Dazzling Prismatic Hemicycle

The Death of Cassutus the Heathen

Introduction

The reason I initially wanted to start this blog was because I was a fan of Matt Colville. Through the years his channel has inspired me to run better games, and even still there are maxims of his by which I still abide1 The main issue is that I have grown away from his general style of game, and there's nothing wrong with that at all, it's just that we have different taste. His Running the Game videos are generally system and philosophy agnostic and have lots of good advice in them, or act as excellent primers on certain subjects or game design ideas, but my all-time favorite of his videos are the "Campaign Diaries" in which he explains the plot of his game and follows it up with the GM commentary. At some point, I realized that this could be a winning format for an OSR channel, but I have come to detest Youtube and would rather not have my face on the internet for all to see. Then, I was reading about play reports in zines from the '70s and realized that blogging is essentially an evolution of that same thing. So, that is what I want my blog to really be about - play reports. But in the spirit of Matt Colville's Campaign Diaries, I will give my GM commentary after a recap of the story. The reason I think this works really well for OSR is that OSR's emphasis on procedure and sandbox play means that there's "no story" until after the game - something I have referred to as a "post-hoc narrative" in the past. I think the recounting of the game's events as a story can be entertaining to players, but the commentary will be helpful to other GMs, since I am generally not a fan of "topical" posts/videos; I think the best advice comes from experience.

I had wanted to make my first real play report on the first session of my actual campaign, but due to some life circumstances I don't know when I'll be able to run a full campaign. Seemingly next year, at the earliest. As some of you know if you follow me on Bluesky I signed up to run a game at my local convention last week. This is as good a time as any to do something experimental, especially considering how experimental this game was for me. More on that in a minute, let's get to the other stuff before I get too ahead of myself.

The Course of Events

Dramatis Personae

It is the year 820 of the Third Dynasty, the fifth day of the month of Harvestfall. Approximately two days earlier, Cassutus the Heathen marched his troops into southern Calennor - he crossed the Erenna River through Heronstad and camped outside the city on the north side of the river. No one is sure why the Duke of Heronstad let him through, because even as they share the faith in the Temple of the Eight there is no real love between the two houses. This is the beginning of the end of the conflict that would come to be known as the War of Var Nion. It is so called because the legendary warrior of the Priestess' Revolt, Jana, was buried in a crypt known as Var Nion along with his shield - an artifact Cassutus claims to have recovered, and one that would grant his claim of kingship some validity. The PCs were assembled in Galanthorn, where they were met by the King of Calennor, Alights-in-Snowfall. There, in a council consisting of several counts - notably, Soteris Castinus of Tavar, Though he was summoned, the King's adoptive brother - Duke Telestis Herennius of Nenesse - did not attend. The King had been told by the Emperor that the crisis required a gentle touch - Imperial Legionaries deployed en masse would cause an uproar. The King himself did not want to legitimize this claim to royalty, and so the PCs were chosen as they had enough distance from the immediate family of the King but also a certain proximity to the Emperor that made their actions carry weight. The King bestowed them with the task to find and capture or kill Cassutus the Heathen, recovering the Shield of Jana if he truly was in possession of it.

The city of Galanthorn sits at the heart of the heart of the Empire - it is not only centrally located but is on the banks of a wide, slow, powerful river flowing from the Lössea Urun - the Ortaina River. It is known for its love of murals, mosaics, and fountains; like many of the cities of the Valley it also has a distinctive tower as part of its keep and also hosts its own, small Mages' Guild. The King and his council, primarily led by the Count of Galanthorn, a Sileadh named Darkness-Lifted, advised the lords and ladies that they believed Cassutus was going to cross the Erenna again at a town called Londu; they wished to find out why Duke Alberich would just let an invading army into Calennor, however, and knew that the arduous journey into the mountains to secure fealty from the nobles of the southeast would bog his troops down. With the council concluded, the PCs put their heads together and decided to send for aid. Duke Makes-Peace wisely decided to ask Duke Telestis if he would be willing to become involved. The Duke politely declined to send any of his knights or troops, but did make a small donation towards the war effort. It would seem that he has his own, mysterious goals that make direct involvement less than desirable. It was during this planning that Duchess Elessa sent word to Sir Morgan of the Vale, castellan of the newly constructed Caer Eastweald and her liege-lady, Elianor of Vylvaryn. The Countess was happy to lend monetary assistance, and though Sir Morgan is of the Old Way he has sworn fealty to Darkness-Lifted and so politely informed the Lady that he would be unable to lend aid without shirking his responsibility. Duke Ricchar, in the meantime, began prying into the matter of Var Nion and the supposed recovery of the Shield of Jana. Before long, he discovered that it was somewhere in the north - far beyond even the advance scouts of the invading army, and sent knights on a errand to discover the precise location. The messages back and forth took four days to convey, sent by hawk and raven. In the meantime, Cassutus and his army were on the move.

The PCs decided not to head south, or even to ask the Duke about the crossing of Kathfeld troops over the Erenna, assuming that he was totally loyal to the cause of the heathen. The PCs decided to make for Londu to ascertain the positioning of the Kathfeld army, not knowing for certain that Baron Euric had allied with the invaders. Duke Makes-Peace and Duchess Alrun called upon the seeress among their host and asked her the whereabouts of the invading army, and believed that the southerners had besieged the city to secure crossing. Along the way, the Duke of Elcenir met them and added another five hundred troops to their number bringing them to approximately 3,000 - a much fairer fight than before, but still much lower in force than Cassutus. On the eleventh day of the month, the encampment was attacked by a wraith, which killed several camp followers before being subdued by Lord Ricchar's war mage. It was at this time the knights of Eir Ainama rendezvoused with their liege. They had encountered a tomb-robber in their search for Var Nion and interrogated the ratcatcher. They reported that the wastrel had heard rumblings about a search for the Shield of Jana. The Duke hatched a plan, spending some time and resources to send out feelers for a craftsman who could forge a copy of the Shield, but his men were not subtle enough and word got out about the commissioning of a fake. It was during this search that the PCs heard that there were many sources of divination in this area, one of which was an esoteric mystic order called the Brotherhood of the Elder Moth. While the Oracle can foretell many things, there is a certain ambiguity to her words. Those who wish to know something of the future for certain, or divine some aspect of the present, go to the Brothers who gain their knowledge from the Library of the Eidolon Writs.

By the time the dux and their armies made it a reasonable distance from Londu the next day, their enemy had already mostly crossed the river and so they decided to employ some subterfuge. The dux commanded their host to hold back and donned the dress of mere retainers of Duke Arnulf. The Lord of Elcenir introduced himself to the Lord of Londu, and was given access to the city to speak with Baron Euric. However, upon entry to the Baron's chamber, he immediately recognized Duke Makes-Peace.

"Do you take me for a fool?" the Baron spat, his weasel-like visage twisted with rage. He was of advanced years, seated upon a throne of hewn stone, and at his motions the guards closed behind the PCs, shutting the large doors. Duke Ricchar, sensing that things were not as they should be, took the initiative and crossed the room with bared stilletto before any guard could react. "Wise and venerable Baron, why don't we take a walk? I would like to be given an escort of your fine fief, and then we shall be on our merry way." With the Baron at their mercy, the PCs slipped out of the town and rejoined their army some hours later. They seemed, for a moment, defeated. It appeared that the southeast had simply given up and laid down for the invaders to take them over. Unsure of what to do, and their own resident oracle at her wits end, they decided to travel to the Sybil of the Oracle herself. This journey took them about a week, traveling through the seemingly endless expanse of tall grass and shrubland of the Great Valley in which the heartland of the Empire rests.

Duke Who-Brings-Peace and Duchess Alrun decided to entreat the Oracle while the Duchess of Anwateo and the Duke of Eir Ainama made for the tower to ensure the rebel would not escape. Duke Who-Brings-Peace set out for the Temple of Sehma, the heathen Sun Goddess, where the Mirror of the Sun - this was the requested payment for the Oracle's services. By sacrificing nearly fifty men, the Duke of Nulye was able to recover the artifact, a bronze disc borne by two bulls who were harnessed to the chariot of the Sun Goddess. The Duke eagerly took it, returning to the Oracle with great haste, who divined the location of Var Nion and thus the Shield of Jana. Meanwhile, the other Lord and Lady laid siege to the tower and eventually this caused the Brothers to give up the Duke who was promptly executed once he was captured, his body promptly sent to rot from the walls of Eir Fainost, the seat of the Kingdom. Some time later, the King sent his men to retrieve the Shield of Jana which now sits safely in his coffers, hopefully to never be seen again. And so ends the War of Var Nion, the conclusion to the Kathfeld Revolt, as four noble houses have sworn fealty to a now-dead king with five thousand troops left to roam the countryside.

Game Master's Commentary

In a general sense, I think the fact that this game worked at all is kind of a miracle. I had several months where I knew the date of the convention, knew I wanted to play, and had even told people I was going to run something along these lines but my life has just been so busy lately (for me, at least) that I just kind of procrastinated on various things. For one, I totally forgot to roll for weather. It's been something I've been wanting to try, as I have become enamored with the idea of procedural gameplay - the idea of procedurally generating weather in conjunction with random encounters seems like a lot of fun but I won't know until I try it now. Not such a huge deal, since this game really took a minute to get off the ground.

Personally, I have a tendency to be inflexible. I remember being in college and getting the initial idea of a paper I was going to write and then getting to a point a few months down the line when it was well beyond the point I could change my topic and wishing I could have done something else. This is why I wanted to steer away from trad gaming in the first place - having to write a story for the players to follow along with Mad Libs style was just too much work. This game was one of those instances, I fear. While it did ultimately kind of work out, I think this was a combination of the worst elements of a sandbox with the worst elements of a trad game. I had a very large area the PCs could travel around, but only one quest. It was the only thing they could really do. There were a few points where they wanted to go really far off the beaten path and I panicked. For example, the PCs wrote to Duke Telestis; he was a potential PC but my sixth player never showed so he became an NPC. I wasn't really prepared to run him in the moment, so I panicked. I liked my justification for why he didn't show up2 but it kind of deflated the player who suggested it when it didn't work out. This sort of leads me to my biggest area of disappointment.

As much as I love roleplaying, my biggest weak point as a GM is roleplaying on the spot. This was an opportunity to get really into a wide variety of characters, and I actually spent a long time working on a table full of characters and their relationships with each other and their attitudes. But I barely got to use it because I moved through a lot of the RP opportunities at a breakneck pace. I also feel as though I didn't do a good job of narrating all the troop movements, describing the countryside, or really describing too much of anything. I fell back really hard on the materials I had prepared - which were good, just kind of dense. This whole thing was kind of a scenario of pulling on a bit of yarn and unraveling your sweater in the process. I started thinking about a succession crisis, and then half way through realized that I had posted the event describing an invasion of sorts. It was kind of late in the game to change the premise, so I had to combine the two. When just doing one would have meant a lot of names already. While I am glad I have such a strong idea about my setting, it is kind of a downside to have so much special language about things.

Anyway, I think I'm being a little too hard on myself. It was a convention, and I had two players that had played in my game last year returning. I wasn't super familiar with them, but they were good sports last time and again this time. I also have a hard time telling if people are enjoying themselves or being polite, so I'll just talk about what I did like.

For one thing, all the work I did to establish relationships between the PCs and NPCs and between both groups actually did give the players a lot to go off of. It took them a minute to figure everything out - but eventually they started thinking along the lines of who is everyone related to, you know, like real life noble families. I also think that most of the players were just very strategically minded. I say strategic because they were almost entirely focused on cutting off the supply line and stranding Cassutus' army in the mountains. It was an entirely valid strategy, and it would have worked...if they hadn't caught on to his plan to sneak off and find the Shield. Once they caught that scent, all pretense of armies and war were off - it was a hunt. I was a little disappointed my boy didn't make it, since as I started writing more and more about Cassutus the more I sympathized with him. He began as a sort of shallow William the Conquerer rip-off but sort of spiraled into a freedom fighter.

Thematically, this game ended up being about the dominant socio-economic-political faction putting down a rebellion on the part of the minority faction. The Istilean nobles are deeply rooted in the power structures of the Empire, and while the Empire is overall "good," as far as empires can be, the fact remains that ultimately the PCs were a force of the status quo. I hate the status quo. But I don't think that this was lost, as one of the players said as I was describing the death of Cassutus at the hands of the King's men, "who knows, maybe this guy would have been a good king." While there were no actual battles in this game, meaning I didn't get to test out the AER rules, I think the players got into the mindset of having five hundred men to throw at a problem. They really started to tax me towards the end by sending off a unit over here, a unit over there, and another way over that way to do various different things. Then there were the messengers, ravens, falcons, and so on. There was a lot of high level strategy at play that was really cool to see the players conceptualize based mostly on the information I gave them on their character sheets. I think if this had been a weeks or months long campaign, especially one starting at the adventuring levels, it would have been a lot easier.

Some things I need to remember going forward: make sure the start of the campaign sets the tone and gives a sense of place. I really did not do Galanthorn justice at first. Another is to remember to slow down and follow procedure. I was too wrapped up in moving the game along that I didn't generate weather, I wasn't rolling as often for random encounters, and I totally forgot to use Supply3. The random encounter I did roll was cool4, I just wish I had been rolling per each hex like the book says instead of just once per day.

Anyway, that's how bandits came to be in my setting - a war with a more or less unresolved inciting incident. I bet you forgot about that, didn't you? That's what initially spawned this whole idea in my head. Just where on earth are these bandits coming from, what would drive someone to banditry? Suddenly losing the leader of your revolution, of course! What will this mean for the setting going forward? Not quite sure yet. If you have some ideas, feel free to pierce the veil of Strages and find me on Discord5 or comment/DM me on Bluesky!

Until next time - keep your eyes on the skies.

Footnotes

  1. "Take the things you like and stick them in your game." for one!↩

  2. He'll be an interesting part of The Third Dynasty now, too.↩

  3. A mechanic I normally wouldn't use - I prefer to track things piece by piece, but in the circumstance it seemed smarter.↩

  4. A wraith in the middle of the camp! Dramatic!↩

  5. @ zeroth.law↩