Sorcery! 2 - The Jailbreak Job

Three days after their successful kidnapping of Morgana, Horovar, Penn, Silent, and Zhora were on their way east in a mule-cart, disguised as salted-fish merchants. Malus, Zul, Gearfried, and Zamm remained in Arkleton, waiting for instructions for their next job from V.

The party's destination was a little fishing village three days from the capital, where they would find and kill Glowulf, who had returned to his home village to become a simple fisherman.

Arriving late at night on the third day, they were taken into the home of the village headman, who fed them and offered them accommodation for the night. The party's inquisitiveness made the headman suspicious, and after he left them for the night, Horovar and Penn followed him secretly, and found that he had gone to tip Glowulf off at his fishing hut. Glowulf thanked the headman, and requested that the villagers not intervene if the was any trouble.

Returning to the hall, our villains decided to launch an attack on Glowulf's home. Entering the hut simultaneously from the front and back doors, they found the place in darkness. Penn shot an arrow into the bedroll in the corner... and heard the arrow sink into the wooden floor with a dull thud.

At the same time, two figures entered the room from the back door: it was Glowulf and Valerian. The two demanded to know who had sent our villains on their mission, but they were in no mood to talk. A melee ensued, and Glowulf was cut down and decapitated, while Valerian was knocked unconscious and taken prisoner. By now the commotion had drawn the attention of the villagers, who crowded around the hut with their improvised weapons. The party threatened to kill Valerian if they villagers did not disperse, but they did not comply - it was only when Penn and Horovar slew a few of them that the rest fled, allowing our villains to get away.

Our villains now made their way westward, towards Arkleton, with Glowulf's head in a bag and Valerian bound. On the second day they were overtaken by mounted guards dressed in the livery of Arkleton, coming from the east. The guards attempted to arrest our villains for the murders they committed in the fishing village, but they were not about to give themselves up without a fight. After a short, sharp fight, the four guards were dead, and Horovar laid gravely wounded on the ground. Valerian asked to be untied so he could aid the barbarian, and was unbound.

As he tended to Horovar's wounds, Valerian revealed that he had remained in Arkleton incognito after escaping from Goncol's laboratory, but had come to the fishing village to warn Glowulf after he learnt of Goncol's death and Morgana's kidnapping - whoever was responsible for those acts no doubt wanted them silenced for their part in their mission twenty years ago. As their mission was known only to few who were closest to the late king, whoever sent them would have to be someone high in the kingdom's hierarchy. And just as they were being silenced, Valerian warned the party, they were now probably being set up by whomever had sent the guards from Arkleton. Horovar, Silent, Zhora, and Valerian took the guards' clothes and horses, and with Penn driving the mule-cart, they returned to Arkleton.

When they returned to their respective inns, our villains learned that their companions had been arrested in the night they day after they had left by city guards, and were now held at the guard-house of the Fourteenth precinct.

Realising that whomever sent the guards after them would soon learn that they had failed in their mission, our villains decided to break their companions out of the jail immediately.

Penn started a fire in a neighbouring precinct, and an alarm was raised, drawing some of the guards from the Fourteenth there. Then, returning to the Fourteenth precinct, he shot the guard in the tower with a well-aimed arrow. Still in their guises as city guards, Horovar, Zhora, and Silent entered the guard-house, and struck down the guard at the front. The guard captain was similarly struck down when he emerged from his room, taken by surprise. The party entered the dungeon below the guard-house to find the last guard cowering in a corner - he was despatched, and his keys taken.

The party quickly located and freed Malus, Zul, Gearfried, and Zamm - bruised but still alive. When they emerged from the guard-house, they found Valerian on the street, and the bodies of two bounty-hunters behind him - someone had hired them to lie in wait for the party.

Now convinced that they would not be safe in the city, or indeed Analand, our villains decided to flee the city on their stolen horses - but where will they go? Perhaps, Horovar suggested, they will find safety in Mampang?

Prepping and Running the Game

After weeks of lockdown, we were finally able to play the conclusion of our Sorcery! campaign.

I was hoping that the revelation that Valerian was still alive would cause the players to question their mission, but as they were already suspecting that V was not in fact Valerian, they decided to complete their mission and kill Glowulf anyway. Fortunately for me, they decided to spare Valerian - why kill someone if you are not getting paid for it, right? - and that gave me a way to carry on the story.

The guards sent to arrest the party were supposed to arrive at the village in the morning, when it was expected that they would be fresh from their battle with Glowulf and therefore wounded or exhausted and therefore easy prey. Unfortunately for me the players decided to arrive late at night, and aroused suspicion with their questioning of the headman, and thus threw everything off.

The second half of the session was based on the Dusk City Outlaws module The Jailbreak Job. The modules in the series are short - 4 pages of text in this case - but provide enough information for the GM to run a full session. They are worth a look if you are running a campaign for a party of rogues or evil/not-quite-legal characters.

The campaign ended with some unresolved plot threads, which will allow us to have another sequel campaign in the future. Will the party flee to Mampang? Will they learn the true identity of V? Only time will tell...

Sorcery! 2 - Kidnap the Archpriest

With only two days to plan and execute the kidnapping, our villains split up to gather information and help.

They learned that the College of Sorcery is housed in what was previously a fort on an island on a tributary of the Goldflow river. The college is connected to the Great Temple of Libra via an exclusive sheltered wooden bridge, which Morgana and the senior members of the college would use to go to Goncol's funeral.

Making the rounds around the city, they learned that Morgana was guarded by her own personal bodyguards, known as the Black Guards, who were formidable warriors, and considered themselves above the law. Morgana was guarded by at least a dozen of the Black Guards every time she left the college - a head-on confrontation was not going to work.

They also learned that there was much unhappiness among the populace over the corruption of the nobles and the college elites, among of whom were the merchant Bertrand, who held most of the college's contracts - from supplying food, laundry, to the hiring of non-academic staff - but had not been receiving his payments as promised by the Bursar.

With these information at hand, our villains formulated their plan.

They convinced Bertrand that they would gain leverage over the Bursar and ensure that he received his payment if he could get them into the college. Thus, the day before the funeral Gearfried, posing as Bertrand's assistant, visited the Bursar at his office inside the college to try to collect on the debt, while Malus, disguised as a food deliveryman, entered the college via the service entrance.

The Bursar fobbed Bertrand off with vague promises, but during that time Gearfried was able to surmise where he kept his ledgers.

Malus meanwhile deposited the tainted onions which would cause food poisoning to the whole college, and then sneaked off to explore the grounds. He was confronted by Morgana's Butler, who ordered him to be seized and locked up in the gatehouse, where he would await his execution the next day as a suspected thief.

Back at the tavern, the party learned of Malus' fate from the town crier. They were counting on Malus' reconnaissance for information on the grounds, and now they would have to do without it.

The tainted onions did their work, and many of the college staff came down with food poisoning. A call went out to Bertrand to supply temporary staff to the college.

Zamm and Horovar were hired as guards, and at the first opportunity they tracked down Malus and freed him. Malus gave what information he had learned about the grounds to the two, and helped disguise Horovar as the Butler using the disguise kit they stole from Goncol's mansion, and afterwards, his nerves shot, he fled the college.

Zhora, Zul, and Silent entered the college as servants. Silent, using the information given to him by Gearfired, broke into the Bursar's office, stole the ledger, and left. Later, Gearfried would determine that the Bursar had in fact been diverting funds from the college to his own purse instead of paying Bertrand, and the merchant would use that information to not just get repaid in full, but also secure contracts for many years to come...

Zhora and Zul took a trolley of bed linen from the laundry room, and made their way to the academic staff quarters, where they eventually found Morgana's chamber, guarded by two Black Guards. Zhora was allowed into the chamber, where she found a weakened Morgana in bed. She offered Morgana a drugged drink, and when she fell into a deep sleep, placed the silver torc V had given them around her neck.

Just then the door to the chamber opened, and Horovar, disguised as the Butler, entered. Together, they bundled Morgana into a bedsheet, and hid her in the trolley. They then wheeled the trolley out, and rejoined Zamm and Zul.

Horovar shed his disguise and put on his guard uniform again, and together the four made their way to the wooden bridge. There, Horovar and Zamm sent the two guards away, claiming to be their relief, and opened the door to the bridge.

Zhora and Zul then began to lower Morgana to the river with a rope. At the same time, Penn, who was waiting with a boatmen they had hired, began to approach the bridge.

Their actions did not go unnoticed, and an alarm began to go out. Zamm and Horovar despatched the two guards at the far end of the bridge by throwing them over the side of the bridge, and jammed the door shut.

Guards gathered on the battlements of the college walls, but the archers were afraid of shooting for fear of harming Morgana. One by one Zhora, Zul, Horovar, and Zamm lowered themselves or jumped into the river, but not before Horovar destroyed the supports of the bridge using acid, causing the whole structure to collapse into the water.

The boatman rowed towards the harbour, but going was slow - Zamm and Zul went once more into the water, and swam for the bank.

Arriving at the bank, Zul made his way to the Great Temple, where a crowd had gathered in anticipation of the free bread and ale that would be given away at Goncol's funeral, and started a rumour that there was not enough bread for everyone. This soon led to a riot, which impeded the progress of the guards sent to intercept the boat.

The boat, now lighter, approached a stone bridge that spanned the river before it joined the Goldflow river. A thick steel chain spanned the river, cutting off their escape. Standing on the bridge were four Black Guards, and they held grappling hooks in their hands.

Penn nocked arrows to his bow, and shot at the Black Guards when they came into range. His arrows found their mark through the joints in the armour of the Black Guards, and one by one they went down. Meanwhile, Horovar set a bunch of herbs he carried with him, which let out a thick cloud of acrid smoke whaich hid them.

Horovar lowered Morgana into the water, leaving only her face above the water. Then, covering her face with the handkerchief of invisibility they stole from Goncol's vault, he drew a big breath, dove under the water, and dragged Morgana behind him as he swam to the bank.

Penn and the boatman likewise made their escape, but Zhora, too weak to swim to safety, was swept along by the current of the water, until she reached the steel chain that spanned the river.

Horovar reached the bank of the river, and here he was met by Gearfried, who had monitored their progress from the bank. Leaving Morgana to Gearfried, Horovar raced to the stone bridge and rescued Zhora.

By now the riot had escalated, and there were fires in several parts of the city, and in the chaos our villains were able to deliver the limp form of Morgana to the waiting ship at the harbour, and then vanish into the crowd...

That evening they once again met V at The Hanged Man, where they were given their promised reward, and asked to meet him again the next day, once he had extracted the information he needed.

Prepping and Running the Game

This mission was based on Kidnap the Archpriest, also by Skerples. I was first introduced to the module by a Youtube review, and had wanted to run it for the longest time - our "evil" campaign allowed me to finally do so.

I had to make several changes to the module, but I preserved the core premises: the party had to kidnap a VIP guarded by formidable warriors, alive, and bring him/her to the harbour. I also kept the map, which I believe saved me a lot of time.

Now the actual heist planning and execution took place over a session and a half, with the players abandoning their initial plan halfway and then improvising on the plan they ultimately decided on. The account above is a very abridged version of the shenanigans that they engaged in.

One thing about the original module puzzled me though. The college/castle building is connected to the Temple/Cathedral via a sheltered wooden bridge, which the priests would use to attend the ceremony at the latter site. Curiously, in the original module the Archpriest (the target of the kidnapping) is known to not be attending the event. It seemed like such a Chekov's gun that I could not bring myself to make that the case in my game, planning perhaps to later announce that Morgana had decided at the last moment to not attend, if the players did not plan to seize her when she is crossing the bridge.

Players being players, the became fixated on the bridge - which is fair as this was the one place they could be relatively sure Morgana would be passing through at a pre-known time. To make it easier for them to visualise the bridge and plan, I decided that the bridge looked like this one:

It seemed just about open enough for them to attempt to seize Morgana when she crosses the bridge, but eventually the decided that taking on a dozen Black Guards was not a viable option.

They also explored other options and did some prep work which did not end up being used, such as getting some expensive clothes and armour with the intention of disguising themselves as nobles, and scouting out the Temple grounds. Other work they did, like learning that the crowd could be incited to riot, hiring a 'transporter', and finding Bertrand the merchant and figuring out how to make use of his contact with the college, were cobbled together to form their final plan.

I was pretty happy with their eventual plan of poisoning the whole college and then infiltrating the place as temp staff, as well as their clever use of the handkerchief of invisibility to get Morgana off the boat and to the bank.

The whole heist did come close to falling apart (as it happens in heist movies) when Malus was caught, but thanks to his tempering with the lock on the doors to the college's treasury, it was assumed that he was just a thief, and I did not have to put the whole college on alert or bring forward Morgana's plans to leave.

We are just one session away from ending the campaign, but unfortunately for us new COVID restrictions mean that we will not be able to meet again until at least the middle of June.

I hope to spend this time planning my next campaign, and perhaps put up a post about creating characters for that campaign for my players, and inviting my readers to create NPCs for the campaign too. Stay tuned.

Sorcery! 2 - Magical Murder Mansion Part 2

Our villains defeated the strange water being that rose out of the fountain, and retrieved the second gold key from inside it. Then, after taking a moment to catch their breaths, they entered the hedge maze, headed to the tower at its centre.

They soon realised that the strangling vines that formed the maze shifted constantly, making it easy to lose one's way, and as they wandered through the maze, they could hear the low bellow of a huge beast stalking them. Horovar used all his skills to try to guide the party safely to the tower, but eventually he realised that to reach the tower, they would have to face the beast stalking them.

Entering a small clearing that was before the tower, they came face to face with a minotaur. Zhora and Silent leapt into attack, while Penn held back, shooting arrows at the beast. Horovar stepped behind the hedges "to summon a creature" (see PC profiles here), and soon a wolf appeared and started attacking the minotaur too. After a hard fought battle the party slew the beast; the wolf departed, and Horovar rejoined the party.

Our villains bound their wounds, and stepped up to the tower's doors. They inserted the two golden keys they have found, turned them - the door opened. Inside, they found a spiral staircase leading upwards, and also to the basement, where they knew the vault was.

Climbing the stairs to the first storey, they found Goncol's alchemical laboratory. There, they found a large clear tank on a table in the centre of the room, and at the bottom of the tank laid a third key. Forewarned by the clues left by Goncol, the party approached cautiously, and was able to determine that the clear yellow liquid inside the tank was a strong acid. Using the glass apparatus within the lab, our villains removed much of the contents of the tank and pured them onto the stone floor, which corroded part of it. Eventually they were able to lower the level of the acid sufficiently to fish the key out with a wooden pole. They were now one key away.

Continuing upwards, our villains came into Goncol's library. Here were all manner of magical tomes, and also what appeared to be Goncol's autobiography, but no golden key.

The next floor held a large chamber, with arcane patterns carved onto the floor. Near the staircase was a silver whistle hanging on a wall hook. Zhora recognised the patterns as a summoning circle, and the party wisely decided to leave the room and press onwards.

As the party entered the highest floor, they found that the walls and roof of the room was transparent. This was Goncol's astrological observatory. In the centre of the room was an astronomical model of the planets. Through the walls of the observatory the party could see the eastern sky starting to turn light - they had little time left before the king's men could arrive.

Our villains searched the room, but could not find a key. Then Penn had an idea: what if the line from the clues left by Goncol:

The other is not found upon this Earth, to find it you must return to my birth

referred to the model's position?

The party moved the model to what the planets would have looked like on the day of Goncol's birth, based on the autobiography they found in the library. when they had done so, they heard the sound of a click, and one of the planet models opened up: inside was the fourth key.

Hurry to the basement, the party opened the steel door to the vault with their four keys. The vault consisted of three rooms. In the first were held mundane treasures. In the second were several magical items and spell components, which the party pocketed. In the final chamber there was a plinth, upon which was an ivory scroll case.

Despite promising not to open the case, Horovar decided to do so. Peering inside, he found a scroll. Removing the scroll from the case, they found that it was a letter, seemingly from the last king. On the back of the page they found a hurriedly scribbled reply (see here). Returning the scroll to the case, the party made their way back to the front gate, pausing briefly only for Horovar to start a fire inside the mansion. On their way back to the city they passed the king's men, who were riding quickly towards the plume of smoke that now issued from the mansion...

That evening the party met once more at The Hanged Man. 'V' turned up as promised, received the scroll case, and paid our villains. He then gave them their second mission: to kidnap Morgana the Arch-Sorceress.

The Arch-Sorceress, who now resided in the College of Sorcery in Arkleton, he explained, was scheduled to attend Goncol's funeral at the Grand Temple of Libra in two day's time. Thereafter she will return to her tower in the hills, which was guarded by sorcery and her personal army of Blackguards, and from which any attempt to capture her would be impossible. The party had but two days to capture her, and bring her to the docks at Arkleton, where they will deliver her to a waiting ship, and receive their reward.

'V' emphasised that she was to be captured alive for questioning, and handed them a silver torc which he told them was to be placed upon Morgana's neck to prevent her from using her magic, and then left.

Prepping and Running the Game

This session is of course a continuation of the module we started the session before, and we actually went on to play the start of the module for the second mission, but for narrative purpose I will write about that in the next post.

The exploration of the dungeon was a straightforward puzzle-dungeon.

The real trap of the dungeon was actually the summoning chamber. There was no reward to be had at the chamber, but I left the set-up temptingly obvious, in the hope that Horovar's player will simply not be able to resist blowing on the silver whistle, which would have summoned a monster which the party would have to defeat in combat, something which they were in no shape to do at that point in time. I was happy to be disappointed.

There were a couple of combats this session, both against "monsters", which meant that the rules for Parrying and Dodging were not applicable. As a result we were not able to experience the full potential of the Forbidden Lands combat system, which is one of the reasons why I decided to use the rules. The next module will feature human opponents, which will allow us to try them out, but as it will be a heist scenario, there is a chance that we may play through the whole mission without combat.

Overall I have been satisfied with the rules. There are limited healing options, and playing as written the party would have been unable to progress at all at some points. Fortunately we were playing a mission with a ticking clock, so I was able to make the ruling that they could heal up at the expense of time. This will probably be something I will do for the next module too.

Sorcery! 2 - Magical Murder Mansion Part I

A rogues' gallery

As our campaign begins, our gallery of rouges are assembled in The Hanged Man, a tavern on the seedier side of Arkleton, Analand's capital.

As they waited for their prospective employer to arrive, our villains took to boasting about their latest exploits to each other.

Gearfrid, a merchant formerly from Ruddlestone, told of how he was framed by a noble and thrown into prison, but through his skills at manipulation managed to convince the guards to smuggle in some weapons for him. He armed a fellow prisoner by the name of Silent, who was then able to cut them their way out of the prison, leaving behind fifty dead prison guards.

Zul and Penn, halfling highwaymen, boasted about the rich haul they got from waylaying another noble's caravan.

Zhora, an elven necromancer, spoke of how she and her dwarven bodyguard Zamm were hired by a baron to slay a rival, whom she then animated as an undead and made march back to her employer to collect her pay.

(At this point I was worried that Analand was running out of barons and the letter Z.)

Malus the minstrel then spoke of how he sowed discord and plague among the inhabitants of a city, causing strife and countless deaths, not for silver, but for his pleasure. His companion, the quiet druid named Horovar, merely grunted.

Then just as the sun was setting, a hooded man, calling himself only 'V', came to their table, and told them that the Grand Wizard Goncol had died in "an accident", and that he wished them to retrieve a scroll from the vault in his mansion, before the place would be occupied by the king's men.

V offered each pair of our villains 150 gold pieces for retrieving the scroll, and an offer for two other jobs afterwards if they succeeded, promising a total of 500 gold pieces for each duo upon completion of all three jobs.

Our villains took the contract, and set off to gather information on their target.

By speaking to former students of Goncol's school, suppliers of his food and magical components, and dwarven masons who built his tower, they were able to ascertain the layout of the mansion, the adjoining tower and its vault, and that Goncol most likely lived alone, and had in the past procured various alchemical supplies, as well as clockwork mechanisms.

Armed with this information, Silent, Penn, Zhora, and Horovar set off for the mansion, arriving a little after midnight.

Here they found that the compound was divided into two parts: a mansion to the front, and a tower in the rear, the latter surrounded by a hedge maze.

The party attempted to enter the tower through the hedges, but Horovar reported that the hedges were strangling vines from the Forest of Snatta, and that hacking through them would be too dangerous.

The party then entered the compound by the front gate, and found a plaque upon the door of the mansion with the following lines:

If you seek to enter my tower, first find ye two keys of power.

One lies behind my greatest treasure, source of my pride, my joy, my pleasure.

The other lies in plain sight, unhidden; but woe to he who takes it unbidden.

If you wish to enter my vault, two more keys you will need by default.

Where the first is, is crystal clear, but reach for it, and it will cost you dear.

The other is not found upon this Earth, to find it you must return to my birth.

Venture into the mansion of Goncol, and you will find out I am quite the 

Wary of entering through the front doors, the party pried open a pane of glass on the window to the dining hall, and Penn the halfling climbed through, and opened the door from inside. In the main lobby they found four bronze statues depicting Goncol himself, the Arch-sorcereress Morgana, a warrior named Valerian, and an elven warrior named Glowulf. When they wondered aloud whether the statues would animate and attack them, the statues started to speak, denying that they would do so; and true to their words, they did not. The party questioned the statues, but they could provide little information.

The party then searched through the rooms in the mansion, encountering a few magical traps, but no opposition, and found various minor magical items, such as an egg-cup that cooked eggs to perfection, a wand of fruit transmutation, a salt cellar that held ten times its volume in salt, a glow globe, a couple of magical pillows, and a couple of clockwork artifacts: a musical box in the shape of a nightingale, and an alarm clock in the shape of a rooster.

Inside Goncol's bedroom, they found the Grand Wizard lying in his bed. Horovar struck at the form with his sword, only to find that it was an illusion. They searched the room, and Silent found the first key, a small golden one, in an alcove hidden behind a nude portrait of Goncol himself.

The party descended to the cellar, and found a hidden door to an underground prison. Within one of the cells was a man who looked like the statue named Valerian. The man claimed to have lost his memory from the tortures inflicted upon him by Goncol, and begged the party to release him. After some deliberation, our villains decided to do so, gave him some of the loot they had taken so far to carry, and took him outside the mansion... whereupon he bolted for the front gate. Penn reacted swiftly and put two arrows into the man's back before he could reach the gate. As he fell to the ground, dying, his form changed to that of a hideous, tentacled humanoid. Horovar moved to where he fell, but could not bring himself to deliver a killing blow - but the creature expired soon after.

Unable to locate a second key, the party decided to go into the hedge maze instead. Entering the garden that led to the maze, they found a fountain, and lying within it was a second golden key. Horovar used his sword to gently fish the key out, but as the key broke the surface of the water, the water began to move and take a humanoid form...

Prepping and Running the Game

The basis for this session is Magical Murder Mansion by Skerples.

I had originally envisioned the campaign to be three assassination missions, each of which would take place in a different environment. I thought that Morgana would be encountered in her Sorceress' Tower, and Goncol in his mansion, and so I searched for modules set in mansions, and came upon this module. In the module the occupant of the titular mansion was dead, and I thought I could work that into my storyline too.

The actual mansion in the module is much larger and had more parts to it, but I wanted a much shorter session and thus had to cut the number of rooms down. I went through the module, noted the encounters which I thought were funny or interesting, and then placed them into the rooms in the Heroic Maps mansion map which I bought a while back.

I then added minor magical items from a table in Knock #1 to locations which they would fit in. This encouraged the players to search the place, and also placed some pressure on them, as we tracked encumbrance for this game.

Then, in the finest tradition of funhouse dungeons, I composed a poem to let give the players know that they had to find keys to complete the mission, and also clues as to where they might be found.

The players were rather cautious in the first part of the game, no doubt due to their experience in our last campaign, where every room was either guarded by undead or animated statues or golems, or trapped. The four statues were of course for comic relief, but also played an important role for the whole campaign as they would allow our characters to recognise the four members of the party from the previous campaign.

They also spent time searching for loot, and trying to figure out what each magical item did. There was no real combat this session - the only time we drew cards for initiative was when the creature tried to run away, and Penn shot it... because he was carrying some of their loot. Ironically, when Horovar moved in to try to crush the creature's head with the bear trap he had, the player rolled 3 successes on him empathy check on 3 dice - you have to *fail* an empathy check to deliver a coup de grace.

The party had spent a lot of in-game time just acquiring one key, leaving them 2 or 3 hours to enter the vault and find the scroll before daybreak and the king's men would move in. There will be a couple of combats in the next game, so we will find out how fast and interesting the combat system in Forbidden Lands is.

Sorcery! 2 - The Sequel Campaign

This week, my players and I started a new campaign which is a spin-off/sequel to the Sorcery! campaign we played two years ago.

The seed for this campaign was planted at the very session of the finale of the previous campaign, after we briefly described what happened to each of the characters, and a player suggested an "evil" campaign where they play, well, evil characters. We liked the idea so much we decided to plan a slot for this campaign, but due to COVID, we had to wait until now to put it into action.

While the basic plot for the campaign came to me that very night, it took a while before I decided on what rules to use. The Advanced Fighting Fantasy rules we used for the first campaign was too simplistic for me. I wanted something with a little more crunch.

Eventually I settled on the Forbidden Lands rules, which FG had backed in one of their later kickstarters. While I think the fluff for FL is silly, their combat rules are rather interesting, and the mechanic for "pushing a roll" gives that risky, desperado feel that I think fits an evil campaign.

With that, I present you the prologue to our second Sorcery! campaign:

It is twenty years since the Crown of Kings left passed from Analand to Ruddlestone. Few know the secret that while in Analand's care, the crown was stolen by the Archmage of Mampang, and it was only through the efforts of a small band of heroes that it was retrieved before its loss was known - something which would have brought disgrace to the royal house.

In those two decades, Analand has changed, as had our heroes. 

A new king now sits upon the throne, young, and yet untried. Since the crown left, the fortunes of the kingdom has declined. Corrupt officials now sit in high offices. Criminals terrorise the countryside, and the streets of the cities, even of Arkleton, the capital, are no longer safe after sunset.

Goncol, the thief from Khare, having gained a mansion as his reward for his part in recovering the crown, opened up a school of wizardry. After an initial period of success, the school became plagued with scandals, and soon had to close down. It was said that Goncol conducted unholy experiments in the dungeons of his mansion, and one of his subject was Valerian, the former captain of the Royal Guard sent on the same mission with him, but who turned against his king and swore fealty to the Archmage of Mampang instead. Rumour has it that Valerian, broken by the horrendous experiments done on him, eventually managed to escape from the dungeon. It is not known if he had help from the staff in the mansion, but Goncol became paranoid, and gradually dismissed all of them, choosing instead magical servants, and putting his trust in traps and magical guardians to keep himself safe from any revenge by Valerian.

Morgana the Sorceress received for her service a tower in the hills, which she fortified with many magical wards and a small army of loyal guards. She rose in the hierarchy of the College of Sorcerers in Arkelton, eventually becoming the Arch-Sorceress. But once she had attained that title, she took little interest in that job, leaving most of the duties of the position to the deans of the college, and spending most of her time in her fortress.

Little is known of what happened to the last member of the party, the Black Elf Glowulf, who was said to have asked for a modest reward, and thereafter returned to his village and became a simple fisherman.

Now, the people of Analand wait anxiously for the return of the crown of kings to the land, hoping that it will bring a new golden age to the kingdom.

In a dark tavern in Arkleton, the new heroes - nay, villains - of our tale also wait for their contact, for it seems that someone had brought together the most notorious criminals of the city, for some nefarious purpose...

Cast of Villains

Zhora, Elven Death Sorcerer. Once an orphan who lived on the streets of Arkleton, her destiny changed when she found a strange skull staff that awakened her magical talents. Her companion is Zamm, a dwarven warrior, trained to be a bodyguard to a noble, but now protects the necromancer.

Gearfried, a trader from Ruddlestone, ran a successful business in Analand, until he was framed by a nobleman and thrown into prison. Here, he befriended Silent, the assassin, and together they escaped and started their life of crime.

Malus, the flamboyant minstrel, a homicidal psychopath, who travels with Horovar, a Druid from foreign lands who had come to Analand for his own unknown goal.

Zul the Sorcerer, and Penn the Hunter, a pair of halfling highwaymen.

Sorcery! #10 - The Crown of Kings

Valerian is outnumbered by his former companions

Campaign Diary

The Archmage dismounted from the dragon, wearing the Crown of Kings upon his head, and ascended his throne. Then he spoke to the assembled tribes, of his aim to bring them all under one banner, bringing peace between all of them, and of Kakhabad dealing with the other kingdoms as equals. Although the assembled tribes each had their own language, they all heard him in their native tongue.

Then one by one the leader of the tribes came before him and pledge their allegiance. Morgana used her sorcery to turn herself invisible, and approached the Archmage unseen, and tried to seize the crown off his head, planning to teleport away afterwards. But even as she grasped the crown, the Archmage raised his hand and seized her by her wrist. The Archmage uttered a spell, and Morgana turned visible again. For a moment there was confusion among the guards and the tribes. Morgana tried to teleport away, but she felt he spell countered by the Archmage's.

The suddenly she felt talons grabbing onto her shoulders, and yanking her off the ground - a birdman had seized her. She broke loose from the Archmage's grasp, and held the crown!

As the birdman flew higher, Goncol loosed an arrow at him, which sank into his side. Other birdmen flew towards the first birdmen, only to be tackled in the air by more birdmen. There was a hubbub as the tribes tried to figure out what was happening. The Mampang Guards rushed forward, and Goncol and Glowulf, separated by the mass of people, each quietly slipped away.

The injured birdman bore Morgana towards the Forest of Snatta, pursued by others. He was an ally, he told Morgana, a spy working for Analand. Wounded, the birdman could fly no more than several hundred yards before he had to set Morgana down, under the canopy of the forest, which was fortunate, for now the Archmage had mounted his dragon and taken off; unable to see Morgana, he landed once more, and commanded the tribes to hunt her down and retrieve the crown.

Under the forest canopy, the birdman revealed that he belonged to the tribe of Schinn, a tribe of birdmen whose ancestral place was the volcano crater where Mampang Fortress was built - centuries ago, his people weere driven away by the Archmage and the birdmen who had allied with him, and since then the Schinn had hidden themselves among the other tribes, but had never forgotten the injury. Not long after telling this story, the birdman expired.

Alone and with no bearing, Morgana ran in what she she thought was the southerly direction. Not long after she began to hear the sounds of pursuers behind her, which at least told her that she was heading in the right direction. Then, while hiding from a party of swamp goblins, she felt a hand on her shoulder - it was Glowulf, who had managed to find the body of the dead birdman and tracked her from there. Together, the two found their way to Fenestra's hut.

When she learned of what had transpired, Fenestra cast an enchantment, causing the trees around her hut to shift, creating a maze and preventing the pursuers from finding them. There, in the relative safety, Morgana and Glowulf rested.

Back at the shore of the lake, the Archmage summoned Valerian, and asked him where he thought Morgana would head.

'Khare,' Valerian replied.

The Archmage ordered his troops to search the land between the Forest of Snatta and Khare, set Valerian in command of a party of the guards, and returned to Mampang.

The next morning Fenestra handed Morgana and Glowulf a wooden ring, which she told them held the enchantment that caused the trees to form a maze around them, and bade her familiar, a firefox, to act as their guide to the edge of the forest. As the trio set off, the trees parted before them to reveal a confused Goncol, who had retraced his step to Fenestra's hut but was flummoxed when he could not find it, and had spent the night in the open. Together, the party decided to travel to the edge of the forest, and thence to Khare.

Along the way they were attacked by Klattamen, whose shaman overcame the enchantment of the ring, but the party managed to defeat them before they could send a message to the Archmage. But when they reached the edge of the forest, they found many birdmen circling the skies above, and dust clouds in the distance, indicating the many parties that are even now looking for them.

Glowulf prayed to Fulkra, god of travelers, and asked for the safest way to Analand. The way ahead, Fulkra replied, was fraught with danger, but he may seek the aid of helpers, friends, and family.

This, Glowulf thought, meant that instead of heading towards Khare, they should head east into the Vanti-Bak Wastes, where his tribe lived, and thence to the Earth End Coast, and from there find passage by sea to Analand.

When the sun had set, the party began its journey, under the cover of darkness. For a while they managed to evade the eyes of Mampang, but in the afternoon of the next day they spied a dust cloud to their rear, which got closer with each passing hour. Soon afterwards a single birdman began to circle them. The party waited, and the birdman landed. He declared himself to be Peewit Croo, one of the Schinn. The party had been spotted by birdmen, and a party of six horsemen had been sent after them, and would reach them in less than an hour.

Unable to outrun the horsemen in the open plains, the party decided to head towards a nearby hillock. The hillock turned out to be an abandoned mine or quarry, with shafts cut horizontally into its rock faces. The party plotted, and decided to lure the pursuers into the shafts by tracking footprints into one of them before backing out, then hiding on the reverse slope of the hillock. Once the pursuers have dismounted and entered the shaft, Morgana would call upon Throff, the goddess of earth, to shake the ground with an earthquake, and bury them inside.

And so they did, and hid behind the hillock with Peewit Croo. Here they heard the horsemen come to a halt, dismount, and enter the shaft. They crept forward again, and found that one of the horsemen had remained with the horses, holding their reins - it was Valerian!

Morgana called out to Throff even as Valerian called out to his companions. The ground shook, causing the horses to bolt off, and the shaft to collapse. When it was over, the party picked themselves up.

Morgana, Glowulf, and Goncol tried to make Valerian to switch his allegiance back to Analand once more, but the former Royal Guard would not be swayed. He charged his erstwhile companions and struck Morgana a grievous blow, but outnumbered, he was wrestled to the ground by Glowulf, Goncol, and Peewit Croo. Goncol forced a potion down Valerian's throat to make him comply, and while the potion was in effect the party tied him up, rounded by the horses, and continued their journey eastwards.

As the sun began to set, they spotted smoke from cooking fires ahead - they have found Glowulf's clan. Glowulf approached the caravan, and showed the pendant that was left with him when he was found by his foster father. By the pendant the Black Elves knew he was the child of one Gloranda, who bore him out of wedlock, and left the tribe one night, never to be seen again. They asked if Glowulf wanted to learn of his birth name, but Glowulf declined - his heart was with Analand, and he would return to his adopted family.

The Black Elf Tribe had ignored Mampang's summon, valuing their freedom, and after hearing the party's story, agreed to take them to the Earth End Coast in their caravan, hidden from Mampang's spies. And so they arrived at the coast, where they managed to hail a fishing boat from Analand.

The boat took them to Gummport, in Far Analand. There, they took the long journey to Arkleton, Analand's capital city, with Valerian in chains. Even as he was brought before the chancellor of the realm, the former Royal Guard would not renounce his allegiance to the Archmage. Pleading that his mind had been charmed by the Archmage, the party begged that his life be spared, and so it was that Valerian was imprisoned in the dungeon.

To reward the heroes there would be no great fanfare or feast, for even now the news of the loss of the crown had been kept secret, but each was asked what boon they requested from the king.

Morgana asked for land and a tower, wherein she could continue her study of sorcery.

Goncol asked for a grand manor, which he planned to continue his study of wizardry, with the aim of starting a school.

Glowulf asked for a modest reward, and returned to his adopted parents, and continued the life of a fisherman.

Thus ended the tale of the quest for the Crown of Kings, and peace was once more restored to Analand.

Epilogue

It was several years later when Goncol, now more learned in the craft of wizardry, asked for Valerian to be delivered to his manor, that he might use his knowledge to restore the warrior's mind. But by now Goncol had been tainted by the forbidden knowledge of the evil tome from which he learned the arcane arts, and his evil magic would soon warp Valerian's mind too.

Then one morning, Goncol awoke to find the guards he set to watch Valerian slain, and the fighter gone...

Prepping and Running the Game

I am both proud and ashamed to say that this final session of the campaign had been a hidden railroad.

Now when the previous session ended my players and I were not sure how the final session would play out. One brought along a boardgame for this session, and another prepared a one-shot game, in case the session ended in an early TPK.

On my part I procrastinated on prepping the session until the day of the game.

I had asked each player to tell me privately what their PC's plan was, and I knew Morgana was going to seize the crown with the use of magic. Now I could of course have the Archmage be so powerful that he could thwart Morgana, and have a TPK, but that would have been a bad way to end a campaign. The party, or at least the three 'loyal' PCs, must escape. I decided that the birdmen of Schinn, an important faction in the gamebook, would help them do this.

Once that was decided, then the question was: where would they escape to?

The obvious choice was Khare, but that would be obvious to Mampang too, so I decided that there had to be an alternative. Fortunately, in an earlier session, I randomly decided that Glowulf's clan lived in the east, near the coast. The coastal route seemed to be a reasonable option, and to nudge the party in that direction, I counted on Glowulf using his prayer to ask for the safest route to Analand, and slipped in a semi-cryptically worded message, which had the intended effect.

As for the route they would take, I guessed that the players would want to backtrack and seek the allies they have met along the way, and so I prepped what Fenestra, The Sham, and Shadrack would do to aid the PCs. As predicted, the PCs did seek Fenestra.

Now I knew Valerian's player was not going to abandon his allegiance to the Archmage, so I needed to prepare a temporary character or two for him to play. For this I took a 'monster' from the original gamebook, a firefox, and made him Fenestra's familiar. I gave the firefox the ability to do 1d6 points of fire damage by expending 1 of its Stamina, so as to give the player a combat option, and threw a combat their way.

The second temporary character was Peewit Croo, the birdman. Once more, I gave him the ability to grapple, and therefore lift a person off the ground, and perhaps drop him from a height. With his ability for flight, I had freedom to decide where and when to introduce him to the story.

To provide another encounter for the travel across the plains, I took inspiration from an episode of Manhunt, where the protagonist stole a horse from his pursuers who have dismounted to search for him in broken terrain. I decided that a quarry or mine would fit the terrain and also give another indication that there was once a civilisation in these lands, and then once more nudged Morgana's player to employ the trick of luring their pursuers into a shaft and then burying them with a divinely-inspired earthquake by asking who else had not used their godly favour this session.

This encounter was also a neat point to reintroduce Valerian into the story, so to avoid having him buried with the rest of the horsemen, I made him a horse-holder, which allowed the party to face him for a final confrontation.

In the end, we completed the session at the usual three-hour mark.

I do not know if my players knew that the whole session had been a bit of a set-up, but we enjoyed talking about what happened after the quest so much that we eventually decided (mostly via messaging over the phone afterwards) to play a spin-off of the campaign. Glowulf's player asked for a campaign where they could go all-out murder-hobo, so I decided this would be a good opportunity to run an evil-PCs campaign.

Goncol's player had asked for a building to be granted to him, and planned to start a wizardry school. He also wanted to use his magic to 'convert' Valerian back. I had originally ended the story with Valerian disappearing from the dungeon not long after the events of the game, but now we decided that Valerian was turned over to Goncol, but that the magic would in fact warp Valerian's mind. Valerian would escape, and form a band of evil henchmen, who will avenge him by killing the other three.

We will probably use 5E instead of AFF rules for this campaign, and I imagine it will be a short one, maybe one session for each if the former PCs. Our campaign calendar is pretty packed for the rest of the year though, so it will be a while before this happens, but I am quite excited about it.

Sorcery! #9 - The Kurultai

The party is waylaid by satyrs

Campaign Diary

With a heavy heart, the party continued up the foothills of the Xamen Mouintains, towards Mampang Fortress.

Near sunset they noticed an bird of prey circling above them - it was a Goldcrest Eagle from Analand. The eagle bore a message from the king, announcing his joy at the party's progress, as well as news that spies from Analand operated within Mampang - but the identity of these spies were not revealed for fear of the message falling into the wrong hands. The party wrote a quick reply, but soon after the eagle took to the air again it was attacked by two birdmen, who then quickly fled towards Mampang.

As the sun set the party found shelter in a cave by the well-used path to Mampang, where they observed a large party of soldiers carrying banners and supplies pass them, presumably to attend the meeting of the tribes.

The next day the party continued the climb, ever wary of winged spies from Mampang. Late in the afternoon they found they way blocked by a party of satyrs, who disarmed them and led them to their village. There, they met the head of the village Sh'houri who, learning that they were enemies of Mampang, offered to show them a secret trail to the fortress.

The satyrs claimed that the denizens of Mampang hunted them for sport, but the party noticed that they satyrs had many items among them that seemed beyond their skills to make, and came to the conclusion that the satyrs probably robbed the caravans that brought goods into Mampang. Learning that the next caravan was due the next afternoon, they concocted a scheme with Sh'houri: they would pretend to be merchants headed for Mampang who were attacked by the satyrs, and then join the caravan.

The plan worked, and the next afternoon our heroes entered the gates of Mampang Fortress disguised as merchants, carrying with them two sacks of medicinal tree roots supplied to them by the satyrs.

The caravan passed through a sturdy gatehouse into the first courtyard, around which the barracks of the Archmage's guards stood. Entering the fortress, our heroes were awed by the size and scale of the fortress, which more resembled a walled city than a fortress. A large caravanserai was directly to their right, and a small army of clerks and customs officer began to quickly look through and assess the goods brought in to the fortress, as well as levy a tax on them. Beside the caravanserai stood a large stone building, which the party learned was the Covered Market.To their right there were two large buildings with tall chimneys: one was the foundry, and the other the glassworks. Carts laden with ore and firewood were led to these buildings.

On either side of the second courtyard were buildings which held numerous stores and guild houses. Beyond these were the gated residential quarters of the inhabitants of Mampang.

Far from a garrison, Mampang looked more like a thriving town.

Facing the gate, behind another layer of walls, was Mampang Tower, a large building with a dome 150 feet across, built atop a rocky rise. Several smaller towers were built along the wall, and birdmen could be seen flying in and out of some of them.

Having paid their levy, the party found accommodation at the Mampang Inn, and decided to split up to investigate the town.

Glowulf tried to enter the residential area, but was told that it forbidden to outsiders. Here, he learned, the inhabitants of Mampang lived side by side, regardless of their race or origin.

Goncol investigated a walled part of the town known as 'the Dragon's Den', and learned that it indeed held a dragon tamed by the Archmage.

Morgana took herself near the second set of walls, and found it well-guarded by the black-clad soldiers of Mampang.

Valerian marched straight to the barracks, where he told the guards he wanted to join them. He was brought to the captain of the guards, a soldier formerly from Ruddlestone, who recognised his sword, and told him that his arrival had been expected.

As Glowulf, Goncol, and Morgana tried to make their way back to the inn, they were each confronted by guards, and brought before the second gate... where they now saw Valerian arriving from the barracks with a party of guards. They party was disarmed, brought through the second gate, and handed over to the Tower Guards. Then, they were led up the flight of stairs that ascended the rock that the tower was built upon, and into Mampang Tower. They passed through the cavernous halls of the lower levels, ascended yet more stairs, and were finally brought into a chamber in one of the smaller towers that rose like minarets from the main dome. Here, seated behind a large wooden table, was the Archmage.

The Archmage bade them to sit, and asked the purpose of their journey. The party accused the Archmage of stealing the Crown of Kings and planning to raise an army to conquer Analand.

The Archmage responded to their accusation calmly, admitting that he did steal the Crown, but only because the kings of the 'civilised kingdoms' had denied Mampang's admittance into the Femphrey Alliance. The lands of Kakhabad, the Archmage said, were once home to many non-human civilisations, until the devastating invasion by Analand centuries ago, which laid waste to the lands and reduced its peoples to disunited, warring tribes. Why, asked the Archmage, should the peoples of Kakhabad be denied the benefits of the Crown, when they have suffered so much from the kingdoms? Now, with the Crown in hands, he could finally unite the tribes, end the ceaseless warfare between them, and lead Kakhabad to a new age of peace and prosperity, where they could trade and deal with the other kingdoms as equals.

Valerian agreed with the Archmage, and pledged his service to Mampang. The others, still fearing that Archmage was intent on conquering their homelands, would not be dissuaded from their quest.

To convince them of his intentions, the Archmage asked the party to attend the Kurultai, the meeting of the all the tribes, with him, so they could see and hear for themselves. The party was then escorted back to the inn, and had their weapons returned to them.

The next morning a guard arrived at the party's room, bearing the uniform of a lieutenant of the guards for Valerian, and a message to meet at the gate. At the gate, the party joined a party of guards, made up of men, Black Elves, Svinns, ogres, and goblins, carrying banners and supplies. Over the next two days the party descended the Xamen Mountains, crossed the Visclami Swamps, where a wooden causeway had been laid, and arrived at the northern shore of Lake Iklalal on the evening of the second day. Here, the party rested and ate dinner, and as the full moon began to rise, they embarked dragon-prowed boats, and began to row for the south shore.

When they beached at the southern shore they could see thousands of people already gathered on the stretch of land between the lake and Snatta Forest: Black Elves, Swamp Goblins, Centaurs, and Klattamen. Tower Guards of Mampang ringed a small area of ground before them, upon which was placed large, flat stone, and upon that an elaborate throne.

Then as the moon reached the zenith of its path, a huge winged form could be seen approaching in the night sky: it was the Archmage, atop his dragon.

Prepping and Running the Game

This session was the first one where I (and the party) departed vastly from the books.

One of the questions I asked myself after reading the original gamebook was: if the Crown made its wearer wise and just, then why would letting the Archmage have it be such a bad thing for the rest of the world?

If the Archmage merely wanted to deny the civilised kingdoms of the benefit of the Crown, then he could have just destroyed or hidden it, instead of bringing it back to Mampang, which would have made the whole quest irrelevant.

As I thought about this while preparing for the campaign, I decided that the only reason why the Archmage wanted the Crown was to do good.

I then looked at the lands of Kakhabad and tried to construct a history. Why would the inhabitants of Kakhabad speak Common and use the same currency? Without a central authority, how would Khare have been built?

I decided that in the past Analand must have tried to subjugate Kakhabad, and indeed managed to extend its borders up to the Jabiji River, where they founded Khare, both as a city for trade, as well as to project their influence into the Baklands. I imagine the invasion broke the various non-human kingdoms of Baklands, but they were still able to repel the Analanders, who fell back beyond the Shamutanti Hills, and built a wall against these 'barbarians'.

Now the idea that the Archmage would want to the Crown to unite the tribes to just invade the southern kingdoms seemed a little silly to me, so I decided that like Genghis Khan, his aim was not to conquer the world, but to unite the tribes, establish peace, and trade with the civilised kingdoms, to the benefit of all. I then decided that as one of the steps in his plan, he would summon all the tribes to a greet meeting, a Kurultai, where he would wield the power of the Crown, and gain their allegiance. This added drama to the situation, and also gave the players a ticking clock to beat.

Throughout the previous sessions I gave clues that Kakhabad was home to several lost civilisations, and that the tribes were in constant warfare. Then I made Mampang itself an oasis of peace, trade, and civilisation.

The contrast was enough to sway Valerian's player to the Archmage's side and make him reveal himself to the guards.

This of course threw me off balance, as I had expected them to infiltrate or somehow gain entry into Mampang Tower, which would lead to a climatic confrontation with the Archmage, when I would present his side of the story. So I went along, presented the Acrhmage as a reasonable person, and moved the narrative along for the session, until we reached the next natural decision point.

After I ended the session, I asked the players to separately message me to let me know what their character would in our next and final session.

Morgana's player, with Morgana being the leader of the party, still felt bound by her obligation to complete the quest.

Glowulf's player found himself in a dilemma: on the one hand he wanted to fulfill his promise to the crown of Analand, yet at the same time he was drawn to Mampang's vision. In the end, he loyalty laid with his adopted country and parents, and he would probably side with Morgana.

Goncol's player was, ironically, the one who held out the most. Goncol, he reasoned, was used to being skeptical of people's intentions, and his natural instinct was to disbelieve the Archmage, and fall back to his previous assumptions.

During the whole session we only fought a single combat, and then only for two rounds as the captain of the guards tried to assess Valerian's skills. Most of the session was role-playing and exploration, with the players slowly learning the truth about Mampang and realising that the accounts they have been given were not always accurate.

The next session will be the finale, and with a party split in loyalty, I am not sure what will happen. Should be exciting, but I am prepared that it will be a short session...

Sorcery! #8 - The Boatman

The Water Serpent attacks!

Campaign Diary

The party continued their trek, and towards noon came upon a clearing. In the centre of the clearing was a solitary knoll. Walking around the knoll, the party found a door on its side. Morgana knocked on the door, and a voice from within the knoll bade the party to enter.

The party opened the door to find Black Elf seated at a table in the middle of the room. Before her on the table was a glowing orb. She introduced herself as Fenestra, and questioned the party and asked their purpose, and when she learned that they were enemies of the archmage and his Serpents, she cackled and offered to show them what was in the orb. Inside the glowing orb, the party now saw, was the form of a serpent made of flame.

That, Fenestra told them, was the Sun Serpent, who sought shelter at her hut during a storm, and was trapped by her magic. The Water Serpent, she explained, killed her father many years ago, and since then she had dedicated herself to the destruction of the creatures. She imparted to them the knowledge of the weakness of the Water Serpent – it cannot abide oil - and handed them two flasks of oil. The party asked Fenestra if she knew of the weakness of the Time Serpent, and she replied that she did not - although it was said that it could only be defeated by powerful sorcery.

Leaving Fenestra, the party continued on northwards along the forest track, until they came upon a wide path to the left. Examining the ground, the realised that remnants of flagstones once covered this path. They followed the path to large clearing, in the middle of which stood a large stepped stone pyramid. At the edges of the squares were fallen stone statues of goblinoid warriors, now covered by undergrowth. The party spotted a small green snake on the ground between them and the pyramid; the snake seemed to notice them also, and it began to slither towards the pyramid.

The party followed the snake as it climbed up the steps of the pyramid, and when all four of them were on the pyramid, a wall of flame rose up and surrounded the pyramid. At the same time, the snake burst into flames, and grew in size until it now towered over the party - it was the Fire Serpent! The heroes knew its weakness, but here on the stony steps of the pyramid there was no sand... except for a handful that Goncol had kept in his pouch! The thief cast the sand at the fiery form of the serpent... and missed. As Valerian and Glowulf battled the serpent, Morgana hurriedly gathered the scattered grains of the sand, and when she had done so, she cast the sand upon the serpent, and extinguished it.

The party continued on their way, and at sunset they came upon the shores of Lake Iklala. They made camp, hidden among the reeds by the shore, and when morning came they blew on a silver whistle that Fenestra had given them. The whistle gave no sound, but soon a figure emerged from the reeds nearby - it was the boatman Fenestra had told them plied the lake. The party paid the boatman his fee, and he dragged a long single-sailed reed boat out from among the reeds, and made the heroes sit astride it, and began to row the boat out into the lake.

When they had reached the middle of the lake, the boatman suddenly stopped rowing. Glowulf turned and saw his staring into the distance, and when he tapped the boatman, his form collapsed as though it was a rag doll, and out of the heap rose a sinuous whirlwind the form of a serpent - it was the Air Serpent. Balanced precariously on the reed boat, Glowulf and Goncol tried to fend of the serpent, while Morgana used a gale horn to summon up a wind to carry them to the far shore, and Valerian peddled as hard as he could. Using the serpent staff from the Sham, Glowulf managed to wound the serpent, which vanished back into the form of the boatman. As Glowulf rooted through the pile, a small snake emerged and slipped into the water. Glowulf leapt into the water after it, as did Goncol - unfortunately, the thief had forgotten that he did not know how to swim, and had to be rescued by Morgana. Meanwhile, Glowulf, raised as he were by a fisherman, quickly caught the snake, and snapped it into half.

The party returned to the boat, and Glowulf took the oars as steered it to the far shore once more. But just as they were nearing the shore, the water ahead of them began to churn. A form broke the surface, and a serpent, its form transparent as though it was made of water, emerged. But the party was prepared for it - they took out the flasks of oil that Fenestra had given them, and proceeded to splash the contents at the serpent. As the oil struck the form of the serpent, its body began to break up into globules, which for a while were suspended in the air... and then fell into the lake, and merged with the water.

Glowulf once more set the boat in its course, and it was sunset when they beached at the swampy northern shore of Lake Iklala. The party hid the boat, and entered the Vischlami Swamps. As they trekked north, the ground beneath them became drier, until at last they found a piece of higher ground where they could set up camp.

That night their rest was briefly disturbed by a party of Swamp Goblins which were heading for the lake - were they also heeding Mampang's call?

The next morning the party continued northwards, and by afternoon they could see the peaks of the Xamen mountains in the distance. Yet as they marched on, Valerian began to notice that the trees around them appeared to look... familiar. Suspecting that they may be walking in circles, the party left marks on the ground... but found themselves coming upon the same place, but without the marks!

The party also became aware that the sun appeared not to have moved in the sky - and just when they realised that they were caught in a time loop, the air before them began to shimmer as if it was heated, and then a large serpent, its body scintillating with the colours of the rainbow, materialised, and started to attack them. The party fought back, but each time their blow landed, they found themselves jerked back in time, and the wound of the serpent's body would close. But they fought on regardless, and soon even the Time Serpent's sorcery could not withstand them. The Time Serpent turned to flee, and when the heroes tried to pursue they found themselves slowed down, as the serpent flew north, towards Mampang.

When the serpent was out of sight they flow of time returned to normal, and our heroes found themselves at the edge of the swamp, at the foothills of the Xamen mountains. They have defeated five of the serpents, but failed to stop the Time Serpent. Soon, the Archmage will know of their quest.

Prepping and Running the Game

This was a combat-heavy session, as the party had to run the gauntlet of the serpents. The difficulty of each combat was dependent on whether the players knew each serpent's weakness, and whether they had the material needed to defeat it.

I tried to make each combat different by varying the environment. For the Fire Serpent, I lured the party onto stony ground where they could not easily get sand; this meant that if the first attack missed (which it did), it would take them several rounds to gather up the sand to make another attack.

For the combats on the lake, I had the PCs sitting astride a reed boat, which meant that they could not easily switch positions, and I could pick which character I wished to attack.

The Time Serpent was a powerful adversary. I ruled that once a turn it could force a reroll of a combat round, and that this power could only be negated by the ZED spell, a spell which costs 7 stamina points. Unfortunately for the players, Morgana's player did not realise this despite my hint; but fortunately for them, they rolled so well that despite the rerolls, the Time Serpent was taking a beating. I decided then to make it flee, and gave it the power to slow time down; once more the party failed to use the ZED spell, and I allowed it to escape and bring the news of their arrival to the Archmage.

During the session I continued to drop hints that the whole of Baklands was once home to great civilisations that had since fallen, and I continued to show them that the tribes were gathering, to give them a sense of the gravity of the situation, as well as the urgency. This seemed to have worked, as would become clear in the following session (which we played yesterday, and which I shall report on soon).

Sorcery! #7 - The Sham

Campaign Diary

The party tried to parley with the Moon Serpent, but it was in no mood to talk. The Moon Serpent attacked with ferocity, and neither weapons nor Morgana’s spell seemed to wound it. Then Goncol, frustrated by the ineffectiveness of his daggers, cast a cantrip to conjure a flame in his hand, and struck the serpent with it – instantly there was a flare as the fire burned the skin of the serpent. The Moon Serpent turned its wrath on Goncol, but another attack with the fire saw it go up in bright flames that temporarily blinded the party. When their sight returned, they saw that all that remained of the Moon Serpent was a crystal orb on the ground where it had stood.

Morgana picked up the orb, and cast a spell of premonition. In her trace she saw herself walking through a forest. As she walked, she became aware that she was being stalked by an invisible foe. She tried to walk faster, but felt herself unable to move her limbs. As she began to panic, she was shaken back to her senses by the others.

Finding shelter among outcrops of rocks, the party rested for the night.

The next morning the party decided to head northeast, hoping to find the Sham, a sorceress mentioned in the scroll Glowulf had purchased from the Black Elves. However, dark clouds approaching from their east forced them to seek shelter. The party found a large ruined building standing amidst the remains of a village. Reading the inscriptions on the temple, they learned that it was a temple to Throff, the Earth Goddess. The roof of the building had long collapsed, so the party descended the flight of stairs in the main hall and entered the hypogeum, where the worship of Throff took place.

The stairs ended in a large hall, decorated by painted flagstones that are now broken by weathering. Outside, the sound of rain and wind indicated that the storm has arrived. Exploring deeper into the hypogeum, the party came upon a smaller hall. Before they could investigate the hall further, bronze doors came down over the archway they had just entered through and the archway opposite it. At the same time, the four stone pillars in the room began to twist and bend until they each attained a roughly humanoid form, and then moved to attack the party. The party’s steel weapons could do little against the rocky forms of the creatures. Realising that these creatures were probably guardians of the inner temple put here to keep non-worshippers out, Morgana immediately declared her allegiance to Throff, and the creatures stopped attacking her. Rushing to the far door, she bade it to open in Throff’s name and it did as she commanded, and the party fled through it.

The door led into a passage that ended in a small round room, at the centre of which was a small pool. Morgana approached the pool and saw that its surface was covered in scum. When she reached into the pool, the ghostly form of a skeletal figure rose up, and again the party found themselves under attack. Once more their spells and steel had little effect on the incorporeal form, and once more Goncol thought to try a different means: he poured the holy water he had bought from the Black Elves into the pool; instantly the scum receded from where the water touched, and the ghostly form faded. Soon the pool was filled with clear water. Morgana drank from the pool, and felt the blessings of Throff.

The party took a short nap, and when they awoke the storm had passed. They continued their journey towards the northeast. Late in the afternoon they came upon a solitary gnome, traveling in the opposite direction from them. The gnome demanded to know if they were friends or foes, and when they replied that they were friends, the gnome demanded a gift as a token of their friendship.
They obliged. The gnome accepted their gift, and transformed into a beautiful woman – she was the sorceress called the Sham. The Sham in turned gifted them with a vial of gas that would put to sleep the Sleepless Ram, a formidable guardian of the archmage in Mampang, a staff that would weaken the Seven Serpents, and knowledge of the weakness of the Fire Serpent. She then reverted to the form of the gnome again, and continued her way.

Near sunset the party spied a Klatta village. Curiously, only women, children, and the elderly were visible – there were no men in sight. The party made a wide berth of the village, and settled down to another night in the open.

The next day passed without event as the party continued to trek to the north. Now and then they saw the dust clouds stirred up by large bodies of men – the tribes are on the move. In the afternoon they came across old bones from hundreds of skeletons, littered across the ground. The bones were of men, elves, and centaurs, and the damage to the bones and the presence of flint arrowheads embedded in some of them told Valerian that they were crossing an ancient battlefield.

At sunset they arrived at the escarpment at the edge of the Klatta-badu Plains. Here they could see the Forest of Snatta below, and beyond that, the dark line and snowy tops of the Zanzunu Peaks. Wary of spending the night in the forest, the party settled down for the night. When the sun has set, they saw clusters of campfires to their east and their west. In eleven nights the tribes will gather at the shores of Lake Ilklala.

The next morning the party started to descend the scree to reach the forest. As they struggled to keep their balance, the ground suddenly opened up under Glowulf and Valerian, and they fell into a large pit some ten feet deep. Before they could climb out of the pit, the ground began to rumble again, and rocks leapt from the ground and struck them. They scrambled to reach the edge of the pit, but once more the ground heaved, and a giant serpent with scales that looked like rocks emerged – it was the Earth Serpent.

Morgana and Goncol jumped into the pit, and together the four heroes battled the serpent. Remembering Shadrack’s advice, Glowulf and Valerian grappled the powerful form of the serpent, and with great effort hoisted it off the earth. The serpent began to shrink to the size of a small snake, slipping out of their grasp; but before it could touch the earth again, Goncol reached out and seized it. He then thrusted the writhing snake into a glass vial, where it struggled weakly, before turning into stone.

The party hurried down the slope and entered the forest, hoping that their battle had not drawn unwanted attention.

It was a different world under the thick canopy of the forest: the air was cool and moist, and there were sounds of birds and unseen forest creatures. The party followed animal trails, heading towards the north. Soon, the party became aware that they were, true to Morgana’s vision, being followed by creatures they could not see. When he heard a rustling sound coming from his left, he lunged towards the sound, striking blindly with his sword… and felt something constrict around his sword arm – a plant had come alive, and had wrapped its vine around his arm.

Glowulf grabbed the hewing axe he had bought from the Black Elves, and with a swift stroke cut through the vine, but more vines began to wrap themselves around Valerian’s feet. At the same time, Goncol felt the claws on an invisible beast strike him across his back. Morgana panicked and ran down another trail, but was attacked by one of the another invisible beasts. For a while confusion reigned, until Goncol landed a blow against his invisible opponent and it showed its form: it was a Snattacat, a tiger-like creature that could turn invisible at will. Glowulf managed to free Valerian, and together the party soon slew one of the Snattacats, and the other one retreated.

Prepping and Running the Game

Most of the encounters in this session came from the original gamebook/module, but the Temple of Throff mini-dungeon was re-designed to make it more interesting.

This was an action-packed session in terms of combat, but I also did two things that were important to the whole story: I gave the players the sense that the tribes were on the move, and that something momentous was about to happen, and I also tried to impress upon them that the Baklands was a region that saw warfare between the various races and tribes that dwelt there - this last part would have bearing later in the story.

While the session was light-hearted as usual and saw the usual jokes and banter, the gravity of their quest had become more apparent to the players. For a while they discussed whether they should try to rouse the tribes against the archmage, or to ambush the archmage as he came to Lake Ilklala, but they eventually decided to continue traveling to Mampang as originally planned. This was a bit of a disappointment to me, as I was fully prepared to let them take control of the direction of the quest, and I was also hoping to not have to prep the whole fortress, which would take quite a lot of effort on my part.

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.