So!
I played Monday, we had only about 3 hours to play.
We had:
- Two players new to RPGs (one had played a handful of Pathfinder at some point)
- One player who was familiar with RPGs in general and had played a bit of another *-world hack
- Two players who were very familiar with *-world games, one of which was in and out of the session
We created a stronghold and a people.
The stronghold guarded a rich merchant city nestled on three sides by mountains (or maybe large hills).
The people are known for their archers, if I recall, and strategy and tactics, and trade routes. They had hulking bodies and golden-creamy skin and spoke Hebrew.
We had a peasant beauty who kept the old ways in secret and received gifts for such, living with two younger siblings on hunting grounds outside the city; a simple blacksmith whose sister had just married a rich silver merchant; an outranger and minor guard captain in the Iron Eagles; a half-drunk hunter and troll-killer; and a dastardly court wizard.
Enemies include raiders by land (a heretic cult expelled from the city some generations ago) and a tyrant crown-stealer. The peasant beauty is technically heir, but most folks don't know or care. The guard captain is ambitious and there's a secret plot against the crown.
So, during play, we had two parallel plots...
Monsters
The troll-killer occasionally hunts on the lands of the beauty; today he brings forth something unnatural, a boar with stony skin and the face of a man. The beauty cuts the head off and mounts it, a curiosity; some days later, on the day of the change from spring to summer, it begins to speak a warning to her, but she lashes out in shock and stabs it. It begins to burn in it's death, cursing her, her family, and the hunter that brought it here. The hunter, however, has a magical breastplate which repels curses.
So! We have now a troll-boar cursed to an eternal life of torment and sorrow! As you can imagine, he's unhappy about this and lashes out at the beauty and her family, killing the beauty's devotee in the process. The beauty calls for help from the wizard via a spirit known to them both and tries to keep herself same from the beast.
The wizard and beauty meet on the road; she goes to the city to hide safely, he goes to confront the boar. The wizard and the boar engage in a battle of words and wizardry, with the old wizard winning out (on a side note, he's possibly immortal but prone to damnation; his people were exterminated by the empire yet he remains).
The beauty seeks relief in the house of a silver merchant known to her, and he becomes quite infatuated with her; he confides a plot to dethrone the king and replace him with a puppet, but confesses that he intends to betray this puppet and crown her instead. Which brings us around to the other plot...
Men
So, in the city, the blacksmith is awakened late at night by his new brother-in-law, the silver merchant. He is asked in secret to help collaborate in overthrowing the king (specifically, to help craft weapons in secret) and told of a secret meeting the next day. He is also told that the rebels plan to use the troll-killer as their figurehead and crown him when the battle is done.
So, the blacksmith goes to visit the troll-killer in the bar where he stays. The troll-killer expresses a strong disinterest in joining this plot, and the blacksmith decides to... drug him!? We establish then that the court wizard sometimes dabbles in poisons, drugs, and hallucinogens... So, half-slumbering, the troll-killer freaks out and starts a brawl with the blacksmith which escalates in violence until both are severely injured; the outranger now arrives with some guards, as word has spread quickly. He takes them both to jail and seeks out someone to heal these men... alas, the city's sage is off in the woods, so, he goes to visit the peasant beauty in hope that she will know some trick of the old ways to heal them.
She's not sure, so she reaches out to the otherworld, and is visited by two mighty and treacherous spirits. She implores them to provide their aid to the two dying men, and... well, they do!
So, that's the events as they happened, I'll try to add thoughts / concerns later if I have time.
- Alex