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Phil
United States
Albuquerque
New Mexico
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Preparing To Play
Not much preparation needed this session, since most of the NPCs were created last time. I did find a very handy online Fantasy Craft NPC construction tool (and in Fantasy Craft, NPC includes any sort of character or creature). One neat idea, that can also be a pain in practice, is that adversaries scale based on the Menace of the adventure and the levels of the characters. With this tool, that’s easy to do.
I have also been experimenting with using Google Docs for this campaign. I have a doc for Player Characters, Non-player Characters, Monsters, Rumors, and a Player Log. Most of these I share with the rest of the group. Some of the players took advantage of this, and added some color to their characters.
Characters
For more details, see previous session reports.
Maximus played by JL (Human/Grizzled, Male, Class: Soldier, Specialty: Gladiator)
Celeste Abrioux played by SM (Human/Charismatic, Class: Courtier, Specialty: Aristocrat)
Boris Muller played by BK (Human/Vigilant, Class: Scout, Specialty: Warden)
Ulfar Garrison played by JN (Human, Class: Sage, Specialty: Physician)
Celeste’s Background
One of my players came up with the following backstory for Celeste:
Born on the 23rd of Lady’s Month to Mathis and Florine Abrioux in Parravon 17 years ago, Celeste was raised as a typical pampered, sheltered noblewoman, entertained by her mothers’ grand stories of her youth. Her mother taught her to use a sword, beguile, and stand out from the crowd, and her father how to play at politics, act like a princess, trade, and generally live high on the hog. She lived a fairly sheltered life, and, while very book-smart, has no real idea how that knowledge actually applies to the real world. She’s not naive though, having been around politics and traders. She highly enjoys political games and manipulating people, and often perpetrates schemes just for the fun of it. She loves dressing to the nines (without the flashy jewelry to avoid thieves) just to devastate others and draw attention to herself, even just for a simple trip to the market.
Unfortunately, while Celeste inherited her mothers’ wanderlust, she failed to acquire her predilection for nature. Her trip through the Grey Lady Pass heading to Ubersreik was truly horrific for her, but moreso for her porters, albeit in very different ways. They had passed by a small inn on the first night, and Celeste had insisted on not stopping, wanting to relive the stories of her mother. While utterly useless at anything useful in camp, she was insistent on helping with cooking, building the fire, pitching tents, and gathering firewood...up until she got dirty, or tired, or hungry, or injured, or over the novelty, or... and thus became an active hindrance to anyone trying to actually accomplish anything worthwhile. All of this, combined with a night in a drafty tent on the ground in a sleeping bag quickly cured her of any delusions that she was made of the same grit as her mother. And rather than suffer the shattering of her dreams and tacit admission that she was less capable than commoners with tears or hysterics unbefitting of her stature, the normally genial and uplifting noble nursed her wounded pride by lashing out at the porters, foolishly trying to create a facade of composure, which made the already difficult trip that much worse for everyone.
The porters were only too happy to be sent home after a week of such misguided abuse, leaving Celeste to find a motley crew of diverse talents to aid her in the pursuit of her dreams. Now she is trying to figure out how to make her name in the Empire, and, while she knows her abilities and how to use them, she is unsure of a real plan on how to direct those abilities to accomplish her goal.
Family:
Mathis (Father) is 56, a minor noble, and is one of three senior partners of the trade guild Iczelion headquartered in Parravon. Married twice. Laure, his first wife, gave birth to Phillipe, his son and heir. She died 25 years ago from plague. Currently married to Florine, Celeste’s mother.
Phillipe (Half-Brother), 29, heir to the Abrioux estate. Is on friendly terms with Celeste, but they don’t know each other well, as Phillipe was 12 when she was born, and he was already apprenticed to another trade guild in Jouinard, the Rouge fête.
Florine (Mother), 43, adventuring rogue/swordswoman from Larret. Made a name for herself as a mercenary hired by Iczelion, first by wiping out the smuggling ring Acier Dragon in Hochpointe who were undercutting prices and intruding on guild territory, and later by hunting down a band of chaos beats in the Forest of Arden that had been killing supply caravans. She and Mathis began dating a year after Laure’s death, were married 2 years later, and gave birth to Celeste 5 years after being wed. She loves telling Celeste stories of her past exploits, some of which are actually true.
The Order of The Eye
Another of my players came up with a neat idea for a secret society that his character, Ulfar, would be affiliated with. Amusingly, the cult they were trying to vanquish was known as The Order of the Unblinking Eye - but this wasn’t known to the players, and I’m thinking of changing the name so as not to confuse the issue. His notes follow:
Ulfar was born in Kemperbad to Geri Olafson and Refna Sutdoter on the 2nd of Erntezeit. Part of a secret society called the Order of the Eye (Geheimgesellschaft des Auge).
Order Factoids
 Most all are born under the constellation of the Eye
The Eye is visible 3 months of the year during fall (Nachgeheim, Erntezeit, Brauzeit)
The month people are born in determines their sect- Boar, Wolf and Raven
Provides for diversity of talents in each sect
Boars perform manual labor, but are most skilled in combat (Brauzeit – Brew-Month)
Wolves are skilled labor, trained in some combat (Erntezeit - Harvest-Tide)
Go on “Hunts” to gather information
Ravens are the intellectuals and social manipulators (Nachgeheim - After-Mystery)
Generally Boars act at the request of the Ravens driven by info from Wolves
Parents in the Order try to time births so their sect matches with the child
Children born outside of the time frame in the winter month are given a second name of Sutson or Sutdoter and those in the summer month are given Neisvarson or Neisvardoter.
Acknowledge that their deity is dead- the eye reminds them to see as he did.
Try to manifest their dead god in their personal actions and overall through the Order.
God of Protection for the weak - who?
God of Truth and Knowledge - who?
Others can become members only by proving their character through actions
Expectations... of the Eye
Maintain secrecy of the Order
Look to the well-being of the commoner class
Honesty with any who are aligned with the Order
Of Boars
Dirty work
Usually keep tabs on criminal elements
Of Wolves
Travel the world and report happenings to the Ravens (contacts generally via craft guilds)
Personally gather information as unobtrusively as possible, be a handler of sorts
Use their skills to create, if they destroy an item they must create something equivalent in value and give it away
Of Ravens
Compile information and design a plan of action
Maintain an accurate history
This is interesting and fun, and I’m working with my players on how to work it in. For instance, would Witch Hunters be okay with something like that? The part about dead gods seems questionable. So, who would this order inform? Select few nobles willing to use them? Etc.
Dinner - Best Served Poisoned
So, we left off last time trying to investigate a chaos cult infesting Grunewald Lodge. This is where the game started. The group did another round of investigating, which I handled with short scenes, starting with Boris. Boris struck up a rapport with Olver Gand, the kennelmaster, I thick necked fellow who was one of the few decent employees of Lord Rickard. Boris was able to get some aid investigating the garden, and would use this info later to implicate the Dr. in the poisoning schemes.
Celeste took her turn to charm the Dr. - distracting him while watching the operation in the Hospice. Ulfar browbeat the librarian, who was acting shifty, into handing over lots of contraband. I played up the librarian as a blubbering sycophant, trying to save his skin. Finally, Maximus investigated Karla, the drunk cook. During a sequence with Karla, Maximus rolled a one on a Notice check to see if something shady was going on. I took the opportunity to create a Critical Failure using Action Dice, and narrated that Maximus did not notice that he had inadvertently dumped poison onto the food that was supposed to be safe! The scene ended with Karla trying to impress the strong gladiator with her drinking and dancing ability, but she failed in her efforts.
The next major scene involved dinner with all the characters and a selection of important NPCs, including Lord Rickard, Olver, the captain of the guard, the librarian, Vern Hendrick (Rickard’s right hand man), and a few others. The Dr., being the main cultist who was working with the poison, noticed that the safe food was covered in the stuff. He exclaimed somewhat loudly - “is the venison cooked enough for our Lord?” This set off all the characters and NPCs eyeing each other, looking for any hint of who might be behind the plot (the group assumed it was the Dr.) Everyone was suspiciously eyeing everyone else, until finally Rickard passed out from exhaustion. The Dr. and the librarian dragged Rickard to his room, where they claimed they wanted to aid him.
The characters also descended upon Rickard’s chambers, along with Vern Hendrick. What followed started to turn into a scene from Resevoir Dogs, as Maximus and Boris, egged on by Ulfar and Celeste, tried to physically and mentally intimidate Dr. Sieger and Otto the librarian into revealing the breadth and scope of the evil happenings at the lodge. Luckily for them, Vern stepped in and demanded the rule of law be adhered to, wanting to bind the suspects until they could have a proper trial. Apparently the characters would make good witch hunters! The characters grudgingly accepted.
Beastmen Attack
The next scene involved the beastmen attack, which was signaled by bedlam outside, and the disappearance of many staff members (Gregor, the chief of staff and lead cultist, took the scene at dinner to mean he needed to step up the timetable for summoning the demon). So, the cultists were locked away in a safe room below the lodge, ritually torturing a poor servant, in an effort to summon a demon, while outside the beastmen attack raged (the beastmen were drawn to chaos artifacts that Gregor had acquired).
The characters had to decide between helping the guards and trying to figure out what was going on inside. Most of the characters (Ulfar, Celeste, and Boris) decided the attack might be to distract the characters from something more sinister, so they desperately searched for the cultists. Meanwhile, Maximus held the wall with a few guards and the kennelmaster. I switched between the scenes at a tactical scale. The outside combat was handled with miniatures and a traditional round-by-round structure. It was a bloody battle, with many guards dying, as well as a few war dogs, but ultimately resulting in the heroes defeating the beastmen.
Inside, Boris, the tracker, was able to figure out where the cultists went to, finding a secret entrance to the underground lair behind the wine cellar, accessed from the kitchen. Ulfar and Boris stumbled onto the macabre scene first, while Celeste cowered back in the access tunnel, not sure what to do. The servant was prostrate on an evil painting, which was absorbing his essence, while the cultists all chanted around in a circle, Gregor reading from a tome. Boris took the opportunity to loose arrows as quickly as possible at Gregor, and a battle ensued. With Boris firing his bow, and Ulfar using his disarm ability from his spear, the heroes stopped the ritual from completion. Before the heroes could be overwhelmed, the group from outside showed up and captured the remaining cultists.
General Thoughts
I think it was a good session. Fantasy Craft worked fine handling an investigative adventure with combat elements. In fact, looking at the skills and the SpyCraft roots, this is probably the best type of scenario to run for it.
From here, one story strand they may follow up on involves ascertaining the threat posed by beastmen in a nearby swampy area called the Oberschlect. This is a Personal Subplot for Boris. They also found an address in a blasphemous chaos tome found in the library. The address is in Nuln. (I just threw that in as a general hook.)
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