This past weekend marked the beginning of our new campaign and a new game system. As I mentioned in my prior posting, we’re moving to a less “tactically challenging” game. The system I’ve selected is Myth & Magic from New Haven Games (aka M&M). The game isn’t officially released until late September but a pre-release is available. Myth & Magic started as a retro-clone of 2nd Edition AD&D but has become more than that. In a manner similar to Castles & Crusades, M&M looks something like a pre-3rd Edition D&D re-envisioned with modern sensibilities. I definitely prefer M&M’s BASE20 system over Castles & Crusades SEIGE Mechanic and over the d20 approach of ever escalating skills and difficulties. We’re going to be giving the pre-release a run until the September release. It is my understanding the upcoming release has a lot of things added to the game and some things reworked. We’ll re-evaluate if we’ll continue with Myth & Magic after that release.
We rolled up characters on Saturday. It took longer than I had hoped but that is largely because none of the players had ever seen Myth & Magic. I hadn’t shared what we would be playing until after we were into the character creation process. Two of the players also decided that they’d play two characters and that contributed to things taking a bit longer. The range of Ability Scores, as one might expect with 3d6, is pretty wide. Rachel got pretty lucky with her rolls while others did not.
The roster of PCs includes the following.
- Aram, a Dwarven Cleric (played by RJ)
- Eoin, a Human Barbarian (played by RJ)
- Finch, a Halfling Thief (played by Todd)
- Isabel, a Half-Elf Ranger (played by Rachel)
- Mookatel, a Half-Orc Fighter (played by Todd)
- Rithor, a Human Wizard (played by Franklin)
The campaign will be using the Vault of Larin Karr as the “base” upon which I’ll be adding a variety of different things. Some of these will be homebrewed but others will be a mix of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Edition published adventures. This mix is intentional…I want to see how easy it is to convert materials from the different editions to Myth & Magic. I was going to start with the 3.5 “classic” adventure, The Crucible of Freya and the lead-in, The Wizard’s Amulet. However, Franklin immediately recognized it because he has run both in the past…so I’ll be making some definite changes. 😉
Each character received one or two rumors about Quail Valley or the village of Fairhill. These were basically reasons for them to be wanting to travel to Quail Valley and so when a wizard was looking for some traveling companions to head to Fairhill (a village just a day or two from Quail Valley), it was a good “in” for each character to agree to the trip.
Below is the session log from Rachel.
My GM comments are in [italics and brackets.]
Note: There are spoilers for The Wizard’s Amulet and possibly The Crucible of Freya below.
Several of us showed up at the Sated Satyr Inn in response to the flyer a wizard had posted, seeking companions to travel to Fairhill with him. The wizard introduced himself as Rithor and invited us to his room to discuss the job. In addition to myself, there was a human barbarian named Aram, a dwarf cleric named Eoin, a halfling rogue, and a half-orc paladin (although the latter two were somewhat coy about sharing their names 😉 ). [Todd decided to be quite deliberate about naming his characters and had not yet done so when we ended the session.] We trooped up to Rithor’s room and confirmed that he was looking for a group of adventurers to go to some ruins near Fairhill, about two weeks travel from Bard’s Gate. Rithor said he would not be paying anything but that we will each get a share of share of any treasures found in the ruins. He asked us each what we would be able to contribute to the journey and the search of the ruins; we each told him a bit about our skills and abilities.
While we were talking in Rithor’s room, a beautiful raven hung about on the sill just outside Rithor’s window. It pecked at the glass rather politely, so I went over to the window and opened it so the raven could join us. Rithor quickly shooed it away and slammed the window shut–he spoke ill of the bird and made it clear that the raven was not welcome in his room. Rithor did not provide much detail about the ruins or what exactly we would be looking for, but he had us each sign an agreement that stated we would each get a share of the treasures found.
After agreeing we would all meet in front of the Sated Satyr the next morning to head out, I headed back to The Stables, where I had been staying in town. The nameless halfling came with me and enjoyed some dandelion wine and we chatted a bit, although I think the halfling was a bit intense for some of the crowd at The Stables. When first leaving the Satyr, the friendly raven did fly onto my shoulder briefly but took off soon after.
[The Stables was an impromptu inn inside an old barn. The loft is a common sleeping area and the place still looks much like a barn…hay bales as chairs and tables, etc. It attracts a certain crowd…druids, rangers, and other nature lovers…and has a rather calm atmosphere that may, or may not, have anything to do with the perpetual haze of smoke from various herbal concoctions that the patrons and owners are found of.]
The next morning we met as planned, although the halfling was a bit later than the rest of us. Maybe he had a bit more dandelion wine than I had thought he did. We traveled toward Fairhill without incident for a few days. On the 5th day, Rithor told us that he could share more information with us now that we were farther from Bard’s Gate and his rival apprentice wizards. He told us that he was distrustful of the raven in town because it is Talon, the raven of Rithor’s rival, Balthazar. Anyway, he told us that we will be more successful at the ruins than his rivals or other groups of adventurers would be because he has a magic ring that is a key to the ruins. I asked several questions about it, concerned that it might have been a ring that I had heard was stolen from a merchant by bandits near Fairhill. Rithor was somewhat secretive about the ring, but asserted that it was not stolen. He apparently has a letter from an owner of the ring in the past, although he would not provide too many details.
On the 6th night of our trip, I took the first watch and heard a young girl’s voice calling out for her mommy. The voice was only about 50 feet away, but was a bit over a hillside so I knew I would have to go check it out. While I thought it very unlikely that a young girl would be out here by herself, I had to check just in case a child truly needed help. I woke Eoin, who had the next watch, to tell him what I heard and that I was going to investigate. I crept as stealthily as I could to the hilltop and heard the girl’s voice on just the other side. I could see some rustling in the bushes at the bottom of the hill. While it looked like more rustling than a little girl could create on her own, I could not make anything out in particular. I slowly moved down the hill when suddenly a very unnatural looking creature sprang out of the bushes at me. In the moonlight, the creature looked like it had the body of a deer, the head of a badger, and the tail of a lion, with glowing red eyes completing the disturbing looking being.
[And that, of course, is where we ended. I always prefer to end on something of a cliffhanger if at all possible.]
