Age of Chaos - Session 6

I've not gotten around to doing proper write-ups of the previous 5 sessions in my Savage Worlds sandbox campaign, and unfortunately I can't remember enough of the specifics of what occurred to do them retrospectively. So we must begin with the sixth session...

Featuring:

Aergyl - eldery and unusually ugly dabbler in the dark arts of necromancy. Worshipper of Mot, god of death.

Barur - Dwarf warrior, noble son of the lord of a distant kingdom. Accompanied by two henchmen: Angur the fighter and Barath the bard.

Darian - wandering bard, about whom little is yet known, as he's appearing on the scene for the first time in this session.

A brief re-cap:

The campaign so far has centred around the village of Keet, a small settlement in the outlying regions of the lands of Karg (yes, the classic sandbox setup :). A motely crew of adventurers have recently entered the region and have been exploring the wilderness to the south of the village, with the eventual aim of finding a route into the mountains and into the City of Iron - a Dwarven stronghold which was overrun by the forces of Chaos about 50 years ago.

Their adventures thusfar have led them into the heart of Grinwold Wood, which is haunted with a strange presence, and inhabited by all manner and size of spiders, and a cult of humans who appear to be spider worshippers. The party have also investigated the ruins of the village of Ballan, which seems to now be home to a group of Bugbears.

This week's session continued directly on from the last, wherein Aergyl was badly injured in a battle against giant spiders and thus decided to attempt to purchase some leather armour, for his future protection. He visited the village smithy, which also acts as a kind of general equipment store, stocking a range of goods which aren't produced in the village, at higher-than-normal prices. A suit of leather armour was available, but Aergyl attempted to "negotiate" a lower price with the smith - insinuating that his wares were not of the highest quality and not worth the price being asked. The smith didn't take kindly to these words, and (after a result of snakeyes for a Persuasion roll) an argument ensued. Aergyl ended up cursing the man in the name of Mot, and carving a rune of death on his door, before making his way to Aglong (the nearest large town) to buy armour there.

Returning from to Keet Aglong in the evening, after several days away from the village, the party headed straight to the inn (the Grinwold's Eaves), which had been their base for the last month or so. They were greeted with an uncomfortable quiet, but nonetheless sat down and ordered some food and drinks from the innkeeper. Barur inquired of the man if there was something wrong, or if something untoward had happened in the last few days, and was told that there had been some kind of trouble, and that they would find out about it soon enough.

Shortly a group of armed guards entered the inn, walked straight up to Aergyl and requested that he accompany them to the village temple, located on a mound to the north of the settlement. He complied, and went peacefully with them, a little unsure of what they wanted or what was to come. Upon reaching the temple he was met by the village priest, a short stocky man whom the party had not previously encountered. It was revealed that Aergyl was to be put to trial for dealing with the dark gods of Chaos - news of the cursing of the smith had, obviously, spread quickly.

The chosen form of the trial was by calling on the judgement of the high gods by means of the runes. Three village elders were present, each as a representative of one of the forces of Order: Blenworth, captain of the guard, on behalf of the King, Meredith, local herbalist, on behalf of the earth gods, and the priest on behalf of the high gods. Each selected a rune, giving three possible fates for the defendant. The runes of Death, Exile and Mercy were selected. The judgement of the god Baal was then called upon, as to which of these three fates should come to pass. *

The rune of Death was revealed, and Aergyl's fate was sealed. He was hurried off to the cell in the guards' barracks, to be taken to Aglong on the morrow to meet his doom.

Barur and his henchmen saw Aergyl being taken, and attempted to intervene, asking the guard captain what had happened, and pleading Aergyl's innocence. But the guards wouldn't question the judgement of the gods, and threw the necromancer into the cell.

After languishing for some hours, Aergyl decided to try his luck at escaping. All his equipment had been taken from him, but he had managed to secret a single tooth in a small pocket on his person - the required component for his spell to summon an undead skeleton. He hoped to be able to command the skeleton to steal the key to his cell, and unlock the door from the outside. The summoning succeeded, but one of the prison guards got into a fight with the skeleton, and Aergyl, out of desperation and anger, ended up killing the man with bolts of eldritch green fire. After the guard's death the skeleton managed to retrieve the key, and attempted to open the lock. However it's manual dexterity wasn't up to the task, and it crumbled into a pile of bones before it could free its master.

Soon afterwards Barur, accompanied by Darian (who had, strangely, just arrived in the village in the middle of the night) went to the prison to investigate and to see if he'd be allowed to speak with Aergyl. Creeping up to one of the prison's windows Barur heard the guards cursing the necromancer, and bemoaning the murder of their comrade. At this point even the loyal dwarf questioned whether attempting to rescue his companion was really the best thing to do, and Darian, who apparently was just along for the adventure, began to find the prospect of breaking a necromancer out of prison in the middle of the night to be distinctly unappealing. So they returned to inn and their sleep, hoping to speak with Aergyl in the morning before he was taken to Aglong.

The session ended thus.

* At this point, I tried an interesting experiment. I didn't feel that it'd be fair for me to just decree that Aergyl was to be put to death (which, in the setting, would probably be the usual punishment for dealing with the gods of Chaos), so I let Yves (Aergyl's player) decide which of the three fates would come to pass. In the end he decided to choose randomly by rolling a die.