Skeletown

Up on the Mountain, After the Flood Session 1

Up the Mountain, Down the Mountain

The party at level 1:

Fleeing the ravages of the Enchantment on their homeland of the Deepenweald the characters climb the Mountains of the Pierced Heart to arrive at the Refuge of the Sacred Flame, a monastery to Draconus. Nadine brought about a dozen refugees, Bugs has his brother Daffy, Ama brought her pony Harold and squirrel Idun, Vex came alone. The characters introduce themselves, Nadine speculates that The Fates have had them arrive at the same time as part of some plan. They are greeted by Abbot Odo but Otha, one of the other monks at the Refuge, comes out to complain that so many new people being on Draconus' sacred ground risks disturbing the Dragon. He's dissuaded by a combination of the Abbot and Ira the anchorite, who says that visions from Draconus imply these four, at least, are welcome here. After some discussion about getting Nadine's refugees settled in and the troubles plaguing the Duchy of Yeril in the wake of the Enchantment, the four travelers are introduced to Jorald, another monk.

Jorald shows the party the monastery's observatory and map room, where he has been keeping track of the troubles he can see from the mountain2. They are:

The Beast, as it turns out, is a dragon that's known to the monks by the name of Sutomemnon Vituperation3 and had been sleeping relatively peacefully in a nearby shrine until something happened to it during the Enchantment. It was spotted flying into a nearby mountain cave apparently in great pain. Draconus, it seems, would want his child put out of its misery, but Bugs immediately notices the Abbot's discomfort when he says this and the party agrees to investigate the dragon shrine to see if there might be an alternate solution.

On their way down the mountain the party dispatches the reanimated remains of some unfortunates who had been trying to ascend from the other direction, and then pay a brigand toll on the road before turning off into the wilderness to head to the dragon shrine.

The shrine is still tended by Cyrene, another Draconus worshipper and the last one at the shrine. The party wins her trust and she invites them to explore what's left of the shrine, though thieves have made off with most of Draconus' hoard. And so the party prepares to explore the depths of the neglected shrine.

Need to remind people about their 1st-level path talents next session. Forgetting about those made the zombie encounter more dangerous than expected, although it also confirmed my suspicion that 2d6 is a lot of damage to be throwing at 1st level characters.

Zone combat worked fine, although on reflection there might be something tricky about using maps that are scaled for 1 squard = 5 feet by default. A zone in Shadow of the Weird Wizard is supposed to be 5-10 yards a side so I suppose I can carve up whatever map I use into spaces 3-6 squares on a side. We'll see.

The elephant in the room is that having Bugs in the party is kind of silly. Given that the inspirations for this campaign are all fairly dark, I did think about asking Bugs' player to reconsider. A character named Bugs who only communicates via pantomime seems at odds with what I originally wanted from this game. And yet, something about allowing a ridiculous character seems... authentic. Requiring the player to come up with a more "serious" character would put a strain on things, I think. It would introduce a kind of artificiality to the game's atmosphere, it would be me as Sage dictating tone from on high instead of letting it arise naturally from the players' interactions. And it would be a tone I can't even commit to personally. I like to make jokes and crack wise when I run games! Trying to keep everything serious and dark and gritty all the time would be a real pain in my ass. And where's the line for "serious" anyway? I don't see a problem with Ama bringing her pet squirrel along and I never considered asking her player to get rid of it. Some people have pets! Some people are mimes! And if Bugs is so dedicated to his craft that he doesn't speak then that's just who he is as a character. Hell, right there in the Weird Wizard core book is the Trickster path that gives characters innate access to all kinds of Looney Tunes shit. It's part of the game by default!

Bugs' existence in the party doesn't mean I'm going to make the world goofier to match. It's still dealing with the aftereffects of a magical cataclysm. People are suffering and more horror is on the way if nothing gets done. The game lies in the choices Bugs the mime makes - the choices all the characters make - when faced with the ghastly state of the world. And maybe Bugs stays silly! Not a problem for me, I - and the rest of the players - get to find out how that silliness interacts with everything else going on. That's what I'm playing for.

  1. An outcome of random rolls for profession that the player has chosen to stick with. It'll be useful if they decide to sail any of the rivers or lakes around.↩

  2. To reiterate the setup post, this is the game: every time the party deals with one of the problems they gain a level until there are no more of these big problems left and we look at what state the duchy is in and end the campaign.↩

  3. My tribute to Vermithrax Pejorative, the dragon from the 1981 film Dragonslayer↩

#campaign #up-on-the-mountain #weird-wizard