At the end of the last session, the Father killed the Son in a duel to the death. Since then a couple days have passed as Matilda recovers, and the Mother has been giving the Father a cold shoulder. Which is impressive becouse she already has a very frigid disposition on a good day. Matilda overhears how the Mother speaks to the Glazier for advice on if she should prioritize her duties as a warrior or as a mother. The bandits at the Lily of the Water have silently started to form into two groups, around 10 of them are on the Mother's side while double that amount are with the Father. It's no surprise that she has less support, becouse the Father has always been the better chef of the two.
Meanwhile the collection of hunters that helped with taking down the Beast are starting to part ways. Rosemary is going to go upriver and over the mountains to the Great Wood where Moss is strongest. The poor unlucky woman does not want to be struck by lightning, so seeks the powers of Moss, becouse Glazier tells her that lightning is in the domain of Crystal. Bellum plans to get a safe distance away from Yelenin before the fighting starts while still operating in the Jabberwacky's marshes, since he's a local lad. Dame the Vivisector is going north to the Fallen City to slay dragons.
Meanwhile the collection of hunters that helped with taking down the Beast are starting to part ways. Rosemary is going to go upriver and over the mountains to the Great Wood where Moss is strongest. The poor unlucky woman does not want to be struck by lightning, so seeks the powers of Moss, becouse Glazier tells her that lightning is in the domain of Crystal. Bellum plans to get a safe distance away from Yelenin before the fighting starts while still operating in the Jabberwacky's marshes, since he's a local lad. Dame the Vivisector is going north to the Fallen City to slay dragons.
Matilda has the oppertunity to recruit one of them for a more permanant basis, and chooses the level headed and uncursed Bellum. He is willing to stick around despite the risk if Matilda has a good plan for ensuring that he's on the winning team, and Matilda comes up with the scheme of using her advanced knowledge of stew making to win over the bandits. The poacher is initially unsure but agrees to back her play. Matilda aligns herself with the Mother's camp through the comradery of the bandits she faught the Beast with, whose loyalty to the Son transformed to make the Father thier enemy. If the Father is taken out, Matilda has a chance to become the gang's new chef but she's going to have to deal with the Beast's slayer Scarlet and the Son's Wife, who are both skilled in the culinary arts. For Matilda to have a chance at the spot, she's going to need to collect reagants, that likely means hunting some dangerous magical beasts.
While politics are happening the background, she also decides to investigate the Sphinx of Black Quarts with a professional. The Glazier is able to find time in his busy schedule to venture to the previously explored cabin with the protection of the Apprentice and Matilda with her two companions. When they arrive, the craftsman-priest pays introduces himself politely to the unintrested oracle and looks at the statue. He translates the inscription to say “Swear on me, be judged and accept what you deserve” and explains that there is likely to be a specific phrase that is involved. By process of elimnation the answer must be in the cabin's final unexplored room, Distal's nest. However before getting to that, the old skeleton man admonishes Matilda and crew for not buring the bodies of Claricia and Inezch and directs them to correct thier error. During this process it's discovered that Inezch has wizard teeth, which are useful alchemical ingrediants that go unplundered, due to everyone's watchful gaze. Then the Glazier and Apprentice headed back to the villiage, becouse they have shit to do.
Meanwhile the party had to think about how to get inside Distal's nest without bothering the light senstive monster. The one time the oracle is known to leave that place is during the full moon, and after consulting the calander, it fortunately turned out that this very night it was the full moon. So the party just rested in the upstairs cabin until nightfall. During which time Matilda read Claricia's journal, learning more about how she died to her own poison, that her blood was cursed, how she tamed both Distal and Miette and her worries for both of them and her husband Inezch.
While politics are happening the background, she also decides to investigate the Sphinx of Black Quarts with a professional. The Glazier is able to find time in his busy schedule to venture to the previously explored cabin with the protection of the Apprentice and Matilda with her two companions. When they arrive, the craftsman-priest pays introduces himself politely to the unintrested oracle and looks at the statue. He translates the inscription to say “Swear on me, be judged and accept what you deserve” and explains that there is likely to be a specific phrase that is involved. By process of elimnation the answer must be in the cabin's final unexplored room, Distal's nest. However before getting to that, the old skeleton man admonishes Matilda and crew for not buring the bodies of Claricia and Inezch and directs them to correct thier error. During this process it's discovered that Inezch has wizard teeth, which are useful alchemical ingrediants that go unplundered, due to everyone's watchful gaze. Then the Glazier and Apprentice headed back to the villiage, becouse they have shit to do.
Meanwhile the party had to think about how to get inside Distal's nest without bothering the light senstive monster. The one time the oracle is known to leave that place is during the full moon, and after consulting the calander, it fortunately turned out that this very night it was the full moon. So the party just rested in the upstairs cabin until nightfall. During which time Matilda read Claricia's journal, learning more about how she died to her own poison, that her blood was cursed, how she tamed both Distal and Miette and her worries for both of them and her husband Inezch.
Then when the full moon came, and the oracle wandered into the marsh, singing unharmoniously, the party snuck into his private chambers. The room consisted of chair, a couple chests, hanging paper stars and words written and carved on every surface. The phrase "Sphinx of Black Quartz Judge My Vow" was identified from common repetion, and the chests were opened with Inezch's key, where a crossbow for vampire hunting, silver bolts and several books were found. The books and bolts were looted and the party slept up in the cabin. That night Matilda saw a sphinx prowl into her dreams and give her a judging look that makes the Glazier's dissaproving tone look like approval.
In the morning she read Inezch's journal. In which she learned that Inezch became a divination wizard from vows to the Sphinx, that Distal stopped looking like him after Claricia tamed the oracle, and that Inezch was extermely paranoid about Claricia's safety. The session closes on Matilda pondering the mysteries presented before her and her next move.
Ease Of Running
This session was much easier to run then the last one, and I came away from it feeling way better. I think it's becouse there was a lot less uncertainty on if I was using the procedures correctly. The half consisted of me presenting information, and getting Alice to make choices and elaborating of what that entails. The second half was mostly exposition, with a focus toward answering the mystery of how to utilize the Sphinx of Black Quartz.
Lunar Coincidence
I did not intend for Alice to arrive at the cabin at precisely on the day of the full moon. I quickly calculated how many days had passed in the campaign and it turned out to be two weeks. Which in the simplified calander I chose for this campaign, that meant that day had to either be the full moon or the new moon and I decided the former based on Feral Elf lore.
Kitsuragi Effect
A term I'm coining now. The Kitsuragi Effect is that when you give a PC a reasonable friend they are a lot less likely to do wierd shit due to the social pressure. Claricia's heart and Inezch's teeth have gone undefiled becouse I mentioned that npcs might judge Matilda for doing so. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing.
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