A Wolf Problem

 

A Wolf Problem

Spring 805

 

Cast:

Sylvie

Saverio

Inisor

Incompetus

Hassan

Francois

Drugar

Lord Fang

Parum

 

Tar – a boy from the village of Dornowia

Mighty – Tar's horse, a really old plow horse – very large

Durusum – A local hedge wizard, old, hunchback, grumpy, course (difficult to deal with)

Captain Lucien – A captain of two-hundred men in the Emperors army

 

For the record, it was established that Hassan arrived at the covenant at the very end of Fall 804 and wintered here. So people have seen him about and at it is likely they have at least met him.

 

This game was in two parts. The first part, “Prologue”, took place at the covenant at the very beginning of the season. As all the magi were in residence, Albus called for a Wizard's Council. During the council, there were three things covered:

• Albus has plans to be away for a season, possibly two, hunting

  • He did provide details as to where he was headed and what he was after

  • He asked that Filius be in charge while he was gone – to which Filius agreed

• Albus brought up the issue of our Vim vis stocks

  • If we do not acquire more vis, we will be out after putting up the Aegis this year

  • We do not have enough Vim vis on hand to put up the larger Aegis if needed

  • If we do not acquire more Vim before the end of the year, he would ask that every mage spend a season gathering Vim

  • There was general support for this

• Inrisor announced that he was leaving the covenant

  • His reasons, as explained, were personal and based on a need to resolve a sort of crisis of faith

  • The magi were saddened by this news, but supportive

  • With no other pressing business, Albus adjourned the meeting so Inrisor would have time for his farewells

  • He was feasted that night in proper fashion, and departed in the morning

 

The next day Albus took off as planned. A few days later Flambeau arrived at the covenant, accompanied by ten men. Eight of these men were dressed in a similar uniform and were men-at-arms. Flambeau had come with “his great new idea” (actually an idea that Filius had floated about a year prior) for a group of elite magi that would learn to work together against organized foes such as the Moorish sorcerers. This new group, the Defenders of the Order, would also have a group of good military men, the Defensor Corona, under their command. Filius readily agreed to head up this initiative. They agreed to spend the season together with Flambeau teaching Filius how to train men to fight in organized groups.

 

The other two people that accompanied Flambeau were Incompetus, a mage from Val Negra who had run afoul of Elaine following a lab accident, and a fighting man named Drugar. Flambeau asked Filius if Incompetus could stay at Calor Novus for a year or two to keep him “out of sight, out of mind” around Val Negra. Filius readily agreed to this as well.

 

The second part of the game was “A Wolf Problem”. It began with “A boy riding a nag arrives at the covenant.”

 

Later in the week a boy, nearly a man, named Tar arrives riding an old plow horse named “Mighty”. Sylvie took him into the great hall to hear his story. He explained the he was from a village named Dornowia, near the big river in the Aquitaine. Winter has never left and everything was freezing over. There were many packs of wolves roaming the area killing men and livestock. He meant a kind of crazy hunchbacked man who told him to come here and ask the wizards for help.

 

Saverio wandered in and heard most of what Tar had to say. He and Sylvie sent a man to see what Filius wanted to do about the issue, the man was shooed off by Flambeau and they were told to “deal with it”. They decided to investigate and try to solve the problem. Over dinner it was decided Incompetus would accompany them as well and Filius asked Francois to go along and keep the magi safe. When it is brought up, Flambeau dismissed the Order of Odin as “a myth”.

 

The headed off to Dornowia. Along the way it become much colder and ineed, as they got closer, it was obvious it was still winter here. Lord Fang also found signs of both men, who had set traps, and other wolves in the area. One night they were attacked by extremely large wolves, which they identified as “dire wolves”. They defeated the wolves pretty handily, but during the melee, and with many spells being cast, Might bolted away with Tar on his back. They chased him down, but the two of them had stormed into a large camp of armed men. The night-time intrusion, coupled with the fear of wolves, caused a showdown. Just as things were calming down and it looked like the two groups would make peace, Father Saverio stated loudly that they were there in the name of the Lord.

 

However, Anton (who had been following and waiting for his moment to strike) shook loose a large amount of snow above them causing Father Saverio to be covered. At the same time, a large group of these dire wolves (having struck a deal with Anton) came in from all sides. In the resulting chaos, arrows were fired that hit a couple members of the party. With tensions already high, this became a three-way fight. Incompetus and Drugar (his man at arms), were taken down by the wolves. Saverio lost control of a spell and entered twilight, lighting up the night like a 30-foot tall candle for the next couple of hours.

 

In the end many wolves were dead, some had slunk off into the night, and most of the men from the camp had perished. The party finds out they are there hunting wolves to collect on a bounty from the local lord, a half-penny per pelt. The large stack of pelts, not all from dire wolves, angers Sylvie and Lord Fang. Eventually, Saverio is convinced to let them go. The six remaining survivors, and the captain (who had just regained consciousness) were left behind as the party continued on their way. The body of Incompetus is brought along to later be given a Christian burial at Val Negra (per his request when Sylvie spoke with his spirit).

 

It continues getting colder and they see more things covered in ice. Tar kind of recognizes the area and they find the cabin of old Durusum, the crazy hunchback who told him how to find the covenant. He is an old-fashioned pagan and doesn't much like priests, so Saverio is relegated to the shed with Mighty and Jug. Francois recovers from the cold inside while Hassan stays in the shed and keeps watch throughout the night. Inside Sylvie wakes to see Durusum reading through the entrails of the rabbit that was dinner. He tells her there is a wizard in the town. He claims not to be a wizard, she explains that he needs to join the Order and promises to come back when this matter is settled.

 

They continue on to the village of Dorwinia. When they arrive, the place looks deserted except for one man (under-dressed for the bitter cold) walking through town. It turns out he is a Flambeau from Val Negra who was sent here by Elaine to investigate the cold. He introduced himself as Parum. While they are talking the villagers come out of hiding to greet Tar. The party, now including Parum, join them in one of the cellars where they eat and gather information on what is happening. Over the next couple of days Saverio performs multiple masses, baptism, and a wedding while the group recovers from the journey. On the third day an army arrives.

 

A group of two-hundred soldiers, led by one Captain Lucien, have gotten the message from the village and have come to deal with the wolf problem. The Captain meets with the magi. It turns out he was present when they stopped the Moors from coming up through the passes and knows of Filius and Albus (Filius by name, Albus by description). He doesn't mind working with the magi. The army sets up a camp. The next day things have changed. There is a heavy snowfall that shows no signs of letting up. The old church on the hill, formerly a ruin, is standing. Some fields disappeared, replaced by forest. It's obvious they have been shifted into a regionne. Captain Lucien summons the magi. Parum begins constructing walls and fighting platforms around the city. The army moves into the walls before the attack comes.

 

They are attacked by giants, vikings, wolves, and trolls. The magi prove effective at stopping or blunting most of the attacks. The army holds the walls against the less-fantastic of their foes. One one end of the village Sylvie keeps the giants down with Crest of the Earth Wave while Saverio and Hassan damage the giants. On the other end of the small village, Parum wrecks havoc among the vikings and Francois directs a couple groups of archers. Francois catches sight of a black sword. The sword is seductive and he feels he must posses it. In a feet of derring-do he vaults into the oncoming vikings using a ladder and fights for the sword. Parum begins firing spells at the viking holding the sword. They both realize that the sword is deflecting the damage to those around the sword-bearer. Eventually, when a strong enough spell kills the sword-bearer he falls and the vikings break. Francois gives chase and is seen running into the woods.

 

Meanwhile, Hassan (who has been given True Sight of the Air) sees a man atop some sort of rainbow bridge in the mist above the river. He alerts Saverio, who hurts the man. The man then plunges into the mist and runs away. Despite the fact that they have dealt a great blow to the enemy reinforcements that arrived, they don't have a chance to give chase. Without the leadership of the enemy magus, the sieging forces begin to wander off and even fight among themselves. Sylvie, Saverio, and Hassan get word about Francois and set off to help. Along with Parum they scour the woods. After a false start they find him, unconscious in the woods. But no black sword is found.

They look for any signs of the wizard. They don't find him, but they do see an island, with a tower on it, in the middle of the river that seems to only exist in this regionne. The tower takes up most of the island. The investigate it as much as they can (see below). Out of options, they return to the village. Saverio looks over the chapel. It looks as though construction was just finished, but there is no one there.

 

The siege broken and the enemy fled. They keep watch throughout the night. When dawn comes it's obvious they are no longer in the regionne and that the spell of winter has been broken. After staying a few days to make sure everything is in order and that Francois is well enough to travel, they depart. During this time, Sylvie waits and watches for Durusum, but he does not return to his hut.

 

When they return to the covenant, they have to provide an explanation to Flambeau about the death of Incompetus. They agree to write a letter to Elaine about his death, deliver it to Val Negra, and buy Incompetus there as he wished. They set out and take care of this. Luckily Elaine is not there, so they give the body a proper burial, leave the letter, and high-tail it back home.

 

About the Tower:

The tower appears to be in three parts, each section smaller than the one above it. The upper two sections are round, and appear to mimic a wood grain in the stone. It's odd, the wood grain can been seen, but the stone is perfectly smooth. Floating up to see the top of the town only shows that it is sealed above as well and there are no windows anywhere to be found. But the bottom section is eight-sided, with a door on each side. The doors resist their efforts to open or destroy. It is obvious this is some sort of place of power. The doors are identical except for one small detail: there is a small faded mark above each door. The mark is not distinctive, but each mark is a different color. The colors are: White, black, red, purple, yellow, pale blue, pink, and green.

 

Questioning the people of the village, they learn there is an old legend of this place. But no one has seen it generations. Once upon a time it was called the (Earth) “Mother's Tooth” or “Mother's Teeth” (which everyone agrees would be an odd name since there was only ever one tower as far as they know). There are plenty of stories about ghosts coming from there and people disappearing. Anyone with a folk lore score recognize these a pretty typical stories about a legendary place. But the name of the place is pretty unique. Nobody has heard of it before.

About the game

There are a few things I would like to cover for today's game:

1. The game is in two parts:
   • a)Some things going on around the covenant and with characters
   • b)The main story I have planned
2. The main story is intended to be the start of an extended plot thread
   • a)You will not “settle” everything today
   • b)I hope to present a satisfying conclusion to the storyIf this is not the case we will discuss it during the post mortem
3. If you feel powerless or frustrated during the game, feel free to bring it up
4. To avoid misunderstandings, please provide a bit of information when you declare actions to give me some idea as to how much effort you want to put into it
   • a)For example: instead of “I search the room”, try “I give the room a quick search” or “I'm going to search the room thoroughly, even if it takes an hour”
   • b)Conversely, if I need to know I'll ask – but I want to avoid prompting you because that may send unintended SG/Player signals
5. There may be some things in game today that you'll look at and say “Gee, I wish we'd discussed that before today's session.” While this may happen, please set it aside and enjoy yourself. Anything that falls in this category can be amended later and was done for story effect.
6. Per our discussion on the Calor Novus forums, I am reminding everyone that Wizard's Sidestep works as follows:
   • a)First successful attack misses
   • b)If there are multiple successful attacks in the same round, only the first one is an automatic miss
   • c)Defense against all other attacks for the duration of the spell are at +9
7. For this game, I will handle the issue of “might vs. parma” as followsa)Parma repels creatures with a lower might

We'll see how this works applied universally in this game

If you have questions about which form to use, ask

Similar to how spells work:

If the magic thing throws something, generally speaking that something is not magical and parma will have no effect

If the thing thrown, or shot, is part of the creature (like porcupine quills) or magic in nature (the creatures nature is such that an arrow always appears when firing his bow), then it is magic and parma applies

 

Game notes for Hugh

 

(Edited to correct a minor mistake in the original version)

 

Inrisor

Well – you know what's going on here. Scenes planned at the start of game. Pass the Kleenex :_(

Incompetus

Boy that Elaine sure does get mad easily. That kind of accident could have happened to anyone. You're sure it wasn't your fault. But Flambeau (wow – he is cool!) is taking you somewhere to study for a while. He's told you some great stories about this place called Calor Novus. There are some kick-ass members of the house there and a perdo mage. One of his most famous pupils, Filius (you've heard of him) lives there. Should be a great place for a fresh start.

Parum

Elaine must be a busy girl. She seems to spend a lot of time training apprentices. The game “Foreseti” was four years ago. At the time, she had a 15 year-old apprentice named “Luc”. He has since completed his gauntlet and taken the Hermetic name of Flagratio. He left last summer, but you're not sure where he went.

You know she had a previous apprentice (Incompetus), but you two never met and you don't know anything about him.

After Flambeau left Val Negra, word came about the unusual cold in the north. Elaine ask you ever-so-sweetly (well, sweet for her) to go check it out. That is what you have been doing up here. So far is just f-ing cold and you've seen some wolves. That's about it. The peasants don't like you and tend to run and hide when you're around.

Game notes for Paul

If you would like Hassan to have arrived in late fall and back-date him a season to have had an opportunity to get to know Sylvie and study Frankish, that's fine. Just let me know. For simple exposure, the source quality is 2. To actually “study” Frankish by engaging the grogs at the covenant in conversation and asking a lot of questions the source quality is 4, but this may be contrary to Hassan's nature and they may take a while to warm up to you.

Game notes for Tony

Have you decided to work on your piety or to follow the “not good at being a priest” route? Let me know before the game starts.

Visions

Gazing upon the essence of fire you see a winter that never ends. Cattle frozen in the fields, buildings covered in ice, birds frozen to tree limbs.The sky is a lead-gray and any light is diffused. The only movement you see are shadows coursing through the forests. They move on four legs as they flow through the trees, too small to be horses, too large to be hounds. As the vision fades, you still feel the cold of the place in your bones.

A boat of some sort, long and low to the water, drifts away from the short, pulled out by the evening tide. In the twilight you see make out an old man. He looks frail in death, but must have once been hale and hearty. He is dressed in hides and a staff, banded in iron, lays across his chest held in place by his arms. Soon everything in the boat catches fire and it drifts further out sea. A torch on the water in fading light. Then it too is extinguished, leaving nothing but darkness...

[Vision removed. It was not released in game and I'll save it for another time]