Bundles of neuroses

The other night I got a close-up view of a massacre.

Not in real life, thankfully. It was the finale of a Victorian-era campaign I’d been running for over a year. The player-characters caught up with some people who were responsible for a series of horrible deaths in the name of mad science.

The PCs found the scientists unarmed at an Arctic base and they blew them away in cold blood. An old man, a woman, and a child who happened to be in the way. One of them shot in the back, too.

So they saved the world, but in hunting monsters they had indeed become monsters themselves.

Now, I’m not complaining. I love that the heroes of the piece might turn out to be stone killers. Afterwards I mentioned to the players that refereeing a session like that is like having a front row seat at a really gripping movie, but actually it’s much better. Movies these days, impressive though they may be with their CGI-candy, too often lay themselves down in the well-worn story patterns taught in screenwriting classes, like old dogs with a favourite spot before the fire. I want to be surprised, even shocked. I want characters who act in unexpected, complex, and non-trope-driven ways. For that you need a roleplaying game.

There’s a but. We use GURPS for most of our games these days. The reason is that 4th edition is well-designed (at the core anyway; all the special cases slightly break it) and has the breadth to cover everything. The characters go to buy hunting rifles for their trip to Norway, or need to check fatigue for trekking through a marsh in a thunderstorm. Fine, there are rules already written for that, so I can just focus on the game.

The trouble is that GURPS doesn’t easily make provision for the character who develops in an unexpected direction. You have to set out everything about the character before you start playing them. In the case of my campaign, one of the characters had Honesty, which in GURPS 4e doesn’t just mean an inability to lie but indicates that you are rigidly law-abiding and, says the rulebook, “you may never commit murder”. Yet that PC did commit murder in a form that should appall any Victorian gentleman. And so did others of the PCs who had traits like Code of Honour (Gentleman’s), which in GURPS are classed as mental disadvantages and are worth extra character points.

I wouldn’t want to straitjacket the players by forcing them to stick to the stereotypes encouraged by the GURPS rules. Enforcing that would be barely any advance on D&D's boneheaded alignment system. As I said, the fun is in seeing the surprising yet inevitable way players respond to their experiences. Bloody and brutal murder seems inconceivable in the lounge of the Reform Club, but out on the rim of the Empire Victorian and Edwardian gentlemen had their own Mỹ Lais. How dull if a player had to say, “My character sheet has Law-Abiding for -10 points so I stop before committing the murder.” Might as well just let the sheet turn up and play the game, in that case.

Diehard GURPS players will say this is already catered for by the rules. You can spend future character points to buy off those mental disadvantages that no longer apply. But… ugh. That’s spreadsheeting, not roleplaying.

This is of course the old debate about how PCs should be created, which was discussed in some detail by Tim Harford in a guest post on this very blog.

“This discussion has been called ‘DAS vs DIP,’ or ‘Design At Start’ versus ‘Develop In Play’. GURPS is both the archetypal design system, and the classic method of producing full formed characters. I turned my mind to the problem of Develop In Play with GURPS characters and it turns out to be almost impossible to do this without chucking out the whole character system. Many other systems turn out to be strange hybrids in which—for instance—attributes are rolled, but skills are chosen within some kind of budget. This is less logical, but fits much better with a Develop in Play approach.”

The sensible answer is simply not to allow mental disadvantages in the game. As Tim said in his referee notes at the start of the Redemption campaign:

“GURPS mental disadvantages are all caricatures, so I want to avoid using them. This will save us all the hassle of dealing with the inevitable string of stubborn, overconfident, impulsive characters with pirate codes of honour. Another reason to avoid the official mental disadvantages is that characters tend to settle in over time, and the original set of disadvantages tend to be inappropriate.”

To which I would add that mental disadvantages, because they are slapped down on a sheet before you begin to inhabit your character, usually get forgotten anyway. I’ve lost track of the number of times players have said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you I have Claustrophobia. I probably should have mentioned that in the mines back there,” or, “Would my PTSD flashbacks have had any effect when we had that desperate gunfight three sessions ago?”

So my ruling from now on is that nobody will get points for mental disadvantages. Bad traits are part of the fun of playing the character. They’re their own reward; you shouldn’t get points for them. And in any case, characters need to be free to change, otherwise we’re allowing the gaming side of the hobby to smother the roleplaying.

Redemption part 3

Our write-up jumps a bit because I didn't have time to write an entry after each week's game, but here's one last entry from a few sessions further on. The party was trying to help reconsecrate a lost chapel, in the course of which quest we were supposed to get absolution for our own sins. We'd had pretty fierce opposition from some antler-headed elves (...goblins, fairies, what-you-will) and my character, Gaius of Tamrac, was also being pulled in another direction by his former mentor, Cynewulf, who had the power to send Gaius's wife's soul down to hell each night. In this sequence, we had gone down into a pit out of Weirdstone of Brisingamen and Gaius had volunteered to squeeze down the narrow tunnel to try and find a way out... It still gives me a shudder.

Descent

As recounted by Gaius of Tamrac

When I speak of the horror, I do not mean the drumbeats above us in the darkness, or the slow trickle of black kobold-oil down the subterranean tunnel. I do not refer to the pit into which Escher nearly stumbled, and which we had to cross on a narrow, creaking plank.

I do not even use that term to describe the moment when Lucan lost his balance crossing the plank and, roped to him, I was dragged to the lip of darkness. We were both within a hair’s breadth of oblivion then.

But that was not the horror.

It came when we reached a narrow drain in the floor and I, as the most limber, entered first. I had to remove my armour and crawl along a passage that soon grew tight around me. It dropped then, doubling back on itself so that I now squirmed on my back. It grew tighter. I had only a firefly summoned by Lucan’s magic to light the way. Each breath became harder to take, hot foul-tasting air sucked into taut lungs.

A rope around my ankle was my sole link to the others waiting above. As the rope – some fifty yards in length – went taut, the dwarf Gork began to tug hard on it. I was pulled back sharply and would have broken my legs or my spine when he dragged me up the recurve, but by luck the rope snagged and snapped.

I waited, wondering whether to go back. Wondering whether it was possible to go back. A scuffling in the passage then, and I heard Escher’s voice. We decided to press on together. I first managed to twist around onto my front, and by dint of extreme contortions cut myself out of my clothing. Naked, armed only with a dagger, I resumed the crawl forward. Around us, the rough stone closed tighter.

And then without warning I came upon the horror. It was there in the tunnel ahead. A face fixed with a skinless grimace. A hand of tendons and white bone closed around the firefly. Utter darkness fell upon us like a rockfall.

I could hear that damned thing slithering towards me. No way to go back. Choking darkness. The scrape and tap of its dagger on the rock. The clatter of bones.

With my eye of night I looked for its aura – the only way I could hope to discern anything of it. The aura showed as a deeper absence against the indelible dark, a hole in the heart of a shadow. And then I felt its dead fingers brush my lips and in gasping silence I stabbed with my knife.

There was no way to parry; barely was it possible to aim blows. We lay stretched out at arms’ length, chopping at each other. I struck with my dagger in a chisel grip and felt the tendons of its forearm give way. Still it came crawling forward. I let go the dagger and pounded blindly, in panic, feeling my fists sink into gristle and soft bone.

Eventually it stopped moving. I noticed the pain of several deep cuts that I had not realized I’d taken. Sobbing with disgust, I crawled past the damned thing – the bits of it, I should say; like the evidence of an appalling murder that is no longer a body, but now only strips and patches of gore and skin.

As I squeezed past, my hands closed on a cold thin shaft. On the point of flinging it away from me, I realized it was not one of the creature’s fingers but the key we had come seeking. The cold iron key of the Black Cauldron.

Escher and I pushed on, feeling the weight of a million tons of earth and stone pressing down above us. The soul can be crushed by fear more certainly than rocks may break the body. You cannot banish fear; only the insane do not feel it. But you must hold your fear pent inside a tiny cage at the very back of the mind. If you allow it out, even for an instant, then the horror will come leaping at you like a great unseen beast in the blackness. And then you are lost.

Redemption part 2

Part Two: Pawns

They become stronger with each we slay, while the recent increase in our own numbers only seems likely to weaken us. Now is the world turned upside-down, the worst of creatures triumphant while the good – and those who would aspire to be better than they have lived thus far – are powerless to act.

But I am ahead of myself, the urgency with which I must write this entry leading to a leap that must confuse the reader of my narrative. I had told of how we set off with the body of the dead Cornumbrian. As we approached the village, three other Cornumbrian warriors came riding towards us, shouting accusations that we had murdered their comrade. There was no chance to explain the situation – indeed, what words could explain it? They tried to ride us down. Two were slain. The third was thrown from his saddle and my sword cut his thigh to the bone. It happened almost as swiftly as I have written it down.

After, when I came to look in the hedge where I had flung the body of the first Cornumbrian, I found the faerie folk had again stolen it. And this time we let them keep it.

The Cornumbrians’ intent had also been to steal Luchan’s horse, which I think excused us taking ownership of their own horses. Luchan nonetheless treated the survivor, saving his limb, and we gave him his own horse and money back. Luchan warned him that if he came to us again with thoughts of revenge, his limb would wither and any he brought with him would die as his other comrades had died.

And so it was we rode on to Blunton in greater comfort than before. It pleased me to gallop out on horseback again, and feel the horse’s delight in speed and freedom and the air in our nostrils, man and beast. God’s Creation is such that even the most tortured souls may snatch such instants of blameless joy, which I feel may be glimpses into the enduring Paradise that is to come.

A moment of conversation on the road was later to take on great importance, so I relate it here. Surveying the fields we passed, Luchan told me of a parable of Our Saviour, where He spoke of a shepherd who went in search of a single lost lamb, even to the peril of the rest of the flock that he left untended. This story struck me as bewildering and yet plausible, for if the purpose of God could be made out in lines of simple common sense then there would be no need of scripture or faith. Therefore, on our arrival in Blunton, I determined to visit the local parson, whom I gave sixpence for the upkeep of his chapel roof and asked if he knew the parable that Luchan had related. He said that he did, and that it was one of the best-known of Our Saviour’s lessons.

Reader, have patience if like me you chafe at these matters of book learning and academe. For next I went to Father Cullon’s room and asked him about this parable. And he told me that he knew no such parable, and that indeed its teaching was absurd for it flew in the face of logic and good commercial sense. It was at that moment I knew Cullon to be something other than a holy man, and I thought also of a certain black noose given to me by one who can coerce my service, this noose said by that one to be the sole means of defeating Cullon. Although at that point I had not yet resolved to make use of the item, it began to be a comfort that I had it – and that despite who had given it to me, and the way he had induced me to use it.

Blunton is Denarth’s home, and having departed there under a cloud he was wary of introducing himself to the town guards. All the same, a confrontation was inevitable so we took steps to make sure it would take place in our own inn under our own terms, after I had first befriended the guards and bought them a few drinks, while Luchan and I stayed on hand to ensure their meeting with Denarth remained uneventful.

Meantime, motivated by boredom, Arandor took himself out to the latrine, hid himself behind the garden wall, and waited to pick the pockets of any of the town guard who ventured outside to relieve themselves.

At the same instant, Denarth was in his room deciding whether to come down and face the guards. As he looked out from the window, he saw in the moonlight dark figures that seemed to be clothed in cobweb robes and have antlers on their brow. Two of the figures fell in silence on Arandor and bore him to the ground. Without hesitation, Denarth launched himself from the window and impaled one of the assailants on his sword.

But there were more. Luchan and I, hearing the sounds of a struggle, ran out into the night with weapons drawn. Black agents surrounded Denarth while others slipped a bag over Arandor’s head and were carrying him off. As I fought my way to Denarth’s side, Luchan ran to saddle his horse and soon came charging into the midst of those creatures, spitting a couple of them on his spear that he wielded like a lance – which gave me cause to wonder again, even in the midst of the melee, if he had some of the upbringing of a knight, and if so where had he come by it?

Denarth and I fought on in the garden of the inn, joined briefly by the town guards until one had his belly laid open and another’s face was skinned off him like a rabbit pelt. The antlered men had claws like iron – I felt them myself, right through my leather jerkin. It seemed as if with each opponent we slew, the others grew stronger. The remaining guards fled then, and who can blame them?

Luchan perceived that the other creatures had almost succeeded in carrying Arandor off into the woods, where at night we would have little hope of finding him. He spurred his horse, great Gabriel, in pursuit.

As soon as Denarth and I had despatched our foes, we hurried on foot after the others. There was silence under the overhanging branches, and many were the shadows painted thickly black in the soft moonlight. In a clearing we came upon our comrades, both with their hands bound behind them and hanging by their necks from an old oak. Luchan still had his feet on the back of his horse, and it is a mark of how disciplined to strife that noble Gabriel is that he did not flinch when I jumped up, balancing on his saddle to cut down both my comrades.

Luchan still lived, but not all his arts could save Arandor. While he worked in vain to restore the spark of life, I learned by certain means that the antlered men had stolen Luchan’s clay cross, breaking it open to obtain the key within. This key opens the way to a hidden place wherein resides the black kettle, or cauldron, of ancient myth, that has the power to restore the dead to life.

We returned to the inn and there met with three new arrivals who had followed us from Crauntel Abbey on the same mission as our own. This group was led by Sir Abuassan, a knight known to me who is in service to my lord Montombre. The men who rode with him were strange and freakish. One was a dwarf clad in fanciful armour; his name was Gurk. The other was a gangling, crook-backed albino who looked to be no older than fifteen years but spoke with the deep tones of a full-grown man, and his name was Lackland. We soon discovered that the eerie appearance of these two reflected their deformed souls, for Gurk muttered and cackled about dealing death in God’s name, while Lackland – well, of his depravities I’ll recount more anon.

Inside the inn, as we all sat together in council, I finally flung the black noose around Cullon’s neck and he fell as though pole-axed. However, he soon recovered his vigour and began to struggle. He had the strength of many men, even weakened by the noose, and when we tried to wound him with our swords we found him to be a creature of living glass or rock, his mortal appearance but a garment of flesh that let him go about in mortal society and pass himself off as a man.

I held the noose a full hour, during which time Lackland had burned off Cullon’s face with a poker from the fire, revealing below a blank crystal visage with an inner glow of magical force. Wearying at last, I passed the noose to Sir Abusassan. The thing that had called itself Cullon lay still, but not yet lifeless. We intended to spend the night together in that room, hoping somehow to choke the motive force out of this strange glass monster, or on the morrow to bathe it in holy water and find some means to seal it up forever.

But fate has a full stack of cards to play on us, and all of them bring woe. In the night, Lackland made two attempts to assault the landlord and rape his wife. On the second attempt, despite having been admonished by Sir Abuassan, he succeeded in gaining entry to their room in the attic. Hearing their cries, I went to investigate and Luchan followed me – though warning, quite rightly, that we should not leave the common room.

In the attic we found ourselves attacked by two of the antlered creatures. We stood no chance of defeating them in combat; it was all we could do to defend ourselves, and I saw that in seconds the one I fought would achieve its purpose of gouging out my eyes. Fortunately for us, Gurk came charging up the stairs and our assailants chose to flee. Whatever purpose those creatures could have had in returning to attack us, having already taken the key in the cross, remained a mystery. But the effect of their visit was no less calamitous, for it distracted Sir Abuassan and he allowed the glass golem to escape. In doing so, it tore right through the bolted door of the inn, breaking the oak like paper.

After, Sir Abuassan chastised Lackland with an axe handle, beating the albino till bruises stood out scarlet on his white skin. Many another man would have died of that beating. Lackland wailed and screamed and vowed repentance, but Sir Abuassan was implacable.

So this is how we stand. The black noose I was given to overcome the glass golem proved all but useless. Our antlered adversaries, whom I presume to be another faction unallied to Cullon, are now individually stronger than we. Luchan and Denarth and I are obliged by the Abbot’s edict to journey on with freaks, knaves and fools who are more dangerous to our chances of survival than the foes who lurk in the darkness without. We have no priest to reconsecrate the cathedral in Helfax Wood even if we can reach it, and any “priest” that the Abbot supplied us now would meet with strong suspicion.

Where do we go next? What indeed is our quest? To reconsecrate a chapel that may not exist, on behalf of a faction in the Church that appears in league with devils and weird sorcery? To find the black cauldron and resurrect the clay of our slain comrade Arandor without regard for his soul? No course that my mind gives me to consider is illuminable by logic. Therefore we must pray for the insight that transcends logic; the insight that would send a shepherd searching for that one stray lamb. In faith lies our only hope.

Resolve must be the firmer, heart the keener, courage the greater, as our might lessens.

Redemption part 1

Part One: Nothing is what it seems

Recounted by Gaius of Tamrac

Upon the instructions I had received from my former lord, I presented myself at Crauntel Abbey, having been told I was to join certain others whom the Church is sending on pilgrimage for the sake of our immortal souls. In these latter days, when many say the Day of Judgement approaches, we must think of the souls of our loved ones and make provision for them in the afterlife, where we may hope to be dealt with less cruelly than in this world where monsters dwell.

I approached the Abbey in the mid-afternoon, when the sun had driven most of the peasants into the shade of hayricks for a nap. This being late summer, the fields were filled with hard golden stubble, of the kind that it delights faeries and young lovers to make circles in. Coming from the south up the long curve of the hill, I saw a man coming towards me whom I recognized. It was one Arandor, who proudly advertises his many soubriquets: “the Reaper”, “the Cruel”, “the Throat Slitter”. He appears to be originally of the mercantile class, but his own line of business is, let us say, the selling of shrouds. By which I mean that, when I was still a knight and served my liege in honourable ways, this Arandor was one of those Montombre called upon to do certain other deeds.

Arandor appeared to recognize me, but our conversation took only as long as the time required to pass each other in the field. Arandor: “You have no horse.” I: “Nor do you.” Arandor: “I never did.” And so he headed on south towards Hallpike, leaving me only to muse on what the world was coming to, that monks would have had employment for his special services. For I was sure he had not been to the Abbey to give confession.

A brief conversation with Abbot Hugo soon brought my mind from spiritual matters. They need something. Of course, is that not always the case? He told me of a ruinous Cathedral, long abandoned somewhere in Helfax Wood. The Church desires to reconsecrate this Cathedral. To do so, we will need a key which is in the possession of a blind man who lives in the house of the Lady of Baptismarl. It’s said that the blind man travelled to the far western edge of the world. Will he give us the key? If he refuses, the Abbot suggested that force should be used to persuade him. I never cease to marvel at how readily the craven and weak of spirit are always the most ready to sanction use of force.

I have said “we”, implying I am not alone in this quest – or pilgrimage, if we are to indulge the Abbot in his choice of words. My fellow pilgrims are:

Denarth, a redoubtable mercenary who served my lord Montombre in former days. He has a temper and bridles at any reference to his short stature. But in a fight he is worth two men of regular height. As for his sins: I know that he slew an unarmed man in anger, but it is hard to blame a man for actions he undertakes in the heat of strong feeling. It is not as grave as a sin committed in cold blood. Regardless of that, I believe he has an honest wish to atone.

Luchan of Grasmere, called by some a doctor, who has some learning. He is slimly built, old enough for his hair to have turned full grey. And yet he owns a fine warhorse called Gabriel, and shows the proper devotion to it that one would expect of a warrior. I am not familiar with the hamlet of Grasmere, but from his bearing I take Luchan to be of good freeman stock. He keeps silent as to the sins that put him in our company.

Father Cullon, a man appointed by the Abbot to reconsecrate the Cathedral on the first holy day after we have reopened it. At that moment, all our sins are absolved. Cullon is not a normal man. There are moments when the eye seems to catch him forcing himself to pause and speak and breathe at the snail’s pace of the mundane world. I have my own suspicions.

Lastly, Arandor is also to join us – though I am unsure he does so as a fellow pilgrim, for reasons I shall explain shortly.

The Abbot gave us hospitality in the form of a meal of bread and mushrooms, accompanied by a quite extraordinary peach brandy, possibly intended for those rare occasions when ladies stay as the Abbot’s guests, and a very fine claret that I was able to induce one of the brothers to bring up from the cellar.

During the night, we were surprised by drum-beats from far off across the trees. A spell of slumber, or perhaps a hand of glory, had been used to keep the monks asleep. I looked out and, seeing a crouched figure of obviously sinister intent, put an arrow in its thigh. It was a crow-like goblin, one of a small party that attacked the Abbey under cover of darkness.

On the wall, Luchan and Denarth found Arandor entangled in a tree, apparently trying to climb from two pursuing goblins. The creatures fled and we realized the drum beats had stopped. I later collected my arrow, covered in dried grey goblin blood, and a crooked spear that had landed in the Abbey grounds when one of Arandor’s pursuers tried to skewer him. I kept the blood and the spear-head.

As we returned to our beds, Luchan and I met a monk who claimed to have a secret item to give us on our quest. He said he could not give the item to me or Arandor, for our sins are too grave. This did little to create any bond of trust; I know my sins well enough, but prefer not to be judged by monks. Luchan was quietly pleased to be spoken of favourably, which gave me further reason to mistrust the monk’s intent – it seemed the classic technique used by tricksters since the Serpent first uncoiled itself along the apple branch. But Luchan is a wise man; I must assume he is on guard against mere flattery.

Luchan went to the stables to check on his horse, and as well that he did, as he found the poor beast strung up by faerie ropes. He freed it and slept the night beside it. Such devotion is admirable, especially as one of his age is the more in need of a soft bed and warm blankets.

In the morning we went to the pottery workshop of the monk we had been accosted by. He then told us that he was Brother Gresham, the Abbey’s potter, and the item he would give us was a clay crucifix – but that Cullon and the Abbot must not know of it. Now, I have no great abiding love for the Abbot, but to be caught as pawn between two factions is rarely satisfying for the pawn. However, when I went to tell Cullon of the crucifix, I found myself under a spell that turned my speech into bestial noises.

At breakfast, Arandor told us that he had first intended to spend the night in Hallpike but, on realizing that the journey back to the Abbey would take half a morning, he had turned on the road, arriving back in the fields after sunset. There he had seen a band of goblins, walking on their bird-like legs with pates shining bald and black in the moonlight. Arandor had evaded them, but when he knocked at the Abbey gate, a huge bird like a white raven with crimson eyes had fluttered up out of the porch, startling him and drawing the attention of two of the goblins. He had run for the tree, barely escaping with his life.

The potter had given me a clay icon of St Christopher. Not wanting to be indebted to him, I gave this to Denarth, who thus gets the benefit of its protection, if any, without any encumbrance on him from one of the players in this game. I now know that we are pawns in someone else’s game – and a pawn can do little, but it is at least good not to be misled that one is directing the game, nor into any false allegiance to the players who move you.

Speaking of the players of the game, we must assume the Abbot is the other. As we set out he beckoned Arandor and pressed upon him a silver piece worth 200 farthings, saying that on completion of his mission he will get twenty-nine more. This is what caused me to doubt that Arandor is also on pilgrimage to redress his sins, but instead for some other purpose of the Abbot’s.

As to sins, my own are well-known around the county, or at least are much gossiped about by those who believe they know them. They caused my fall from mortal grace as well as divine. Though perhaps, in the former case, other considerations were at work, which I say because, if sin alone were enough to strip a man of rank and wealth, there would be scarce a noble in the land with two farthings to rub together.

No, it is bitterness that lies behind those words. Ignore them, reader. Though other men have sinned, I know of none whose deeds are so dreadful as mine, not even Arandor, who even as we set out was attempting to corrupt a monk into some act of impiety – and all merely for boredom’s sake. Thus it has become in the last days.

We were provided with mules. Our journey to Baptismarl took us towards Jewelspider Wood by way of the village of Hallpike, and thence on to Murton. In the tavern there, Arandor sought to practice mischief with Luchan’s help. They distracted a traveller while Arandor picked his pocket. Another man saw this, but Arandor thought quickly and palmed the purse off on another man standing nearby. A large Cornumbrian was accused of the theft. He took a swing at Arandor, who blocked the punch and laid the man out with a purse of silver in the face.

The man was thrown out into the lane. But later we found he had been dragged away into Jewelspider. Luchan assessed the lay of the land and told us there were many faerie signs. Nonetheless, I would not have an innocent man taken by faeries in this way, for if our quest becomes wound about with acts of petty unworthiness, it is like a sapling that falls prey to weeds.

We pressed on into Jewelspider there and then, and soon came across the Corumbrian’s dead body strung up from a tree. As we stepped forward, the corpse raised its hands to touch Luchan accusingly, but the doctor held up his shield, whereupon the cadaver fell upon him and we saw it was only moving because of briars and strings worked under the skin, puppet-like.

It kicked off then – a swarm of tiny faerie folk with little pick-axes and hammers, pouring out of the darkness and covering us. We fought a short while against mounting odds, until Luchan noticed a brook and led the others to safety across running water. I would not leave the Cornumbrian’s body, however, as I knew the faeries would drag it off and the poor man would never receive Christian burial. Therefore I set the body across my shoulders and began slogging back down the lane to Murton.

The faerie folk fought furiously to preserve their prize. Their sheer weight of numbers forced me to my knees. I might have died, but Denarth led the others in a charge across the brook and we drove the little fiends back into the darkness.

Under other circumstances, peril shared in this way could forge the first bonds of comradeship. I see little hope for that with our party. We are too obviously a group picked, not because of an earnest desire for redemption, but because we have between us the unsavoury skills of murder, violence, witchcraft and deceit, and have shown plenty of willingness in our lives to use those skills. Just as the Abbot has his games played with words, I cannot call us pilgrims but merely grims. It is not redemption that lies at the end of our road, I fear.

What a Legend warlock really looks like

Friends or Foes is Magnum Opus Press's book of NPCs designed for Dragon Warriors campaigns but equally useful with other fantasy RPGs. You can buy it and other DW books here.

I was recently given a copy of Friends or Foes and while leafing through it I got to thinking about the cast of vivid and memorable characters I've encountered in games over more than thirty years. I'm sure everyone reading this will have had similar experiences, interacting with or playing characters whom any novelist would be proud to have created. And yet, because they are incarnated in the ephemeral milieu of a roleplaying game and not in a novel, few people get to appreciate them.

And so, excruciating as this may seem, I thought I'd run a few write-ups of our own game sessions. I don't always record our sessions. That'd be a bit of a busman's holiday, after all. When I stop work for the day I want to play in fantasy adventures, not write about them. But this particular campaign "Redemption", run by Tim Harford, was so brilliant (surpassed only by Tim's earlier, desperately gritty "Iron Men" saga) that I wanted a record of it. The write-ups only lasted a few sessions and unfortunately did not record the final, doom-laden session when we reached the Day of Reckoning. But if you haven't played in Legend and want a sense of what it's all about, come back on Monday for the first instalment.

To put the write-up in context (and to tie in with the Friends or Foes reference earlier, because we care about that segue stuff in these parts) here is the backstory of my character in the Redemption campaign, one Gaius of Tamrac. Not that he's one of those amazingly memorable characters (I've played my share of them, not to be falsely modest here, however Gaius wasn't one) but he is the narrator of the adventure so you might find it helpful to know a bit about him. Incidentally, his meagre magical abilities are the closest we ever come to having player-character sorcerers in our Legend games.

Gaius of Tamrac was a baronet in service to Earl Montombre. He studied a little with Montombre's wizard, Cynewulf Magister, who claimed he recognized Gaius's magical aptitude, but really the wizard wanted to get close to Gaius's two young twin sons. When the boys started to sicken, Gaius knew enough to realize the wizard was draining off their souls to make himself a doppelganger servant. Gaius tried to counter the spell, but had no real magical training and could not hope to dispel the magic of such a powerful sorcerer. Left with no other recourse, to save their souls he smothered the two lads.

Gaius's noble rank saved his life, but for the crime of killing his own sons he was stripped of his rank and cast out of Montombre's lands. His troubles didn't end there. Cynewulf put Gaius's wife, Abbasia, under a sleep spell that allows him to send her spirit wherever he chooses. He can threaten to send her sleeping spirit to hell, and so has leverage to make Gaius serve him.

Gaius tried again to counter the wizard with magic, but this time his attempts created a backlash, scarring his right eye and leaving it as black as jet. But the eye gives Gaius certain enhanced (if unreliable) abilities: finding lost objects, discerning auras and so forth – even, at times, seeing glimpses of the future. The balance of his skills reflect the kind of man used to performing unsavory tasks in the dead of night: sword, knife, climbing, stealth, lockpicking.

I left it undefined whether the fate of Gaius's family was done with Montombre's knowledge or whether Cynewulf was acting for himself - that's something Gaius himself wouldn't know. Every so often, he receives a sending in his dreams in which the wizard instructs him what service he must perform to spare his wife another night of hellfire. Each such task increases his tally of sins. As the campaign opens, the Archbishop has charged Gaius with a pilgrimage to atone for slaying his sons, but Gaius also perhaps hopes that he can expunge all his sins and, by earning God's favour, win his wife's release from the wizard's power.

Was he destined to succeed? Find out next week - maybe.