Sorcery #1 - The Elvins

Campaign Diary

It was a cool spring morning when our heroes passed through the Cantopani Gate and entered into the Shamutanti Hills. Following the dirt road to the northeast, they arrived at the village of Cantopani at noon. They were met by the village headman, who offered them some advice for their journey beyond the village, but he was rebuffed. Entering the trader's hut, Morgana spent much of her gold purchasing a bamboo pipe (useful as a spell component) and a glittering jewel set on a necklace. Finding little else of interest in the village, they soon departed.

Beyond the village the dirt road split into two. On the fork to the left, leading down into a valley, Glowulf noticed several figures made from sticks hanging from the branches - it was a way to ward off evil spirits. Ignoring the warning, our heroes continued down that path. A few hours later, they arrived at a clearing with three thatched huts; a fire burned in a pit at the open area in the centre of the clearing.

Our heroes went about exploring the seemingly deserted village, managed to get themselves cursed by a dark spirit found inside a chest in one of the huts, fought and killed two guard dogs inside another, and finally were put into a magical slumber by the music inside the third. When they awoke they found themselves prisoners of elvins, a magical, elf-like race. They were admonished for their intrusion, and were thrown outside the village, with some of their provisions taken.

With the sun setting, our heroes hurried on to try to find a place to spend the night, and arrived at the village of Kristatanti just before sunset. Having spent most of their gold on purchases in Cantopani, they found themselves with insufficient funds for a room at the inn, and decided to sleep in the open just outside the village.

They settled upon a spot beside a stream, and while the others started a fire, Glowulf started fishing, and managed to catch enough fish for two. After dinner, the heroes set a watch, and with Morgana taking the first watch, the others went to sleep.

In the middle of her watch, Morgana heard a rustling coming from the brush near the camp. She quickly roused the others; the party barely had enough time to grab their gear before a large form burst out of the bush with an unearthly shriek - they were being attacked by an owlbear...

Prepping and Running the Game

For this session I stuck pretty close to the script of the module, since at this point it was reasonable that things were relatively linear.

Truth be told I was rather disappointed by how the players played their characters in this session. Three of the four players are from the Terrinoth campaign, and played experienced characters who behave accordingly; put in the roles of new characters, however, they regressed to the typical murder-hobo type, insulting NPCs and breaking and entering as though they were in a video game RPG. To be fair this type of behaviour is par for course for gamebooks, but hopefully after their encounter with the elvins they will be more circumspect.

The owlbear is of course not "native" to the Sorcery! setting, but fg had recently painted the model, and I thought it was as good a stand-in for a skunkbear as any other monster we had.

The best bit of meta-roleplaying in this session was actually when Glowulf's player announced that he would try to catch some fish for dinner. While seemingly innocuous, this actually foreshadows and event that will occur much later on in the campaign.

It was a short session, as we spent the first hour creating characters. During the next session I hope to complete the remainder of the first part of the trilogy.