Arthurian Adventures (in Ireland)

[Particle_Man]

A player requested I post my campaign here, so here goes. I make no claims to being a good writer, or even a good DM. And my memory may be wrong, so if my players see this, feel free to correct me. I have found that I am fairly good at winging it, since I usually have less time than I need to prepare stuff, and my players do unpredictable things. I do like to give them what they think they want, but with consequences and side-effects. Oh, and I tend to shade towards the melodramatic. So evil folk are EVIL!!!!!

Campaign Journal: How do these things go? I will wing it for now. Since my players might see this (unlikely, but hey) this will contain no info that they don’t realize, except a few “how I did it” mechanics. Anyway, it is a King Arthur style campaign a la "Legends of Excalibur: Arthurian Adventures" from RPGObjects. There are a lot of classes and prestige classes in there (more on this later) and the only classes not in there that I allow are: Fighter, Rogue, Barbarian (but you need a DAMNED good explanation if you want to pc one), Arcane Trickster, Commoner, Expert, Aristocrat, Warrior. Note that the Hedge Mage is the only allowed type of Arcane caster (some prestige classes can stack these arcane spell levels), so no Bard or Assassin. The latter four allowed classes, as well as the Black Knight, are NPC only.

They are in Ireland and Arthur is a fairly new king, well established in England, but Ireland is fairly wild still. King Anguish is nominally King of all Ireland, and loyal to Arthur. Oh, and it is early enough that Morgan le Fay and Mordred are seen as good guys, as far as most people know. Lancelot has just arrived on the scene and is impressing everyone. But that is far away, in England.

Part of this game is looking at the cool prestige classes and sort of “aiming” for them. With that in mind, I have Prince Hammond, a noble going for Purple Knight (royal messenger-type); Prince Caius, a Knight/Rogue (I allow him to alternate because he is…) going for Red Knight (a few arcane spells); Toby, a Yeoman (archer type) later Knight, later Green Knight (wilderness; rage); Sir Andrew, a future White Knight (some hermit spells, just plain noble); Sir Anton, future Blue Knight (servant of a lady of the lake, breathes water, some druid spells); [All very Power Ranger, eh?]; and later additions are Leanne the (secretly) elven Minstral (might try for Lady of the Lake), and Christina the Hedge Mage (trying for enchantress).

Since I can’t rely on players showing up, I take the completely unrealistic route of saying that any players that can’t make it have their characters kidnapped and taken to Queen Titania’s fairyland. KISS, baby! That said, when the players return I usually do a “mini” set on what happens to them there (no more than 5 minutes, though), and then back they go to Ireland.

Ok, Prince Caius is the third son of King Anguish, but the elder two sons have been missing for a while on quests. Toby is one of his servants, and the other knights are pledged to Anguish (except Hammond, in exile from his own land for stating at a party that his stepmother was an enchantress).

 

[Particle_Man]

Morgan le Fay is a visiting dignitary at Anguish’s castle, and there is a great celebration. But the next day her necklace has been stolen! (gasp!). So we have our first quest – get that necklace back! Prime suspect, a lesser lord that left during the night. Most knights go around the scary woods, but our guys are keen to take a shortcut through it. While in there they have to deal with some dire rats, and later (after the night below), a spider swarm (the latter was actually more deadly than I thought!). Then the party deals with the fact that they have no healing magic whatsoever, and only Toby has the healing skill!

[my first mini-crisis…how do I deal with this?]

Anyhow, while they sleep in these woods, they have various dreams [this is how I give some hints of their potential futures, background on their pasts, etc., as well as the hint that fire would be good against spiders (in the form of a rhyme)]. I think they like the dreams, but I don’t want to overdo it. But part of their dreams involve a group of people changing into ravens and flying away! (That’ll teach em to sleep in a stone henge!). When they wake up, they find a raven’s feather nearby!

Ok, after the spider swarm they need help, but they meet a wood spirit named Allessandra [a dryad, but I don’t tell them that] who comes out of a tree! She offers to help them if they will help her. They agree, and she sends some messenger animals, and eventually, a druid shows up, introducing himself as…Raven (causing Sir Andrew to put his hand on his sword hilt!). He heals them, and tells them that an evil mage called “Candar the Wily” has stolen a sacred staff from the wood spirit, and without it she cannot travel home (note that her try is just flowering with spring buds, even though it is early autumn). He is thought to be somewhere to the north and west of here. Anton, being from the Holy Roman Empire, can heard of the treacherous sorcery of this Candar. Anyhow, Raven helps the Knights through the rest of the woods and they emerge in time to head off the lord. But the lord is confused when they confront him. He doesn’t know of any necklace. He left the castle quickly because a servant told him that his castle was under attack! To sort this out, they go to the lord (Lord Bertram’s) castle, meet his wife Eloise and two sons. At the castle, they note that one of the servants is very ill (like a coma, but with twitching and moaning), being attended by a priest and a nun. But this was the servant that warned Lord Bertram to come here! How can this be? Lord Bertram describes the “servant” who came to visit him as having brown leather boots, a red cloak and a dark green shirt.
While looking at the sick servant, Anton asks the priest “Could this be Demon possession?” and boy does that give me an idea. The nun asks to see Toby later that night. Toby agrees.

That night, the nun tells Toby that she thinks there is a demon in the castle! (Note: Prince Caius is feeling pretty Roguish this session, so he is trying to follow at a distance). He follows her and sees what looks like a demon, kneeling in a courtyard before some satanic shrine! She hisses “kill it quickly, before it sees us!” and Toby looses an arrow, striking Lady Eloise squarely and felling her (she screams too!). At this point the illusion disappears, as does the nun (I love invisibility!). [Note: in this game characters have Fate points (which they spend for good luck) and Destiny points (which I spend for their bad luck). I am a little more freeform about these than the book, so I spent one of Toby’s destiny points to make certain that the arrow not only hit, but hit the heart (extra damage). Only fair, since Toby has earlier blown a Fate point on a spider swarm]. Toby tries to hide, and rolls a 1! So Lord Bertram finds Toby before Prince Caius can do anything, and Toby is standing with a bow and arrows of the type that is sticking out of Lord Bertram’s beloved wife! So all Prince Caius can do is convince the Lord to have a full trial rather than summary execution. Lord Bertram is the judge, and his two sons are prosecuting and defence attornies (that’s fair, right?). And Toby has the crap beaten out of him by guards during the knight for daring to ask why he was imprisoned.

Prince Caius pretty much saves the day, questioning the priest, finding out the nun was new, and was giving healing draughts to the servant (which Prince Hammond, on his ridiculously fast horse, rides during the knight to a hermit to identify as poison). Eloise thankfully survived her wound. Many knights spoke in defence of Toby’s character (the defence attorney didn’t but it WAS his mom who was hurt after all). So with the evidence pointing to sorcery (the nun was not found), Toby was let go.

At this point the OTHER knights from Anguish’s castle arrive at Lord Bertram’s, and Caius has to explain what is going on. So then everyone mounts up and rides back (along the road this time).

Refugees are coming back along the road from Anguish’s. The knights see smoke in the distance, and many farmsteads are burnt out and destroyed. Anguish’s castle is under attack! A lot of Robber Barons and two Giants [Note: I referred to them always as Giants but they really are Ogres] are trying to force the castle gate. Our knights and the party with them arrive. I just do the subset of the battle with the Giants and some Robber Barons. Here my bad dice luck shows through, as an Giant rolls two 1’s in a row vs. Prince Hammond, and Prince Caius tries to double-team that Giant (this is a big no-no in this game, costing nobility points – not to mention that he was on horseback vs. an opponent who was on foot). I also used this to intro. Sir Linus, one of Anguish’s best Knights. Sir Anguish got off of his horse to face his Giant. He was meant to die heroically but dice luck was weird that day. Anyhow, Linus killed his Giant, and the Robber Baron shooting at Linus’s back missed. Prince Hammond was able to use Diplomacy on his Giant, so I decided to make him a noble sort, who agreed to leave the fray (after all, with reinforcement from outside Anguish’s other Knights could come out of the castle).

The battle is won, the bad guys die or flee once the Giants are gone. The Knights are rewarded by Queen Morgan with a little “Order of the Dove” medal dealy for protecting a noblewoman (her!). She also agrees to take Caius’s younger sister as a lady in waiting when she leaves to go to Ireland. She is just so nice that way.

The dead Giant has a black pearl with two holes in it (it looks like it came from Morgan le Fay’s necklace! Note that her Necklace had over 20 pearls, as well as a huge red ruby. Also, one of the Minstrals is missing from the court. He was last seen wearing brown boots, a dark green shirt, and a red cape…

 

[Particle_Man]

Ok, from then on they are looking for Candar the Wily, but they first have to deal with a few things. King Anguish tells his son that they need money (to rebuild the castle, buy food for the surrounding populace, etc.), so Caius is going to marry a daughter of the wealthy Baron Ivo. “Yes father”. Also, someone that saw Caius’s misdeeds and is trying to blackmail him. But Caius really IS shady, so he just uses a “contact” to make sure that the blackmail stops. The “contact” agrees, and then asks Caius to deliver a package to a man named Lukas when he goes to Baron Ivo’s.

Ok, the party has more dreams on the road, helping with some foreshadowing (either of the characters they will encounter soon, or of the distant past/future that is relevant to their most likely prestige classes).

They see a knight riding towards them accusing THEM of being demons. The battle is brief (the other knight loses). But they fight to subdue, not to kill, because they figure that he was fooled by the nun/sorceress as well. The knight (Sir Geoffrey), on being convinced of their good intentions, takes them back to his lord (Lord Eustace, 42) and the other two knights (Norman and Randolph). Eustace is a minor lord of the old faith, with a shrine out back. The players heal up and go on their way the next day.

They are accompanied by pilgrims going to a monastery on the way. They run into various bandits, barbarians, etc., many of which have a black pearl among the attacking party. (it becomes a running joke that when sir Andrew intros himself “I am Sir Andrew, defender of the faith, order of the dove,…” he gets attacked as soon as he says “faith”). The worst is a group of five archers (they saw in a dream a family being peppered by arrows to the sound of laughter) who accompanied them but started killing some pilgrims during the night.

Ok, they go through Littleton, where one of Hamilton’s servants during the night tries to kill Hamilton (he is not with the rest of the party). Hamilton wins (there is a great part where he mounts up and chases the servant with a pitchfork, when Caius and Toby arrive on the scene, Caius comments “See, Toby, I don’t treat you so badly, do I?”, but finds that the servant was using a nasty weapon, a dagger that seems to have an evil aura about it (there is no alignment, but there are ignoble weapons that are pretty much the same thing). And it was covered in a liquid that was likely poison. Prince Caius wakes up and takes charge. Caius also finds out that his “package” was opened, and that a dagger scabbard and 5 bottles (two empty) are found. Caius keeps this a secret, and keeps the dagger too!

So, the party adventures on, after Hamilton picks up another servant, 12 year old Hubert. They also sell off some of the extra horses they have gotten from fighting bandits, etc.

They fight some animal swarms, and hear the laughter of the nun (but don’t see her!). She escapes. I want her to be an occasional pest to the party.

They locate a monastery, drop off pilgrims and prisoners, and find out that an oversized book from ancient times has been stolen by a man with a salt and pepper beard who was earlier asking about it and wanted to look at it! [Candar the Wily!!]

On to Shropshire, where the minstrel (by rumors, interrogating prisoners with pearls, etc.) was said to be. The party tries to do subtlety. Ehhhh. The minstrel is not in the tavern he was said to frequent (and had a room it), but Andrew saw someone with dark hair, dressed like the minstrel was said to be dressed, kissing a woman in an alleyway. Andrew yells “halt!” And the minstrel, then and there, turns to Andrew, laughs in a (too deep) voice, and says “I wondered when you would turn up!” and grows batlike wings! He then grabs the woman and flies into the air! Toby tries to shoot the “Demon” (actually right, it is an incubus), but hits the woman instead (he has bad luck that way). Anton and Andrew ride after (and under) the demon, who is raving about being free after so long imprisoned by an ungrateful son, and now the son is imprisoned, etc. (Party: “?”)

Then the demon throws the lady from a height to the ground. Here I allow Andrew to make a reflex save to catch her, and Anton to do an “aid another” reflex save to help Andrew. Both make their scores exactly by 1. So the lady is saved. Then the demon disappears in a puff of black smoke.

The room of the “minstrel” has no papers, but carved into the wood are things like “Hate Merlin! Kill Merlin! Hate Chistians!” Etc. [I was going to put “my hat of Merlin know no limit” but I restrained myself].

So now at least they know why the “black pearl” guys are targeting Christians. And over 20 black pearls are still out there!

Oh, and they find more rumors of Candar the Wily. He was said to ask about a haunted castle, and so they make for it to try to catch him.

I think there more fights on the way, but to tell the truth, I am a little fuzzy here.

 

[Particle_Man]

Finally, on to the “haunted” castle! On the way there there is a flash of light and a new party member shows up (Leanne the minstrel, secretly an elf (keeps her hair over her hears, plub a head shawl – in my world elves and dwarves don’t look THAT different from humans, (well dwarves are short and bearded). Since the party is used to members disappearing and reappearing, they accept Leanne’s story that she was kidnapped into fairyland and released, and would like to accompany the knights to sing of their noble adventures. [her fate was to prove that humanity has noble worth – she voiced this notion to Titania and for this reason she was thrown out of fairyland]. They first pass a peasant’s hut (the peasant is caring for his sick wife and acts scared of them at first (seems to think that they are bandits)) and then arrive at the castle. They find evidence of haunting (sounds, white sheetlike things in the distance) but it turns out that this is all faked up. There are what look like malformed children here that are warning others to stay away and avoid their curse. They say they were children in the castle when the curse hit, killing all adults and making them as you see them. Now the only way to break the curse is if a suitably noble person undertakes a special ritual. And Andrew walks right into the goblin’s trap, of course. J After self-flagellation (for a total of 17 damage!), he then allows himself to strip and take the special bath, with special salts, a special paste, and eventually special carrots, onions, etc. (at this point he realized the jig was up, but was alone! The rest of the party tried a little exploring, but didn’t get far (and when they tried to force their way through, were blocked by lots of goblins, and eventually (as the jig was up) attacked). The party won, but then saw more goblins kidnapping poor Hubert, the 12 year old boy left with the horses! The party made a “hostage” deal in which the goblins let the boy go and were allowed to leave. They find out from the goblins that a human was by earlier and stole a bowl from the castle.

Note that when goblins are killed, they disappear and leave behind small objects (buttons, bananas, strawberries, etc.) (the latter being relevant to Hamilton!). [this is part of the fey deal: dwarves would leave gold statues, elves would leave fine pieces of jewelery; the latter two facts are not known to non-fey). Toby saves some strawberries for Hamilton (who is in fairyland this time around). Oh, and Toby finds a weird device among the goblins (kind of a large circular bronze (but un tarnished) pendant with jewels in it that can be depressed!)

On exploring the castle itself, the upper levels have a bat swarm (left alone) and a Ghoooooost! This ghost was the ghost of a priest who convinced the last knight of the castle to not only abandon the old faith (a la lady of the lake) for the One God, but also to force all the castle servants to “convert or die”. Thus the castle really did come under a curse (and the knight was turned into a fish). Father Janus has haunted these halls ever since.

Downstairs there is a gigantic room with a gigantic mirror. In the mirror are strange things (Sir Andrew’s reflect carries a large shield, for instance!) [this is where I start unloading magic items on the party – for the most part, I am going to go the “few items that gradually gain more and more powers” route. So Andrew “touches” the shield reflection and suddenly is holding a magic shield! (it currently has a small healing power). Now with Ciaus having the ancestral sword (cold iron, auto 20 on init 3x per day), the purple knight in fairyland receiving a horse-headed scepter (purple, with glowing eyes, looks mean “devil magic!” but grants +10 to diplomacy and intimidate if he dares use it), Toby gaining the weird device (which grafts to his shoulder during the knight, and gives him the ability to haste 2x a day (there may be side effects…), I need to get something for the Blue Knight.

Ok, on to a nearby lake, where there appears a Lady coming from the water. Anton is determined to follow his dream, and agrees to go with the lady into the lake. He then for the sake of breaking the castle’s curse [and getting some Blue Knight prereq’s out of the way] forswears his allegiance to the One God and Caius’s dad Anguish, and transfers it to the old faith and the Lady of the lake here (this breaks the curse because of the symmetry – that other knight switched from her to the One God!). This costs a LOT of nobility, so the lady is appeased, and gives him some armor (+1 scale, dr 1/-).

Right. Now they ask the lady for help tracking down Candar the Wily. She can track the bowl, and says she will allow them to reach it’s location via the magic mirror. So the party gets horses downstairs (never leave without the horses!) and through that mirror, and they find themselves outside that peasant hut! Ok, so they are too late to stop the ritual using book, staff (wand) and bowl (cup), (there was a small earthquake) and the “peasant” now looks older (white streak in his hair) but his wife (who was not sick but dead) is alive! Candar (who had shaved his distinctive salt and pepper beard, by the way) says he did it all for her, and that he would surrender the objects to the knights and submit to their judgement if he could just spend an hour alone with his wife. Ok, so the knights retreat a respectable distance from the cottage, Andrew, Leanne, Anton and Toby keeping watch while the others ride back to the castle to return the bowl. An hour later, Anton opens the door to find that Candar is not only dead, but half eaten! The wife is strange, with clawed hands and lots of blood on her face and down her nightgown. And combat ensues (basically, I used ghouls, and will later intro wights, but I don’t have any spawning). They defeat the “madwoman”. Leanne loots

When the party is reunited, they discuss this unusual turn of events, and then Caius finally agrees to go to Baron Ivo’s to meet the daughter he is supposed to marry. At this point the Hedge Mage Lady Christina joins the party (she was a follower of Caius’s older brother, who disappeared, and was told in a dream that she should protect Caius).

Oh, in the distance they see a dragon flying south.

On the way back, they meet a woman on the road that seeks justice. Her father was murdered by the people of Littleton! Well the knights agree to help Grace, the blacksmith’s daughter. From her, they find out that Littleton came to be haunted by spirits, that a holy woman appeared who was able to banish them, but said the town was under a curse and had to get rid of all of its metal (she (along with some helpers) would take it to Canterbury to have the archbishop remove the curse). The blacksmith objected, but then spirits were seen above his home, so the townsfolk thought he was the source of the curse! So anyhow, the blacksmith was lynched, and the holy lady left with a wagon loaded with metal (iron, gold, silver, copper, etc.). Yeah, sounds like a scam, right?

So the party comes to Littleton, and Caius starts ordering people around (cause, y’know, he is prince here!) and tells them that they were likely fooled by an enchantress, and which way did she go? So they follow the path, find some abandoned metal (big non-valuable things, like farm implements, blacksmith’s forget, etc.) not too far out of town. They ride on and eventually catch up to six rogues and…the nun! A fight ensues.

Now I was going to do the usual “nun harasses party but gets away” trick, with swarms, fly, invisibility, etc. I didn’t count on Leanne’s wand of faerie fire. And the hedge mage Christina could then counter protection from arrows with magic weapon on party members’ arrows [this was a new player, so she was relying on other party members for guidance – maybe I should not have given her a hedge mage but she is set on becoming an enchantress eventually]. The short version: Toby slays his nemesis the nun! Caius knights Toby on the spot (so he can take a Knight level now!).

So much of the loot is recovered, and Caius orders the money returned to the village, but 2/3 of that to be given to Grace as compensation. But there is more money there than the village lost, so Caius has an extra 3 800 gp!

And in the distance, they see a dragon flying north. Oh, and Toby has a dream that someone with dark hair (no face seen) picked up the nun’s body, waves here hand, and both disappeared! (I spent a destiny point to bring back the nun. Can’t keep a good villain like that down, especially since Toby’s player said “I didn’t expect the fight with her to be so easy!”)

Ok, next they run into two little girls running from Dire Wolves. Toby and his horse nearly die saving the girls, and a knight in Black Armor appears, who says "why are you attacking my pets!". Sir Andrew challenges him, and they fight (I say that they charge at each other with lances, and just make initiative simultaneous). After the wolves are defeated, teh other knights ride up to the solo battle but don't interfere (because ganging up on a person is considered bad form). But Hamilton is able to use diplomacy to say "you have had enough passes to test each other's mettle. I suggest you both can retire from the field with honour." Sir Andrew agees, and the black knight (who may or may not have the Black Knight prestige class) also agrees (perhaps sensing that if Sir Andrew goes down, the others might ignore the "no ganging up" ettiquite). But Leanne did sneak in some healing on Sir Andrew via sleight of hand and a wand, so even Andrew didn't detect it (rolled a 1 on his spot check -- this guy is lucky. If he had noticed he would have had to refuse magical aid, and have had to deal with knowing that there is a magic using character in the party, which would freak out his character to say the least). Note that he would not use his healing shield in the combat, because it would have been an unfair advantage.


Ok, the Black Knight leaves, the girls are saved, the dire wolves are dead.

 

[Particle_Man]

No Christina or Caius (fairyland!). I thought this might be a problem, since Caius is going to Prince Ivo’s to get married, but what the hell, I made it the other players’ problems to explain why the groom was in fairyland and not there.

So, they saved the two girls from dire wolves and a possible Black Knight, and arrive at the parents’ house to find the parents (and dog, and teddy, and holy books, etc.) totally butchered, ripped apart, etc. So the party now has the smith’s daughter and two little girls to try to help. Fortunately, their uncle is the high priest of Baron Ivo’s land, and lives in Ivo’s castle.

At the gate they see a mismatched pair; a dwarf and a giant (actually, the “noble giant” (really an ogre, but hey) that they convinced to leave the battle to destroy King Anguish earlier in the campaign). The giant “Gotch”, decided that a decent salary, uniform, armor, weapons, respect, room and board beat the heck out of dirty animal skins and living in the wilderness. A surprise for the party, since Gotch knows about the “double team” by Prince Caius when Gotch was fighting Prince Hamilton. Since the other “Guard” is actually a dwarf Fool (jester type class) messing with Gotch, the party is in a bit of trouble, reputation-wise. But luckily the minstrel Leanne has an insanely good diplomacy roll to pull this off, and “spins” both Caius’s actual bravery, and his “important mission aiding an ally of King Arthur in Fairyland”).

Baron Ivo is a rough and tactless man who is vulgar with his wealth from the gold mine. His son Roderick is social, but sarcastic, knowing just what to say to twist the knife. The elder daughter will show up later, the daughters are not there yet.

The party suspects Roderick of being the Black Knight, but of course cannot prove anything, so don’t say anything but ask questions about hunting. He finds out about the party stopping the “metal” scam, and promises to give a full accounting of what the other five villages lost, so that the rest of the money Caius recovered can go to their rightful owners.

Due to a snafu (Hamilton asking for a special room for the “servant” Leanne), Roderick, and others, get the impression that Leanne is, shall we say, a woman of easy virtue. Later that night Roderick uses secret passages to get into her room and try to seduce her (at first he wears a ridiculous disguise, but he is a charming rogue). Leanne being an elf was not actually sleeping, and fended him off (claiming that Hamilton was in her heart, etc.). Leanne later uses those secret passages to explore and spy a bit.

Ok, on to the celebratory Joust that was going on (harvest celebration). Some players enter (or are entered – Leanne was a bit p.o.’s at Hamilton’s snafu). Toby enters the archery event and comes second to a woman who is the king’s eldest daughter. Brigit by name, she looks very competent (though she is getting on in years at 35 for marriage purposes). The meelee fight has Anton and Andrew against each other (and I used destiny points to make their attempted subdual attacks accidentally do some real damage). And Prince Hamilton vs. Andrew (Hamilton wins that one) and then Hamilton vs. Gotch (no one said life was fair – but my destiny points here do piddly damage vs. Hamilton. Grrrr.). Gotch wins the on foot fight (Roderick made sure that Gotch faced Hamilton, btw (no one said that Roderick was fair either)). The joust was what they were looking forward too. From the pc’s p.o.v.: Hamilton vs. Toby, Anton vs. Andrew, winner vs. winner, winner vs. Roderick, winner vs. “unknown knight”. A shady sort gave Anton, then Hamilton, a “special” jousting lance (to try to “get” Andrew but Andrew carried the day (lucky, lucky bastard! Didn’t get touched once by that lance!), until he was bested by Roderick (Andrew was carrying the favors of Ivo’s youngest daughter, the beautiful Anastasia – the brother then tossed the favor back)). Then Roderick faced an unknown challenger and was unhorsed! The unknown challenger wins and reveals herself as Brigit!

But the High Priest hasn’t appeared all day. It turns out he was murdered during the night! (Now what to do with those little girls, eh?). The priest was on record as asking Ivo to concentrate more on stopping the thieves that were getting organized around his land (the baron recognizes this problem, but also has problems in other areas such as the Black Knight, accidents in the mine, villagers losing their coins, a large dragon destroying a monastery to the south(!), etc.).

The party agrees to investigate this murder and do something about the thieves’ guild.

The party recovers a bit, and Brigit is investigated by Leanne (indirectly, asking others where she was, etc.,) and discovers the a) Brigit has an alibi and Brigit likes to try her hand at everything (she was shoeing horses on the day the Black Knight killed the parents of the little girls).

Brigit soon discovers she is being investigated and privately confronts Leanne, and finds out HER secret (she’s an elf by gum!). Then she agrees to keep the secret (and advises her not to drink wine delivered by Roderick).

The party (ok, Leanne) is later met by a contact who might have information on the thieves guild. Leanne tells the others, but they are not discreet. When they show up, they don’t see their contact and are attacked by 24 thieves (this is kind of cute since I set the pieces up on a 11 square by 11 square game called The Viking Game, and use the game pieces for the thieves. Ok, the thieves bar the doors so help cannot arrive (at least not quickly), and the fight ensues. Much later, the party has 2 members down (but not out), but the thieves are thinning out. But Toby used his haste ability twice, and rolled low on the d20 the second time (so I have the thing do something at the end of the second haste). The party disappears in a flash of light, along with one remaining thief!

 

[Particle_Man]

OK, from last time I had 2 players absent, Prince Caius and Lady Christina. So they are in fairyland. Since the other characters recently disappeared in a flash of light, I could pretty easily reintroduce the missing characters from fairyland. One of its many advantages. Now, Queen Titania had tea with Prince Caius, offering him a necklace of small stone horses which she said he would find useful, and also offering to return him to his friends if he would help rescue some of her dwarfs from a dragon (in a mountain laced with cold iron, so she could not simply rescue them herself). Prince Caius agrees. Christina’s player didn’t show up yet, but would be given a similar deal to learn more about hedge mage magic. Oh, while in fairyland, Caius had his pocket picked of the 3 800 gp leftover, after helping the smith’s daughter and her town, that he got from the nun.

Ok, the party starts this session in a gray realm, floating around in apparent nothingness and unable to move except by pushing off each other into each other. The last surviving thief is still with them, and is screaming in panic and accusing them of devil magic. Then suddenly Caius and Christina show up in a flash of golden light. Then some lights are visible in the distance, and turn out to be humanoid figures, some of them more transparent than others. They are friendly, and introduce themselves, and heal Prince Hamilton to consciousness. They look a lot like the braid-beard types that Toby dreamed about and that they fought (the cannibals with the paralyzing touch). They say they are the sundered ones, and that because of a very old dark ritual, they are stuck in this realm, which they names Lemba after their chief. The ritual, a result of Albion’s work with the dark book they now carry, has split the noble parts of their souls off into this realm, and left the ignoble parts in their old bodies. They have reason to believe, given the disappearance of four of their number, that the bodies have been reawakened (bad news) but that upon their destruction the souls can be reunited to then go on to wherever they go. The Sundered ones introduce the party to Albion, or at least the noble part of him. Albion is 40’ tall! The giant who used the book for dark rituals, it corrupted him almost entirely. Thus his noble part is almost transparent, and only a whisper of a voice can be heard.

Now as to getting out of Lemba. First Toby tries his device (just hitting buttons at random, so I just pick spells at random). Toby goes gaseous for a while! The party, after vowing to slay all the walking dead (they like making vows like that!), ask how to get out. They are given the ability to walk around in Lemba by the noble spirits. While immaterial souls cannot go through them, there are two gates, one to “Elysium” and one to “Hades”. The elf character realizes that changes have been made, and these realms are under new management as “Heaven” and “Hell”. Surprisingly, the party tries for “Heaven”. (I thought they would try for Toby’s device again). They go through a gate of white cloud, and hear singing choruses, but then are falling, falling, past angels who wonder who these “impure ones” are, and fall into the fiery pit of Hell! (they start floating near the end) So they are on a red rock plain, near a river that, though apparently of water, has flames dancing on top of it. And in the distance there are damned souls being tortured (I don’t go into gory details, just saying that the characters never imagined tortures like this and hope they forget what they are seeing), and a giant frog biped, and in another direction some insectoid creatures. The giant frog biped (spot check nat. 20) notices them and comes after them. About now, Caius’s necklace gets heavier and Caius takes it off and soon is leading 7 horses (they are the party’s original horses (hey, I’m a softie)). They then ride upstream away from the big frog guy (a reworked Red Slaadi, (basically no spawning, since I have another way of creating demons, and no alignment, so it is easy to make a demon-type; the insects were reworked formians, but were never met). Then they run into hell hounds, fight them while Leanne goes back for the thief running from the frog demon (no horse for him!), and they all ride again from the frog demon. They go through the (very wide) mouth of the river coming out of a cliff and find themselves in white clouds again (and falling again) this time to earth, but Toby hits his device before they go splat on the ground and they end up “dismissed” to one of the character’s homes – Prince Hamilton. But this is the realm from which he was banished!

So of course, his dad’s knights ride up and there is nearly an attempt to kill Hamilton then and there, but they keep talking and I have a knight say “I know that you must be upset over what happened to your siblings, but I must obey my king’s orders.” And then they find out that all of Hamilton’s siblings are dead from various accidents and illnesses (except the eldest, which is missing). Caius speaks up and says that he (as son of the king of all Ireland, which includes this little kingdom) wishes to speak to the king about commuting the sentence, since Hamilton is the sole heir. So after agreeing to have Hamilton disarmed, they proceed to the castle, with H. under guard.

Ok, the party is fairly wounded, and this is where things get a little weird. Sir Anton wishes to heal near a lake (thinking there will be another lady of the lake) rather than in the chapel, since he is old faith, and the roll showed a ley line was nearby, so Leanne and Christina go as well. “Dammit, they split up the party!” So at the lake Sir Anton tries to summon the lady of the lake. But the problem is, he gets a Sea Hag! He loses a lot of strength, and it takes the three of them to put the hag down (Christina did more damage than Sir Anton! Go morningstar!). Then they go back to town, with a drained man. He is healed slightly before they go courtesy of Leanne the Minstrel (who has a few druid spells now as a higher level Minstral).

Meanwhile, the queen and ladies in waiting greet prince Caius and simply ignore Hamilton. Alas, the king is too ill to see anyone right now, but perhaps in the morning he would be better? She offers them a small feast (alas, they did not know they were coming!) and the services of the chapel (so the group that stayed is healed up).

Right, nighttime. Hamilton is kept in a guest quarters under guard. The party wisely decides to set watches to help guard Hamilton (Toby, then Anton, then Andrew). The rest of the party (Leanne, Christina, Caius) wants to skulk about and try to see the king. Ok, Toby on watch gets a servant with Hamilton’s favourite childhood dessert. Hamilton does not eat it, and Toby keeps a sample to check for poison later (it wasn’t; hey sometimes a cigar is just a cigar). Second watch, Anton (still weakened, but ready, is called away by “Christina” who says that Caius is keeping watch in secret, but that she found out something that Anton needs to see. Anton follows, and “Christina” leads him to 2 other ladies in waiting, and yeah, he is strength drained. I also had an enchantress type change his memories so that he thinks that he had an argument with Hamilton about faith, and felt very dizzy, and that is why he left without alerting the next watch. He feels guilty later, but technically does not lose nobility since he didn’t “really” leave for such a petty reason.

Ok, the Queen comes to Hamilton’s prison room, dismisses the guards, visits, reveals herself as an Annis, kills Hamilton. Hamilton spends 3 fate points so I will bring him back (sort of).

Back to the skulking party, who use invisibility and distractions (a la Christina and Leanne, respectively) to get two people into the king’s chamber. They find a weakened king (similar to the nun poisoning the servant in Lord Bertrand’s castle way earlier) and some letters that on a close skim, are from a mysterious “M” and saying things like “well done, but I need you for another mission”. Then a secret door opens, the Queen enters, with a bloody sack, and starts gloating over the king. The invisible two attack…and miss. Caius yells for Christina to run and get help, and tries to hold off the “Queen”. Guards rush up, the Queen pleas that Caius is trying to kill her husband (the bloody sack discreetly on the floor by the bed, so not immediately an object of concern). Caius then bluffs “too much evidence is out; you will never fool them; give up” to the Queen and it works, so the Annis uses fog cloud. Then the Minstral Leanne uses that faerie fire wand blindly, which lights up both Annis and Caius. Annis brings Caius to –6 and leaves. Caius spends a fate point to seem dead and stabilize and fall on the bloody sack. Ok, the short version. The annis, enchantress and “ladies in waiting” (greenhags) escape (first via secret passage, then via back door of castle) , killing 10 guards at the rear. Titania(Go 3 fate points!) then whispers from the secret corridor to Leanne (bring me the sack!) and Leanne agrees (but only Leanne seems to see or hear her). Out of view of the others, Titania places the flesh of Hamilton (in the sack!) around a gold statuette (worth 3 800gp, in fact! Remember Caius being pickpocketed?) and Hamilton is back!…as a dwarf (which is fey in my world, and gets bonus to dex not con). Leanne quickly explains things to Hamilton, and then with a heck of a diplomacy check, intro’s Hamilton as a “man restored by the grace of god” to his former self, but lessened because the hag already ate some parts (the hags’ covers are blown by this point). Hamilton changes his “fate” from “Expose his mother” to “preserve harmony between new and old faiths” (since he is likely the first ever Christian Fey). End session!

 

[Particle_Man]

Oh, btw the player of the Minstrel Leanne is having trouble getting her nobility high enough to be lady of the lake. So we talked, and I think he will keep her as a minstrel, but eventually she will become a sort of secret agent, and even spymaster, for Queen Titania. You don't need high nobility for that. [I am thinking of setting up a sort of "cold war" behind the scenes between some Christian and Old Faith/Fey elements, but so far it is just in the planning phases].

In general, it is hard for spellcasters and archers to keep their nobility high (the player of Toby the Yeoman noticed this too!). Easier for knights, but that is the point of a King Arthur campaign.

So with nobility, you can either "shoot for as high as possible", go for a "steady state" (if you do bad deeds, then do good deeds to make up for it), or just let it sink to the minimum (the "who cares?' approach). Nobility can't go lower than 1 (except for demons, undead, etc.), and not every prestige class/item/etc., requires high nobility. We'll see how this pans out in the future.

I am also thinking of having that NPC thief become a convert to Christianity/nobility, etc. Perhaps even a recurring character that will aid the heroes! Nothing like being dumped into Hell and chased by a giant red frog demon to make one see the light!

 

[Particle_Man]

btw, as my memory improves I will occasionally edit the above stuff. Just so you know.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Interesting campaign so far. I've enjoyed reading it and now I've started to think of what I could steal for my pseudo-Arthurian D&D game.

 

[Particle_Man]

I should add, that the players tend to use intimidate, bluff, diplomacy, etc. to end combats. It happened when the Black Knight was doing a solo (mutual simultaneous initiative lance charges -- nasty stuff) on Sir Andrew during the Dire Wolf thing (although my abysmal rolling did not leave the Black Knight as much of a challenge, he could have been -- And as an aside, I am notorious for bad luck on dice rolls. But the player of Sir Andrew is especially hard for me to hit with major villains. Maybe there is more to this nobility than I thought ). The Black Knight agreed to leave after a "joust" of 4 passes. It happens often with the last few remaining "mooks". "Surrender!" [roll] [ludicrously high number] "ok! don't kill us!"

The arthurian game actually favours this. There are effects for surrendering on nobility, and it also allows villains to live to fight another day (or not). And certain classes (like Nobles) get bonuses to Intimidate. That was part of why I put in a magic item that gave bonuses to that. It seemed to be that guy's schtick, and he was so good at it already that I didn't see the harm.

Oh, a funny line after that guy became a dwarf. Him: "But my leadership score will go down!" Me: "Well, its harder to look up to a dwarf". There are other funny lines, but that was the most recent. Well, that and "The 3 800 gp Man" if anyone gets that reference.

Another game mechanics point. Many systems have houseruled in fumble tables or fumble rolls. I specifically exclude this from the King Arthur game, since a) It just doesn't seem heroic to fall on your rear end from an overbalanced swing, and b) I roll so many natural 1's your wouldn't believe it.

A house rule I do employ: I tend to think that spellcasters a too weak, so I "sorcerize" all spell-casters. That is, Hedge Mages, Druids, Priests and Hermits can cast any spell of the appropriate level, spontaneously (I think that spellcasters are weak, so I gave them versatility. As if they have "spells known: all on their class spell list, of a level that they have access to". (And depending on where they are, they might be able to try higher level spells, since they can cast as higher level characters. It is an intriguing spell point system that makes spells "cheaper" to cast as you gain spellcaster levels. I also give them almost all metamagic feats for free (except innate spell)). We will see if this was a mistake later, I guess.