AllianceCon - Beware the Bears (and the Mad Hammer Man)

[lathany]

Friday
Despite a few navigational problems towards the end of the journey (possibly caused by Saltfleetby moving a couple of miles southeast), bateleur and I reached the Con venue first... to discover that the car behind us was chrestomancy. We had a look around and it seemed to be as promised, although bins were almost nonexistent¹. Table tennis and pool were played as the other guests arrived; the cars were (I think, in order²) Toby and ar_gemlad, quisalan (including ao_lai, leathellin and metame), jezzidue, triskellian and smiorgan, David and Cheryl, two_nukes and lanfykins. smiorgan cooked yummy dinner, which included him repeatedly explaining what polenta was, and various bottles of wine and mead were opened.

Saturday
Saturday morning³ included a leisurely breakfast before bateleur, quisalan and I departed for extremely-far-away-Tesco. Our shopping list included a printer cartridge for the GM printer and chrestomancy's foolishly vague request for the purchase of a towel (aka Tesco really do stock them in shocking pink). We got back to be fed yummy fry up by Toby and ar_gemlad.

Saturday afternoon saw the handing out of the character sheets and the start of the game⁴ with the grand ball hosted by Lord Severin Jezzidue the Regent Iragael. Those of us with non-Noble heritage were quickly ushered out of the main room where the Important Stuff was discussed and treated to an explanation from a a rather dejected servant that ducks were walking about in the palace (because it was slowly subsiding into the sea). Then a meteor was seen falling from the sky, someone (Hefin Baneirin (<two_nukes) I think) commented that such things were great for making magical objects and so, of course, we all mostly piled into Knox Arfeldt's (smiorgan) airship and headed for the crash site. First session done.

I helped quisalan with dinner (baked jacket potatoes) and this was followed by the usual evening stuff of drinking, swimming, jacuzzi, board games and Wii-ing. Plus I think this was the night that I caught the Blade Runner Red Dwarf episode - great origami moments.

Sunday
Easter Sunday brought two sets of easter chocolatey goodness - morning chocolate eggs from lanfykins and dinner dessert from quisalan. I think this was also the day that quisalan and I walked to the church to discover it was out of use (and its lead roof had been stolen). We photographed the church yard extensively; sadly quisalan discovered the stinging nettles through kneeling in them. Then we followed quisalan's Extremely Bad Plan and came back across the footpath which amounted to The Mud Walk Of Doom. It did come off our shoes though. Eventually.

Sunday afternoon saw the Airship Posse (Captain Knox, Kerrith Cordell (ao_lai), Kia Melcha (ar_gemlad) and Troy (me) - GM was chrestomancy) leave the Strobannan docks without permission (involving a dock chase scene, a water ballast drop on the Strobannan troops and an exit by Zeppelin rope for Kia, Kerrith and team) and head meteor-wards. (The city was hard to leave as it was in the process of being locked down so that no-one could get out to inform the other cities that the Regent was about to march an army out - we found out about this later.) We discovered another team also going for the site and, following an aggressive verbal signal exchange, ballistaed them out of the air.

We had to touch down some distance from the site due to the growing storm. Captain Knox stayed with his ship whilst the rest of us headed onwards... only to meet Sasha (quisalan) running in the opposite direction chased by nine bears and a madman carrying a large war hammer. This sort of meeting was to become Sasha's theme (see bateleur's entry for the underground pool with the water snake episode). We fought, we won, Sasha took the hammer and explained it was a magical weapon and the arm of an ogre which mind controlled its user. We returned to the airship and congratulated ourselves on the first kills of the game (and started a kill sheet).

Dinner was tortillas from bateleur (with some help from me). I think this was the night of the first Arkham game (form = basic) - smiorgan, quisalan, ao_lai and me. ao_lai spent half the game stuck in Velma's Diner whilst a small horde of monsters lurked outside (thus sealing his low opinion of Arkham as a game) but we won before midnight and therefore ended quisalan Losing Really Slowly streak.

Monday
Monday saw Troy dropped back at her tank (Honour Guard) whilst the zeppelin headed over to Œrenpike for repairs and for Kerrith to recruit a new operative to replace the man who was mauled by a bear. Troy drove towards Wastbruch and was then intercepted by the Nobles' Zeppelin Party - Cordwen the Black (triskellian), Hefin, Darius Autumnwalker (Toby), Peregrine Corvus (metame), Laurel Kira Von Bek (leathellin), Sasha and Severin.

The Nobles Zepplin party and Honour Guard headed over to Lord Severin's estate (the Wastbruch estate, not to be confused with any of the estates in the other cities). The approaching war was discussed (the Regent of Strobannan was marching on Wastbruch) and most people consequently decided to B*gger Off. The remaining party Lord Severin, Kia, Sasha and Darius, the last of whom I probably did the most roleplaying with overall despite having religion-conflict characters from the start. We travelled to the Source (ie. the Prana point / Communication centre / Big Magical Point) to check it was well defended from the invading army. Two things consequently became apparent - firstly, that it was very well guarded and, secondly, that it wasn't the target, the relicary reliqury reliquy relic store was. After that the party mostly left, with just Darius and Troy remaining to take orders from her Ulun-Kel army (which was apparently coming to support Wastbruch against Strobannan - this was where it started getting more complicated). The Ulun-Kel army then proceeded to act in an extremely suspicious manner by showing up in the centre and protecting the Source and the relic store. Plus the Ulun-Kel troops were under the command of Troy's unlovely commander, Goedrich Ironfist. However, he did give Troy orders to go out in her tank and fight so... she and Darius went out in the tank to fight. With one tank and a few duff troops we scored three tanks and various enemy troops (mostly in tanks, plus one pushed off a high building). This made us both happy and we added them to the party kill sheet.

Dinner was the trio of risottos from triskellian (prawn and spinach, leek and ham, mushroom). Then followed the usual gaming which included me digging out Chrono Trigger to play on my Nintendo (a birthday present from chrestomancy) and various people playing Monkey Ball. Plus we finally got TheHattedOne.

Tuesday
Tuesday morning start with French Toast (many thanks to smiorgan who cooked for Lots) along with maple syrup and cream - more days should start like this. Tuesday was No Roleplaying Day so, of course, I hit the Arkham. This time the party were quisalan, lanfykins, TheHattedOne, chrestomancy, jezzidue and myself (plus an ao_lai as a spectator - a fact I suspect he regretted when the underwear conversation started up) and the board set up was basic plus Kingsport. The bad guy was Yig. This was the occasion of the women's underwear conversation. Essentially, during a quiet phase when jezzidue went out to check on the coq au vin he was cooking for lunch, Mandy's clevage was remarked upon and the conversation geared towards what she was wearing, what colour it should be (lanfykins was in favour of red, but quisalan thought she should stick to black) and how it should have been something more expensive. At which point chrestomancy dropped his head in his hands and wailed about how he'd just realised he was in a girly game of Arkham. I pointed out that it was because he was missing jezzidue to which he retorted that it wouldn't help as jezzidue worked in HR and was therefore an honorary girl. At which point, said jezzidue, returned and fully validated chrestomancy's comment by entering the expensive women's underwear conversation and making it his own⁵. I believe that chrestomancy wept quietly into his beer at this point. Oh yeah, and we won. And the coq au vin was lovely.

The Tuesday meal was a really impressive sit down roast followed by tiramisu courtesy of leathellin and smiorgan. There was also lovely cold dessert wine from smiorgan and triskellian to go with. Tuesday evening I got to play Pandemic with Toby, ar_gemlad and David⁶. We won four player despite not having the medic and then Toby and I lost two player.

Wednesday
Wednesday lunchtime (I think) was when smiorgan made yummy kedgeree of which I shamelessly (OK, mostly shamelessly) begged a portion. This happened between the two Plans.

Wednesday was Plan Stupid™ Day. Darius and I gained Captain Kyle Acres (David) and Melissa Tiende (Cheryl) and therefore, having reached a balanced party (mystic/all-rounder, combatant, smuggler, diplomat/spy) decided that this was the moment to do something stupid spectacular. So we broke into the Duke's palace in the middle of the war in order to speak to the Duchess. This involved much scepticism from me, but Kyle switched off the palace electricity prana and that proved to be all the cover we needed. We then discovered that the Duchess had left, so we shrugged and did likewise. The morning after, however, we watched the newly arrived Warden of Ulun-Kel, Sulien Cherna, behead the Duke on the Palace steps. (And thought "Ooops." Maybe we should have kidnapped him for his own good). So, for an encore, we travelled to Ulun-Kel and, after pootling around in the archives, broke into the Warden's private quarters. We were helped by the diversion organised by her opponents here (they were going for a coup in her absence) and promptly returned the favour after stealing her diary, reading said diary to discover she was a Good (sort of) and then sending anonymous messages to warn her of the attempted coup.

Wednesday evening leathellin prepared/cooked Spanish food for the evening meal. I think this may also have been the day that World of Goo ate chrestomancy's brain and that Katamari came out.

Thursday
Thursday was the end of the campaign. In other words, the PCs finally got back together and then wibbled a lot about what they were supposed to be doing. With what. To whom. There was also an attempt to break into the private quarters of the Regent (OK, we were getting cocky by then) which failed. However we instead found the Oracle (a talking well) and asked it the plot. Troy thinks it did a lot of the lying thing. I'm still vague on some of the details in the plan that followed the whole Talking to the Well episode, but I recall Sasha any myself being the only two characters to vote against the plan to capture the Warden and interrogate her and then being the precise party mix required in the front line to do so (with Cordwen the Black as extremely welcome back-up) due to me being one of the Warden's Tank Commanders and Sasha being her niece (the one that stole a "cursed" magical item and ran away). The plan didn't exactly, err, go to plan (I got crossbow bolted at blank point range by four elite guards and was saved by naff GM dice rolls plus the healer Melmot (TheHattedOne)), but the end result (Cherna being tied to a chair) was achieved. Cherna was shouted at. A lot. However, eventually the party accepted a grudging alliance (on both sides) and agreement was made to get rid of all the bad-flavour magic items (yeah, bad-flavoured magic items - I was less involved in some bits of the plot).

All-in-all I loved the game, loved the character and hope that the tentative sequel really happens.

Thursday evening involved pasta - leathellin did cunning things with extensive leftovers - and finishing the alcohol (this didn't quite succeed). Then the usual games and stuff in the lounge (plus some The Apprentice - assuming I have the right night). Plus an early night - for me, anyway.

Friday
For me, the most memorable part of Friday morning was cutting my finger on an open tin and then sharing my pain with anyone in yelling distance (sympathy still appreciated). However, and more importantly, we got out in time after the usual divvy up of the remaining food and then parting photos, hugs and the car convoy out.

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¹ None of the bedrooms or bathrooms had bins (with one exception) which was really weird. TheHattedOne (I think) theorised that this was because they were sick of people throwing away perishables in the non-kitchen bins.
² I'm already forgetting - so please correct as required.
³ There was the usual Con Zone of wake-up times. I got up just after eight on Saturday to discover almost half the others were already up. Across the week I slid from 8am to 9am (except for the last morning when we had to leave early), but as everyone else slid further I was about third or fourth up by then.
⁴ Corrections welcomed - apologies in advance to anyone whose PC I failed to list in the right place.
⁵ As my fellow players and observer will confirm for any sceptics out there.
⁶ I'm not convinced it was David - anyone want to correct me or confirm?

Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

That reminds me, I never did post the final version of the PCs kill list. Here it is in full:

Airship
Some bears
Mad giant blacksmith
A scout
Three tanks [belonging to Regent]
Two random watchmen [belonging to Regent]
Belt of Eeeevil
No flying monkeys
One vial of sparkly mystic goo
The White Hand zeppelin
Hammer of Rastis
Mask prison of Azeille