A journey through a land of fantasy…

The first session’s adventure didn’t actually require any player knowledge of the world, since it was meant to be an introduction to the game, as well as an introduction of the characters to each other, so this session, at least, can be read without any real history.

As you know, this campaign was meant to be a bit more realistic than your typical “adventurers tromping across the countryside” campaign, and as such, I set up an atmosphere of general unease among the players.  I told them that they do not necessarily need to trust their party members, and that they won’t know everything about their companions.  They might know on sight, for example, that one is a cleric, from his vestments and holy symbol, but they can’t assume that he will necessarily throw healing spells everywhere or save your skin at the expense of his own.  Players were encouraged to keep their character sheets hidden.

The problem with this, though, is that the party does not necessarily have any reason to stay together.  Especially with a character like Vryn, who has little love for humans at all and is completely dedicated to the task he was given.  (Robert created a fake character sheet to make sure no one inadvertently saw his sheet and figured out his secret, and on it, he listed as his deity “Uther, god of self-sufficiency.”  That should indicate how dedicated Vryn was to the party at first.)  Thus, I told the players that even though their characters might not find a reason to stay together, they should meta-game and keep together, at least for the first few sessions. 

I should also note here that my notes from the first few sessions, both what I wrote for the adventures and what I wrote down during the sessions, are much more detailed than they are now (though I am now making a greater effort to at least take better notes during the sessions).  Thus, you’ll find that my descriptions later on will be somewhat hand-wavy, sadly.  Also, we started playing with sessions on the weekend, so they were rather long; now we play on weekday nights, which means they are only 3-4 hours long.

The individuals began in a city called Silverleaf, and they all separately had decided to head to the next town, named Fin Quil, for various reasons based on their personal reasons for traveling the country alone, though they all boiled down to looking for work. 

Sparrow found himself spending his last night in Silverleaf in a rather nice inn, packed mostly with merchants and more wealthy travelers.  He was approached by a cleric of Mystra, who he had observed attempting to spread the word of his goddess to the mostly uninterested inn patrons.  When Sparrow showed an interest in his teachings, the cleric sat down and introduced himself as Brother Steplan Krag.  They chatted a bit, during which Sparrow became impressed that Steplan had no fear of voicing his dislike of the monarchy, and, discovering they both were leaving for Fin Quil in the morning, they decided to travel together.

Meanwhile, in a rather seedy inn across town, a happy and somewhat drunk Falco sat down next to a rather quiet and non-descript looking man and began chatting, mostly to thin air.  Falco wasn’t deterred and eventually the man responded enough that they determined that they were both traveling to Fin Quil and agreed to travel together for protection.  The next morning, when they met just outside the city, they were approached by a young woman, dressed in a dark cloak and leading a horse. She introduced herself as Zoriya and asked if she could join them on their journey. The man stated flat out that he did not wish to travel with spies, and she pointed out that she simply overheard them talking in the tavern the night before, as the two men had made no attempt to hide their conversation. The man then stated that he saw no reason to take her on, and she hinted that she had skills that she could contribute, though she declined to name them. Falco and the man then agreed that she could come along, though the man said firmly that she should expect no special treatment or protection from him.

For the first three days, the trip was uneventful.  They mostly traveled in silence, saying little to one another.  On the third day, at camp with no fire, Falco heard a noise and spotted a figure which ran off.  Falco and the man chased but could not catch him, so the man told Falco to return to Zoriya.  When the rogue was out of sight, the man grew wings and flew after his quarry.  What he found, though, was a group of six men walking along the road, carrying a lantern.  He could not tell if the fleeing figure was among them, so he turned and headed back to camp. 

When he returned (sans wings), he told his companions of the approaching group, and they cleaned up the camp, moved into the trees, and waited.  Presently, the men appeared, searching the trees on both sides of the road.  They spotted the man and approached him.  “We are the men of Lord Miken of Silverleaf, and this is his road. We are collecting road taxes, and since you are traveling on this road, you must pay up. 100 gp a head.” 

This didn’t make sense:  The men were dressed in ragged, scruffy armor, not like lordsmen at all, did not carry insignia, and were charging an insane road tax, over 100 times more than usual.  The man set his shield and held his sword ready, and said, “I don’t believe you. You’re nothing more than thugs. I realize that it’s six on one, boys, but you’d better leave now.” A few of the men stepped back and turned to leave, but two muttered that they couldn’t believe this wimp and stepped in to attack.

As Falco sprang from the bushes to attack and Zoriya began raining spells down at the men from the trees, Brother Steplan and Sparrow approached on horseback on the road, having decided to ride late into the fine evening. Hearing the commotion, they crept up behind a tree, and seeing the fight of 6 men on 3, Steplan shot a man in the back with his crossbow and the two joined the fray.  The new allies made short work of the men, and when the leader fled into the trees, the man gave chase alone.  He returned a while later with a greatsword, saying that the leader had fled, dropping the greatsword in his haste.

Finding themselves all in the same place at the same time in the same situation, and concerned that a larger group of bandits might appear to take revenge upon them, the group decided to finish the rest of the journey together. They traveled the rest of the way to Fin Quil, with Brother Krag preaching the word of Mystra and Sparrow playing his flute.

There are two things that should be noted at this point.  First, the party never bothered to ask Vryn his name.  Vryn never actually stated his name (or I should say, any name) until later in the session.  Second, the party assumed immediately that Vryn was telling the truth about the fate of the leader, which he wasn’t.  He had again sprouted wings, this time chasing the leader down and dispatching him.  He had looted other items from the body, but couldn’t find a way to hide the greatsword.  These are indications of future dealings with Vryn in which the rest of the characters never quite realize that something’s going on. 

When the group reached Fin Quil, they found a cheap inn to stay in, while Sparrow, Falco, and Vryn explored the city for any leads on work.  They found that a noble lady named Alia Tenlogan was advertising for some muscle, and so they decided to inquire.  Lady Alia was a spinster noble, with an interest in magic and history, and enough money to spend on her hobbies to her heart’s content.  She asked all their names, at which point Vryn introduced himself as Vryn Smithson, then picked up a pair of brass-framed hand spectacles and viewed the party through them.  Vryn fidgeted as she surveyed him, but she said nothing out of the ordinary.  She explained that she had been looking for qualified adventurers for a while now, and after many applicants who claimed to have adventuring experience but turned out to have none, she designed and commissioned these magic glasses which would tell her that a person at least had some combat experience.  (Robert/Vryn was terrified of true seeing revealing his nature, so I threw this in to make him nervous on the first gaming session.)

She stated that she had a very important task that she wanted the group to accomplish, but she wanted to be sure the group was skilled and trustworthy, so she had a task for them to do first.  One of her trusted servants, a man named Tarv Linwater, had been attacked by grontids, huge spider-like creatures (based on araneas) as he passed the forest known as the Oltari on his way to Menkari Village.  She wanted the group to destroy the colony of grontids and escort Tarv back to Fin Quil.  The group agreed, and set out the next day.

After traveling northeast along the road for three days, the party came upon a hastily-erected wooden sign which warned of the grontids ahead. The group forged on, with Falco scouting ahead, and came across telltale signs of grontid activity — spent webbing caught in the trees. They turned into the forest and explored ahead, and eventually, the webbing was completely covering the trees and ground, hindering their movement. Falco caught sight of a couple of spiders in the trees and shot at one. Six total spiders moved to engage the party, and after a short battle, in which Zoriya enlarged Vryn to enhance his fighting, the spiders were dispatched.  (As a side note, we realized much later that this couldn’t happen; Vryn, as a monstrous humanoid, cannot be enlarged with an enlarge person spell.)

The grouped traveled on to Menkari Village, where they found Tarv Linwater in the Black Stag Inn, looking very relieved to see his rescuers. With the last of his gold, Tarv paid for their rooms and bought them drinks, and in the morning, they set back out for Fin Quil.

At the Tenlogan estate five days later, Lady Alia welcomed the group back, and was pleased to see her loyal servant. “They accomplished the task admirably, Lady Alia,” said Tarv, “and they stayed truly loyal to you.” Lady Alia revealed that she had taken advantage of a bad situation — while she did indeed need the group to dispatch the grontids and escort Tarv back home, she had Tarv make a proposition to them to betray her for a handsome sum of money. Tarv had approached Sparrow, who had replied that he was a man of his word and was not going to betray the lady.  She was pleased to hear that, and decided that she was willing to entrust this group of mercenaries with her task.

She then revealed the task. She was searching for an artifact called the Thaumaturge’s Crystal, created by the wizard Eltaminar a hundred years before. She had deduced that the wizard had probably hidden the location of the crystal in five silver lockets that he had sent to his nieces a few years before his death, and had clues as to the location of at least three of them. She offered 4000 gold for each locket, and 40,000 gold for the crystal itself, as well as letters of recommendation for the group. The group accepted the job, and prepared to travel to Tilfynn to find the first locket.