Monday, June 18, 2012

Roses

When the city walls were breached and the Jarl's garrison scattered, no one was ready. Roses had been under siege for only a month when Imperial forces succeeded in puncturing the city's defenses with horrifying siege engines that no subject of the Crown had ever seen before.

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Sir Herod Brevon had been on the walls when that initial volley came from the Empire's gargantuan siege cannons. He was a witness to an encroaching sea of gunmetal-grey soldiers and felt musketballs whiz by his head and watched many of his comrades die trying to repel the overwhelming assault. In the course of the battle, ordinance would explode directly in front of him; Herod was thrown off the walls into a free fall to what he was sure was death.
But he did not die.
He awoke at the base of the fortifications, the sound of gunfire and metal-on-metal had ceased. He risked opening his eyes to take in his surroundings and was horrified by the sights they saw.
The walls had been collapsed around several sections and the dead were everywhere, indeed the only reason he had managed survival (by his reasoning) was his fortuitous landing upon another man who had fallen from the wall before he did.
He immediately scurried off the dead man in a panic, the corpse's vacant eyes staring at nothing but its face twisted with fear and terror. He wasn't sure what was happening or just who's hands the city currently lay in, but he wasn't going to lay in the rubble forever and he figured if any Imperial soldiers had spotted his return to consciousness then he would have already received a bullet for his stubborn refusal to die when a man ought.
Gunpowder, smoke, and death filled his nostrils, nearly gagging him as he retreated towards the center of Roses, being sure to stay in the shadows of alleys and avoid any major roads.
He heard music, triumphal tunes he didn't recognize as he neared the city square and as the full horror of the situation started to dawn,
What if we lost?
Indeed as Herod emerged, despair choked him anew. A flag flew in the square; the image of a screaming, twin-headed eagle flapped in the wind confirming his fears.
Only the gods knew if the Jarl had managed to escape to safety, though Herod would be surprised if that were the case.

This was it, he was on his own now; the war was over, at least for him.

About a month passed since Roses had been wrested from Damocles and Sir Herod still lived. It hadn't been hard to blend in with the peasantry, finding refuge with a farmer and his family. It also wasn't hard to find work with one of the Masonic Guilds that were still permitted to operate by the Empire, being as there was no shortage of rubble to clear or stone to set and without support from the church. The reconstruction process would slow to an agonizing crawl if the Guilds couldn't operate.
Many of the commanding officers seemed a reasonable sort, typically leaving the common man alone and severely punishing the abuses of their own men when they were brought to light; Herod would still slit their throats given the chance. He watched with anger burning behind his eyes as survivors from the garrison would be found out and hung for all to see from the Jarl's palace as a warning to those that would think to still resist.

He shook his head, burying the memories and hefting the mason's hammer, readjusting its position on his shoulder; the weight of it was a minor inconvenience, though its utility more than made up for that little flaw. The sun was beginning to set and he was the only one in the street, his duties as a guildmason partially exempting him from the military curfew enforced by the Empire.
That's why Herod was so surprised when he heard the scream of a woman a little up the road. His curiosity and concern outweighing his caution, he jogged toward the source of the commotion and knew that there was some sort of struggle.
His investigation brought him to a decently-sized, respectable home with its door off its hinges.
"Damn it woman!" He heard a man's voice with a thick accent just inside. Imperial accents.
"Get a hold of her Sig!" Another voice.
Herod glanced cautiously through the remains of the entrance; two men in Imperial uniform held down a woman, one had a hand clamped hard over her mouth.

For a moment, Herod considered fleeing; his survival dependent on laying low while he waited for the King's armies to retake the city. His original plan being one where if he dies, it's a death that might do some good in the long run.
But seeing this scene unfold, he knew he couldn't just walk away and leave this woman to her fate. Something in him broke, a floodgate of repressed anger opened and he allowed himself to be carried away on its current.
He charged into the room raising his hammer high and dropping it hard on the helmeted skull of the man currently not astride the woman. His skull simply evaporated under the weight and power of the blow, his compatriot turned in time to see the Sigil of the Guildmasons hurtling toward his face before seeing nothing else ever again.
With both her attackers neutralized, the woman scrambled to her feet; a wild fear in her eyes as she prepared to scream once again.
Realizing she was preparing to scream once more, Herod clamped his hand over her mouth; she kicked and clawed at him as a result.
"Shhh! You're safe now, m'lady!" he spoke low and tried his best to sound non-threatening, "But if you want to live through the night you would do well to calm yourself. We need to leave this place now."
Her struggles became less vicious when it seemed to dawn that this man wasn't going to try to use her in an unsavory fashion like the ones immediately prior. After a few moments of relative calm and tense eye-contact, Herod tentatively released his hand from her mouth.
"Are you all right? Are you hurt?"
She eyed him with suspicion before answering, "Yes."
"Did they...?"
"No. They almost did...they meant to..." She glanced nervously at the corpses on the floor.
He raised a hand meant to comfort, but she avoided it; the shock of her experience seeming to sour her about physical contact. Herod retracted his hand.
"Do you have a name m'lady?" He asked
"Eryn." She offered with a sad smile, "And do you, mason?"
"Saul. My name is Saul."
Herod had been living under a false name since beginning his days in hiding, fearing that he may be identified as a member of the garrison at Roses. A new name was one of a few precautions he had taken to remain undetected.
"Well...I guess I should thank you Saul. If you hadn't come around..." she shuddered at the thought of what her life might have been like.
He smiled, "Think nothing of it. I was here and I acted."
"Regardless, thank you."
He glanced at the corpses, "I doubt you're going to be thanking me at the end of this. You're coming with me, we're burning down your house."
At first Eryn seemed confused, then realizing what he meant she cringed. To her credit (and his surprise) she didn't protest this decision though it clearly wasn't something she wanted to do.
"Did anyone else live here with you?" he inquired
"No."
"Do you have any other clothes?"
"A few."
"Bring them."
Her face grew stern, "And if I don't come with you?"
He sighed, "I won't make you do anything, but I ask that you come with me. For better or for worse, two soldiers are dead on your floor and you better believe there will be consequences for that if they're found."
And with that, whatever meager defiance she had mustered had left. She felt deflated as her life was suddenly hijacked and taken out of her control.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

Training Wheels (and Near Party Wipes)

So I've finally wrangled another group together in my new location. It was a long and disappointing wait to start playing again, but in the end it worked out.

This new group is almost entirely composed of brand new players who had barely heard about any sort of tabletop rpg at all. We decided to go with Pathfinder and they're playing in the Dual Throne campaign setting though the story will be taking place on the far away Northern Continent (with its far more intense focus on eastern cultural traits).

The party is currently composed of:

Olaf Blunderbuss: Half-Orc Barbarian and all-around beatstick.
Perses Ares: Elven Rogue, he stabs people in the back with barely contained glee.
Zane Corvenus: Human Ranger, or the single unluckiest character I've ever seen.
Vale Saezon: Aasimar Cleric and band-aid applier extraordinaire.

Now, being that Vale Saezon is the only veteran player in the entire group (though his first time playing a caster), I began this campaign with everyone at level 1 and the primary enemy of the day being Kobolds. My reasoning: Kobolds are pretty much incapable of effectiveness and only the truly unlucky wouldn't drop 80% of them on the first strike.

It really is frustrating being consistently incorrect about these things. One day I'll be decent enough to be able to account for luck (or the lack thereof) in my session planning. For now I make do with either cakewalk encounters or sadistic challenges of endurance.

But I digress; the session started out promising enough. The party was hired by the small village of Tianjin to investigate the disappearances of people who had been traveling the roads between it and the larger city of Wu Jin.
They were directed to the wreckage of a wagon that was also the most recent of the strange occurrences. After a careful investigation the Ranger managed to track down the creatures that committed the deed to a small cave about 10-15 miles out of town.
Two guards, who weren't paying as much attention as they should have been, stood at the entrance to the cave. The Rogue acted quickly.
And gleefully

 Before the kobolds even knew what the hell, they were gunned (bow'd?) down; the entrance was clear and gurgling before death sets in hardly counts as an alarm.

They enter and find themselves in an encampment, complete with little lean-to's and frantic, angry lizards.

My memory is a bit fuzzy on the exact number of kobolds that rushed out to fight the intruders, but I do know it was between 12 and 15. I threat to be sure, but hardly one that would threaten the party as a whole, I mean, adventurers murder these things by the dozens by themselves let alone with friends. There was just no way this couldn't be a triumphal slaughter!

What raised a warning flag in my head about this entire dungeon crawl was when they got to the first room and I didn't really roll below a 17 (which was enough to hit everyone but the Cleric). What started making sirens go off was that no one could manage to hit any of the little buggers for at least 3-4 turns.

Illustrated here is the cleric's complete inability to do anything other than hide behind his shield
Yep, it was going to be one of those nights. The ones where neither side seems capable of overcoming the other and combat is just one long string of misses and ineffectual amounts of damage.

Indeed they slogged painfully through the cave, getting bogged down by stragglers who didn't make it to the melee at the entrance. I did remain hopeful throughout though; thinking that maybe the boss fight at the end would inject some much needed energy into the game.

The Adherer waited at the end, locked in a room, eternally pissed off at everything, and nearly killed them. All of them.
In my defense, I built the encounter before really knowing the party make-up. I had talked about character concepts with each player before and thought I had a strong idea of what they'd likely go with. When it came time to actually build the characters, they had went with different ideas. Less hard-hitting ideas. Additionally, the cleric hadn't fully grasped what he was capable of at the time and so hadn't prepared his more useful spells.

Long (boring) story short, they won when the last two conscious party members, in an act of desperation, set the Adherer on fire.