accomplishedAs you may recall, the player characters took on a band of raiders/bandits (they weren't sure which), an encounter that Ellie's character, Asper Kalvi, may or may not have led them into. While they didn't defeat the bandits/raiders that easily, the spoils were well worth it. The world of Desolation is one where the remnants of humanity and the other races who survived the apocalyptic Night of Fire are constantly struggling to live and scavenging and looting is a way of life. The characters pretty much took everything that was portable, and came away with a nice haul of worn clothing, some armour, a few weapons that need sharpening but were still usable, some foodstuffs, and a bit of money (which is meaningless in the post-Night of Fire world). They continued to search the ruins, and found signs that the people who had dwelled there were not of any race that they knew. All they could tell from the dessicated bodies that were left was that they had dark (or black) skin, pointed ears, and an odd set of markings on their arms and chest. They also found what appeared to be a long, thin, hollow tube of dark wood or metal that had a varnished look to it...but couldn't figure out what it was, although Teela Goran, the sorceress in the party, could tell there was some trace or residue of magic to the thing. They encountered a few creatures here and there, nothing out of the ordinary, except for some weave spiders that gave the characters problems, and a pair of strangleplants that had a unique, illusory power.
The session of April 25th saw the player characters decide there was nothing left to loot or find in the ruined village, and so they began to set out for their home across the ruined landscape. As mentioned, Kiarra Foxten, the thief-turned-innkeeper, had taken a liking to the girl, Asper Kalvi, and managed to convince the others that she should accompany them back to Chanord. The trip back to Chanord was...not as uneventful as the player characters would have liked. They encountered a group of Rovers, one of the various races in the world of Desolation, and Torvu Peng, Tom's Rover, was suspicious about them, although he couldn't put his fingers on why. When the Rovers attempted to kidnap Asper in the middle of the night, the characters had to fight them off, and the characters found that their attackers were hypnotized through some spell or charm. When the spell wore off in the middle of the fight, the characters learned that the Rovers were from a place called Hillsfar, but couldn't remember where it was. None of the characters knew, but the Rovers agreed to come back to Chanord with the characters for their own reasons. An attack by a pair of Core Delvers (no, I'm not going to explain what they are, although
spross or Tammy Powers or one of the Friday nighters can tell you what they are...sort of) during a night's camp thinned the ranks of the Rovers, and forced the characters to take shelter in a set of caves. The group had to kill a savage cave bear living there, and ganging up on the creature, let's just say made good use of the all the bear's parts. Finally reaching Chanord with the three surviving Rovers, the party received a heroes' welcome, although there were some who were jealous of them. What will happen next remains to be seen, but all kinds of plot potential is present.The Desolation game went really well, better than I had expected, given that I'm using the second edition of the playtest materials to run the game. The players told me that they are having a really good time with the system, and Joanne said that she had been worried about playing the spellcaster in a free-form magic system like this, but she's enjoying it, and likes the challenge it presents her.
While I would have continued to run Desolation and start a new scenario, the Friday night gaming group has decided to give me a few weeks off from running in light of CanGames being in a few weeks, so we'll be doing some boardgames over the next few weeks. Looking foward to it.