I've been running a game for three old co-workers of mine, one of which has played Dungeons & Dragons once, one who has never played before, and one who was not sure what an orc is.
The setting is my own, a dingy, medieval world where most people are sure that the last of the dragons died out long ago. If they ever existed in the first place. A world where the term "sorcerer" brings to mind sleight-of-hand and deception long before real magic.
At least, that's how things are where the characters start out. But the further they are from home, the more they start to see that superstition and legend stem from things all too real.
At session zero, I gave them a brief outline on what to expect:
Genre: Arthurian/fairytale
Tone: Wonder
Theme: "Here Be Monsters"
Length: ~10 sessions, from levels 1-6.
The cast:
Kol, a wandering adventurer and mystic pilgrim. Kol's mother was a nord skinshifter, a cunning and furious warrior. On a raid in Eirelin, she met the man who would be Kol's father, a gentle man with a silver tongue, and forsook her clan's bloody ways for a life of peace. She helped her new people repel the invaders and was soon with child.
Kol's grandfather, wroth at his kin and even more so at the people who took her from him, returned and laid waste to his daughter's new home. Kol's family bought him enough time to escape the nord raiding parties, and he has been traveling ever since, eager to honor his parents sacrifice and to grow in might himself, so that next time, he may stand and fight.
Kol is fair and wise, with sharp eyes, a clear laugh and a stormy heart.
Sarisa Fortiss, an obsessive, brilliant and disturbing young lady. Her father was the court alchemist of Lord Darius von Buchenhoft until a few months ago, where an expiriment went awry and Sarisa's father (and her cat) vanished. Unsatisfied with the cursory investigation performed by the castle guard, Sarisa has continued her father's research for a doorway into Faerie, where limitless power, immortality and the truth behind her father's disappearance await.
Sarisa has made surprising headway in the isolation and distilling of glamourie, using it to heighten her abilities and drive her research ever deeper. And ever at the cost of her emotional stability, her sanity and--she has begun to worry--her very soul.
Sarisa is wiry, distracted and unpleasant, with a mind capable of focus that often crosses into obsession.
Traygor, a quiet but imposing brute of a man with orc blood. For all his life, folk have thought Traygor capable of little more than skinning his knuckles at local tavern brawls. But while he is simple and coarse, he is far from dull and is not at all cruel.
After life as a pariah in the village where he was born and a brief stint as a slave in the goblin mines, he found work as a caravan guard and mercenary. At least until a smiling, ruthless man called Grahm talked him into a life as a highwayman.
Traygor is broad of chest and arm, with prominent tusks, a scarred back and an almost frightening practicality.
Our story begins with Kol, wandering down from the north isles to the mainland, in the lands of Banenheim.
Kol has heard strange tales over the past few weeks. As he was splitting firewood for an old widow, she told him there are sprites and will-o'-the-wisps on the edge of the forest. From a few grizzled mercenaries he hears of spirits poisoning village wells and piksies stealing infants from their cribs. People have been telling stories about the Fair Folk since time out of mind, but this is different. Kol spoke with the Tanner family, who claimed they have hard evidence that strange and fell times are at hand. Their daughter, Jenny, went missing nigh 6 days ago.
Kol seeks an audience with Darius von Buchenhoft, Lord of the South Marches, to seek aid for the Tanners and others like them. Unfortunately, Buchenhoft has little time to spare for one bereaved family (the foolish girl ran off worth some traveling players, like as not), what with goblins coming down from the mountains and bandits on the east road--bandits brave enough to waylay tax collectors, mind. If Kol wanted to, say, find these bandits, he'd have Lord Darius's blessing to look into whatever superstitions and tales of woe he wished.
Darius assigns his court physician and alchemist, Sarisa Fortiss, to accompany Kol in this endeavor. She has fervently studied folklore and faerie tales for years in pursuit of her own private projects, though Lord Buchenhoft's main reason for sending her is clearly her gift with fire.
After weeks of combing the forests along the east road, Kol and Sarisa find the first trail signs of the bandit encampment.
Several miles from the main road, they find a makeshift fort filled with hard men, as well as a quiet girl with dark hair. Having found the bandit's camp (and the Tanner girl, it would seem), they attempt to return to Lord Darius with the information. But some of the bandits posses a fair bit of woodcraft and spot the two wanderers before they can retreat.
What follows is a long and grueling exchange of arrows and bolts. The dark, the rain and the underbrush conceal much, but the bandits are greater in number and hold a more favorable position. Things would be grim indeed if it weren't for Sarisa and her firebombs.
Grahm, the leader of the bandits, offers them a choice: allow them to withdraw unharassed, or watch them cut Jenny's throat. They had planned on taking the girl south to the slave markets and making a heavy penny, but if Sarisa and Kol think she's only good for painting this little corner of the forest red...so be it.
But the new plan does not sit well with Traygor. He'd spent the better part of a year a slave in the goblin iron-mines, beaten and shackled in the dark. Robbery is one thing. Slavery is another. And the murder of someone who can't even hope to defend themselves...Traygor can't abide it. After weeks of mockery and ill-treatment by Grahm and these other men--after a lifetime of such from all their ilk--Traygor decides he has had enough. With his might and the heavy blade of his horse-killing axe now on the other side, the standoff becomes a bitter melee, brief and bloody.
The three companions pick through the bandit's supplies, lick their wounds, and bring Grahm (the only survivor) and a still-dazed Jenny Tanner back to the keep of the South Marches and Buchenhoft's judgement. The penalty for highway robbery in Vaulten is death, but Traygor is ready to accept whatever fate awaits him.
Lord Darius rewards Kol and Sarisa well, and pardons Traygor's crimes as payment for his apprehension of the other bandits. Though, he says, every criminal must face justice. Traygor is lashed ten times, singly across the back for banditry, just before Grahm dances on air. Traygor doesn't mind, terribly; it's high time he paid for the blood on his hands, and he had been beaten far worse than this.
The Tanners are overjoyed to have their daughter back in their arms, but they cannot give much; a heartfelt thanks and a gift of three supposedly enchanted acorns is all they can spare with winter coming.
Kol, Sarisa and Traygor make their way back to the city from the Tanner's fields, they hear distant cries and the clash of steel. It seems Buchenhoft was right to worry about those goblins...
The hills to the north are crawling with goblins, the air rent and shivering with the howling of wolves.
Kol, Sarisa and Traygor manage to get off the main road and find cover before a goblin scouting party--but one claw on the many- and long-fingered hand that is the goblin forces--caught wind of the three adventurers.
Being the only defense between the goblins and the nearby farms, they spring the trap, bombarding goblins and wolves with arrows and fire.
Most of the goblins are dispatched before they are even aware of the three companions, shot from the backs of their mounts or charred into smoking husks. But the wolves are altogether a hardier lot and close on the heroes with terrible speed, dragging Kol, Sarisa and Traygor to the ground. Kol manages to find his feet and runs one of the wolves through before helping Sarisa end another. Traygor is worried by two of the beasts and endures serious wounds before he ends one with a lucky blow of his axe and throttles the life from the other with his bare hands.
They make their way back to The Ivy Covered Stay, the last roadside inn before they come to Vaulten's main gates, and spend the night there to recover from the worst of their injuries. Kol uses what mystic arts he knows to help his comrades along the path to recovery, but as it is, they'll be bruised and bloody for a good long while yet.
Unfortunately for them, there are more pains to come as a larger raiding party assaults the Stay under the cover of darkness, setting fire to the stables and panicking the horses.
Sarisa turns the dark into day with fire of her own as Kol and Traygor take the fight to the goblins outside the inn's high walls, felling enough of them to send the rest howling back to the woods.
It is in these woods that the three adventurers encounter something that banishes all thought of goblins, wolves and raiding parties. There, on the thick, wild grass beneath the sharp autumn sky, is a faerie. She is even smaller than Sairsa, with soft, luminous wings like a great moth. Her eyes are the rich violet of the sky above, wide and deep. They are sparkling, ancient and absolutely, utterly mad.
About her waist is a silver chain strung with the hands of small children.
Sarisa finally finds her voice. "Who are you?"
The faerie laughs, then frowns. "That would be telling."
"Why are you here?"
"The bridge is mended. The door is open. It's time to play!" And with that, the strange creature takes wing, soaring high above the three stunned, upturned faces of our wanderers until she is lost among the stars.
Still in shock, Kol, Sarisa and Traygor make their way back to the Stay, where they are welcomed as heroes for their deeds in the battle with the goblins. But though the stew is hot and the ale runs freely, their minds are troubled with what they have seen.
Perhaps some of the locals can see this on the adventure's faces. Perhaps this is why they begin muttering their concerns about their neighbors to the north, in the village of Hilltop. The goblins came, razing and killing, forcing the people from nearby farms and towns for miles to make for Vaulten and it's battlements. Except there are none from Hilltop. Not a soul. Perhaps the goblins managed to surround the village, and all who once dwelt there are slain or captured. There are several at the Stay who have family out that way, and they'd pay a good price to learn what befell their kin.
As much as Kol wishes to see the innocent safely back to Vaulten, he and his companions spend the night at the Stay to rest. They make for Hilltop with the dawn.
Approaching from the south, they can see the ancient hill that gives the village it's name rising up in the distance. It is crowned with a ring of massive standing stones and henges, the sacred place of some forgotten people. Sarisa climbs the slope, on the lookout for goblin forces, when she sees that one of the weathered stones in this pagan circle had been shaped into the crude likeness of a man. Legs drawn up to the chest, arms wrapped tightly around the knees--the very image of grief.
After a long moment, Sairsa realises that this stone is no carving; it is alive, and weeping softly, muttering to itself. "No, please...no more. Please, no more. No. Please..."
Bewildered and disturbed, Sarisa makes her way back to Kol and Traygor. Whatever happened here was so horrific, it would seem that the earth itself awoke to mourn.
Traygor knows the signs of goblin raiding parties; the fire and pointless destruction. But Hilltop shows none of this; it's as if every man, woman and child in the village up and left. The quiet and the stillness are heavy in the air.
In the middle of the high street is a small, withered old man with a shock of white beard. He is stooped over the remains of a boy, dipping a long stocking cap into the pulped, red ruin of the boy's face.
Sarisa is appalled, but also thrilled. "A redcap!" She cries. Two fae sightings in so short a time? Surely this is proof that her research--but there is no time for reverie now, for the hunched and scowling creature before them has no wish to bandy words. It simply hefts a gnobby, nail-studded club and charges, screaming hoarse curses in a strange tongue.
The thing slams into Kol, his shield rent by the force of it's blows. Sarisa's firebombs have little effect, as she feared. In the heat of the melee, she rattles off every strange fact and half-spun tale about redcaps she can recall. Their blood-soaked caps are the source of their strength, that is the key to their survival.
Traygor, not usually known for his tactical brilliance, puts his considerable endurance to the test and leaves himself open to the redcap's strike. The shrunken brute lashes out with all of it's profane might, but as soon as it's blow lands--dislocating Traygor's shoulder--the orc-blooded mercenary snatches the grimy, gore-crusted hat off the fae's head.
The three heroes make short work of their adversary then, ending the wicked thing's existence when Traygor tears out it's throat with his tusks.
Battered and shaken but with their blood up, they continue exploring the abandoned village. They don't wander for long, however, before they come to the edge of a tremendous sinkhole. Ringed by fat white toadstools and with pale, bloated spiders crawling along it's walls, the three heroes suspect they know where the villagers of Hilltop have gone.
Breaking out rope and rock hammers, they begin their descent.
After what seems like hours, they find themselves in a hall of cold, gray stone. The light of their torches seems fitful and pale deep below the earth, and it reveals things best left in darkness. Strange objects of steel and glass--torture devices of exquisite quality and fiendish design--arrayed on stone tables along side nightmarish contraptions, incomprehensible tomes and jars of nameless unjents, salves and solutions. And it is here they find the survivors.
Some of them have been blinded, living eyes plucked from their sockets. Others are missing fingers, legs or tongues. Several bear only faint scars--closed with tight, precise stiching--and a sense of terrible emptiness. Sarisa determines they are sedated with some kind of toxin or alchemical compond, and this at least is a mercy.
While Kol and Sarisa discuss how to best free the huddled mass of villagers, Traygor feels the hackles on his neck stand up. Out of the gloom comes a handful of small, gray creatures with long, twitching fingers and huge white eyes.
"Derro." Sarisa mutters, her voice hoarse and muted in the heavy air. "Quiet and quick. Cannot abide bright light. They steal mortals away for unknown purposes..." the stream of words falls from her tongue in a flat monotone even as her body twists and ducks to avoid a hail of darts. "Poison." She warns, and the strange gray creatures retreat around a corner and back into the shadows.
Kol brings up his shield in time and prays to his mother's ghost for the strength to vanquish this evil. Traygor's arms and neck are stuck with several darts, but he does not heed them, instead coming to the end of the corridor and hefting his axe, poised to strike. Sarisa follows his example, mixing a volatile concoction in preparation.
The derro return, stepping into the jaws of the trap. Sarisa burns several of their number, but they are too quick to be entirely caught in the flames. Traygor's axe proves faster yet, however, and one of the vile creatures lets out a shrill, quivering wail as it is cloven from crown to waist.
Still, things would have gone ill for the old caravan guard had it not been for Kol. One of the derro slips past Traygor, this one one armed with a strange, needle-like blade of glass. But before it could strike, Kol charges and runs the vile creature through with good old tempered steel.
What followed is a series of feints and withdraws, counter-attacks and ambushes, in those dark tunnels beneath the earth. Traygor is eager to pursue the derro deeper, but Sarisa knows too many faerie-stories to believe such a course is a good one, and Kol reminds them that there are still the survivors of Hilltop to consider.
After ransacking the derro's chambers, the three heroes manage to help the survivors return to the surface, though what sort of a life they will be able to eek out, injured, homeless and on the edge of winter, none can say. They begin the long, somber trek back to Vaulten, hoping that the city will be able to offer the refugees something the three companions cannot.