Yes, it took TWO MONTHS for us to get our act together and get this ball going. In the meantime, we had a side trek that turned into three sessions of old-skool dungeon crawling, including one character death. I should apply for the job of election scheduling for the Austrian government.
After-action report follows.
First, some background.
The side trek involved tracking down Garth, the angsty battlemage whom I believe I've mentioned before. Garth had sworn an oath of loyalty to an evil bloodmage whom the party killed, without knowing his true nature. Now that his master was dead, he himself was an outlaw, and he'd decided to redeem himself by retrieving an artifact from a dungeon, or die trying.
The party helped him retrieve this artifact, then hauled his ass before Lord British for judgement. In the hearing, he said that he was just following orders and didn't mean to commit crimes like mass murder and torture, but if the judgement was that he was to be executed, then so be it. Half the party wanted to let him live, the other half was for killing or at least locking him up forever. In the end, he was allowed to go free based on the testimony of the party ex-assassin, who had herself been bad but turned good. However, he got stripped of his spells via feeblemind (which I've house ruled to not affect your stats). So now instead of being an angsty battlemage, he's essentially an angsty warrior. Still, he's alive and free, which is more than he'd hoped for.
Running conversations where 3 NPCs talk to each other without any player input is a bit awkward, I find.
Then came the matter of what to do with Varimer, the assassin, herself. She'd pretty much outed herself as a member of an evil organisation to save Garth. Would she end up getting the chop, or sent to jail? One of the PCs came up with the brilliant idea of getting her married to Darius the knight as a means of keeping her out of trouble (they'd been having a low-key romance for months). Well, it would have been brilliant if Darius hadn't got cold feet at the idea of commitment. She was allowed to go free anyway, partly because I didn't really want her to disappear at a very interesting time.
So, once all that was out of the way, we could finally get down to having this ball. During the ball:
- They noticed Garth getting friendly with Varimer, and wouldn't you do the same if you were in his situation?
- Lord Aldis Magnus, the dashing bachelor knight who was also flamingly gay, kept flirting with Geoff's rager. So did a couple of girls who were clearly drunk as skunks. The rager had no idea how to handle the situation, which of course made it all the funnier.
- Another of the lords tried to marry his daughter off to Darius, the only noble-born PC in the group. To make things more interesting, the girl was also the love of another knight, in fact the very knight who'd inducted Darius into his order. How's that for melodrama?
- Thea, the witch hunter wife of Chris's PC, turned up unannounced bearing some secret bloodmage scrolls they'd found earlier and turned over to the witch hunters. As you will know, this sort of thing can only spell trouble.
- Varimer's mentor Malachias also turned up unannounced. He was an old, white-haired, retired assassin type with a flute and a katana (well, really a bastard sword but we all knew it was a katana). Chris's first words were "I run", especially when I started playing the music from Kill Bill.
- Malachias was there as a friend of Wulf, the foremost weaponsmith in Britannia and a teacher of another of the PCs. So not only did I have Bill, I had Hattori Hanzo too. I made him up BEFORE seeing Kill Bill, I swear.
After a while, things came to a head when the knight whose girl was to be married to Darius, started yelling and abusing him. They managed to calm things down (I'm still not sure how) and someone suggested to Darius that he should reveal his true feelings for Varimer, as a way of putting all this marriage talk at an end. Of course, he might want to talk to her in private first, before making it public. So he did, and the two of them went off to his room.
It played out like this.
Darius: "Varimer, I just want to tell you something..."
Me: (leaves room) "Keep talking. Varimer says, what did you want to tell me?"
Darius: "I wanted to say that I have strong feelings for you..."
Me: (returns with battlemat) "Varimer says, you do?"
Darius: (getting worried) "er... yes! And, er, it's something I've always wanted to tell you."
Me: (getting counters out) "Well, there's also something I've always wanted to tell you."
Darius: (starting to panic) "What's that?"
Me: "YOU CAN BURN IN HELL, YOU SONOFABITCH!!!!" (assassin hidden by disguise self makes super sneak attack, doing 65 points of damage)
Yes, it was one of their old enemies, another assassin who'd survived their attack on the guild months ago, in fact a woman whom they'd thought was a captive and released themselves. Freya and her buddy had been brought out of retirement by the bloodmages for one last mission, to get revenge on the party.
I'd even said to Chris that his wife Thea, who has detect illusions as a special ability, noticed that "Varimer" had an illusion spell going. He said it was okay, because she was an assassin who was using one of her tricks to blend in. I don't know how I managed to keep a straight face.
Just then, the real Varimer turned up to ask the other PCs where Darius had gone. There was mass confusion, and she shadow jumped up to the room, just in time to see the sword go in and the false Varimer's disguise blink out. Her action in the first round was to bull rush Mr Hapless Knight out of full attack range, since another round of sneak attacks would have reduced him to goo. Then Freya's buddy, another battlemage, showed up as well to add to the fun.
At this time, a fireball went off in the courtyard, blasting assorted guests and soldiers to smithereens and heralding the arrival of the rest of the bloodmage assault force. This consisted of Mariah, an ex-PC who went bad, another bloodmage who'd been tormenting the party for months, and several barbazu foot soldiers.
They managed to win without taking any more casualties, due to the timely intervention of Bill/Malachias and also because Thea kept healing people each round. Freya, the disguised assassin, was about to skewer one of the PCs when Mal showed up and whacked her in turn. Mal got killed by Freya's buddy; his final words to Darius (his death scene got extended for dramatic purposes) were to take care of Varimer. Outside, the other PCs killed Mariah, and the other battlemage got taken to 3 hp before dim dooring out (again). Remarkably, none of the named NPCs got splatted, although lots of soldiers and other ordinary people bought it.
I haven't tied up all the loose ends, but the final thing to happen was that Varimer turned up in Darius's room that night, and the two of them... made beautiful music together, as they say.
It was grand.
After-action report follows.
First, some background.
The side trek involved tracking down Garth, the angsty battlemage whom I believe I've mentioned before. Garth had sworn an oath of loyalty to an evil bloodmage whom the party killed, without knowing his true nature. Now that his master was dead, he himself was an outlaw, and he'd decided to redeem himself by retrieving an artifact from a dungeon, or die trying.
The party helped him retrieve this artifact, then hauled his ass before Lord British for judgement. In the hearing, he said that he was just following orders and didn't mean to commit crimes like mass murder and torture, but if the judgement was that he was to be executed, then so be it. Half the party wanted to let him live, the other half was for killing or at least locking him up forever. In the end, he was allowed to go free based on the testimony of the party ex-assassin, who had herself been bad but turned good. However, he got stripped of his spells via feeblemind (which I've house ruled to not affect your stats). So now instead of being an angsty battlemage, he's essentially an angsty warrior. Still, he's alive and free, which is more than he'd hoped for.
Running conversations where 3 NPCs talk to each other without any player input is a bit awkward, I find.
Then came the matter of what to do with Varimer, the assassin, herself. She'd pretty much outed herself as a member of an evil organisation to save Garth. Would she end up getting the chop, or sent to jail? One of the PCs came up with the brilliant idea of getting her married to Darius the knight as a means of keeping her out of trouble (they'd been having a low-key romance for months). Well, it would have been brilliant if Darius hadn't got cold feet at the idea of commitment. She was allowed to go free anyway, partly because I didn't really want her to disappear at a very interesting time.
So, once all that was out of the way, we could finally get down to having this ball. During the ball:
- They noticed Garth getting friendly with Varimer, and wouldn't you do the same if you were in his situation?
- Lord Aldis Magnus, the dashing bachelor knight who was also flamingly gay, kept flirting with Geoff's rager. So did a couple of girls who were clearly drunk as skunks. The rager had no idea how to handle the situation, which of course made it all the funnier.
- Another of the lords tried to marry his daughter off to Darius, the only noble-born PC in the group. To make things more interesting, the girl was also the love of another knight, in fact the very knight who'd inducted Darius into his order. How's that for melodrama?
- Thea, the witch hunter wife of Chris's PC, turned up unannounced bearing some secret bloodmage scrolls they'd found earlier and turned over to the witch hunters. As you will know, this sort of thing can only spell trouble.
- Varimer's mentor Malachias also turned up unannounced. He was an old, white-haired, retired assassin type with a flute and a katana (well, really a bastard sword but we all knew it was a katana). Chris's first words were "I run", especially when I started playing the music from Kill Bill.
- Malachias was there as a friend of Wulf, the foremost weaponsmith in Britannia and a teacher of another of the PCs. So not only did I have Bill, I had Hattori Hanzo too. I made him up BEFORE seeing Kill Bill, I swear.
After a while, things came to a head when the knight whose girl was to be married to Darius, started yelling and abusing him. They managed to calm things down (I'm still not sure how) and someone suggested to Darius that he should reveal his true feelings for Varimer, as a way of putting all this marriage talk at an end. Of course, he might want to talk to her in private first, before making it public. So he did, and the two of them went off to his room.
It played out like this.
Darius: "Varimer, I just want to tell you something..."
Me: (leaves room) "Keep talking. Varimer says, what did you want to tell me?"
Darius: "I wanted to say that I have strong feelings for you..."
Me: (returns with battlemat) "Varimer says, you do?"
Darius: (getting worried) "er... yes! And, er, it's something I've always wanted to tell you."
Me: (getting counters out) "Well, there's also something I've always wanted to tell you."
Darius: (starting to panic) "What's that?"
Me: "YOU CAN BURN IN HELL, YOU SONOFABITCH!!!!" (assassin hidden by disguise self makes super sneak attack, doing 65 points of damage)
Yes, it was one of their old enemies, another assassin who'd survived their attack on the guild months ago, in fact a woman whom they'd thought was a captive and released themselves. Freya and her buddy had been brought out of retirement by the bloodmages for one last mission, to get revenge on the party.
I'd even said to Chris that his wife Thea, who has detect illusions as a special ability, noticed that "Varimer" had an illusion spell going. He said it was okay, because she was an assassin who was using one of her tricks to blend in. I don't know how I managed to keep a straight face.
Just then, the real Varimer turned up to ask the other PCs where Darius had gone. There was mass confusion, and she shadow jumped up to the room, just in time to see the sword go in and the false Varimer's disguise blink out. Her action in the first round was to bull rush Mr Hapless Knight out of full attack range, since another round of sneak attacks would have reduced him to goo. Then Freya's buddy, another battlemage, showed up as well to add to the fun.
At this time, a fireball went off in the courtyard, blasting assorted guests and soldiers to smithereens and heralding the arrival of the rest of the bloodmage assault force. This consisted of Mariah, an ex-PC who went bad, another bloodmage who'd been tormenting the party for months, and several barbazu foot soldiers.
They managed to win without taking any more casualties, due to the timely intervention of Bill/Malachias and also because Thea kept healing people each round. Freya, the disguised assassin, was about to skewer one of the PCs when Mal showed up and whacked her in turn. Mal got killed by Freya's buddy; his final words to Darius (his death scene got extended for dramatic purposes) were to take care of Varimer. Outside, the other PCs killed Mariah, and the other battlemage got taken to 3 hp before dim dooring out (again). Remarkably, none of the named NPCs got splatted, although lots of soldiers and other ordinary people bought it.
I haven't tied up all the loose ends, but the final thing to happen was that Varimer turned up in Darius's room that night, and the two of them... made beautiful music together, as they say.
It was grand.
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