Another writeup of the MK RPG short campaign of The Watch. As before, the PCs are Liasa, Maega, Ruvac, and Teka.

Another writeup of the MK RPG short campaign of The Watch. As before, the PCs are Liasa, Maega, Ruvac, and Teka.

A point on logistics. We play 8pm-11pm. We had a small loose end to tie up with Reidi, the Warden who was a bit too enthusiastic when enforcing discipline. I thought we’d get that resolved in about half an hour, then move on to the next mission I had prepared.

We started the mission at 10:45.

What were we doing in the meantime?

We opened where we left off last time, with all the PCs congregating on Reidi’s tent. They entered to see Reidi putting on some make-up. There was a bit of confusion, then Ealle got angry and shoved Reidi. Reidi fell over, clutching her face and screaming blue murder after a pause. When she got up, Reidi was bleeding a bit from her mouth.

Liasa stepped forward and used some oration to calm everyone down. It almost worked, but Ealle ended up taking a swing at Ruvac. Reidi drew a dagger and lunged at Ruvac & Ealle. Liasa disarmed Reidi while Teka’s Shadow-sensitive sword started humming. Teka, of course, announced Reidi’s Shadow-taint to everyone in earshot.

The PCs stepped out of the tent to discuss what to do. Reidi took her chance to sneak out the other end of the tent and into the company Commander’s tent, where she was holding the two Shadow prisoners: Otet, captured by the PCs, and a Shadow priestess. By the time the PCs worked out what was happening (the screams from the Commander’s tent gave it away a bit), Reidi had killed a couple of guards and was most of the way to freeing the priestess. The PCs tumbled down the slope which had appeared. In the stuggle, Otet managed to free himself only to be subdued by Liasa, Ruvac pinned the priestess’s head to the floor with her sword, and Teka subdued Reidi. In the aftermath, Meaga tried to talk Reidi out of her allegiance to the Shadow but to little effect.

Liasa urged Ruvac to execute Reidi (successful Provoke). Ruvac refused, saying she’d turned over a new leaf and wasn’t going to be that vicious any more. Liasa part-resisted the Shadow but insulted Ruvac anyway; Ruvac wholly resisted the Shadow but acted on the impulses anyway and did Terrible Harm to Liasa’s arm, moving her to Critical.

Teka had a rant at everyone, Maega calmed her down, then Maega patched up Liasa’s wounds (Maega had picked up the Spider’s Mender move).

Ruvac then asked Maega for some of her religious herbs as she wanted to be put in a trance to keep herself out of trouble.

A bit later, Ruvac visited Liasa in the infirmary, apologised, and was completely rebuffed.

(At some point in the process, Maega’s player handed me the note “GM takes 3 Weary from the players”. How apt!)

Ruvac asked Teka and Maega for advice on what to do with Reidi. Maega suggested assigning Reidi to menial tasks, such a spud-bashing and latrine maintenance, in the hope Reidi saw the error of her ways.

Eventually we moved on to the mission!

The Watch was planning an assault on the Shadow town around the Dothas clan stronghold (the tower near the top of the map). The PCs were charged to enter the town, make contact with the resistance there, co-ordinate a civilian uprising with the Watch’s main attack, and get out with the details. I thought that would be two Missions: one to get in, one to get out, with some interaction with the resistance in between.

The PCs thought about using the Dothas clan’s secret routes, but decided they were probably known to the Shadow via Dothas converts or collaborators.

During the infiltration, Maega suffered a deeply personal loss and Ruvac became separated from the others and appears lost (Ruvac’s player chose this himself).

What this means for the mission and the contact with the resistance, we’ll find out next week!