Session 47: The Axe in the Rock; or Pick a Side, Heathen

 Session 47: The Axe in the Rock; or Pick a Side, Heathen.

8/21/23-8/30/23, rest 8/31, active 9/1

PC: Ellin, Zektel, Brumdor, Cracaryn, Mycroft

Hench: Taki, Kissare

#ACKS

After last session’s emphasis on military activity, the players chose a different path today, hitting the road for the… uh... third attempt at securing the treasure at the end of a treasure map. They had gotten the map and some magic equipment from one of the player’s higher level PCs but had yet to deliver. Their benefactor was growing impatient. Bigtoe the Wombat wanted his material for making weird dwarf machines.

Blair and Sharles, the two nightblades captured last session during the nearly successful assassination attempt on Lord Talston, were replaced by Ellin (thief) and Mycroft (trickster). They did a little meager shopping at Teutch Tower’s minimal market and set off.

Their travel was uneventful for most of the first day but towards the end of the day they came upon an outpost of some kind flying a flag bisected by a solid line with a star on either side. Zektel raised a white flag, I’m still not sure where he got it but it’s becoming a theme. Probably has little kangaroos on it. Anyway, after a terse parley the occupants of the outpost decided they didn’t want any adventurer shenanigans and asked the party politely but firmly to leave, which they did after learning the outpost was under command of someone named Merchant Lord Zelas.

The next hex over the party’s loaner henchman land surveyor explorer hench of many hats Kissare discovered that this hex was ideal for settling, with a significantly increased land value above the average and a source of very fine clay that could be used in pottery and porcelain. The party camped the night in the pleasant environment and carried on the next day, entering the western Blemu Hills.

It was in these hills that the group came across a strange sight, a great axe driven into the middle of a large boulder as though from a giant’s blow. They could see the head of the axe was golden and studded with rubies, but the haft was worn and weather beaten. Zektel the shaman communed with his ancestors and learned that it wasn’t cursed and it was made by dwarves. A few hands tried to remove it but it was Brumdor the dwarf that was able to pull it loose. The head was solid gold and still sharp, as sharp as gold can be anyway, and the party decided to hang on to it since it seemed to be worth quite a lot. A master’s mark on the metal showed it to have been crafted by the Slate clan, which was recorded for future use.

Continuing their trek through the hills, they heard the grunts and groans of effort from a nearby copse of trees but couldn’t see what would make them. The high pitched tone of the voices made one of the players think of pixies. Zektel asked his animal companion, a big constrictor snake, to slither up and scope it out. It returned and described a dead boar in an iron bear trap being ineffectively tampered with by unseen forces. The party moved out without further investigation. The rest of their day’s travel was blocked by a massive avalanche that they had to figure a way around.

Descending into the plains beyond the hills, the group discovered a large field of young Bitterwood herb which is used to purge poison. It was going to be worth quite a lot if it bloomed sometime soon but wasn’t ready for harvest yet. Carrying on they found a massive ruined colossus type statue of a woman in a toga. Even damaged, Brumdor the dwarf estimated it at over 50,000gp in value. If they could just figure out how to move it.

This was turning out to be quite an eventful hex crawl just to get to the X on the treasure map. Shortly after the colossus the party disturbed a field of mites or fleas or something that swarmed and bit and stung them, subjecting them to the disease called Bloody Flux. Most of the group saved, but Mycroft was succumbing to his bites, the gnome certainly a goner. Fortunately, Zektel had max ranks in healing proficiency and was able to apply a salve to cure the disease. Otherwise, Mycroft would have not been able to travel. The gnome trickster swore revenge on the pests, planning to set the field on fire but the group stopped him due to wind conditions likely threatening the other fertile land nearby.

The adventurers neared the forest that was alleged to hold their target, some source of “purple cake” material, the next day. They entered the old wood cautiously, seeking out the location with the help of their loaner hench. They stumbled on a wyvern lair with six (6!) of the nasty winged creatures in and flying around it. Fortunately for them, the reptilian beasts were surprised and the group was able to nope right out of there.

They spotted a semicircle of bones in the loam of the forest floor just as a young woman appeared as if from nowhere to block their path. She was dressed in spotless white and bade them halt in a very calm voice, which they did. I think the white flag went up again here. Speaking in “we” and “us”, the woman declined the party’s request to travel further, clearly indicating the arc of remains as a barrier of sorts. She made no threats but did indicate that Taki the Cleric of Pelor (Lawful) was allowed to pass beyond the border if he chose. The party discussed for a bit about sending their cleric to join a cult, eventually settling on getting the recon at his peril. For Taki’s part, he was dubious but took the mission for an extra month’s pay. He followed the woman Lauren’s lead into the grove beyond where they seemed to disappear after just a short time.

They waited a few hours, some members poking about and learning that the remains were mostly beastmen bones and skulls and such that appeared to have been killed by cavalry. Puncture wounds and crushing hoof blows. After a while, Cracaryn hollered into the grove, careful not to cross the line, to get some response from the sentries that he was certain were observing them. He got none and the party decided to camp there to wait on their cleric hench.

In the morning, Lauren arrived with two baskets of fresh bread and fruit and some jerky. She told the party that Taki was fine and enjoying his stay. She agreed to ask the hench to return and talk to the party soon. The party was skeptical of the food at first, but eventually chowed down and definitely did not suffer any kind of fae curse or anything. Taki arrived and told them it was a unicorn grove with a circular pool in the center. They were a bit skittish but he was enjoying his stay, speaking at length about how the sun shone into the clearing near the pool. He felt there was more to learn about the area inside but he needed time. He was also scared of the unicorns, they were very intimidating. They bore battle scars and glared fiercely at him if he stepped wrong.

Zektel was growing impatient with just waiting, so he urged the party to help him search for herbs which they did. Unfortunately it didn’t seem like the right environment for the herbs he was looking for. They did find a strange burrow that they avoided after Mycroft learned from the nearby birds and squirrels that he should “run from the big worm it eats everything ruuuuuuuun”. Some nest of a bird of prey threatened to peck their eyes out if they got closer and that was enough for the day they figured.

Lauren was there the next morning with food and the party happily scarfed it down. Ellin and Cracaryn did their best to get Lauren to bring the unicorns to them, but she seemed puzzled about requesting the unicorns to do anything. Ellin was distraught and Cracaryn swore he would turn to Lawful if he just had a chance to see one of the mythical beasts. While holding players to bold claims is fun, I abide by the dice and it weren’t to be.

End of day, Taki arrived fully kitted and ready to go. He was rested and happy. He shared that there was a cave within the grove that the unicorns would not let him go near. If there was purple cake to be had it would have to be within that cave. The party considered options, like attempting to lure the worm from the burrow to fight the unicorns or using the worm to burrow under the grove. I loved all of these plans but as a fair and impartial judge I could not offer opinions. They camped overnight and left in the morning, not happy with any of their ideas and stymied by Lauren’s refusal to let any non-Lawful into the grove.

The way back was eventful as well. They found a trilithon and used an unclaimed language slot and collegiate wizardry to discover it was some kind of portal that operated on excessive disposable income. It was created by an ornery old wizard named Pokermaster and written in Ancient Merlantean, the language of a known seaborne society of sneaker fetishists. They were unable to activate it by throwing small amounts of wealth through it, although someone was able to get it to flash briefly. You can’t buy fly kicks with handfuls of gold.

Mycroft got his revenge on the pests by burning the field. The crew waited for it to burn out, wasting several hours, on the off chance that there was loot from some poor diseased casualty. There wasn’t. Near the field of Bitterwood, they lost some of their rations to spoilage. They were consoled by some of the herb having bloomed and scooped up several pounds of it.

A flight of what they were certain were sphinxes observed them at a distance. The party chose to flee which excited the creatures into nearly pursuing, but they couldn’t be bothered to fly all that way. A cave frosted over with ice in the middle of summer was a curiosity but after Ellin scouted it they realized it was going to be treacherous footing to navigate. Despite lots of talk of frozen treasure they left it be.

A mudslide that cost them more travel time and a hidden pit trap filled with poisoned stakes rounded out their travel back, the latter costing them a horse. Fortunately they had brought spares to navigate the hills instead of trying to force a cart.

Back at Teutch’s tower they had a really confusing conversation with Bigtoe about the map and their failure to secure the goods and how they owed him for the magic gear he loaned them and all kinds of things. Some of the newer players were trying to understand the dynamic of the single player involving his multiple PCs in the endeavor in some capacity. There was a little tension over lack of clarity to start when Bigtoe’s loaned out hench claimed all the maps for her employer. I spaced out while they bickered but it sounded like they came to some agreement or something. I’m glad it all worked out. Or they’re gonna kill each other. Idk, I’ll find out when it happens.

Off to Deinwick where they learned the armies had backed off due to some unknown religious event. It was raining frogs or something? Madness and these guys didn’t care as long as their market wasn’t under siege. They sold some loot and got paid and rested up.

Musings:

This was the first time that I used the wilderness stocking table from Axioms 8. It was pretty cool and the players really seemed to enjoy the mix of events that were popping up. It was a good exercise for me to have to pop off on the fly what a ruin was or a plague was or a bag of loot was. Two instances of free loot hit, the axe and another empty one. It was empty because they couldn’t roll the % needed for treasure of each type. Another reason I make them roll, it’s not my fault!

Using PC assets from one to another is a murky path to tread. It requires clear communication which I think they learned this session and will probably clean up in the future. It’s also potentially less profitable since I have some pretty tough limits on how XP is earned in those scenarios. PCs gain no XP from trading items among PCs or Patrons and only gain XP from rewards offered by 9th level characters or above. This keeps any kind of tomfoolery of cheesing the same items back and forth for XP or some other dumb shit that my players would definitely never do.

The unicorn grove was an original POI that I placed using the ACKS world creation best practices. I put a few lines in my key and I forgot about it until they found this map and I randomized which POI it was going to lead to because the unique stuff in the game is always tied to something cool. You’re never gonna find an artifact on a random orc encounter and you aren’t finding “purple cake” in a random lair. I like how the grove emphasizes the importance of choosing a side in the cosmic struggle, like being rewarded for cleansing altars of the opposite alignment. It’s a cool dynamic that’s mentioned… somewhere… in the ACKSphere and I intend to keep it rolling.

Session 46: Through the Glare of Blue Light

 Session 46: Through the Glare of Blue Light

8/13/23-9/5/23, Paused Time at Critical Juncture

PC: Redcorn, Luther, Gwendolyn

Hench: Amadayo, Mahin, Madroff, Beyza, Eggie, Jaylen, Jarod, Mulligan

Mercs: Army of nearly 300 mixed troops

#ACKS

Downtime chatter was minimal this week, with the options being Team A on military action or Team C which several of the available players were resistant to join. Some of our players limit their PC pool to two PCs, which is their prerogative, but it does make time jailed party selection a bit tricky.

By process of elimination they settled on running Team A as they marched in search of an area to settle a new domain in. Redcorn is eager to establish himself, but the other PCs are still on the fence about that part of the game. I’ll speak more about that at the end.

The army had proceeded along the Teesar in downtime to avoid the clash between Deinwick and Talston. They did not want to get drafted into fighting for either side. We picked up their travel and it was mostly uneventful until they camped in the swamp outside of Riverstride. An overnight visit from the infamous Meowster Mittens the Magnificent and his pride of fellow Sphinxes ended in most of the army fleeing the field and the party shelling out a couple magic items in way of a toll on the road. This is the second time the party has gotten shaken down by the arrogant cat-thing.

The rest of the travel towards Bellport, the capital of the region, was uneventful and they rested there a few days to try to pick up rumors on the landscape to the north. It was coastal and had several features pleasing to the group if they were to start a domain, but it had been under enemy control for a decade and a lot can happen in that time.

Gwen and Luther took their crews to drum up info while Redcorn made an appointment at the castle. He requested to see the Baron, but unfortunately the Baron wasn’t in, still embroiled in the occupation of Loch Lucerne to the east. This was not communicated and the party was much dismayed when they finally got their appointment 3 days later.

The info-gathering crew was very successful, learning quite a bit about the region and even some of the other areas in nearby enemy territory. There was actually a coastal town along the bay with maybe serviceable roads leading to it. It used to be part of a fiefdom but information just wasn’t available about its current status. One of Gwen’s henchmen, Amadayo, was imprisoned for gambling during this time, but fortunately his trial only took a few days and at great expense he was acquitted with damages. You might be stymied in a similar situation with a random arrest and trial during session. It took me about 2 minutes to adjudicate all of it because, of course, ACKS already does that. Easy to implement consequences for criminal activity are just one of many features of the robust system.

It turned out that the Baron’s proxy in Bellport was Sir Lionel Deinwick, brother to Lord Grueller Deinwick and Lord of Vennor in his own right, a smallish mining territory to the north. The party wanted access to the Baron’s maps of the area from the war and Sir Lionel was open to the idea but if they were going to establish a domain north of him, he insisted that they join the Barony as a vassal to Vennor. The players responded poorly to being shaken down by some noble that they had only just met and after much discussion and spewing of anti-feudal vitriol, they put off any agreement and left without maps.

The army marched north to recon in force after Redcorn verified the location of the coastal town of Paulsville. As they closed in, recon rolls started for both sides, giving a bit of strategic information but nothing super detailed. They knew that Paulsville had around 5 units (at platoon scale) in defense of the walled town. They felt confident with their newly acquired siege equipment that they could take it with time.

Unfortunately as they closed in, the army’s scouts informed them that there was a relief force of another 5 platoons marching to reinforce the town. After a brief war council, the group decided to try to intercept the reinforcements before they reached Paulsville. I decided opposing Strategic Ability rolls would suffice for whether or not they could achieve the goal, which they tied, so it was a coin flip which the party won.

The enemy army of hobgoblins, mostly medium cavalry with some light cavalry and longbowmen, were outnumbered pretty heavily but a bit tougher man for man compared to the human troops that the party fielded. The PCs took on a heroic foray, eliminating the longbowmen through devastating use of the insect plague spell, and then engaged in the battle. I prefer the abstracted resolution from Domains at War: Campaigns in these situations and after a single round, the invaders were victorious, routing the remaining hobgoblin cavalry which they pursued and defeated afterwards.

Confident that their flanks were secure, they applied triage and marched towards Paulsville to begin their siege. I decided on a small but cumulative percentage chance that the enemy learned of the battle and unfortunately hit that only 3 days into the siege, where their fresh catapults and ballista had already opened a breach in the defenses. Recon rolls went out again and the invaders learned that another seven platoons of reinforcements were on the march. The players weren’t sure whether to assault the town then defend against the reinforcements, turn and fight the reinforcements, or retreat. It was getting late in the session and we were weeks into the future, so I was ok stopping there to let them pick it up later.

Musings:

ACKS is a wonderfully robust game that has answers for things that most other systems either leave to DM fiat or have never even considered. It’s designed for a single party to pursue their interests together and by its nature pushes adventurers into conquering domains and ruling them as kings. 

What I’m observing in two separate 1:1 ACKS games (Dubzaron and Oberholt) is a disconnect with party cohesion during the transition from Adventurer to Conqueror. The players with the will to develop and maintain armies are taking the initiative to do so with little involvement from other players. They then split off and engage in solo play during downtime to clear lairs, establish domains, etc using the abstracted rules from D@W:C. There is little engagement or investment from other players into the military action which leads to a disinterest in sessions that involve it and ultimately into the next phases of the game altogether.

One player is responsible for driving most of the military action in Oberholt and this session was challenged by the apathy of the other players regarding the army-specific events. Many queries for input were met with shrugs or claims of having no ownership of the army so no say in its actions, despite each player being a division commander in the order of the battle. Observing this disappointed me as a DM and my knee jerk reaction was “this must be fixed.” Whenever most of the table is staring at their phones is a sure sign the session isn’t engaging.

I talked it out a bit after the session and then contemplated it while getting my ass handed to me in a particularly brutal run of MtG Commander games. I ask myself in these moments whether the problem at hand is a GM, Player, or System issue.

• ACKS is not designed to use 1:1 time. We’re breaking the system with that implementation but not in a significant enough way to abandon it and not related to the problem at hand. It’s not the system.

• The game is adjudicated fairly and consistently. Rules are implemented as efficiently as I can. I can certainly improve in that way, but a game is served best when the table is up to speed on the rules that are being used during session. It’s not the DM.

• The type of game we’re running encourages the players to choose their adventure. This requires some level of cohesion, some communication, some goal setting agreed upon by the group. If this is absent, we run into the diminished cohesion and lack of teamwork that makes sessions one-sided and boring. These issues can only be addressed by the players. They have to work together, at least during sessions, to pursue common goals. Otherwise it’s just herding cats.

To be clear, this isn’t a pursuit of “blame”, it’s just identifying where and what correction can be applied to achieve the results that we all want: a fun, engaging adventure game for the group of players involved. I share these musings after the reports to be as transparent as possible with how these games are running, where they can improve, and why they’re so much fun. My advice to players and DMs running this style of game is to take ownership of your portion of it. Read the rules. Strive to grow in your role within the group by practicing, and failing, and ultimately succeeding. It’s the same here as everywhere else in life. Thanks for reading and see you next week.

Session 45: I’m Gonna Act Like I Know What I’m Doing

 Session 45: I’m Gonna Act Like I Know What I’m Doing

8/6/23-8/13, rest 8/14, active 8/15

PC: Blair (Nightblade), Cracaryn (Ranger), Sharles (Nightblade), Brumdor (Machinist), Zektel (Shaman)

Hench: Platt, Takei

#ACKS

Civil war is brewing between two rival Lords, with hostilities coming to a head in the form of a skirmish and a seized plantation. Lord Grueller Deinwick insists that ancestral lands of his house are held by the Talston family, led by the young Nathan Talston after his father’s recent death under suspicious circumstances. Talston asserts that the dispute had been settled ages ago. Much of this session’s motivation involves the tension between the two and most of that updating gets done in downtime story drops which don’t really make it into session reports. I apologize if the reader may be a little lost on the finer points. 

This session began with the party discussing the pursuit of a treasure map that they had gotten from Bigtoe the Wombat (Semi-retired PC). The deal was to go get “purple cake” from the location in exchange for some magic items and gold or something, but so far they had not delivered. I guess we’ll see what Bigtoe has to say about that if his mission keeps getting ignored. 

Meanwhile, Garak the Mask (hench to Teutch the Alchemist) had been dispatched with a mission offer for Blair the Nightblade and any who might aid her. It seemed that Teutch was concerned about rumors that Lord Nathan Talston was involved with some kind of cult. “We are concerned of reports about Nathan joining a strange cult. Said cult leader may need to be… addressed. Or Nathan… addressed.” Garak supplied a dose of wyvern poison and a scroll of greater clairvoyance for use during the mission, which Blair accepted. Suddenly the session went from hex crawling to subterfuge.

I guess the plan was to buy more potent poison and try to kill any and every one that might qualify for Teutch’s level of “addressing” the problem. I made it a point to step away several times to refill drinks, piss, look at my phone, whatever to avoid hearing too much of their plan. I pondered the Talston camp layout and potential security measures and once they were ready we got to it.

First, they wanted to buy poison. The city of Deinwick was a Lawful town so they had to find a black market dealer which took them the better part of two days. While the shadier members of the party worked on that, Zektel the Shaman contacted his ancestors to try and learn more information about the party’s target in the form of 3 Yes/No questions per the spell Commune:

1. Is Nathan camped with the army between Deinwick and Talston? Yes

2. Is Nathan injured or weary from combat? No

3. Will we be searched approaching the Talston army? Uncertain

Armed with deadly illicit weapons and a little knowledge, the group left the next morning. Deinwick’s army was camped just outside the city to the east and had tight security, which turned them away when trying to pass through, so the adventurers went around until they could rejoin the road and continue east. They approached the Talston army in the late afternoon under a white flag, with Zektel intending to offer his services as a chirurgeon to the wounded.

Turned out the Talston army was in dire need of medical personnel for the enlisted and the group was escorted to the triage camp. Zektel was put to work genuinely aiding the wounded with Blair as an “assistant” while the other party members mingled with the guards on duty. Zektel dismissed Blair after a while to “wash her hands or something”, giving the elf a chance to sneak away and see what she can find out. Cracaryn was brushed off disapprovingly by Chief Chirurgeon George Clooney after offering to “end the suffering” of mortally wounded patients while Brumdor made careful note of watch schedules to look for weaknesses or opportunities.

It was difficult for Blair to make any progress towards the center and presumed power base of the camp because she kept getting stopped by patrols or soldiers. The first time they sent her back to the triage camp.

Blair waited a short time before trying again, this time getting flagged down furtively to a squad’s tent. Trying not to draw attention to herself, she approached where she learned that Bill was in a bad way and needed medical help immediately. She tried to convince them that she was just an assistant with no actual medical skill but they weren’t having it, convinced that she was better than nothing.

The light cavalry squad showed her into a tent to see Bill, who had a massive hemorrhoid preventing him from riding his horse. He was laying on his side with the thumb sized protrusion bared to the air. A few more protests fell on deaf ears and finally Blair said fuck it, let’s go. She had a rusty screwdriver that she had pulled from the Center of the Earth that she stuck the tip of in the campfire. After overhearing some mutters from the squad, she added her dagger to it which seemed to make sense to the watchers. With absolutely no medical training or experience, Blair poured some whiskey on the affected area and then proceeded to amputate the hemorrhoid with a searing hot dagger blade. Bill did not survive the operation and Blair was forced to spend the next few hours commiserating with the squad around the campfire over Bill’s fate, which the soldiers seemed to take in stride. It’s hard out there without a cleric, apparently, especially for those terminal cases of hemorrhoids.

The nightblade returned to the triage camp, determined to try again once night had fallen. The group asked about the mess tent and were happily shown there by the sergeant of the triage security detail after shift change. He also got them squared away with a tent near the triage camp to rest in for the night.

Blair tried again after dark to sneak out but was caught and escorted back to the triage camp with an admonishment that soldiers were not gentlemanly, by and large, and it was for her own safety that she remained there. When she asked if he had a lot of trouble with crass men, the patrol leader responded, “Nah, not me. I’m a man.” Pretty sure I could hear the player’s eyes roll in their sockets.

Just about fed up with the nonsense, the Nightblade cast invisibility on herself and had a much easier time making it to the command post, an enormous pavilion that was apparently a mix of officers’ quarters, war room, and noble’s hall judging by the activity inside. It wasn’t difficult for her to move around and she spent most of the night just watching. She identified the foppish Nathan Talston speaking with a very tall robed and hooded man with a glinting spark of light within his cowl and a muscular young lord over a stout table covered in maps. The third fellow was tall and blonde, wearing black plate armor emblazoned with the clenched fist and arrows of Hextor. Blair surmised that these were Glasseye and Eros Tyring respectively.

As the night wore down, Tyring and his young wife left the tent along with most of the lower level Talston officers that were present. Nathan and Glasseye apparently shared a partitioned off portion of the pavilion towards the rear, which Blair followed them into. She slipped in as the flaps on the partition were closing and slid off to a corner to wait. Nathan had a few servants prepare him for his massive canopied bed while Glasseye just sat on his austere cot and threw his hood back, revealing [REDACTED] a shining artificial left eye.

It took the two a while to settle down into sleeping rhythms, but once Blair was confident, she started scoping out means to apply one of the group’s doses of poison. There was a water pitcher and cup on a vanity near Nathan’s bed but nothing similar near Glasseye. On his side, he had a long staff topped with a carved fist and a shield that bore an eight pointed star. There was a lot of crosstalk over the table about what to do and eventually she settled on using this as just a scouting mission.

Still invisible, Blair decided that cutting a way through the back of the tent under Nathan’s huge bed was her best way out without getting detected since the entry flaps were guarded. She hit her belly and began to crawl, coming nearly nose to nose with an abnormally large king cobra snake coiled under the bed. It responded to her presence and hissed, raising its hood flaps but obviously unable to see her. She sneaked back to her corner as the snake slid from under the bed and snooped around. The elf lightly brushed the tent flap to see if the guards would respond, but the cobra saw it and readied itself to strike any further motion in that area.

This standoff persisted for several minutes before the cobra slithered over to Glasseye and bonked him on the forehead a few times with his nose to wake him up. The groggy shaman rose and stretched and looked around, talking to the snake about an intruder. He threatened the reptile if he woke him for nothing then cast dispel magic on the area. The spell effect was not large enough for the whole space so there was a chance that the invisible elf would avoid it, but unfortunately it landed on her, turning her visible. The only thing keeping her hidden was her magical elven cloak blending into the tent fabric.

Glasseye called in the two guards outside who arrived and looked confused. Nathan awoke and cradled his bastard sword from his bed. Blair took the initiative, certain that they would find her soon, by summoning berserkers to cause a distraction for her to escape during. After a brief struggle, Blair was bitten by the cobra and succumbed to its venom, which after tying her up Glasseye neutralized magically. The nightblade was captured.

Meanwhile, the party woke to find Blair missing, with her henchman Platt the Mime gesturing frantically at her empty bedroll. Before they could formulate much of a response, alarm horns started to sound in the camp and the crew decided that was their cue to bounce. A busy and confused military camp is difficult to maneuver in, but they wove their way towards the nearest exit as quickly as they could. I ran this in rounds like a combat, with Blair resisting “enhanced interrogation” to give up information while various peals of the horns told the army how to respond. She held out for long enough that the party only had to shake one roadblock before escaping and evading pursuit thanks to Cracaryn’s ranger abilities.

Here the party split, with Cracaryn and Sharles cutting back to try to figure out how the army was going to respond and Zektel and Brumdor rushing to Deinwick to notify the army there and Teutch of what they knew, which wasn’t much except that Blair didn’t return from scouting. Zektel sold some recon intel to the army at Deinwick while Brumdor sent a messenger bird to the Purple Tower.

The two elves waited for several days, observing the Talston army and dodging patrols. They planned to use their remaining dose of deadly poison to take a shot at Nathan during the next battle which they were certain would be soon considering the provocation of a discovered spy. It took a few days, but eventually Talston marched west towards Deinwick and the would-be assassins shadowed them. Taking a heroic foray action during the battle pitted the two elves against Nathan Talston and his bodyguard of a platoon of heavy cavalry. 

Sharles missed his shot but Cracaryn hit, dropping the nobleman from his horse almost certainly from poison instead of damage. Unfortunately they had been seen and had no real way to escape a platoon of heavy cav, which ran them down in the same round. The elves were not killed but soccer flopped and hoped for the best after taking nearly lethal damage. Amazingly, the patrol opted to recover their lord and rush him to a healer rather than stomp the wounded elves into the ground.

The two assassins slinked away, circling back to the army’s previous camp site to see if they could find out what happened to Blair. By the screams of tortured agony that they heard from the central tent, she was apparently being held within and guarded by several dozen heavy infantry. Sharles sneaked in and executed the torturer, freeing Blair who due to an unfortunate mortal wounds roll was paralyzed from the neck down. He fireman’s carried her out but was discovered by the waiting guards and cut down, likely captured himself. Cracaryn chose to retreat back to Deinwick and regroup with the party.

Musings:

I’ve said this a lot and I’ll say it again: Don’t overprep your game. If your players choose not to engage with what you spend X hours prepping, you’re back to improvising the session anyway and wasted those X hours.

I leaned heavily on the 2d6 gradient this session and made the players roll most of it themselves. It added a lot of tense moments with ups and downs that were pretty emotional at the time. Most importantly they couldn’t blame me if the roll didn’t go their way. In general, I set conditions from unfavorable to favorable and assign them along the gradient, just like reaction rolls, morale rolls, etc. This helps keep everything fresh and exciting. The presence of Glasseye’s cobra, the reaction to their infiltration tactics with sentries, to capture or kill Blair, kill the elves who shot Nathan, whether Nathan could receive care in time to stop the poison, all of these things were run this way.

The camp encounters I ran like a city encounter table using the 2d6 gradient for severity. Unfortunately they hit a lot, but none of them were too negative and resulted in one of the highlights of the session for the table with poor Bill’s affliction.

The interrogation/escape I ran with saving throws versus Paralyzation for Blair and 1d6 rounds for the party to escape. If Blair failed 3 times the army would be assumed to know who to look for. It was pretty tense but efficient at the time and I’m pretty happy with how it played out.

These session reports are time consuming and sometimes I feel like I’m too long winded or too detailed or too… boring. I’ve considered just bullet pointing them, but it was pointed out to me that players look forward to the reports for a few reasons:

To relive the session’s highs and lows

To catch up if they missed the session

To have a log of game developments that may get missed with time

To catch details that may have been missed in the moment

To maintain player morale

To catch xp/treasure totals 

My reports and the many others like them are receipts for the games that we play, showing that you can have a living world with player choices that matter, that the game doesn’t have to be on DM rails with untold hours spent trying to force backstories to fit a plot. If you’re interested in reading about other games like this, check out a list here.