First Gaming Recap

Hello dear reader, what a crazy couple of weeks its been. The stomach flu hit our house, as well as several of our friends', hard at the end of January leaving us reeling a bit as February began. However, it is a brand new week and I am back at the keyboard. As promised, I am beginning a weekly recap of our role playing sessions.

We're all pretty big nerds here and have been enjoying role-playing games for many, many years now. Over the years, we've had friends come and go in our lives but they've always shared in our love for a good time, a good character, and a good story. Little wonder that, with so much of our lives wrapped up in the love of stories, I choose to pursue a life of writing.

We play a couple of the bigger, staple RPG games such as Dungeons and Dragons (3.5) and the Star Wars RPG, both d20 system and published by Wizards of the Coast. We also occasionally venture into other systems and games, though less so these days. It seems we've found our comfortable style.

With the new year my wife Jen, our good friend Bill, and I began a fresh D&D adventure in a new land. Allow me to introduce the world and the player characters:

A great darkness has fallen over the land of . The might and majesty of the former empire, a thriving civilization that spanned the whole of the mainland and the islands to the south, has expired. Extinguished in fire, conflict, and disease.

The plague, violent and indiscriminate, ravaged all peoples of the Empire, claiming 8 of 10 lives and left a crumbling, decaying world in its wake. Those few that escaped this wasting disease found themselves in a constant struggle for their very survival. These starving souls are prey for the unchecked wild beasts and growing bands of marauders who kill, plunder, and burn.

As much of the cultivated, civilized knowledge had been lost with the deaths of those that horded it, superstition has risen to predominance. Blindly, the denizens of this wasteland attempt to hack a living out of what remains. The slender thread of life hangs perilously in the fickle winds of fortune. Fear of ill omens and curses drive many to shun the unknown as ancient prejudices resurface. For many, the only law is that of the mob and those that twist it to their advantage.

Far in the north, a day's travel inland from the coast, lies the small village of Fowlglenn. Removed from the influence of the empire and spared the great dying, these farmers and herdsmen live a peaceful life. This is where Talys, daughter of Arda, was raised. Born under the sign of a comet that pierced the sky and steeped in mixed omens; her shock white hair, a powerful presence beyond her stature, and her chosen companion in the form of a serpent, Talys never quite fit amid the simple farmers.

Her father, a Walling (pronounced Vailing) raider from the large island to the north, and her mother, his stubborn conquest who refused to leave her land, reared her and her two brothers in the relative peace of a simple life. Never one for farming, Talys' father took to trapping, fur trade, and keeping the herds safe from native predators.

Talys, the middle of the three children, took after her father, joining him regularly on his hunting trips and learning the ways of the sword. Her brothers, by comparison, stayed home with their mother to tend to the land. As such, when Talys came of age, her father passed his large, two handed blade to her to carry.

Being of his Walling disposition and her mother's stubbornness, she regularly challenged others of the village to test her mettle. Quickly proving too much for the basic broom stick combat shared among the villager youth, Talys yearned for true tutelage. With her parent's blessing and a vague rumor of a notable swordsman in the town of Woodwall to the south, Talys set out to find her teacher and learn the ways of a sword master.

The cities can be a dangerous place in the wake of the great dying, as Katan Roy discovered early. Born wanting, Katan is of a slender frame and short stature at just under five feet tall. Orphaned at a young age, the small red head had to rely upon her own cunning and skill to survive. Rarely stealing directly from pockets and never from those that had less than herself, this young burglar took what she could to stave off starvation.

Where her fingers are deft and skilled, her eyes are less keen when it comes to discerning treasure from trinket. Many times her bounty turns out to be nothing more than common items; the brass buttons she snipped off a fine coat are merely painted wooden toggles, that bronze bowl is simply a cheap copper one, etc.

Avoiding the dangers of the cities often left her in the wilds, discovering small tricks to keep herself alive in the woods to the north. Food, shelter, water; Katan learned quickly how to secure them all and became more accustomed to life on the road than the town she was raised in.

Now, Katan travels from town to town with her only companion, a small raccoon named Olly, looking for her next score. With a light coin purse and rumbling belly, she finds herself heading east to the town of Woodwall.

At this point we are several sessions into the game, amounting to weeks of gameplay. As I wish to present this to you as the sessions occur, I feel that a few highlights would suffice to bring you present. We'll begin with our first session:

In the town of Woodwall, the minister Hyfestus has forced a vow of poverty and piety upon his 'flock', surrounding himself with the amassed wealth and living in full decadence within the city chapel. The paths of the two wayward women cross within the seedy halls of his claimed home. As Talys met the man face to face to size him up and inquire as to his skill with a blade, Katan snuck inside to seek his stolen treasures.

Hyfestus, portly with bulbous features, his face framed by stringy hair the color of the muddy streets outside, sizes Talys up. He tells her that the swordsman she seeks was his predecessor, Rufus. A noble man whose pride brought a curse down upon him and his family in the form of a resurgent plague over ten years before. It fell upon Hyfestus to bring the flock back into the pious graces of the lords following Rufus' demise. Talys listens to his drivel, unimpressed and off put by the result of her short search. Hyfestus urges her to move on promptly, unless she wishes to brought into the fold under his rulership. Talys promptly refuses his offer and states that she will indeed be moving on in the morning.

As their conversation unfolds, Katan slipped through the house unnoticed and found her way into the cellar. There, she discovered Hyfestus' sizable treasure horde. However, before she is able to do more that glimpse her prize, the matron of the house descends the stairs behind her, trapping her in the vault. Katan panics, attempting to hide quickly, but managing to crash face first into an armor stand causing a horrendous cacophony. The matron, startled by the clamor, raises the alarm. Katan had to act quickly, nabbing whatever was close at hand and clambered over the tables to escape the matron's blockade.

Katan rushed through the house, dodging a pair of guards who appeared suddenly, blocking her retreat out the servant's entrance. She was forced to turn, racing through the main hall and into the dinning room.

As Talys and Hyfestus are both startled by the sudden call to alarm, a short wild haired woman rushed through. She screamed “Pig!” at Hyfestus as she passed and shot a quick apology to Talys as she raced out the front door, cackling into the night like a mad woman. Hyfestus, confused and angered by the display turned to Talys, accusing her of being in cahoots with the wild woman. As his guards approach her at his command, Talys rises to her feet and shows off the large Walling blade at her side. Fear fills their eyes and they turn to run, a reaction with which Talys is quite familiar. She then turns to leave Hyfestus alone in his dinning room and casually makes her way out of town.

Beyond the walls, Katan lies hidden in the dried brush and bushes framing the road. Weary of pursuit, she catches sight of Talys as she walks into the night. Taking a chance, she leaves the relative safety of her hiding spot to make contact with the comparatively taller, white haired woman. Introductions are made and the pair, both finding themselves with need to travel south, agree that it would likely be safer to do so together. A tentative alliance is struck and the pair head into the surrounding woods to camp for the night.

In the depths of the night, they are both roused as the distant sounds of hoof beats thunder on the road to the east. Having been warned of marauders striking towns in the area, both women realize the risk to the townspeople, who were innocent, subject to Hyfestus' cruel leadership and enforced poverty. They rushed from the woods, approaching the road as the light of torches became visible in the distance. Realizing that they were now putting themselves between these raiding riders and their objective, they both attempt to make themselves appear more intimidating. Suddenly there is an ominous glow at their feet as a cloud of mist rose to encircle them.

The affects seem to have the desired effect as a total of eighteen riders bearing down upon them clatter to a stop on the rocky road. The raiding party beholding these two auspicious women, a glowing fog swirling about them. The women demand that, as these riders are clearly heading to the town of Woodwall, they leave the township at large alone. They tell the marauders of Hyfestus' plunder in the chapel. Katan states that the red witch and white witch will be watching as Talys adds that the woods to the north have plans for the town.

Stunned by the startling visage of these two, the eighteen riders agree to their demands. Skirting the pair as they move around to resume their charge, the raiding party enters the town. The pair of women watch and listen at a distance, hidden in the brush as the town is sacked. They watch as fire reaches into the night and, after some time, the riders tear out of the town. The two women witness a screaming Hyfestus being dragged behind the trailing horses, listening to his gurgling cries as they all disappeared into the night.

Waiting for dawn to break before heading in, the pair return to Woodwall to investigate the aftermath. A large finger of black smoke rose into the early day, coming from the smoldering remains of the chapel. To their delight and surprise, none of the other homes or buildings were damaged in the attack and none of the townspeople seem to have been injured or killed. Investigating the ruins of the chapel, they discover that the raiders left a gift to the people of Woodwall in the form of a hundred gold pieces stashed into the offering box outside.

Emboldened by their ruse and satisfied by its success, the two women make their way out of Woodwall. They head to the south as Katan mentions that she had heard tale of a swordsman in the town of Crowden.