Author: Giovanni Lanza

So last night’s session of DW was fantastic! Taking advice from Jeremy Friesen  and James R, I gave two of my players love letters describing their situations. The first one, the Drow Grave Knight, rolled a 4 on the roll, causing him to obey the blade’s commands. He runs off, using his spectral steed to outdistance the party. When they catch up to him, he is unconscious, lying in a field of blood. He appears to have cut down an entire battlefield of both Silver Flame paladins and Emerald Claw soldiers, as well as slaughtering a nearby village. I talk to Buzz, the player of the Grave Knight, and he asks if there’s any way out of this; he doesn’t want the sword anymore. So I tell him he can purify himself with the Undying Court’s help, but he’ll be a level 1 character. He agrees to it, and they transport his body to Shae Mordrai, the home of the Court. They agree to purify him (“Hey, another soldier for the Court, why not?”) and so Buzz rolls + nothing. A 7. So I tell him that he wakes up, feeling a great weight lifted from his shoulders (he’s free from his Lord of Undeath) and hand him the Paladin sheet. Xen’va, as his character is called now, can now apparently see people’s souls when he sees them, at least for now. As the rest of the party checks in on Xen’va, I have them describe their souls: the elf Ranger/Thuranni Assassin’s soul is almost all black, the kalashtar Psion’s is white with a ring of black (reflecting the Dream of the Age) and Rabon, the human Necromancer (who’s known Xen’va for hundreds of years, they’re both undead) says his soul is pure gray. I turn to Xen’va and say, “Yeah, his soul is pure black.”

“That’s what I see?”

“Yup.”

This actually caused some conflict, as at the end of session, Rabon wanted to resolve the Bond, “I will show Xen’va that my intentions are for the greater good” (they have this plan to become gods, it’s a long story). When he asked Xen’va if he agreed, he said no. The pitch-black soul thing bothered him.

Anyhow, the other player, playing Hawke, the shifter Fighter, showed up at this point and rolled to gather some forces for the impending conflict that was brewing. He failed, so he gathered up some leonine and ursine shifters who were tough but savage. The party met up with him, and after hearing that Emerald Claw terrorists blew up a Silver Flame temple and that the Silver Flame was on the warpath, they decided to head to where battle seemed most likely to brew.

I decided at this point to use the Military Engagements material that Adam Koebel  and Sage LaTorra  put out, and started writing down some sample troops for both sides, like Silver Pyromancers (they shoot arrows MADE OF FIRE from bows MADE OF FIRE!) and paladins for the Silver Flame, and death knights and necromancers in more or less bone mech suits for the Blood of Vol/Emerald Claw.

The battle was awesome! It was really cool having the PCs in the fray, all the while commanding the troops. They didn’t utilize the command part as much (perhaps because they had death knights in their face the entire time) but when they did, arrows of flame rained down and holy might swept across the battlefield. At one point the Necromancer (who’s well known for his eloquence) failed on his roll to command the troops. After seeing the roll, he replied, “I said the right thing, just not in the right language.”

“Yeah, and isn’t it funny that ‘Charge!’ in Ancient Giantish sounds just like Common for ‘Retreat’?”

Xen’va fought a commander who followed the Lord of Spectres, his former Lord of Undeath, so that was really cool.

All in all, it was probably one of the most fun sessions that I’ve ran, and I can’t wait for next week.