Thursday, September 24, 2015

The First Hut on the Left

Last night was our 4th session playing our round robin GMs using he Pits & Perils system.  The was +Ken H  first session at the helm.  I continued to play my charismatic fighter, Chevor and +Chris C. created a cleric called Odo the Penniless. 


Ken created this great map and included some inspirational pictures in this post.  Ken, someone who is extremely knowledgeable about history did an excellent job with developing the atmosphere of the setting.  I have four note cards of notes from the session so I am going to try to make sense of my own hand writing and the remember the flow of the session.

Odo and Chevor were traveling north from Inwood where, Phandor and Chevor solved the mysterious appearance of wolves and found a the missing Rose.  The first place we encounter is Darkness Bottom where we meet Ding, a guard in a narrow stone tower.  "You must be the king's inspectors coming to investigate poor Boc's murder."  Being an honest man I told him, no, we are mercenaries looking to make a living.  Ding frowned, "I don't think you get what I'm saying, you must be the king's inspectors or I can't let you travel this road with all your weapons and armor."  Ahh, so we were those inspectors they were waiting for.

He informed us that the murder occurred in Crossing Church.  The second gruesome murder within a month's time.  He gave us the details that the bodies were mutilated, torn to bits.  And he had many theories on how this came to be, the orcs from Verdoven-Bos, possibly witches.  He also mentioned a man named Anton, he seems to be a favorite person to blame.  He said if we went to Crossing Church that Leona was in charge of St. Amber's Church.  And Elston was the man in charge of the area as a whole, and he resided in Twiggleton.

We continued to travel north.  Met a few more characters before reaching Crossing Church.  When we first arrived was immediately met up with Leona and a woman named Tilly, Boc, the decease's wife.  They were tending to his pyre.  Tilly "I'm not going anywhere.  I'm staying here all night.  When Den was killed they had a pyre for him and in the morning when they came to collect his bones, they were gone.  No one is taking Boc's bones."

Odo and Leona had a short conversation about the area and her church.  She seemed surprised by the presence of investigators even though, we later discovered, she was to have sent for them weeks ago.  It is the only church in the area, but there are two abbeys in close proximity.  St. Diddlemyer Abbey with a long and rich history that several well known scholars and the new abbey is St. Mervin's.  An abbey that was established by Elson's father and himself. 

We then seek out a the man who found Boc's body, Arden.  A sharp old man who repeated the information that the body had been torn to bits.  Insides out, outsides in.  There were bite marks all over his body.  He believed it was the work of the orcs of some devil dog.  This happened north of Twiggleton six or seven years ago.

Odo asked for a tour of the church and Arden obliged.  A simple two room church.  A curious thing being the deep grooves in the floor.  Arden said they had replaced the altar eight or nine years ago.  The old altar had been in disrepair for years and the new one was a gift. 

We then explored the murder scene.  The ground had been scraped clean.  The local did not want the blood soaking into the ground.  It would taint the food grown in the orchard.  The scene was close enough that anyone should have heard Boc yell or at least seen what had happened.  We could see many homes from where we stood.  The only other significant detail we found was a few broken branches on the nearby tree.

On the other side of the orchard was Anton's home, a bit away from the other homes in the hamlet.  Anton features were very different in that he seemed ageless and that he had gold eyes.  He was a gracious host who seemed to enjoy the sparring of conversation.  He discovered he had heard, nor seen, anything.  However, he did get very interested when asked about the local history.  He mentioned a few times that the history was deep in this area.  The area is ancient, Imperial roads and ruins can be found in many places.  Before that the elves ruled this old forest.  And there were others even before that. 

Our final actions were we explored where Den was murdered a few weeks earlier.  The locals had cleansed the ground there also.  We decided to set up camp near the pyre to help Tilly keep watch on Boc's pyre so she can retrieve his bones in the morning. 

Our strategy after that is to explore north into Twiggleton, St. Mervin's Abbey and on up to St. Diddlemyer Abbey. 

It was a great session.  No combat.  More of a police procedural.  A few times I was thinking, "What would Brisco do?"

2 comments:

  1. I am glad you enjoyed it. I was aiming for something a bit different.

    ReplyDelete