Here’s the play report for our fourth session of Mythic Bastionland, after a few weeks we had unavoidably to take off gaming. If you’re just joining us, I’d recommend starting at the first session and reading forward from there.
We begin the morning after the cloud raiders attacked the pilgrims, when the Knights shared camp with those religious folk after agreeing to accompany them to Caerwyn Town.
As they were preparing to set out, the Knights noticed a group of peasants approaching, carrying axes but not looking particularly threatening. Sir Yorick Childermass…
… approached the group to talk to them, and discovered that they were a militia of peasants who had been sent by Tresera (“the Pearl Knight”) from Caerwyn Town to go chop down the tree. The leader, Melca, seemed out of his depth, not being a Knight despite having been loaned some armor by Tresera, and he quickly asked Sir Yorick to take over leadership of the militia. Sir Yorick, after asking some questions about the logistics of chopping down a sky-tall tree, agreed to become the group’s leader, and then promptly ordered the group to turn around and join him, the other Knights, and the pilgrims on the trip to Caerwyn Town. Puzzled—as that’s where the militia had just marched from—the militiafolk agreed. Sir Yorick then ordered everyone to help tear down the camp and get the group going, which the militiafolk did.
Meanwhile, Ser Lyssa Ashenfeld…
…chatted with Eloesa…
… who stated that she would have preferred for Lyssa to go talk to the militia and for Sir Yorick to stay near her. Ser Lyssa took this to be a compliment of her battle prowess, given that Eloesa had seen Ser Lyssa slaughter several Cloud Raiders, whilst Sir Yorick had slain none. Off in the background, Yerk (the foppish pilgrim who is clearly in unrequited love with Eloesa)…
… was scowling at the way Eloesa talked about Sir Yorick as he loaded Century Blooms back into the wagon, but [due to a failed roll] Ser Lyssa was too preoccupied to notice. Meanwhile, Sir Augustine…
… continued to be disdainful toward the pilgrims, and watched Sir Yorick’s talk with the group. When he saw the militia raise their axes and cry out “Sir Yorick” he realized that yet another group of people had passed into the care of the Knights, and rolled his eyes in disgust.
However, as soon as Sir Yorick introduced Melca to Eloesa, talking up each to the other, he noticed Yerk’s resentful scowls. As the group began to ride southeast toward Caerwyn town, they passed through what appeared to be abandoned farmland, and Sir Yorick took the opportunity to ask Melca some questions.
He learned the following things:
- Tresera, the Pearl Knight, is the leader at Caerwyn Keep, the keep linked to Caerwyn Town. She’s apparently a capable fighter, though Melca had only seen her swing a sword around a few times, most recently when some Cloud Raiders attacked the town.
- Tresera has at least three advisors:
- Ragge: A “scout” who is a trusted advisor of Tresera’s.
- Demelon: A local merchant who dislikes some group of people called “the Kerrens” and enjoys hunting in the hills around the Keep.
- Veralag: A hill scavenger and apparently a woman of rather flexible morals: mentioning her name, Melca visibly blushed. She wasn’t sent to lead the militia because she knows the hills well, but hasn’t ventured into the forest much.
- The Seat of Power, Blackwort Castle, lies to the northeast of their current location.
- The Merragon Forest is “cursed.”
- The Temple (?) of Mavrydd (the ruins the characters visited not long ago) is a strange and dangerous place where fey folk are said to congregate on occasion. When Childermass mentions having been there and not seen any such things, Melca is surprised, and a bit impressed but also shocked that they dared trespass there.
- Century Blooms are a recent craze from some foreign southern realm. They’re rare, beautiful, and coveted, and they need water once each fortnight at the least.
At one point, after a few hours of travel, Melca pointed out what looked like a tall white tower (though not as tall as the mysterious Tree). It stood some distance away in the southeast, and Melca referred to it as “The Bridge.” This puzzled the Knights, but before they could talk more about it, they heard an enormous cracking sound above. Looking up, they saw a few large branches plummeting from the sky. The branches smashed into the ground not far from the group, and then two strange Cloud Creatures, apparently having clung to the branches as they fell, took to the air. The creatures resembled horse-sized cloud-formed squid-like things, and they undulated around, their tentacles trembling as they circled in a state of agitation.
The militia was terrified, having seen nothing like this before. The pilgrims, too, were shocked, and—with the notable exception of Yerk—began to pray together for protection. Gazing at the creatures, Augustine suddenly remembered mention in the book he’d recently read—the Booke of Mavrydd—of a Cloud Kingdom, mentioned somewhere in a litany of different lands described in passing. It did not seem particularly antagonistic to the land-dwelling kingdom, but not much was said about it in the text.
Acting quickly, Sir Yorick ordered Melca to lead the militia and the pilgrims to Caerwyn Town, giving the creatures a wide berth, and then he and the other Knights approached the creatures. Sir Yorick attempted to communicate with one, but when that failed and it approached, apparently about to attack him, he banged his dagger against his buckler with a yell, repelling the creature away from him.
Meanwhile, Ser Lyssa charged another, cutting into it with her sword while her horse bucked, smashing its hooves into the thing. Sir Augustine approached and slew the creature with a single vicious strike of his mace, and the creature spewed a great gout of steam, slowly rising into the air as the dead Cloud Raiders’ corpses did.
When the creature near Sir Yorick saw this, it rushed toward the corpse, grasping at it with its tentacles as if seeking a way to join it in its ascent into the sky. Sir Yorick got this sense, at least, and he provoked the creature into following him, as he took off toward the northwest, hoping to lead the creature to the Tree, so that perhaps it could use the tree to return to its cloudy home.
However, just as the characters approached the southern edge of Merragon Wood, an enormous crack resounded in the distance. The Tree was visible on the horizon,and the Knights saw it leaning sideways, then witnessed it topple over as a welter of branches rained down from above and a deafening cacophony of destruction filled the air. Sirs Augustine and Yorick were struck by falling branches, as were their horses, but Ser Lyssa had the presence of mind (and luck) necessary to avoid being struck. As they recovered from the impact, the group looked out upon a ruined landscape littered with snapped and broken trees, land scarred with enormous shorn branches, and the bodies of Cloud Creatures and Cloud Raiders ascending, spewing steam—apparently dead from the impact.
The Cloud Creature with the group survived the cataclysm, and took off into the woods. Curious about its nature, and concerned that perhaps it held dangerous secrets, Sir Yorick convinced the others to travel with him to the remnants of The Tree to investigate it.
Comments: I’m making a separate post for comments along the way, which I’ll publish once this campaign is done, but this deserves a note right on this post:
I did not expect that to happen! I mean, I knew the progression of the Omens for The Tree, but once the group set out for Caerwyn Town, I did not expect them to go back into the Myth Hex and trigger the last Omen for The Tree in the same session. (Then militia was Omen 4, the Cloud Creatures were Omen 5, and the Tree falling over was Omen 6.) I suppose could have put off the tree falling over until night, but the characters would have had to travel till sundown to successfully reach it, and I figured the falling tree would be more interesting if it was seen from a distance than if the characters were closer up, and it might be even more anticlimatic for them reach the tree just in time for it to fall over. Otherwise, this payed out strictly according to the guidelines for travel, but I have to admit I’m not completely satisified with the structure that emerged.
In future, though, I think I’m going to be a little more proactive in fudging the timing, erring on the side of giving characters longer to investigate Myths, especially since they can’t always know when they’re on a Myth Hex. (They told me that they were a little confused about whether the Temple of Mavrydd was a Myth Hex, when in fact it was a Ruin Hex. I’m considering just making the distinction explicit, but I’ll talk it over with the group and see how they feel about it.)
It was quite shocking and a little weird, but hey, we’re rolling with it. Now I need to plan out what they Knights will encounter and discover when they reach the remnants of The Tree.
Here’s a look at the map as it stands now. The area within the blue border is the region devastated by the fall of The Tree:
They noted that the “Temple” of Mavrydd is within the disaster zone, though whether it was completely destroyed is anyone’s guess… I have some ideas about that, and about The Tree, but I’ll be spending some time this week working out the details.