People-Eaters in the Woods: an Incunabuli post-Session report

After I wrote about my thoughts on Arden Vul, I put the fate of the campaign up to a vote: Continue in the doomed world we have created or set forth and venture on Incunabuli's The Coast. 

I suppose by the title you can tell how they voted.

For the past few weeks I've been hard at work writing up a campaign set around Lake Boltthwaite in Firlund. It's far to the north, and people are aware of the various bugaboos and the continuous onslaught of the Other.  I'm quite enjoying myself. It's nice to get a change of pace from my usual campaign. Normally, I throw together a hexcrawl and my players romp around until I'm bored, but with the Coast already very well-mapped, it's actually very easy to convert it into a pointcrawl, which is surprisingly something I've never tried before... Exciting!

Anyways, I won't bore you with the details, least of all because I know that at least one of my players reads everything I write, and I don't want to spoil too much for her. So... without further ado:

The Cast: 

 John Dole of Bisque, A Firlish Stew Captain and jolly man of girth. Handy with a longarm and not afraid to use it, John Dole and his stew is the glue that binds the crew.

 

Else Birlenhead of Inford, a Lugger by trade and a minor nuisance by choice. 

 

Dwayne Ottleson of Fir Reach, Firlish Ironmonger, what some might consider the Avethan reincarnation of Finnegan Fisk of Fror. Lower management in a factory with some very progressive leave policies.

 

Padre Faustino Calderon Capard del Monte Rubito, a wet, drunken sot of a priest, a consumptive and syphilitic wreck, a tar eater, the padre is the only member of the party with medical experience, which theoretically makes up for his drinking up all of the supplies and his stinginess with the laudanum. You have met him before.

 

*** 

 

Our Story starts on the road. Boltthwaite Lake is rural, distant from the reach of Adventure Capital. Péridot Firm contracts the crew to escort a representative of theirs from Dunfarr on the River Dristol to Fenn Blaine on Boltthwaite Lake. It's a difficult market to break into, so the representative, a certain Mister Domhnall Collier of Sohport, Esquire has already begun setting up jobs for the party in the city. Suffice to say: they're on a schedule, and he won't accept dawdling.

Trouble starts on the second day of the week-long journey. The carriage that Mr. Collier is riding in suffers a split axle, and of course, he sends the cutters to do the dirty work of asking a logging camp for a spare axle. 

The camp is... not in great condition. Casualties are expected while logging (it's the most deadly profession in the world, provided you don't count cutters, prostitutes or children working in textile plants), but the loggers here are certain that something stocks them. Every week, another comrade vanishes, without a sound and nary a witness to be found. The logger's representative points the cutters to the ruins of a medieval castle, and off they go.

 The castle is an ominous thing. Green ivy clambers up the once-great stone walls, slowly pulling them down in a slow-motion demolition, every brick taking a decade to slowly fall, and many, even longer. Enormous firs blot out the sun in the shadowy glade, and the bolder loggers have stacked a cairn in front of the entrance. A steel axe head tops the waist-high pile, leaving no room for doubt: this is the place.

Ottleson recognizes the importance of the iron, and warns the others not to disturb the apotropaic pile, but Else scoffs at the notion, and pockets the little head for her later use as the rest of the crew strolls in.

The Tower was once a proud and mighty thing, reaching high into the sky, scorning the Other with its stature. Today, it regrets the follies of youth as the Other repays it for every insult of the past. The courtyard is verdant with long, wet grass, and the tower that once stood so tall is lessened with age, now barely standing two stories, surrounded by the stones and sorrows of history.

But the cutters are not the sentimental types. In addition to the grass, a ring of Blushers also calls the courtyard home, and seeing how it's early afternoon, with no real meals to speak of so far in the day, the cutters begin to loudly argue over whether or not the mushrooms are poisonous, and who should test them in case they are.

 

Don't tell me you wouldn't try to eat this tasty little sucker 
(credit goes to user Archenzo on Wikipedia)

    As the "discussion" grows louder, it alerts the denizens of the castle ruins of the fact that there is a band of armed thugs on their doorstep, and they begin to take preparations. The tower is occupied by three ragwretches: Crop, Knob and Slop. Crop is the leader of the bunch. He wears a Firlish officer's jacket, wields a Sterling G47 “Granger” and a rusty sickle. So, making sure to stand in the shadows of the tower, he calls out to the motley crew, and invites them in. Knob (a large lad) stands just out of sight, and raises his club high... 

    Unfortunately, the cutters do not fall for their ruse. John Dole is a military man, and he requests the honor of seeing the officer, suspicious of this Crown's Man who hides in the dark. He overawes the ragwretch, who goes for his Pistol. Crop pulls first, but misses both shots. Next is John Dole, whose shot slams deep into Crop's chest, stunning him. The seconds fly as as moment's hesitation allows John to loose again, launching another fléchette deep into Crop's upper thigh. He collapses backwards, and hits the ground, hard. Knob pulls him to safety, as he attempts to revive their fallen leader.

    Outside, the crew isn't sure how many people are in the tower, but for Dwayne Ottleson, courage trumps tactics. He charges into the dark, swinging a fist at the first person he sees: Slop. Slop is a young ragwretch, and upon seeing her boss laid low, goes for his gun. She fires twice, landing one hit into Ottleson's chest before he can lay her low.

     Else ties the axe head to her hand, intending to slam it into the first person she sees. Upon entering the tower, the first person she sees is Ottleson, but she decides to stick to the plan, closing her eyes and hitting him in the back.

     The situation deteriorates from there. When Crop dies, Knob flies into a rage, wielding his makeshift club like a war hammer as he brutalizes Dwayne and Else before John grabs his attention by shooting him in the leg at point-blank range. In the commotion, Slop climbs the ivy inside the tower and vanishes, as the three cutters attempt to bring down the ragwretch behemoth. 

    The brawl spills out into the Courtyard, and as Knob barrels down on a retreating John Dole, Dwayne attempts to end the fight with Crop's Granger. Unfortunately, he has never shot a gunspring before, and the fléchette misses Knob entirely... embedding itself deep into John Dole's right arm. It's not looking good for our cutters, but the sound snaps Knob out of his rage. He's hurt bad, outnumbered and outgunned, and he decides to live to fight another day. Fleeing past the crumbling walls, he swears that the cutters have not seen the last of him, but they are already too busy arguing to hear him.

*** 

     We were forced to end the session a little early that day, so we resume in session 2, immediately following the skirmish.

 

 The cutters hole up in the tower. It's cozy enough for a meal

 

     It is here that the cutters are joined by the padre. Faustino is a tar-eater, and has spent the fight mostly unconscious outside of the courtyard, but, as luck would have it, he has roused himself in time to begin bandaging up the crew. Feeling a bit hungry and requiring stitches, the crew set about looting the place, finding dried soup, hardtack biscuits, alcohol and even harvesting the mushrooms from the fairy ring for John Dole's famous stew. The roll was a success, and the party enjoyed their meal.

    After lunch, the cutters decapitated the corpse as proof of their misdeeds and set out back for the logger's camp. It took several hours longer than expected, as the Other sent a thick fog to waylay them, and half of the party was effectively dumb from the laudanum, but eventually, after four hours of wandering, the party found their way back to the twinkling fires of the logging camp.

    The loggers are eager for news of their victory, and showing off their grisly trophy, the cutters receive a hearty welcome, and are plied with food and drinks for details. The cutters sleep at the logging camp, and are given a wagon to take them and their representative to the next village. 

Little of interest happens over the next few days, but eventually the crew breaks free from the forest, to windy crags, hills and farms. The wagon stops in front of a tiny pub: The Lamb & Boar, run by a younger couple. The cutters cajole Mr. Collier into covering their stay, at least until they are healed, and thePéridot Firm representative eventually relents. The padre uses the time to turn some items into money and back again, as the rest of the crew bathes and enjoys their own mild luxuries.

I accidentally made the  first encounter with the ragwretches a little more lethal than intended, but that's fine, we got to get to know the system a little bit better, working with the combat and wound systems. The rulebook is a living document, so occasionally we brushed up against WIP or contradictory content, which occasionally gave us trouble. The biggest was the wording of a specific trait that implied that characters receive one Distress per Malus, but that's never mentioned in the corresponding Distress chapter, so I ended up just calling a mulligan because most of the PCs would have maxed out their distress counter, just from a few short rounds of combat, and I wasn't sure if that was intended or not, but the important thing is that we all had a great time.

It's been a while since I wrote up one of these. It's been too long. With luck, I'll write up another one soon.