pointing to the sky on top of this mound. This was no easy job for whoever did this! They find nothing else so Jeffy sits by the pole to eat some boar meat and Lyra eats hers but walks over to the long-grass and lays down to peer over the edge in the general direction of Brynn.
Minutes later he emerges, stomping up the slope. When he gets to Lyra he dumps the sword at her feet saying she can use or sell it, he doesn't care and carries on over to the pole. Barely noticing Jeffy he looks at the pole and sees, right at the top a circle carved in the North facing side. The holy symbol of Sol.
Brynn is exhausted and has used up all of his Divine and a fair bit of his common magic. And he's still angry. He dons his Shaman's mask and proceeds to dance around the post. Every time he crosses the North and South points he feels a small jolt of energy pass through him. Pausing he looks North and can just about see another Mound rising above trees. And to the South he realises his home tribes Stone must be. This mound has to be on a leyline! He carries on dancing.
At this point I decided to be nice to him because I had enjoyed his acting and I threw him a bone. "What havn't you done yet? What's the ONE thing you havn't done yet?" He looks puzzled and I start to run through a human's five senses, leaving one till last...and thankfully before I have to actually say it realization dawns and he reaches out and touches the post. (He couldn't have made that any harder if he had tried LOL). Energy coursed through him and he regained half his common magic power in an instant.
I wrapped up the evening there but gave them five minutes to say what they were doing next. Consensus said building a small camp a short way off the main track, with Jeffy's traps laid around as security. They would get some sleep and wake for the evening when they expect the "bad guys" to come out.
Players Opinions
This is only the second game I have ever GM'd so I made sure to ask my three players their opinions. They had all loved the game, especially the setting. Naomi said it was lovely to be "out" and not stuck in a dungeon somewhere. Alex thoroughly enjoyed his angry Shaman and David agreed that it had all been good so far!
Hurray for me, hurray for Legend, and hurray for making up 75% of the detail as I went along!
Whew! That took almost as long to write as it did to play! LOL. I hope anyone reading this massive report enjoyed that!
