The first session of my Fantasy Craft game kicked off today. It’s been a couple of years since I was last “behind the screen” so to speak, so I’ve been a bit nervous as to how it would all go.
I grabbed a copy of the Pathfinder game “Rise of the Runelords” and got the group to roll up some characters. The adventure is originally for DnD 3.5, so converting to Fantasy Craft has been a challenge in itself.
I’ve got four players in total;
- Charlie: The usual GM, very much a naratavist player. His character is a massive tribal native warrior with a lobe of killing and eating his own food with his trusty spears, doesn’t quite get this whole civilisation thing though.
- Shaun: Our very casual gamer. In it for a laugh really, as is his character. He’s playing an elf that had been a slave/servant to a group of bandits/travellers. Since he left their employ he’s been travelling around the country. He’s currently doing his festival circuit, which has brought him to Sandpoint for the Swallowtail festival.
- Lee: Lee is still a bit of a wildcats for the group, mostly a tactical player, but he’s been trying a bit more interaction with the game and story. His character is a wandering martial artist, falsely accused of cheating, he was thrown out of his monastery by his master.
- Alex: Usually the Rules Lawyer, with a tendency to muchkin. This game he’s playing a naive new town guard wanting to do his best for the town.
The game started to the tune of “Stand and Deliver” by “Adam and the Ants”, just for the tribal drumming and chanting. We opened on Alex waking up to find his mother fussing round him getting the house ready for guests coming or the festival, it was his off day, but he grabbed some cooling buns his mother had just baked, donned his armour and headed out into the town.
The town was a buzz with activity. Bunting was strung from building to building and stages were being set up around the town.
Enter Lee, pack on his shoulder heading into town for the first time. He’d heard the festival was starting, and it would be a good opportunity to get a bit of money in his pocket by performing feats of acrobatics. He set up in town centre by the stage for the Sandpoint Theatre and began balancing on stacks of boxes.
As the festival began to get into swing, Shaun entered town wearing his outlandish festival hat and outfit. Wandering round the town centre from stall to stall watching performances. Lee, balancing bottles on audience members and kicking them off, picks Shaun out of the audience to assist ad the pair begin to talk.
Charlie’s tribe pretty much up and left without him, he’s headed into town to look for a little adventure and find out what these large permanent tent like things are. It’s whilst wandering round that Alex runs full pelt into the burly man. An argument begins, as the church bells ring out to call the people to the town centre for the beginning of the festival.
The swallowtail butterflies are released, clouds of colourful butterflies dart into the sky. The “party” head round the festival and check out the free samples of food, mainly trying the food of Ameiku Kaijutsu, the owner of the Rusty Dragon.
At sun down, the bells chime to call the people to the cathedral and Father Zantus cracks a thunderstone to begin the ceremony. Then the Goblins attack, a scream rings out from the crowd, a dog is killed, horrid singing and chanting is heard and pandemonium descends.
First combat is a simple affair with four goblins running, jumping and mainly dieing.
Just as the party recovers, the next fight begins, same as the last, but now the goblins have fire and there is a war chanter included for morale.
Father Zantus heads to the group after this and offers healing. A scream is heard from round the corner, and the party get there to see a goblin commando, riding a goblin-dog facing off against a hunting dog.
The hunting dog survived and became the animal companion to the elf druid, and a noble hiding by a barrel takes a shine to Lee’s character and invites the party to join him hunting soon.
