Yesterday I started my new urbancrawl campaign using Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells (and a bunch of other stuff as explained here). Everything is still highly experimental, as I am toying with the creation of a City Setting Toolbox for SS&SS, inspired by the sword and sorcery literature and the great OSR setting material that has been released in the last few years.
Anyway, we started with character creation. Since this was being streamed by a Brazilian RPG channel, we created each character in sequence, taking the viewers over the process and the rules of the game. It took a while, but it helped to establish the role and concept of each character too. In the end, we had the following adventurers ready to set foot in Mezzanthia, the decadent City in the Middle.
- Kalek, a Specialist spy, with a debt to a cult called “Eyes of Ogh’Oid”.
- Melchezedek, a arrogant Zartarian Magic User who dabbles with necromancy and has a debt with a Crime Lord.
- Lorak, an amorous illusionist who has wronged a bloodthirsty pirate that wants his skin.
- Durken, a courageous squire of a decadent knight who is addicted to adrenaline.
- Fryad, a coward soldier that helped Lorak with his enterprises against the bloodthirsty pirate and now is also being hunted.
I decided to use some of the rules over Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells - Addendum (like Blood, Expended Vocations) and asked them to roll their Luck Die to determine how many contacts they had within the city. They did not have to determine them now, but could do that along the game. Every contact used, however, would at some point require favors in exchange for the help they provided (and this could help me insert more hooks to future adventures).
The game actually began with me generating a random job using Midkemia Cities book, and asking the players themselves to describe to me what was the job, who hired them, how are they going to do to accomplish it and so on. What I generated was basically this:
Job: People > Incriminate: Government Official
Location: The Feet (mainly a traveller’s district, where the Thieves Guild has a strong influence).
So, after a few minutes discussing with each other and asking some questions about the setting, they came up with this: They were hired by a influential member of the Thieves Guild (but not one of its leaders) that was having some of his operations hindered by this sentinel official. He was not like an honest sentinel, just a guy messing with the deals of a criminal to benefit himself or another. They were going to incriminate him by planting the possession of some unforgiving noble on this guy’s place and, using their contacts with a rival official, get the authorities to arrest the “culprit”.
I actually began the game in a moment after all of this took place, when some mercenaries came after the party when they were celebrating a successful job and the few coins they earned. But now I think I should have made them steal the valuable possession of a noble to plant the evidence after that. Anyway…
Celebrating at the Old Octopus in the old docks, the party suddenly realizes the place got a little deserted and these six mercenaries armed with swords, axes and daggers were approaching them. They congratulated the characters for their job, but said they were messing with the wrong people, and they would be sorry soon. But, as an apology, they would accept the coins they just received for the task.
Intelligently, Lorak proposed they talk over some beer, and bought them drinks. The tavern keeper already know trouble was coming, so he stepped aside.
The negotiations wasn’t going much place, as both parties said they both had very dangerous patrons that would interfere with force if things didn’t go according to their interests. The mercenaries even made another deal, telling them that if they recovered a golden skull in the catacombs under the Thieves Guild Hall, they would forget everything and even compensate the party for the trouble. The illusionist them used his spell to create the sound of several people approaching and imitated the voice of some well known Thieves Guild operatives.
This made the mercenaries stand up and leave, saying they would be back to finish this “talk”. But the impulsive and cruel Melchezedek, took the opportunity to cast a decaying spell as they were leaving, rotting the walls of the tavern and killing almost every mercenary as they squeezed through the back door.
Getting out to see where the surviving thug went, one of the adventurers saw a robed figure, on the roof of a nearby building, looking at their direction. But since he rolled a critical success, I gave him some further information. The figure had an feminine figure, not a fragile one tough. She was also wearing a mask with a skull painted over it. As soon as she was seen, the woman vanished.
While this was going on, those inside checked the bodies of the mercenaries and besides some coins and poor quality weapons, one of them was using a ring shaped like a skull.
The necromancer checked the ring and as he heard about the masked figure, he remembered of a religious cult called the Sisters of Death. But why would they be meddling with the Thives Guild affairs?
The session ended at that point. The players pondered a little on the information and are going to decide what path they will pursue next week.
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