Arthur returns north with a full army in tow this time to finish what was started last year. But it's not just the Saxons in the North who have been busy, as the player-knights discover when they return to Salisbury...
Featuring:
Jade
Renae
Jen
And...Edie the Dog
The campaign's wiki can be found here.
The source of all our giggling about "ch'arki" towards the end of the session can be found at this link, home to a pretentiously "artisanal" brand of beef jerky I was ranting about before the session recording started.
RULES MINION?!
ReplyDeleteEh, I'll take it.
I wouldn't have it any other way.
DeleteAlso, you can retain your Master Herald status--a knight can hold more than one office, after all!
You also have a particular form of bad luck energy named after you, that gets spread around the table whenever you're absent. Which appeared to be a surprise to no one. Although both the Natural 20's in this session seemed to have worked out well for the party. Wulfram's became the turning point hero of a battle, and Concord's saved people's lives by not trying to solo a castle with a dagger.
DeleteAnd hey, suck it Saxons! As established NO ONE has food tasters yet. How do you like them poisoned apples?
"Wulfram's became the turning point hero of a battle..."
DeleteIt's funny, because after we had that rash of people going mad in battle and running away, I made a note to myself that the next person to go mad in battle I was doing to have make a suicidal charge. Just Jen's luck that this particular battle actually called for a suicidal (yet ultimately successful) one-man charge!
"...and Concord's saved people's lives by not trying to solo a castle with a dagger."
That was one of those moments where I was thinking to myself "are they really going to TPK themselves of their own volition?" And then they came back and tried it again, but thankfully Concord's 20 saved their asses.
There'll be plenty of opportunities to die next year guys, don't worry. Sheesh.
So clearly we've proven not only that David not being there distributes his rolling luck to everyone, but also that the universe actually ensures his terrible rolling luck creates negative outcomes specifically for him.
DeleteI had pegged the food as poisoned from the beginning by how people were acting. The dagger threw me for a bit, but really there should've been at least SOME hospitality loss. Concord and Wulfram were specifically asked not to bring weapons in, and the old man didn't even have a walking staff he could lean on. That's just rude.
Sheesh, it's like players don't realise that trying to TPK themselves takes all the fun out of it.
This was more of a call for an Honor loss, IMO, since they were acting dishonorably. I'd peg a Hospitality loss as more appropriate for acting against a host in the capacity of a guest, rather than the role of visiting emissaries they were occupying.
DeleteOh, and as for the whole gambit, Des saw it coming from a mile away too and explicitly told me even before the session that she wasn't going to have Cerdic eat or drink anything presented to him. Never try to out-poison a poisoner.
That's why the dagger gambit was so fun, because it was the classic "Disguise a good assassination attempt with a poor assassination attempt" trick. It sounded like Des had a bit of a panic moment by not insisting that Cerdic's guards should have searched/been aware of the poisoned dagger.
DeleteAlso when you said that the players should bring ALL of their characters next session, does that include Sir Aeron? Should Dave spend a bunch of money to put his church on wheels so that Aeron can drive it at people and thus not violate his oath to never leave its grounds?
I hope so.
Wheels within wheels, Jake.
DeleteWheels within wheels.
I note Cerdic didn't have any Britons in his court. So much for those claims of trying to unite Saxons and Cymru! Those rascally Saxons; you just can't trust 'em.
ReplyDeleteAnd you know, I used to have one of those little Dover sticker books kind of like paper dolls for knights. It only had six or seven suits of armor, I think, but I was pretty fond of it.
Cerdic's a bit of a tragic figure, really. He really did want to unite the tribes, but bit by bit his erstwhile Cymric allies deserted him until he was ruler of just another Saxon kingdom.
DeleteI've looked at those Dover books too! I have a vision of producing some line art that players can color in. Or else maybe there's a computer game out there that would allow Sims-level customization, although I doubt the options would be as chronologically granular as I'd be looking for.
One of the pleasures of reading/listening to GPC reports is always in how the side characters are handled. I know I've seen at least one where Cerdic ended up swearing fealty to Arthur. In this case, though, I don't recall Wessex doing much productive, so it's hard for me to feel too bad for him.
DeleteOn the art front, I am suddenly recalling an RPG I have called Fantasy Imperium. Why I am unimpressed with the quality of the rules (who would have guessed that Serving Wench was such a skill point intensive profession?), it does have quite a lot of line art covering the Roman and medieval periods. Some is of questionable historicity (my impression being that it is considered doubtful that ring mail ever existed, for example), but if you could find a very cheap copy, it might be worth looking at.