Scenario 1 – Black Barrow (G-10)
Characters:
Worf (Inox Brute)
- Boots of Striding (001)
- Minor Healing Potion (012)
Twilight (Orchid Spellweaver)
- Cloak of Invisibility (005)
- Minor Power Potion (014)
City rule:
Militaristic
City event
Since this is my first game, I chose to do an optional City event after making the recommended equipment purchases. These are cards with a brief scenario, resulting in a choice of options, and you pick whichever of the given options you think your characters would take. I drew card 12, which had my characters stumble across a pie-eating contest. Figuring that a big, brash brute like Worf would be more likely to enter than the Spellweaver, I chose accordingly – resulting in my characters gaining ten gold each, and my party gaining a reputation point. Saving the gold for now, I moved on to the first scenario – which means drawing a Road event…
Road event
For my first Road event, I drew card 24. This had my characters encounter some Inox refugees on the road, fleeing from what they thought was an angry beast – but was really just a volcano. I had to decide whether my party of mercenaries would aid the refugees in their flight, or ignore them and carry on to their destination. My choice resulted in a new location being unlocked on the map – the Burning Mountain (#82).
Attempt #1
Long story short, my first scenario did not go well – but it was an excellent learning aid. I forgot some rules, which certainly aided my downfall, and got others wrong (again to my detriment). My characters made it through the first and second rooms, and Worf made good use of a “Push” attack to knock a guard into a trap and kill him off. in the end, although both characters made it into the final room, they were both exhausted before they managed to kill all the baddies.
Rules I forgot
- Monsters only do what their attack deck card says they can do – if it doesn’t say “Attack”, then they don’t attack.
- Monsters must do their actions in the order listed on the card.
- Monsters drop loot when they are killed.
- You can choose to do a long or short rest whenever you want, you don’t have to wait until you run out of cards.
- When you long rest, you heal +2.
XP obtained: Worf 4, Twilight 10.
Since losing a scenario just means your characters run away, they get to keep their XP and loot, although I’d forgotten to drop (or collect) any so they left empty-handed.
Attempt #2
After resetting the scenario, and re-reading some of the rules, I had another go. This time I tried a new strategy – before opening the door leading out of the first room, I had both characters finish their turns picking up some loot, and then both characters did a long rest to regain their cards and heal +2. This meant that when they cleared out the second room, they were in better shape than before, and another long rest before venturing into room three set them up for the final challenge.
I let the Spellweaver run over into the far corner of the room, nabbing the treasure chest, and let Worf face up to the Living Skeletons and one of the Archers. Twilight aided him with some ranged healing and multiple-target spellcasting. Twilight did have to take a short rest during the third room, but she was able to use her “recover all lost cards” ability to mount a final offensive which sealed their victory.
All in all, a much better outcome second time around!
Rules I forgot: Checking, and applying, any attack effects such as Immobilise. In the end it didn’t make a difference, but I’ll remember next time. I also forgot I could do a short rest, rather than waste a whole turn on a long rest, but again it turned out OK.
XP obtained: Worf 13 (total: 17), Twilight 13 (total: 23)
Loot obtained: Worf 10 (total: 20), Twilight 10 (total: 20)
Treasure obtained: #7 (unlocked a random side scenario)
End of scenario
Unlocked location: #2
Party achievement: First steps
