GM: Shaun “Sub 1” Hayworth
Players: Justin Diehl, Kristin Hayworth, and Sean Nittner
System: Burning Wheel
Setting: Burning Theorsa
Set in the foreign city, our adventurers went about establishing themselves. Baldric went to look for more permanent lodging and Moya “wanted to tie up loose ends.” As only Eogin spoke the native language both of the others needed him to help them find the people they were looking for.
Oh captain, my captain!
We started with Eogin leading Moya and Baldric to a guard captain, where she reported that the pirate Cailin was a homosexual and spreading his deviant ways in their lands…wha-wha-what?
Baldric protested (he does have a might large stick up his ass) that Cailin should be punished, because he was a pirate, not because of some immoral behavior (remember: low-fantasy medieval setting, a stoning offense in this society) that he didn’t perform. Doing so of course would result in implicating the player characters as pirates as well.
After thoroughly confusing a guard captain we took the conversation outside and started a heated and loud debate. Moya, of course, schooled Eogin and Baldric in the Duel of Wits and the knight stormed off, defeated.
Spotted in the streets
Leaving Moya’s side, Eogin and Balric, both quite out of sorts, went looking for lodging but instead were spotted by the King’s men, who called out Sir Catamere and came running towards us. In most situations Baldric would have stood to answer their claims, but so flummoxed by the exchange with Moya, he fled like a coward.
Finding a patsy
Moya searched for a rabble rouser and won him over in front of his own crowd of Theorsan hating locals. She told him our plans (to find the true heir) and said if we were successful the heir would take back the Theorsan king and leave the Kashikir’s alone. She won his trust and he agreed to find someone who would claim they were raped by the pirate captain, that he might be killed by the authorities and could not report back any information to the invading Theorsan forces.
Finding a home
Meanwhile. Eogin and and Baldric finally found a common ground, discussing fables and myths. So long as they could discuss the knights of old, and managed to steer clear of religious debates, the two of them seemed to finally enjoy each others company. That was good because it took days to find Sir Daultry, a refugee knight of the Usurper war, who made a living for himself as a sell-sword. He invited us into his home and offered us what hospitality he could. Soon we will ask him to offer us lodging while we search for the heir.
Thoughts on this game.
A shame that it’s so short. Early on Kristin wanted to do something that I knew would work like this. I circle up a guard. I use falsehood to convince him Cailin as a catamite. Cailin become an enemy of the people. I wanted to push on that a little, give Moya a challenge, thus offering to travel with her and protesting the lie and the immoral accusations. That’s all good and dandy, she got some extra checks out of it, some Artha, as well as cemented Balric’s dislike of her ways. Good stuff, but it also meant that Moya had to spend the entire session working on one belief and not touching any of the others.
My goals seemed pretty mundane (find lodging, find something to talk about Eogin that wasn’t religion, and look for records with the port authorities). Not sure if I should have gone for something more bold. Felt a little like I wasn’t going “big”.
Kristin and I both admitted, we’re spotlight whores. Burning Wheel encourages it, which is bad. Your character advances by putting them out there, doing things. I felt bad for Justin when he went over his beliefs and was like “nope, didn’t touch on any of those.” I was like damn, we’re stealing all the scenes. I’m going to try and support his beliefs more in the future.
Fun times, I like the strangers in a strange land feel of the setting we’re in. I really hope we spend a long time in Kashikir, if finding the heir goes quickly, and we’ve back in Theorsa, I’d be sad.
