The Story So Far...

The campaign started off as a simple one-off to relieve my Gamesmaster (who was running a high level Dorastor campaign) of some of his burden. I was badgered again and again into doing it, running an off the cuff dungeon hack n' slash bash and using adventures from Tales before finally deciding to create a well constructed campaign with my own adventures beyond monster killing. As some of the players managed to come up with excellent character concepts, and I managed to come up with some at least half reasonable adventures, the campaign has thrived even though I've gone to University in Leeds. Here is a description of some of the more pertinent adventures that led the campaign to where it is.

The group are all human Otkorioni, mainly from the Family Rawson, one of the seventeen major families of Otkorion. The first year consisted of the characters all playing members of the Rawson Family Guard serving duty, as it allowed me to ensure that the characters actually did the adventures I wrote for them. With this constraint now released I am bound to see a wider variety of characters appearing in my game.

The Crown of Arkat

Just before the end of 1621 ST the characters were sent to investigate the death of Gilli Rawson at Tempest Halls, the great temple in the east of Otkorion on one corner of the Stormwalk road. The adventure itself was huge, taking many, many sessions to play, almost a full year of real time. Here is a synopsis of what occurred.

A dark troll, Shergbal Azataki, a great sorceror from Guhan was attempting to gain possession of the Crown of Arkat. The crown could be utilised in a variety of ways on HeroQuests, and Shergbal intended to flood Otkorion with Uz by using it on a HeroQuest against St. Orlanth. Shergbal was, as the players found out, working on the orders of a mysterious Mistress Race troll called Primal Magic, one of the members of the Dark Council of Guhan. Shergbal recruited Cathbad Lovat, a worshipper of Arkat Chaosbane and a Zorak Zorani Rune Lord, to capture the Crown for her and in turn he hired members of other Arkati cults, including Arkat the Destroyer. These Arkati in turn attempted to find the location of the Crown using their own agents. Gilli Rawson knew the location of the map that would lead to the Crown and had been murdered for the information.

The PC's, of course, were working back up the line of command. They met many assassins sent from the different Arkati to kill them and hinder their mission. They ran afoul of chaos sent by the Destroyer, Dark Storm Assassins (humans working for trolls), the Dawal Maedul (a small, secretive mystery sect that had the power to make blades fly) and Iudan Finshad, a duped worshipper of Arkat Chaosbane who pretended to be helping the group and instead hindered them. He later had the full plan revealed to him and, instead, aided the group. As the group slowly found out that Gilli had been murdered for the location of Arkat's Crown they also slowly began to work up the chain of command, capturing and interrogating various people as they became more and more embroiled in the complex plot. It was during this adventure where they went to the Benvarkini lands (see below) and had the king aid them in return for a favour he would ask of them at a later date.

The adventure started off as a murder-mystery style Call of Cthulhu adventure with dead bodies coming back to life, murdered men not burning and over such mysterious things as they slowly tracked down the killer of Gilli. It then developed into an overland adventure, where they were beset by assassins (at one point running into four sets consecutively, which I found highly funny as the group became more and more paranoid). Finally it ended up at the resting place of the Crown, a place in Vustria where the chaos demon NabThankle lay in pieces. They won the race against time to get to the Crown before Cathbad (someone even opened the door which contained the Chaos Demon's heart and promptly took 6d6 dmg - oh how I laughed as I pointed to the map that I had given them earlier that related to this exact portion of the complex and labelled the room they had entered with numerous Death runes). Obviously, the Crown was loaded with magical powers and goodies for them to use (it was, to date, the single most powerful magic item I have awarded the group, other than a powered javelin). However, they wisely concluded that they would never be able to keep hold of the Crown and decided to give it to a higher, stronger power. While one of the group tried to foil the plan as she wanted to take the crown to the cult of Arkat the Destroyer she was a member of in return for lots of cash and power, they managed to safely move the crown to Sword Wall, just south of the Salantia. Here they gave the Crown to one of the Temporal Incarnations of St. Humakt, who was glad to take it off of their hands. The group were rewarded by the Church and the family, and gained more fame than they probably wanted. While not Heroes of Otkorion, they certainly became noticed figures around the area. It marked the step forward in my campaign from low level gaming to higher level, player driven games.

The Sacred Time Pilgrimage

Earlier on in the campaign I had run the group through the short form pilgrimage by Martin Laurie (click here for a copy) with the intention that the group to a more dangerous, difficult version at Sacred Time. The players had been in friendly competition with another group of the Family Guard to see who would have the honour of enacting the Sacred Time HeroQuest, and they succeeded (generally because in an earlier adventure half of the group they were in competition with fell foul to a monster known as the Raaishan).

It was the first playtest of my house HeroQuest rules and I felt the pilgrimage was a little dry. It was certainly easier for the players than I had expected it to be, but give the party their dues this was because they had a character who had enacted a handful of HeroQuests before and he knew the key was preparation.

Only two events of note (well, of note in this synopsis) occurred. One was the party meeting the Mostali HeroPlane Pipework Corps (from my Hazards of the HeroPlane description) and the other was that they failed to defeat the Evil Emperor, which bodes ill tidings for the family Rawson in the year 1622 ST. It was a reasonable adventure, but too many of the group had no real experience of Glorantha, let alone HeroQuesting and thought it odd that they could research what they were going to meet on the adventure I ran that day...

The Wars

The Wars are an important factor in my game at the moment. My group have managed to single handedly start not one, but two wars between the Family Rawson and Lanksti clans north of Otkorion. In true Gloranthan fashion, the players, now that the campaign is more higher level, must learn to take responsibility for their actions and are being forced to account for what they did and solve the situation at hand.

The first war was with the Scanthil Lanksti tribe. On their first Pilgrimage they encountered the Scanthil and tried to deal with them to get through their lands. Unfortunately, a fumbled World Lore meant that the group thought they owned the land and refused to deal with the Scanthil to pass through it. It ended up with an ally of the party, a sorceror named Samas, fighting a battle with one of the warriors. It was slightly... dubious as the sorceror used his familiar and numerous other tricks the Scanthil thought were dirty and so war was proclaimed. The Scanthil, being a minor family, were nothing more than an irritation to the Rawson family. A random encounter in case you passed through Lankst, nothing more. Not, that is, until the second war.

The second war was funny. It was funny because the PCs didn't do anything to deserve it, but any outsider who didn't know the truth would have blamed they squarely for starting it. The characters had earlier encountered, whilst looking for the Crown of Arkat, the Benvarkini king. He allowed them to pass through his lands and aided them in their quest. In return, they owed him a single favour. During their stay, Lugh Rawson - the erstwhile Illuminate of the party - encountered Lir Benvarkini, the Thane of the King. He was a Sword of Humath, and more importantly a Jalmari. He decided to keep an eye on Lugh, and had the General of Fiesive (also a Jalmari) to do likewise. Shortly after Sacred Time the Jalmari decided that Lugh's dodgy past was worth further investigation. Lir used HeroQuest magics to appear in Lugh's bedroom as an enormous Thanatari demon who told Lugh to come with him so he could be rewarded with the "true powers of chaos". As soon as Lugh accepted (for he was a chaos worshipper in reality) the façade was dropped and the demon turned into Lir, armed to the teeth with all his spells cast. It took Lir ten SRs to kill Lugh, which is amazing as Lugh managed to take out an arm and inflict some heavy damage before this happened. However, Lir cut off his head and returned to Heoral, the home stead of the Benvarkini people.

Lugh was not to remain dead, however. The Barrowranger instructed Deola Rawson to have Lugh ressurected (in his own words "I didn't give him permission to die!"), and the Rawson family instructed the characters to find the killer. Lugh's familiar, his panther, told them (via telepathy) that the killer was Lir, and the head of the family was outraged enough to send them north into Benvarkini lands. They were instructed to try not to start a war, but to recover the head (and family honour) at all costs and make the killer pay. The person playing Lugh was given Abhaill Bov Rua, a Sword of Humakt and aide to one of the Temporal Incarnations of St. Humakt, to play for the session. The Incarnations owed the party a favour for the party had given them the Crown of Arkat. The players then headed north.

Of course, the King of the Benvarkini people refused to believe that Lir, his trusted thane, was a killer. After all, Lir had been in Benvarkini lands for the past few weeks and had no way to get to Fiesive, kill Lugh and return. Plus, he had no apparent motive. Instead, the king accused the group of dishonouring him for they owed him a boon and instead came here to plague him with lies. He refused to take the words of the familiar as evidence, for the familiar was both a sorcerous creation (a "krjalki abomination if ever I saw one" as the king said) and was, after all, just a cat. Who would you trust, a cat or your trusted thane and military advisor? The king concluded that the Rawson family were trying to actually spark a war so they could invade. Unfortunately for the group, as events unfolded they only compounded his (unfounded) suspicions.

One of the group challenged Lir to one-on-one combat. Abhaill, the most powerful character in the group, did not (she was far more powerful than Lir) as she had been shown no proof that the party were actually telling the truth. While the fight was going on, a party member sneaked into the temple of Humath to look for evidence. He was captured. The person fighting Lir was slain.

So, just after the combat, the party were taken to the temple where the thief had just been stopped by various Humathi initiates. While they argued over who was in the right or wrong, another PC sneaked into Lir's room and found Lugh's head in a chest. He then walked out and produced it. Abhaill, having received her proof, challenged Lir to one-on-one combat, slew him and the party returned to Otkorion. Of course, to the Benvarkini King, the chain of events were this. One party member challenged his military advisor to one-on-one combat so he would use all of his rune magic up, so that Abhaill could challenge him and kill him leaving the Benvarkini open to attack from Otkorion. The aprty member they arrested first put the head in Lir's room while the second merely retrieved it. In the king's eyes there was no crime, merely a set up. War was initiated. I still find some glimmer of humour in the way that the adventure fell so beautifully together, not having had any intention of it going one way or the other it was wholly down to the party that a war was begun.

So now the Rawson family have two families after them, and 1622 ST is the year when ill will befall them. In bucket loads.