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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9492640" data-attributes="member: 42582">We played a session today, with two players and so two PCs: the Elven Ranger Telemere, and the Elven Dreamwalker Fea-bella.We started with a prologue from Fea-bella's player, recounting the events of the previous session. It culminated with a description of the PC's current situation: spotted by a bandit scout while trying to cross the entry-way in the Moathouse, they were about to flee into the dungeon. Telemere was Angry, Exhausted and Injured; after the prologue, Fea-bella was Exhausted and Injured. And Golin - given that he wasn't here anymore - seemed to have headed off in some other direction!Telemere set a goal: that he would locate the prisoners in the Moathouse dungeon. Fea-bella went for a broader re-set: a belief that only the rich get anywhere in this world - so I must become rich!; an instinct to always scavenge for loot; and a goal to persuade Lareth to lend her his crown.My notes for the Moathouse listed, as a potential twist, 1d3 bandits. I rolled a die and determined that there were two bandits trying to chase down the PCs before they could escape into the dungeon. We then resolved the Flee conflict. Part way through, Fea-bella was knocked out at the same time as one of the bandits, and I narrated this as the bandit having blocked her escape, but having to stay put to do so. The PCs went on to win, but owed a half-compromise. I pushed fairly hard on this, that what made sense was that Telemere escaped but Fea-bella didn't. The players accepted this.The tricky bit was that Fea-bella had the lantern, and Telemere had no light source of his own. The flee conflict was also the fourth turn on the grind, and while Fea-bella was able to take a sip of water as the bandits worked out what to do next, Telemere was stuck in the dark, Hungry and Thirsty, and was hesitant to spend his Survivalist supplies jury-rigging a torch. He used his tinderbox to create enough light to look around (successful Survivalist vs Ob 1), and unfortunately for him this alerted the 7 troll rats in the room to his presence.There's not a lot a character can do in the dark. Telemere decided that he had to go back; I determined - with the players' agreement - that a "lead" rat would make the test against him to prevent him escaping, helped by 3 rats behind it. I discussed with Telemere's player whether we should do a full flee conflict or a versus test, and he preferred the latter, to keep things moving. So we rolled the versus test. The rats won - but I held off on the twist, because of the split party.Meanwhile, outside, the bandits were discussing what to do with Fea-bella. They recognised her as Lareth's sister, and so were hesitant about treating her disrespectfully. Around this time, Fea-bella's player asked Telemere's player if Telemere screamed. The answer was affirmative. And so Fea-bella, acting on her creed that these are dark times, so all Elves ned help, implored the bandits to help her rescue Telemere. The test was Persuader vs Manipulator (the bandits are not naive or gullible!) - the result was a failure, and I decided that the bandits did agree to help, but that Fea-bella was genuinely Afraid as a result of Telemere's scream.So the bandits and Fea-bella opened the door to where Telemere was - with the rats initiating a kill conflict (the held-off twist, now brought home). The rats had a disposition of 9, and so did the PCs (with Telemere as the conflict captain, and the two bandits - affectionately dubbed Mace-y and Sword-y after their weaponry - as full allied participants).The conflict went for three full rounds, with the PCs victorious but down to 1 hp at the end, and so owing a major compromise. When the conflict had ended, Mace-y was down, the victim of a feint scripted by the rat-cunning GM. Telemere and Fea-bella had also both been taken down, and it was established that rats were crawling over them as Sword-y finished them off with his final attack. Looking through the options for a kill compromise, and also the troll rats' disease feature, I suggested that Mace-y was dead, killed by troll rats; that Fea-bella and Telemere were both Sick, having had diseased rats running all over them; and that Sword-y had become a carrier of the rat plague.The kill conflict was also the fourth turn of the grind, and so while Fea-bella took Hungry and Thirsty, Telemere - who was already H+T, Exhausted, Angry, Injured and Sick - took Afraid. In other words, he had the full set of conditions! I made a roll on the Loot table, which turned up a bandolier (on Mace-y), which Telemere took, so as to honour his memory! Fea-bella assured Sword-y that she would recommend to Lareth that Mace-y be posthumously be awarded an appropriate honour, such as High Mace-man.Sword-y then took the two of them down into the dungeon to meet with Lareth. They presented themselves as having come to warn Lareth about the pirate attack, but Lareth had doubts that this was their sole or even primary motivation. A Manipulator vs Manipulator test failed, and Lareth rebuffed them. A second Manipulator test from Fea-bella followed: yes, Lareth was right, she was so poor and hopeless, couldn't she just have a lend of his crown? This also failed.In one of these failed tests, Fea-bella had used her Fiery trait against herself, and the consequence for failure was that she became genuinely Angry. The other one resulted in a twist - Lareth dismissed the PCs from his entourage and instructed them to aid in the defence against the pirates. But he did relieve their injuries, invoking the Blood Vow to the Lords of Creation. And then left out the escape tunnel with three guards, their sergeant and his lieutenant, sending his six other guards to join the defence against the pirates and leaving the PCs as well.By this stage the players had amassed six camp checks, and had four conditions each to recover: Afraid, Angry, Exhausted and Sick. Fea-bella's Song of Serenity grants a free recover test for Afraid, Angry or Exhausted to an ally, so they could make 7 tests. The camp events roll was a safe camp in the dungeon, although it was an unsafe area - on account of being assaulted by pirates. Fea-bella, moved by her creed, decided that Telemere should get the benefit of the seventh test, which would be done as a Healing test by her, aided by him, to cure his Sickness. But after a good start by both PCs against Afraid and Angry, while Fea-bella recovered from exhaustion Telemere failed to so so. Fea-bella therefore took the seventh test as a (successful) recovery against her own Sickness. So she was now free of conditions, while Telemere was still Exhausted and Sick.I had already described the sumptuous rug and wall-hangings that Lareth had left behind in his parlour, but these were too big for the PCs to take (pack 6 and 4D; 2x pack 5 and 3D). Fea-bella first looked about for any food, and succeeded in finding some fresh rations. She then instinctually looked about for any loot, and (at least as I think I remember it) the roll failed but I went for a condition - hungry and thirsty - and she got a roll on Loot Table 1, which turned up some forage (ie ingredients for cooking).The PCs then left Lareth's parlour to head back into the dungeon, looking for the prisoners. When they passed through the barracks another instinctual look for loot took place, and this failed too. This time I opted for a twist: a Bugbear had come through to this part of the dungeon, wanting to know where Lareth had gone, and being sufficiently fluent in Elvish to put the question to the PCs. We resolved this as a convince conflict, the Bugbear using its Terrorising nature (and scripting Attack/Attack/Attack) to try and get an answer from the PCs, while they tried to persuade it that, with Lareth gone, Fea-bella (his sister) was now in charge. The PCs were defeated, but got a minor compromise - so before they joined the Bugbear in pursuing the escaping Lareth, the Bugbear would take them to the prisoners, who were too important to be left behind.Quite a bit of time has passed since the PCs were locked up with the other prisoners - long enough for Fea-bella and Golin to get lost in the swamp, then rest and recover in Nulb, then travel with pirates back to the Moathouse, then travel further to the mountains, then rest and recover in the Dwarven Halls, before now coming back to the Moathouse. I decided that this made it legitimate for me to declare that one of the imprisoned merchants had died. But the other was still there, as was the Dwarf from the Herbalist cult, whom I now decided had the stats of a NPC healer.The Bugbear collected its fellows (two other normal Bugbears, plus their Shaman) and persuaded the Gnolls to hand over the prisoners. That group then set off in pursuit of Lareth. The way I resolved this was to have the players script and roll for the Bugbears, whom (as a result of their failed conflict) they were aiding, while I scripted and rolled for Lareth and his soldiers. This ended up as a victory for the Bugbears, but with a major compromise owed (only 3 hp left, from a starting total of 14) in circumstances where Fea-bella and Telemere had both dropped to zero: narrated as them falling behind the relentless Bugbear Shaman. I also decided that the PCs (and the prisoners in their custody) were Exhausted (this didn't bother Telemere, given he already had this condition) and lost in the swamp.They camped again - another safe camp - again with six checks available, plus the free recovery from Song of Soothing.Both PCs recovered from their Exhaustion. I had decided that the Dwarven prisoner was Afraid, and Fea-bella used her Song to give him a free test to recover, which succeeded. Fea-bella then used her Healer, assisted by Telemere and the Dwarf, to make a poultice to grant Telemere +1D to recover from Sick. That test was a success, and so both PCs were now free of all their conditions. Fea-bella then used one of her two remaining tests to make another poultice (I think, again, to aid against Sickness) - but the test failed. I decided that it started to rain heavily, extinguishing their fire and bringing an end to their camp.They decided to journey to Nulb, with Telemere taking the Guide role so as to make the necessary Pathfinder test (given they were lost). This was Ob 5, and failed: he became Hungry and Thirsty as he found the way to the river, that would lead them to Nulb. The Trouble on the Road roll indicated delays, for +1 toll; the rain was also +1 toll; and the base toll for travelling through the swamp was 3, for a total of 5 for Fea-bella and 6 for Telemere (because of his role as Guide).Both PCs have a cloak as raiment reducing toll by 1. And there was one portion of food and of water left, which Telemere used to reduce his toll be another 1, leaving 4 each. Fea-bella wore out her shoes (again!) and lost her hat (drenched by rain), leaving 2 toll to be taken as conditions. Telemere was determined the he would not end up shoeless, but I allowed him to abandon his quiver (given that his bow is broken), and his iron spikes (which I thought he might have used up trying to make sightings to calculate directions, given his Star-wise), leaving 2 toll for him also.The PCs therefore arrived at Nulb Hungry + Thirsty, and Exhausted. But Telemere at least gained a level (and took Song of Soothing as his level benefit, which allows him to use his Singing Nature in place of Healing to alleviate Injury and Sickness).The town event roll was Billeted Army:The soldiers overwhelm the town. No room at the accommodations, they’re occupied by officers. No room at the tavern, they’re crowded with soldiers. No room at the stables, they’re crammed full of cavalry. All live and rolling stock is claimed by the army. You can sleep on the streets or, if you mess with the soldiers, remain in the adventure phase.Of course, following the advice that "town events leave a lot of room for interpretation.  . . . Be sure to color these results so that they mesh with the current events of the campaign" (Scholar's Guide p 279), I knew that this event wasn't soldiers, but rather pirates! The river pirates had all descended on Nulb following Tolub's call. Pirates in the taverns, and their draft animals in the stables!The players debated what to do, but decided in the end to stay on the streets. I rolled on the Streets Event table for both of them, and got theft results both times: the pirates took Fea-bella's pouch with her personal mirror, and (more seriously) took Telemere's satchel.On the streets you can't recover, so the PCs went to the Nulb market to shop - they bought waterskins, some wine, lots of food, candles, and a new satchel and tinderbox for Telemere. The shopping came to an end with a failed Resources test by Fea-bella, which taxed her Resource from 3 back down to 2. Telemere, on the other hand, had had a success on Resources that lifted him from 1 to 2.Because Lifestyle is minimum 1, and both the streets and the market are free, each player declared another action for their PC. Fea-bella successfully re-memorised Wizard's Aegis. Telemre made a successful Ob 1 Circles test (at the docks, for a +1D bonus), which lifted his Circles to 2. When Telemere's player asked what he could do as Ob 1 Circles, I replied that he could get some unreliable common knowledge from someone who heard it from someone else. So, on the docks, he asked around about why all the pirates were here. The answer he got was that Tolub had some issue with some Dwarf or other - Golin the Beardless? - and so had called all the pirates here to sort it out. Telemere seemed satisfied with this gossip.With their Resources 2 the PCs each had to roll for Lifestyle, as they left town. Both failed. I told them they were Hungry and Thirsty - so each emptied a waterskin to relieve their street-parched throats.And as they left town, heading to Wintershiven to return the rescued merchant to safety and receive an appropriate reward, we ended the session. I'm not sure who will be in attendance at our next session (hopefully in two weeks) - but I'm looking forward to learning what happened to Golin, and whether and how it involves his cousin Aldric.</blockquote>

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