Blood of Orlanth - actual play and questions [spoilers]

[Deleriad]

If people are interested, I'll post reports of Blood of Orlanth from the campaign I'm running. It won't consist of long written-up exposition and, it goes without saying that there will be spoilers so don't read if you plan to play one day. This first post will be spoiler free though.

The actual text of this is also on my wiki and various questions come up from play so I'll be interested to get answers to those. If there's no real interest (or I get asked not to post the info) then this thread will slowly die instead...

Your starter for 10
The Blood of Orlanth

A man fights with his sword, a dragon fights with fire a sorcerer fights with lies. How will you fight for the Blood of Orlanth?

Dark Season 907 and the second harvest in a row has failed. The Orlanthi of Heortland are calling this The Long Winter and many claim that the end of the world is nigh.

The EWF army has crossed the Marzeel and set up camp. Rumours about the siege of the Clanking City are flying thick and fast. Many say that the King Androfin the Defiant has sent warbands to join the EWF in the siege which is why the EWF army has still made no overtly hostile moves. It might also explain why the Orlanthi clans of the Solthi River feel that they have been abandoned as Androfin moves his forces south.

The player characters have found themselves guests of the Howling Wolf Clan; one of the two clans holding territory along the Solthi River. The chieftain, Orlgard, has offered them guest rights in return for hunting, information and defence duties. There is, however, tension. Orlgard's sister - Vinya - has been arguing that the clan must accept reality and make peace with the dragon so she and Aslander - a recently-initiated but rather quiet about it Dragon-Slayer - don't see eye to eye. Her son, Theorl, however stands to inherit the role of chieftain now that all of Orlgard's 7 sons have died, so she is not a good person to cross.

Then, one dark and stormy night the clan is feasting on a rare treat - three deer - when the door blows open and Deorlaf staggers in. His cottage is under attack and on fire...

 

[BenQ]

Hoping to run this myself sometime before too long, so am certainly interested in following your accounts! You mention your wiki, what is the address if you plan to put more up there?

 

[Deleriad]

Hoping to run this myself sometime before too long, so am certainly interested in following your accounts! You mention your wiki, what is the address if you plan to put more up there?

The campaign notes are on my wiki http://b5quest.pbworks.com/Glorantha-The-Second-Age-Campaign The wiki's a bit of a sprawling thing with various houserules and so for a grab bag of my own interests. Means it's not really all that user friendly...

I've run three sessions so far and the PCs have made it down to the lowlands.

 

[Deleriad]

I like to do teasers at the start of a campaign and "last time on..." for players before each session so I'll start at the beginning.

The Blood of Orlanth.

Three Men Stand in a Circle and Each of Them has His Sword at His Brother’s Throat

[beat]

High in the foothills of the Stormwalk mountains, Orlgard, chieftain of the Howling Wolves stands at the graves of his seven sons and sees the future. What he sees is enough to drive him to his knees in despair.

[beat]

In a luxurious tent, gathered around a roaring brazier, a woman who has betrayed her kin, a Dragonewt and something in the shadows plot an invasion.

[beat]

Deep in his laboratory, Delecti pauses, the desperate cries of the beast he is stitching unheard as he recognises the touch of a magical sigil he had not expected to feel again.

[beat]

On a grey and dismal beach, something is landing.

[beat]

A man is running, the trophy clasped to his chest. He is hunted by all sides. His plan is simple: stay alive.

 

[Denalor]

The pictures of Aslander and Keldo are ... absolutely awesome !
Gosh, I did some drawing some years back, too, and at the time I was quite proud of them (since I got a couple of compliments), but looking at those two I'm stunned.

If your players would find the time to include the stats of their characters ... that would be great

 

[Deleriad]

The pictures of Aslander and Keldo are ... absolutely awesome !
Gosh, I did some drawing some years back, too, and at the time I was quite proud of them (since I got a couple of compliments), but looking at those two I'm stunned.

If your players would find the time to include the stats of their characters ... that would be great

They are not originals, I believe they're just copied from elsewhere online. I suspect I ought to get the people who posted them to provide a link back to the originals to ensure that the artist gets credit.

Will tell them that there's some interest in their stats.

 

[Deleriad]

Preparation and GM issues for the first scenario.
Before starting I needed to make two types of decisions about the NPC stats. The first is that they were written using the standard assumptions from RQ at the time so no one had rune magic unless they had integrated runes and there were very few initiates among the Orlanthi. Updating them to work with a pact mechanic and without need for integrated runes meant that most Orlanthi would be expected to have some rune magic and to be an initiates.

At the same, the stats were clearly drawn up to be relative to seasoned PCs so even the most skilled opponents were not at "hero" level. Although there are good arguments for keeping things relative, I come from an old school approach where PCs survive being outclassed by running away.

All in all this meant quite a bit of re-statting though that's not exactly unusual in RQ.

The other thing that I realised is that the early timeline doesn't add up. If you're playing fair with the PCs then the bad guy has an approximately 30 minute head-start on them which will extend to half a day as they need to consult. However, most of the future sessions assume that he has a 2-3 day head start at the beginning which the PCs whittle down. This means having to plot in some roadblocks that are hard to avoid. Conversely, several of the future sessions assume that PCs will spend time on side-tracks that seem hard to justify meaning that the bad guy may outpace them.

Finally, I needed to spend some time thinking through the dynamics and motivations of many of the NPCs. One of the strengths of the campaign is the great roster of people in there. There's also quite a lot of colourful and evocative images which the PCs miss due to the choice of running this for Orlanthi PCs so I decided to use cinematic conventions where the players are given teasers about things happening elsewhere which their characters don't know about.

Having spent some time putting all that together I was ready to start.

 

[Denalor]

Sounds like a lot of work you put in there !
One thing though: I agree that all the Orlanthi should have more access to rune magic than given in the stats (via Laymembership), but would these people actually go for the skills and spells offered ? We're talking about using two improvement rolls to gain a runecasting skill plus quite a lot of money (or whatever since we're talking about bartering) to actually learn spells.
Also, would it be wise to make some of them initiates ?
I made it simple for me and decided that the NPCs sort of had "better things" to learn than learning runecasting.
But then I'm not too familiar with the whole Gloranthan setting so this might indeed be far too simple.

As for "hero" level opponents. I do agree. Am I right in assuming that you actually re-made the major actors then ?

Timeline issue. Yeah, I had wondered about that, too. My greatest "fear" is a serious injury as that would cause quie a distortion in the timeline. And I simply hate a "deus ex machina" approach (in that case send over someone who can heal the chars).

I like that idea about the teasers, as I found it a bit sad that the chars won't see all there is in that campaign, simply because you're only playing it for one side.

Having spent some time putting all that together

Sadly, since we're playing rather rarely, I found that I'm doing that kind of effort mostly for myself and let's say the "return of investment" from the players is a bit lacking. So I sure hope your players properly appreciate that effort.

 

[Deleriad]

Sadly, since we're playing rather rarely, I found that I'm doing that kind of effort mostly for myself and let's say the "return of investment" from the players is a bit lacking. So I sure hope your players properly appreciate that effort.

Perhaps rather sadly, I enjoy restatting and customising things so it doesn't feel like hard work. It would be less fun if I weren't running it and, so far, the players seem to enjoy it.

I do take something of a lead from HeroQuest and some of the Stafford libray when it comes to Orlanthi culture. Although there is some debate about whether every Orlanthi really is an initiate it does seem fair to state that almost every Gloranthan knows a little magic and has some sort of relationship with runes and religion. I tend to assume that most commoners have magic which is irrelevant to game mechanics but that in the same way that many Orlanthi have an old battle axe, spear or sword that has been handed down, that they also have a trusty spell that they almost never cast.

One thing I have done though is to remove Heal Wounds from the list of common divine spells and restricted the availability of Rune Magic Healing. Earlier RQ made healing magic in Glorantha seem far more common than it is. For me, Healing in Orlanthi culture is available to Chalana Arroy, Ernalda and Barntar which means it is seen as the magic of nurses, women and commoners: the kind of stuff that burly Orlanthi warriors wouldn't be seen dead practising.

 

[Mongoose Gar]

My mental timeline when writing the adventure assumed that Jezat gets enough of a head-start and has such a good horse that he stays a day ahead of the PCs for most of the chase. If the PCs manage to get ahead of him on the road too quickly, then he could always get lost and end up wandering in the wilderness for a day or two, bypassing their ambush.

 

[Deleriad]

My mental timeline when writing the adventure assumed that Jezat gets enough of a head-start and has such a good horse that he stays a day ahead of the PCs for most of the chase.

That is what I thought until I got down to it and it doesn't really hold. Part of the problem is that it's hard to justify Jezat making much progress on the first night on a strange horse in bad conditions along unfamiliar roads. The second problem is that Jezat loses his horse quite early in the chase. The third issue is that most locales are written as if Jezat got there 2-3 days ahead of the PCs.

E.g. Just ran the Sunvale session. It was great fun and will probably be known as "the one with all the exposition"* but there's not enough time for Jezat to have been hiding for 2-3 days in the cellar. The other issue is that at this point Jezat doesn't have any way to know that the PCs are chasing him. He's actually running from someone else and trying to stay ahead of information about himself. He's going to be very surprised when he finally bumps into the PCs.**

I dealt with it by using Thunder Bridge Fort as a big roadblock. As it was, one of the PCs branched off and reached Sunvale just a few hours after Jezat. He didn't know it and had to wait around for the rest of the PCs so was really ticked when he put 2+2 together later and realised what had happened.

*One player out of character said something along the lines of "This is cool. We're 4 sessions in and we've realised we're chasing a God Learner who's after the blood of Orlanth."

**Probably at [censored]. Planning on running the activities around the [censored] "D&D4e" style, i.e. with battlemat, minis, a lot of participants and pushing RQ combat to the max. Several of the players are D&Ders so I think they'll enjoy it. Plus it'll be interesting to see how they cope with a [censored]. Good practice for the future...

BTW, seeing as the writer's reading this is, did you really mean to include a [very very censored] in the NPCs? Not that it's not seven kinds of awesome, I mean wow a [censored] that [censored], but I really don't want to make the players cry. 8)

edited as I had forgotten that one of the players reads this board....

 

[Snowedunder]

The cinematic updates are great teazers, the balance is perfect between getting a tantalsing hint about what's going on elsewhere without actually giving anything of substance away. I certainly enjoy them and I'm sure the rest of the team do to. I'm now going to scrub the rest of this thread from my mind and go lie down. Fire breathing T-Rex indeed.

 

[Denalor]

Several of the players are D&Ders

You actually managed to seduce D&Ders to play RQ ?!?
Try as I might, apart from a couple of introducing sessions I utterly failed to achieve that [sob... snivel... cry... wail... tearful breakdown]... quite some money down the gutter.

I suppose RQ just never had that kind of popularity in Germany as it did in the UK. And given the scarcity of German posters here on this forum I think it still doesn't. Which is a shame.

Plus it'll be interesting to see how they cope with a Thunderer

a T-REX that breathes fire, but I really don't want to make the players cry

Indeed, I was wondering how seasoned characters are supposed to succeed in these encounters... but I guess your changes concerning Armour Penalty and armour penetrating Critical Hits go a long way to make that possible.

 

[Deleriad]

Several of the players are D&Ders

You actually managed to seduce D&Ders to play RQ ?!?

I was lucky. There's a great little "open role playing" group in Edinburgh called ORC. I went along a couple of times then offered to run a RQ session with pre-gens for people to try out. Most of those who said they were interested didn't turn up but there were some D&Ders around who had nothing on that afternoon so they played, liked it, told some friends and it went from there.

So I didn't set out to convert anyone and they still happily play D&D and a variety of other other games.

 

[Deleriad]

Dark Season
Fireday Illusion Week (day 47) - Sky End Stead
Act I Scene I Feasting, drinking and merriment

Vinya seems very interested in Griffith, the Lhankor Mhy initiate. Very curious about his journeys though she gets around all the characters bar Aslander.

Theorl's bragging gets to a bit much and for reasons best known to Griffith ends up in mock fight with him. Tied by the left hand and blunted swords in the right, Theorl wins the match and the re-match easily. Vinya offers to rub the wounds better...

Aslander ends up dancing with Asha and Goldhen seems to manage to confuse Larad more than once with some remarkably random questions. Still, the characters manage to gain some respect when recounting their tales of a battle with a monster that had been made by Delecti and with their uncovering of a chaos cult.

Act I Scene II A dark and stormy night

The night's feasting is interrupted when Deorlaf, son of Deorul staggers into the longhouse to raise the alarm: his father's cottage and stables are being attacked by raiders. Theorl, Vinya's son, leads a war party to confront the raiders. Vinya takes the guests to one side and asks them to follow her nephew Mandrick to check whether the chieftain, Orlgard, is safe. He is overdue and Vinya suspects that something is not quite right. It's a cold, stormy night out there and snow is being whipped on the wind.


Act II To the Rescue
The player characters travel north and manage to save Orlgard from an attack by outlaws. The outlaws reveal that they were working for a powerful sorcerer. Orlgard admits that a powerful relic of the clan has been stolen by the sorcerer who then left the outlaws behind to kill or delay him. He stresses that no one can find out about this because his hold on the clan is slipping and he believes that if Theorl won a challenge that he would make peace with the Wyrm Friends. He doesn't know who the sorcerer is working for or how he knew about the relic but he must have had powerful magic in order to evade the clan's wyter (guardian spirit.) One of his men was struck down by fire magic unleashed by the sorcerer and Orlgard himself was badly burned.

Right now there is no time to lose but Orlgard doesn't know which way the sorcerer went and the snow is blowing too hard to track. However, he knows of a witch who is friendly with the clan and can perform divinations for a price. One of the surviving outlaws says that they were supposed to meet the sorcerer in the mountains in a week but that's not enough to go on. Orlgard swears the players to secrecy, gives them directions and charges them with the relic's recovery.

Act III Off to see the witch
It's hard travelling but the players find the witch. Much to their amazement it turns out to be Grandmother Hickory lying low. Apparently her order has kept a few bolt-holes in the area where they have roles they can slip into. Normally she would just perform a little mumbo-jumbo but it's clear that the echos of her failed heroquesting persist to this day and she and they are entangled somehow. So she performs a real divination and sees the bowl heading south to the sea where "nine men will find it."
----------------------- VPs: 2

Background Notes.
Grandmother Hickory is a recurring NPC from previous scenarios.

I bumped up the threat from the outlaws because it's the major combat scene and quite a striking one at that. The PCs took some wounds in the confused battle but still had enough of an edge that the outlaws were outclassed. I started Orlgard with a number of wounds based on how many failed survival/local knowledge tests that the PCs made to get there. He took a nasty critical during the fight as well.

I also needed to give the outlaws a reasonable explanation for why they were happy to attack a clan chieftain as it's always on the cards that at least one will survive. One feature of MRQ compared to other RQs is that a couple of serious wounds will drop someone but not necessarily kill them.

Theorl doesn't use a shortsword. He's not that much of a mummy's boy...

The burn marks on Orlgard, his man and a close-by tree were a clue that the players will remember later.

Vinya is a widow who was widowed a long time ago and never remarried as she's happy to channel some MILFdom as well as very much mothering Theorl. The dynamic between her Orlgard is actually a lot of fun and it'll be interesting to see how it develops.

The players characters had been through about 8-9 sessions of play prior to this. The previous sessions had been very sword-and-sorcery styled without an awful lot of of free-form social interaction so the opening act was a bit of a departure for them.

 

[redsunlee]

Thank you for your information and soon reply to my question.


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[Deleriad]

Previously our heroes found themselves embroiled in a quest to retrieve a stolen artifact for Orlgard, Chieftain of the Howling Wolves. As of now they know little about the artifact, who stole it or why. What they do know is that the thief is a sorcerer and appears to be heading down the Solthi river to the coast and that "nine men" seem to be involved. They also know it's the depth of Dark Season, travel is cold and hard and the sorcerer is probably on horseback while they'll be on foot. The cold means that camping in the open is potentially dangerous while etiquette demands that they present themselves to the authorities of each major settlement.

The players so far have yet to wonder what exactly Orlgard was up to in the mountains himself and have yet to twig that there is something a little unusual about the Orlanth myths frequently told around Sky End Stead. It's actually a bit of a difficulty I hadn't anticipated when running BoO for players who are mostly Glorantha newbies. To an extent, everything's equally strange for most of them so I will need to find a way of circling back to this issue.

The next port of call will be Urling's Ford. There they will meet up with the last PC - Keldo, a recently initiated Urox worshipper - and present themselves to the local lord. This will complete the PC team.

Aslander. A refugee from Dragon Pass and itinerant worshipper of Orlanth Dragonslayer. Carries an axe called "My Father's Sword" and despairs of the fractured clans. He and his father were given shelter by the Howling Wolves many years ago and his father now works as a blacksmith there.

Keldo. Originally from Urling's Ford but wanderlust drove him far and wide. Returned during the Long Winter when he and his companions needed to put some distance between themselves and the EWF.

Larad. Humakt initiate originally from Karse but now rootless and searching for something, just doesn't know what exactly.

Griffith Arad. Treasure hunter, hero, scholar, pack-rat and wood-gatherer. Pretty close-mouthed about his past but known to be grey sage due to the scraggy goatee and huge pack of scrolls. Griffith apears to believe that chaos needs to be understood to be defeated. A stance that causes trouble with Keldo because a) the only understanding needed is the blade of an axe and b) Griffith doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot of defeating.

Cormalin. A deep-woods Orlanthi hunter who has traded at Sky End Stead all his life. Has long been fascinated by tales of distant lands and occasionally disturbed by a blood-line in his family that seems hairier than is absolutely necessary.

Thrown together by fate or accident, these five find themselves leaving Sky End Stead late in the morning, possessing secrets but no answers.

 

[Cleombrotus]

Liking the thread. Always good to read about adventures and useful little tricks. Love the teaser's - they're really good and convey great atmosphere, mystery and a sense of the epic...I think I'll be trying something like that out...

 

[Deleriad]

Liking the thread. Always good to read about adventures and useful little tricks. Love the teaser's - they're really good and convey great atmosphere, mystery and a sense of the epic...I think I'll be trying something like that out...

Thanks for the comments. We play fortnightly, sometimes with longer gaps so the "previously" and "teaser" texts have proved to be quite useful in keeping the events current for players.

 

[Deleriad]

Wildday Illusion Week
The PCs travel back to Sky End Stead, meet with Orlgard and arrange for Hickory's payment. Vinya performs some much need healing and they have a council with Orlgard before leaving at lunchtime and travelling down the Solthi river to Urling's Ford where they arrived very late.

At Urling's Ford they meet with Keldo, the last remaining PCs and have an audience with the leader of Urling's Ford - Hralf Horolfsson, one of Orlgard's most loyal thanes.

The audience with thane starts ok until Larad decides to take his truth rune very seriously and informs Orlgard that the party are searching for a sorcerer who has stolen a valuable relic from Orlgard. Hralf is intrigued by this but the PCs fail their insight rolls and don't notice Hralf being tempted to tell them something.

Aslander almost causes Hralf to choke when he asks casually at the end of the audience whether any EWF patrols have been around. Hralf baldly lies that there haven't been any. His pretty sure the PCs are naive and is really concerned about the events of two days ago.

After the audience the PCs catch up with Keldo and fill him in on what's happened, especially the reappearance of Grandmother Hickory.

Godday Illusion Week
As it's Godday, Larad has to keep silent. Fortunately his player couldn't make it so was played by a drop-in player.

During the night hours, Hrulf - Hralfsson - returns. Aslander notices him.

The players make arrangement to leave until Aslander mentions the lack of EWF patrols. This gives Keldo a shock as he knows there was a patrol there which went out with Hrulf Hralfsson to track down some broos that had been raiding. Only Hrulf - an initiate of Urox the Chaos smasher - returned having killed the broos and burnt the bodies. The locals suspected that the EWF might have been paying the broos to raid them so they could claim to solve the village's troubles however they didn't reckon with Hrulf.

Keldo and Hrulf, though sharing worship of Urox, have never seen eye to eye. Hrulf has accused Keldo of abandoning his responsibilities while Keldo thinks Hrulf is a basically a violent idiot with no strong spiritual urge to urox. Keldo does not believe Hrulf's story about how the EWF patrol left when the broos attacked and forced Hrulf to see them off by himself. He spots Hrulf heading for the woods where it is common knowledge that he has created his own shrine to Urox. He wants to take the chance to learn more about this and agrees to catch up with the party about 5 miles down stream.

Shortly after this, however, a broo raid changes things. The party are fairly close and make haste to the farmhouse (stopping only to tie the mule to a tree) where they see broos disappearing into the tree line with a child in tow. Griffith took time to heal the cottar who had been seriosuly wounded while Mandrik (a guest character) asked the hysterically screaming mother some very complicated questions.

From the other direction, Hrulf and Keldo both hear the commotion and make speed in that direction, Hrulf regarding Keldo very suspiciously. A merry chase through the woods ensued. Cormalin, a hunter, noticed that the broos seemed to be heading up and then back towards the village. Keldo checks out Hrulf and realises that the broos are heading in the direction that Hrulf had been.

The PCs are starting to get very twitchy but realise if they can get Hrulf to lead the way, maybe they can ambush the broos. A very reluctant Hrulf is influenced into agreement. The process took too long however so the party arrive at the clearing on the other side at almost the same time as the broos do.

At Hrulf's shrine. The leader of the Broos - a cyclopean monstrosity - claimed that Hrulf had betrayed his god and broken guest rights by killing the EWF instead of the broos. Sure enough all 6 of the patrol's heads had been hung on Hrulf's trophy tree and seemed to be still alive. Griffith tried to manoeuvre into position to get a shot with his crossbow at the leader - who had introduced himself as Jaghash - but the broos were canny and he had more chance of hitting the child than the broo.

Meanwhile the broos start trying to cast magic and mostly failing. (I don't require integrated runes for magic). Jaghash has some sort of melodious voice and a large, horse-like tongue that darts out and licks his eye as he talks. He dramatically tells Hrulf that he can redeem himself if he kills the other humans otherwise the souls of the dead EWF will haunt him.

Then it all kicks off. Griffith takes a shot and misses. Jaghash starts to indicate that he will kill the child. Hrulf roars. Larad being a humakti decides to invoke his death rune. He locks eyes-to-eye with Jaghash and offers him death. Suddenly intimidated and distracted, Jaghash drops the child. The child scampers and the party charges. This was Larad spending a Hero Point to change the storyline. Realising that I was prepared to have the child killed he came up with a justification for the child escaping.

This turns into a nasty fight. At one point Keldo found himself facing two broos at once and suffering from some sort of chaotic goop spat at him by Jaghash. Aslander was taking out of commission early on when a broo managed to grapple him and spent most of the fight rolling on the floor trying to hold off a very excited broo. Larad managed to isolate one broo but found himself in a stalemate suffering from a Demoralise cast by Jaghash as he wasn't able to land a solid blow while the broo couldn't get past his shield.

The tide finally turned when Keldo took down one broo and Hrulf managed to get to Jaghash. Jaghash took some damage from a crossbow quarrel then Cormalin got to him. Hrulf broke through and charged at Jaghash as well. Jaghash, badly wounded turned and fled as was killed off camera by Hrulf. The rest of the PCs now outnumbered the broos and managed to double-up and kill them.

Bloodied and battered, they returned to the lord and told him of Hrulf's sins. They persuaded him that the clan should honour its obligation to the guests and offer weregeld (blood money) to the victims' families. This was likely to cost a goodly number of cows over a period of time. Though Aslander didn't agree with this - the only good EWFer is a dead and mutilated one after all - the characters were forceful in their beliefs. In a gesture of magnamanity, Keldo revealed his stash of 500 silvers and donated it to the cause. He was still so shocked by the depravity of Hrulf.

Back at the plot, Hrulf revealed that he had seen a stranger on horseback riding through the village outskirts yesterday morning. Normally he would have challenged him.

Hralf also disclosed a secret. The EWF have been trying a "hearts and minds" strategy recently. The patrol came with 200 silvers in "tribute" for guest rights and a small clay bottle of exotic oils and spices. Hidden inside a secret compartment was a papyrus note reading:

"The storm is coming. Lay in supplies and muster your fyrd for the day of battle will soon be at hand. You shall know the hour when the dragon chokes on a mouth full of fire. Know me as, Arkat."

Hralf admits that he doesn't know what to make of this and he's pretty sure the patrol lieutenant knew nothing of it. On the better safe than sorry front he is starting to get ready for a muster.

The characters spent the rest of the day being healed - using up pretty much every Magic Point of healing in the whole village - and it was too late to head off so they spent the night there, fretting about the lead that the sorcerer has. Larad spent the night in prayer.
---------------

If you have BoO you'll spot a few changes. Jaghash has stats but no description other than a passing comment about having two heads which is not reflected in his stat block. So I remodelled him. I also don't believe that skybolt is a chaos spell in Glorantha so his magic was changed.

The issue with the EWF patrol was more complex. I figured the lord was canny and really didn't believe his son's story. Keen to keep dirty laundry under wraps he hopes they'll just pass through. On the other hand, as I had to have the party meet up with a PC at Urling's Ford because the player wasn't free for the first session and it just so happens he's an Uroxi and would know of the patrol. This gives an obvious hook, which is good, but does beg the question of what he was doing at the time and why he doesn't know of the location of the shrine.

This part of the campaign is a railroad but the players are happy to enjoy at the moment. However there is a risk that they may become too passive. They're also incredibly paranoid about mentioning the sorcerer (aside from Larad's occasional truthiness) meaning that they risk not getting a lot of information.

The fight with the broos hit a real stalemate for a while. I've been gradually hitting the PCs with new tactics - grapple was the theme for this one - to see how they respond. At the moment they're quite reactive; each battle seems so chaotic to them that they're not getting a chance to plan strategies in advance. Main technique has been to charge and hope. At some point I'm hoping their D&D training will kick in and they'll start considering how to make themselves into a coherent fighting force. The next few stops on the railroad are likely to be fairly light on combat however so that's an issue for the future.