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The players escorted Praxos Periledes, a claimant to the Northmarch barony, north to investigate smoke seen coming from near the old baron's castle. On arriving, they found a rival of his had already set up residence. Praxos, Gelert and Agvan walked into the lion's den to find out what they could whilst Marcus, Pan & Viran skulked outside, ready to get help. The three who entered the castle were not seen to emerge by the three outside, but search parties were sent forth to find them. They fought their way clear and fled to get help. The three inside escaped by taking advantage of their jailers' distraction with the fight outside.
Life goes on: Viran was initiated into 7 Mothers, scoring significantly better in the test than Pan. Those PC's who joined the militia spent a couple of weeks preening in front of the Baron of Thule, but didn't do outstandingly in the tourneys.
Game dates: late Fire - early Earth, 1621.
Dramatis Personae:"Everybody who is anybody": Pan (Charlie); Agvan (Alan); Marcus (Lynne); Gelert (Mark); Viran (Rupert).
Marcus and Pan decided to sell it to Mort for cash plus a spell each, and informed Viran of their decision after the event. Viran was happy enough as Mort had offered plenty of cash; Pan and Viran have now worked off about half the debt they took on at the start of the campaign, in 1621.
This isn't the first time that you've learnt spells, and you notice his teaching style is quite different to the priests' you've been taught by before. Whereas they use some kind of spell to link their minds to yours, and you can 'feel' them downloading a 'program' into your memory which you can call on by rote, Mort uses a mix of techniques. First, he talks to you to establish what you know about magic and what spells you already know. Then, he gives you a day's lecture on the theory behind the spell he's teaching, to 'prepare your mind' he says: this includes intuitive maths, such as explaining how your mind is very good at plotting trajectories and adding up money, and how you can use these rough-and-ready abilities as similes when controlling the Power flow of the spell. The second day, he puts you in a light trance and has you inhale fumes to free your mind of rationality whilst he talks in metaphors, and afterwards you feel you know something, but exactly what it is you're not sure. After that, he just talks with you for a couple of days, mainly describing how to reach with your soul and form a focus for the power to flow through; with lots of practice in between and his coaching, the spell is learnt in 4-5 days instead of the usual 6.
These were similar to the ones last year, however, all the militias had improved. There were the same massed maneuvres practices; a parade through town; the inter-militia competitions; drinking, wenching, gambling and feasting; and the tourney, where the winners were awarded free training. All the PC militiamen entered. The rules were: best 3 of 5 hits, no need to draw blood; you could cast spells upon yourself & your equipment, but not your opponent or his equipment.
Viran decided to go first. He was up against Lud Flotsam, a fifty-year old rotund fellow who looked like a walkover. The only incongrous thing about him was the standard army-issue helm with a red ruff above it, like a proper legionnaire's. Unfortunately, he came from Inksprings which seems to be a village mad keen on having a fiercely competent militia. As soon as the bell sounded, his stance shifted and his expression changed from cheery to cool... after peppering Viran with darts drawn from behind his shield, he moved in and efficiently 'despatched' him with a gladius.
Pan went second, proud in his impressive exoskeleton. It certainly seemed to put off his opponent, a nervous young lad who practically defeated himself as he stumbled around. The judges thought it churlish of Pan to remove the boy's leg and whilst the lad was carried off in shock, they gave Pan a formal warning. But he was into the second round. Some of the crowd boo'd him, but most had come to see the beautiful spurt of blood arcing high in the sunlight. Just like a big city's arena! Parents perched small children on their shoulders to see better.
Agvan was up against a slightly built lad, quick on his feet and with almost no armour. Agvan spied on him first to try and gauge his tactics, but it was the first fight for both. Agvan made do with some sand concealed in his hand.
Just as he'd feared, the oppponent fought as a retarius, net and spear and little else. The shield he carried at first was quickly discarded to free the hidden net. But before closing, he tangled Agvan's legs with a bolas. When Agvan did finally get near, the lad Dodged in a most peculiar way, acrobatic back-flips which were very popular with the crowd. Finally, SIZ 18 Agvan bore down upon SIZ 12 Berium with his maul. The crowd held its breath. Berium did a large leap away, but not it seemed far enough away: was Agvan about to play golf with him? But the jump ended on the discarded shield, which flexed under him and added its spring to a second, inhumanly high jump which left Agvan gaping and Berium behind him, from whence he landed another jab. Agvan lost, 3-0, which was as well for Berium as any one hit from Agvan would have probably killed him.
Pan was the only PC who'd made it to the second round and his next opponent looked at least as heavily armoured as Pan. He wore black livery edged in silver. They slashed at each other a few times, a couple of Pan's blows landing on him but failing to penetrate his protective spells - not official hits. [Charlie knew Protection only goes up to 4 points, and he'd done more; but Pan couldn't judge this.] Finally, Pan slashed him in the guts for 16 points, which did get through. It was some time before the opponent was healed enough to go on, enough time for Pan to be given a second formal warning about using the edge of his weapon. Increased betting and cheers from the crowd: "did you see the way his guts slithered out daddy?"
This time the other contestant drew a gladius, which sprang into flame. "I pledge just to use the flat of the blade," he said to the judges with a grim look. He had seen what Pan did to the boy earlier. Pan gulped.
Pan's shield was almost destroyed and he received a horrendous wound. General jubilation from the crowd and other PC's. Pan proposed to the other that they both use (non-flaming) shortswords before someone got killed. The man agreed, and borrowed someone else's gladius with which they won fair and square.
We didn't play out the maneuvres as completely as 1620's. But after 2 weeks of assault courses, drunken punch-ups and mock battles, you would have the following ticks:
Gladius attack; fist attack & parry (Agvan only); climb; swim; bow; jump; shield parry. You may train these up as seperate ticks to those you gained in the tourney.
Other things that go on are:
Gelert - not in the militia - had come along to jeer and had a bit of a wander in town. He declined to get involved with a slave trying to escape but watched with interest during the subsequent flogging. He helped an urchin out by taking a potion labeled HLG-4 off his hands for a clack [curiously, it seemed to have gone off when he tried using it later].
Viran was initiated at the same time as Pan, but couldn't make it to the last game so we did it now. The first stage was to answer a minimum of 4 out of 7 questions correctly:
A significantly higher score than Pan, who could only rember 4-5 of the Mothers, took much longer to remember the answers and got no bonus Creep Points at all. The cult was also impressed by Viran's perserverance with the scimitar and his continual theological questioning of Father Groatalus previously. (For a more comprehensive and demanding initiation test see here.)
Viran was accepted into the cult as an initiate. Benefits: a free spell; free training in R/W Lunar; 10% off DEX training; free conversion of 1 handed swords to scimitar; chance of Divine Intervention. But Obligations: a tithe on your income; and 1 month in 4 is bound to the duty of the cult.
Central temple to 7Mothers is in Thule.
There are 3 priests there: Father Lufus ("High Priestess") - conducts town services; Father Groatalus - tours local villages too small to support own full-time priest; Father Myalor.
There is one Rune Lord of 7M, Lord Rennol. He is a personal retainer of the Baron's and is in charge of the Baron's military / police / personal guards.
There are a few full-time Temple Acolytes, ie, initiates who work full-time for the temple: Senior Initiates.
There are also a fair number of associate rune levels around:
Yanafil Tarnils - there is some Lord of this cult around town, probably based at the barracks where some soldiers reporting directly to the Count are based. There is a YT shrine at the barracks (fort), which doubles as the soldiers' main tavern. Most people avoid it.
Teelo Norri, Dee'Zola - these cults have their own temples within town and you've heard they have full-time priests there. The Dee'Zola / Pelora / Hon-Eel temple complex is even larger than the 7M one!
There are a couple of Sages of Irippi Ontor in town. Whether they are rune level is unclear. They worship at the 7M temple.
Most officers in the Carmanian armies are NOT rune lords, as it is difficult to justify supporting Lords from cult funds when the area is peaceful and there is no need for them. The officers tend to be younger sons of the nobility. As officers wear helms plated in (non-runic) silver, and nobs like to wear excess silver, it is difficult to tell a Lord from a lord.
Gelert was thatching a roof with his Pa when he noticed smoke, as from several small fires, up at the foot of the Grey Mountains. (Fine day, elevated viewpoint, no horizon, good young eyes.) He mentioned this to others in the village and also to Praxos Periledes, who was passing through. During the course of this adventure, the new PCs discovered (the older ones already knew) that Praxos is a remote descendant of the old Periledes house that used to hold the barony there, which was thought to have been made extinct by the Blue Plague that hit the region 25 years ago. He has recently discovered he might be a baron, but is forbidden from entering the area as it is under quarantine. He is biding his time trading and trying to amass money to finance a recolonisation of the area once the quarantine is lifted (est: 2 years hence).
Praxos petitioned Sir J and the Baron of Thule to let him take some men north to investigate as it seemed to him the smoke was coming from near his ancestral holt. Permission was reluctantly granted. Sir J assigned Pan and Viran to accompany him, as militiamen who'd been up that way before were rare. Praxos was offering a Lunar to any man who'd accompany him; Agvan and Gelert volunteered to go, as did Marcus after a tete-a-tete with Praxos. The group took a week's provisions and headed north.
Even at this stage, Marcus guessed it might be Antigonus at the castle.
*No map of the route is shown here as you all had plenty of chances to map at the time ...but only Agvan seemed to do so.*
Day 1
The PC's ignored a small group of migrant workers as they headed through the farmland, which was interspersed more and more by wild heathland as they headed north. But it was difficult to ignore the deep booming and humming noise that approached from Rathorela, interspersed by occasional crashing noises like trees being damaged. The subsonics got so loud that they began to hurt, a lot. Pan passed out and almost everyone had blood vessels rupture in their ears and noses. The dogs ran off.
Through the trees appeared a giant. He was only 7 metres tall, but incredibly handsome with long, fair hair flowing over his well-muscled shoulders. He carried a large stringed instrument like a bow made from a bent tree which he was strumming happily, accompanied by occasional beats on the huge skull-drum at his waist. He stopped to drink at the stream, and noticed the PC's hiding behind trees. "Hi," he said in Rathorelan. "Whatcher doing here?"
"Just going north," said Marcus. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for Warnie. He's another Little Person, like you. Have you seen him?"
"Er, no...what's your name?"
"Nonesuch. Warnie's another minstrel, like me, only not so handsome. Usually got a couple of birds hanging around him. He was meant to meet me near here"
"Well, we ain't seen him - 'ere, get orf the farmland! You can't come into our lands!"
"Why not? What's 'farmland'? Oh, OK, I'll stick to these paths then. Funny, he should be round here somewhere. Well, 'bye, nice meeting you."
And Nonesuch aimiably wandered off down the road towards Genest, narrowly avoiding trampling crops.
Some miles beyond the last isolated farm, the PC's reached the village of Newfaith. A strange, paranoid folk who wear only black and white, they locked the PC's in a 'guest house' overnight to ensure they did not corrupt the innocents of the village. Newfaith practises a form of Collectivism and is surrounded by a stockade and moat. The villagers worship the True God but exactly what this is was never clear. However they were hospitable enough after their fashion and the PC's had a quiet night.
Day 2
A Newfaithian fisherman rafted the PCs over a marsh. A four foot long leech tried to snatch Gelert's dog but was burst.
The PCs travelled along the top of a ravine all day, following Allis Brook. Towards the end of the day they were ambushed by two cliff toads.The toads were killed and fell into the ravine, but Gelert's dog was killed.
* The PC's did not look round for any lair in the vicinity *
After the players camped that night, a young boy (12? 14?) was spotted in the shadows by Marcus, on guard. He tried talking to the lad, noting he was in incongruous clothes - posh city ones. The 'boy' stared at him, and Marcus was frozen in place, unable to move. He approached Marcus and sank his teeth into Marcus' neck, draining 3 STR and incidentally 6 SAN in one round.
Praxos had been alerted by his bat familiar and suddenly attacked the creature from behind with both scimitars. The boy was not wearing armour and both arms were hit; he instantly dissolved into smoke, which floated up into the treetops.
* I rolled to see what loot was left behind but there wasn't a single clack! *
Praxos kicked the others awake, except ____ who seemed comatose. No-one was sure if the creature was destroyed or had called upon its god, perhaps, to teleport it away. Marcus seemed to be suffering from some aftereffect of the attack, no doubt a spell: actually he was suffering from an "affective disorder": "intimidated by spoken language; cannot speak meaningful sentences (must use sign language or written communication); has difficulty understanding long sentences."
*("That's no penalty!" said Mark.)*
The PC's moved camp hurriedly.
Day 3
As the PC's approached Meltwater Lake a horn sounded in the distance. A half-hour later they came across a hastily-abandoned one-man camp. They split into two 3's to give themselves more options in combat.
Climbing a tree, Marcus could see the rough layout ahead which he communicated by sign and sketch.See map of Morainus and Environs.
The castle flew the Periledes flag from a pole. Praxos, Gelert and Agvan approached the castle to brazen it out and get more information. The others hid in the forest to support / fetch help if needed.
Four riders came out to meet them; one wore a silver helm. They escorted the 3 visitors in. As they approached the castle, they could see over the cliff the village below. There were people labouring to repair houses there; some in new fields, or chopping wood; a couple of guards on the castle walls. The total population of the ettlement seemed to be about 20-30.
Inside the castle, it was indeed Antigonus, Praxos' cousin and rival. He greeted them warmly, then had them stripped of their equipment and thrown in the dungeon. He mentioned that his sources claimed the quarantine was a sham, a ruse by the Count to give him time to sort out the competing claims on the barony.
Antigonus realised Praxos might be telling the truth about having other forces outside the walls, and sent search parties out. One group of 3 spotted Marcus up a tree and began shooting at him. They hadn't realised Pan was lurking in nearby undergrowth and Viran up another tree. There was a bloody fight which ended with two of the search party unconcious and bleeding; the third surrendered, but his nerve broke when the others demanded he throw down his shield and he ran off, screaming. He was run down and brought negative in the head, then dragged back into cover. The PCs realised they had only 1-2 minutes before another party arrived to investigate the screams. Pan decided that unconcious enemies were potential pursuers if healed, but there was a simple solution. He took out a dagger and applied the skills any farm lad learns butchering hogs. The PCs spent a minute hurriedly grabbing anything that looked valuable. Pan noticed a ring that wouldn't come off no matter how hard he pulled, but that was no problem to a resourceful lad like himself.
As this group of PCs fled into the forest, Praxos and the other two in the dungeon discussed what was going on. They had already decided Antigonus might kill them anyway. Now, they realised, might be their best chance to escape, because Praxos' familiar had reported what had happened with the other PCs instantly and they knew that almost all Antigonus' fighting men were out of the castle searching, and for a few minutes at least he wouldn't know the situation outside was hotting up. They quickly implemented Plan A, Praxos pretending to be ill whilst the others shouted he'd been poisoned or had the Plague.
A guard came down. He wasn't worried about plague, he said, because all the staff here had been picked because they were immune to Blue Plague. But he got another guard and what passed for a doctor. When the doctor entered the cell, Praxos smashed his brains in with a bed leg whilst Agvan (huge and strong) and Gelert (huge) barged out of the cell, crushing one guard behind the bars of the door and closing too near the other for him to use his scimitar. Vicious knees and fists flew with desperate ferocity and suddenly the PC's and Praxos had incapacitated the others.
They grabbed weapons off the guards and locked them in the cell. Then they crept up the central spiral stairs of the tower and peeked out on the ground floor. Just as they'd thought, there was practically no-one about. But they wanted their equipment back. They kept on up the stairs. Two more levels: common room and troop sleeping quarters. Then they were at the top. As they opened the door a crack a bell chimed. Antigonus said sharply: "who's that?" They burst in to find Antigonus examining Praxos' belongings and a woman (who cowered back, saying "don't harm me, I'm just a Ulerian!"). Praxos Befuddled Antigonus and they donned their armour, which had been brought here. Then they knocked Antigonus out in a coordinated attack and tied up him and the woman. In a rage, Praxos quickly searched through Antigonus' belongings, grabbing as much as possible in the way of documents and making a point of taking his signet ring.
The three then brazenly walked out the front gate. As Praxos had suspected, there were only two guards left in the entire castle and a handful of labourers. When challenged by the gate guard, Praxos coolly replied that he and his cousin had made up their squabble and he was just going down to the village now. Naturally as soon as they got into the treeline, the threesome legged it.
On the way back, Praxos kept cursing himself for actually healing Antigonus to stop him bleeding rather than slitting his throat.
From the 3 searchers: Fire 1621
Between: Marcus, Pan, Viran.
A heavy crossbow (but forgot to take quiver of quarrels)
A scimitar, broadsword and gladius
3 daggers
2 full helms: Sizes 13, 15. A closed helm, Size 16.
(Two large shields - only carried off if PCs' discarded their own)
A ring, bit too small for a hand of Size 15
5L, 16cl
A gem: large amethyst
A silver medallion, weighs the same as about 10L
A hip-flask of gin
2 or 3 tabards (Viran)
A chain hauberk, Size 16.
From Antigonus and the 3 prison guards
Between: Praxos, Gelert, Agvan.
Note: Praxos did not permit you to take the jewellery the Ulerian wore. He tried to open the large chest in Antigonus' room, which had the look of a strong box, but couldn't get it open or find more than one key on Antigonus - it had three locks. Smashing it open would have made a lot of noise. He is unsure about whether you should keep the loot at all, in fact, as it is effectively stealing. He suspects that Antigonus will launch a claim of robbery against you all, so he advises that the valuables be declared to the Baron of Thule, along with how you got them, when you return. "with luck," he says, "we'll get to keep them, less tax. But if we get greedy, it could get all of us in jail or worse. We'll claim we were carried away by the heat of the moment and the injustices we'd suffered." To be discussed further.
A signet ring - claimed by Praxos
Some scrolls - claimed by Praxos
The PCs' weapons, armour and other equipment
2 normal daggers
One throwing dagger
One jewelled dagger
2 scimitars
A closed helm, SIZ 15 (5 AP)
4L, 12 cl off guards
2W, 5L, 18cl off Antigonus
A jeweled ring off Antigonus
A scale armour jerkin, SIZ 15: covers torso
A pair of jewel-inlaid dice
A potion bottle
A key to the chest
A silver goblet
From a tabletop swept into Gelert's backpack: A hunting horn, A knuckleduster (light cestus), abacus, pair of bronze candlesticks, sealing wax, abbit's foot, thimble, arrow head, ceramic oil lamp (messy!), scissors, spare piece of vellum, tinderbox.
What next?Next game we will have to cover the strategic withdrawal home. The PCs seem to be in 2 groups of 3, one lot heading SE, the other E; without the familiar to link them now, they'll have seperate encounters on the way. There will probably be some political fallout from this malarkey . Also, expect some militia duties guarding the village; and there's the usual mess of background events ...
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