Saturday 21 February 2015

Lair of Sword and Sorcery Campaign begins, Part 2

This is a continuation of the Play report of the first Lair of Sword and Sorcery Campaign.
Read part one here Part 1

The heroes enter the city of Stroh-Branoch!
One of the characters has decided that their hero will follow the path of Sorcery!
Not knowing where to start (none in the land of Kartharka does) they head straight for the sages hall.
They present themselves (and their +2 ccamaraderie and a pile of gold) to the sages at the hall.
It is agreed that they may begin their training on a trial basis for 1 month. They are allowed to stay at the Sages Hall, begin their tutoring in the history and sciences of Kartharka, and are given access to the library of the sages from which they begin copying as much of their lore as they can (getting a head start on a library for their demense, see the forthcoming veteran issue for more details on that)
After the month is passed and the "bodyguard" has healed their serious injuries the sages present a problem to the would be scholar.
His money has run out. To continue his studies for another month he will have to pay more (which he hasn't got) or run some errands for them.
He accepts the challenge and is tasked with picking up some papers and items from the small sages hall located in the hamlet of Throm at the top of the valley of Fangs.
The bodyguard spends a large part of his ready cash on an almost full suit of Kartharkan plate.
Knowing that this is likely not to be as simple a task as it seems (remember the bandits on the road from earlier) the novice sage decides to enlist the help of some muscle from the local bar.
Spending the rest of their money they recruit 5 dangerous looking thugs to escort them to Throm.
And it's good that they did. While camping int he forest that lies before the great Wulf's Way road they spot a babd of men with torches approaching from the distance.
They quickly break camp and make for the woods to hide.
Luckily they find an abandoned cabin there to make their stand in and another epic battle ensues.
These men are the remainder of the bandit troop, and picked up their trail soon after they left Stroh-branoch.
The heroes again use tactics to their advantage, fortifying the cabin with traps and defending the doorways to great advantage.
The bandits do break in briefly and are able to kill one of the dangerous thugs but the heroes are unscathed.
They continue on to Throm with no further problems.
There they find the local Sages Hall abandoned, though the innkeeper has been entrusted with the key which he gladly gives to the novice sage since he bears the amulet of the Winterlands Sages (temporarily).
Entering He finds the Hall indeed empty, and the library locked, needing another key.
Luckily on the lectern is left a note, to any sages who may enter the hall.
I did not have time to prep the exact wording of the scroll but it begs any sages who enter to read the scrolls left behind and follow the sages into the cursed woods (pronounced Curse-edd of course).
The exact message of the note and the details of the scrolls will have to wait until the following game in two weeks as I had absolutely nothing prepped other than literally 10 lines jotted down for the first string of scenarios.
Something like "Road, attack, Stroh Branoch, travel, cabin in woods...' and then a couple more lines for the next scenario but that's a secret.
All in all a huge ssuccess campaign started and characters made on the fly and well into the first string of scenarios
What will they encounter next? Well they have seen a lot of Sword so far...
I believe they may finally get to the other half of Lair next time!

Next up will be a series of posts on the nuts and bolts of what specifically happened, and why, including a few rules tweaks, additions and other meddling bits of minutiae.

Ps- The continuing saga of our poor heroes will be detailed here in the posts as well as being archived in a permanent section here on the site soon

No comments:

Post a Comment