Sundered Earth: The Radiant Forge
Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2013 10:17 pm
--- WARNING Wall of text incoming! ---
Our First Session
Pre-Game: When I had settled on the idea of using the first edition of OVA in an rpg that I quickly convinced my girlfriend to play (in anticipation of the next edition that was so successfully funded through kickstarter) I gave her a list of settings for the game.
These settings were all of my own creation, mostly for story series I had already written or had ideas for but never gotten anything done with.
The setting she picked was that of Sundered Earth, a medieval, high fantasy setting in which some people wielded aeon old magical weapons infused with the bound souls of powerful entities which grants the wielder (once the name of the beast and consequently the weapon itself) is spoken aloud.
Not all characters are like this though, as you might expect there are mages who don't get their powers exclusively from any magic weapon they happen to wield, they know how to sling fireballs (or whatever) because of a rare talent for some (among Humans anyway) to do just that, however spellcasters can come into possession of these magical weapons and they tend to boost their already great powers.
In the weeks that followed that decision my girlfriend rolled up her characters and I mine (I ended up playing 2 player characters myself, so that Anna (gf) didn't need to role-play to herself when npcs weren't around.
Our characters were roughly as follows:
Anna rolled up a crazy eyed Gnome inventor (the kind you might see in World of Warcraft or Everquest). Armed not with one of these creature imbued magic weapons but with a rocket launcher of his own creation named L.E.P.P. or Ludwig's Explosive Projectile Precipitator. Ludwig's Power Moves each represented a different rocket type that would be loaded into L.E.P.P. and then fired, he had a blinding gas grenade, a thought-controlled (read redirectable) mega rocket and a giant area of effect exploding one.
Anna's second character was an interesting choice that certainly made me think a lot about my nascent setting. Zana, a girl with a constant Wolf companion, the strange quirk of this character was that her magical weapon was in fact bound into the Wolf, which is very strange indeed.
When calling out the weapon's name (Riar, the Amber Blade) the Wolf would grow substantially (think of Cringer changing size into Battlecat from He-Man). Zana would also gain some enhanced abilities while riding on her wolf. The two's ultimate move, which is actually a combination of Power Moves from both the rider and transformed beast has Riar (also the name Zana gave to the Wolf) clamping down on a particular adversary (read Entangling) while Zana herself delivers a super-punch to a (hopefully) helpless target.
My characters were a young Dwarf (young by Dwarven standards as Haz stands 48) named Haz Goldrune. The reason my Dwarf is so uncommonly young is that Dwarves in this setting, as well as a bunch of other races (such as Elves) are monumentally above the power level of Humans, when the stories were first written and the setting created the likes of Dwarves and Elves were meant to be graduated up to later on, but I couldn't resist, I love Dwarves.
Dwarves also rarely use these magical weapons as they are (in ages past) the work of Elves, instead most Dwarves favour their own masterfully crafted equipment inscribed with runes that give that equipment additional properties, although this isn't something my Dwarf has much of at the moment.
My Dwarf's weapons (named Tholn and Logar, Thunder and Lightning respectively in Dwarven) are expertly made heirlooms given to him by his clan from their great vault. The young Dwarf throws these hammers with devastating effect and can call them back to his hand with a simple gesture thanks to a rune inscribed on them (think Thor here).
My second character is a water mage from a fallen noble house who mostly wears blue (obviously!) and possesses long, luxurious hair that makes many a woman swoon and a magical harp infused with the spirit of the Mermaid who once herself owned it, when it was slightly more mundane.
Unlike a lot of mages in this world Tobias cannot create the element he works with from just energy or similar, all of his power moves and even Arcane and Witchcraft magics require a source of water, luckily he has a skin of water on him at all times, although his ultimate spell requires a 'Plentiful Source of Water' which his personal supply certainly is not.
The Story
Basically, just to give a super quick explanation of the Western Human Lands where this campaign and the story series are set...
About a decade and a half ago or so the Western lands of Man were a bunch of Kingdoms (I may include my map if I can, or a link to dropbox, although its a map of how it is presently most of the larger capital city-looking names used to be the capitals of Kingdoms) then that all changed and a long-prophesied golden child was born into the world; a girl called Atmaria.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/870 ... %20Map.png
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1mn8h918o99na ... 20Info.doc - A link to a document I gave to Anna before she made her character - I went through all the places from the map above and wrote a little about them, just if you're interested. Though be forewarned, there's a few in-jokes between us and even a not-so-nudge at how bad Anna can be at remembering stuff about settings I've written.
Believed to be a God in Human-ish form (golden, slightly metallic skin, huge, burning gold eyes and an impossibly powerful presence and voice) she grew to adulthood within years and single-handedly conquered the largest of all the old Human Kingdoms Aldor, from there she subjugated or destroyed (sorry Drothas) the other Human Kingdoms until they were all united under her authoritarian rule.
Now, as you can imagine, this put a lot of people out! So basically the player characters are all members of the Resistance against Atmaria's Empire that was recently given a huge boost by a particularly massive event that took place in the stories.
The players find themselves at a Resistance base hidden in a large cave system used by smugglers of sorts, near Geld, the City of Hammers.
The Session
The players are in the HQ of that regional part of the resistance before an old, world weary knight named Oberon, he is the leader of the resistance in these parts. He is flanked by a stuffy old noble called Davian Roche who bankrolls much of this part of the resistance's operations, this makes him think he can heavily influence the resistance's actions, but is rarely the case, despite however much he insists he knows better.
Oberon begins to give the party their task, they have been quickly assembled because of a very important mission that the Resistance feels it cannot possibly fail.
He tells them that their (well, Davian's) sources and spies have spied an armoured caravan guarded by a handful of guards leave from Aldor, the Golden Throne and is bound for Geld, the City of Hammers.
This is significant because Geld is the city in which all of Atmaria's greatest feats of smithing or any kind of construction are begun or just wholly completed. The resistance wants the party to attack and raid the caravan while it is on the road, before it reaches Geld.
Oberon is very hush-hush about exactly what this cargo is, saying it was on a 'need to know basis' although Haz, one of my characters already knew what the Resistance and he hoped he would find being transported (took a Secret weakness for that!).
The party travel there, the trip was several hours (in game, obviously) and there was a little chatting in transit between the group, mostly between Zana and Tobias with Tobias initiating the conversation, the reason I did this is that in this setting non-Humans are something most Humans just never see, as the other races have little to do with Humans and Humans were a little xenophobic at best and that was before Atmaria and her rather unaccepting religion permeated every aspect of Human life.
Now, I forgot to roleplay one of my weaknesses which I added specifically to create tension and interesting opportunities for roleplay between Tobias and Zana in that he has an allergy toward Dogs and Wolves, consequently somewhat disliking them for it.
I also think I hurried the whole thing along a bit too much (the travel I mean) and I could have given the whole journey a lot more time for more getting-to-know-eachother kind of talk, I think that was mostly my inexperience at DM'ing a story driven game coming through there and just trying to get stuff done.
The group set up an ambush and waited for the caravan to pass by, although I made sure to impress upon Anna the lightness of the guard escorting the armoured vehicle on its way to Geld.
The first combat began with a 'Surprise Round' for the player characters, jumping out from their ambush. The enemies were a handful of Threat 6 Conscripts who were just about able to hold a sword and swing it as well as an additional more experienced threat 7 Soldier and a threat 10 Captain.
With the element of surprise on their side the player characters made quick work of the light guard of the caravan, although one Conscript managed to flee and the players didn't give chase.
The back door of the caravan was torn open by my Dwarf's hammer, although to his uncharacteristic dismay the only thing to be found inside were crates and crates of raw materials like gold, silver, iron and other precious metals.
The Dwarf threw a bit of an unexplained hissy fit exclaiming such things as “They're not here!”
To complete their mission the group took as much as they could carry back with them and presented it to Oberon, who was as put out by the discovery as the Dwarf.
Just then two arguing voices could be heard swiftly approaching, Davian, flanked by his flunky Bodyguards was shouting at Karl Maddox, the head nominal head of a regional bandit and thief syndicate called the Brotherhood of the Black Hood. The old noble seemed to be blaming Maddox for something.
Oberon quickly laid down the law and demanded an explanation for the whole argument.
Davian first asked that the players leave, but Oberon insisted they stay. Davian explained that a large supply convoy of their own, paid for out of Davian's own pocket that hadn't arrived yet and was several days late is now discovered to have been ransacked on the road by a swarm of bandits.
Oberon asked Karl for confirmation, him being the 'bandit-chief' of the area, he confirmed and named the bandit group as The Horns of Minos, a small time player in the Brotherhood but a member none the less.
Davian rants and raves as you might expect, he didn't like the idea of Oberon bringing the Brotherhood in to some operations and offering them a kind of working relationship that was supposed to protect Resistance bound supplies from being sacked on the road.
Maddox tried to defend himself, he claimed that although he was the de-facto leader of the Brotherhood on account of leading the biggest and most influential thief guild in the region his actual power over the various other bandit leaders was limited.
Davian ranted some more, believing this 'occurrence' was planned all along by the Brotherhood or perhaps by Maddox himself.
Maddox said he knew where The Horns of Minos holed up, he said he could get 'most' of the stuff back but it'd take a little time.
Oberon, dissatisfied told Maddox to mark the location on the map of the PC's, so that they could go do it.
Maddox was reluctant, as the leader of The Horns of Minos, Minos himself was a ruthless savage who fared flawlessly as a gladiator in Tassias' brutal arenas before he killed his master and escaped, eventually forming The Horns of Minos.
Oberon had faith in the party and Maddox relented, he was the told that he (Maddox) would personally have to replace anything that was lost (already eaten, drunk ect), to which Maddox begrudgingly agrees.
The party sets out again, entering the southern boarder of the forest to the south of Tassius (its on the map!). The party then made a roll on Zana's Wolf's Heightened Sense of Smell to try and catch a whiff of the bandit's hideout. There was no failing this check really, just the higher Anna rolled the less time I'd say it'd take, she rolled quite well, they found it in about an hour of searching.
The group entered the cave and quickly found themselves in a large cavernous expanse filled with all manner of crates and such, as well as a handful of rather unsavoury looking bandits.
Combat no.2 was joined, the enemies here were generally of a higher calibre (on the whole) than the first encounter, although the threat value was similar. Also the no surprise round probably evened everything out a little.
The most dangerous enemy type in this encounter seemed to be the Horns Axe Throwers, they managed to get a decent hit or two on Zana, who, despite being the party's only melee centric character (besides her Wolf, I guess) was rather lightly armoured.
The most memorable part of the encounter for me was when Haz took a Kamikaze attack from the Horns Butcher, a huge corpulent man wielding a bloody cleaver that despite his six or so attack dice only beat Haz' defence roll by a few points, which then had all the damaged absorbed by the Dwarf's impressive armour, the Dwarf then subsequently stuck the Butcher full in the face and took him from 'Doing Okay' to 'K.O.' in a single, resounding hit.
There was a small event with one of the last Axe Throwers releasing a horribly tortured bear out of a cage in an attempt to even the odds of the fight. The bear tried to maul his erstwhile captor but failed to hit, which was a shame, would have been an interesting moment had the bear managed to kill the guy.
The party role-played a little here, with Zana being an animal lover and being pained at the mere sight of this surely crazed animal. The group swiftly put the beast down in the next round, but it was a little sad none the less.
With the cave apparently cleared Tobias took out a piece of parchment with an inventory of everything that was on the looted carts and it seemed what appeared to be in this cave was only perhaps a third of what went missing.
After a little investigation, Riar's expert nose led them to the far back of the cave where they discovered a fallen carrot.
Suspecting the wall to be fake Zana wound up a punch and let loose. I'd have let them open the door to matter what but I had Anna roll to hit (and subsequently damage, as it was terrain) and she rolled so highly that the faked part of the wall practically vaporised when she hit it.
The group continued through and found a few more small side caves that were empty, eventually making it to the final cavern right at the back.
That's when they saw Minos, I did my best to convey the character I had created. A disfigured, dark skinned Human of Ogre-like size with an immensely muscular build sitting atop a stone chair with what must have been a twenty foot two-handed (for him!) axe supported up against his throne of rock.
The man was wearing nothing but a loin cloth and a bunch of fur pelts about his person with a sort of helm with large animal horns on either side of his head, obviously trying to mimic the appearance of the mythical Minotaur.
The final combat of the session began between the party and the bandit-leader with his three or so remaining flunkies.
Minos was easily their toughest opponent yet, his weapon had the area effect trait and with his first swing he heartlessly cleaved one of his own minions in two while trying to hit Zana.
This was the first encounter where one of the party had 'Released' their weapon, speaking its name aloud to unlock its powers and with it Zana mounted her empowered and now huge wolf, making them into a sort-of single entity (in some game senses I mean).
While Minos did manage to take a bite out of Zana and Riar's healths the most damaging attack was made by Ludwig who fired his H.E.H.O. or Hyper Explosive Heavy Ordnance rocket which exploded and exploded big hitting Minos for rather minor damage and then going on to hit Zana, Riar and even the nearby Tobias, hitting them all for considerably more damage and bringing Zana close to the end of her Health pool.
The fight was ended with Minos' last remaining, terrified Axe Thrower turning on his boss and burying a hatchet... right between his shoulder blades. He then surrender, pleading with the party not to kill him, he was then promptly knocked out and taken with the party back to the Resistance camp with the supplies (for those wondering, a second, larger but far less capable Resistance group was sent in the player party's wake, following with horses and carts anew to retrieve the party and supplies after the fighting had ended).
That's how the session ended
Conclusions
I loved the OVA system in all honesty and am glad I found out about it (through browsing Kickstarter one day) and eventually decided to get a feel for the new version by playing the old one.
I thought, at times the damage of characters could be a tough spiky, but I think that is just because of the quality of the enemies this session, most were Extras with the base 2 defence and stuff, so they were taken out, sometimes in a single reasonable hit.
The main issue I had with this session and I know it was totally mine (and to a far lesser extent) Anna's fault in so far as there was probably far too little role playing, especially considering some of the time the journeys to different places took (we were on foot and stuff, so going anywhere) hours. I also feel the story I presented Anna with was mostly quite linear, although the party had good reason or, at least a reason to do everything they did and nothing felt (to me anyway) hyper contrived, few decisions were made.
Again I think this is my relative newness to running this kind of game and a fear of this campaign being entirely too bogged down on role-playing like some of my more recent D&D experiences have been (we're talking 4 hour 85% RP D&D sessions, although, to be fair, that was with typing everything to each other, whereas here we're literally a handful of feet away)
Let me know what you think anyway, we're likely to have our second session tomorrow (well today, since its 4am now!) or the day after. Take care and thanks for reading.
Our First Session
Pre-Game: When I had settled on the idea of using the first edition of OVA in an rpg that I quickly convinced my girlfriend to play (in anticipation of the next edition that was so successfully funded through kickstarter) I gave her a list of settings for the game.
These settings were all of my own creation, mostly for story series I had already written or had ideas for but never gotten anything done with.
The setting she picked was that of Sundered Earth, a medieval, high fantasy setting in which some people wielded aeon old magical weapons infused with the bound souls of powerful entities which grants the wielder (once the name of the beast and consequently the weapon itself) is spoken aloud.
Not all characters are like this though, as you might expect there are mages who don't get their powers exclusively from any magic weapon they happen to wield, they know how to sling fireballs (or whatever) because of a rare talent for some (among Humans anyway) to do just that, however spellcasters can come into possession of these magical weapons and they tend to boost their already great powers.
In the weeks that followed that decision my girlfriend rolled up her characters and I mine (I ended up playing 2 player characters myself, so that Anna (gf) didn't need to role-play to herself when npcs weren't around.
Our characters were roughly as follows:
Anna rolled up a crazy eyed Gnome inventor (the kind you might see in World of Warcraft or Everquest). Armed not with one of these creature imbued magic weapons but with a rocket launcher of his own creation named L.E.P.P. or Ludwig's Explosive Projectile Precipitator. Ludwig's Power Moves each represented a different rocket type that would be loaded into L.E.P.P. and then fired, he had a blinding gas grenade, a thought-controlled (read redirectable) mega rocket and a giant area of effect exploding one.
Anna's second character was an interesting choice that certainly made me think a lot about my nascent setting. Zana, a girl with a constant Wolf companion, the strange quirk of this character was that her magical weapon was in fact bound into the Wolf, which is very strange indeed.
When calling out the weapon's name (Riar, the Amber Blade) the Wolf would grow substantially (think of Cringer changing size into Battlecat from He-Man). Zana would also gain some enhanced abilities while riding on her wolf. The two's ultimate move, which is actually a combination of Power Moves from both the rider and transformed beast has Riar (also the name Zana gave to the Wolf) clamping down on a particular adversary (read Entangling) while Zana herself delivers a super-punch to a (hopefully) helpless target.
My characters were a young Dwarf (young by Dwarven standards as Haz stands 48) named Haz Goldrune. The reason my Dwarf is so uncommonly young is that Dwarves in this setting, as well as a bunch of other races (such as Elves) are monumentally above the power level of Humans, when the stories were first written and the setting created the likes of Dwarves and Elves were meant to be graduated up to later on, but I couldn't resist, I love Dwarves.
Dwarves also rarely use these magical weapons as they are (in ages past) the work of Elves, instead most Dwarves favour their own masterfully crafted equipment inscribed with runes that give that equipment additional properties, although this isn't something my Dwarf has much of at the moment.
My Dwarf's weapons (named Tholn and Logar, Thunder and Lightning respectively in Dwarven) are expertly made heirlooms given to him by his clan from their great vault. The young Dwarf throws these hammers with devastating effect and can call them back to his hand with a simple gesture thanks to a rune inscribed on them (think Thor here).
My second character is a water mage from a fallen noble house who mostly wears blue (obviously!) and possesses long, luxurious hair that makes many a woman swoon and a magical harp infused with the spirit of the Mermaid who once herself owned it, when it was slightly more mundane.
Unlike a lot of mages in this world Tobias cannot create the element he works with from just energy or similar, all of his power moves and even Arcane and Witchcraft magics require a source of water, luckily he has a skin of water on him at all times, although his ultimate spell requires a 'Plentiful Source of Water' which his personal supply certainly is not.
The Story
Basically, just to give a super quick explanation of the Western Human Lands where this campaign and the story series are set...
About a decade and a half ago or so the Western lands of Man were a bunch of Kingdoms (I may include my map if I can, or a link to dropbox, although its a map of how it is presently most of the larger capital city-looking names used to be the capitals of Kingdoms) then that all changed and a long-prophesied golden child was born into the world; a girl called Atmaria.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/870 ... %20Map.png
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1mn8h918o99na ... 20Info.doc - A link to a document I gave to Anna before she made her character - I went through all the places from the map above and wrote a little about them, just if you're interested. Though be forewarned, there's a few in-jokes between us and even a not-so-nudge at how bad Anna can be at remembering stuff about settings I've written.
Believed to be a God in Human-ish form (golden, slightly metallic skin, huge, burning gold eyes and an impossibly powerful presence and voice) she grew to adulthood within years and single-handedly conquered the largest of all the old Human Kingdoms Aldor, from there she subjugated or destroyed (sorry Drothas) the other Human Kingdoms until they were all united under her authoritarian rule.
Now, as you can imagine, this put a lot of people out! So basically the player characters are all members of the Resistance against Atmaria's Empire that was recently given a huge boost by a particularly massive event that took place in the stories.
The players find themselves at a Resistance base hidden in a large cave system used by smugglers of sorts, near Geld, the City of Hammers.
The Session
The players are in the HQ of that regional part of the resistance before an old, world weary knight named Oberon, he is the leader of the resistance in these parts. He is flanked by a stuffy old noble called Davian Roche who bankrolls much of this part of the resistance's operations, this makes him think he can heavily influence the resistance's actions, but is rarely the case, despite however much he insists he knows better.
Oberon begins to give the party their task, they have been quickly assembled because of a very important mission that the Resistance feels it cannot possibly fail.
He tells them that their (well, Davian's) sources and spies have spied an armoured caravan guarded by a handful of guards leave from Aldor, the Golden Throne and is bound for Geld, the City of Hammers.
This is significant because Geld is the city in which all of Atmaria's greatest feats of smithing or any kind of construction are begun or just wholly completed. The resistance wants the party to attack and raid the caravan while it is on the road, before it reaches Geld.
Oberon is very hush-hush about exactly what this cargo is, saying it was on a 'need to know basis' although Haz, one of my characters already knew what the Resistance and he hoped he would find being transported (took a Secret weakness for that!).
The party travel there, the trip was several hours (in game, obviously) and there was a little chatting in transit between the group, mostly between Zana and Tobias with Tobias initiating the conversation, the reason I did this is that in this setting non-Humans are something most Humans just never see, as the other races have little to do with Humans and Humans were a little xenophobic at best and that was before Atmaria and her rather unaccepting religion permeated every aspect of Human life.
Now, I forgot to roleplay one of my weaknesses which I added specifically to create tension and interesting opportunities for roleplay between Tobias and Zana in that he has an allergy toward Dogs and Wolves, consequently somewhat disliking them for it.
I also think I hurried the whole thing along a bit too much (the travel I mean) and I could have given the whole journey a lot more time for more getting-to-know-eachother kind of talk, I think that was mostly my inexperience at DM'ing a story driven game coming through there and just trying to get stuff done.
The group set up an ambush and waited for the caravan to pass by, although I made sure to impress upon Anna the lightness of the guard escorting the armoured vehicle on its way to Geld.
The first combat began with a 'Surprise Round' for the player characters, jumping out from their ambush. The enemies were a handful of Threat 6 Conscripts who were just about able to hold a sword and swing it as well as an additional more experienced threat 7 Soldier and a threat 10 Captain.
With the element of surprise on their side the player characters made quick work of the light guard of the caravan, although one Conscript managed to flee and the players didn't give chase.
The back door of the caravan was torn open by my Dwarf's hammer, although to his uncharacteristic dismay the only thing to be found inside were crates and crates of raw materials like gold, silver, iron and other precious metals.
The Dwarf threw a bit of an unexplained hissy fit exclaiming such things as “They're not here!”
To complete their mission the group took as much as they could carry back with them and presented it to Oberon, who was as put out by the discovery as the Dwarf.
Just then two arguing voices could be heard swiftly approaching, Davian, flanked by his flunky Bodyguards was shouting at Karl Maddox, the head nominal head of a regional bandit and thief syndicate called the Brotherhood of the Black Hood. The old noble seemed to be blaming Maddox for something.
Oberon quickly laid down the law and demanded an explanation for the whole argument.
Davian first asked that the players leave, but Oberon insisted they stay. Davian explained that a large supply convoy of their own, paid for out of Davian's own pocket that hadn't arrived yet and was several days late is now discovered to have been ransacked on the road by a swarm of bandits.
Oberon asked Karl for confirmation, him being the 'bandit-chief' of the area, he confirmed and named the bandit group as The Horns of Minos, a small time player in the Brotherhood but a member none the less.
Davian rants and raves as you might expect, he didn't like the idea of Oberon bringing the Brotherhood in to some operations and offering them a kind of working relationship that was supposed to protect Resistance bound supplies from being sacked on the road.
Maddox tried to defend himself, he claimed that although he was the de-facto leader of the Brotherhood on account of leading the biggest and most influential thief guild in the region his actual power over the various other bandit leaders was limited.
Davian ranted some more, believing this 'occurrence' was planned all along by the Brotherhood or perhaps by Maddox himself.
Maddox said he knew where The Horns of Minos holed up, he said he could get 'most' of the stuff back but it'd take a little time.
Oberon, dissatisfied told Maddox to mark the location on the map of the PC's, so that they could go do it.
Maddox was reluctant, as the leader of The Horns of Minos, Minos himself was a ruthless savage who fared flawlessly as a gladiator in Tassias' brutal arenas before he killed his master and escaped, eventually forming The Horns of Minos.
Oberon had faith in the party and Maddox relented, he was the told that he (Maddox) would personally have to replace anything that was lost (already eaten, drunk ect), to which Maddox begrudgingly agrees.
The party sets out again, entering the southern boarder of the forest to the south of Tassius (its on the map!). The party then made a roll on Zana's Wolf's Heightened Sense of Smell to try and catch a whiff of the bandit's hideout. There was no failing this check really, just the higher Anna rolled the less time I'd say it'd take, she rolled quite well, they found it in about an hour of searching.
The group entered the cave and quickly found themselves in a large cavernous expanse filled with all manner of crates and such, as well as a handful of rather unsavoury looking bandits.
Combat no.2 was joined, the enemies here were generally of a higher calibre (on the whole) than the first encounter, although the threat value was similar. Also the no surprise round probably evened everything out a little.
The most dangerous enemy type in this encounter seemed to be the Horns Axe Throwers, they managed to get a decent hit or two on Zana, who, despite being the party's only melee centric character (besides her Wolf, I guess) was rather lightly armoured.
The most memorable part of the encounter for me was when Haz took a Kamikaze attack from the Horns Butcher, a huge corpulent man wielding a bloody cleaver that despite his six or so attack dice only beat Haz' defence roll by a few points, which then had all the damaged absorbed by the Dwarf's impressive armour, the Dwarf then subsequently stuck the Butcher full in the face and took him from 'Doing Okay' to 'K.O.' in a single, resounding hit.
There was a small event with one of the last Axe Throwers releasing a horribly tortured bear out of a cage in an attempt to even the odds of the fight. The bear tried to maul his erstwhile captor but failed to hit, which was a shame, would have been an interesting moment had the bear managed to kill the guy.
The party role-played a little here, with Zana being an animal lover and being pained at the mere sight of this surely crazed animal. The group swiftly put the beast down in the next round, but it was a little sad none the less.
With the cave apparently cleared Tobias took out a piece of parchment with an inventory of everything that was on the looted carts and it seemed what appeared to be in this cave was only perhaps a third of what went missing.
After a little investigation, Riar's expert nose led them to the far back of the cave where they discovered a fallen carrot.
Suspecting the wall to be fake Zana wound up a punch and let loose. I'd have let them open the door to matter what but I had Anna roll to hit (and subsequently damage, as it was terrain) and she rolled so highly that the faked part of the wall practically vaporised when she hit it.
The group continued through and found a few more small side caves that were empty, eventually making it to the final cavern right at the back.
That's when they saw Minos, I did my best to convey the character I had created. A disfigured, dark skinned Human of Ogre-like size with an immensely muscular build sitting atop a stone chair with what must have been a twenty foot two-handed (for him!) axe supported up against his throne of rock.
The man was wearing nothing but a loin cloth and a bunch of fur pelts about his person with a sort of helm with large animal horns on either side of his head, obviously trying to mimic the appearance of the mythical Minotaur.
The final combat of the session began between the party and the bandit-leader with his three or so remaining flunkies.
Minos was easily their toughest opponent yet, his weapon had the area effect trait and with his first swing he heartlessly cleaved one of his own minions in two while trying to hit Zana.
This was the first encounter where one of the party had 'Released' their weapon, speaking its name aloud to unlock its powers and with it Zana mounted her empowered and now huge wolf, making them into a sort-of single entity (in some game senses I mean).
While Minos did manage to take a bite out of Zana and Riar's healths the most damaging attack was made by Ludwig who fired his H.E.H.O. or Hyper Explosive Heavy Ordnance rocket which exploded and exploded big hitting Minos for rather minor damage and then going on to hit Zana, Riar and even the nearby Tobias, hitting them all for considerably more damage and bringing Zana close to the end of her Health pool.
The fight was ended with Minos' last remaining, terrified Axe Thrower turning on his boss and burying a hatchet... right between his shoulder blades. He then surrender, pleading with the party not to kill him, he was then promptly knocked out and taken with the party back to the Resistance camp with the supplies (for those wondering, a second, larger but far less capable Resistance group was sent in the player party's wake, following with horses and carts anew to retrieve the party and supplies after the fighting had ended).
That's how the session ended
Conclusions
I loved the OVA system in all honesty and am glad I found out about it (through browsing Kickstarter one day) and eventually decided to get a feel for the new version by playing the old one.
I thought, at times the damage of characters could be a tough spiky, but I think that is just because of the quality of the enemies this session, most were Extras with the base 2 defence and stuff, so they were taken out, sometimes in a single reasonable hit.
The main issue I had with this session and I know it was totally mine (and to a far lesser extent) Anna's fault in so far as there was probably far too little role playing, especially considering some of the time the journeys to different places took (we were on foot and stuff, so going anywhere) hours. I also feel the story I presented Anna with was mostly quite linear, although the party had good reason or, at least a reason to do everything they did and nothing felt (to me anyway) hyper contrived, few decisions were made.
Again I think this is my relative newness to running this kind of game and a fear of this campaign being entirely too bogged down on role-playing like some of my more recent D&D experiences have been (we're talking 4 hour 85% RP D&D sessions, although, to be fair, that was with typing everything to each other, whereas here we're literally a handful of feet away)
Let me know what you think anyway, we're likely to have our second session tomorrow (well today, since its 4am now!) or the day after. Take care and thanks for reading.
