A short report from our first two sessions (we startet character creation and "The Darkness before Dawn" on Wednesday and finished the adventure in a second session yesterday):
Character creation was good. We now have: 2x Knights (with 1x NPC-Knight), 1x Elementalist, 1x Barbarian (both Mercanians), 1x Warlock and 1x Assassin (self trained - more a Rogue/Thief ). All characters have a common backround: The Mercanians and the Warlock are part of the entourage of an old crusader who now is a steward in baron Aldreds fief. One of the Knight is his son, the other is more or less the nanny/trainer of the son. The "Assassin" is an old childfriend of the young knight and a hireling at his fathers manor house. We maybe will have another assassin in the group later (some kind of "Mameluk" who was brought back home from the crusades).
I think this is a fine group. Maybe a sorcerer is missing...
I startet with "The Wild Man" from the FOF book as a short side-episode (nothing special). Then the group finished off the feral dogs at the beginning very quickly. After that, they had a short chat with Maxim Le Cloche and his men (we play the whole setting rather medieval than fantasy-like). Later in the Inn, the heard from the White Lady and Lady Angelas curse. Eventually they later went off to find Sir Olvar. They survived the first Ambush unhurt, but later the knight got stuck at the Hollow Oak and Erkiss. The rest of the group charged the tree (sounds funny) but Erkiss escape in squirrel form to the top of a fir tree. With a slingshot (rolled 1 on d20!!) the elementalist knocked Erkiss from the tree (relativley unhurt) and the barbarian was able to put the poor goblin in a big pouch. After some funny dialogs with him, Erkiss promised to help them later. After Old Mab´s Stone house (nothing special here - except that some players had a strange feeling about this scene), they got ambushed by two Greater Hellhounds. The Assassin was injured very badly, but the Barbarian and the Knight saved the day.
Later, they were not able to grab Fhionns attention (the players forgot Erkiss and don´t used the sword or doll correctly), so they slayed here (that was my fault - i only used "Inflict Wound" and the "Enslave" spell - that was not hard enough to let the group think about any non fighting alternatives). But it was fun and still a hard fight (she enslaved the crossbow-archer of the group ... a d10 against full plate ... hehe).
Back in Maiden´s Vale after a long discussion (one of the Knights got very badly injured by a javelin at the gate), the Barbarian and the Assassin climbed through one of the chimney inside the manour house to open the doors from inside, while Sir Olvar and a mob of peons and the rest of the player characters startet a feint attack outside the house.
After a short fight against two guards in the ground floor (nearly to the death for the Barbarian!!!) the Assassin opend the back door. They all charged the building an killed two more Thugs. After that, Le Cloches men sursendered.
The group is now still at Maiden´s Vale. The Barbarian, one of the Knights and the Assassin are badly injured (2-4 hp left). They will stay in the village for about two weeks to heal and then went of with Le Cloche to Baron Alred castle.
We will go on with "Under the Rocks" and then "The King under the Forest". They will also meet Father Corbin during their travel and Marcus Dorsteny in Axebridge.
All players had a lot of fun with the game and the adventure. Some of them didn´t like the whole "somtimes d20 - sometimes 2d10" thingi but the still want to give this game mechanism a try.
