Up
At end of last game: the PCs had reached a pool where a healing spirit hangs out and the shaman called Ghost Dancer resurrected Pan in a complex ceremony.
Dramatis Personae: Pan (Charlie) ; Kyrolan (Richard); Toni (Alan); Viran (Rupert); Marcus (Lynne)
Timeline: Dark 8, 1620: start of this game.
Details
It was decided to leave Pan with the Burnt Tree Clan to recover. The BT clan are the closest nomads to Genest, they seem friendly and Ghost Dancer is one of them.
As the PC group left the pool they saw a group of nomads arrive with what seemed to be another body. The party walked to the Burnt Tree camp with Ghost Dancer, and the chief there agreed to look after Pan in exchange for a broadsword the PCs picked up off the bloke who killed Pan. This effectively left Pan out of the following game, (which was OK as he wasn't fit to do anything and Charlie couldn't make it). So Pan won't pick up any ticks, but being immersed in the life of the tribe he will pick up 5% plus Communication Bonus in Speak Rathorelan, giving the party a second translator. PCs stayed here 1 day, doing 2 ticks.
The Centaurs and the Spirit Harp
Leaving the BT camp after lunch, the party headed south to find the Mirrror Lake Clan who were said to live by the big lake next to Thule. They avoided some chanting and group singing, which sounded like some kind of religious ceremony.
When they got to the lake, they found two centaurs dissecting the body of a young woman dressed in Civilised clothes!
The shock of seeing them cutting and skinning the body like an animal's sent several PC's temporarily bonkers (San loss). Marcus, however, knew the centaurs and his mind couldn't accept that they were up to anything evil. Because the other PCs trust his judgement, and he made fantastically succcessful appeals to them, he convinced them it was probably OK and they proceeded cautiously rather than charging in & attacking.
The centaurs were engaged in a ritual of some kind. Once they'd finished, they seemed to have made a harp from her bones and hair.
They explained through Marcus that they'd found her drowned and her spirit seemed unable to rest, as if it were troubled about something, but they couldn't understand its language. So to prevent it becoming a lost soul wandering the woods they'd bound it into this harp, which they handed to the PCs, so that people from her own culture might take her back home and get a local Shaman to sort out what was needed to bring her peace.
The centaurs are called Sianette (older mare, did most of the rituals) and Flash (young stallion). They travel naked, carrying a minimum of tools. They seem friendly.
The PCs built a cairn over her body. They took her engagement ring and money pouch to help find her family. She seems to be from a rich family.
The PCs tromped through the forest towards the Mirror Lake camp. On the way they followed a tribesman having what seemed to be a staring match with a bear (avoided these two) but bumped into a giant boy, Little Ron, whom they'd once met in Carmania. He remembered them and was friendly but warned that his friend Wroth might take a dislike to them as he didn't like Lunars. Praxos & the PC's hid their scimitars.
Wroth showed up, a huge minotaur, and seemed distrustful of them. Marcus investigated the possibility of trading with him: he seemed to want armour and better weapons. When pressed as to how he'd pay, he showed them a pouch of Pretties (gems and shiny coins) which everyone present felt was worth thousands of Lunars. But he decided against giving them the money first and trusting them to bring back the armour. Praxos was very worried about the PCs' apparent readiness to sell armour to minotaurs and tried to persuade them not to. Apparently Wroth has a brother called Stomp.
Meanwhile, Kyrolan was beginning to realise the potential of Rathorela's fauna as a valuable asset to sell to the Lunar arenas. He made careful estimates of Wroth's size, horn length, etc. to enquire about later.
Leaving these two characters behind, the party moved on, Marcus and Kyrolan being at loggerheads over the best use for Rathorela: Marcus arguing that it was ideal as it was, Kyrolan holding to the view that it had much more potential as farmland once the aborigines were cleared. Kiol eavesdropped carefully in the background.
The PCs came to a huge camp of some 25 families, the Mirror Lake Clan. They seemed cautiously welcoming but along with their large size seemed to go a stricter social order, there was a more formal air to their dealings. For example, the chief (Skol Fourwives) had more regalia than normal, and no one traded until he'd had his pick. Then the elders traded, then the younger members.
The PCs had been waiting to see how Kiol got on with his own clan. He'd claimed he'd left because they were too stuffy. But the tribe seemed to actively shun him: the men ignored him as though he weren't there, even his father. Only his mother & sister seemed glad to see him. When asked, Skol said Kiol had been exiled because he never did any work, but parasitised the others.
The clan's young shaman, Shadowalker, ignored the spirit in the harp but dragged Marcus into the sweathouse to cast out a spirit! He said that it was making him ill. Marcus' cold disappeared.
The PC's had heard of Shadowalker and asked how he got his name. He told them the tale of how he became a shaman, walking through the Shadowland (Carmania) to bring back the spirit of a bear. As night fell, the tribesmen told other stories around the camp fire: about how some of the Sun Spirit's descendents were raised by grizzlies to be the first men; how the Rathorelans defeated the Crimson Bat; how Coyote [Trickster] cheated the Lunar trader of his clothes and horse; and the Tale of the Ghost Wife. (This is typical of stories they told the PCs each night they camped together, only we played it out more fully this time with each player telling a story.)
One item aquired in trade here was a map (see card #1011) which seems to show the location of an old pre-Ban Lunar mission and some kind of treasure.
The PCs headed north-west to the Salt Lick Clan.
On the way they came across Aman-Nasha (Screaming Woman), a madwoman who lived alone in the woods. They tied her up & took her to the clan, who 'thanked' them & agreed to feed her before letting her go but explained she was possessed by a gigantic madness spirit and they had sent for a powerful shaman to get rid of it. Meanwhile, she was best left to wander as she was a danger to children, etc. around camps.
The PCs headed West to find the Long Bow Clan before heading back to pick up Pan and go home. They passed through an area where every 10th tree had a symbol like a circle with a line through it diagonally carved into it. Kiol wouldn't say what it meant until the PCs clarified his position vis-a-vis pay. They agreed to cut him in for a share of the profits as he was proving very useful. He told them it meant the Ezari cult (the cult of this forest) had declared this a No Hunting zone.
Continuing through this zone, the PCs found a number of semi-tame animals. Then four women riding unicorns found them. The leader was in metal armour, including a silver shield bearing the Fire/Sky and Death runes. The rest were in more conventional barbarian costume. They seemed haughty but not as suspicious of the PCs' motives as most tribemen. They said they were patrolling to guard the forest & its peoples against dangerous animals and people. Luckily they didn't speak Carmanian well enough to understand the incredibly chauvinistic remarks coming from the players. They said they were Yelornans. (I missed a trick here. The leader should have noticed Marcus' buzzard - this would interest her as it implies he's a Fire/Sky cultist.) They seemed to have something on their minds and though they asked to see what the PCs' carried, soon left without questioning them closely.
As dusk fell the PCs came across a nomad and an elf camped round a fire. The elf was a bizarre looking creature covered in moss, its head a ball of green fuzz topped by pine needles. They introduced themselves as Brunel and Moss. Brunel seemed to resent the PCs, but Moss seemed much more diplomatic. Kiol took Toni aside and warned him that these guys were famous anti-Civilisation fanatics from the Greenleaf Alliance. The PCs asked Brunel and Moss if this was so, and they said yes, what of it? - What is the Greenleaf alliance, asked the PC's. An alliance of tribesmen and elves, said Moss, who were formed to fight a war on the other side of the forest 10 years ago against encroaching loggers, farmers and others. It was concluded successfully, they said, 5 years ago. -So what are you doing here? Do you expect trouble in this area? asked the PCs. Sounds like there's problems with excessive logging and suchlike down Aquapor way, said these two, and we're heading that way to see what's up.
The PCs admired the elf's high quality bastard sword. He didn't carry an axe: said he usually felled animals, not plants.
In the middle of the night, the barbarian and elf turned upon the party. Seemed they'd been sleeping with their armour on. The elf swung at Kyrolan, on guard, with their sword but failed to kill him; Kyrolan's shouts woke the others but not quickly enough. While Toni engaged the barbarian, Kyrolan grappled the elf: he correctly figured they couldn't use their deadly sword close up, and he'd have the advantage of strength and size in a brawl. (K was about 25% with his weapon, and bleeding from his arm; he lacked Healing.) He landed up on top of the elf and as the elf tried to stab him to death with a dagger, he tried throttling it to death with his one working hand. Toni fumbled and put his spear through one arm at the same time as the barbarian put their own spear through the other. Toni passed out, at about -2hp and bleeding at 2hp/round. Viran managed to Heal one of Toni's arms whilst holding off the barbarian. Praxos woke, and cut a deep gash in the tribesman's leg, which toppled him over. Meanwhile Kyrolan was down to about 4hp and bleeding, and the elf still hadn't passed out. Kyrolan resorted to biting the elf's helm off. Marcus woke, but the ground opened beneath him. He fell into a pit, which closed, breaking both legs. He joined Toni in unconciousness. The mysterious moving earth did the same to Praxos and Viran. They too passed out from shock, and lay rooted in the ground. Four down, just Kyrolan (on 2hp) and the weedy young tribesman Kiol to go: facing the elf and the barbarian, who had Healed himself and was advancing upon them...
What will happen to our intrepid heroes? Is this the end for the cream of the Lunar Empire? Is Pan the only one to survive Total Party Wipe-Out? Find out in next game's short but exciting episode!
Email: Webmaster@furfur.demon.co.uk