TFE #6: There is no place like home

The 6th session of the warming up of the expedition got to be a hot story. 

Some background leading up to this sessions start:

First of all are the PCs all new to the lands. They have all travelled for one reason or another up to the north part of westforge (in the local tounge "Västhärd") and come to the village of Teirums Ro.

One of the characters, Mortissa Nibeling, a young blackling necromancer, had by her father gained the owners slip to the house called, "Rosbacka", or "Rosenhill Vineyard". It is in this house all the characters can gather and start to feel at home.

In their first adventure (#2-4 I think) they met this gathering called something like, "the cult of Sirtissa", that had kidnapped some locals and transported them up to this place in the north called the "theatre of eternal night".  The cult was lead by Boldazar who were some nobleman in the area.

He had recruited both the foreman of the local sawmill and Gabor, the captain of the village guard, and these two were the liutenants in the cult whom otherwise consisted of local peasants.

Teirums Ro

If it weren't for the small fingers of the thief Raksen, in the group they hadn't found evidence so fast. The guards captain Gabor, a very warm and friendly man in nature, came up to the vineyard, who is located up on the hill looking out over Teirums Ro, and he spoke to them about the newly kidnapped daughter of some harbourmaster. Raksen looked into the bag of the captain and stole a silver mask.

Needless to say that the local cult wore these silver masks, and Boldazar had the most exclusive one, an artifact of great corruption.

The Cults hangout were some hours to the north under an old burnt out mansion.

The cult of Sirtissa secret temple

In the end Boldazar escaped with the kidnapped daughter with the boat on the underground river. They made themselves an enemy and nemesis who will haunt them another day.

How did "There is no place like home" play out?

The session starts with the following lines,

"You wake up! There is something not quite right, drowsily you watch around the dark room, and you sit up on the edge of your bed. Then you suddenly feel that faint smell of smoke, feet walking across the floor, and hear the crackling sound of flames that grabs the wood! Are you under attack? Is Rosbacka on fire? You rush out of bed ... "

All the characters are located in Diffrent rooms in Rosbacka (Rosenhill Vineyard). There is bandits placed at diffrent locations around the house, most likely in corridors. They think that the characters are "magically" asleep and will be surprised to see them awake when they run into eachother.

Rosbacka, 1st floor

Rosbacka, 2nd floor

The first thing to explain is that they have only six seconds (or whatever your combat round is, usually 6-10 seconds) to describe what their characters will do.

I told them the only things they needed to know for now, you can move 6 squares, it will cost you half your movement if you stay to pick something up, it will cost all of your movement if you pick several things up and your movement ens at doors and windows.

As soon as they see a fire, I explained the rules of fire. first their is the players turn, then the enemy has their turn and after this their is a fire turn and then last a smoke inhalation damage turn.

A fire in a square had a number from 1 and up. 1 meaning that it was very weak and easily extiguishable and each strength after tgat made it harder and more dangerous.

If player X saw a fire I let that player roll the dice for that fire in the fire turn.

Fire 1d6 (+ 1 if the fire has reached a strength of 4 ) .

1. loose  -1 str
2. nothing happen
3. Spread in one direction (1t8, 1. SW, 2. W, 3, NW, 4. N, 5. NE, 6. E, 7. SE, 8. S.) If a fire spread to a square allready on fire the str is raised by +1
4. burns stronger with  +1 str + spreads in one direction as on 3.
5. +1 str and spread 1 direction (see 3)
6. Lesser explosion, spread in two directions, see 3, and roll two times.
7. Greater explosion, spread in all directions.
8. Fire tongue. fire jumps in one direction (3) but 3 squares away.

I had rules for navigating through fire, smoke inhalation, and stuck in the fire but never got to use any of these in my session. My players had to much respect for fire after seeing one henchman in an earlier session burn to death after a small jump. This fire were a bit more harmless tho but maybe I failed to explain that? We had fun anyways in the end.

One character died this night. RIP Raksen, the most greedy badger one could find in the kingdom, but he was polite and helpfull.

All in all, the players were shaken and stirred, and NOW they are on their way to UNDER for the first time. This campaign has the name "Under: The first expedition" so now it will finnaly make use of its name in a correct sense! ;)