Troika! x Barkeep on Borderlands sesh 10 GM Commentary
We play Barkeep on Borderlands with Troika! Characters are Witch (ancient undead parchment witch), Assassin (journeyman of guild of sharp corners) and Necromancer (just that). Check pregame and part one and two and three and four or even five, six, seven, eight, nine
Unicorn or Nothing
After helping the apes with fried banana stand the team went back to the forest. I rolled random encounter - Headless Knight - and random Citywood animal - Unicorn. I stumbled for a moment. I had one in five chances for a unicorn and actually thought this hunt will take a little bit more time. I asked players for a moment and then came up with following situation. I wasn't going to artificially prolong this part of the adventure, just make it more interesting. The team got into a clearing. Headless Knight came to them to ask for help in seeking his head. On the other end of the clearing they saw a unicorn with head in a helmet pierced on its horn. Two roasts on one fire as they say in my land.
The group came up with a plan - well, Witch's player jumped immediately on the horse and wanted to trample the unicorn without any plan but he is youngest of us and is the hot headed one. So Necromancer with hypnotising undead basilisk sneaked (snook?) one way, Assassin the other way and then Witch with Headless Knight started their charge. Unicorn was too smart for it but when whole group jumped it the Assassin was able not only to drain some of its blood but also took part of the rainbow mane. And then they let it leave.
After achieving their goals the team started convincing the knight - sir Roderick - to join their dancing crew. I had nothing against it, again. They made reasonable points, Witch used Eight Eyes to get some insight into his past and point it out, also they related their points to what he told them earlier. There was no point in preventing them from doing that. Sir Roderick gave them a bone whistle so they could summon him and the vanished in front of their eyes. Well, the team recruited more people for their dancing crew which I didn't expect. They got a lot more "dancing HP" this way so I think as a way of mitigation I will lower their Crowd Support by one for every new crew member as a way of crowd thinking they try to game the system. Also Sir Roderick might bring up his own opinion on the wish.
Fire and Errands
Then the team went to inspect The Birdcage pub. It was closed as it happens during the day before 17:00 when party starts. They looked around, spoke with locals, actually saw the phoenix in there (the Eight Eyes again!), came up with some crazy plans on how to get there. Fortunately the undead basilisk familiar has max 6 Stamina and so could die from one hit of the phoenix because if not they'd be utilising this thing's hypnosis ability to deal with every problem. And left to Brutal Legion as yesterday but this time to the retirement home part of it.
In there they spoke with some old barbarians about tigers and where to find them and didn't get any actual information. But the nurse mentioned something about local alchemist bringing medicine to old folks everyday and the team got super focused. I tried to lure them in to Granny's Cottage in order to steer them towards the Antidote search but they refused to go there and now got alternative way of identifying potions. Welp. So they went to an alchemist, identified their potions - mundane ones turned out to be an antibiotic (the fact these are yellow healing potions was me remembering video game Diablo I played twenty years ago as a kid) and magical ones are Potions of Fire Resistance.
This was my another moment of WTF? this session. I not only gave them an item that lets them see invisible, future, past and far away but also they have flying undead hypnotising familiar AND potion of magic resistance being ideally suited for their future encounter with phoenix (which in my mind uses some fire magic). I love that all of those things were either effect of random rolls or a momentary unplanned inspiration. They have all the tools they need.
Also the team got an insight into my new random encounter entry - one of alchemists assistants informed them there is a man with white wig and enormous sword that is looking after them. Vengeance for the catacombs, it won't be an easy encounter if that happens. I'm still not sure whether to keep it constrained in Iron Fens district or just put it in place of any already used random roll entry.
Then the team went to go check with the Heir but only got to speak with the Ranger for Heirs adventuring party. They gave him unicorn blood (and got three gold crowns for it) and spoke about needing the access to the Birdcage to retrieve another ingredient. I will count it as helping the Heir so after this night I'll roll for them 4 dice to check the progress.
Then the team went to the tailor they met earlier, Assassin got new black coat, sold unicorns rainbow mane for ten crowns (so it looks like Heir's Ranger gave them way too little money for the blood). They spoke some stuff about magic, magic items, unicorns and stuff. Player-induced exposition, the best exposition there is. Then we finished the session.
The Break
One thing I was most proud here were the incidental things that came together. I totally forgot about these potion of fire resistance they found in interdimentional reversed tower they've found in catacombs. The Eight Eyes item was an afterthought about an item I saw in Old School Hack book, totally unrelated to this game. And the basilisk was my gift to Necromancer as this player totally couldn't come up with the feature this background comes with. They have perfect opportunity to raid the Birdcage and pluck the phoenix.
Another thing is the consequences. I'm still not sure what to do about explosion under the church of chaos, I think they might start some investigation and potentially "check up" on the team but it didn't fit well right now (and I lost this opportunity two sessions ago when they fought Paladins of Chaos). But they know now that Yongardian warrior is looking for them to avenge their dead and lost peers. And also by overexplaining things I think they understood that when they look at Eight Eyes through the one glass where some red eye looks back at them it is Something That Checks Their Surroundings In Order To Find Them And Probably Do Something Bad. So I marked places where they took a peek and from now on they'll have a chance to meet some spidery entity in Old Fort Ward, River Downs and Citywood. Which means all districts to the north of the river will have spider thing going on and the one to the south will have judge-avenger. Nice.
Last thing I wanted to mention in this post is that we will take a break from this campaign. I know I didn't want it to become campaign at all but here we are, ten sessions in and we didn't even start partying of day two of this six-days adventure. Next session(s?) we will play The Quiet Year and then probably to some cyberpunk game where I will be a player and then we'll think what next. I want to finish this before starting Band of Blades campaign I plan for some time now. No more of these session reports for a time.
I might report on something of upcoming games but I won't promise. Thanks.