My TunnelQuest campaign began in earnest last night. I had already created the characters, to speed up play, and my players were happy to accept one at random.
1. Forester (Brad), a tall weathered man clad as a hunter or scout, he wears a leather helm. Forester is a wizard but since magic is frowned upon to varying degrees, he keeps that aspect quiet. He’ll need to be careful because there’s always some kind of noticeable manifestation when magic takes place in TQ. Forester has a pet dog, a wolfhound called Bane.
2. Ardyn (Mike), a mercenary and skilled archer who wears a cloak of lacquered feathers.
3. Miskar (Jane), a rogue of sorts. A fast-talker but no discernible ‘thief’ skills. However she does know a spell that opens doors.
4. Gildane, changed to Vereledane and ‘V’ for short (Emma), a veteran of the Eastland War with Malador and a soldier in the Sword Dogs Regiment. V might be of noble blood but she’s tight-lipped about it.
The story begins when the characters meet at a wilderness way-station called the Wayfarers’ Table (stone pillars capped with a massive stone slab (the table-top). There they meet Edrin, a Caroledes priest looking for protection on his journey to the village of Wexhill; after some haggling the PCs agree to accompany him. All but Ardyn were happy to help but the archer wanted to squeeze some extra funds out of the deal.
Just prior to the negotiations, Edrin accosts Sully, a vagabond offering a ‘spare’ cloak to the travellers at the Wayfarers’. Edrin observes that the cloak isn’t Sully’s ‘spare’ as he purports since it’s a full foot too long. Sully defends his dubious honour but V intervenes and he is sent from the table back into the rain (“no room for thieves here”).
En-route they find an elderly woman lying by the roadside. Although seemingly dead, this is Esme, a witch of The Wyc. She claims to have been listening for them and takes them to her cottage for a hot herbal tea and some rest from the rain. Edrin, is polite but doesn’t seem to like Esme, he waits outside.
Esme is clearly batty as a barn door but does mumble one strange clue and a warning concerning Edrin:
Seek your fortune where justice fades,
Blood and ruin and monster invades,
Pay Istacon’s silver by the moon’s light,
In darkest woods, poachers and wolves that bite,
Unwittingly the monster leads you,
Nuromen’s treasure awaits, he wakes, anew.
Of Edrin, Esme has this to say: “The priest will help you six times but the sixth will be his undoing...” I have something special planned for Edrin...
They spend the night at Esme’s derelict cottage (which Ardyn and Edrin repair, Ardyn also brings down a deer for the old coot).
Forester casts the Provisions spell and conjures up a hot meal for everyone (it looks as though he took the ingredients from his pack).
The following day the party leaves Esme, travelling East looking for Wexhill but come across a way stone pointing to a water-logged track. The way stone carries the name of a nearby village, Lawsend (Law’s End) which Miskar rightly concludes relates to Esme’s clue (...where justice fades.).
V leads the way and soon they come upon the near-deserted village of Lawsend. This is the first Visni village of the provincial border; the Visni don’t much like strangers, they don’t speak the common tongue or pay taxes... In fact they’re adamant that they are not part of Esvidena at all!
More in the next post...
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