Our intrepid heroes grabbed what they could from the mines: ledgers, furniture, normal things for a not-quite pirate crew to take. None of the slaves were wanting to go with the group, so after loading the supplies, and leaving enough food and rations, they head back to the trading post. There's a bit of a chase as they approach the nebulous border (sorry, no George Jetson floating road guides here!) but a few deft turns and watching the mainsails they leave the Alderil Navy ship behind.
Smooth sailing to the port. The crew starts selling what they can of the purloined goods, and the pay the crew for a bit of shore leave. Wanting to return to Dulcet Spire, but not wanting to take the Wind Razor, they get passage aboard the Wind Whale, a cargo vessel heading that way in a few days. Meanwhile, they get the Razor restocked, start looking into getting a stern gun for protection when chased.
Getting onboard the Wind Whale under assumed names, they meet Bosun Fairly Heathcote. It is a two day trip to the Spire but they arrive, unnoticed by the Navy, and get directions to the Batkin Embassy. Several long flights of stairs up, some open to the huge open-air market inside the giant Spire, and they get to the Embassy up in the administrative sections.
Ambassador Batrok, an older Batkin with a greying muzzle, talks with them after they introduce themselves. One of the things we found during this session is that the Batkin really have no formal government: most things are communal, and roles are pretty fluid. We did a bit of world building so I could envision how the player sees the race she created for the game. And they squeak in their language, which humans cannot understand, or even hear half of.
The embassy has 6 Batkin aids (Bentock, Biota, Batkra, Bit, Batony and Baroti) and 6 human aids (Jeager Hardjen, Yavin Kenosky, Ulric Dituri, Daron Voight, Fleur Cantos and Tessa Ducot). Not that they really met any of them other than as they walked through, though Batony did find the letter left behind by Batrina's siblings:
Batrina, if you receive this letter, we have been rescued from slavery by the Leitford Family. They have safely left us at the embassy on Dulcet Spire. A strange place with no dirt under our feet, nor enough sky to glide in. After regaining our health, we decided to return home. Living among the humans as shown us their cruelty and their compassion. But we cannot live among them. Please come home and let us know you are safe.
~ Batmaya and Batzion
They were mistrustful of things, and even though 6 months ago it all seemed okay, this group rightfully does not trust the Anderil Empire.
And this is sort of where we left things. I felt that I was not doing a good job in getting the world I envisioned across well, and the play seemed more forced, and I am not sure everyone was having fun. O we decided, or rather I decided, to switch things up. We're going to try the Dolmenwood OSE game. I'm going to start with the short Winter's Daughter adventure to see how that works out. The advantage is that fantasy like this is easier for everyone to have a more shared idea of what the world is. And one of the players, as well as myself, want to use more than just our 6-sided dice!
Session 0 will be in a couple weeks. Even though there are good character generators online for Dolmenwood, I think they want to roll up characters face to face. I also just got the PDF for the backstory generator, so we may use that as well assuming I actually look through that to get a feel for how to use it. And, we may start in the Giant's Nose as I did back that and I should use the things I get!
No comments:
Post a Comment