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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hedrin" data-source="post: 2765797" data-attributes="member: 31867">Fantasy Hero ExperiencesJubilee, let me tell you a little story about a Fantasy Hero campaign we called the Dreadnaughts, lead by a GM I won't name. Perhaps we'll call him Mr. YourHusband.I played Shaper Irongrip, leader of the mercenary company the Dreadnaughts. Not long before the start of the campaign, the former leader Sol Covenant attempted to lead them on a personal quest. This resulted in almost half the company being killed. Shaper took over leadership in the field after he saw everyone else fall, and was never allowed to relinquish it. He had never had the ambition to lead, but I played him as extremely honorable. In his back story, he joined the Dreadnaughts after his father hired them, then got out of paying them on a technicality in the contract. Shaper was appalled at the actions of his father and ran away from the dwarves to offer his services as a mage to the Dreadnaughts to try and repay some of the debt he felt his family still owed. The company's first real contract under Shaper was the start of the campaign. We were hired to assist Master Sindar to make a magical rune sword, a legendary work, and the culmination of a lifetime of sword making. Long story short, ancient evil powers returned to the land (our fault) bringing with them an army of foul misshapen monsters that they used to attack the land. At the time we were in a holding pattern at a key point in the defense of the east while our patron bartered for something or other to help complete his sword. Our company had a mistrust of the Church of War, the entity that was charged with defending the land, also the people who oversaw the swearing of contracts for mercenary companies. Sindar loaned us to the Church to help defend this walled city while he was there. If this city fell, the east of the continent was open to being plundered. The church was adamant about stopping them at this point. When we went to them to offer our services, we told them that they could count on us until Sindar called us back. They very suavely offered us to let us out of our contract and an easy position in the defenses if we only signed onto the Coalition that they had been creating. Essentially almost every mercenary company in the land was now under the banner of this Coalition. Shaper refused, partially because we had knowledge that this sword was essential to our survival, and also that he didn't find it honorable to break his contract. The Church placed us at the front center right position in the defenses while our caravan of support people, cooks, families, etc, were billeted in relative safety behind the wall. Our placement in the defenses almost certainly guaranteed us to get killed before anyone else. When we got there, a number of us who had acquired ancient knowledges and skills could see where the defense plans of the Church could be bettered. Ordering our own part of the defenses to be build with the improved earthworks we managed to convince the field commander (one of the few Church of War people we got on with!) that our plans were better. We played out this siege over multiple weeks of gaming. We survived a number of brutal waves, managed to lead a commando team to destroy a vital enemy siege machine, and it was actually looking as if we might be successful at holding them back. We could see a final massive assault coming across the barren plains between the armies. They would reach us within minutes. As our group prepared to meet the charge, Sindar's underling appeared at Shaper's elbow telling him that their time here was over and that we had to pull out and meet Sindar to the north of the city. I remember the chill that went down my spine at that moment. I only had moments to make my decision. If we were going to pull out with the least loss of life to my forces, we had to get away before the assault hit, but if we left now, our main center section of the wall would be unmanned during the assault, allowing the enemy to be able to decimate the earthworks from within. We had finally started to win the respect of some the of the Church and other mercenary companies, a goal that he had harbored for a while. Our name would be run through the mud for generations if we fled, but Shaper's personal sense of honor had to go with the contract, regardless of what that would do to the Dreadnaught name. He gave the command to bug out and sent runners to the earthworks north and south of their position letting them know that they were leaving the field. He then sent a runner to the command post to let them know what had happened and told the Church that they should have coordinated better with Sindar and reminded them that the Dreadnaught participation at the defenses was at Sindar's sufferance. We pulled out to the North, actually taking fire from our former allies' magical sun cannon. He had hoped that this contract with Sindar would bring glory to the name Dreadnaughts, instead it brought infamy. He knew he was sacrificing the three runners to fate, either death at the hands of the enemy or torture and imprisonment at the hands of the Church. Ditto with our support crew and families of Dreadnaughts (about a hundred people) still billeted behind the lines. I was personally depressed for weeks, and I actually found myself angry at Mr YourHusband for making me make that decision, but things got better. Nothing in his games are done without purpose, but you have to suffer through the bad to get to the good.</blockquote>

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