Chronicles of the Consortium

Recap on the party: Destiny: Melnibonean. Marion: sneaky person from Shazaar. Likes shadows. Sir Blanque: Lawful-ish noble with an affinity for water. Jorthan (NPC): Powerful noble merchant from Ilmiora. Patron of the party. Bomilcar (NPC): Weeping Waste nomad warrior. Jorthan's bodyguard. Bomilcar's narrative The white tendril that brushed against Sir Blanque as the demi-plane of Chaos disintegrated along with the chained coffin seems to have given him rough knowledge of what we need to do next. The Lawful champion Zugun has implanted Sir Blanque with a sense of direction that points to the Shudder Mountains to the west of Shazaar. Destiny is intrigued; as far as she knows, no Melnibonean has ever been there. She seems to have a taste for acquiring new knowledge. Zugun of Law, bound inside a Chaos casket We ride westwards, picking up information about the area as we go. It looks as though we are heading straight towards a village in the foothills called Bent Pi...

Bomilcar's Narrative The priestess of Donblas seems very relieved to see Sir Blanque swiping his way through Lord Jagger's demons; "May the blessings of Donblas light upon you!" Some light does indeed appear momentarily around him, and he feels refreshed; it turns out that he took a minor slash to his torso from the scimitar of the ape demon, and that has now been healed. Even the priestess looks surprised at the effect her prayer has had. The warrior guy with the pompous voice and demeanour nods to Destiny; the Lawfuls seem very surprised that a Melnibonean has been helping. In fact, it was Destiny's intervention that crisped the maniacal lord of the castle. A newly painted figure for Sir Blanque. This one is by Antediluvian Miniatures . We all go up to have a look at the writhing Chaos portal that opened when Jagger died. Destiny says she can see through it into a huge octagonal hall containing a large sarcophagus. A voice seems to be calling from it: ...

Bomilcar's narrative After a great show trial, Cathar Radu is hauled off to execution for treason, and nothing more is heard of the Veiled Society. They saw themselves as revolutionaries, but are now probably sickened by the fact they were being used by one of the aristocracy. The upshot for us is that we are all invited to a grand New Year's ball as guests of honour by Duke Kromir of Aflitain. The others have no problems with etiquette and all that, and even I manage to get through the night without offending any city dwellers. The next day, we have lunch with the Duke, and he opens up about a bit of a problem he is having. Apparently, somebody took advantage of the confusion sown by the Radu's manipulations of the Veiled Society to strike at Duke Kromir himself. A second campaign of terror has been waged behind the scenes, with various arson attacks on his holdings resulting in the loss of quite a bit of valuable property, livestock and lives. Eventually, someone thre...

Bomilcar's narrative Our group gathers some herbs from the slightly Chaos-affected ruins of the mad sorceror who cursed the Sternbrow line, and then resumes the journey to Ilmar. On the way, we are due to pass close by Tower Cove, where lies the hidden Melnibonean tower we discovered on a previous occasion. We still have unfinished business there; a powerful demon door was blocking the way to the upper floor of the tower, so we left it alone for the time being. Now, however, Destiny has started to achieve some abilities of her own, so we make a decision to deal with it. "I am going to summon and bind a demon of protection into the fancy shield we found while we were inside Auquhol's memories," she says. "There is a special trick that can be played; it's called a 'Wardpact", and it costs a lot of potential power. However, it will give the shield a specific use against demon doors; effectively, I'll make a weak shield with very little power, bu...

I have a bit of a messy stash of old Young Kingdoms-related scenarios, as well as various rulebooks and Companion volumes. I've been digging through them to find materials that would make interesting one-off interludes for the new campaign, and I found a really ratty old version of a scenario from, I think, the Elric!  GM's screen. So I incorporated it into the series of ongoing events. Bomilcar's narrative Jorthan's six month stint as representative of Ilmar in Bakshaan is drawing to a close, and we are packing up ready to return to the northern capital city. We are having a bit of a debate about whether to go by sea or land, when an invitation arrives. Jorthan and companions are invited to the 50th birthday party of one Lord Sternbrow at his castle on the caravan route between Bakshaan and Ilmar. Jorthan has been putting quite a bit of effort into establishing this alternative land route between the two cities as a viable alternative to the sea lanes, which are bec...

After quite a gruelling series of trials and tribulations, the group arrives in Bakshaan. As the Consortium is in the process of slowly being reconstituted, Jorthan has agreed to become the representative in Bakshaan for the usual six month period. This will enable him to gain some useful experience as an Ilmar councillor, and it will also give him time sort out some of his own business interests there. This period sees a round of diplomatic and trade negotiations, and the other characters are mostly left to their own devices. Among other things, it will give Destiny some time to catch up on her research. Many of the items the group has recently acquired need investigation. Destiny's narrative So far the research has been going as well as I could have expected. Jorthan's period as representative will give the others time to recover from injuries, as well as improve their desired skills. I, however, wish to use this time in a way that will benefit us all. I have been transla...

We have now played quite a few sessions, and things are beginning to settle down into a pattern of sorts. It's now time to draw breath, and also some conclusions from the way the game is progressing. First of all, it's worth reiterating that many of the old modules I'm using are for D&D or its many variants. This can cause some concern, because the combat system in Stormbringer  is famously nasty. At first sight this might not seem like a major issue, but in combination with several others, it can quickly make even the most elegantly crafted scenario become unplayable. The simplest factor here is the number of creatures that can be encountered. The Levels system of D&D produces a situation where a moderately higher level group of player characters can easily overpower large numbers of lesser opponents due to hit points, spell availability, combat capacity and, in the case of the undead, clerical prayers. However, using a large number of even mediocre characters in...