As you’ll recall, the Pawns of Destiny players had asked for a meatier plot, and given their current location and character backstories, I selected the fourth Beasts & Barbarians adventure for them, Shadows Over Ekul.
Since it can be up to six months between B&B sessions for this group – we meet twice a month but generally play WFRP3 – I follow the precedent set by the WFRP GM and write up a detailed report of each session shortly after play concludes, then circulate it before the next one to jog memories. However, I’m sure you don’t want 5,000 words of that, so I’ll summarise and share the highlights. The adventure was published in 2012, so following my five year rule, I shall make no effort to avoid spoilers.
Travelling to Shan’Ammar in search of Clan O’Well’s purloined sacred items – for this is why Max the Barbarian is travelling among these southern softies – the party are arrested following a bar brawl, and it turns out that Max is the spitting image of Ulesir Shah, the local ruler. Ulesir needs to travel to a nearby city state to marry his betrothed, so that he can borrow an army from his father-in-law to root out bandits led by his half-brother; but he is too cowardly to go in person, and thus hits upon the Cunning Plan of sending Max in his stead. Successfully fending off attacks by evil monk-assassins and mountain bandits, the group reaches Teluk’Ammar and survives an attempt to embarass Max by exposing his lack of riding skill. The session closed on a social cliffhanger as “Ulesir” and entourage met Tokarim Shah, Valk ruler of Teluk’Ammar.
Highlights:
- During the arm-wrestling contest which precipitated the brawl, Zosimus beat his opponent by a massive margin, in the true heroic style. The first thing that happened after that was the purse of winnings flying past Ash, who had previously prepared a duplicate purse in advance “just in case”; with an amazing Stealth roll he swapped purses by appearing to fumble catching it, then flicked the duplicate purse into the hands of U’wahz the Sage.
- The party’s Cunning Plan; despairing of teaching Max to impersonate a Shah, they circulated rumours of an assassination attempt which had temporarily rendered the Shah lame and mute, allowing them to splint Max’s leg and cover his face with a mask in the hopes of avoiding him opening his mouth or having to ride or dance at any point.
- The attack by an evil monk-assassin during the voyage upriver to Teluk’Ammar, foiled when Ash ziplined down the ship’s backstay and kicked the assassin overboard.
- The attack by mountain bandits, foiled when the Sage “remembered” that the local subspecies of goat goes berserk when frightened and charges the source of the fear en masse – armed with this information, Dorjee Pema the Alchemist lobbed a couple of fear potions into a suitable position, and the bandits were gored and trampled by goats, allowing the party to escape.
- The party’s avoidance of the drugged horse intended to embarrass Ulesir Shah by walking to the palace slowly and circuitously while feigning interest in the local architecture.
Max’s player has decided that the horse thing is exactly the sort of hazing any Northeim clan would inflict on a potential son-in-law, for who would want their daughter to marry a wimp? “I’m not playing the weakling for these Valk any longer,” he said at the end of the session. “If they want a real man, I’ll show them one.”
No doubt hilarity will ensue. A Happy Easter to you all!
Halfway Station 