Well-Met in Mu's Bed (a Sorcerer and Sword Campaign)

[Paka]

Hi, I am currently running a fantasy game set in a world I am writing up for a PDF published supplement for an RPG called Sorcerer.

The game counts Edgar Rice Burroughs' Jon Carter of Mars series as a pretty huge influence with Elric, Fafhrd adn the Gray Mouser, Kull and co. along for flavor.

The last Sorcerer & Sword game I ran went well as a game but didn't meet my goals. I wanted to take Marr'd out for a test drive and see how the NPC's, locales and society worked. I told this group point blank that I was in the process of writing a mini-supplement and that I wanted to run a number of games in the world, see how it all fit together.

I made a point of saying that I didn't want this to be a museum game, "Look at the pretty and cool I've made up. Please don't smudge the glass." They should feel free to wreak royal havoc on the world, breaking it, mushing it and bending it to their characters' will.

We decided that the character had known each other and had travelled most of the way across the Red Waste together towards Mu's Bed.

We did a prelude with each character, the binding of their characters' demons.

Tsunami (Past: Samurai) bound his uncle in his ancestral tomb, taking up his uncle's sword, even though he knew that taking up the Ancestral Spirit of a deposed Shogun would no doubt get in exiled from the Empire.

Fossalas (Past: Metaphysics Teacher) found his Demon through complex geometry and mathematics. His Demon informed him that he was a Ghost of a long-lost past era in which the world was better off. He needed help, rounding up the relics of that romantic age.

Recedes (Past: Blacksmith) found her demon in the ore she mined and with her blacksmithing priviledges was allowed to build an anvil out of it. With the help of this Demon, a slaver Demon, she escaped from the mines and is seeking Demons to bind to her and hence, her Anvil of Doom.

The kickers:

Tsunami , a samurai from the Emperor far to the south beyond the Mariner's Gash, has come to the Witch-King's Keep to continue the quest his Emperor has put him on. He must deliver missives to each of the 666 Lords, Kings, Queens, Empresses and Messiahs of Marr'd, letting them know that the Celestial Emperor will accept their surrender before his armies cross the Mariner's Gash and destroy them.

Fossalas is an Atlantean Wizard-Scientist whose student is on trial on Mu's Bed for summoning a creature and losing control of it in a town outside of the city. Fossalas is attending the trial to testify against his student, Toleet.

Recedes was a blacksmith with her father when the Raiders came, killed her father and took her away to the mines. She found a bar in Mu's Bed. It had no name, only a mobile of tin, wooden and glass mugs clanging above the door. She over-hears some slavers crudely talking about how "good" a slave is. Her rage begins to boil.

 

[Paka]

Thus begins Well-Met in Mu a chronicle of Barry, Brandy, Matt and Judd's foray into the fine game of Sorcerer.

"...but theirs is a hard and pitiless struggle for existence upon a dying planet..."

"In one respect, at least the Martians are a happy people; they have no lawyers."

- A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Excerpt from the Dictionary of Mu:

Mu’s Bed - Mu's Bed is the capital city of Lemuria, seething in the red sand wastes like a pregnant beetle. When the giants, Lemur and Mu, fought the Mu fell and this city was built on his body. Most take this tale as only a metaphor. Fools.

This is Oghma’s birthplace and it is a hodge podge of desert cultures from the Red Waste, witch and warlock refugees hoping for a crumb from the Witch-King’s plate and Lemurian peasant-folk who no longer wish to be subjected to the harsh law of the waste. Any number of languages and songs can be heard on its streets as nomads barter with water stolen from a shallow oasis hundreds of glares away as their currency and seers offer to read your sands for only a few wheels.

Life on the Bed is particularly desperate. Children in Mu’s Bed play games that mostly persist of wrestling over the ownership of sharp rocks or throwing said rocks with deadly accuracy once they chip apart. If one is weak, there is always the choice to lie down, let the red dust crawl down your throat and join Mu.



A Message for the Witch-King

Tsunami was the first character conceived and created, so we started the scene with him walking into the hectic Witch-King's Keep. The magistrates, dressed in an open black robe and a black loin cloth were writing down the names of the many people who were demanding an audience with the king.

The samurai told a magistrate that he would not deliver his message to anyone but the King himself, so a granite slab, on the back of a Gray Slave, was brought over for him to write a letter requesting an introduction. Already having a note prepared, Tsunami took the note out of his kimono sleeve. Tsunami was very polite and unfazed by the many carrion who came to pick at the crumbs from the Witch-King's plate.

In time he was taken to a waiting room, through the labyrinthine halls of the keep, designed to confuse assassins who often stalked and the walking dead who often shambled down the halls.

Atlanteans in Court

Fosallas found the Hanging Square, where the local trials were held. An old magistrate, fat with water and wealth was presiding, making decrees about pig farming and rhinok herds. The trees where they would hang criminals in days of old were all dead, so the condemned were hung from the balconies that line the Square.

As the Wizard-Scientist approached the trial area, a young boy was thrown from a balcony and his life ended with an audible pop as the rope grew taught.

His former student was brought before the court and asked questions. Matt, who plays Fossallas, also played the student as she told her side of the story, that she was attacked by the Baron and tied him up and summoned a creature to take vengeance upon him.

The Baron's head was brought to the stand packed with salt, impaled on a black spike and its eyes popped open as it began to speak. The Baron's head said that he slept with the girl only to awaken to her making all manner of cuts upon him in order to summon up a creature with his blood as the bait.

The crowd was aghast and murmured as such.

Fossalas was then asked to step forward and testify. He told the court that his former student was a lazy, ungratefuly wretch who was in dire need of some discipline. The magistrate invited the Atlantean to a small tribunal to discuss the manner in a nearby alley, as this was a humble local court.

Boot to the Groin

Recedes was drinking in a bar and over-heard a man talked about how he pleasured himself on his gray slaves when the mood took him. Even his fellow slaver friends (played by Barry, Tsunami's player and Matt, who plays Fossalas) were rather disgusted but they were drunk and chuckling along. The slavers had pole-arms in the corner, with spring loaded mechanisms made to catch throats and wrestle slaves to the ground from a distance.

After a nasty exchange between Recedes and the slaver, Recedes moved to hit him with a tin mug. They exchanged shots but none of them were telling blows until Recedes moved behind him and delivered a brutal kick to the genitals. Eyes rolled back in his head, he dropped his pole-arm and fell in a pile.

A nearby magistrate (yeah, they're all over the place in Mu's Bed) asked what was happening and got into an argument with Recedes. Apparently it is against the law for a non-land owning outlander to strike a respected slaver in public without just cause.

Recedes stared at the magistrate with cold eyes and asked her what she was going to do about it. The Magistrate crossed her arms over her breasts and glared.

A Samurai, a Pimp, a Pig-Farmer and a Spider Wait

Tsunami found himself in a room with two other people sitting at a wooden table. I told Matt and Brandy to tell me who they were and what they wanted with the Witch-King. Matt played a pimp who was here to ply his trade in the palace (Brandy immediately yelled, 'Dammit, you stole my idea!') and so Brandy elected to be a pig farmer, here to dispute the prices for the latest sales.

A gray slave who could croak out crude speech came forth and made introductions between Tsunami, ambassador from the South, Garish the flesh-peddler and Dor the Pig-Farmer.

Small talk was had (some cool role-playing) and drinks ordered. Tsunami asked for some fruit and the others ordered some gin. Tsunami caught a glimpse of his ancestor in a piece of polished brass who made a motion of caution when the fruit arrived.

Another ambassador from the Jarl of Spiders entered, irate at the crudeness of his hosts. He had one red eye that was taking the place of his left socket and a few hard arachnid hairs growing on his face and fine gray silk clothes, made as if they were spun by spiders...which they were.

Tsunami asked his mute servant boy, Bento, to take a sketch of the fruit but not to eat it. Garish and Dor fell over, poisoned and then the curtains parted quickly to reveal the guards, who charged in to kill the remaining guests.

To be Continued...

 

[Paka]

Staring down a Witch

The Magistrate flared her nostrils and Recedes noticed the tattoo on her breast, two circles interlocking (one failed Lore role later) but ignored it and continued arguing her point. Even one of the slaver's friends pointed out that his drunk buddy had drawn a weapon first but the Magistrate wasn't hearing it.

It was decided that the outlander would have to do some manner of favor for the slaver. Gorog the slaver asked that she help him round up some slaves and take them to the Witch-King's Keep in a half-hour, "We know you're good in a fight."

Not wanting any further trouble, Recedes went back to her rhinok driven cart where her Anvil of Doom awaited. She told her nameless Demon about the conflict and the Demon licked its lips in anticipation of being close to the Keep, "Many spirits there," and it rattled its empty chains.

"Soon enough," Recedes offered.

The Demon narrowed its eyes, "Do you love this slaver? Will you marry him?"

Recedes was aghast at this and asked why he would ask her such a question.

"Most slaves marry someone to be their Master. Few can handle freedom, true freedom. Few even know what that means."

Tribunal with Lemurians

Fossalas met at the informal tribunal with the wife of the dead Baron (played by Brandy) and the Baron's Master-at-Arms (played by Barry). The Magistrate asked some questions and talked to Fossalas about the woman's ability as a Sorceress. He hinted at forcing her into some indentured servitude to serve out her sentence.

He replied cooly, "She is more than capable but she is careless and that is dangerous. If I were you I would put her in the libary and force her to copy texts."

The Magistrate countered, "Gray Slaves can do that kind of work. Wouldn't waste an Atlantean on that kind of chore."

The wife demanded that the girl be put under her Mastery for the length of the sentence and they came to an agreement that the Atlantean would work for the wife for five days a week and work for Lemuria two days.

"Does she have a Demon bound to her now?" the Magistrate asked Fossalas.

He professed he did not know.

"Find out, and then we shall pass judgement."

After a short, cold and hateful conversation, Fosallas determined that she did, in fact, have a Demon bound to her, a nasty Berserker at that. The Man-at-Arms put a radium pistol to her head and told her that if she resorted to deviltry she would perish.

A Witch's Collar snapped on her neck, ending all fears of Sorcery. She cursed her former teacher as she was led away in chains.

I now regret making her capture so damned easy.

The widowed Baronness invited her new Atlantean friend to the Witch-King's Keep to discuss his former student's worth. Reluctantly, he accepted.

Katana Drawn but Bloodless

The Spider took one of the gaurds by the throat and began to choke him while trying to shake his obsidian blade from his grasp. Another came over the upturned table and another came around to kill the Samurai.

Tsunami drew his blade in a blur but took a defensive stance, unsure whether or not they would attack him or just the Spider-creature. As a guard drew close with a rhinok hide shield and breastplate Tsunami drew and fired a long slender throwing blade from his sleeve while still holding the sword high.

The guard fell as the blade went through his eye and deep into his skull. The Spider continued the throttle the guard against the table and another guard cut at him with his blade. Soon the guard found himself pinned to the ground as blades entered his feet and pierced the basalt floors.

A fourth guard stood in the doorway, considered his position, then ran to find help.

After interrogating the pinned guard, they left the room.

"I know not the way out, foreigner. Did you comprehend this maze?"

"No, we will always go left."

"Wait," and the Spider went back and took the guard he had throttled's head in two hard hacks of an obsidian blade and wrapped it in rhinok hide without getting any on his gray silks, "You never know when this might come in handy."

Shrugging, Tsunami left the room and turned left.

To Be Concluded...

 

[Paka]

Meeting with Gorog

Recedes met Gorog in front of a small manor built on the wall of the Witch-King's Keep. She parked her cart in the street. He had one of his pole-arms but a segment had been taken off so that it would be handier indoors.

He extended his hand for shaking, "I am Gorog, my name is the same forwards as it is backwards. This means I am no stranger to telling truths."

She shook his hand, "I am Recedes Python, you may call me Red."

"There is an escaped slave within that house. She had a Witch's Collar to stop her from consorting with Devils but she has found a way to take it off. We must go in and take her to the Witch-King."

"What is a Witch's Collar?" Red asked, unfamiliar with their making.

"It is a collar that prevents Sorcerers from using their craft. They are nigh impossible to take off."

(Ripped shamelessly right out of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time Books.)

"Well, how impossible can they be to take off if she took it off?"

(Then they argued for about ten minutes, about whether or not there was a door behind the house from which she might've escaped, if she had summoned a monster, etc., etc. Actually, and VERY oddly, it was kinda cute.)

Recedes took a moment and went to her cart, touched the Anvil and spoke with her Demon. When Gorog asked what she was doing she answered that she was looking for something.

"Gods, woman! We have work to do unless you want me to fetch a Magistrate and have you put in the stocks for your crime. This is why there are not women in the slavery business!"

Recedes responded quickly, "One moment, fool! I am looking for something to aid us with the girl's Sorcery. There are women in slavery, fool, they're called slaves. Don't get me started right now."

The Anvil of Doom enhanced her Lore and she could tell from here that the escaped slave was summoning a creature, the manor's Hearth Spirit. The Anvil gave Recedes a manacle to put on the Spirit if she could bind her.

Holding up the manacle Recedes said, "Found it, let's go in."

An Atlantean in the Lemurian Court

As Fosalas entered the Keep he noted the whores on one side of the gate and the pigs on the other. The Pig-Farmer's wife was calling out to her husband, looking for him in vain. The whores were surrounded by guards in their rhinok hide skirts and breast-plates as a magistrate let them know that they were now property of the Witch-King.

Disgusted, Fosalas told the nearest servant that he was a friend of Janus, the recently widowed and that he was to meet her here.

Quickly and politely he was taken through the maze halls and put in a comfortable room with pleasing human slaves, fresh water and even grapes.

Not able to figure out how the room was lit, the Wizard-Scientist sat and waited.

Where Left Turns Lead

Tsunami turned the corner and found an opulent room, far finer than the hard, stone room he was left to wait in with his motley company. The Spider ambassador spit a curse and Fosalas looked up from a bowl of water.

They quickly discussed their days, Tsunami convinced that the Witch-King wanted him dead and Fosalas relating his unfortunate student.

As they talked the Keep's Seneschal with five black rings tattooed over his heart (which a successful Lore role told Fosalas that the tattoos were rank and concerned how many Demons the Witches and Warlocks of Lemuria had bound to them). The seneschal related calmly that no harm would befall a friend of a friend of Lady Janus and they were all welcome to meet the Witch-King if they wished it.

Wary, they followed.

Bento tried to keep track of the windy paths they took but could not keep them in his head. His master, Tsunami had better luck and knew that he could at least figure out how to return to the plush waiting room from the parlor they were now entering.

Escaped Atlantean

Gorog and Recedes entered the manor to find a servant dead on the floor, throat slit. Noises were coming from up the stairs, where the master bedroom was located. They found an exotic bird of some kind, a pet, impaled against the wall with arcane runes around it.

They could hear the Binding ritual that the slave was attempting as the Hearth Spirit coalesced and asked, "Who summons me?"

Recedes spoke up, "I do."

The slave, Fosalas' former student, was stunned, blood covered her up to her elbows, "I summon you, fair Hearth Spirit. I summon you with the blood of those who profane your halls."

"No, she is an escaped slave. She cannot offer you any home or any fine places. She has no home. She is property."

At this point they made conflicting Lore rolls and I gave Brandy a heinous bonus for her cleverness. She beat the Atlantean just as Gorog clicked a Witch's Collar around her neck.

The Spirit related that she was indeed the spirit of this house. She appeared to be a beautiful woman with long brown hair and fine robes, matching the white walls of the house with some blood stains on them.

She told her "summoner" that she wanted to offer guidance to any who could offer her spirit a place to reside, wishing to solidify and ward a home or place, especially with a family.

Scowling at the idea of a family, Recedes told the Hearth Spirit taht she had a place for her, a nice place that moved. She would get to see many different places all over the world if she would be bound to her.

Pleased with that idea, the Hearth Spirit accepted Recedes' offer. Red offered the Spirit a token, a bracelet token to show their binding.

As it clicked down on her wrist, Recedes said, "You should've never trusted me. I lie."

Humanity (called Heroism) CHECK! She failed. I told her that lying and enslaving isn't enough but catching one slave and enslaving a noble Hearth Spirit is just too effed up and demanded a check.

The Spirit was taken outside to the cold Anvil and rickety cart that was now her home.

Nexus Point in the Witch-King's Parlor

The Witch-King sat on some cushions, writing on two slabs of granite, held on the unmoving backs of two gray slaves. Their black eyes looked at the floor as the Witch-King signed some papers and sent them out with runners.

I told the gamers that if I were casting the Witch-King in a movie he would be played by Michael Wincott, the bad guy in The Crow.

Like all of his Magistrates he wore black robes open to his broad chest and a black loin clothe. His black hair is pushed back with two braids on either side of his face. He took his spectacles off of his face and welcomed his guests.

"Well, look at this. Guests," and he turned to his seneschal, "Who the are these people?"

In the parlor was Tsunami, Fosalas and the Jarl of Spider's angry ambassador. Janus, newly widowed Baronness and Witch in her own right was standing next to Orog, who held her indentured servant, the newly convicted and re-captured Atlantean.

Recedes was on her cart, accessible to the parlor through a narrow cart path.

Introductions were made and the Witch-King assessed the situations and made the following decrees:

The Ambassador of Spiders could hold on to his anger and do battle or he could accept the King's apology and hospitality.

The Amassador accepted both of the latter.

Gorog the Slaver and Recedes Python were worthy of great praise for catching the dangerous convict and were to be commended and honored.

Tsunami delivered his Emperor's message and the King bowed appropriately when accepting, to which Tsunami replied that he did him honor.

The King laughed appreciatively at the missive, telling Tsunami that he had a good mind to hand Lemuria over to him, lock, stock and barrel, so that the Emperor could take it all that much faster.

"If I didn't think that the governing of Lemuria would lead to your death I would give it to you too. Just walk into the waste and leave the headaches to you..."

He offered his library and maps so that Tsunami might find the others he had to deliver messages to that much faster.

Fosalas and the Lady Janus, the Witch-King mused, should be married. The honorable Widow had to soon leave Mu's Bed and claim her Barony, a noble Atlantean could surely aid her and find her company pleasurable.

Fosalas was stunned. Recedes laughed so hard that she nearly fell off her cart.

Tsunami offered that in his lands men and women have a four year courtship period, in which they meet one another and their families are allowed to assess if the match is acceptable.

The King enjoyed this idea but decided four years was too long, "You have four days to reach this decision. Four days to court one another and decide if the match is worthy and if at the end of that time you find the marriage worthy, I shall marry the two of you. Tsunami, in lieu of a family, I propose that you act as the Atlantean's patriarch as I shall act as Lady Janus'. We shall meet in four days' time to discuss the validity of this engagement.

I am tired. Go."

Thus Ends Game the First of Well-Met in Mu's Bed (a Sorcerer Campaign)

 

[Paka]

A Wizard Courting a Witch

Courting Tips from Beyond the Grave

Tsunami took his role in the courtship preperation quite seriously. In an effort to be sure this was a wise wedding match he summoned his great-aunt out of Ancestor's Lands. Kyoko had a pillar of a bun atop her head and a kimono with a blazing sunset and the two moons in different crescent phases.

[The player wanted to contact a spirit. At first he wanted a kind of Kami of Love but we talked more about what Demons were in this game and came up with an old auntie match-maker.]

First she talked with the bride and the Witch-King in private, so that she would understand their needs and then she spoke with her descendant and Fossalas, the groom-to-be.

She professed that this gaijin world baffled her but she thought, based on their stations in life, times of birth and ambitions, that this could be an auspicious match.

"It is like a pool of water and it might be just as refreshing but it is impossible for us to see the dangers underneath the surface."

Tsunami discussed a possible Binding relationship. Her Desire was to see her family grow and descendants with fine partners. Her Need was to see these children marry as close to the Emperor as possible.

They agree that while in foreign lands, being Bound to Tsunami would be a foolish choice but should he return to the Empire he would seriously consider Summoning her properly.

She informed him that his mother and sister prayed for him at the Temple daily and he asked that she pass his love on to them.

Leaving a few cherry petals on the wind, alien things in Marr'd, she was gone.

Tsunami collected the petals and sipped his tea.

The Witch-King's Library

The Master Librarian was reading an aged scroll, using a pointer so that the oils from his hands would not mar the are papers. Fossalas, the Atlantean Wizard-Scientist and Tsunami, the samurai in a strange land appraoched.

"If you steal any scrolls from my library I will know it instantly and the letters will burn your skin," the Master Libarian croacked, eyes seeming not to see them. Tsunami stared at him for a moment, nodded and was guided into a room.

[With a successful Lore roll Barry was told that this man had a Demon bound to him that altered his vision so that he could extend his senses but dulled his senses nearby.]

They wanted access to the library itself but could not name the tome they were looking for. As they were searching for more general knowledge they were placed in a nearby reading room and assigned an apprentice librarian.

The apprentices wear long skirts and have eyes tattooed all over their bodies. The apprentice serving them, Kula, was inked with sixty eyes of varying sizes, meaning sixty works were comitted to his memory.

Tsunami asked questions about history and eventually asked many questions about the military tactics of Lemuria.

Fossalas was interested in Lemurain wedding laws. He also studied their summoning and saw how they crudely summoned the spirits of the recently dead and bound them to their will. Lemurian sorcerery was merely the poetry and his was the mathematics behind their metaphor. When he saw that their magicks came from the same well-spring he found some relief.

Together they asked all about the profession from ancient Sorcerer-Kings to terrible Liche-Kings to the Warlock Congress to the recently instated Witch-King.

Tsunami asked, "What was the greatest mistake in Lemurian history?"

The boy thought about that for a while, not used to thinking about the information in his memory, only reciting it, "The change from Sorcerer-Kings to Liche Kings. When they died and became both more and less."

"Why?" Fossalas asked.

"Because they, in turn, made all of Lemuria a Sorcerer, bound to the unholy Needs of five unliving Kings. It made magicks seem almost normal, brought Witches and Warlocks' ways of thinking to even the layman."

"Can you summon, Kula?" Tsunami asked.

He shook his head, maybe thankfull, maybe mournfull.

"The Liche-King's motto was, 'How far will you go to get what you want?' and in making all of Lemuria subject to their hungers it became the motto of us all."

 

[Paka]

We kind of just began role-playing while waiting for Brandy to get settled and get gaming. Matt, Barry and Brandy had all be LARPing all weekend and had just returned. They were still getting settled.

I thought this was all good, solid stuff for just goofing off down-time gaming and was pleased with where it went.

The rest of the game got kind of odd and disjointed as another gamer unexpectedly stopped by. He had made up a character but as his baby boy has just been born recently, we didn't think he would be showing up and it was a pleasant surprise.

After everyone got to the table we all sat for a few moments and wrote our Kickers down and got to the meat of the game.

The game never reached its flow like last week's did but it sets up the next game well. I'll write about it tomorrow.