This session completes "Part 1" of my homemade Sanna Valley Campaign. The parts are for assigning completed mission credits to players when it comes to rules like how often you can read WordRunes, how how many missions you need to complete before adding/changing a special character role, etc.
I am working to make a shareable guidebook of this adventure for others who may want to run it.
Theme: The Doctrine of Christ
Type: Sandbox hexmap
Time for us to complete: 22 game sessions.
Player Characters:
Philip the Raid Leader: 7th mission, 4th mission as Raid Leader. Riding Johny the horse.
Starflower the Lion Warrior (with Regulus the Lion): 7th mission, 4th mission as a Lion Warrior. Riding Alogo the horse.
William the Bear Knight (with Bill the Bear): 7th mission, 4th mission as a Bear Knight. Riding Arled the horse.
Edward the Knight of the Way (Forest Specialty): 7th mission. 1st mission as a Knight of the Way. Riding Edmur the horse.
Session #8
Date in Real Life: Sunday November 28, 2021
In Game Day: evening of Khamesh the 22nd of Yuwol (4th day of mission)
After resting, the team spent some time coming up with a strategy for how they were going to deal with Sengo. Geoffrey came home. They had supper, prayed together, and said their goodbyes, realizing they would probably have to make a quick exit from the town after completing their mission.
[What follows is a story written by player 1: Starflower]
***
Starflower took a deep breath and entered the tea shop with Edward following her. Now was the time to infiltrate the Chamber of Commerce and kill the greedo, Sengo, once and for all. She looked around, wondering where in the world to find the basement. Her eyes narrowed on the space behind the bar. That’s probably where the entrance is.
Starflower turned to Edward and whispered, “Let me do most of the talking, okay? I’ve got this.”
Edward nodded and followed her as she headed toward the back of the tea house. The nice lady owner got in the way.
“What are you doing?” she asked firmly.
Starflower leaned over in a confidential whisper, “We’re looking for the Chamber of Commerce. We’re hoping to meet Sengo tonight.”
The lady gave a smiling wink, “Well then, right this way.” She led Starflower and Edward to the back of the tea house and showed them the trap door to the basement. Once they were alone on the steps, Starflower shot Edward a grin. The plan was falling into place. Philip and William were already waiting outside the tea house with horses on guard. Cenbald had met up with Regulus and Bill outside the town. The lion and bear would be acting like walkie-talkies so that the two groups could communicate. Starflower spotted the end of the stairway. A man was at the bottom with a bunch of black cloaks. He handed each of them one. Starflower felt confident that she could infiltrate safely without giving anything away. She glanced at Edward just before he put up his hood. Great. He had a if-I-get-a-chance-I’ll-say-something-stupid-and-mess-up-everything look on his face. Edward wouldn’t deliberately betray the team, but she couldn’t take any chances to mess things up. Starflower stepped into the room and looked around. Most of the members of the Merchant’s Guild were already here, wearing black cloaks, but she didn’t see anyone looking like a greedo. A large chair at the middle of the head table seemed to be reserved for Sengo. Now, where to sit? She spotted two chairs near the end of one of the tables really close to the head table, and led Edward over to them. She sat in the chair next to one of the Chamber of Commerce members, and made Edward sit in the chair at the end of the table. It was rather dimly lit in the room, despite the candles on the table.
The guy next to Starflower leaned over and asked what she thought about tonight's meeting. Starflower replied, “Sorry, I’m new here, so I don’t know what the topic is.”
“Whether or not we should force the market stall owners to be part of the guild,” his voice suddenly grew guarded, “Who sent you?”
Starflower smiled to herself, “The cucumber merchant. Tsepha, I believe.”
The man seemed to relax a bit at this, “Ah, the cucumber merchant. What do you sell?”
“Well, I’ve been working with dad as a book merchant,” Starflower hedged.
“Mmmm, a book merchant,” the man nodded and turned away from her to the man on the other side.
While this was going on, Starflower had been watching the entrance and saw that all the chairs were filled except the big one at the head of the table. Soon, an even bigger cloaked member came in and sat in that chair.
Starflower cocked her head slightly in confusion. Weren’t Philip and William supposed to kill the greedo if they met him before we did? Why is he here?
Mlady! Philip was enchanted by the greedo and William doesn’t know how to rescue him! Regulus’s voice spoke urgently into her head.
Starflower’s mind raced, Greedo enchantments! Um, what verses would counteract those?
Sengo called the meeting to order, “Fellow members of the Chamber of Commerce, you’ve all had a chance to think about tonight’s topic, whether or not to force the market stalls to become part of our guild. What do you think?” He turned towards Starflower and repeated the question.
Starflower took a deep breath, rapidly sending a message to William to hang on, before responding, “I think that it wouldn’t be the best of ideas to force them. If they join against their will, they could try to tear it apart from the inside. It would be better to convince them to join, maybe explaining all the benefits,” she shrugged, “maybe even giving them an extra reward for joining?”
Sengo’s eyes seemed to narrow on her through the cloak, “Are you paying for these extra rewards?”
Starflower settled back, “Maybe.”
Sengo looked around at the other members and started talking normal merchant stuff about how much money they were making and blah blah blah.
Starflower remembered about Philip and tried to remember what was the source of the greedo enchantments and how to combat them. Um, William, try telling Philip that making money isn’t important, we need to focus on our mission. Oh, try the verse of “The love of money is the root of all evil.”
A few minutes later, Regulus replied, It worked M’lady, Philip’s back to normal again.Starflower breathed a happy sigh and whispered the news to Edward. He nodded back at her.
Sengo suddenly tapped the table and called for the vote to begin, “All those in favour forcing the merchants, say ‘aye’!”
Starflower glanced around as most of the room raised their hands, and gave Edward a sharp warning jab with her elbow as she saw he was about to raise his.
Sengo nodded, “All those against forcing the merchant to to join us, say ‘aye’!”
Starflower raised her hand and quietly gestured to Edward to do the same. She looked around grimly- no one else was raising their hand.
Sengo seemed minorly irritated, but he continued, “And all those who abstain, say ‘aye’!”
Great, Edward and I could have just abstained if we had known.Starflower thought. Only one person in the room raised their hand.
“Then it is decided, we will force the stall merchants to join our guild.” Sengo boomed. “Now who here is new to this guild? Please stand up.”
Starflower stood and hauled Edward up with her. The guy who had abstained also rose from his seat.
Sengo approached the other man first, “Do you swear to follow Krokerades, the Ruler of us All?”
“I swear that I will!” answered the other man.
Sengo hugged the man, “Welcome to the family!”
Starflower slid her dagger out of its sheath and tucked it into her sleeve, at the ready. A hug would be a perfect chance to stab the foul creature. Except . . .
“Do you swear allegiance to Krokerades, the Ruler of us All?” Sengo had come up to Starflower and posed the question.
Starflower suddenly blanched under her hood. How was she supposed to answer thatvaguely enough that she didn’t betray the Rescuer? Suddenly she felt the Overlord’s calming presence and His words flowed out of her mouth, “I swear to follow the Ruler of All with the loyalty that I always have.”
Sengo’s arms encircled her in a friendly hug, “Welcome to the family.”
Starflower rapidly slid her dagger out of her sleeve and stabbed the greedo in the back. Regulus! Tell Philip and William to get in here fast! The entrance to the basement is a trapdoor behind the counter! She glanced over her shoulder as the greedo stumbled back. Good. Edward was drawing his sword and he ran it at the greedo as well. Of course, pandemonium broke out everywhere as people realized what was going on and either tried to flee or tried to stop them from killing Sengo. The greedo leapt up onto the table and threw off his cloak. Edward and Starflower followed and attacked again. Edward’s sword made contact with Sengo, but he dodged her dagger. Starflower noticed William and Philip come into the basement as well. Philip jumped onto a table and started adding confusion by putting out candles and screaming. William pushed his way through to the end of the table and drew both daggers. Sengo clawed at Starflower’s face, but her shield of faith protected her and she moved to slash him again. Sengo, however, leapt away and started running down the table. People tried to stop Edward and her from chasing him, but Starflower dodged them easily and was relieved to feel Edward by her side as he got away as well.
Meanwhile, Sengo had run right into William’s double daggers. One of them made a critical hit to the greedo’s abdomen while the other was deflected. Starflower ran up and ran the greedo through the heart as he tried to slash William’s face. She whispered a hurried “help” prayer and was relieved to see William unharmed. Edward and William also struck the greedo as she dealt the killing blow, and it collapsed, making one last dying attempt to strike William. Edward called out a help prayer. Suddenly, the only screaming they heard was Philip’s, but he stopped as he noticed the silence. Philip had been putting out candles everywhere and only one candle near them and the greedo was left.
Starflower waved her dagger triumphantly, “Now that’s what I call backstabbing!Mission accomplished! Now we just have to get out of here.
Edward looked around the now very dark room, “I think the Rescuer put all the Aladoth to sleep in answer to my battle prayer.”
Starflower grinned, “That just makes our life easier.” She praised the Overlord in her heart, then her face took on a serious turn again, “We still have to get out of here though. Let me talk us out of the tea house if we have to.”
Philip nodded, and looked distastefully at the dead greedo, “I can’t believe that Sengo enchanted me and then I didn’t even get to hit him with my battle ax.”
Edward patted his shoulder, “Don’t worry, we’ll probably meet more dark creatures on the road once we leave town.”
Starflower led the way to the stairs, and took off her cloak, “We don’t need to wear these now, but they are nice and we could keep them,” she said, nodding to Edward. He nodded back and tucked it into his pack. Starflower walked up the steps with the rest of the team at her heels. When they got out from behind the counter, the shop owner stopped them with a concerned expression, “Is everything all right down there?”
Starflower put a nervous look on her face, “Um, we kind of had to go to the bathroom or something.” It wasn’t a total lie, the excitement of the battle had reminded her bladder that it would need a break soon.
The shop keeper looked slightly surprised, “Everyone at once?”
Starflower nodded, “It was really bad down there.” For the greedo,she added in her head.
The owner shrugged and let them continue on their way. Starflower mounted Alogo, her talking horse, and the others mounted their horses as well. They pretended to take part briefly in the festivities by shouting encouragement to the jugglers and clowns. Starflower didn’t feel completely safe until they had passed the gate without incident. Cenbald, Regulus, and Bill met them in the woods near the town.
“How did it go?” hissed Cenbald excitedly.
Starflower smiled, “We accomplished our mission. We can describe it in more detail once we’re somewhere safe. For now, let’s keep moving and get far away from Hawold.”
The team moved off, exhilarated with their most recent victory.
***
They hastened away in the middle of the night.
As they journeyed north of the town, they spotted three goblins on the road. The goblins were intimidated at the sight of them, and turned to run away.
“This would be good practice for Cenbald,” Philip said. “Let’s chase them.”
The team charged. Cenbald threw his dagger at a goblin, then rode in closer and smashed it with his war hammer. He was thrilled at his first victory over a dark creature. The other two goblins were quickly dispatched by the others.
The team continued a little further down the road, encountering four people walking the other way. William’s instincts told him not to trust them. The team politely declined any offers to make camp with them and continued on. Philip led them off the trail to the river to make camp for the night.
Kommentarer