The Forge Archives

Here's another session that I ran.  Again, the original thread is here.

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I also ran Alyria again for someone else. Two people who were coming to Rune night (Jason and Tawnia) were going to be moving to Pittsburgh (about 3 hours away) and Tawnia had never actually done "real" roleplaying. (Rune is border-line, at least how *we* play it). So I suggested Alyria, as it is easy to learn and setup. We put together a storymap aimed at producing a one-shot adventure. Turns out it could have gone a lot longer.....

Jason played Sirus, a disillusioned Keeper seeking the Garden. He was questing on a mist ship to try to find it out in the deeps of the Sea of Mist. He was being guided by Sierra (Tawnia's character) who had once been to the Garden and was trying to return. Once Sirus was motivated by higher goals. He would free his people from the tyranny of Pheric and save them from their slavery to the Machine. Now, however, his desires have been tainted. All he cares about now is reaching the Garden, and he would be willing to do anything to attain it.

Sirus was receiving clandestine support from elements from the Noble Houses of the Citadel. These benefactors felt that the Keepers were wielding too much influence in the Citadel and that a discredit to the religion could be a helpful political coup. Therefore they were supporting Sirus, hoping that his questing would weaken the Keepers' hold on the Citadel. To this end, one of the Five Hundred named Joab (Gabrielle's character) was sent to assist Sirus. Joab's orders were also to keep a close eye on Sirus. His masters knew well that one who has been a traitor can betray again.

Jeremy played one of the marines aboard the ship, named Mantis. To all appearances he was a common mercenary but in fact he is one of the Blessed. A previous Mark had left him with a chitinous skin over his chest, back, and stomach. He joined the mercenary group hoping that the added discipline would help him control his power.

The sparking event that set events in motion was a dragon attack on the mistship, which was named the Forever Lost. Sirus made use of his implants to fight the dragon, calling on Keeper tech to aid him. Sierra called on the Gifts given to her in the Garden and Joab's quicksilver armor empowered his assault. Together they fought off the dragon, but much damage was done. Many crew, both human and Restored, were killed and more were wounded. Among the dead was the captain. Now, command has fallen to the first mate, Moses (Crystal's character). The crew is beginning to rumble of mutiny. They want to turn the ship around and go home. Sirus will not hear of it. His mission calls him forward. And so the story opens.....

What an intense game. Obviously the game centered on Sirus, who ended up spiraling to the dark side very quickly. He started with a Half-moon Virtue, but had I paid a little more attention to I/C awards (have to work on that), he would have dropped to Crescent just during this one session. Let's put it like this. Food was beginning to get tight. There was enough to make it back to land....barely....if they turned around immediately. So, Sirus decided to do two things:

1) Cut rations to the wounded
2) Cannibalize the bodies of the dead

This caught me completely off-guard, but it was a great story setup. This brought Sierra directly into conflict with Sirus, as she was trying to nurse the wounded back to health. Joab, of course, supported this plan completely. In a way, Joab and Sierra ended up embodying Sirus's good and evil natures. This symbolism became especially potent at the climax.

Moses was a fairly weak-willed man, and he was trying to compromise, making everyone happy. This ended up failing, as you will see. Finally, Mantis is now dealing with LOTS of stress and is struggling to keep the Blessing from getting loose and shredding the entire ship.

I wish that I had time to lay out the entire story that formed. Lots of great confrontation scenes as tension built to the climax. You could see Sirus sinking lower and lower, while Joab looked on in delight. Moses slowly gets some backbone and begins to stand up to Sirus and Joab, first by ordering a body "buried" at sea that was supposed to be reserved for foodstuffs and then by calling a meeting of the crew to lay out his compromise plan (one more month and then returning home), even though the plan would not meet the approval of Sirus.

Everything came to a head at the meeting. While all the human crew were in the mess hall, Sirus slipped aboard the bridge and tricked the Restored crew into giving him control of the ship. Sirus then vented the air from sickbay, killing everyone inside. Then he set a course, max speed, further away from land. Upon entering the mess hall, Moses informed him of his decision. Sirus refused to acknowledge the order. Twelve guards were standing by (including Mantis), as were Sierra and Joab. Something happened (I don't quite recall right now) and Mantis attacked Sirus, using the Blessing to enhance his fighting prowess (e.g. special effect. It was just a Force roll). Joab tried to intervene and was hurled aside. A melee ensued. Mantis and Sirus battled in the middle of the room, while Joab slaughtered the other guardsmen. Then Sirus blew a hole in the side of the ship. His implants allowed him to breathe (and Joab's quicksilver armor did the same for him), but everyone else began to choke from the poisonous atmosphere. Sierra used her Gifts to begin to rebuild the wall. Then Joab attacked her. Using his arms, drawn into blades, he pierced her (intentionally missing all the vital organs) and pinned her to the floor. Then.... (well, Gabrielle and Tawnia rolled. Gabrielle rolled a Full Moon for Joab and Tawnia rolled a Weeping Moon.)

So Joab killed Sierra.

Sirus managed to immobilize Mantis and bellowed for order. Then Moses arose and gestured to the guardsmen to surrender. They laid down their weapons and Moses surrendered control of the ship to Sirus...completely and unconditionally.

The ship sailed away into the mist...forever lost.

Now, we could have continued much further, but it was getting late and we only had the one session to play. Otherwise the story could have continued. Who knows? When Jason and Tawnia visit again, we may just do so. Everyone loved the game. Tawnia connected right away, which is neat, seeing as this was her first real roleplaying experience. Jason is a veteran RPGer but he caught on to the expanded Directorial power given to players and make excellent dramatic use of it. So I'd say that it was a success.


Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf