[Sorcerer & Sword] Our Marr'd

[Ron Edwards]

Hi! I've been wrapped up in finishing manuscripts and diagrams, plus some layout, thus neglecting this site a bit.

Everything you're saying looks great. Keep posting to this thread, and that gives me the later option to split it, depending on the timing.

Best, Ron

[Hans Chung-Otterson]

Third session of non-character creation play last Friday. It was great! More after the write-up.

Km-Oemmi

1.She's on top of Olymon, waiting to see what happens, Primites refusing to let her go. Beginning the first scene--after 7 days the Primites let her go, throwing Harman, who did not escape but was not harmed, back to her. They think she's part of some prophecy, just as Harman does (and, even though we didn't deal with the Destiny mechanic at all, I'm beginning to see how it can be used very effectively). She's eaten the fruit and not died. They ask her, if she overthrows the Damsel Messiah, to re-establish trade between Battlehymn and Olymon, and to let them re-establish the ancient worship on Olymon among the people, something the Damsel Messiah has squashed. I think she said something along the lines of "I'll do my best." She and Harman begin walking down the mountain. Her demon, Truth, whispers to her: It wants to eat Harman's love for her.

2.And so... she lets her demon eat Harman's love, entering him in a vague spiritual way. Harman cannot speak, and chokes. Eventually he can speak, and says: "Was my love not clear to you? If not, you could have simply asked." He has a coldness in his eyes now. To us, at the table, this means that whatever real love Harman had for Km-Oemmi is now gone, eaten by her demon. They march toward the city of Battlehymn. Harman does not want to go in (he's a deserter, remember). On the outskirts, there's a foreigner shanty town. They go there, and Km-Oemmi feeds a baby the fruit, her mother terrified. She begins talking about the power and truth the fruit will show people, and a group gathers around her. A young man takes a bet from his friends and tastes it.

3.Almost all of the foreigners have tasted it, blood smeared on their faces. They are ready to fight the Damsel Messiah and her oppression. Km-Oemmi quells their hotness, writing in the sand, "The Damsel Messiah will come here to face me." I, the GM, make a call and let that stand as Km-Oemmi tries to brush it away (remember, Truth's telltale is that when the truth is written it is allowed to stand.) Harman leaves in the night. Km-Oemmi lets him go, and writes "Harman has left to betray me to the Damsel Messiah," and tries to wipe it off.

4.Only the "Harman has left" part remains. The Damsel Messiah comes the next morning, Harman shackled, whipped and bleeding, falls into the tent. Says the Damsel Messiah wants to speak with Km-Oemmi. He pleads with her to free him. "How," she says, and he pleads again, is abruptly ripped away. The DM's snake demon comes into the tent. The DM commands Km-Oemmi to come out, wins the roll--2 dice up for the DM. Km-Oemmi crawls out, and she and the DM have a short discussion, Km-Oemmi asking what she wants. The Damsel Messiah says that she desires a flat paved road, and that Km-Oemmi is a troublesome rock in that road. Km-Oemmi uses Hint, with the DM as the target (we did Hint wrong, again--the person asking the Hint question is the target). It's a roll vs. the Damsel Messiah, who is commanding her Snake to Hold her. The Hint wins, DM seizes up (8 goddamn penalties, plus 1 lethal, which should pretty much put her at Dead per the Lasting Penalties table, as there's not great medical care out here), Km-Oemmi acquieses to the soldiers (no roll) and is taken away. What she got from the Hint was the Damsel Messiah confessing her lies. Again, yeah, we did this wrong. Km-Oemmi even has an ability for this: Confuse (Tell the truth), but I think her player just wanted to use Hint against the DM as the way we incorrectly played it made it a very powerful offensive weapon!


Admeal

1. His demon the Adirion wants to be fed (brains of the knowledgeable). Late at night, the inn is silent. He opens the door to the next room in the inn. An old man is sleeping. Walking to his side, he wakes, yells, "what do you want with Hezekiah?" The Adirion cloak is moving as if there's wind, hungry. Hezekiah begins yelling, screaming for help. Admeal cuts off his head, jumps out the window, sneaks into an alley and carves his brain out, feeding it to the cloak. Humanity Loss roll, failed.

2.Admeal flees across the desert in the direction Estigo went. A man pursues. It is Shimrath, the man that Km-Oemmi humiliated in the first session. He pleads with Admeal to help him teach Km-Oemmi a lesson, promises help against the DM or whatever he can offer. Admeal's not interested. Shimrath tries to slap him, but Admeal teleports, and walks into the night. Shimrath follows.


Estigo

1.Coso and the townspeople are rushing about, excited for what's next for their village now that they have such a champion. Estigo says he is going to the cave, to meet whatever's there. He wants to roll Lore to find out what he can know about this demon. I ask him to describe a ritual, and he plants a flag in the sand, reading the winds. He fails the roll (I did Lore vs. the demon in the cave's Lore), and as a wind whips up the flag burns to cinders in an instant. Salam, spirit of fire and shadow, knows he is here. The townsfolk don't want him to go, but don't budge too much. "It is a god of ours, we worship it," says Coso. Coso is OK with him going, though--he wants to make sure this champion will endure. The people watch him as he strides into the cave, completely naked.

2.He begins speaking to Salam, asking if it is on board with his mission of helping free the people. It wants flesh, and blood. Fire rings the cave. It doesn't tolerate much more talk, and sends a flaming stalactite down on Estigo, who rolls a full defense. Estigo's demon Azibo does not help him at all, and he loses the roll--8 penalties! 2 current and 6 lasting. His back is flayed to the spine. He entreats Azibo to help, or it won't get fed. Azibo responds by coursing through his veins once again.


Estigo & Admeal

1.After Estigo's last scene, Admeal's player announced, "I want to show up there!" So he did. Admeal shows up at the cave, exhausted from long desert travel, looking for a place to sleep. He sees Estigo and a shadow-being in the cave. Estigo entreats him to help. He does so. The demon Salam Holds Estigo, Admeal cuts him (Salam is Inconspicuous, but he has 2 Stamina, so I figured it works just fine). Estigo then commands Salam to stand down, wins with 3 dice which Admeal then follows up on to get those 3 dice to rip him open with his knife. Salam does not get his action, as it's incapacitated with more than 2x Stamina penalties for the next round. Estigo's blood (his demon, Azibo, is a parasite) pours out of him, and consumes Salam, then sucks back into him. Estigo and Admeal both collapse into sleep. We all wanted to give Admeal a Humanity gain roll, but he said that he did it not to help Estigo but so that he could have a place to sleep. I didn't call for a roll, but my hunch then (and now) is that it's less important what his motivations are and more important how we at the table feel about what he did.


This session was really good. Better than last session. I prepped my NPCs well and was happy with the results. For one example, that old guy Hezekiah who had his brains eaten had a nice little three- or four-sentence write-up by me, about why the Adirion would be attracted to him specifically. Instead of having Admeal walk out of the inn, Al just had him open the next door, so instead of presenting Hezekiah in the little place I had prepared for him, displaying what he was all about and why the Adirion would want him, I just had him sleeping in the bed. Al nor Admeal asked questions, and that was that. Of course, that little backstory I had will probably show up at some point, as repercussions for Admeal's actions. But it wasn't important in the moment.

As already stated, we did fuck up Hint, but I'll just put that as another notch in my belt toward learning Sorcerer.

We all got a little confused by "how do folks actually die in Sorcerer" at some point, because Estigo got brutalized and the Damsel Messiah seized something fierce. We knew it wasn't purely mechanical--no hit points in other words--but it clicked for me when Jesse pointed me back to the Lasting Penalties table.

One thing, that became clear when I was talking to Jesse on G+, is that, incredibly embarrassingly, we've also been doing the complex conflict wrong all along--that is, we've got the principles down, and I feel we're pretty much applying it when it's called for and not when it's not. But somehow when I read those words on page 103 I was able to entirely fit them into a system in my head that is not on that page. No clue how this happened. Basically, we'd been rolling once to determine action order, and then, when that's decided, rolling again to determine the outcomes of actions, rather than just fucking doing what it says on page 103. I even played in a game with Jesse and somehow messed this up (though, that was online and my dice roller wasn't working well, so I don't think I learned that part of the system as well as I would have if we were at a table)! Perhaps this accounts for a lot of my confusion in the past about applying this sytem!

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Hans, I'm glad you're enjoying it.

The rules-designer of Sorcerer, who is also its most enthusiastic player, is currently banished by the other parts of my brain to a soundproofed bunker, far away. We will leave him there for a while.

One little thing (he pleads before the door shuts) ... please remember that the real damage to a character is composed of half the lasting penalties taken. So the final damage to Estigo is three lasting penalties. Given his Stamina of 3, that's no big deal. For him to be so grievously injured as you describe, he would have had to take twelve lasting penalties during the fight, so that he would have been left with six afterwards.

Best, Ron

[Hans Chung-Otterson]

Hey Ron,

Right, but in the moment I don't reference the lasting penalties table, I reference the total penalties table, right? That's what I was doing in describing his grievous injuries in the moment. Anyway. Tonight:


We planned going into this game that it would last 4-8 sessions. We didn't know going into tonight, the 5th session (counting character creation), that it would be the last. Two kickers were completed and the third had been taken in a new direction.


Admeal & Estigo

1. Admeal was passed out in the cave that the demon Salam had been defeated in. Estigo crawls to the entrance and encounters Shimrath, who had been following Admeal, pleading for help to get revenge on Km-Oemmi. Estigo lets him in, he goes to the back and falls asleep. Estigo, healed from his demon's Vitality, gets up and begins walking back toward the Tribe of Rud's encampment, thinking of what words to use in telling the people that he had rid them of their protector. Getting closer to the encampment, he finds that he needs to use no words: It is burning. The one guard that escaped from the fight in the desert just the night before had gone back to Battlehymn and brought more with him. He finds one woman, Ruth, still alive and clutching her dead child, sobbing. He brings her water. She accuses him of killing their protector and bringing this upon the village. At this point Admeal has woken up and come alongside them. Admeal and Estigo go around putting out fires, pulling the dead out of their tents, and lining them up in the center of the village.

2. Ruth is on the verge of dying, and wants to die with her child. A conversation with Estigo (no roll) convinces her to at least heal up so she can help lay her people to rest. Admeal & Estigo both roll (Past & Stamina, as Descriptors and description was appropriate--one rolled to "help", rolling successes into the other person's roll) to bandage her up and get her back on her feet (taking away some of her penalties, mechanically, by their successes). They lay the dead tribespeople in the center of town, and Ruth describes that their only ritual is to leave people for the sand and the sun to take. She wants to go after her people. Admeal grabs everyone and they teleport to Battlehymn.


Km-Oemmi

1. She has been taken by the Damsel Messiah's soldiers, but not to her former prison. She's taken under the temple, to a room of clean white. As the soldiers set her down, she rots her chains off of her (Special Damage: Rot, from the Infernal Fruit), and the soldiers shrug, telling her she'll get what's coming. After they leave she rots the door handle off, and waits. Harman comes, carrying a bag. They hold a short conversation about his allegiance to the Damsel Messiah. He has tasted the outside and wants no more of it. He does what she tells him to, and she wants him to come here and do his job. He does not even ache for Km-Oemmi, as his love for her was completely taken by her demon. For him, that's somehow worse. He asks Km-Oemmi to open her mouth. She does. He takes out an implement (a Pear of Anguish), and inserts it in her mouth, beginning to work it to rip her mouth open and break her jaw. She rots it (rolls; the Pear causes Km-Oemmi 1 penalty before she rots it). Harman then leaves, saying that he we tell the Damsel about this.

2. Hours (days?) later, Harman comes dashing back into the room, lifting Km-Oemmi off of the ground. There is chaos throughout the city, and he feels he owes Km-Oemmi a chance to get away from here. He takes her outside. A man named Gog, with his tongue split down the middle like a serpent, is rousing a crowd in front of the Damsel's temple. It appears the Damsel's confession that she cannot bring 140,000 faithful off of Marr'd has spread amongst the people. Gog shouts: "What does the law say happens to liars?" The crowd: "Their tongues are cloven in half, like serpents!" Gog: "And what does the law further say?" The crowd: "No one with a serpent's tongue shall rule!" They throw rocks and shake sticks at the temple. Km-Oemmi asks Harman to bring her where she needs to be. He brings her to Gog, explaining that this is the one who extracted the truth from the Damsel. Gog lifts her up and passes the message to the people, inciting them. He lays her at his feet. The doors of the temple open, fifty guards come out, leading another four guards who are carrying the Damsel's throne on wooden bars, like a palanquin. The Damsel is strapped to her throne, her eyes rolled back in her head, tongue lolling, drooling, head hanging. Everyone becomes silent.


All of the PCs

3.Admeal, Estigo, and Ruth make it to Battlehymn at just this moment. Admeal and Estigo argue over what to do with Ruth, who says that she can take care of herself. At just this moment, the Damsel commands her guards with a whisper: "Kill them." The guards clash into the crowd. Km-Oemmi, near the Damsel, Rots her throne as the Damsel's demon, the Serpent from the Garden, wraps itself around Km-Oemmi, putting her in a Hold. Admeal, wanting to feed his demon, accosts a guard as he is spearing a young boy, cutting his head off, and smashing it on the stones, feeding the brain bits to his cloak. He chases after Ruth, who is horrified. He Holds her, then grabs her and teleports to a rooftop, ensuring her safety. Meanwhile, Estigo has seen the Serpent (banishing this fucker is his Kicker, remember), and leaps into the fray, near Km-Oemmi. We have a few rounds of complex conflict here that are an utter joy, after three sessions of doing it wrong--Km-Oemmi Confuses the Snake, the Snake bites her, she writhes from its grasp (and thus its Hold), Estigo denounces the Snake, beats it with his techno-mace-thingy, Admeal shows up to help, Km-Oemmi crawls toward the Damsel, lets her demon eat the Damsel's fear, bites the Damsel's tongue in half down the middle (serpent-tongued), the Snake by now is basically a pulp, and so Estigo, instead of banishing it (as his Kicker said he wanted), lets his demon eat this demon, bleeding out of him and becoming a hideous form that feeds on it. The captain of the guard sees Km-Oemmi with the Damsel, and runs up to them, "What are you doing?" Km-Oemmi and Admeal both tell him to stop the fighting (again, "help", one person's successes rolling over into the primary's roll), get 1 die up on him. He says, "If you let the Damsel go free." Km-Oemmi says, "She is free." The guard runs over to the Damsel, making sure she's still alive, and lifts her up, running to the site of the battle. "Stop! Stop!" The guards stop, the people alive gather around, and the guards leave. One is grabbed by Estigo, who asks him to help Ruth find her people. "Why?" he says. Estigo asks if he saw the beast that devoured the Serpent. The man's eyes widen, "That was you?" He agrees to do it, for payment. The Damsel awakens, and asks her guards to leave, saying she will no longer enter that palace. Her eyes still only show the whites--she is blind. She reaches around for her Serpent. "Is he gone?" Estigo tells her, "You are no longer in chains to him." She says, "I was not the one in chains." She grabs a piece of the rubble from her throne and holds it close to her. Km-Oemmi speaks to her. They have a conversation about freedom and fear and what's next. The Damsel says she does not know, but that she is done with this place, stands up, and hobbles blindly off into the city, clutching a piece of her former throne.


Woo! At this point we all looked at each other and said, "So we're done for the night?", and Km-Oemmi's player said, "I think we might be done with the game." After some further discussion we decided it. It's clear that Kickers could easily be rewritten at this point and we could keep going, but for whatever reason this group (and myself in general) seem to not be able to sustain interest in a game beyond 7 sessions or so, so we decided to cut it when we finished an arc and it was a satisfying high point. This was either the best or the second best session we had (next to the first). I would have been excited to keep Gming if the players had all been super gung-ho about continuing, but I think we all really enjoyed ourselves and wanted to end it on a good note. The situation was totally changed and two kickers (Estigo's, "I'll banish the Serpent" and Km-Oemmi's "I'll punish the Damsel") were resolved. Admeal's "I'll banish Black Rock" wasn't exactly resolved, but he did kill Nimrote, and his player said he was satisfied. It felt like play just went in a different direction after a while. I even had plans to bring Black Rock back this session had it made sense, but given the breathless pace of the action, and the clear focus on Battlehymn and a showdown with the Damsel, it just didn't fit.

I think it was good to end this on a successful note, after having learned a lot about Sorcerer and specifically how to GM (and how to just, y'know, read the rulebook right). That said (and we're not going to do this, but I'm serious), I feel like I could jump right back in to making Sorcerer characters in any given setting next week and start the ball rolling again.

Thanks so much, Ron!