Dramatis Personae

Previously . . .

The PCs arrive in Wolftrap via a skyship out of Tethyrin with a hundred or so other retainers of Duke Jarek ru Tellengeri to the dilapidated town of Wolftrap – the once prosperous settlement where all the resources of the Western Span’s Great Green flowed through to the East. The group is nearly a half a mile away the city which is right by the sea (more or less), and has several homes that are built into the cliffside as Abolethe (aka “the Span”)  doesn’t have much in the way of coves or beaches and getting to the sea requires climbing down.

During the second War of the Ashen more than three-quarters of the town burned down to practically nothing – including the many of the stone buildings Wolftrap was once famous for. Only a single section of the city toward the north remains with much of the old buildings that remained being pressed into service and the rest made of wood or even tents. The Duke has been sending new settlers to his new holdings in hopes that he can get the region prosperous again. It’s the job of his constables (the PCs) to make sure law and order are maintained and that the old locals and the newcomers eventually integrate with one another.

The trek from where we were let off isn’t arduous, just slow and steady. Jarrah, one of our allies, knows the area more or less, working as a surveyor and guide and a constable as well.

Arrival at Wolftrap

Listens-to-Ocean, Rhum, Trapper, and Unit 7
Various Locations
Firesday, Zhven 16th, 2,981 Fourth Reckoning, 7th hour of the Sun
Wolftrap, Western Span

The entire group gets to Wolf Trap after several hours where they get to see the devastation of the fire. Scorched stone and makeshift buildings and ruined aqueducts.

On the way into town, Rhum makes sketches so he can work from them later for cartography. Listens-to-Ocean makes some assumptions that Wolf Trap doesn’t currently have enough room to settle everyone in immediately. They head to the previous Sheriff station which is technically still there. There’s three and a half walls and a patchy roof, some holding cells, and some somewhat salvageable furniture. Listens organizes the group to get camp started. They’ve got some Woodsinger and Stonesingers.

The woodsinger is named Raito an Makkonen and is somewhat famous having worked with The Church of Light and others famous buildings. Rhum works with Raito and a few lumberjacks to get wood to make roofs. Unit 7 and Listens go around town investigating things.

Trapper investigates the sheriff station some more, noting that the metal forming the holding cells are songshaped metal and still in good working order and not rusted at all. The remaining furniture is also in decent shape being songshaped. He finds a trapdoor under an overturned table and breaks into the basement through the rusty lock into a musty area with a charred door. Behind it is a bunch of cots and a rotting body that’s been there for over a decade. There’s a boiler in the basement that matches a hole in the floor and has been vented and just needs repaired. Trapper notes that there’s a dead body in a cellar that had been locked from the outside and starts tapping the walls just to see if there’s any passages.

Listens and Unit 7 are at the inn and getting funny looks from the rather tall women running the inn. Listens tells them that they’re looking to take some of the space at the inn temporarily which is met with a suspicious glance and names an outrageous fee since there’s no other inn in town. Listens counters that they may have to make a new inn if needed and asks if the woman has been declaring all the proper taxes which summons the taxman, Altan who questions her. He also sets down a seal from the Duke and gets three keys for rooms. Listens hands out one to Altan and one to the chronicler, Aleshanee. Most of the rest of the group has set up a couple hundred feet from the former sheriff station on some stone foundations.

Listens goes around, making sure that the group is running fine. Starts evaluating people and searching out the town leaders. There’s no actual official mayor of the town, but the one they might be able to determine has the biggest pull is Kohana Kekkonen, a merchant of sorts. He’s more or less responsible for keeping supplies rolling in by himself, a genuine sort that tries to help his town. His store is one of the few stone buildings still around with very expensive arazotz-made glass. There’s multiple crates outside that are stacked up close to the side of the building and clearly marked with what they are and a young child wanders up to one of them and takes out a bag of rice as large as he is and waddles down the road like it’s what he’s supposed to be doing. Listens gathers who he can at the town center to alert people what is going on and how things will work and offers entertainment. Unit 7 asks a nearby butcher for meat scraps for his ferret.

Rhum keeps moving trees, cutting down the younger ones which annoys Raito since apparently Rhum doesn’t know what to cut down. Raito teaches Rhum via a crash course what trees need to be cut down. Rhum notices a rather large abundance of game animals in the general area, like deer and turkey and rabbits and other interesting animals and some rather large squirrels.

Trapper, in the basement, finds a small alcove in the basement that’s hidden by a wooden frame. A little cache that’s about the size of a broom closet. Satisfied there’s nothing anywhere else, he wraps the dead body onto a cot and drags it upstairs and locks it into a holding cell. The body’s head lulls to the side, staring at Trapper as he puts it into the holding cell. Trapper reassures it that he’ll get a bonecarver in and treat it with respect and the head moves back. If it wasn’t for the fact that Trapper had good night vision, he’d have claimed it was a trick of the light. He heads back downstairs into the basement and gets the boiler repaired and hooked back up eventually for a nice warm time.

Listens checks on people before getting back to the Sheriff’s station to find the dead body in a holding cell and that Raito has been getting joists replaced and getting the wood seasoned which’ll still take a few days. Raito gets Rhum to draw up some architectural plans and hands them over to Listens to ask if there’s any other additions to make as the rest of the group will be moving on within the week. The building itself has three rooms on the ground floor: one for the head constable, another for meeting room/armory, a room with the armory and jail cells at the back. Two more rooms in the basement for storage and the boiler. Listens gives his opinion to get a second floor on the top as well. Unit 7 also suggests some defensive designs to Raito. They’re told that it’ll take a few days, but he’ll pull the other crafters and engineers before everyone decides to pull out.

Aftermath

As the rest get set up for the night, Listens sets up camp on the first floor of the sheriff station. Rhum uses a stump to set up a minotaur sized stool with his axe. Trapper heads out and gathers a bunch of brushwood before almost falling into a pit. Looking inside, he finds prepared wood and stone. Climbing down into the pit, there’s a fairly large area that’s about 90ft by 30ft with steps off into the distance. There’s multiple crates with Imperial Seals on them denoting that he has encountered an Imperial Cache from the Second War of the Ashen. While the Empire might not have lots of influence, The Span is still technically Empire lands though contested. What’s in there could be weapons, it could be food, there’s lots of building supplies. Trapper exits the pit via the stairs and drags back the brush he got, alerts the others to the fact that there’s an imperial cache nearby and starts stoking the boiler getting the basement nice and toasty and the first floor ground being rather decent.

As Listens looks at the dead body in the holding cell, he gets the impression that they’re being observed, but more in a curious fashion and not in a “I’m going to swallow your soul” fashion.

After Action Report (GM)

Ahhh, that new campaign smell. This one has been a longtime coming. I started planning it in mid-April of 2023. Exactly 16 months from the first moment I made my intent known to my players. I didn’t plan it taking that long, but stuff popped up and I had to finish off the previous campaign (AEON) in a way that made sense and could be revisited later on when the Wheel turned again to it. (Endings are hard – don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.)

So…how did I feel about the first session of the new campaign? Honestly, I wish it would have lasted all night. I’ve been working on upping my GMing game and the players were fantastic. I really got everyone drawn in and time flew by real fast. We did stop at a good point and earlier than I would have liked, but it really just made sense. I introduced some of the NPCs of the town, left room for more, and set the scene. I really do need to create a list of names for the area since my usual tricks for fast NPC generation are more for modern games. I also need to revise the setting calendar a bit. Both of those will hopefully be done this week. Other than that, perfect first session really.

One thing I intend to do with this campaign is not rush it. I have time. I have inclination. I have players who are heavily invested. I have a boatload of material to work with that both I and they have wrote. The only thing that remotely worries me is I’m being rather ambitious: I have 3 bi-monthly games, 2 weekly games, and 1 play-by-post game. Yes. I am running six different groups with a total of 29 players. It’s ambitious. It’s crazy. It’s so me. I wonder if I can pull it off?

Other Notes

We only gamed for just over half the time allotted, but one of the players (Brice) had to head into work.

Bonus Report from Rory.

Soundtrack

“All Along the Watchtower (Instrumental Cover)” – The Forest Rangers feat. Gabe Witcher

Aersalus B-Team: Season 1, Session 2 – The Miller, The Tanner, and The Sailor