Stonetop ditty campaign: Session 2
Gourd Dwarf as Gaelor the Heavy
Press the Beast as Brandyn the Blessed
Vodka Gobalsky as Corwyn the Fox
I had a great time with this session. One of my goals was to let town scenes breathe a bit more before sending players off on an adventure, and it went really smoothly. We opened on my three players (see Session 1) going about their normal town mornings before realizing that there was a problem at the granary. A suspicious amount of food was missing, horrible news when Stonetop's granary functions like something of a community food pantry. And there were mysterious footprints leading into the Great Wood... How strange! Everyone did a pretty good job getting themselves over to where the action was happening. We learned that our Heavy's older sister and the married woman she had been sleeping with were also missing. Strange connections.
In a two hour session, we managed to split the party twice in two different combinations and then unify everyone again. I consider this peak gaming. We cut back and forth between each player or group to work out what was happening for them in their part of Stonetop.
The Blessed sought insight and found the muddy footprints leading very clearly from out of the granary, down the cliff, and into the Great Wood. He rounded up his girlfriend and our Fox to head down towards the Stream, where he met the ghosts of the twins. An interesting interaction ensued: the ghosts started arguing over who would get to play with the sacred kitty toy he offered them, and rather than engage further or risk giving up more Stock, he just left them to it and everyone continued on the trail of footprints. Looking back, I wish I had thought to offer for this player to roll persuasion the first time he asked them to stop fighting. I ruled it as though the stream was too loud, and played off of an earlier assertion he made that he was very shy and preferred for other people to be loud for him. Still, could have been a Persuade with disadvantage. I say this mostly for myself to remember for next time. GMing is still new for me, and each game has been a valuable experience.
Meanwhile, our Heavy was rounding up a group of healthy and strong folks for a Night Watch tryout (I guess they're aiming to keep the granary from being raided again). He climbed the Stone and called out for Tor, god of lightning and rain, to strike him down. Tor didn't answer... this time. He fell off and survived anyway. This impressed the shit out of every Night Watch hopeful, who swore loyalty to our Heavy on the spot. Really nice moment, because our Heavy is recently returned from exile and all he wants is to feel loved and respected in Stonetop again. One kid agreed to join the Heavy on a trip into the Great Wood.
When everyone caught up to each other, we had a nice combat encounter with two feathered pack drakes (need to remind my party that those feathers are worth something). Only the young follower got truly mangled, while our Heavy and Fox chewed through the poor drakes. Our Fox used his moves really really well, with Trackless Step, Ambush, and Danger Sense carrying everyone quite literally over the river and through the woods.
On the topic of the drake-mangled follower, an inconvenient issue presented itself of choosing between getting him home or moving on to figure out where the tracks ended. Our Blessed wanted to "send him back to Danu", which our Heavy and Fox took such extreme objections to that they were ready to attack the Blessed. This was the second time my players were faced with an important lesson about bringing young, untested folk into the Wood! I was ready to call for Interfere, but they argued for so long that I just rolled Death's Door for the follower, whose condition stabilized anyway. Thank you dice and thank you Lady of Crows for sparing the poor guy.
We didn't solve the mystery yet, mostly because I only vaguely think I know where all the missing pieces are hiding so far. One of the things I love about this game is getting to meditate on how the next session will look. I leaned on a lot of procedural tools for this session and want something more fleshed out for the next session before they return home. Where are all the missing pieces hiding? Something I love about this game is the opportunity to meditate on the most interesting "next step" between sessions while working with a broader direction and key factors (Seasons Change rolls, for instance).