We played with the Nimrod group yesterday and had quite an eventful session. The player characters had left behind Nimrod and travelled to the rebel camp in the forest. After having lunch the party went to rest. The next day, Horatio/Hygelak started out inquiring about a cooperative NPC who had formerly been a close contact of chieftain Marduk and was willing to share information about the tribal leader (independently from princess Kyrila, that is). Unfortunately, the circles test failed and we invoked the enmity clause:
Berun, a proven rebel warrior, respected by his fellows for his bravery in battle and loyalty to his friends, approached Kyrila to tell her that he and some other rebels were concerned about the stranger snuffing around in the camp. Berun made the point that this weird guy could very well be Marduk’s spy and cause great distress to the Woodland Rebellion. Kyrila on the other hand made clear that she trusted Horatio because he had risked his life for the rebels’ cause – and then she insisted on trusting her instinct which had never betrayed so far.
Berun still disagreed and wanted Kyrila to arrest Horatio so he could not gather information that he might then share with Marduk. Now it was Kyrila’s “Never allow anyone to question my authority” instinct that had her engage Berun in a DoW on the matter. Kyrila used her Oratory while Berun relied on Interrogation. Rebels were gathering around the pair and all eyes were on them while they argued the case of Horatio/Hygelak. The bodies of argument were 4 for Kyrila and 6 for Berun respectively – no successes on the roll for the princess, so she was starting out on less than great conditions.
Kyrila’s script was point, rebuttal, dismiss while I had scripted point, feint, dismiss for Berun. In the first volley, both sides reduced their opponent’s BOA by 2 points. In the second volley, Berun asked flatly, which bits of concrete information Kyrila could present about Horatio. The princess who had prepared herself to rebut Berun’s argumentation was suddenly caught flat-footed and didn’t know what to say – bad, bad luck. But then, I rolled only 1 success on 4 dice, so Kyrila was still in the game for the last volley in which both sides had scripted a dismiss. Berun argued that the Woodland Rebellion should not rely on strangers as they could not be trusted for which the Evangelists’ machinations were a perfect proof. Kyrila, on the other hand, told Berun to remember his rank and that she was in charge and would not allow him to question his authority. After rolling the dice, both sides’ BOA was reduced to zero and so the duel ended in a tie.
The intents that were stated before the DoW were “Horatio will be arrested while in camp if Berun wins” and “Berun will be charged with patrol duty for the next two weeks if Kyrila wins.” As a compromise, Kyrila agreed to do not allow Horatio to stroll about without her in camp while she completely clear to Berun that he should better watch out as she would not acquiesce should he ever dare to question her authority again.
After this dispute had been settled, Esra, a rebel warrior who had died in the feigned attack on Nimrod to allow Kyrila and the others to flee from the city, was buried and then, Kyrila, Baldur and Horatio gathered supplies and set out to the wild in order to search the ancient city of Cantopia in the Stormpillar Mountains. Baldur had discovered hints on the so-called “Mystificator”, an ancient artifact of great yet unknown power. Which he had been planning to retrieve for months and had asked Kyrila for help in exchange for his support in the prisoner liberation back in Nimrod. Baldur had left his workshop behind and so Kyrila felt obliged to accompany Baldur – even if only she was curious about this legendary device that might prove to be a powerful weapon in her war against her father Marduk.
Baldur also had an old map of the region but unfortunately, the landscape had been changed during the cataclysm, so the ancient map was not very accurate any more. Kyrila, being on her home turf, tried a Orienteering test (Ob 2) to find the way to Cantopia. She failed and so the party got lost and was eventually caught in a supernatural rainstorm with acidic drops pouring down on them. In order not to get burnt by the acid rain, the three adventurers sought refuge in a nearby cave.
A natural corridor sloped down into the flank of a rocky outcropping and finally ended at a whole in the floor, revealing a subterranean lake in the chamber below that was illuminated by iridescent algae. As the corridor was sloped and the rainstorm seemed to intensify outside, the heroes decided that they would have to jump down into the lake in order to escape the corrosive water that would soon flow down the rocky floor.
Down there, they swam to the shore of the small lake and discovered to corridors leading from the chamber, one in a northern, the other in a southern direction. As the northern corridor reeked of sulphur, the heroes decided that it would be better to follow the other one. Their confidence dwindled, anyway, when from the darkness ahead, a legion of giant woodlouses approached them – crawling backwards and in a perfect rank and file formation. Obviously, something strange was going on.
The PCs still decided to follow the corridor and finally reached another small chamber. In which they encountered a bloated amorphous creature covered in chitinous plates that peered upon them from multiple facetted eyes and welcomed them with a raspy voice that emerged from a jaw that was armed with razorsharp mandibles. “Ah, finally some visitors!” the creature hissed. As the PCs were frightened by the monstrous appearance of the creature, they were standing there in shock and awe while the monster explained that it was A) very hungry and would B) eat them if they C) didn’t free it by breaking the celestial seal in the chamber at the end of the northern corridor. Obviously this creature was some kind of Devil and had been imprisoned by Angelic forces during the Great Judgement.
Surprisingly, the adventurers agreed and went to the other chamber that was the only artificially created room in the complex and contained a shrine of the Arch Angel Thereniel including an altar with an arcane seal upon it. The entire room was filled with the bodies of giant woodlouses that had obviously tried to reach the altar but were killed by some unseen force before they could reach the seal. After hesitating shortly, Horatio approached the altar and destroyed the seal with his sword. Some moments later, an invisble booming voice called out: “Fools! You have just freed a Son of Norimaar, a vile Devil from the Sulphurous Pits of Hell! An entire army of Angels was necessary to bind the creature in its prison, and now it will bring death and despair to the mortal men. For this, you shall burn in Hell!”
Then the voice fell silent and the earth began to shake below the characters’ feet as the cave complex began to collapse. The heroes fell through utter darkness for an unfathomable amount of time and finally they plunged into another body of water, black as ink and cold as ice. Moments later, they lost their consciousness.
When they awoke, they were lying on a narrow patch of a subterranean sand beach from were they could see an opening in the towering walls of the caverns through which silvery light fell into the cave. The heroes stood up and stumbled out of the dark into the moonlit wilderness, finding themselves on a ridge above a pass overgrown with trees that led up into the mountains – just as depicted on Baldur’s ancient map.
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So that was it, a fun game with some great new complications: Berun as a NPC that might question Kyrila’s authority and step up as a rival inside the Woodland Rebellion and, of course a mighty Devil that has been unleashed on the countryside. Horatio has also earned the Hellbound trait and will from now on be subject to the Raw Talent rules.
Burning Ethrea 
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