DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 30D: A Plague of Wraiths

“Tee!”

Turning around at the sound of Dominic’s cry, Tee spotted a lamia-shaped wraith and a minotaur-shaped wraith hovering nearby – held at bay only by the divine energy that Dominic was still channeling through his holy symbol. Tee started to move into a firing position, but as she did the wraiths slipped around the far corner and disappeared into the room with the iron cauldron.

Gathering the others they followed the wraiths into the cauldron room. The two larger wraiths were lurking in the shadows here, along with two smaller ones.

Elestra cursed. “It got all of them? We have to kill them all over again?”

Here’s a thing that I don’t think happens nearly as often as it should in a D&D game.

PCs have a habit of leaving big piles of dead bodies in their wake.

You know who loves big piles of dead bodies?

Necromancers.

(Also strange necromantic miasmas, unfathomable alien spirits from beyond our plane of reality looking for a body to inhabit, toxic chemical spills, experimental zombie viruses, etc. etc. etc.)

The point is that if you’ve got a setting where undead are common + the PCs are constantly killing people, it just makes sense that they’re going to see some familiar faces when the shambling hordes show up.

This isn’t just a great seed for restocking your dungeons or dynamically keeping your sandbox in motion: It personalizes what would otherwise be generic undead encounters, while also getting the players to think about the long-term consequences of their actions. (Do we really want to be leaving all these corpses lying around?)

Once you’re thinking in these terms, of course, it’s not much of a leap to realize that this doesn’t have to be limited to slain enemies. Dead friends and allies are an equally fertile field. (Or, since we’re talking about undead, I suppose it might be whatever the opposite of a fertile field is?) This trope — of a one-time friend or family member returning as an undead monster — is actually quite common in horror films, so it’s surprising we don’t see it more frequently at the game table.

(I suspect this is because published adventures generally have to either eschew this sort of thing or take considerable effort to contrive the outcome: The can’t just say “…and then Lord Harlech comes back from the dead!” because they don’t know whether or not Lord Harlech has died in your campaign. But at your own table, of course, you don’t have to worry about infinite possibilities: You know who ranks among the dead. But I digress.)

Regardless, this technique is a great way to ratchet up the stakes and emotional investment of the players in the bad guy.

There is no greater enemy than one who was once a friend.

Campaign Journal: Session 31A – Running the Campaign: When Players Reincorporate
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 30D: A PLAGUE OF WRAITHS

September 20th, 2008
The 17th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

Sir Gemmell’s letter only affirmed what Tor had already been planning: In order to keep with his image of loyalty to the Order and to Rehobath he needed to attend his training that day as planned. On the morrow he would meet with Sir Kabel and find out the rest of the story.

But by the time he had saddled Blue and begun riding north into the Temple District, Tor began to be plagued with doubt. What if the letter purporting to be from Sir Kabel was a trap of some sort? Surely he wouldn’t have been so foolish as to sign his own name? Why had the two letters arrived at nearly the same time?

Without having reached any sort of firm conclusion, Tor arrived at the Godskeep. He was escorted to the office which had once belonged to Sir Kabel… and were now occupied by Sir Gemmell.

“Master Tor, I’m honored to meet you.”

Tor thanked him and exchanged pleasantries, but Sir Gemmell was quick to his business. “I know that you were squired by Sir Kabel. I don’t know what his intentions were. But you’re a companion of the Chosen of Vehthyl and so I know that you must be faithful to the Church and to the Nine Gods. Know, then, that Kabel has betrayed both the Novarch and the Gods. His treacherous plots have resulted in the death of many of our brothers.”

“All I have ever wanted is to be a knight,” Tor said truthfully.

“Yes. And with Kabel’s treachery it is more important than ever that your training be completed as quickly as possible,” Sir Gemmell said. “It’s very likely that you will be contacted by Kabel. If that happens, you should alert us as quickly as possible. As long as he remains at large, we’re all in danger.”

“You think I might be harmed?” Tor asked blithely.

“Not as long as he thinks that he has some use to you. But after that? Who can say.”

Tor was given over to Sir Lagenn – a knight of the Order that he had not previously met – for his training. Sir Lagenn was burly and heavy-set, with a shaved head and a vicious, purple scar running from his left temple down to his jaw. Despite his brutish temperament, Sir Lagenn proved to be a competent and able teacher.

But as he trained, Tor’s thoughts were distracted by the two letters he had received. By the time Sir Lagenn called a halt to their exertions he had reached his conclusion: The letter from “Sir K” must be a fake. His loyalty was being test by Sir Gemmell.

Tor returned to Sir Gemmell’s office and gave the letter to him.

After reading it through, Sir Gemmell looked up at him. “Why didn’t you give this to me before?”

“To speak truthfully,” Tor said. “I felt torn in my loyalty between the Order and someone who had quickly become a mentor to me.”

“Well, your loyalty in this matter will no longer be tested. We shall attend to things from here. And do not seek any contact with Sir Kabel.”

“Of course,” Tor said.

Sir Gemmell looked back at the letter. “Why would he ask for the Chosen of Vehthyl?”

“I don’t know,” Tor said.

“Should Dominic’s trust in the Novarch be doubted?”

“I would never question it,” Tor said truthfully. (There was no question about it: Dominic didn’t trust him.)

A PLAGUE OF WRAITHS

Tee, meanwhile, had returned to the Banewarrens.

While fighting the wraiths the night before, Kalerecent had suffered a wound. At first he had thought it a small and inconsequential thing, but it wasn’t healing properly. In fact, it proved to be beyond the healing skills of both Kalerecent and Dominic combined. As a result, Kalerecent was forced to leave the Banewarrens to seek more powerful healing from the Church.

This proved fortunate, however, when Tor arrived before Kalerecent returned – giving them a chance to converse privately.

“I need to tell you what’s happened,” Tor said.

“Should we sit down again?” Elestra asked.

Tor nodded emphatically and then began his tale.

“And you’re sure the letter from Kabel was a fake?” Tee asked.

“It had to be,” Tor said.

Before they could discuss it further, Dominic heard Kalerecent returning down the tunnel and silently signaled the others.

With Kalerecent back on guard duty and Tor returned they were free to go back to the Banewarrens and continue their explorations.

But Tee had only barely emerged into the first chamber of the Banewarrens when she spotted two purplish wraiths trying to get past the warded door they had shut the night before. One of the wraiths might have been the one they had encountered before, but the other was larger… and shaped like the half-leonid lamia they had slain the day before.

Tee crept back to where Dominic was waiting and told him what she’d seen.

“That’s bullshit!”

“I know,” Tee agreed.

Tee led them back into the chamber. Dominic was considerably less stealthy than Tee had been and the wraiths heard his approach. But it didn’t matter: Raising the cross of Athor, he banished them into nothingness.

Tee went over to the warded door and locked it securely (which proved difficult to do without a key).

“Tee!”

Turning around at the sound of Dominic’s cry, Tee spotted a lamia-shaped wraith and a minotaur-shaped wraith hovering nearby – held at bay only by the divine energy that Dominic was still channeling through his holy symbol. Tee started to move into a firing position, but as she did the wraiths slipped around the far corner and disappeared into the room with the iron cauldron.

Gathering the others they followed the wraiths into the cauldron room. The two larger wraiths were lurking in the shadows here, along with two smaller ones.

Elestra cursed. “It got all of them? We have to kill them all over again?”

Agnarr took the lead and Ranthir took the opportunity to demonstrate how he had used his arcane arts to duplicate Dominic’s feat of divine infusion: He enlarged Agnarr to twice his normal height and girth.

Elestra and Tor worked the corners, keeping the wraiths from circling around Agnarr’s massive shoulders. But most of the damage was actually coming from Tee’s dragon pistol: Agnarr’s blade passed through the wraiths again and again, but frustratingly couldn’t seem to find any purchase in their semi-ethereal forms.

With the battle largely stalemated into one of stark attrition, Tor eventually got daring. Pushing his way past Tee he plunged through one of the wraiths, ripping it apart on the tip of his electrified blade. From there he raced behind the minotaur-shaped wraith, providing enough of a distraction – and a few wounding blows – for Agnarr to finally finish it off.

With the larger wraiths dispatched, the two smaller ones were quickly driven back up the stairs on the far side of the room and overwhelmed. But even as they were finishing off these smaller wraiths, four more of the goblin-spawned wraiths drifted up from behind them. In fact, they were nearly taken by surprise – only Dominic’s wary eyes saved them.

Ranthir hurried up the stairs and away from the wraiths, while everyone else headed down the stairs to face them. But the wraiths – perhaps sensing weakness – passed directly through the walls and emerged to assault Ranthir. Their spectral limbs plunged through him, and Ranthir felt the living breath and warmth of vitality fleeing from his limbs.

Tor dashed back up the stairs and, half shoving Ranthir out of the way, interposed himself between the staggered mage and the wraiths. But in the process, he, too was struck by their soul-icing touch.

Their tactical control of the situation was rapidly deteriorating. They had been flanked, separated, and badly wounded. But Dominic, having barely ducked away from the wraiths’ assault himself, raised his holy symbol again and called upon the power of his faith.

The wraiths fled. As they turned away, Tor destroyed one of them and Agnarr cut down another.

Two of the wraiths escaped and they cursed their luck, knowing that they would almost certainly be troubled by them again.

But perhaps it was for the best. Several of them could still feel the cold, cloying miasma of the wraiths sapping their strength and vitality. Knowing that, as with Kalerecent, only a more powerful channeling of divine energy could alleviate the pall, they resolved to abandon their current explorations and return to the surface.

Running the Campaign: The Undead Sequel  – Campaign Journal: Session 31A
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 30C: The Two Letters

The next morning Tellith gave Tor two letters that had arrived for him during the night. One of them was from Sir Gemmell of the Order of the Dawn.

The other was from Sir Kabel.

“I think I just wasted two hundred gold pieces,” Tor muttered to himself.

We’ve got a couple of things I’d like to highlight here.

First, the setup.

As we discuss in The Art of Pacing, meaningful choices are the beating heart of a roleplaying game, and as a GM you really want to put the spotlight on those choices by strongly framing scenes around them. In this case, Tor had put himself in the middle of the Order of the Dawn, and now the Order of the Dawn was splitting between two leaders: Sir Kabel, who was remaining loyal to Seyrun, and Sir Gemmell, who was loyal to the self-appointed Novarch Rehobath.

The core question, obviously, is: Who is Tor going to support?

I certainly had my suspicions (and you probably do, too) based on the party’s reaction to how Rehobath had handled Dominic. But the party was also technically working for Rehobath at the moment, so there was absolutely nothing simple about the situation. It was pretty muddy and very complicated, actually, which is precisely what made it such an interesting question.

Having the letters from both Kabel and Gemmell arrive at the same time was, of course, a way of slicing through all that complexity: Kabel. Gemmell. Who do you respond to? How do you respond? What’s your choice?

What Tor actually chose to do blew my mind.

But that will have to wait until our next update.

HONOR CHOICE, BUT USE YOUR PREP

The other factor here was Tor’s choice, earlier in this session, to seek out Shim and hire the information broker to deliver a message to Sir Kabel. I hadn’t anticipated this at all, but it was an inspired bit of gameplay.

(It somehow hadn’t occurred to me at all when I decided to reveal that the PCs had hired Shim during their period of memory loss that they would then continue hiring him for various tasks.)

The problem this created for me, however, can be neatly summed up by what Tor says: “I think I just wasted two hundred gold pieces.”

The logical response to Sir Kabel receiving Tor’s letter, after all, was for Sir Kabel to send him a reply telling him how they could meet… which was, of course, the letter I had already prepped and which was scheduled to be delivered shortly thereafter.

Stuff like this can actually happen quite a bit: You know that something is going to happen. Then the PCs do something completely unexpected, but which logically would result in the same thing happening (with perhaps minor differences). This is just a particularly clear-cut example of it.

And, as a GM, it feels a little weird when this happens. The PCs did something unexpected, so… something unexpected should result, right? But instead the exact same thing happens?

… is that railroading?

Well, sometimes, yes. It is. If you’re forcing things to play out according to your prep, that’s negating player choice and that’s railroading.

But sometimes it’s just a weird coincidence: You are, in fact, honoring their choice. There’s just a weird act of judo where their own momentum throws them right back where they started.

When you find yourself in the position of performing this weird judo, one thing you can do is really focus in on how their choice did make a difference and then think about how that could be significant.

For example, in this case Sir Kabel’s letter was literally identical. (I didn’t rewrite the prop.) But there was a key difference: In the “original” continuity (which never actually existed), Sir Kabel made the decision to reach out to Tor without truly knowing where his loyalties might lie. But in the actual continuity, because of what Tor’s player had done, Sir Kabel sent his letter because Tor had reached out to him; had, in fact, taken great risk to make contact.

That’s actually a huge difference! It meant that Sir Kabel would be far more confident of Tor and far more trusting of their alliance. (Assuming that’s how things played out.)

So even in a moment like this — where the prepared prop of the letter made my player say, “I think I just wasted two hundred gold coins” — I was still able to, a little while later, show them that their actions had been meaningful.

Campaign Journal: Session 30D – Running the Campaign: The Undead Sequel
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 30C: THE TWO LETTERS

September 20th, 2008
The 16th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

THE AFFAIRS OF THE PALE TOWER

Tor left with the intention of returning directly to the Banewarrens, stopping only long enough to collect Blue from the Ghostly Minstrel so that he might ride more quickly.

But as he passed through the doors of the Ghostly Minstrel, Tellith called him over to the front desk. A letter had arrived for “Mistress Tee and her companions”. Tor opened it and read—

Please come to me at the Pale Tower. You have filled my heart with great concern.

Aoska

So instead of riding directly to the mansion on Nibeck Street, Tor stopped first at the Pale Tower.

He was greeted at the doors of the tower by the Graven One, who led him to a small, domed room. There Tor was forced to stoop to step through the doors. The walls and floor were built of blue jade, the surface of which seemed to subtly swirl with whirlwinding eddies of multi-hued colors. In the center of the room nine small idols of the same blue jade – each depicting one of the holy animals of the Nine Gods – formed a circle on the floor. In the circle, Aoska sat in meditation.

“Please sit, Master Tor.”

Tor knelt on the floor, keeping a fair distance from the circle of idols.

Aoska opened her eyes. “We have received the message that Mistress Tee left for us regarding the Great Warrens of Danar. I have summoned you here to tell you that we cannot help you. And to offer our apologies.”

“That’s all right,” Tor said.

“Nonetheless, I think some explanation is deserved. We among the Malkuth have been honored to stand before the Nine Gods themselves. But for that honor we pay a price. Each of us has been sworn not to interfere in the matters of the mortal church. And since the Imperial Church has involved itself with this affair, we can have no part of it.”

“I understand.”

“I offer, too, a warning,” Aoska said. “Be wary of removing anything from that place. The wards which Danar raised suppress the effects of the taint and prevent the Warrens themselves from becoming tainted. But the items are no less dangerous in their use. And if they were to be removed from the Warrens, the full effect of their corruption would be felt.”

“We would like nothing more than to seal that place and never set foot in it again.”

“That would be wise.” Aoska smiled. “I thank you, Sir Tor.”

“Thank you, milady.”

THE TALE OF A CONFESSING KNIGHT

From the Pale Tower it was a short ride to the Nibeck Street mansion. Tor used a door to create a ramp of sorts down the stairs and led Blue all the way to the cusp of the Banewarrens.

When he rejoined the others there were greetings all around.

“What happened?” Elestra asked.

Tor quickly explained what had happened at the Godskeep, at the Cathedral, and at the Pale Tower. He gave the Ranthir the scroll that Thad had given to him… And then he took a deep breath. “There’s something else… I think you should sit down for this.”

Then Tor told them, for the first time, that he had secretly joined the Order of the Dawn.

“Congratulations!” Tee said, a huge beaming smile spreading across her face.

“Don’t congratulate me yet,” Tor said. “I also promised Sir Kabel that I would spy on Dominic.”

Dominic was confused. “What?”

“Oh! I didn’t tell him anything! And it wouldn’t matter if I did. He’s looking for allies.” Tor quickly explained Sir Kabel’s opposition to Rehobath’s claim to be the Novarch. “I hope you still feel like you can trust me.”

“It’s all right,” Tee said. “Of course we do.”

“Thank you,” Tor said. “But what should we do? I don’t know what to do next. I wish I knew why Sir Kabel had tried to assassinate Rehobath.”

They continued discussing the situation. None of them were quite sure what to do, but it became even clearer that none of them trusted Rehobath.

“Then what are we doing down here?” Elestra asked, looking around at the walls of the Banewarrens.

“Working for Jevicca,” Tee said.

“And what happens if we do find the Sword of Crissa?”

“I don’t think we should give it to him,” Tee said. “Not if he’s going to use it the same way he used Dominic.”

Tor grew thoughtful. “So… what would the reaction be if Dominic killed Rehobath?”

None of them had an answer for that. Least of all Dominic.

THE CASTING OF THE LORE SPELL

While they talked, Ranthir had been examining the scroll that Tor had brought. He confirmed that it would do what Brother Thad had told them it would do.

“At least they were telling the truth about that,” Tor said.

“The casting of the spell could take awhile,” Ranthir said. “Maybe as long as an hour.”

They set up a defensive perimeter in the generator room. Each of them guarded one of the upper passages into the chamber while Ranthir began casting from the scroll.

For more than half an hour they kept watch, letting the soft drone of Ranthir’s words wash over them. They had actually begun to suspect that they would be able to finish the casting of the spell without interruption when, out of thin air, a hulking monstrosity of dark, blue-black flesh seemed to step out of thin air next to Elestra.

Before she could even shout a warning, Elestra was slammed up against the wall, torn up badly by the creature’s long, yellow claws. Its yellow eyes glowed with malicious and sinister glee, framed by its lanky black hair.

Dominic, whirling with the others at Elestra’s scream of pain, recognized it as some sort of troll-spawn – common enough in the mountains near his village – but of a variety he’d never seen before.

Agnarr moved quickly to protect Ranthir. Tor, meanwhile, closed with the troll-spawn while Tee circled around it. The creature lashed out at Tee, but the elven maid narrowly avoided the blow by virtue of the enchanted armband she wore (which skittered her slightly through time and space).

Agnarr hurled an axe from where he stood. The blade buried itself in the troll-spawn’s back, but with a shrug of its shoulders the creature shook it free. They could all see that the wound was already closing.

Tor, meanwhile, was struggling. Whenever the creature landed a blow, his thoughts filled with black and terrible things – a void of horror that drew itself across his mind. He could feel it deadening his limbs – threatening to overwhelm him.

While Tee and Tor kept the troll-spawn at bay, Elestra – badly hurt – fell back to where Agnarr was waiting by Ranthir’s side. “I’ll keep an eye on him,” she said. “You go.”

Agnarr raced around the iron catwalk, arriving barely in time. Tor had, at last, been overcome by the rapacious blackness working its way through his mind – his joints seized as his thoughts retreated to the safety of his inner soul. The troll-spawn surged forward, looking to finish Tor off… but then Agnarr’s burning blade struck true, eliciting the first cry of real pain from the creature as it ripped through its chest.

The force of Agnarr’s blow drove the troll-spawn stumbling back, adding to the force of Tee’s blade as she drove a precisely placed blow between its shoulder blades. The tip of Tee’s longsword actually thrust out the front of the creature’s chest. It stumbled forward again, ripping itself off her blade in a gush of blue-black blood.

Elestra, still standing guard by Ranthir on the far side of the catwalk, placed a precise shot from her dragon rifle, nearly ripping the creature’s arm off at the shoulder. It collapsed into a bloody heap…

… but it’s wounds were still healing at a preternatural pace, and before anyone could react it had simply vanished back into thin air. With a howl of frustration, Agnarr smote the floor where it had lain.

… and in that moment, Ranthir turned – his eyes glowing bright – and chanted aloud:

Only the hand of creation can undo the seal which it has wrought.
Those who wish but for a moment can undo the creator’s work,
But those who would be his heirs must first wield his hand.
Into the heart of darkness they must follow him.

Seek the hand in the heart of the shard.
There all paths begin.
Thus all things shall be done or undone.

RETRENCHING THE DEFENSES

Ranthir sagged forward as the magic of the spell left him. A moment later, however, he was scrabbling through his many pouches and bags to find paper and pen. He hastily jotted down the words that he had said.

“Did that make sense to anyone else?” Elestra asked.

“A little,” Tee said, frowning thoughtfully. “But not really.”

There were no clear answers written in the words that Ranthir had spoken. And with Tor still paralyzed, they had no choice but to seek more powerful magical aid. They let the Banewarrens, meeting Kalerecent where he stood guard in the cellar of the mansion.

They quickly explained to the knight what had happened. With Tor strapped to his saddle, Tee led Blue up the stairs (“Ah,” Kalerecent said. “So that’s why the door was there.”) and then mounted himself. Agnarr walked alongside as the three of them headed to the Temple of Asche to receive healing from Mand Scheben.

Ranthir, Elestra, and Dominic, meanwhile, returned with Kalerecent to the excavated cave nearest to the Banewarrens. Kalerecent had hoped to keep his guard in the cellar itself, but the others were concerned that the caverns where they had fought the umber hulk might lead to another exterior access point.

Once they were healed, Tee, Tor, and Agnarr returned to the Banewarrens, as well. After a brief discussion, they agreed that all of them – except for Tor, who had business early the next day – would camp there for the night on a rotating guard shift.

SEEKING SIR KABEL

Tor left the Banewarrens. But instead of heading directly back to the Ghostly Minstrel, he turned south towards the alley where they had met with the mysterious, shadow-like Shim.

Tor  touched the symbol at the alley’s dead end. A few moments later Shim exuded himself from a crack in the wall.

“How can I help you, Master Torland?”

“Can you find Sir Kabel of the Order of the Dawn and deliver to him a letter?”

“I can,” Shim said. “The real question is, ‘Can you pay for it?’”

“How much?”

“Two hundred gold pieces.”

Tor agreed and quickly wrote out a note for Sir Kabel.

Sir—

Please know that you have friends in Ptolus. Vehthyl is not fooled, but it is crucial we know what has occurred.

Send word back if you are able. The safety of the city is in the balance.

Tor very specifically neglected to sign it, hoping that his elided reference to Dominic as the Chosen of Vehthyl would be enough to identify who the letter had come from without betraying him if it should fall into the wrong hands.

Shim took the letter and disappeared back into the wall. Tor left and returned to the Ghostly Minstrel for the night, satisfied that he had done all that he could. If all the might of the Imperial Church and the Order of the Dawn couldn’t find Sir Kabel, it wasn’t likely that wandering randomly around the city would do much good.

A NIGHT IN THE BANEWARRENS

Back in the Banewarrens – or, rather, the small excavated cavern just outside of them – Kalerecent and the rest of the party settled on the order of the watch and bedded down.

A few hours passed and the watch shifted twice without any cause for alarm. But then, about an hour before midnight, Tee’s sharp eyes spotted movement coming along the passage leading to the Banewarrens. She quickly roused the others, whirling back towards the tunnel entrance in time to see the purplish-red wraith they had encountered before floating with sinister serenity into the cavern.

Kalerecent, who had been sharing the watch with her, moved to engage it. The engagement didn’t last long: Kalerecent’s magical blade ripped through its ethereal substance and then, a moment later, a single blast from Tee’s dragon pistol tore it apart.

The others had barely even woken up.

After some mild complaints, Tee and Kalerecent resumed their watch while the others rolled over and went back to sleep.

A few minutes later, however, the wraith returned again. Dominic, rising impatiently from his bedroll, banished it with a burst of divine power, sending it fleeing back down the tunnel.

The group mustered their defenses and waited anxiously for its return… but after a quarter of an hour there was still no sign of it.

Agnarr eventually got tired of waiting and rallied an expedition back into the Banewarrens. They headed straight to the area where they had first encountered the wraith and the gem that spawned it. They found no trace of the wraith itself, but were entirely unsurprised to discover that the gem had somehow reformed itself. Without a second thought, Agnarr smashed it again.

Dominic raised the possibility of taking some of the shards of the gem with them – and thus, perhaps, preventing it from reforming again – but Tee and Elestra were both wary of the idea of carrying around shards from an artifact of clear and potent evil. (Hadn’t they just been warned by Aoska not to risk removing anything from the Banewarrens?)

Ranthir couldn’t even hazard a guess on what might happen (or not happen) if they took pieces of the gem with them. He did briefly ponder the possibility of storing the gem in the stasis box they had recovered from Ghul’s Labyrinth, but he couldn’t guarantee that it would actually stop the gem from reforming.

And so, in the end, they settled for simply shutting the once-warded door leading into the area – hoping, even though the ward had been broken, that this would stop the wraith from escaping.

“Aren’t we just locking the wraith out?” Dominic asked.

“Well, next time we see it we’ll kill it and then it will be trapped,” Agnarr said.

While the others settled back down, Tee left for her guard duty at the “new project” of the chaos cultists. The rest of the night – both at the project site and in the Banewarrens – passed quietly.

THE TWO LETTERS

(09/17/790)

The next morning Tellith gave Tor two letters that had arrived for him during the night.

SIR GEMMELL’S MESSAGE

Master Torland of Barund—

I know that that the recent chaos surrounding the Order must have proven quite distressing to one so recently squired among our ranks. I pray to the Gods that this letter shall find you in good health and that no untoward danger has fallen upon you as a result of the treacherous actions of a handful of discontents.

I wish to assure you, however, that the Godskeep remains secure. I know that you were to receive training this afternoon, and I would like to avail myself of this opportunity to meet with you personally and make the proper arrangements.

My humblest thanks,

Sir Gemmell of the Order of the Dawn

SIR KABEL’S MESSAGE

Tor—

The days are darker than I had imagined. Come tomorrow at dawn to Nadar’s Pub in Rivergate. Ask for Patrim. Bring Dominic if you trust him still.

                                                                                -Sir K.

“I think I just wasted two hundred gold pieces,” Tor muttered to himself.

Running the Campaign: Honor Choice with Judo  – Campaign Journal: Session 30D
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 30B: Golems & Ghouls

As Agnarr leapt into their midst, he could see one of them peeling flesh from its own arm and chewing on it.

“They’re eating themselves?!” Agnarr could hear Elestra’s horrified gasp from behind him, but he paid it little heed as he hacked his way through the ghouls.

For a moment it seemed as if Agnarr would dispatch them all – his flaming blade tore easily through their frail frames. But then the last of them leapt suddenly upon him and got its teeth into him.

This might be a little early to talk about this, but over the rest of this session and the next few sessions you’re going to see a lot of horrific beasties and strange curses get unleashed in the Banewarrens, by both the PCs and NPCs.

Something you’ll notice (albeit not with these ghouls), that most of these banes will either (a) attempt to flee after engaging the PCs or (b) target someone other than the PCs as their first (or subsequent) action. This, of course, creates long-running problems for the PCs, as they deal with the consequences of these ancient evils breaking loose into Ptolus or just wreaking havoc on their allies.

This is, of course, thematically appropriate for the Banewarrens, which were originally built to lock all of these banes away from the world; sealing them in a prison from which they were never meant to escape. Whether you agree with the Banelord’s belief that there’s a Principle of the Conservation of Evil that the universe abides by or not, there’s little question that mucking around down there not only risks releasing a whole bunch of evil stuff, but also a whole armada of ethical questions about your responsibility for having done so.

But this also reflects a broader GMing tenet I believe in: Spray your bullets.

What I mean by this is that when we think about releasing something into our campaign, we have a tendency to think about it strictly in terms of how it might intersect and affect the PCs: There’s a phase-shifting troll loose in the Banewarrens, when will it attack the party?

In other words, we aim it very precisely at the PCs.

This makes a lot of sense, because, of course, the other players are sitting at the table with us. Our entire focus is on continually generating and communicating the fictional game space for them to take their actions in. So there’s an obvious predilection, whenever something might happen in the game world, for us to aim it at the PCs. It’s target fixation.

What I’m suggesting is that, when we shoot stuff into the campaign, we should get a little sloppier with our aim: Don’t just hit the PCs. Start hitting stuff all around them. Their friends, their allies, innocent bystanders, even their enemies. To continue our metaphor, let stuff ricochet around a little bit and see what happens.

The ricochet is actually quite important, though, because if stuff happens and the players never learn about it (or its consequences), then it’s probably wasted prep. So you want to have stuff impact things around the PCs, but then you want the consequences of that to ricochet into the PCs: they read the newspaper headlines, they find the body, their friend calls them for help.

The benefit, of course, is that this makes the game feel more dynamic and believable: The PCs aren’t the only people who exist, moving through a world of shadow puppets. Instead, the world is filled with people who seem to be living lives of their own.

And this will also mean, when the bullets in question are being shot in response to the PCs’ actions, that their choices will become even more meaningful.

Campaign Journal: Session 30C – Running the Campaign: Honor Choice with Judo
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index