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I ran a game!
I have had a setting in my head for ages that I've wanted to play with and I am the backup GM for the gaming group and it worked out that today we needed backup GMing, so I got to run it. So it was a couple of hours of basic chargen and then an intro scenario.
Characters present:
Berim (fairy-touched woodcutter, amiably social)
Jaromir (herbalist/healer, druidish-flavored)
Gabriel (hunter, gambler)
Characters not present:
Curse-breaking specialist
Characters not yet chargenned:
Probably someone interested in investigating fairies/spirits
It is the day before the Mokosh festival at the close of the autumn, and as is his habit, Gennadiy Karpovich has thrown open the doors to the Dragon's Kine and is doing an all-you-can eat stew festival (beer not included). Half the town is there, eating, drinking, and making merry, in anticipation of the beer wagon arriving from Mother's Mend with the booze for tomorrow's festival.
The baron's son - who usually stays within the walls of his house rather than mingling with the people - put in a surprising appearance with a small cluster of guards. Berim immediately wandered over, bought him a beer, and set about introducing him to all of the important families, much to his bewilderment.
Meanwhile, Jaromir was quite sociable and did a steady sideline in hangover cures, and Gabriel set up near the tavern and gambled with reasonable competence, much to Gennadiy's amusement.
The Serafins' beer wagon was running late, and just about when people were going to send runners to see if things were okay, it turned up in a great cheer. They mentioned they'd gotten stuck in a mudhole along the way, and had to haul the wagon out. Jaromir's oracular sense tickled; a mudhole is certainly not seasonal. He went looking for Maja One-Eye, one of the local diviners, to see what she thought, and they went off to roll the bones. (The omens suggested trouble from below, or underwater, or possibly the underworld.)
Regardless, nothing terrible seemed to happen at the party. Gabriel started winning a good bit more as other people got drunk around him. The baron's son wandered off again. Eventually people staggered off to bed. Jaromir dreamed of swamps, and things sinking into the swamp.
In the morning, there was great commotion in the market square, because three of the beer kegs had burst. Jaromir investigated it along with Grazyna, the one of the Serafin children who currently has magic (she is a winter mage), and they determined that there was some sort of magical effect that had destroyed the barrels, and that it was not human. There was some alarm over this, and murmurs of further investigation, which was entirely interrupted by a woman running up from the nearby farms wanting a healer and promptly siezing Jaromir. Her brother Ivan wouldn't wake up.
So Jaromir let Julia drag him off to Ivan's fishing cottage, and found the young man lying still, cold, and pale, like someone who had drowned and not come to afterwards. He responded a little to warming and some treatments for drowning, but although color came back into his cheeks, he would not wake up. Julia was sent for one of the Pasternaks, who are competent cursebreakers.
Meanwhile, commotion near the fishing hut eventually made it up to the village, and people shouted for strong townsfolk to come help, the water was rising and the mill was taking damage. About a dozen people, including Berim and Gabriel, pelted off to do that, with Berim sending his apprentice off to get the oxen team to help with the hauling.
When they reached the riverside, they saw the water pounding on the mill, and out in the river itself, a very angry river-father roaring in rage. Berim split the party into the people who could successfully see the outraged spirit and the people who were only going to be a help with repairs, and they managed to get the river-father to calm down enough to talk to them.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY DAUGHTER, STUPID HUMANS?!"
The fellow who had some river lore was half-frozen in panic, though he could be coaxed to say useful things on occasion. Various people managed to get the information that the river maidens had found some human stuff upstream, had divided it among themselves, and sometime in the night the youngest one had gone mad and murderous and vanished from the family home with her share of the loot. The river-father blamed the humans in general for his daughter's derangement and was thus throwing a mighty snit about it.
When the humans responded with appropriate 'we are going to do things to make it better' he calmed down enough that repairs to the mill could be undertaken. The humans, meanwhile, determined that they would make some pretty things to give to the youngest rusalka, and dose them with a pleasant-smelling calming herbal remedy, going for the florals rather than other scents.
Gabriel was sent off to Ivan's cottage to investigate whether there was any sign that his illness was linked to whatever had driven the rusalka mad, whether he had been responsible for cursing her, or some such. Julia let him in when he said "Berim sent me," and he found some nice green hair ribbons while explaining about the maddened rusalka. Liwia, the cursebreaker working on treating Ivan, thought that the effect on him might be rusalka magic. "Do you know whose these are?" Gabriel asked Julia about the ribbons. "No. I didn't think he was courting anyone." (At this point the players collectively groaned.) The ribbons were brought out to add to the problem resolution.
The river-father's daughters went out to find their sister, and she was eventually coaxed into manifesting as a whirlpool in the river. Berim - tethered to a rope which was tied to a tree - waded out a bit to push the festival decorations repurposed to a pretty thing to give the river spirit and heavily laced with perfumed calming potion - into the whirlpool.
The river spirit manifested more visibly - a beautiful girl in a white dress, all translucent, wearing a gold necklace. Jaromir spotted that the necklace was magical; Gabriel spotted that it was also creepy. Everyone spotted that really, one doesn't expect river girls to be wearing gold necklaces.
She was very cross at her sisters, who were clearly keeping her from lashing out and drowning Berim, Jaromir, and anyone else she could reach. They were Very Difficult Sisters. When Berim mentioned that Ivan had sent them out with the ribbons she turned very interested indeed; he offered to trade the ribbons for the necklace, which she was iffy on, and when he tried to snag the necklace when she was snatching the ribbons she got Very Offended.
He offered his life in trade for the necklace, assuming they couldn't find her something she liked better. She considered this, and took the deal. Jaromir got the necklace in his hands, found the feel of it actively unpleasant, wrapped it in his cloak, and took it out of the water.
The rusalka started shaking, and demanded to see Ivan. She was told that he was ill and unable to come, but people offered to check on him. She demanded to see him.
Gabriel was sent looking for Ivan. Liwia said, "He came to! I don't know what happened!" And indeed, the young man was groggy and semicoherent.
"What have you done with the river's daughter?"
"... nothing she didn't like!"
(More groans.)
Having been told that, well, she wanted to see him, Ivan staggered out leaning on Gabriel and was brought to the riverside, where he staggered into the water. The rusalka stared at him, water washed over him up to his hips, and drew away whatever magical effect had put him in the coma in the first place.
Berim asked if she was satisfied with the deal, and she declared that she did not, in fact, want the necklace back. He promised her flowers tomorrow and carefully escaped from the river.
The young idiot was left to fend for himself with his recovering supernatural girlfriend.
Berim and Gabriel chatted for a bit while Jaromir inspected the necklace and discovered that it had multiple layers of magic, a human greed-attraction charm overlaid with a dark, hungry, and very not human curse which was reminiscent in flavor of the magical residue on the burst barrels, with a faint sort of swampy scent. After consultation with Liwia, she declared she did not have the skill to break the curse, but could construct a box to contain it with her husband's help. Specifications for said box were sent to Berim's brother, the carpenter, with request for delivery to their shop, and she took the cursed thing (wrapped in Jaromir's cloak) away.
The PCs then gathered, consulted with the local river-father, and spoke to his daughters, getting some information about where they found the items that they had divided up. Armed with that information, they collected some weapons just in case and went to the border of the forest, where the next spirit's domain began, and started to investigate.
Gabriel spotted the ruins of a basket, and found a gold ring in much the same style as the cursed necklace. It, however, was not magical, and did not release any secret magics when tested.
The party continued into the heart of the next spirit's territory, and Gabriel offered a fishermen's introduction charm, and then a "Hey, I need to actually talk to the local authority" fishing charm, and the river-father, greener and spookier than the other one, appeared.
This river-father did not know where the cursed jewelry had come from, and had not tasted the flavor of the magic. He suspected that whoever had put the jewelry in the basket to float downstream had done so just inside the boundaries of his territory, where it was out of sight of the spirits they were intending to harm, and where they were less likely to be spotted by the spirits of this chunk of the river. He mentioned that his upstream neighbor was swampy, but since the basket did not come through most of his territory, that was deemed something of a red herring.
Investigations along the riverbank did not produce an obvious trail for whoever had put the basket in the water, or where it might have been put in, so in the end, everyone wandered back, put their weapons away, and went to the festival, where people were worried about the omens, but trying to have a good enough time to shake the sense of foreboding.
Characters present:
Berim (fairy-touched woodcutter, amiably social)
Jaromir (herbalist/healer, druidish-flavored)
Gabriel (hunter, gambler)
Characters not present:
Curse-breaking specialist
Characters not yet chargenned:
Probably someone interested in investigating fairies/spirits
It is the day before the Mokosh festival at the close of the autumn, and as is his habit, Gennadiy Karpovich has thrown open the doors to the Dragon's Kine and is doing an all-you-can eat stew festival (beer not included). Half the town is there, eating, drinking, and making merry, in anticipation of the beer wagon arriving from Mother's Mend with the booze for tomorrow's festival.
The baron's son - who usually stays within the walls of his house rather than mingling with the people - put in a surprising appearance with a small cluster of guards. Berim immediately wandered over, bought him a beer, and set about introducing him to all of the important families, much to his bewilderment.
Meanwhile, Jaromir was quite sociable and did a steady sideline in hangover cures, and Gabriel set up near the tavern and gambled with reasonable competence, much to Gennadiy's amusement.
The Serafins' beer wagon was running late, and just about when people were going to send runners to see if things were okay, it turned up in a great cheer. They mentioned they'd gotten stuck in a mudhole along the way, and had to haul the wagon out. Jaromir's oracular sense tickled; a mudhole is certainly not seasonal. He went looking for Maja One-Eye, one of the local diviners, to see what she thought, and they went off to roll the bones. (The omens suggested trouble from below, or underwater, or possibly the underworld.)
Regardless, nothing terrible seemed to happen at the party. Gabriel started winning a good bit more as other people got drunk around him. The baron's son wandered off again. Eventually people staggered off to bed. Jaromir dreamed of swamps, and things sinking into the swamp.
In the morning, there was great commotion in the market square, because three of the beer kegs had burst. Jaromir investigated it along with Grazyna, the one of the Serafin children who currently has magic (she is a winter mage), and they determined that there was some sort of magical effect that had destroyed the barrels, and that it was not human. There was some alarm over this, and murmurs of further investigation, which was entirely interrupted by a woman running up from the nearby farms wanting a healer and promptly siezing Jaromir. Her brother Ivan wouldn't wake up.
So Jaromir let Julia drag him off to Ivan's fishing cottage, and found the young man lying still, cold, and pale, like someone who had drowned and not come to afterwards. He responded a little to warming and some treatments for drowning, but although color came back into his cheeks, he would not wake up. Julia was sent for one of the Pasternaks, who are competent cursebreakers.
Meanwhile, commotion near the fishing hut eventually made it up to the village, and people shouted for strong townsfolk to come help, the water was rising and the mill was taking damage. About a dozen people, including Berim and Gabriel, pelted off to do that, with Berim sending his apprentice off to get the oxen team to help with the hauling.
When they reached the riverside, they saw the water pounding on the mill, and out in the river itself, a very angry river-father roaring in rage. Berim split the party into the people who could successfully see the outraged spirit and the people who were only going to be a help with repairs, and they managed to get the river-father to calm down enough to talk to them.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY DAUGHTER, STUPID HUMANS?!"
The fellow who had some river lore was half-frozen in panic, though he could be coaxed to say useful things on occasion. Various people managed to get the information that the river maidens had found some human stuff upstream, had divided it among themselves, and sometime in the night the youngest one had gone mad and murderous and vanished from the family home with her share of the loot. The river-father blamed the humans in general for his daughter's derangement and was thus throwing a mighty snit about it.
When the humans responded with appropriate 'we are going to do things to make it better' he calmed down enough that repairs to the mill could be undertaken. The humans, meanwhile, determined that they would make some pretty things to give to the youngest rusalka, and dose them with a pleasant-smelling calming herbal remedy, going for the florals rather than other scents.
Gabriel was sent off to Ivan's cottage to investigate whether there was any sign that his illness was linked to whatever had driven the rusalka mad, whether he had been responsible for cursing her, or some such. Julia let him in when he said "Berim sent me," and he found some nice green hair ribbons while explaining about the maddened rusalka. Liwia, the cursebreaker working on treating Ivan, thought that the effect on him might be rusalka magic. "Do you know whose these are?" Gabriel asked Julia about the ribbons. "No. I didn't think he was courting anyone." (At this point the players collectively groaned.) The ribbons were brought out to add to the problem resolution.
The river-father's daughters went out to find their sister, and she was eventually coaxed into manifesting as a whirlpool in the river. Berim - tethered to a rope which was tied to a tree - waded out a bit to push the festival decorations repurposed to a pretty thing to give the river spirit and heavily laced with perfumed calming potion - into the whirlpool.
The river spirit manifested more visibly - a beautiful girl in a white dress, all translucent, wearing a gold necklace. Jaromir spotted that the necklace was magical; Gabriel spotted that it was also creepy. Everyone spotted that really, one doesn't expect river girls to be wearing gold necklaces.
She was very cross at her sisters, who were clearly keeping her from lashing out and drowning Berim, Jaromir, and anyone else she could reach. They were Very Difficult Sisters. When Berim mentioned that Ivan had sent them out with the ribbons she turned very interested indeed; he offered to trade the ribbons for the necklace, which she was iffy on, and when he tried to snag the necklace when she was snatching the ribbons she got Very Offended.
He offered his life in trade for the necklace, assuming they couldn't find her something she liked better. She considered this, and took the deal. Jaromir got the necklace in his hands, found the feel of it actively unpleasant, wrapped it in his cloak, and took it out of the water.
The rusalka started shaking, and demanded to see Ivan. She was told that he was ill and unable to come, but people offered to check on him. She demanded to see him.
Gabriel was sent looking for Ivan. Liwia said, "He came to! I don't know what happened!" And indeed, the young man was groggy and semicoherent.
"What have you done with the river's daughter?"
"... nothing she didn't like!"
(More groans.)
Having been told that, well, she wanted to see him, Ivan staggered out leaning on Gabriel and was brought to the riverside, where he staggered into the water. The rusalka stared at him, water washed over him up to his hips, and drew away whatever magical effect had put him in the coma in the first place.
Berim asked if she was satisfied with the deal, and she declared that she did not, in fact, want the necklace back. He promised her flowers tomorrow and carefully escaped from the river.
The young idiot was left to fend for himself with his recovering supernatural girlfriend.
Berim and Gabriel chatted for a bit while Jaromir inspected the necklace and discovered that it had multiple layers of magic, a human greed-attraction charm overlaid with a dark, hungry, and very not human curse which was reminiscent in flavor of the magical residue on the burst barrels, with a faint sort of swampy scent. After consultation with Liwia, she declared she did not have the skill to break the curse, but could construct a box to contain it with her husband's help. Specifications for said box were sent to Berim's brother, the carpenter, with request for delivery to their shop, and she took the cursed thing (wrapped in Jaromir's cloak) away.
The PCs then gathered, consulted with the local river-father, and spoke to his daughters, getting some information about where they found the items that they had divided up. Armed with that information, they collected some weapons just in case and went to the border of the forest, where the next spirit's domain began, and started to investigate.
Gabriel spotted the ruins of a basket, and found a gold ring in much the same style as the cursed necklace. It, however, was not magical, and did not release any secret magics when tested.
The party continued into the heart of the next spirit's territory, and Gabriel offered a fishermen's introduction charm, and then a "Hey, I need to actually talk to the local authority" fishing charm, and the river-father, greener and spookier than the other one, appeared.
This river-father did not know where the cursed jewelry had come from, and had not tasted the flavor of the magic. He suspected that whoever had put the jewelry in the basket to float downstream had done so just inside the boundaries of his territory, where it was out of sight of the spirits they were intending to harm, and where they were less likely to be spotted by the spirits of this chunk of the river. He mentioned that his upstream neighbor was swampy, but since the basket did not come through most of his territory, that was deemed something of a red herring.
Investigations along the riverbank did not produce an obvious trail for whoever had put the basket in the water, or where it might have been put in, so in the end, everyone wandered back, put their weapons away, and went to the festival, where people were worried about the omens, but trying to have a good enough time to shake the sense of foreboding.