Friday Night Campaign, Session One

On Friday night (the 19th), I ran the first session of my BoL campaign.  The set-up was the one I mentioned a few posts ago: having discovered new clues to the whereabouts of the lost city of M'lor, the alchemist Radam Tyl recruits a band of intrepid heroes to travel to the Jungles of Qo, locate M'lor, and return with whatever First Age knowledge survives in the city archives.  (The BoL rulebook identifies M'lor as a Second Age city, but that doesn't seem to jibe with its "lost" status—so I moved it back in time.)

Radam Tyl's recruits (and the players' heroes):

1. Dakar, a Valgardian swordsman whose brief career in piracy ended with him being booted off the ship and left to fend for himself in the port district of Zalut.  Played by Dave.
2. Daneel, a Shamballan gladiator who parlayed his success in Satarla's arena into a noble's title.  He has come to Zalut to investigate rumors of sorcerous interference in the Sartalan games.  Played by Brian.
3. Irryn, a dancer turned assassin who left her home in the Port of the Sea Lords to execute a contract on the magician Samaldran.  Played by Tim.
4. Segdral Darkstar, a Halakti assassin who has also been hired to kill Samaldran (albeit by a different client).  He and Irryn met while casing their shared target and agreed to work together.  Played by David.

The adventure began with the heroes' arrival at Radam Tyl's luxurious townhouse.  Each of them was met at the door by Tyl's most notorious creations: his uplifted dinosaur servants.  While these small dinosaurs did not prove capable of human speech (forcing the players to endure my dinosaur squeaks and hisses), they were able to mix drinks, serve canapes, and light dreamsmoke pipes.  Tyl eventually arrived and made his pitch to the heroes, sweetening the deal with several chests of gold and jewels.  (The heroes were also allowed to take whatever loot they wanted from M'lor, provided that they saved the scrolls they found for Tyl.)

With surprising alacrity (and almost no hard questions), the heroes agreed to the alchemist's plans and set out making preparations for their journey west.  They decided to first purchase passage to Parsool on a deep-water vessel, then travel via coast-hugger and river-barge to Malakut.  There, in the City of the Thieves, they would be able to hire the local guides they would need to survive in the Qo.

Their search for a ship headed to Parsool was twice interrupted, though.  They were first approached by one of Radam Tyl's rivals, the alchemist Sorsha.  (Tyl is a specialist in animal uplight; Sorsha's palanquin-bearers, slaves with their eyes sewn shut, pointed to her own interests in information acquisition and the pain centers of the human body.)  Tyl was apparently not the only alchemist to learn of the ancient document offering hints to M'lor's location, and Sorsha was eager to hire the heroes to serve her interests instead.  Irryn was the only hero willing to listen to all of Sorsha's offer, receiving a jewel-encrusted necklace for her "open-mindedness."

The second interruption was far less polite.  Daneel's investigations into sorcerous cheating had apparently earned him the enmity of the magicians involved, and they sent a team of thugs armed with enchanted daggers to kill him.  The thugs, confident in their numbers, attacked Daneel—and were promptly butchered by the gladiator and his newfound friends.  Irryn demonstrated her prowess as a kill-stealer, finishing off thugs Daneel and Segdral had worked hard to defeat.  Dakar's massive Valgardian greatsword needed no assistance in parting the thugs' heads and limbs from their bodies.

Cleaning their weapons, the heroes were soon able to find the ship they were looking for: Captain Tinray's Screaming Manta.  Tinray had made some bad trades in Zalut and was more than happy to take the heroes' gold with no questions asked.  Unfortunately, he also thought that the Manta was fast enough to outrun the storm that bore down on the ship several hours out from Zalut . . .

Tuuva the Strong

[Played by Amity]

Tuuva is from Valgard, and left her tribe for unknown, and unspoken-of, reasons.  She tried for a time to make a living as a mercenary, but she doesn't play well with others, even other warriors, and the profession didn't exactly suit her: not enough killing.  She once overheard two mercenaries talking about a visit to "the Arena," and the life of a gladiator sounded heavenly to her: a bed, ample food, and a chance to kill as many things as she wanted.  She left mercenary work immediately and headed to the gladiatorial ring.

Gladiators are only supposed to kill when they have been given the sign, and often non-fatal matches are "rigged" so that particular crowd favorites come out on top.  Unfortunately for Tuuva, once the blood-lust takes a hold of her she often can't reign herself in, and during a fight that was supposed to be "to-the-pain" only, she killed her opponent.  She then killed several guards who entered the arena to subdue her.  The Master of Games had no interest in harboring an out-of-control and obviously dangerous gladiator, so Tuuva was sold into slavery.

She was disconsolate over losing her place in the Arena, and could not understand the concept of commercial slavery: the man who had bought her was, in her eyes, weak and pitiful, and he had not beaten her in battle.  Why should she be his slave?  She had soon attacked her new master for "insulting" her, and was subsequently sentenced to death in the very ring she had once called home.

Tuuva is very tall and very muscular, with fair skin and red hair.  At first glance, she looks more like a man than a woman, but her features are handsome enough.  She is dressed in the garb of a slave, though she also wears a peculiar necklace, crafted in the style of the Northern tribes.  Not even her former master dared to try to take it from her.  She doesn't speak much, and when asked about her past, she says nothing -- but will absently caress the necklace.

Quaris the Fallen

[Played by Rob]

Quaris is the last scion of a once mighty Satarlan noble house.  His father spent the last of the family fortune to buy his son a lieutenant's commission in the city's Sky Navy.  The money was well-spent: Quaris swiftly rose through the ranks, earning the captaincy of his own boat before he was thirty years old.    Unfortunately, success breeds envy, and the young sky pilot soon came into conflict with a brace of jealous officers with even bluer blood.  They framed Quaris for bribery, costing him his career and his freedom.  Sentenced to hard labor in Sartarla's allanium mines, the fallen officer fought for and won a place amongst the other convicts.  One of the prisoners taught him the basics of thievery, skills that made possible Quaris's escape from the mines.  He returned to Satarla, hoping to expose those who betrayed him, but was soon recaptured and sentenced to death by combat in the city's arena.  There he and his cellmates—Tuuva the Valgardian shield-maiden and Vanuth the Satarlan hustler—defeated a mighty jemadar man-eater and escaped in a sky boat piloted by a mysterious sorcerer . . .