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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9236423" data-attributes="member: 42582">After a 9-week hiatus (punctuated by <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/played-burning-wheel-today.701843/" target="_blank">a couple of Burning Wheel sessions</a>), we played Torchbearer 2e again today.All four players were present. The three players from our last session - ie the players of Golin, Fea-bella and Telemere - were between them able to give a half-adequate prologue. I let them dice for the condition recovery this entitled one of them too, and Telemere won, recovering Exhausted.Korvin's player then had to tell us what had happened to Korvin since he suddenly disappeared from the Tower of Stars (<a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/torchbearer-2e-actual-play-of-this-awesome-system.691233/post-9138753" target="_blank">two sessions ago</a>); he explained that some magic in the Tower has bedazzled him, and he had wandered in that daze, getting lost in the swamps, until he had been found in the Troll Fens, and taken prisoner, by bandits from the Moathouse. In my mind is some sort of involvement of his enemy, the bandit lord Nob H.Korvin was able to recover Hungry and Thirsty.Despite these two recoveries, the PCs were not in a particularly good way: Golin and Fea-bella were both Exhausted, Injured and Sick; and Telemere and Korvin were both Injured. There was thus a desire to generate camp checks; this required some activity in the Adventure Phase. Before starting the action, the players set goals for their PCs: Fea-bella to escape the dungeon and Moathouse; Golin to make a green slime (= Creeping Ooze) grenade; Korvin to learn more about the bandits' goals here; and Telemere to repay the bandits.Telemere used Scout (helped by Korvin and Golin, and Fea-bella's Scholar) to try and find any markings on the walls of the dungeon room they were locked in. The test failed, and I decided that he did find something - as well as the usual marking of days, with the final scratchings getting more and more feeble (suggesting an unhappy death), there was a sound, probably a Bugbear word, inscribed in Elvish letters. But the  time and effort left all the PCs Hungry and Thirsty again.The idea of finding water in their dungeon room therefore became appealing. My recollection of the following sequence of tests is a bit hazy, but I think that this test was failed, and Fea-bella was therefore Angry at her situation even though she found water (the helping PCs did not become hungry and thirsty again). They then wanted to light a candle so that they could "camp "and make recovery tests; but as they had no tinderbox, I called for a Survivalist test against Ob 1, although not on the grind. My recollection is that this test was failed, and the ensuing twist was the Gnolls opening the door to fetch the PCs to meet with the New Master.The players wanted their PCs to be able to drink before this next encounter, but I said this would require distracting the Gnolls. So Golin's player asked if there was a clay pot in the Gnoll's room. I answered that there was, a rather foul (and fouled) one, and he made a dash to grab it (so that he could use it for his planned grenade). This was the distraction - but required Manipulator vs half the Gnoll's Nature (they were neither Ambushing nor Devouring nor Worshipping), to slip past them and then intimidate them once the pot was grabbed. With some augmentation from the Acquisitive trait, and some help from friends, this was a success: Golin grabbed his pot, and the others were able to take a sip of water during the kerfuffle (and, generously, I let Golin take a drink as he left the room last, carrying his pot).The PCs were then taken to room 11 on the dungeon map (room 28 on the T1-T4 version of the map, where Lareth was waiting to meet them, with four soldiers guarding him. I described the gold chain on the sergeant soldier, and the bejewelled gold chain worn by Lareth, and the PCs were suitably impressed/longing for loot.Fea-bella introduced the PCs, and then elaborated on her own introduction, as <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/torchbearer-2e-actual-play-of-this-awesome-system.691233/post-9124469" target="_blank">being Lareth's half-sister</a>. Lareth was hesitant to accept this proposition, and so we went into a Convince conflict. Normally this requires equal Precedence, and Lareth, being a priest, is Precedence 3 while the adventurer PCs are Precedence 0, but I decided that in these circumstances Lareth had already deigned to debate the matter with them.The PCs' goal was to persuade Lareth that Fea-bella is, indeed, his sister, and hence that he should offer them hospitality; Lareth wanted to persuade them to assist him in his cult's mission.At the start of this conflict Golin decided to sweat out his fever; he recovered from Sick and his Manipulator skill dropped a rank. The PCs won the conflict, with a strong roll (with multiple sixes opened up with Fate) on the second volley, which meant I didn't get to play Lareth's third volley Feint against Fea-bella's Defend! The players nevertheless owed a significant compromise: Lareth accepted the PCs' claim about his relationship to Fea-bella, but the PCs agreed that they would go to Nulb to persuade the pirates there - who raid the river vessels of the Theocracy of the Pale - to tithe to Lareth's cult. Lareth explained the nature of his "order" (as he called it), which involved me reading bits of the background info from T1 but dropping descriptors like "followers of the worst sort" and "depredations", with Lareth instead explaining how the order had attracted the bold and the oppressed, who wanted to free the world from the domination of the Aesir and Vanir, but had been opposed by the religious authorities of the Pale, who had eventually sacked the Temple. (When asked about timelines, he said this was all 40 to 50 years ago, perhaps by coincidence around the time that Golin was born before growing up an orphan in the Forgotten Temple Complex.)This convince conflict was the fourth turn of the grind, so the PCs were again Hungry and Thirsty. But before Lareth would feed them and let them rest a bit (= camp), he had more to say to them. First he asked Telemere about his brother (and enemy) Kalamere. Telemere politely answered his questions, and established that Lareth and Kalamere are friends, but was refraining from voicing his own true feelings of hatred toward his brother. But Lareth goaded him until he couldn't hold back (failed Manipulator vs Manipulator), making Telemere Angry.Lareth then turned his attention to Fea-bella. The conversation established that Lareth's father was the wizard Pallando, and his mother (Fella)  was an exile from Elfhome. She was exiled because of her role in <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/torchbearer-2e-actual-play-of-this-awesome-system.691233/post-8817762" target="_blank">the theft of the Dreamhouse post by Celedhring</a>, the evil Elf <a href="https://www.enworld.org/threads/torchbearer-2e-actual-play-of-this-awesome-system.691233/post-8920589" target="_blank">who is now a barrow-wight beneath what was Megloss's house</a>. Lareth explained that Celedhring was Fea-bella's brother (and hence his and Fea-bella's uncle), and that Fella was exiled with him much as, in the ancient times, Galadriel was exiled with her cousin Feanor. "And who is your father?" asked Lareth of Fea-bella.This caused much discussion among the players - was Lareth implying that Fea-bella was the child of an incestuous relationship between Fella and Celedhring? There was also discussion about where Fea-bella did her dreaming, before she woke, Dream-haunted, and ran off bearing a half-moon glaive. Was this not in the Elf-home Dreamhouse, but rather in Pallando's house?I suggested that Fea-bella might try a Nature (Remembering ) test, but her player didn't want to - too much grind, and little chance of success. So I resorted to my NPC, and called for another Manipulator vs Manipulator due to Lareth's goading. This time Golin helped Lareth! The test was failed, and so (as a twist) Fea-bella could not help but cast her mind back . . . As her player put it, Fea-bella wanted to remember only happy times of her childhood, with the Elven forest and rainbows and unicorns, and I set this at (I think, from memory) Ob 2. Telemere helped with his own Remembering Nature, and Korvin used Oratory to remind Fea-bella of tales of her childhood she had told her companions. Golin also aided Fea-bella this time, with Dreams-wise.This test was a success, and so Fea-bella was spared any horrible memories (and the truth about her father remains unknown at this point).This was not three turns on the grind, and so the players wanted to enter their camp, and thus I had Lareth leave bring them some plain food but fine wine, return their gear taken by the Gnolls, and  then leave them alone.The camp event roll was a net 11 (12, -2 for danger - given the presence of frustrated Gnolls deprived of their loot, as well as Bugbears - but +1 from Golin). This was a safe camp, granting +1D to recover from Exhausted and Afraid.In the course of their escapades the players had accumulated five camp checks, and there was quite a bit of discussion about the tactics of expending them. Fea-bella recovered from Angry. Then Telemere did the same. Then Fea-bella recovered from Exhausted. She then sweated out her fever, recovering from Sickness - perhaps a little cruelly, I dropped her Lore Master from 5 to 4, given that she had been repressing her memories in response to Lareth's goading. She then used her Instinct to try and make an Alchemical brew that would allow Golin to recover from Exhaustion, but this failed - it turned out that, in going through her stuff, the Gnolls had wrecked her Alchemy tools, so she will need new ones.Golin then used a check to recovery from Exhausted, and Fea-bella used the last check to Heal Korvin's Injury. So the upshot was that Korvin had no conditions, and the others were only Injured. Golin then used his instinct to try and scrounge up some supplies, but his Scavenging test failed, and he encountered the Creeping Ooze. This ended the camp phase, as the Ooze tried to initiate a Trap/Kill conflict. But Golin succeeded at his check to avoid this, and so the Ooze crept off. Golin wanted to chop some of it off to put into his pot to make his Green Slime Grenade, and he succeeded on Fighter vs Creeping Nature (and I gave him +1D given that the Ooze is really not that fast).His initial scream at the encounter with the Ooze had attracted his friends. They now decided to go up from the dungeon level to try and find food upstairs (ie another attempt at Scavenging, in the Adventure Phase, this time from Telemere). But this failed too, and as they were about to head upstairs the Gnolls got the drop on them, initiating a Capture conflict, not actually wanting to take them prisoner again, but wanting their loot back!The Gnolls won this conflict in two volleys, but the PCs did earn a compromise, and we agreed that the Gnolls would be happy with their cash and jewel loot, plus Golin's (damaged) plate armour, which he was not wearing (on account of its being damaged). But the PCs could keep their mundane stuff. Also, Telemere gritted his teeth at the outset of the conflict, which cost him a point of Nature, but left only Golin and Fea-bella carrying Injuries.The PCs then left the Moathouse, ready to head to Nulb. But first wanted water, and so on the fourth turn of the Grind made a Survivalist test to find potable water in the river that flows past the Moathouse and on to Nulb. This was a success, and so they were able to drink (relieving Hungry and Thirsty as it was accrued) and filling their four waterskins.We ended the action there. All the PCs had acted on their Belief (and so got Fate) and had achieved their Goal (and so got Persona; the only unclear one here was Telemere, but his player explained that now that the PCs and Lareth were allies, he had repaid the bandits by agreeing to go and extract tithes from the pirates). Korvin got Fate for his Instinct (to never tell the truth), and both Golin and Fea-bella got Persona for upholding their Creeds (both about Elves, although expressing different perspectives - Golin thinks they need grounding in reality, while Fea-bella thinks they need help in these dark times). Fea-bella got the workhorse Persona, and Telemere the MVP as he made the big rolls in both conflicts (against Lareth and against the Gnolls).The PCs are now heading to Nulb, but the players want some tests on the way there, to get some more camp checks so they can try and make recovery tests at the start of Town Phase, and so that they can spend enough Fate and Persona to make 3rd level (for Korvin and Telemere) and 5th level (for Golin and Fea-bella).</blockquote>

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