Sorcery! #6 - The Caravan

Meeting the not-so-friendly locals...

Campaign Diary

The party continued their march northwards, and soon the walls of Khare had disappeared behind them. Ahead lay the vast expanse of the Baddu-Bak plains.

As the waning moon began to rise in the east, Glowulf noticed a few birds circling above the party. Suspecting something unnatural, the party prepared themselves for an attack. Sure enough, one by one the birds began to dive at them - Nighthawks! The party quickly took down three of the raptors; when the remaining two turned to flee, another raptor, this time an eagle, dived out of nowhere and attacked them, killing them before they could get too far.

The eagle then landed before the party. It was a goldencrest eagle, a bird used as messengers by the royal court of Analand. Around its neck was tied a metal tube, which contained a rolled up parchment.

Morgana unrolled the parchment and read it aloud. It was a missive from the king, acknowledging that the party was not the first that the court had sent on this mission - several other parties had been sent, but none had returned. The king also bade them to be wary of the Seven Serpents, servants of the archmage, and to seek out Shadrack the Hermit, who might be able to aid them on their quest. Morgana wrote a message to the king on the back of the parchment, asking him to send the eagle at more frequent intervals, and placed the message back into the metal tube. The eagle took to the air, and flew south.

Scanning the horizon, the party found a solitary dead tree, which they decided to spend the night under. They had barely settled down under the tree's bough when they heard a rustling sound coming from it. They turned and saw that a face had appeared on the gnarled bark of the tree trunk. The face spoke, bidding them to travel eastwards to the fishtail rock, where they would find Shadrack. Despite the lateness, the party decided to break camp and head east.

The moon was high in the sky when they saw a huge rock rising from the flat plain, with its top shaped such that it looked like a fish had been buried headfirst into the ground. The opening to a cave could be seen at the base of the rock, and standing outside it was a man whose face resembled that which appeared on the tree - it was Shadrack the Hermit.

Shadrack welcomed the party into the cave, where he offered them food and asked them of news from Khare, which Goncol happily supplied. The party asked him about the Seven Serpents, and he related how it was told that the archmage had slain a huge hydra many years ago, and raised its seven heads as seven serpents to serve him. In the recent months the Serpents had be about Baklands, rousing the nomadic tribes of the plains.

Each was gifted the power of one of the primal gods which the archmage worshiped: the Moon, the Sun, Fire, Water, Earth, Air, and Time. Though powerful, each serpent also had a weakness - the Air Serpent, Shadrack told the party, could leave its solid body and become intangible, but if its body was destroyed while it was in this state, the serpent would perish.

With their stomachs filled, the party spent the night by the fire in fishtail rock, and when they awoke in the morning Shadrack was nowhere to be found.

The party resumed their course northwards. Once they spied a dust cloud in the distance, as if a large body of horsemen was riding past. Another time they came upon an ancient, now dry riverbed, scoured with many large pits, and heard the sound of a flute coming from one of them. Both times they made a detour to avoid giving themselves away.

At around noon they were attacked by a giant frilled lizard which ambushed them, and Valerian suffered a grievous on his sword arm from the acid which the lizard spat.

In the afternoon the party came upon a caravan in the distance: a Black Elf encampment! Glowulf bade the rest of the party to make a detour around the camp, while he approached it alone. When Glowulf was within bow range a couple of arrows clattered around his feet. Several Black Elf archers challenged him in Elvish, but Glowulf could only reply in Common. Glowulf asked for permission for the party to be admitted to the camp. One of the elves left, and after a while returned to tell him that permission had been granted by Cesstar, the leader of the tribe.

When the party had entered the ring formed by the Black Elves' wagons, they began to question Glowulf, and the party soon learned that Glowulf was not in fact a native of the Baklands which he claimed to be, but was in fact raised by a fisherman in Analand after he was found floating in a basket near the mouth of the Jabaji River! Glowulf had joined the party on it quest as he wanted to return to the Baklands and find his tribe. He showed a pendant which his foster father had found on him, and was told that it bore the symbol of a tribe that dwelt in the Vanti-Bak Wastes to the south.

The Black Elves then questioned the rest of the party on their reason for venturing into the Baklands. Morgana revealed that they had come on a mission against the archmage. Instantly the mood in the camp change - hands gripped sword hilts and arrows were nocked to bowstrings. The Serpents, agents of the archmage, had demanded that all the tribes report any strangers to them, and for all the tribes to gather by the shores of Lake Ilklala on the night of the next full moon to pledge allegiance to the archmage; Cesstar now blamed the party for bringing the archmage's attention to Baklands.

Morgana used all her wits to persuade Cesstar to keep their presence hidden, saying that the tribes would retain their independence if the party succeeded in their quest. Cesstar conferred with her advisors, and loudly proclaimed in Elvish that these "traders" would be allowed to trade at their camp. An elf named Elecar was assigned to be their chaperon, and they were led to the trader's wagon, where Morgana was horrified to find a copy of the spellbook from Analand on sale. She purchased the book, and found that it belonged to a classmate, who no doubt had been sent on the same quest before her, and had perhaps met her end. Walking to the bonfire at the middle of the camp ground, she threw the book into the fire, that its secrets would not be known to the forces of evil.

As the party prepared to leave the Black Elf encampment, Cesstar took Glowulf aside, and asked him to abandon the party's futile quest and join his tribe, but Glowulf replied that he had made a promise to get the party across the Baklands, and he intended to keep that promise; when the quest is over, he would return to the Baklands and find his tribe.

With night approaching, the party headed towards a field of boulders to the north, where they made camp. But their rest was disturbed by a few Klattamen, wild men of the plains. Quickly defeating their attackers, the party decided to move their camp before more attackers arrived.

As they trekked through the night, Glowulf raised his eyes up to the moon to take a bearing, and was puzzled when he saw that the moon was full, when it was waning the night before. Slowly, before their eyes, the moon began to become smaller and smaller... and then it suddenly turned into two moons - the party found themselves staring into the eyes of a large, jet black snake, whose eyes seemed like the surface of the moon: it was the Moon Serpent...

Prepping and Running the Game

This session followed the book rather closely. I once more looked at all the encounters listed in the modules, and picked out the once which I thought was interesting.

One of the changes I introduced into the story here was that the archmage was trying to unite all the tribes of the Baklands, and that the Seven Serpents were his messengers. This gave them a reason to be in the Baklands, which the party must cross and also gave them two options: to try to sneak past all of them and reach Mampang unannounced, or to kill every single one they come across, so no word of their mission reach Mampang.

Unfortunately for me, the players took their mission rather seriously, and set about trying to avoid ALL the potential encounters I placed before them. Now in the original gamebook, and of course in a more traditional fantasy RPG, players would *want* to check out all the encounters to find information and loot and gain experience points; but I failed to realise that when the aim of the mission was to avoid detection, players will of course do the most logical thing and avoid everything!

To prevent the session from ending too early, I had to reveal to the party that the caravan they encountered was a Black Elf encampment, and persuade Glowulf's player to investigate it instead of avoiding it.

I had left clues alluding this the fact that the party was not the first one sent on this quest, and now I made it clear in the message from the king. I was hoping that this would invoke some emotional response from the players, but I was disappointed.

Likewise I was hoping that the other players (or at least their PCs) would have a reaction when they found out that Glowulf was in fact a fake "barbarian", but again I was disappointed.

Glowulf's player did RP the encounter with the Black Elves very well though,  and I think if we ever return to this campaign again Glowulf's quest to find his own people would be a good hook.

The party nearly came to a bad end when Morgana revealed their quest though. It was rather unwise for the player to risk disclosing the information to strangers, and I used the advice from Matt Colville to prevent it from ending in disaster, by slowing time down, giving them ample indication of the change in the Black Elves' attitude, and giving them a chance to talk their way out of it.

From this point on I see that the players have two options: to carry on their covert mission to Mampang to recover the Crown of Kings, or to try to create an alliance of the tribes of the steppes against the archmage. The second one seems unlikely to succeed, but if they do want to try that it is something I think is worth exploring and derailing the campaign for.