Them giant snakes ‘ave stolen me purse, I swear!

Last Saturday, the Burning Ethrea campaign continued when Daphne arrived in the village of Harran where she wanted to contact Mariam, Diodorus’ lover. Unfortunately, Daphne arrived late in the village so she sought out the local tavern to have supper and rest so she could begin her search for Mariam in the next morning.

Now, in that tavern (“The Honest Heron”), there were some more travellers, namely Maximus, a mercenary, his companion Iapocet (?), a strider from the wilds and a young drunkard called Hector who happened to be an itinerant performer and was standing on one of the tavern tables, trying to perform a tragic monologue (and failing utterly, due to his inability to voice comprehensible words).

Suddenly, two men in black leather armour entered the room, spotting Hector and heading over to his table. One of the thugs greeted the young actor and alluded to a man called Brutus who wanted his money back. Hector immediately started a new performance, talking about giant snakes in the forest who had taken his purse… pure awesome.

Nonetheless, the thugs were not amused. One of them grabbed Hector’s leg and pulled him down the table. When the drunkard rumbled to the ground, the surrounding conversations fell silent. Daphne was aroused by her “help people and animals in danger” instinct and approached Iacopet and Maximus who look like able men. She asked them to help the performer as he clearly couldnt do so himself. Iacopet agreed, tried to intervene and told the thug that did the pulling that there surely were less violent means to settle his dispute with the boy. He tried to persuade the thug (thug’s Will 4, double obstacle = 8) and failed (not surprisingly). The failure clause for this test was that the thugs would turn hostile towards Iacopet and forget about Hector for the moment.

So they immediately turned their attention to the strider and told him to mind his own business – which the strider did not. When he continued to ask the thugs to leave the performer alone, one them suddenly threw a fist at him. Fight!

In the first exchange, Iacopet scripted Block, Avoid, Push while the thug scripted Strike, Push, Physical Act (to overturn a table for cover). Maximus also engaged in the conflict and scripted Draw Weapon, Push (to push Iacopet out of the way) and Block, so it worked out like this:

Iacopet reacted quickly to the thug’s attack blocking the first blow with his bare hand. Then the thug tried to push Iacopet to the ground but the strider took an elegant sidestep and avoided the thug’s grip. Then, Maximus tried to push Iacopet aside, but the latter sidestepped this attempt as well with a knee-jerk reaction. He then hit the thug on the shoulder with a precise strike from the edge of his hand which was reflected by the thugs leather armour.

In the second exchange, only the first volley was played out, in which the thug unsheathed his sword and Iacopet Tried to push the thug himself but failed. Then suddenly Maximus exclaimed a yell of fury and delivered a devastating blow from his quarterstaff against the thugs larynx who gurgled and fell to his knees (superb hit, B10 damage, amour test results in 1).

This immediately ended the conflict. Silence filled the tavern room and suddenly someone yelled: “He’s killed ‘im!” Immediately, Maximus realized that he might very vell have slain that thug witnessed by about a dozen tavern patrons. “We must leave this place!” Daphne decided as she felt responsible for the situation (and also was the most experienced when it came to running away from a mob of angry pursuers).

LIKED
– Hector’s giant snake performance. The game only lasted an hour but he’s on a really good way to being voted MVP next time.
– The fight worked out quite well, it was fast and dramatic and resulted in a gorgeous situation (Maximus actually mortally wounded a thug of Brutus, the master of the Arcadian Thieves Guild and has now earned a 1D infamous reputation with the Arcadian Underworld).

DISLIKED
– Having to finish character burning has eaten up our time to play
– In the meantime, Hector’s player drank too much wine – well at least his performance was convincing (purse-stealing giant snakes, for God’s sake!)
– Distributing spotlight evenly on four player characters is quite difficult. I actually consider splitting the group in two (Hector/Daphne and Iacopet/Maximus).