Well a character has finally died permanently, Mantious N'Athalia finally met his match. According to Simon, Mantious' death was inevitable as this was his fourth T'Skrang Swordmaster since he began playing Earthdawn, the fourth to die before he could make a legend for himself. I don't think we will be seeing any T'Skrang Swordmasters for a long time to come.
The Campaign finally has a title "Lastdawn". Ominous, I know, but what does it mean exactly. The players will find out soon enough.
During this game the party were almost wiped out twice. The first being the almost fight with the guards. Those guys don't know how far they came to getting their butts kicked big time. When the captain of the guards says "resisting arrest is a crime punishable by death", its usually a good idea to surrender. Maybe they will have second thoughts about threatening guards in the future. Heck in a game like Earthdawn you should have have second thoughts about threatening anyone!
The second fight was against the Invae. Anyone who has encountered the Invae in their games know how dangerous these opponents are. They were lucky. This time.
After being released from jail the characters that could decided to train. I had fun with the training especially the Swordmasters, it is so easy to come up with memorable Taunts when you have the time to. Though Mantious' attempt to get the patrons of a seedy tavern to take notice by breaking things was a bad idea that could have turned ugly, but not even I am so low as to kill a character in a barroom brawl. It would have been so humiliating for him. The fact that Valantas was with him, meant that both of them would have ended up dead without the other characters ever knowing what happened.
Investigating the warehouse proved to be amusing as the guys pretending to be working for Guildmaster Galen. The true owner of the warehouse thought they were crazy, of course they were not to know that he was being blackmailed. Unfortunately their snooping meant that the thieves were ready for them.
A long drawn out battle against the thieves guild ensued that night, culminating with the death of Valantas and Mantious at the hands of Galen Crimsoncloak, a thief that could turn invisible. They were avenged though, as Forge, Amroth and Wulf were able to kill the unseen guildmaster through teamwork. Valantas was later revived but Mantious could not be because...wait for it.....THE HORROR KNOWN AS BLACK LOCUST BURST FROM HIS CORPSE WHEN THE GROUP WAS NOT LOOKING! Yes the characters were distracted by the cries of help from the warehouse owner and his kidnapped son, leaving Mantious' body unattended. For any GM who has ever slipped up by revealing some secret, take comfort in the fact that I told the players that the Horror was inside Simon's character Mantious only a half an hour earlier and still they forgot about it and missed the opportunity to kill it once and for all. As the movie title goes "sometimes they come back", when exactly will Black Locust return, will remain my secret for now.
At this point the party returned to the city guard barracks to speak with Captain Lucian. They were told he was not there but they did encounter some help in the form of a Windling, one Reiver Hastings, Wizard and Simon's new character. Returning to the warehouse they entered the sewer via a locked trapdoor.
Eventually they entered a natural cavern with walls covered by a mucous like residue. In one chamber they discovered their friend, Johanna Greymantle in the midst of a horrible transformation into an insect-like being. Wulf kindly put her out of her misery. I would like to mention that at this stage only Simon (who has played ED longer than the others) knew what the group was up against and he was starting to get worried.
The battle against the Invae was a nail biting one with only Wulf and Reiver remaining unparalysed at the end. They found a letter addressed to Mantious from his mentor Debreus but no sign of the Swordmaster. The letter suggests that they seek out one Aardelea, who can reveal more about the Invaes dark agenda. Anyone who has played a certain ED module will recognize the name Aardelea, yes it is the same person.
It will be about a month before I do another major update to the site so for those of you who have visited, thank you and see you in the future.
The Gamemaster - 10/07/00