Our Mythic Bastionland, Session 12

Here’s the play report for our twelfth session of Mythic Bastionland, which we played on Sunday night. If you’re just joining us, I’d recommend starting at the first session and reading forward from there. It’s all organized in a series, so it should be easy to find the posts that follow the first.   

Today’s post was aided by some session notes, so hopefully I won’t miss anything important. 

Between sessions, my players had a few more questions for the Crimson Seer’s manservant, and there was some confusion about certain things, so I provided the players with a rough map according to what the manservant told them. The distances are not to scale, just relative in terms of what was closer or further from the Crimson Seer’s Castle, and as well, all of this is according strictly to the manservant, whose information might be out of date. (He is clearly out of date when it comes to the CURSED FOREST, which mostly is just plain gone after the fall of the Tree… but anyway, this is a rough schematic map of much of what he described to them. It’s updated, because my handwriting on the original was… illegible!)

(I forgot to label the river that runs north into St. Hellane’s Bog and Winter Lake. It’s the Ibyn River.)  

At the beginning of Session 12, the Knights were about to leave the Crimson Seer’s Castle, and were discussing where to go. They’d only been on the road five days out of the month they’d had Enkel promise to wait before planting the acorns in anticipation of his “dignified life.” There was some banter about the late Ser Lyssa’s:

… possibly having been romantically interested in Enkel the giant:

… but most of the discussion focused on what to do next. The Knights considered hurrying to the Seat of Power—since the Crimson Seer had said that they should go there “while Borran Gladsmere still lives.” (They had no hint of whether that means she’ll die next week, next month, or next year.) Their other option was to go to Mavrydd’s Temple and check on Enkel, give him an update on the situation, and reassure him—essentially, to make sure he was keeping his promise to wait before planting his giant-tree acorns. 

The characters decided for the present to leave St. Hellane’s Bog to avoid the horrors of the various frogs therein, so they went south and then prepared to ford the unnamed river running north into the bog and head west. As they began to ford it, Sir Augustine:

… turned and looked back just in time to see thick black smoke on the eastern horizon, accompanied by a deep rumbling. Sir Yorick:

… rode eastward until he reached a nearby rise, which he rode up to see if he could see more, but all he saw was the same smoke, although he heard a single, distant shriek of pain before the rumbling abruptly died down. Baffled, the characters decided against investigating—they had enough irons in the fire, I suppose—so they continued westward into a lightly forested area where a surprising amount of wildflowers grew. 

As evening began to fall, they found a particularly beautiful clearing. They decided it would be a good spot to lay Ser Lyssa to rest. Therefore they lay both halves of her body out, with her armor—but not with her sword, which had been given to the squire Davith:

The spoke words over her remains, laid flowers upon her, and then, according to the customs of her land, left her body exposed to the elements for a “sky burial,” knowing it would be devoured by animals in the wood. As they rose away, Davith was even quieter and more morose than before, as if realizing for the first time something that all the Knights of the group knew: that the line of a knight is not just rollicking adventure, but also fraught with danger.  

R.I.P. Ser Lyssa. 

About a mile away, they found a spot to set up camp for the night. Sir Yorick took it upon himself to school Davith further in the care of horses. Sir Augustine took on the work of setting up the camp, chatting with Ser Tyack:

… mostly in an attempt to discern where the strange little granny knight would be staying with the group or heading off alone. Later, as the group sat around their campfire eating and resting, Sir Yorick asked Ser Tyack about her life history. She explained that she had, since childhood, had the ability to create a cocoon and transform her shape, but that in adulthood, she had encountered the Skin Seer, a horrifying being made of a patchwork of faces and body parts from fallen Seers. The Skin Seer Knighted her, and she has been wandering since in search of Myths and adventure. She noted that she has been wandering the Realm for a long time, and hinted that she might have met the other Knights in some other body, noting that her itinerant lifestyle was easier when she had a more pretty appearance, and harder when she looked as she currently did. 

The night passed without incident. 

In the morning, Augustine (who was on last watch) roused Davith early for swordplay practice, when they heard a voice singing a traveling song not too far off in the woods. When they walked over to investigate, they found a family walking together, the father singing while his wife and two children followed behind him. Sir Augustine hailed them, and they began to talk. 

The man introduced himself as Viggar, and his wife as Kalina. (He did not give his children’s names.) He explained that they were traveling to Agal’s Orchards, on account of the terrible business at Caerwyn Town. What terrible business? Devastatingly terrible business, the man told them: Tresera The Pearl Knight was dead!

Sir Augustine invited the family to join the Knights for breakfast, and they heard more of the tale. The Pearl Knight had gone off to see the Painted Seer, and was expected back, but instead, a strange knight nobody had ever seen before, the Canker Knight, had ridden into town on a massive horse carrying her head, having apparently slaughtered her. As for Garmelia, the Canker Knight had publicly battled her, beaten her horribly, and the last they heard, she was imprisoned in the dungeon beneath Caerwyn Keep.  Apparently in his battle against Garmelia, he had spat something from his mouth that blinded her (temporarily or permanently, they could not say), which was how he won the battle. He declared that a great tax would be collected from the town—a tax nobody could really afford to pay. 

The Knights reflected on these events. They’d heard stories before of Knights going bad, and that they were generally within their rights to put him down, though whether they should do so as a group or individually—what their knightly code of conduct permitted—was not so clear to them. However, the man was clearly a threat to the Realm’s stability, and so it behooved to do something about it.   

After filling in Viggar and Kalina on the news and information about the lands between them and Agald’s Orchard—everything that the Crimson Seer’s manservant had told them—they parted, with the Knights heading for the Gardens of St. Bristofast. Speaking with the abbot there, they learned that the Gardens had so far only received a few refugees from Caerwyn Town. Sir Yorick was concerned about how to heal Garmelia’s blindness, if it proved permanent, and the abbot told him of the healing mud baths that are available in Bogtown, which reputedly have caused miraculous recoveries in many people. The abbot also mentioned having heard that Garmelia had been killed, and expressed relief hearing that she was merely imprisoned. All of those who’d come from Caerwyn Town agreed that the Canker Knight was a problem, a bad individual, and the abbot wished the Knights well in their quest to confront the man and right his many wrongs. On the way out, Childermasse had the Crimson Seer’s prophecy on his mind, for he asked the abbot to watch out for a young knight who might someday come, bearing Sir Yorick’s likeness, and that he should tell that knight of the great bravery of his or her father, Sir Yorick Childermasse. 

The Knights spent the day riding toward Caerwyn Town, getting close to town by evening. They decided that Ser Tyack should go ahead of them and scout the town, since at least in her current form she both hadn’t been seen around before—and thus wasn’t the subject of a mocking tune now probably well-known in the town—but also because she did not really look the part of a threat, or at least she could pass herself off as nothing more than an elderly grandmother. Meanwhile, Sirs Yorick and Augustine would await her return at a farm not far from Caerwyn Keep. 

Ser Tyack bluffed her way into Caerwyn Keep, explaining that she needed to get to Caerwyn Town. (She was allowed in, though the guard made clear that Knights were either unwelcome or ought not to come in.) She found the situation tense, with senior guardsmen yelling and referring to “The Master” (presumably the Canker Knight) as well as brutishly beating their underlings. Tyack asked a lower-ranking guardsman how she could get to see the Canker Knight, but was told that he had no interest in having audience with the likes of an old woman like her. She then asked about the Iron Knight’s status, and was led to the bridgeside gate of the keep, where she was shown Garmelia’s head on a pike, brutally displayed among a few heads on pikes up in the dark.  

Ser Tyack set about gathering information from the people, and learned specifically that the Canker Knight had been accompanied by another knight when he first came to Caerwyn Town, but that he had slain that companion at some point after placing Garmelia’s head on the pike. Additionally, no more knights had come to town yet since the incident, but some of the townsfolk were hopeful that some brave knight or knights would come soon to challenge the Canker Knight. 

Back at the farmhouse, the farmer explained that his cottage was too small for guests, but that the Knights would be welcome to sleep in his little sod-walled barn, if they were willing to share it with the knight who was already there. They entered to find a male knight seated at a fire, roasting a rabbit. The man wore chainmail armour and had daggers and a sword at his belt; nearby lay a kite shield and nasal helm. The man’s face and armour were spattered in blood that the man for some reason had not bothered to wash off himself. The Knight rose, introducing himself as Garmin, The Scab Knight:

He took Sir Yorick’s hand, shaking it in a way that essentially amounted to a test of Sir Yorick’s masculinity. Sir Yorick wisely capitulated to this pointless test.  The Scab Knight explained that he was a Knight of the Realm and that he was headed for Caerwyn Town in the morning to challenge the Canker Knight, whom he described as a “foul and cruel fellow who should not have assaulted a fellow knight.” He considered the murder of Garmelia and Tresera crimes, and that his imposition of a terrible tax upon the town and his brutalization of the guardsmen there needed to be rectified. He himself, he insisted, would bring the head of the Canker Knight to Queen Borran Gladsmere at the Seat of Power. The Scab Knight offered to share his rabbit with the other Knights, but they declined, preferring to eat their rations instead of anything the “Scab Knight” had touched.

Meanwhile, back in Caerwyn Town, Ser Tyack set about rabble-rousing all she could, in the belief that giving people some hope of resistance might achieve something. With some, she discussed ways out of the town. With others, she proposed that if the town were the keep’s main supplier of food, then the keep would be starved if the town willed it. She advised them that one need not fight, but merely fail to comply with unjust rulers.1 Leaving the town, she insisted, was an option. Mockery, too, she encouraged, urging the woman who led the drinking songs at the tavern that the Canker Knight could be mocked in songs, a powerful form of resistance and a way of destabilizing the fear people felt toward him, as well as a means of spreading news abroad, which could indeed outlive the singer herself. The singer noted that songs do indeed get people killed, but Ser Tyack urged her to attribute the song to Ser Tyack herself, if that would make her safer. She even suggested a starting verse of a tune mocking and denigrating the Canker Knight. 

Finally, Ser Tyack left the keep, after being questioned by a different guard from the one she’d met before, regarding why she was leaving. The inquiries were made in a way that suggested there was pressure to prevent people fleeing the town. Tyack pleaded that she had to find her missing grandson, who might have left the town. The guard looked around to see if anyone was listening, and then quietly advised her not to come back if she knew what was good for her. She told him that, quite the opposite, she would be coming back with her grandson, and that the guards ought to be ready to choose sides when that happened. The baffled guard let her go out into the night, and a few minutes’ ride later, she was reunited with Sirs Augustine and Yorick at the barn, where she met the Scab Knight. She, too, declined the Scab Knight’s rabbit. 

The Knights spoke among themselves, and soon decided that they would be setting out in the morning for Caerwyn Town. They were not sure whether or how much they could trust the Scab Knight, and they were not so sure what kind of challenge the knight intended to issue to the Canker Knight, but they knew that they had to go to town and deal with the situation, regardless. 

And that’s where we ended.