Northern Crown/7th Sea game session #2

[Read the blog about session #1 here.]

After beating up the guys with yellow tabards and looting the bodies, the rest of the party followed Kurt, who had set of after the one that had escaped. Having lost the guy, Kurt was returning. There wasn't much to go on so they wandered back to "our" tavern to see if we could figure something out. From the bodies they had recovered a knife which was believed to be that of the person they were looking for (since the GM had mentioned his knife several times) and a note with an address.

"Hy've got an idea. Ve go dere, kick in de door und kill everyone ve find."

"I don't think that's a good plan."

"Hy never saeed it vas a goot plan."

With a little more investigative work (I bought a local drunkard, a surprisingly good source of information, a few beers) we learned that the guys in the yellow tabards were Spanish mercenaries. We also learned that the address was for a seedy tavern. Samm had gotten himself drunk (the player didn't show last night) so, the remaining three of us went to the tavern, paying the barmaids at this tavern some extra money to look after our drunken comrade. Once there, Máire overheard a piece of conversation and set off after a boy who made a run for it after having been noticed. When I caught up with them, Máire had caught the boy and was trying to get information out of him but had only learned that "The Master" had told him to meet the mercenaries.

"Here, lemmee try."

Being a big orc with tusks and sharp, nasty teeth, I was easily able to terrify the boy into taking us to where his master was.

"It's a trap, uf kourse. Oddervise de mercenaries vould not hef de knife. Ve vere supposed to beat dem up, find de knife und address und follow de breadcrumbs back to de villain's's lair vere dey hope to put an end to us. Now vat do hyu tink uf my plan uf kickink in de door und killink everyone ve find?"

"Good plan."

I kicked in the door to find no one inside. He intimidated the boy into directing us to a hidden stairway to the basement. Finding no one there I intimidated the boy until he revealed the hidden door behind the big wine casks.

"Hyu first."

The boy made a run for it but fell to his death in a pit trap. Too bad. At the next "decision point" I was going to throw him a copper to buy himself some clean underpants and send him on his way. The first door we come to in the underground complex opened up into some sort of ritual room.

"Kultists. Hy hete kultists."

Second door was a library. Third door was a treasure room guarded by a trio of emaciated walking corpse things.

"Hoops. Vrong door."

I closed the door and was prepared to just move on to deal with the undead later but they began chopping at the door to get out. Once they had chopped a big enough hole in the door, I just shoved a grenade through the opening and blew the room to shit. One undead thing survived enough to stagger out of the room but an axe blow to the head finished it off. I wanted to storm ahead but a bunch of snake guys with spears showed up.

There were two one either side of us in the hallway. I was engaged with two when Máire tried throwing a dagger past me.

"Don' kill across me, voman. It's very rude."

She went back to fight with the other two snake guys and left these two to me. The one took a few hits to go down with an axe blow. The second missed spectacularly so that I was able to step into it, grab the spear under my arm and lift, crushing his skull against the ceiling.

The Rake had finished off the other two and wanted to loot the treasure room. I didn't want to waste time, this being a trap and all, and wanted to move ahead as quickly as possible before the forces of evil could rally. I rushed down the hall to some big double doors and kicked in the door to reveal another ritual chamber with pillers, an altar, more snake guys and "The Big Boss"

I half expected him to be the guy we were searching for. It turned out to be the head of the the temple. Ohhh, big surprise. He started to gloat:

"You are the first outsiders to . . . *erk!*"

I shot him in the head. It wasn't a good enough shot to put him down, however. Just a glancing blow. Whereupon he transformed himself into a snake-thing, too. (They're called Naga, right?) The snakey minions open fire. One pistol shot misses. The other fires a mortar that catches Máire in the gut, knocking her down. It bounces off and detonates a moment later, shrapnel rattling against my breastplate. My comrades want to run but I choose to rush them. The blast knocked off my hat.

I rush into the room and engage one of the minions with my axe but don't do too well. I can hit him but simply can't do enough damage to put him down. His comrade chucks a grenade and I take most of the blast in the back. Meanwhile, the Big Boss is trying to cast spells but I am easily resisting those effects. I finally put the snake guy down but the Big Boss casts another spell, raising him from the dead, or some such. Máire puts the other minion down and tries to stab the Big Boss, taking a lot of damage from a necromatic touch.

"Hy hef hed enough uf dese modderfuckink schnakes in dis modderfuckink game."

I throw down my axe and strike the minion with my fists. He goes down instantly. I rush over the the Big Boss, grab ahold of his head, and nearly twist it off. *Kerruntch*

After that, it was discover the guy we had been looking for all this time tied up behind the altar, hear his sob story (possession. called that one), collect up the loot, collect up our comrade left at the tavern and call it a day.

Summary

An axe does 1d8 of damage but Kurt's fists do 1d3+4. The maximum damage isn't as good as with an axe but I'm guaranteed of at least 4 points of damage whereas with an axe I have even odds of doing 4 or fewer points. So, now the axe is just for chopping wood

Chekhov is attributed with saying, "if you show a gun in act one, you have to use it by act three." In our own act one, the guy who had hired us to find the missing guy mentioned the knife. I knew it was going to show up again and immediately recognized it for what it was.

Kurt didn't interact much with the head of the temple much when the party visited looking for information so I, as a player, chose not to pay much attention. If I had, I would have seen the behavior of the head of the temple as a sure sign that he was involved and not just a jerk.

The mess with the Orcish pirates wasn't a ruse. We had heard that they were putting to see the next morning. Had we not figured things out, our quarry would have been on that ship and we would have to chase them down. Had we not killed the Big Boss, he would have been on that ship making his escape.