Rescue of the Sacred Scrolls

Completed in three game sessions.

Dates in Real life:

Session 1: Sunday, 16 May 2021

Session 2: Sunday, 23 May 2021

Session 3: Monday, 24 May 2021

Players: Starflower, Edward, William, and Philip

NPCs introduced: New Lightraider potential Norvin and Experienced Lightraider Zekion

This was the second mission for the team.

Adventure Master Preparation

During the week between the LightRaider Test and the Rescue of the Sacred Scrolls, I took the time to read through the guidebook and cut out the cue cards. I penciled in some notes in the margins, usually to get the full stats on a dark creature from the AM manual, such as their sin enchantments, reminders to check LO ratings after fighting orcs, and whether or not they do critical swings.

I also taught the kids about the advanced combat options and gave them the player briefing.

The player briefing mentions money, and I thought it would be fun to make currency, so I pulled out some thin branches from the firewood pile and sliced them up into disks with my power saw. I then drew on them to make Liberated Land currency. I challenged the kids to make their own coin carrying bag.

I used the Zekion character to "teach" the Lightraiders how to respond to Thuella's moves in the story.

I had trouble running the dragon at the end, and I'm afraid it might have felt anti-climatic to my players. I thought I was ready, but I guess I wasn't. If I had to do it over again, I'd spend more time reviewing the rules on dragon battles. I think they felt powerless to do anything, as they spent most of the time just standing there getting attacked. So on the next dragon battle in future missions, I made sure I gave them opportunities to move or take an action after each dragon clash. For example, Dragon uses Mind speech. Lightraiders refute. Allow the Lightraiders to move before the dragon makes her next turn!

I wondered about the idea of making a Dragon Trainer mini-mission to familiarize both the Adventure Master and the players to the sequence of a dragon battle.

The Mission

I don't want to give away too many spoilers, since this is a published game, so I won't say too much about the mission itself.

The team still had leftover Raider Tablets from the Lightraider Test. I let them keep them and continue using them if they wanted.

In session 1, the team made it up to Sequence 7, and we stopped as they were camped outside Thuella's castle.

In session 2, they stormed the castle, rescuing Norvin and freeing Zekion. (Sequence 8)

In session 3, they escaped the castle and had the final showdown with Thuella. (Sequences 9-15)

A deep throated rumble startles the guard and awakens the rest of the Lightraiders.

"It's Thuella!" William quaked.

Zekion jumped to his feet, grabbing his sword. "Has any of you ever fought a dragon before?" he called out.

"We heard some, once!" Starflower said, grabbing up her quarterstaff.

"Okay, gather round, weapons out. Our shields of faith are stronger when we're together. Here she comes."

Everyone survived. We made note of the fact that Thuella escaped. We felt like there was unfinished business in the Heinous Heights region, and as Adventure Master, I started to wonder about bringing the team back to this area one day.

This mission comes in the vintage boxed set of DragonRaid, available from LightRaider Academy.