Justin Achilli

Salvador had returned to Fort Lorica during the downtime between sessions, but Beliax and Decimus both found themselves on work detail with the restoration of the stockade. (That is to say, Ned and Ethan were out this time, but Oscar made it back.) Magnus Agrippa and Petellius were present, and led the initiative in the session’s plans: Return to the ruin the Thirteenth Legion had discovered hidden behind the lair of the feuding giants and seek out the rest of its mysteries.

With their humanoid thrall in shackles, the trio delved again into the depths, whereupon they discovered that the creatures’ lair seemed in fact to be the tombs of an odd culture that predated the monstrous occupants. With a commemorative shrines, ritualistic frescoes, and even a mass grave, the dungeon behind the giant’s cavern seemed to be some sort of functional facility, with both cultural elements and infrastructure included. Magnus Agrippa did a fine job of bringing the beyond-death residents of the graves to heel, and gave them a properly consecrated burial in the idiom of the Thirteenth Legion. In the most prestigious (but still humble) grave, Petellius found a weapon of exceeding quality, and almost certain arcane potency.

What good could possibly come of this?

An extremely lengthy stairwell led the party up to a bizarre concourse and docking platform… attached to the apex of the mountain. More frescoes depicted a culture obviously possessed of the capability of moving among the skies, seemingly on gigantic floating islands or pieces of earth torn from the world’s surface. The few survivors of the Thirteenth Legion had discovered a remnant of the empire of the “Sky Climbers.”

On the docking platform, a pair of laborers who looked nothing like anyone else the legionnaires had encountered in the Pagan Lands. I described them as a bit of a visual cross among the Greeks, Egyptians, and Assyrians of antiquity: dark, curly hair, oiled and scented beards, armed with khopesh blades, and of a greater body frame than Imperial stock. They appeared to be preparing a collection of barrels, crates, and cases to load them onto whatever moored at the dock. The characters had the drop on them, but…

• a) They were tough, and
• b) The PCs hadn’t fully explored the concourse, and didn’t find their hetman, whose arrival caught the Thirteenth in a pincers maneuver.

The legionaries held their own, but they were simply outgunned (or outleveled), especially since they had to face the two threats at once. The leader used a few potent control and defense spells and the laborers wielded their weapons well. Magnus Agrippa fell, as did Petellius, and Salvador surrendered before the remnant of the Thirteenth Legion was obliterated.

Bring it on, Marduk.

The players determined that these guys weren’t the “Sky Climbers,” but rather interlopers like themselves, using the facility to their own ends. They were certainly some sort of civilized folk – how odd in these savage lands! – because they took the characters prisoner and ultimately let them go with an understood promise to the hetman that they’d leave without further incident.

To their benefit, the leader had them bound and revived in the map room, a domed room with much of the immediate geography of the Pagan Lands depicted on its ceiling. Also present was some sort of calendar or schedule that these individuals seemed to be using to predict the arrival of one of the floating sky-islands at the dock. Everyone had the wits to compare their current location with something on the dome-map that looked like it might be the signal tower their legion had originally sought. And they found a likely candidate.

With a rough knowledge of where the signal tower that was the original destination of the Thirteenth Legion was located, the party forged east-northeastward. Before long they encountered a group of pilgrims pulling a reliquary on a two-wheeled cart in the foothills of the mountain range. Magnus Agrippa was worried that these might have been more of the leper-exiles from the first session, but such was not the case.

This probably won't have a good result, either.

What was the case, however, wasn’t much better. The reliquary contained a waxed-canvas “tub,” in which were swimming three creatures with fishlike bodies and malformed humanoid heads and faces. Magnus Agrippa recognized the pilgrims for what they were: Dagon-worshippers. The Empire had some familiarity with Dagon, but not to the degree that anyone in the Carcosa openly venerated it. The party traveled with the pilgrims for a brief period of time, but Salvador ultimately found them too abhorrent and the two groups parted ways.

From their vantage point in the foothills, the Thirteenth could see what they had been looking for, which was the beacon of the signal tower. With this as their destination, they made slow but steady progress toward the coast and the tower. Within about two weeks of travel, they made the landmark.

Here, they met Eumenesthes, who informed them that they were three hundred years ahead of themselves. As well, the “magic item” that Petellius had in his possession belonged to the “Sky Climbers,” who were not to have made their place in the Pagan Lands for a thousand years hence. After much consultation with Eumenesthes… well, the party didn’t learn much, and that’s by design. At present, I’m using him as a bit of a sage and a repository of information (he’s capable of teaching them the languages of the region, for example), but I want him to be neither backstory text dumper nor patron who solves problems when they’re brought to him. His timelessness is a bit of flavor and nothing more — it’s a way to characterize the weirdness of the world itself and the pieces of it. I don’t mind the players knowing that and I told Oscar as much. here’s not plot to prod or puzzle to solve there. Eumensethes isn’t a character whose tale needs solved. He’s a supporting character for the true story of the campaign, which is of course that of the PCs.

The session ended on this sedate note, with the implication that the PCs would spend some of their time learning some of the tongues of the Pagan Lands.

This is very much how I imagine Kalasthes' lost Thirteenth Legion looking.

Only the cleric Magnus Agrippa made it back to Fort Lorica after the last foray into the Pagan Lands, which is to say, only his player (Rich) was able to return with him alive. Eddy had previously played the fighter Belc, who met an untimely end with his guts spilled on the floor of a Keltic longhouse, so this time he undertook another survivor of the 13th Legion: the monk Petellius. Ethan joined us this time, with a Keltic fighter named Beliax — another victim of random chargen, yoked with a Wisdom of three. Three. Even “Drink that? Okay” Decimus had a Wisdom of four. But Decimus wasn’t there this time, and neither was Salvador (since Ned and Oscar were out), so we ruled that everyone simply hadn’t met back up after the debacle in the Keltic village and only Magnus Agrippa had returned to the fort for this session.

From the get-go, I knew this was going to be a good session, and it definitely paid off in one of my favorite currencies, which are emergent details. They come as a result of the broad-strokes setting design I’m exercising with the Pagan Lands, because I love to see the mutual exploration and creation of setting detail between the GM and players. This time around, the details emerged that:

• The Empire seems to have a society that leans toward the monastic, or at least the military does. Petellius was the second monk PC to survive the shattering of the Thirteenth Legion, so we sort of surmised that some estimable amount of the imperial legions belonged to these regimented orders. It makes sense, since the rough sketch of the empire is one of inviolate Law, and disciplined ranks of soldiers fit that concept perfectly.
• Low stats don’t always represent hopeless or cartoonish ineptitude. Beliax, with his Wisdom of three, wasn’t a bumbling doofus. Ethan portrayed him as a Kelt who had suffered a formidable head wound, and who as a result forgot his Keltic allegiance, finding himself press-ganged into the Imperial irregulars. With his very low Wisdom, he found it to be the best course to simply follow orders, and he fell into the ranks effortlessly.
• Well, sort of effortlessly. Magnus Agrippa is notably intolerant of the barbarians of the Pagan Lands, and his first order of business was to force Beliax to his knees and swear him into the Thirteenth. He then took his razor to the Kelt’s beard and untamed hair, remaking him in the (roughly cut) image of an Imperial.
• As play progressed, we also filled in a few more details about the faith of the Empire, with especial attention to the military. When asked for details about what god or power he was invoking when he cast the clerical standby, Cure Light Wounds, Rich decided that Magnus Agrippa was actually practicing a sort of ancestor-worship. This ultimately refined into the concept that the clerics of the Thirteenth actually called upon the blessings of an ancient general-saint who served as the patron of their legion. And from there it was a logical conclusion that each of the legions had is own sainted patron-general. How does this fit in with whatever whatever other religion and gods may exist for the Empire? At this point, who knows — but it’s an absolutely wonderful emergent detail.

As the session began, the characters staged from Fort Lorica with the intent to follow the line of the mountains and avoid the badlands to the immediate east. Taking unreliable mountain paths and trails to the northeast, they made slow progress (expanding the party’s hexmap by only two hexes of geography). What they found, however, was significant.

Shaped like people, but you don't really relate to them; that's why I like giants.

As the group pressed into the mountain range, the trail took a switchback that an unknown party had marked with a hastily erected warning sign. Cobbled together from wood and carved with coarse letters in an unknown language, the sign also bore an unmistakable omen, in that a partial human corpse lay draped across it, gray and foul, but preserved by the cold of the clime. The Thirteenth pressed cautiously onward and up the trail, noting the carrion birds that circled overhead. Further in front of them yawned a fissure in the mountain wall, and a charnel odor emanated from it. The path before the opening was strewn with gore of various states of freshness.

The grim interlude came to an abrupt end, however, with a guttural roar and a thunderous explosion of stone. An enormous, savage, titan of a humanoid from across the spanning chasm had hurled a boulder at them. As they looked on and considered their next action, a similar unshaven mammoth of a humanoid poked its head out from the crack in the mountain wall. The Thirteenth had stumbled into the territory of a pair of feuding giants.

They ran.

As they made it back around the hairpin, Petellius pressed himself against the rock wall as Magnus Agrippa and Beliax scrambled for higher vantage, looking for a boulder to tumble down upon the closing giant.

The creature lumbered around the corner, wielding a meaty bone like a club, and pulped Petellius, who surprised him by being there, but was unable to strike a telling blow. Magnus Agrippa and Beliax heaved desperately against a boulder, but were unable to topple it upon their foe. The giant climbed the slope, having some difficulty finding broad enough purchase with which to heave up its bulk.

The legionaries gave it one last, frantic shove—

—and the boulder gave, tumbling down the mountain and leveling the enraged giant. It was an only momentary victory, however, as the giant seemed to be gaining its senses while Magnus Agrippa pelted it with sling stones and Beliax tried to cleave its fingers from its climbing hand and send it roaring into the chasm. No such luck.

But then that halcyon joy of gaming, the critical success, was visited upon the table. Normally, the Frog God compilation of Swords & Wizardry recommends only a +1 bonus to damage on a critical success, but remember, “rulings, not rules,” and, what the hell, the party was way outclassed by a superior opponent, so this was a moment when the excitement of the moment outweighed unerring fidelity to the rules.

Beliax, in the throes of the Keltic warp-spasm, hefted his axe and hurled it at the giant, who was pulling himself up the ledge to his full height. The axe took him in the breastbone, whereupon he teetered backward, and then hurtled forward, crushed beneath the brutal boulder heaved from across the open air by the rival giant. Beliax and Magnus Agrippa gaped for a moment, and then rushed to attend the broken form of Petellius.

From a game perspective, this challenge certainly outclassed the characters in terms of combat, but the exploration was going so well that I didn’t just want to see the characters slaughtered and have a new wave of Imperials sally forth from Lorica, so I adapted the encounter to one more of a traditional “problem solving” scenario. The players thought cleverly, taking the high ground and using the environment, so while they didn’t “kill the monster” in literal combat terms, they did overcome the challenge, and thus gained the experience reward that would have come from the fight itself.

(As an aside, it’s a damned shame that the word “giant” as an adjective is the same noun used to describe these sorts of things. It makes it very hard to lend a sense of strangeness and inscrutability to what is obviously a very Other creature when the words used to describe them happen to be the exact name of the commonly accepted creature type. I sufficed by placing emphasis on their great stature and unkempt physical selves, but the point remains that a giant is a giant.)

Big money, no whammies.

With wounds patched and sorrows averted, the party laid low until the rival giant grew bored and moved on, then they investigated the first giant’s charnel lair. Inexplicably, the giant’s trove was not the expected heap of mildewed furs and gnawed bones, but rather a vast quantity of non-Imperial coins. These were curious things, with holes stamped in the middle, and many of the greater “stacks” of them had been threaded by coarse rope. (This is another emergent element I greatly enjoy. This was just a simple, random treasure allotment, with none of the increments subbed out for magic items, but it made for an interesting story detail. I knew that occasional hoards of coins like these would be found in the Pagan Lands, but why here, in the lair of this particular giant?)

Further exploration of the giant’s cave revealed a small tunnel in the back through which a human could carefully wriggle, but certainly not a giant. The Thirteenth entered. Beyond this dip, they found a honeycomb of twisting caverns, and the skeletal corpse of a three-fingered… something. It was definitely demihuman in build and stature, and it held a rotted purse of several coins of a different type. Additional exploration of the small cave chambers revealed a host of ratlike beasts, a chamber of centipedish vermin that had driven the rats from another cavern section, and finally, a breach into a section of worked stone passages. The party’s first dungeon!

Beyond the twisty cavern passages lies... worked stone? Okay, what's going on here?

During the rest of the session, the legionnaires explored some of the first level of this dungeon, which was populated by a gray-skinned, very hostile demihuman race whose communication sounded more like a clicking or chittering than a civilized tongue. Two of their kind were comparative hulking brutes of their kind, as big and bulky as Beliax, while the rest were perhaps four feet tall and of a more furtive (if equally foul) demeanor. By the time the session concluded, the party had discovered a chest of an origin more sophisticated than these wretched creatures,  which contained more coins of the type possessed by the skeletal remains — not Imperial, but neither the outlandish hole-punched coins in the giant’s lair. To clase the session, the legionnaires headed back to Fort Lorica with one of the brutes in thrall, and with an eye on investigating the rest of the dungeon upon their next expedition.

All in all, a very successful game, and everyone left the table entertained. Magnus Agrippa gained a level, Beliax gained a level, and Petellius is markedly closer to reaching level two, and hopefully gaining more hit points than his current, very delicate four. The winter weather was again primarily dressing here, though it did account for some of the party’s slow progress through the mountains. My objectives for the next few sessions are to bring the weather into a more prominent role, and to encourage the players via the encounters presented to bankroll a few hirelings.

The Pagan Lands campaign uses the Swords and Wizardry compilation ruleset published by Frog God Games. Eddy also speaks a bit about the Pagan Lands from the player perspective and gameplay considerations over at his blog.

Yesterday I ran the first playtest session of the Wintergris project I have in progress. It’s actually shaping up to be bigger than Wintergris proper, which is simply the name of one of the region’s noteworthy cities. In fact, I believe I’ll be changing the name of the campaign to reflect the larger territory itself — the Pagan Lands. It has a little more immediate satisfaction.

Frog God is Bill Webb of Necromancer Games, and since I love Necromancer's version of the Wilderlands of High Fantasy so much, is it any wonder that I love their treatment of S&W?

It’s a classic swords-and-sorcery hexcrawl, using Frog God Games’ compilation of Matthew Finch’s Swords & Wizardry rules. In it, the players take the roles of the ill-fated Thirteenth Legion, sent from the distant Empire to garrison at Fort Lorica, in the midst of the Pagan Lands. But when the PCs arrive, their legion is slaughtered by rampaging Kelts, and their PCs are the only survivors. Marooned in the middle of a hostile foreign land during a harsh winter, the PCs have to both survive and explore. Here’s part of the player information:

Your party is all that remains of General Markav’s Thirteenth Legion.

At the end of an ill-fated push by Emperor Kalasthes into the Pagan Lands, a horde of savages shattered the Thirteenth. Just one day outside the fort at Lorica, an overwhelming force of barbarian tribes united under the leadership of the druids ruined the Thirteenth Legion. Thinking they had annihilated the Imperial interlopers, the barbarians advanced past the battlefield, leaving your desperate party badly beaten but alive.

Your home in Carcosa is a thousand miles away. Between here and the Eternal City are the perils of the Pagan Lands, the tumultuous Mordant Channel, and no telling what obstacles on the mainland.

The fortress at Lorica seems your best immediate option. The barbarian tribes have advanced away from the direction of the stone fort, so you should be able to reprovision there and rejoin the Imperial Army.

The Pagan Lands are actually a large island unto themselves, so named because the greatest empire on the adjacent continent has yet to bring them under its cultural sway. This empire, ruled by a sovereign named Kalasthes, covets land that doesn’t belong to it, so occasionally sends garrisons and establishes forts upon this island frontier in hopes of one day conquering it. That day has yet to come, and if the people (and other denizens…) of the Pagan Lands have their way, it never will. PCs who are part of the Pagan Lands campaign are the survivors of one of these doomed forays into the island frontier, and now find themselves trapped on the island with no way home. In classic, old-school form, they now have the opportunity to explore the island and perhaps even claim a portion of it for themselves.

Last night’s game began well, with a handful of White Wolf crew willing to brave the savage frontier. Rich played Magnus Agrippa, cleric of the legion and bearer of the fallen standard. Ned played MacLee, a monk, skirmisher of the Thirteenth. Eddy played Belc, a legionnaire infantryman. Oscar played Salvador the ranger, the legion’s scout.

The party wasted little time in getting their salvaged supplies together and striking out for Lorica, which they knew was about a day away… in some direction. They followed the remnant of a road they assumed to be Imperial, but it was in very poor repair, and what business would the Empire have had building a road out here anyway? Maybe it had just been neglected for many years.

Heading along the ruined road toward the foothills of the mountains where they supposed the fort to be, they came across a group of inhuman leper-pilgrims with whom they had no ability to communicate. Rather than parley with the wretched creatures, the legionnaires set up a crossfire ambush and slew the three who wore any weapons. Whatever plague they bore had ravaged them, and their bodies burst like overripe fruit when struck. (Someone failed his saving throw to contract the disease — which I conducted without the players’ knowledge — but I won’t yet say whom.) The rest of the reeking lepers fled into the surrounding hills.

Welcome home!

Shortly thereafter, the PCs found what they could only assume was Fort Lorica, but it wasn’t what they expected. It certainly bore Imperial heraldry, but it looked to have been abandoned for decades at least. Trees growing in the courtyard had collapsed some of the walls and the sally gates had long been destroyed or rotted away. The immediate threat, however, was the carrion crawler that had taken up residence in the ruin. The party dispatched it with little difficulty, but the beastie did leave Belc in a state of paralysis for over an hour—

—which proved troublesome as an avalanche tumbled down the mountain and buried half of the fort. It was mostly snow, but that didn’t matter for the time being. WIth great effort, they hauled the disabled Belc into the usable portion of the fortress and Magnus Agrippa planted the standard on the parapet to reclaim the abandoned ruin in the name of the Thirteenth.

(This is one of the things the Pagan Lands campaign provides for the characters. The decimated PCs should find the fort in short order, which gives them a home base, if a shabby one, to call their own and to allow them a place to rest and replenish.)

During the night, a small band of tribesmen looking similar to those who slaughtered the legion approached the fort, but made gestures of peace. The remaining legionnaires weren’t having any of it. Magnus Agrippa cursed them for filthy heathens and MacLee menaced them face-to-face. Unable to communicate, as neither spoke the other’s language, the confused Kelts (not that the PCs discovered that they were such…) gave up and moved on.

The next night, after the legionnaires spent a day foraging, repairing the walls, and digging out the avalanche, a small flock of mephitic rodent parasites flew clumsily into the fort camp, taking MacLee and Salvador by surprise. One gorged itself on MacLee’s blood, killing the hapless monk. Another plunged its thirsty beak into Salvador’s neck before having its neck snapped like a massive tick. The last met its end at the swordsmanship of Belc.

When the legionnaires rose the next day, they gave MacLee a burial with proper honors, and met one of their number who had survive and pulled himself out of the carnage after they had left. This was Decimus, a true victim of random character generation. With an Intelligence of 3, a Wisdom of 4, and a Charisma of 8, Decimus probably isn’t long for this dire world, but he is strong and, it seems , a bit lucky.

Thus reinforced, the party ventured forth, exploring the forested lands around their mountain outpost, keeping as much as possible to the remnants of the road, which sometimes vanished for as much as a mile before another segment of it had survived. Progress was slow, given the winter weather, the horrible state of the road, and the surrounding wilderness. At one point, the party discovered a great cauldron, wrought from cold iron, that had been buried up to its lip in the earth. They left this well enough alone. They likewise let discretion play the better part to valor when they heard an ominous WHUMP-ing sound in the forest — which turned out to be a hairy, naked giant hurling boulders and screaming at something they couldn’t see. They even skirted a village of tribesmen, fearing that the people were of the same race as those who had run down their legion. The group spent a month making slow progress up the ruined road and creeping past the village when it became obvious the road stopped there.

If you found something bubbling here, would you drink it? And that's why you're not a PC with a Wisdom of 4.

As forest gave way to a wintry freshwater swamp, however, the party’s curiosity got the better of them, and they overturned a kettle of some mysterious liquid on the boil over an active fire (after cajoling Decimus into drinking some of the dubious brew). Sinister runestones lay scattered around the fire, and when the Imperials disturbed the site, a wicked shade manifested, chilling Belc to the bone and demanding that the party slay a witch and set it free to atone for befouling its site of binding. The party reluctantly agreed, and headed back to the village, where they believed the with to be staying.

They skulked around the perimeter of the peaceful settlement, watching the movements of the villagers and their hunters. When it became obvious that this was no military community, they left a few of the runestones that they had retrieved from the witch’s fire and left them within suspicious distance of a hunter’s path. Sure enough, a hunter discovered them and brought them to the attention of one of the other villagers, who then confronted a tribeswoman with them. She responded severely, which the lurking Imperials took as evidence of witchery, and they planned their response.

That night, under cover of darkness, they raided the suspected witch’s hut, which she shared with a dozen other villagers. In the shock of the invasion, they made a beeline for her and slew her on the spot. An elder shouted out — in the Imperial tongue! — for everyone to stop, but to no avail. The villagers responded to the assault and managed to pull Belc down and slay him with dagger-strikes, even after Magnus Agrippa used his holy powers to grant him vitality.

A witch almost certainly lives here.

With the witch dead, the legionnaires fled into the night, and we called the session there, on a semi-cliffhanger of them eluding the angry and bewildered villagers and regrouping… somewhere.

From the gamemaster’s seat, I was happy with how the session played out, both in the diversity of the character roles, and in the pacing of the session. It was interesting to rule that a month of exploration had occurred, and enough encounters happened so that the elapsing month didn’t just seem like handwaved, dead time. Normally, low-level characters usually acquire a few levels in a local dungeon, which would have been easy to accomplish in the location of Fort Lorica, but I wanted something that allowed the desperate characters to have something they could call their own right away, so that they wouldn’t feel completely overwhelmed by the situation.

I also really enjoy the on-the-fly judgments the players have to make while sussing out a situation. With the presentations of the creatures in the Pagan Lands as unique and monstrous entities rather than “You see six orcs,” the players never really know what they’re dealing with until the dice start falling. Avoiding a creature, coming up with experimental approaches, and undertaking problems without resorting to “proven” tactics is part of the appeal to me, and part of what I want to accomplish with the setting and project.