Goodman Games

Session 29- All players present.

As requested, the PC names will appear before the log entry.

Knight- Hyfaidd
Mystic- Quinlan
Rager- Phalaanx
Scrub- Searlean (NPC)

PCs decided to go back to camp and rest. Rager decided to check out the battle site one more time after daybreak. He found that the horse corpse was gone with no signs of scavengers. He also found a dented flask marked with the sign of the new temple in the city and still containing liquid. He opened it and smelled flowers. Rager closed it and packed it away.

They then moved out to the west. They reached a line of hills and decided to enter a gully between two of them. As they entered, everyone made checks. They all felt they were being spied on but Rager made a perfect Scrutiny check which allowed him to spot a man watching them from the hill on the right. The PCs decided to prepare for attack. The man stood up to be revealed as a plainsman. From further down the gully, two plainsmen (that were mounted) appeared and rode at the group. Knight quickly set lance and shield and charged. Mystic followed Knight into battle against the mounted folk. Rager started in on the man on the hill by firing spells into him while he closed. Scrub started to back up Rager but noticed that three more plains folk were charging on foot at his back so she held her ground against them. Rager noticed the next round so he reversed course to help her. Meanwhile Knight decimated both of his mounted opponents (he smashed one each pass). Knight dropped his lance and headed up the hill to help Scrub (Rager told her to head up the hill) face the Shaman while Rager & Mystic finished the ground troops. The shaman used magic to transport away after the third hard hit from Knight. The last plainsman used magic to transform and get away as well.

After the battle, the PCs headed up the hill the shaman was on to get a better view. They found the way west to be blocked by a larger hill so they decided to climb that one. Once they did that, the spotted an encampment on a hill about a mile away that was flying the Rager’s temple's flag. They rode out and were quickly admitted. Turns out the Rager’s temple men and been effected by the tainted incense and then fell victim to a camp disease (or poisoned they weren’t sure which). They had sent runners but it turned out they were the ones found back at the old camp in the wagon. Magical means had failed due to the tainted incense. The PCs were able to use their powers to heal the remaining initiates and trainers. The net day, most of the troop headed back to the city while two corporals and four initiates were sent with the PCs to check out the source of the tainted ingredient.

The PCs arrived at the production farm to be greeted by the owner. He gave them all the info he could and showed them the production facility and the workers who worked on the tainted batches. All checked out. He then took them to the harvesting locations. Here the PCs found magic on the growing ingredient. They combined powers to dispel and were able to overcome the taint. They told the owner to leave the area as is and that they would have a team sent out from the city to clean and certify everything. He was very thankful.

They then headed back to the city. During the last night on the road, Mystic noticed that the night noises ceased. He quickly roused the camp. Knight cast earth sense (spell that allows him to sense living vibrations in a radius) and Rager detected magic. Rager was able to sense a being magically cloaked far out at the edge of his range. He made the glow visible to everyone (which startled the watcher) and then waved to the man (who fled by means of a traveling spell). They searched the area and were able to determine that the man had circled the camp at least once before he was found out.

They arrived back in town and proceeded to inform the order and both temples of the developments (they traveled together to each, starting with the order and ending with Rager’s temple). They also petitioned to be allowed to raid/destroy the new temple in town. They were informed that the conclave that had found out about the taint would decide on whether to ask for the city councils permission to do destroy the new temple in the morning.

Game ended here due to time. System was smooth as usual. Knight did some serious damage with the lance and warhorse. We are off next week.

For information purposes: We used a variation of my propossed mounted combat. We assume all the mounted people made their horse combat rolls at exactly 1/2 of allowed rolls, all for knights, just base and spec for cavalry. So adding that value for lance/spear charges, or versus foot targets. It seemed to work quite well. All where impressed with the resulting feel of mounted advantage.

Sounds like a good rule, and I'm glad ERP is easily customized without as much of a cascading effect, like you'd find in other systems.