Fomor: Session One Writeup (Part 1)

We had our first session of the campaign in Fomor on Saturday. Most of the session was introductory, since every player is new to the game. One of them has never played an RPG, and the other two have played D&D once with me a couple years ago. This session was railroaded pretty heavily, but the players actually went along with the plot pretty readily. Future sessions will be much more open. Things in italics are going to be my personal commentary on the session to give insight into what was happening "behind the scenes," as it were. This is fairly lengthy for four hours of gameplay, so it's being split between two posts.


The session begins with Selma Winchester approaching Bicka alone. She is short for a human and wears leather armor. She also has massive white wings on her back, though they are mostly kept folded up since she is unable to fly with them. Her rifle is strapped to her back between the wings. All in all, she strikes a very odd figure, since nobody in this part of the world has ever seen someone like her.
Selma walks towards Bicka and sees a rider come along the road from behind her and his horse collapses right as he gets to her. The rider is a human named Garath. He is somewhat tall and only wears plain clothes with the exception of a ring on one hand. The two of them meet and, after some very handwaved roleplaying, decide that they both have errands to run in Bicka and they should stick together. Garath mentions that he has a letter to deliver to the lord of Bicka, while Selma remains secretive about her errand. The two of them walk through Bicka and are quickly accosted by an apple merchant. 

This was really the only thing that I'd planned with one of the players. We all play Guild Wars 2, and Kheldar played the music that Tybalt has going when you first meet him as an apple merchant. We spent a solid minute just laughing because everyone recognized what was happening.

The merchant introduces himself as Kheldar, the half-elf.  He throws an apple at Garath to get his attention and misses. The party notices that he threw the apple as though it were a shuriken, and then deduces that he must be a ninja. Garath is insulted by the apple-throwing and casts Sleep. The only one to fall asleep was, of course, Garath himself. Kheldar and Selma stand awkwardly until Garath wakes and push themselves out of the gathering crowd. Kheldar laments that the apple business has been slow, since a mysterious merchant just rolled through town and sells all sorts of fruit other than apples. They see these fruit everywhere, and nobody will take an apple from Kheldar. Not even for free. He does take two sacks of apples with him while they walk to the capitol building.
The party reaches the entrance to the capitol around dusk. Garath presents his letter to the guard and is informed that post office hours are only from noon to one, and he must come back tomorrow. Wartime budget cuts have reduced the importance of the post office in Bicka. Garath notices that his letter is one sheet of parchment, sealed with the fanciest wax seal he has ever seen in his life. It has a strange symbol.
The party stays in an inn, where they find a notice proclaiming a 3000 gold reward for anyone who can clear the troglodytes out of Ghet. The party takes the notice so that nobody else can steal the job. They all have vivid dreams that night.

Each of them had a different dream, and none of them were supposed to make sense right now. I gave them each their dream in secret on a half-section of an index card. Here was the basic gist:

Garath: He dreamt of a snake turning into an ant eater. He tasted copper in his mouth when he woke.

Selma: She felt lost and confused. She saw the same strange symbol that was on the wax seal.

Kheldar: I completely forget what his was about, and I threw away the cards after the session. Oops. But he tasted bile in his mouth when he woke. 

Garath revealed his dream to the party the next morning, and Kheldar lied about his. Selma was quiet on the issue. At breakfast, Selma also saw that both Garath and Kheldar have matching rings. The two of them were busy staring at a wall since neither of them put any points into Perception. She also noticed three thugs standing near the entrance to the inn, each wearing one black glove on their left hands and staring at Garath. She tells the party about the thugs but not about the rings.

I wrote this down on another card and handed it to Selma so the party wouldn't see. She chose to keep the rings secret. The other players have all read each other's backstories, but Kheldar and Garath don't realize that they both have the same rings.

Garath looks at the thugs and recognizes that they are members of the Black Hand, the gang of bandits that are out to kill him. He excuses himself from the table and tries to talk with them. Mid-sentence, one of the thugs stabs him since they don't like talking.
The first combat begins! Garath stumbles backwards and fires an Acid Spray, but only succeeds in damaging the wall behind the thugs. Kheldar, still sitting at the table since he didn't notice the thugs, fires his crossbow and decapitates one of the bandits, nailing his head to the door behind him. Selma fires her rifle and brings a second bandit within an inch of his life. The third bandit, seeing the carnage, immediately turns tail and runs. Each member of the party tries to cripple his leg, but each one of them misses and he escapes. The bandit that is still alive is in shock and surrenders, unable even to speak or move.

This encounter did not use a grid or any tiles. It was purely narrative. This session included one fight with a grid, this fight that had nothing, and the dungeon was a gridless dungeon set that I made myself. I wanted to know what the players preferred, so I included a little bit of everything.

The town guard quickly arrives, and the party makes a series of diplomacy and bluff checks. They convince the guard that the injured man is a member of their party, undercover with the Black Hand. He was accidentally caught in the crossfire. They tell the guards that there is still a live member of the Black Hand somewhere in the city. They take their "party member" upstairs and Selma ties him up for interrogation.
At this point, the party realizes that they don't actually have any questions for the guy. He has one hit point left, and Garath decides to "send a message" to the Black Hand by cutting off his hand, killing him. Kheldar takes the glove. Neither Kheldar nor Selma knows what the Black Hand is, nor why they're after Garath. He doesn't tell them anything. Garath keeps the severed hand in his inventory. They dispose of the body by stuffing it in an apple sack and labeling it clearly with the word "APPLES" so that nobody would even want to open it. 
By the time this has all been taken care of, it is 1:30, meaning the post office has closed again. Garath looks at the other loot he got off the thug and sees a parchment with his face on it. He assumes this is the bounty notice. He also sees the same weird symbol that is on his letter and that Selma saw in her dream. Selma recognizes it but doesn't say anything. On the back of the parchment, Garath sees the name of his home town, the place that he worked as a messenger, Bicka, and a few other cities. His home town and Cherek have both been crossed off, and Bicka has a check mark by it. He assumes that the Black Hand is checking all these other cities for where he is.
Since the post office is closed, the party tries to break in. Kheldar fails his Stealth vs Perception check and is seen by every guard around. He tries jumping on the rooftops and falls. The party decides that they don't want to continue with that endeavor. Instead, they try to forge a wax sealer so they can open and reseal the letter. They don't have any fancy wax like the kind Garath's letter has, with flecks of gold in it, but they try to improvise. They try to fuel a forge using apples and it doesn't work.
Selma goes off to take care of her errand while Garath is trying to forge a wax seal with apples. Kheldar sees her walk off and follows her at a distance. She talks to several people, trying to get a map of nearby mountains, since she wants to find her father and guardian angel. She gets a very crudely drawn map and walks off. Kheldar tries to get the same NPC to tell him what he gave Selma, but he takes a bribe and only loosely describes what Selma wanted.

Selma wrote down what she was looking for, and I kept it secret. She has a rough copy of the map but didn't tell anyone about it. Kheldar rolled poorly on his Stealth check and couldn't see what was going on exactly.

Garath is suspicious of the letter he's holding and suggests that the party take care of the troglodytes. They've been told to check with Captain Ahmose Hayward, who fills them in on the reward, and the place they're going, a small village called Ghet. The party sets out immediately.
Halfway to Ghet, the party encounters a group of kobolds demanding a toll. Selma, again being the only one to pass her Perception check, is not surprised and fires her rifle at them before they pop out of hiding. She not only misses, but her rifle misfires and breaks. The kobolds are intimidated by the loud noise, and the party makes quick work of them. Garath attempts to slap one of the kobolds with the severed hand, but misses his throw and it lands in the dirt. He spends some time cleaning it. Kheldar and Garath search the area for loot while Selma fixes her rifle. They find a small stash of gold and split it somewhat evenly, with Selma receiving the short end of the stick.

This fight was using a grid. Unfortunately, I've already sent all my D&D miniatures and grids up to New York for college. We made do with graph paper and some old Heroclix figures instead.

The party makes their way to Ghet, which is described as being a small village that is completely irrelevant except to "Ghet" them started. They stay in a garbage inn, with Selma getting very weird stares. They rent all five rooms from the inn and then sublet the other rooms they're not using. 
In the morning, they get some more details on where to find the troglodytes and what to expect. Kheldar searches the inn for money, and rolls a natural 1 on his Perception check. He is convinced that the wall is filled with gold and punches it. He hurts his hand.