The Black Campbell

I haven’t updated some of the game play posts since the big push to get Airships of the Pulp Era and Sky Pirates of the Mediterranean out this summer. The not-D&D campaign set in end of Roman/pre-Arthurian Britain had trucked along to a satisfactory breaking point but here’s the recap of about six sessions of play.

The party had discovered that Magnus Maximus, the de facto ruler of Britain under Emperor Gratian, had been sending creatures to kill of Aiden macQuint, the unwitting son of the Eastern Emperor, Marcellus. They had discovered the reason — that Magnus was moving against Gratian, who had put Marcellus on the path to become the Eastern Emperor, and who back ed him over Theodosius — Magnus’ kinsman. Worried about having an imperial heir on his flank, Magnus is looking to take him out of play. The Roman general has already put out his call for every able bodied Briton to join him in his invasion of Gaul, but Aiden and his group are moving to take on Magnus.

They pulled together a coalition of leaders of British tribes after an encounter with a hag that had convinced many Aiden was protected by the gods. But to seal the deal, he has been convinced by Myrrdin Caledoniensis (Merlin) that he needs the approval of Cymru, the great red dragon that is the symbol of the land, slumbering under Dinas Ffaraon, the hill near the Segontium, the city of Octavius (or Outham Senis to the Britons), the slef-proclaimed “King of the Britons” who has been backing Magnus — to the point he’s married his daughter to him, and send his best son Conan Meridoc to fight with him. The party takes a swift route overland to get to Dinas Ffaraon, while their single legion, the II Augustus, and the massing armies of Britons follows at their best speed. They have a headstart thanks to Myrrdin’s calling in favors from the gods to create a massive storm in the center of Britain that is making Magnus’ army or two legions and a small force of Britons slower.

They came through a town, Trowford, to find the people were highly suspicious of them. To pass, they had to speak to their “Father” — a devout priest of God, they were told. The characters quickly picked up on the strange vibe of the town; they were both grateful to and scared silly of the priest, whose church was next to the bridge they needed to pass through. The church was enormous and appeared to be a repurposed mill, but inside the place was beautiful — full of dramatic but crude paintings and lots of silver and gold fittings. And their man of God turned out to be a troll! This was a nice call-back to the original Germanic campaign, as the troll, Dufex, was the one who had repeatedly been trouble for the party until one of the characters, a warrior monk, had convinced him to turn to God…or at least not steal and eat people.

The priest of Trowford is a pious man with a uniquely incorrect view of the Ten Commandments. The characters had to tip-toe around his explosive anger, especially where false witness was involved, and they had to give generously to the church, which owns the bridge and charges usurious rates to cross. The characters very nearly manage to get on Dufex’s bad side, but wound up repairing relations, and perhaps even having earned a grudging ally.

Their next encounter was with a group of Irish elves — the same tribe that had wiped out the tribe of siblings Fianna and Faolin. This was one of several invading groups of the “children of the gods”. While stopped, Faolin was lured into the woods by a white stag, which turned out to be the “green man”, Cernunos, who intercepted them to teach Faolin and Myrrdin how to wake Cymru without leading to the destruction of the towns and people near his nest. He warned the two that once they woke him, they would also wake all the dragons of the world, as they share a special bond. He then taught them how to sing the song that would wake Cymru safely…after that, they would have to convince the dragon to lend them his approval of Aiden as king of Briton. If they mess it up, they’ll probably be eaten.

While they were doing this, Aiden was having a hard time convincing Fianna and her now-husband Sigmon not to start a war between a local Brythonic town and the Irish interlopers. He wins out by taking his Roman escort on a scouting mission that leaves Fianna with no troops to train and egg on the villagers.

Finally, with Myrrdin and Faolin prepared, they travel the last leg to Dinas Ffaraon, but before they can locate the dragon’s cave, they are intercepted by a force led by the sons of Octavius, Gadeon and Gurthien. They are escorted to Segontium, and brought before the King of the Britons (the man whose job Aiden is looking to take) and they had a tense meeting in which they manage to sell the king on aiding them against Magnus, with the understanding they were looking to secure the old man as the King of the Britons. They then slipped out of town to the dragon’s lair.

After a typical small dungeon crawl through the caverns under the hill, they arrive in the lair of the dragon. The gigantic creature has been sleeping for centuries, and centuries of offering from the henge on top of the hill are scattered around the place. They sing the song, almost screw it up, but wake Cymru without a paroxysm of violence. They then have to convince him to support, at least symbolically, Aiden’s coronation. Aiden, aided by Myrrdin and Faolin with spells to make him more charismatic and brave, still almost scotches the whole affair when the dragon demands a sacrifice — one village must be given to the dragon to show he is ready to do the hard work of a king. Aiden waffles and just as the dragon is ready to incinerate the whole lot of them, they realize they have just the town — the Irish elves!

Cyrmu bursts through the henge overhead and takes to the sky, and when the characters return to Segontium, they have the support of a friggin’ dragon, which collapses support for the old man. Aiden is king. And shortly after that his army of Britons and Romans arrives to seal the deal. However, they are only a few days ahead of Magnus. A plan is cobbled together to defend the city, but Faolin suggests slipping into his camp and simply assassinating him, thus avoiding bloodshed between the legions. His sister Fianna takes this as carte blanche to attack immediately. There was some arguing back and forth — it is a roleplaying game with people trying to “plan” — and they prepared a morning attack on Magnus. Myrrdin would work his magic to keep the Roman general’s pet demi-angel busy, and Fianna and Faolin would attempt the assassination.

It promptly goes to pot. Myrrdin creates a hell of a show using crows and insects to create a ghostly face and intimidate the troops. He brings in thunderclouds and lightning. Fianna’s arrow almost catches Magnus while he is out rallying his troops, but is stopped by his aasimar (or barukhim, in our game) magician. The jig is up and Magnus’ cavalry starts chasing Aiden’s small force that was positioned to take advantage of the chaos, should she have succeeded. The barukhim and Myrrdin engage in some serious magical combat involving lightning, angelic light and fire, and it ends with Myrrdin blasting Magnus and most of his command staff with a bolt of lightning which has called down with an entreaty to the gods. While gloating over his victory, he is run through by his magical nemesis and almost dies. But before he can be taken by Pluto, another intervenes and he hovers on the edge of death.

Aiden and the rest of the crew are locked into combat with the cavalry chasing them, and Sigmon goes proto-Viking on them, murdering his way through a host of the enemy, while Fianna and Aiden sort quite a few with their bows. But toward the end, most of them are nealry out of arrows, they are injured, and the Romans have just kept coming. Then Faolin breaks the Romans advance, having called in his version of the cavalry. Faolin turned to wolf form and has called all the dogs and wolves he can to his side, including the massive guard dogs the Magnus’ camp employed. They, along with the Saxon Murder Machine (Sigmon) — who has a spectacular battle with the leader of the troops that were chasing them — rout the enemy and that is right about the time Myrrdin blasts Magnus and his staff to ash.

They have won the day, but they have a seriously injured Myrrdin and Aiden to contend with. Faolin worked his Druidic magic and managed to save the both of them, while Sigmon found out the man he’d battled and cut an arm from was Conan Meriadoc. Octavius will not be pleased — he’s lost his throne to an upstart kid, and his favorite son is injured.

They returned to the safety of the II Augustus camp outside of the city where they could heal, while Aiden’s tribune set out to find and rally the broken forces of Magnus’ army to his side. And while healing, they are visited by a beautiful young man in Roman armor, but definitely not one of them. They were victorious! He’s really surprised! Now it’s time for them to get better — at which point, using the caduceus he is carrying, they are all healed — because they’ve made some very bad moves. There’s not just one, but many dragons loose around the world, and they have to be sorted. Cymru is their responsibility, but they can’t kill the creature…it is tied to the land. If it dies, this land dies.

We broke at that point to take up some Hollow Earth Expedition, and to give me time to think about what was next for them.

It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to do a game recap for our Late Roman Britain campaign, so here goes:

There was some concern that the prefect, Ardanus, had betrayed them, but in actuality, it was the tribune of the city, Urbanus, who sicced a small group of troops on them. Fianna had drawn on Ardanus, but Myrrdin had spotted the cambion on the roof of the nearby church. Ardanus managed to warn them the troops were here for all of them, and the fight was on! While the others battled Roman troops, Myrrdin and Faolin (our wolf shapechanger) charged the church. Once there, they convinced the parishioners to run for their lives, and not a moment too soon. the cambion began launching fire bolts from his staff at Aiden, who was able to avoid being hit by hiding behind a local merchants cart (soon to be a local merchant’s pile of kindling.)

Sigmon the Saxon noted the creature on the roof and charged into the church after Myrrdin. They found the way to the roof, while Faolin was getting the people to safety, and Fianna and Aiden were trading arrows with fire bolts. When Myrrdin and Sigmon reached the roof, they found the cambion gone; he had dove down on Ardanus and Aiden, who were able to injure the creature, but were losing the battle.

Myrrdin called down a whirlwind while telling Sigmon to jump (for a thirty foot height, no less.) Not the brightest, Sgmon does it, and Myrrdin used his control over the whirlwind to bring the Saxon barbarian down on the cambion, whereupon he hit it with his axe a ludicrously good blow. The cambion exploded into ash. Sigmon broke his nose. The townspeople was shocked and awed.

After besting the creature, they headed to the tribune’s villa and after a short search, found him getting ready to decamp for Maximus’ camp and safety. Confronted with the group, he groveled his way out of a perfectly good murder and provided them with intelligence and even advice on how to win over the local garrison…because they only way they were going to survive was to win over the soldiers and pose a challenge to Magnus Maximus. But Maximus would still have double their number! Ardanus opined they might be able to win over the other Brythonic tribes, and get their young men to volunteer to overthrow the Romans, rather than fight for them. The tribune Urbanus thought that a difficult sell: the “King of the Britons”, Octavius (or Otham Senis to the locals) married his daughter to Maximus and his son is one of the man’s generals! Myrrdin also had a madcap plan: to provide legitimacy to the affair, they could make a pilgrimage to Dinas Ffaraon, the hill near Caernavon, where the red dragon that is the soul of Britain resides. If they can convince the dragon to support them, it is likely he could pull many to his standard. If not…well, they won’t be around to worry about Maximus.

In a tense evening of negotiating with the officers of the Legio II Augustus, Aiden — with the aid of herbal magic by Faolin and political support by Ardanus (who was playing puppet master to the city tribune) convinced the legion to side with him. Aiden is, after all, the legitimate son of the Eastern Emperor, Marcellus. While this was happening, Myrrdin took the ashes of their foe and used the to scry into who had been holding his leash…the cambion, Maliel, was currently in the great nothing of Hades but there was  a presence behind him, and that presence sensed Myrrdin, as well. “Maliel, like most demons is a masterless soul. Their ruler is in Tartarus, locked away by Pluto in agreement with the one true god,” the presence told him. “The empire is riven in two. The east has returned to paganism, and the Olympians openly support Marcellus. Our god calls on the faithful to do their part. Magnum Maximus is a true believer. He will overthrow Gratian, who is being tempted by Alans, and his kin Theodorus the Great will turn his attention to the east. You have you chance to be forgiven all your sins, Myrrdin of Calendonia, and you know what you must do: kill the boy!”

Having this intelligence, and the knowledge that Magnus Maximus knows they are alive and well, the officers of the legion tell Aiden their time is short. He can call together the VI Victrix (Magnus’ legion) and XX Valeria Victrix in a matter of three days, and it is a seven day march to Corinium. They piece together a plan: to march the legion northwest into Octavius’ lands and find the dragon, with a small force led by the characters to get there with speed. Myrrdin and Faolin do some magic to ask favors of the gods, incurring some indebtedness to them, but making the weather clear for their group, while hammering the Roman legions with rain, hail, and winds.

There was a short vignette for Sigmon and Fianna to get married. the two of them were a match made in some gladiatorial fantasy — violent, reactionary, and out to fight the world. A match made in battle.

They left to cut through Aiden’s village and get his people out of harms way only to find an honest to goodness demon — a spiny-skinned, horned thing my seven-year daughter drew up to give me an idea of “a good bad guy” for the group. (And it was vicious!) It had been hunting his family and was killing off people of the village. After a hard battle that was doing nothing to the creature, but which was getting Aiden beaten within an inch of his life, Myrrdin coated a few arrows in sliver and gave them to Fianna. Whose player then proceeded to roll as good as was possible on his dice. (We are using a modified version of Cortex, not D&D, for this campaign.) Score one dead critter.

While getting the village together, they put the word out to every local garrison to pull in the troops and have them join the main army. They meet with the elders of the local tribes at a nearby villa of a former Roman judge and try to convince them to sign on, but are unsuccessful. The next morning, they notice Myrrdin missing (the player was out on a business trip), and find him floating under the water of a nearby lake, apparently asleep or dead, with the aid of a young woman working the villa who saw him leave the night before. She then pushes Faolin into the lake, but he falls instead into some kind of tunnel under the water. There’s air and the water above acts like a barrier between him and the surface. He can see his body there, next to Myrrdin’s in peaceful repose under the water…and suspects they are in another place behind the Veil. The Fey, perhaps? He can hear the cackling of the woman echoing in the bug infested tunnel and he tries to find a way out, only to discover Myrrdin, imprisoned and immobile in a crystal box.

When the other characters finally found their bodies floating, they have a run in with the hag that put them there and fled (they blew their tests against fear.) Once they steeled themselves and got their fighting gear on, they pulled the bodies from the water and figured their souls were trapped elsewhere. Pooling their knowledge of druidic magic, they cobble together a potion to allow them to join their friends in the Fey. Faolin apprises them of the situation: it’s some kind of ward their friend is in, and the hag is here, somewhere. After some useless attempts by Sigmon to use his axe to free Myrrdin by smashing the crystal over and over again, a few of them realize they aren’t physical here. They try to work on breaking the ward that holds Myrrdin, but the hag and the creature that imprisoned him have arrived. There was a spectacular exchange of axe blows and swordplay on the part of the creature — by all appearances some kind of angel! He burst into bright winged light, blinding Sigmon, then cutting him in half. Sigmon is not dead, but he is essentially rendered useless (Guess who was out this week?) To try and protect the others, Myrrdin, who has not bee able to break the ward, tries instead to expand it, and winds up pulling them all (save Sigmon) in between he and Faolin, they are able to break out of the imprisoning spell and assault the hag and the barukhim (or “blessed”) that was holding them. He escapes through a tunnel and they follow (grabbing Sigmon’s two halves on the way out) and find themselves in their bodies at the villa.

Having come back from the dead, apparently, they have won over the locals, and they hunted down the hag and dispatched her with elan. Now they have seen the face of their sorcerous nemesis in Maximus’ camp: he is an angel, apparently using vile creatures to do his bidding. But how?  And why would his God allow this?

We had a week off as half the group was off on travel, but this week we picked up right where we left off. (Recap here.) The characters aided the village of Dal Owyn with their medical skills and Myrddin with outright magic to heal one of the villagers Fianna had shot through the leg with an arrow. While they were about this, Faolin (in wolf form) had slipped away to change back to human and get dressed. As they were finishing helping the villagers and trying to explain what had happened to them, Aiden’s father and the clan leader, Brann, arrived with Aiden’s cousin…Aiden, who had been killed in a case of mistaken identity by the pair of assassins hunting for him.

This led to a confrontation between Brann and his brother Gwynn, father of the dead boy. What had his son done to bring professional assassins, magic-users, upon them!?! The prefect, Ardanus Britannicus intended to find out. With the aid of Fianna and Faolin, they woke the assassin they had critically injured and questioned him. “The boy — he doesn’t even know who he is, does he?” the man asked. He’s being hunted because o who his father is. But Aiden understood his father to be a simple Roman soldier. It’s who he is now that matters, and that is why Tribune Gallicius — a member of the court of the “King of Britain”, the comte britannicus, Magnus Maximus. Why would an adviser of the most powerful man in Britain be looking to kill as 15 year old boy? Because his father is Quintus Marcellus Quadius Corinthanus Augustus: the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire!

They speculated on why they might be worried about the boy. Since the battle between demons and angels at the River Styx (the denouement of our first D&D game), and the release of the ancient gods and creatures into the world, Marcellus had been appointed the eastern emperor at the death of Valens by his friend Gratian, the western emperor. Marcellus successfully turned the Gothic invasion with the aid of the Olympians that had returned. This secured his position in Constantinople, but it also caused the Eastern Empire to begin sliding back to paganism. Here in the Western Empire, Nicaean Christianity was still the official religion — one to which Magnus Maximus and his uncle, the famed general (and in the real world the man who would have been the Eastern Emperor), Theodosius ascribe.

Aiden’s parents affirmed that he and his mother were sent into hiding because Marcellus could not protect them in Britain, and could not safely transport them to Constantinople. They kept the secret from him, and the tribe, to keep them all safe. This revelation nearly led to a fight between Brann and Gwynn, but this was mitigated by some enchantment on Myrddin’s part.

After a burial and wake that evening, the party traveled to Corinium, Aiden going against his parents’ wishes. People are hunting him; they thought it too dangerous. Myrddin has taken an interest in the boy, whom he suspects has a destiny. The siblings Fianna and Faolin wanted to shop for clothes and other things, now that they have money for the first time. The prefect wanted to check in with his tribune in town and get a lay of the land.

There was some character interaction bits, but Prefect Britannicus learned quickly from the tribune that things are happening in Britain and the empire. The soldiers are calling for a vote about Gratian, whom they see as having abandoned the faith, and to select Magnus Maximus as the new emperor. He is aware of the murder, that they captured one of the miscreants, and that the boy they were hunting is still alive. He orders Britannicus to bring the boy to him, but the prefect is suspicious of the motives. This moment played into several of his flaws — his contrarian nature, his sense of honesty, and his duty as a Roman officer. Torn by what to do, he agreed, but the tribune thinks he is playing for time.

The conversation was overheard by Myrddin, who was using a crow to spy on the meeting. As soon as Britannicus left the room, the tribune ordered the escaped assassin, a cambion (half demon) to hunt the boy down. With this knowledge, he found the rest of the party right after Britannicus had, but Aiden noticed there were Roman troops watching them. Something is afoot? Reacting to the perceived danger, Fianna drew her bow on Britannicus; did he mean them harm? The action, however, spurred the legionnaires into action and we ended the night with the party surrounded by trained Roman soldiers, Fianna holding another character (the prefect) at arrow point, and Myrddin spotting the cambion lurking above them on the rooftops.

Originally, I wanted to do a slower burn on this campaign, but the pacing so far feels better. The gang is thrown together, a mystery leads to a conspiracy of imperial scale, and they are suddenly on the outs with the legitimate authority. Now, maybe I should have a plan for where we’re going…

We picked up this week with our 5th edition Dungons & Dragons campaign in the aftermath of the fight between the characters and a pair of Furies. It was looking like a TPK in the making when the monk character, Icio, called on his patron angel, Michael, to bail them out. What they got was a full throwdown between lesser gods that half wrecked the official residence of the Praetor of Aquileia. With two players down — one at a convention in England and one on route to GenCon, I decided to concentrate on the three players’ concerns.

The next morning found Carrus getting his staff of blacksmiths working on the armor and weapons they had taken from the furies. With 20 rolled, he was able to deduce that the weapons and armor aren’t metal, but perhaps some kind of porcelain — light, heat and cold-resistant, and tougher than the best iron. Yet Michael’s arrows went through them like butter, burning a clean hole through the material. The swords the Furies used went through Marcellus’ breastplate similarly cleanly. He hasn’t worked out all the secrets, but he is on the path to learning how to make the stuff.

Marcellus left his tent to find Icio waiting for him. This “Anathema” which had so rattled the Furies and Michael is of great concern to him. Could she really be a relation? What the hell was she? They gathered up Carrus and went to search the city for her. (We assumed Calvinus was busy trying to soothe his father’s concerns about powerful mystical creatures ripping up his town, while Augustinian was researching the information on her.)

They find her in a mariners’ inn by the wharf, sequestered on the third floor away from the other guests. The owner of the inn was terrified of her, but did not want to anger her. After having him clear out the inn (Marcellus is enjoying his imperium), they knocked on the door. The Anathema was waiting, and was open to their questions. Her attitude toward the entire affair was blasé, and she seemed entirely unconcerned to have armed men in the room with her. Marcellus noted she seemed to have a pretty good handle on the entire situation.

What they learned: she claims to be in the service of Hades (she tends to call the gods by their Greek names) and was sent to aid them in their quest. Icio asked her parentage — he calls her brother, but he doesn’t think she means in Christ. She tells him they have the same father. He is not the son of Zaccharius the carpenter; he is the son of Michael. She is the daughter of Michael and Soteria — the mother of angels. Soteria has a much older name: Hecate, the goddess of magic, possibility, and choice. The Anathema is what the various sides call her for she is not supposed to exist — just like the barukhim and nephalhim, the children of angels and demons with humans — she is a child of “good and evil.” Her given name is Chthonia. (No, you don’t actually pronounce the “ch” in a chth blend — it’s “Thonia”.)

If Sataniel manages to raise the Shadow, the various realms would once against be accessible, and the gods of old would be able to interfere in the affairs of Man. Satan could engage in his war against Heaven. When they ask her for her aid, she tells them that is her purpose.

On their way back to the camp, they were waylaid by one of the vigiles, the town guard. There is a problem on the north wall… they arrive to find a small force of satyrs and centaurs! Led by Calacites (King of the Satyrs of Dalmatia) they have been searching the countryside for his daughter: Carona. Instead of being an orphan who fled the destruction of her village, she was drawn out into the world by her curiosity. He has come to save her from the world of Men.

This led to an uncomfortable and amusing exchange where Carrus had to confirm she was here, and in the end — with a choice between having his pregnant girlfriend taken away to live with the satyrs or keeping her with him, he suggested marriage. The satyrs, knowing what a monumentally bad idea this is, managed to contain their mirth and Calacites accepted. We ended the night with his marriage to Carona.

Our Dungeons & Dragons game got off to a late start last night, but jumped straight to the action. We had cliffhangered last week after the first round of combat between the party and a pair of Erinyes (Furies) with a pair of Hell Hounds in tow and Bayla, the succubus that has been plaguing the bard, Calvinus, with thoughts of betraying his comrades, sex, and murder. (How’s that for a sentence..?)

The first round saw the Legate Quintus Marcellus Quadius attack with minimal effect Poena (Indignation), who then gutted him and dropped to near dead. The poisoned blade cut through his armor like butter and was killing him quickly. Invidia (Malice) had injured the monk, Icio, badly, as well. Calvinus had managed to slow the hell hounds with shatter, doing enough damage to stun them. Augustinian had cast a cure wounds and a lesser restoration on Marcellus to prevent his death. Carrus the dwarf had found himself using a bench as a shield, and found his sword almost useless.

I quickly realized that we were looking at a TPK (total party kill for the uninitiated) within a few rounds. Over the week, I was thinking of how to save their butts, and decided i would throw a character in that I had crated, should they need more firepower.

We started with round 2: Marcellus woke from his near death experience to the awful sensation of his guts dragging themselves back into his body from the healing and restoration combo. Calvinus distracted Poena long enough for her not to attack Carrus, then crawled under the table to get away. Augustinian hit Marcellus with protection from evil. Carrus realized he didn’t have anything that would really hurt the fury, so he used his sword — with an excellent throw — to cut the candelabra over her head, which with Calvinus’ action lost her an action. He then whipped a large silver serving tray, discus style, into her face. (Which then ricocheted into the back of the recovering Marcellus’ head.) The hell hounds snapped out of their stupor but wouldn’t have an attack until the next round. Icio and Invidia were locked in a battle, flying above the others’ head and damaging candelabras, walls, and other things while wailing away at each other. With some lucky rolls, he was able to avoid dying, but used his reaction to attempt to call on his angel, Michael, to aid him.

Bayla the succubus made a last attempt to win over Calvinus, then switched from the carrot to the stick. That was when she and the furies noted the arrival of a new figure — a tall woman in a hooded leather dress and leggings, pale skinned with eyes so light blue or white they almost seemed to glow, and a long barbed tail, similar to that of a nephalhim (the damned or what we’re calling tiefling.) They exclaimed with disgust the appearance of “the Anathema.” With a few graceful moves and contralto utterances, she generated an eldritch spear that when throw broke into two and injured the furies.

The next rounds saw Marcellus and Icio battling the two furies with limited effect using the broken-in-two blesse and silver-tipped quarterstaff of the monk. Calvinus was able to use his songs to try and throw the furies off their game, and the hell hounds — unleashed on the Anathema by Poena — cut loose with their fire breath, singing Carrus’ beloved beard, his eyebrows, and the left side of his hair off, not to mention the clothes not covered by his centurion armor. Tables and walls were set alight. Augustinian was cuaght by Poena in a rope of entanglement, which almost broke his concentration on the protection spell…

…and that’s when Michael arrived. The angel was written up as a solar with a few tweaks. He burst through the window, shot flaming arrows into the furies and succubus (driving the latter to disappear and run for it.)  The furies responded and soon the room was awash with flaming swords, daylight cast by the Anathema, and then falling husks of armor and discarded weaponry as the Erinyes were taken down by Michael and Icio, wih the aid of the Anathema.

While normally, it’s a good idea to make sure the PCs, the heroes, are the ones that get the spotlight for fights like this, the fact they were hugely outclassed seemed to make this a good time to use a literal deus ex machina (which is, to be fair, build into the aasimar character, Icio.) Additionally, it set the stakes dramatically higher, and created an air of awe and fear. They were no longer fighting small armies in Germania; they are taking on gods and angels.

MIchael then confronted the Anathema, who doffed her hood to reveal the pale white coloring of an aasimar, but the horns, along with the obvious cloven hooves and tail or a tiefling. When Icio asked why she aided them, she told him, “My mother thought you would need my help, brother…”

Michael informed her she should stay clear of them, but she told him she could not. She had been tasked by the Lord of the Underworld, her master, to assist them. All the while, she waited, arms wide, for Michael to smite her…but he cleared off. Calvinus was the only one to hear her say, “I thought not, father.”

Icio was still in shock by the whole affair — the furies, Michael finally intervening, and this new creature. “Are we related?” he asked her. “Of course we are, brother.” Not brother as in his being a monk, but her brother. “How are we related?” he asked. “We come from the same seed.” “Who is your mother?” “She who stands at the crossroads and sees all possibilities.”With that, she left, telling them, “You’ll see me soon.”

But his father is Zaccharius, a carpenter! Calvinus informed him of her father comment, which has left him stunned…could this be a trick of Satan? He knows the Adversary has taken an interest in him. Yet, Michael did not smite her when he had the chance.

We ended there, with Carrus the dwarf shaving forlornly, and taking an interest in the weaponry and armor the furies left behind when they were killed(?)

This episode had some great reveals and managed to start tying Greco-Roman and Christian myth together. I’ll be doing a lot of reading on the Chaldean Oracles and Julian the Apostate this week, which will link Yahweh/Jehovah, the “Shadow” that supposedly keeps the various planes separated to protect the world of Man from the gods, and the Anathema’s mother. It also fleshes out more of Icio’s backstory with Michael, hints at the nature of angels vis-a-vis the old gods, as well as that of the barukhim (aasimar) and nephellhin (tiefling.)

After a week’s hiatus while I helped a friend move across country, the group got together for the next installment of our Dungeons & Dragons game. The had previously fought off some religious zealots who saw Carona, the satyress, as a ‘demonic creature” and the group as tainted by their association with her. They had discovered the plot was initiated by a local priest who admitted that the existence of Icio the Monk and his kind (aasimar, or “barukhim” (the blessed) in this campaign) were a direct threat to the Nicene sect of Christianity in the Western Empire, especially with the arrival of the new 4 year old emperor as his empress-regent mother, an Arian Christian.

Legate Quintus Marcellus Quadius, recently honored by the throne for his defense of Castra Stativa, was given a legion to go to Achaia in search of the River Styx and the “Shadow” — a mystical veil separating the world from the other planes of existence. A coalition of creatures — fallen angels and other monstrous things trapped on earth when the Shadow fell — are looking to invade Hades (the only plane that cannot be walled off) and release the denizens of Tartarus to invade heaven.

They marched to Aquileia, the northern-most port on the Mare Hadriatica and home to the family of Marcus Calvinus, their bard. Along the way, a few vignettes showed the growing influence the succubus Bayla was having on him. After their night together, she has been temptinghim with telepathic thoughts of sex and murder, and how he could be “a king in the new world.” Carrus the dwarf has been feeling the pressure of Carona’s pregnancy, while getting increasingly protective of her. Marcellus is feeling the weight of command — he was a discharged mercenary only a few months ago! — and Augustinian the cleric has been wrestling with the issues of morality and the strengths of monotheism in that respect, and what it means in a world where they’ve had demonstrable proof of gods other than Icio’s “one true god.”

On arrival in Aquileia, they found that Calvinus’ father, who had cast his “whore of an entertainer” son out of the city after he refused to marry the daughter of an influential Christian, was now the praetor urbanis (mayor) of the city, and his brother Lucius the head of the family’s lucrative shipping business. He’s is unquestionably the power in town, even lording it over the technically higher ranking corrector of the province. They are welcomed, and Calvinus finds out his father is impressed and proud of his black sheep of a son for his heroism and service to Rome. He also makes it very obvious that it’s time the boy, like the rest of the family, bite the bullet and convert to Christianity. It doesn’t matter, his father tells him, it he believes…it’s the appearance that matters.

Augustinian hit the local library and managed to finagle his way into seeing some of the “restricted” works (magical tomes) to find a way to help excise the succubus from Calvinus’ mind. He then started work on a crucifix the bard could wear that would give protection from evil. This would allow the character another charisma save to break the bond with the creature.

Marcellus worked with the local legate navalis (admiral) to secure the six triremes and command crews necessary to move the legion and their equipment. Their mules, however, would need to be abandoned, as this would require almost a week to get enough vessels together to move them all. As it is, two of the ships will have to be contracted for with the Calvinus family.

Icio met with the local archbishop, Valerianus, who is pushing him to speak out against Arianism and Homousian sects of Christianity (even though Icio is starting to realize they may be correct…) During the conversation, he learns that many of his ‘barukhim” brothers are siding with these now-heretical groups against the Nicene establishment in Rome. Returning to the legion’s camp from the meeting, he is accosted by a beggar that tells him the establishment won’t long need his services, and eventually they will cast him out as a liability. (Damn it, Satan, bugger off!)

That evening, a state function for the arrival of the Marcellus and Calvinus is had at the praetor’s residence. In the midst of their meal, the windows burst in as a pair of winged women, armored in black with red Greek inscriptions, incredibly tall and beautiful, invade the dinner to inform Marcellus and crew they will never reach the River Styx…alive! These creatures — furies, Augustinian thinks — have been trapped on Earth and have banded together with Satan to break down the Shadow. They are accompanied by a pair of hell hounds, and Bayla, Calvinus’ tormentor, who is offering him a chance to join them, rather than die with his friends.

Up until this point in the campaign, the characters have been munching through the bad guys with some ease. Even the Dark Man and the troll, Dufex, have only given them some challenge (but one that once they got their act together, they defeated with ease.) I figured I would ramp things up…apparently, too much. One of these Erinyes would most likely have provided them a real fight, but two plus the others was proving in a single round to be too much.

Poena (“Indignation”) blocked Marcellus’ action surged attack with ease, then cut him down to -4HP with a single blow, then seriously injured Augustinian. Invidia (“Malice”), the other fury, tore Icio (probably out biggest bad ass) up and nearly put him out of the fight — again with a single blow. The two hell hounds were badly injured and stunned by Calvinus’ use of shatter, and Carrus was unable to even land a blow.

Things were looking pretty dire for the crew when we knocked off for the night…

So one thing learned, while lower level characters are much more robust and powerful in 5th edition than the old AD&D I remember, they don’t really take off until 5th level. I over-gunned them, thinking that they would once again coordinate well enough to drop one of the Erinyes. Two was too much, and the addition of the extra baddies seems to ensure my first TPK in my 30+ years of gaming.

There is a possible out, a deus ex machina that is built into Icio’s character, and which the player was considering: asking for the aid of his angelic guardian. Could he call on Michael to help him?

I guess we’ll see.

After a week off, our group picked up where we left off with our Dungeons & Dragons game. They had gotten to Mediolanum, the new capital of the Western Roman Empire, and had been lauded for their victory over the Quadi in a desperate siege in Germania. They had been feted by the Empress Regent, Justina, whose four year old son Valentinian II has just been made the augustus (senoir emperor) in the Western Empire. (They had been, until now, operating under the orders of the caesar (junior emperor), Valentinian’s 16 year old half brother, Gratian.)

While Marcellus was being personally “entertined” by the empress after a superb charisma test, the others took a drunk Carrus home to the villa they’d been loaned by the government. There, they found a gang of men waiting. They had already set on Carona for being a “demonic and unnatural creature” (she’s a satyr.) The fight jumped off with Icio the monk using his lesser restroation to heal Carrus of him massive drunk — not a pleasant experience! He then let fly with the ghostly angel wings the assimar can manifest and chastised the men to repent their sins and leave the place. It almost works.

Carrus, meanwhile, goes ’80s Schwarzenegger on the six guys that have been attacking Carona, leading to much mayhem and gruesome gore. Augustinian and Calvinus wind up battling a few of the men after the bard had put three of them to sleep. Icio finishes off all but a few who escape after they persist in their attacks.  In the end, the party questions the miscreants and finds out they were put up to this by a Father Thomas who found Carona’s presence with alleged heroes of the empire troubling, and made him question Icio’s faith, and to accuse Carrus (Carona’s lover) of bestiality. The father, apparently, arranged for the staff to be absent the house, as well.

They quickly cleaned up the mess, then retired outside of town to the farm Marcellus’ family owns. While there, he provided his brother with the rewards of his command in Germania — 5000 soldi: enough to buy up a few of the other farms around theirs! Carona was left in the care of the officer’s mother and brother, while the rest of the party returned to the city to confront Father Thomas after his noontime mass.

They learned that Thomas was most likely no the architect of the attack, but he refuses to implicate anyone else. However, during the questioning, Augustinian quickly realizes that Thomas’ string-puller was most likely the archbishop, Ambrose! Thomas lets slip that the aasimar (or “barukhim” [blessed ones] in our game) and their rivals, the tiefling (or “nephalhim” [cursed ones] ) are mistakes; mistakes that could imperil everything the Church is trying to build in Rome. This leads Augustinian to realize that the very nature of these creatures — the aasmiar are supposedly the “same blood” as Christ — are an anathema to concept of trinitarianism the Nicene version of Christianity has settled on a canon. If Jesus wasn’t just the son of god, but god itself, he should have no “brethren.” Icio and his kind lend credence to Arianism — which sees Jesus and the barukhim as literal “children of God.”

Through the course of play, the characters wound up discussing the nature of the Christian schism between Arians (represented by the Empress Regent, the anitpope, and her court) and the Nicene (represented by the Archbishop Ambrose and the Roman Church), but also things like the nature of morality — could you have a true concept of morality with multiple gods, which even Icio had to admit exist as they’ve met Pluto, already? If each god has their own versions of morality, can there be a universal good or evil? Icio countered that his God was the one, true god…his moral dictates, therefore were paramount…a singular version of good and evil. Augustinian admitted that he thought you could not have a true moral compass outside of morality. Calvinus — ever the reprobate — chimed in that morality was completely subjective, echoing the moral relativism of modern day.

Having moral quandaries has been a continuing motif in the game — from the notion of enslaving or executing their enemies (perfectly legal in Roman law), to choosing not to kill a troll because they realized that the creature was too dumb to understand the nature of his action, and now the questions Icio has about the Church: they chose to brand his friend (Carona) demonic, even though he knows she is 1) naturally good, and 2) shows ore mercy and charity than the Christians that came to murder her for their — his — religion.

Court intrigue has already figured into the game with the power plays around Gratian and Justina, but the internal conflicts of the Roman Church are also coming into play and intersecting. As the characters rise through the levels and become more influential in the game universe, these conflicts will impact them more, and in way you just can’t simply punch your way out of. And of course, their upcoming quest is taking them to Achaia (Greece) and the River Styx, where they could very well be facing off against Satan, or Pluto, or something worse…