Game in Review

Since we're now gaming every other week instead of weekly, this post will serve a few purposes.

1. I can let everyone in on the goings on in my games.
2. It will allow me to chronicle the party's adventures/antics to help maintain continuity between games. 

This means that in theory, there should be a Game in Review post in the week following my games. I will keep this as spoiler free for the players, so that they can read with impunity.

So away we go.

For this campaign, I decided to try a quasi-"in media res" start. What in media res means is that you start in the middle of the action and move on from there. So my first session immediately started with combat. I had sent out an e-mail prior describing what was happening right before combat to everyone. This let us bypass some of the usual "meet and greet" that happens at the start of most campaigns.

Part of idea for this campaign is "Commoners to Heroes." I told everyone to create a character without a backstory. After that was done, I told them that they were going to start off as commoners in a village and that something would happen to them to "transform" them into PCs.

The game started with news of an orcish attack that was going to happen from the North. Half of the town militia set out to ambush the orcs and try to head off the attack. That night everyone wasat the tavern, unwinding after a day of work, when orcs and goblins burst through the door and began killing. At this point I had the players "change" into their characters. So they were suddenly well equipped and suddenly had spells and knowledge of combat at their disposal. They cleared the bar and went outside to see their village and farms being destroyed and burned.

They rescued some people that the goblins were dragging off and stopped orcs from raiding the forge of the village for weapons. The next day, the leader of the town, an Illumian named Mathrin, said that the militia that had gone to the north had been themselves ambushed and had few survivors. He then asked the PCs to, since they had shown themselves capable in a fight, to track down the orcs and goblins and report back their location as he sent for reinforcements. The characters reluctantly agreed and set off that day.

Early that afternoon they were ambushed by a rearguard of two goblins archers and a mounted goblin. They quickly dispatched the goblins and killed the mounted goblins mount. At the end of the fight they were fairly weakened so they decided to rest, which is where we broke for the day.