Session 3

This was the final setup session and one of our best, I felt. We finished up characters and I had a better idea of how to direct that.

The first thing I did was grab the Dresden character work sheets for this. They really work well (great job guys). I also introduced the High Aspect and Trouble Aspect from that game as well. These two Aspect really helped us lock down the characters and get it down right. The characters looked really good when we were done and had a ton of awesome hooks as well.

After that we did skills and stunts, a pretty straightforward thing.

The best part of the night took place in the last hour. A few weeks ago Bill had introduced me to a scene altering system (I think he got it from Universalis). It worked really well. Basically each player had a certain number of chips to be used to alter a scene that I had precreated for the night. I decided to give this a whirl as the jumping off point for the new game. Here are the two scenes

My Scene
The party lounges in an inn, enjoying a few drinks. An old man in a hood sits in the corner, telling stories to the locals and entertaining them. Suddenly a local storekeeper bursts into the room. Glancing about, he charges to the characters table and grabs one of the characters. His daughter has been trapped in the basement of his store and large rats are threatening her! She must be saved!

Talk about a whole series of really crappy cliches. Here is what we ended up with by the end of it all.

Final Scenes
A few weeks earlier, Artie had been tasked by the Archivists to retrieve an amulet. Not knowing where it was, he hired The Rat to help him find it. The Rat tracked the necklace to a small town on the Darkspur River trade route called Numscar. The two of them headed out to find this amulet, currently in the possession of a former inquisitor of the church, now turned merchant.

Twenty-four hours earlier, all the tunnels leading into the Pyramid of Yagmur suddenly burst with light, brighter than the sun. This flash of light lasted for 60 seconds and then faded out, just as quickly. A moment later, the Forsaken Marsh is shocked to hear a deep, ominous laughter ringing throughout the entire area.

Much later that day, a fat priest races up the stairs of tower, sweating and out breath. Bursting into the room of the archbishop, he proclaims in an exhausted voice, "The Third Gate has been opened!" He collapses. That same day, a horde of random wildlife stampedes through the town of Mudhaven in fear and panic.

Meanwhile in the rest of the world, the city of Verger breaks into a wide scale riot and the town guard is overwhelmed. On the plains of Lofwyr, the clan chiefs are amassing their troops on the eastern edge of the plain.

Back in the small town of Numscar, Artie and the Rat are having drinks in the tavern with two old companions, Onan and Osric Waters. Rumors have been circulating about the town, that it is evil. Inhabitants have been missing and scream are heard at night. An old man sits in the corner telling tales to the inhabitants. Another man, strangely dressed came into town on a river lizard. He is an assassin, sent to kill the very merchant that Artie is searching for.

Suddenly screams break out in the town. The door bursts open and there stands the merchants daughter. She is bruised and scratched, her clothing torn. She quickly screams to the assembled masses that her father has locked himself in the basement, that her morbidly obese mother is locked in a closet and that she has syphilis. Then a ragged claw grabs her from behind, yanking her out into the streets as the doors slams shut.

The very drunk captain of the town guard leaps to his feat and charges for the door.

On a small rise just outside of the town, Kuoros the Slaver stares down at his men as the descend on the town of Numscar, searching for more slaves for his necromantic lords and also for Onan, his dread frenemy!

Obviously this worked out really well and we have a lot to do ahead of us. When I first started this game, I was looking at a very Keep on the Borderlands start. A small valley, some mild dangers, nothing big. Boy is that idea shot now!

Great stuff though. Can't wait till next week when we begin: The Numscar Massacre

Session 2

This session we began work on characters. I was a little new to this, so it felt a little rocky, but we got some work done.

The first thing we did was choose a Racial Aspect. This was an aspect that turned out to be anything from Slag-skinned Human to Enslaved Fae Imp to Man of Verger. After that aspect was done we followed a pretty standard form: background, development, first story, guest star.

It went okay, but there were quite a few hiccups as people tried to wrap their minds around the guest star idea. We did not get to skills or stunts before the night came to a close.

Session One

What started as a session on creating a small geographical region turned grandiose. A series of mighty empires were created, destroyed and replaced. In short order, two seperate ancient civilizations rose and were lost to antiquity. Out them came the world hereafter known as The World Yet to be Named.

Before everyone go there, I had laid out a large white erase board and the markers. When the players came, I had them each draw a small circle, about the size of a dice. Then we rolled one FATE dice and added three to it. This gave us townships and the Scope of each one. We had a single Great Scope city subsequently named Verner. We had one Fair town and it was called Mudhaven. In the end we ended up with Verner (+5), Mudhaven (+2), Steelstride (+1), Perch (+1), Ravenshold (0) and Smalls (+1).

After the towns were laid out, I had each player draw one geographical feature on the board. Suddenly a lake appearred surrounding Verner, a river connected Verner and Smalls, a huge plain surrounded Steelstride, a series of vast canyons lurked near Raven'shold and Perch was set high up in the mountains. The Desert of Kesh existed by itself far to the west. The end result was interesting.

Next I handed out index cards and we started adding some Aspects and backstory to the geographical places. This helped us get our basic backstory. When were done with that, we added in another round of geographical feature and points of interest.

The night was rounded out with the creation of a series of organizations. The Mudstriders are a smaller group that seek to restore the Forsaken Swamp in the name of their Fae lords. The Archivists seek to gather and protect the ancient lore of fallen civilizations. The Horse Slaves of Lofwyr are a group of plainsmen that have been dominated by the horse hive mind, Lofwyr. The Inquisition represents the Church of the Conqueror and seeks to purge the continent of the corrupting influence of the Elemental Cults. The Unknown Void Swamp Lords Who Shall Remain as Nameless as They Are Known, have a secret agenda created by thier sleestak necromantic zombie lords. Finally we have the Thieves Guild of Verner who do thievy things.

So that was the first session. Next game is Character Creation