Game log for 26 January 2020: Elves without Weird Jimmy

Dramatis personae

Lucdalen, self-hating high elf wizard (Brandon)
Horace, wizard seeking to know everything (Roman)
Felcanis, elf cleric of Saundīvós, god of light (John)
Jiro, slightly wolfen swordswoman (Sophia)
Kokichi, elf thief (Imogen)

Quid occurrit

The game opens in the Scarlet Harlot tavern in Mīštássun, the one town in the dale. Lucdalen, a wayward high elf, hears a young woman talking loudly about how much she hates elves. He goes up to talk to her and buy her a drink, though keeping his hood up.

Meanwhile, Jiro, a young swordswoman with wolf ears, sits with her friend, the elf thief Kokichi, and hears another barfellow say that the sword of the elf hero Otórno is in the Curious Cairn of the Collector in the Eldalîvā Woods to the southeast.

Horace, a wizard and overall seeker of knowledge, also overhears this, but thought little of it, and instead leaves of the bar lest he hear any more of Êvā babbling. He sits under a tree and read one of his books, and in it, finds that there is a mural in the Curious Cairn of the Collector that will kill whoever touches it.

Likewise Felcanis, an elven cleric of Saundīvós, the god of light, leaves after hearing this, and goes to church a few buildings away. There, he listens to the sermon of another cleric, hoping for tales that might be handy, but hears nothing. However, a voice in his head says so that he may learn the ultimate light spell, he needs to open up the woods to light.

Lucdalen buys Êvā another drink, and she starts to think he’s getting fresh with her. She gets mad and calls Lucdalen an elf. Such a barb so bothers Lucdalen that he slaps Êvā, who then runs screaming out of the Scarlet Harlot.

Horace sees Êvā run past, and a few minutes later sees three high elves hastening towards the Scarlet Harlot. They go inside, and they step before Lucdalen and tell him to pull down his hood. He does so, showing his clipped ears, and also casts the Terror spell on them. One elf starts retching while another stands in fear.

The third, however, comes towards Lucdalen with his spear. Jiro sees this and starts to move behind the elves. Kokichi also sees this, and walks up behind the stunned elf and swipes his bow, with everyone else looking at the elves about to fight.

Horace goes up to the window and looks through, and sees that everyone inside is still an idiot. He casts the Aura spell on Lucdalen, sees that he is indeed a talented wizard, then hastens away. “Note to self: I don’t think I’ll be frequenting THIS establishment again.”

Lucdalen runs from the elf with the spear while the stunned elf snaps aware and also starts chasing Lucdalen. Lucdalen ducks through a back curtain into the kitchen, and runs through it. The two elves run after him, though the bartender tries to tackle one, and yells at the elves not to come back after they get away. Jiro, seeing an opening, grabs the beer Lucdalen had bought for Êvā, and starts drinking.

The elves chase Lucdalen through the town streets. He tries to kip up onto a roof when they  reach him, and they try to tackle each other. Lucdalen does grab one elf as he tried to grab him and tossed him into his friend, though his friend gets out of the way. As the elves come back from that toss, Lucdalen grabs the spear of the one still standing then smacks the elf getting off the ground with the side of it. After the first elf does not get his spear back, he tries grabbing Lucdalen, but does not do so, after which Lucdalen pokes him in the trunk. The elf still holding his spear tries stabbing Lucdalen, who Blinks away.

Lucdalen starts to run again, and this time, he loses the elves. He makes it back to the Scarlet Harlot, as does Felcanis, who heard the ado from the tavern while he was in church.

Res aliae

We rebooted with lower-point characters. This suits the style of Brandon and Roman, who drive most of the action. Mayhem might be back from time-to-time, if Steph ever pulls himself back to the table. Kokichi's player is a friend of my daughter's who may or may not be around again. If so, she may have another character; Brandon had made the character to have handy.

Also fitting with their style is something I had used a bit over the last few games, whose logs are not online—Mythic Game Master Emulator. I had originally planned on using it for non-dungeon things way back in 2014, but I never got around to asking for the things needed from the players—threads and NPCs relating to the characters—since I quickly gathered the group wasn't going to be into heavily random-yet-role-playing-driven adventures. This well fits Brandon and Roman as well as John, though their style leave the focus on single characters at times. They're still going into dungeons, but they'll also revel a bit in their above-ground lives.

For those who know how Mythic works, I split the scene when Êvā fled the tavern, with the Chaos Factor going up to 6 with it, but Lucdalen handling the elves lowered it back to 5. I had a few yes/no questions, namely whether the back door to the tavern was locked.