When we last left the party, they were tied up and being taken away to their fates by a group of paladins for the crime of, well, possibly expecting paladins to have a sense of humour. The only one still free was Bandez, the bard. He's the party's brains, moral compass (although not everyone is keen on following it) and so strong he can almost swim across river without drowning. And currently the party's only hope of keeping their heads attached to their necks.

( On with the story... )

Finally, they made their way out of the city and Bandez revealed he was their saviour.
Talia - "You shaved off your beard for us?"
Charles - "You're a woman?"
Bandez chased Esselt around with a sap for a bit, and Charles hit him properly, but they were all too tired and hungry to really kill each other. Apart from Bandez, they have lost all their weapons, their horses (bye bye One Gold Piece) and any equipment they weren't carrying. But Castle Barrel is their next destination, so everything will be fine once they get there, right?

Right?

(Booked Aya accomdation in the same hotel as GunstarVixen and co. I'm not paying £50 per person per night for student accomodation.)

Game last night was cut short, so we didn't anywhere exciting. The party have had nothing bad happen to them for days and have stayed in two inns. Bandez is currently shitting himself.

We also had a brief discussion on what would happen if various party members were cloned. Cloning Charles would lead to the party being safe from pretty much anything with their own little army of death. Cloning Talia would be a bad idea because of the effect on Esselt. And cloning Esselt would mean he might have a chance of taking on Amari: "Hey, I'm my own flanking bonus!"

Don't expect any before and now photos from me, btw. I hate pictures of myself at the best of times.

So, having fought some of the Zompocalpse and faced the even scarier situation of Esselt loose in a camp with Amari, the party made their way to the capital. There, Charles was disappointed to find the heads of his enemies already on poles outside the gates; the zombie army was firmly encamped in the city and the queen was outside. Esselt discovered that zombies are not like pages, and squires are like pages. The party is praying he never hears about ladies in waiting.

The queen had recieved a message from her husband saying that he taken back her city as a wedding present and was waiting in the castle for her. The party decided they better check it out first. Michael seemed very proud of his new toy, and explained he had got the power by going to the Sithi lands and picking up some of their artifacts, now that they were no longer around to stop anyone. Bandez nearly choked on his beard.

Turns out that the Sithi started worshiping a god of death as their culture and people were dying, and that's what's powering Michael's new army. Dutifully, they report back to the queen who tells them that she's going to take up Michael's offer and go and live with him, as no one else was likely to be able to get close to him to stand a chance of finding any artifacts he might have on him.

That was last week's session and was slightly (more) surreal as all the bright ideas and thoughtful insight came from Charles and Esselt, while Bandez and Talia, the usual party brains, were left two steps behind. Nobody was terribly happy with the situation, but recognised the queen was rights, so they set off to find the mother church and see if they could learn anything that might assist.

Most of this weeks session invovled planning their expedition, what they should be disguised as (not a page!); what to say to any priests/ paladins etc. They did stop off in the resistance camp. The resistance aren't terribly sure who they are resisting at the moment, as technically the country is ruled by two people who don't have a problem with music and have an army of zombies to back them up. However the army of zombies is capable of chewing anyone's face off, so they're being cautious.

Bandez was reminded that instilling your morals and values in your companions is never easy, and that shades of grey are completely wasted on some people. Esselt slept in Talia's parent's house, got baracaded in, escaped with the aid of her mother's bra and broke a tooth on a stone painted like a pastry. So he got off lightly.

So, last session the party discovered the world was more screwed than they though and there was an army of zombies heading towards the capital. They're not sure who's leading it; what it's plans are; or why said person has an army of zombies; but they're fairely sure it can't mean good news for them.

Party relations aren't going too well at the moment either. No one can look at Charles with a straight face, especially when there are sausages around. Bandez is still on about battle-bards and seems to think he might actually be able to fight. And Talia and Esselt are ready to do something dreadful to each other.

This led to more party formation puzzles. They have been given two teams of archers to make a strike on the army. Esselt and Talia both want to lead one of them. (Esselt thinks he's paid for enough stuff round here that it's his army). A certain pair of NPCs are also in the group. Now, the plan is to have two groups of archers flanking, and a third team to draw the enemies in between them.

Esselt cannot be in the same team as Zephyr and Amari. Esselt cannot be in the other team facing them (as someone might have an accident.) He also cannot be in the opposite team to Talia as accidents might also happen then. So Esselt's playing decoy whether he likes it or not.
Teams Page, Pastry and Pinapple have been decided.

There's sewing to be done!

( Garden )

( Cosplay )

( Work and Bondage Monkey )

( D&D )


Quote of the evening by Marcus (not Esselt) was:
"I like bananas; I like breasts; I like milk. It's like the holy trinity."

So, last session the party heard screaming while they slept that this time wasn't in their heads. So half the party set off to investigate while the other half followed behind, resigned to their fate.

After finding some dismembered coprses, they tracked some footprints and found three zombies locked up in a cave. Esselt, Talia and Bandez finished them off. Charles wanted to let them out and cleave them to pieces, but others pointed out that zombies in a cave meant no risk to them. Having seen Charles in action later, there probably wasn't any risk either way.

It was clear that the nearby town was invovled in this, but they didn't know how deeply it went. They could have left knowing they'd got rid of the zombies, or gone in to interrogawte people, but Bandez had a better idea: leave evidence to show that someone had been in the cave and wait to see who turned up.

Sure enough, two men appeared, looking quite concerned that there could be zombies behind any tree. Charles jumped down in front of one and offered him surrender or death. He choose death, so Charles promptly chopped him in half. The other man ran off and returned with a zombie bear.

After the fight was over they decided to sho the town trhat they had been fred from this evil by taking the bear's head with them. (Esselt made them hold off on this plan while he went to buy pastries). The town was terribly grateful at being presented with a zombie bear head and there was much waving of torches and pitch forks until they left. And then there was much rejoicing.

In short, Adrian was a one man army and Alex made me go and plot halfway though the session. Now I need to get motivated and get as much cosplay done as possible before Crisis Core turns up.

Sent party to Silent Hill, or at least creepy misty village of mist, zombies, desecrated churches and little girl corpses. They met a ghost, that wasn't happy and touched them in unpleasant ways, but despatched her spirit and burned the rest of the bodies (they didn't have any salt, though throwing Esselt on the fire was tempting.)

Managed to have the party, Amari, Zephyr and Miranda in one small house and everyone was civil to each other. What's up with that?

I really don't think Esselt is going to survive much longer.

The party began the session by completeling their previous mission and earning military support for Miranda. Heartened, they headded off to tell her the good news. On the way, they stopped off at the resisance camp, to discover several things: the camp was openly arming; Zephyr and Amari were nowhere in site (probably good news but not so much fun for Esselt); their latest rescued muscian was alive and well.

A number of paladins had been seen moving from the direction of the capital to the boarder, and considering what the queen had told her, Lydia was making preperations for war. After reassuring the party that the resistance weren't as stupid as they might have thought, she sent them on their way to the capital. Not, however, before Esselt had had the chance to go visit Talia's parents again. They were quite confused to see him, especially when he then proceeded to demand dinner. When nothing was forthcoming, he made it himself. Talia arrived before too much damage was done and her parents told her that they would always support her, but was she really sure this was the right choice for a husband. At this point Talia is fuming, leading Badez to comment to Turk "I thought you were the going to be the first to snap and kill a party memeber." Turk agreed, and also commented that as Zephyr had gone to the capital to find out what was happening, chances are they would arrive and find it in flames.

Eventually the party is rounded anf head off. When they reach the capital, they find it is indeed burning. There are various ruomers from the people leaving, including the queen being dead or imprisoned. As they make their way though the city, they are set upon by a bunch of looters, which goes horribly wrong for everyone except Bandez (even Turk took time to find his stride). Then Amari snuck up on them, which did nothing to improve anyone's mood.

(Note about the title: It only seems to be the charecters who suffer; players and GM all tend to have fun).

Following the seasonal break (ponders setting up some kind of Christmas equivalent and pouring goodwill and presents down the party's throats. They'd probably find it much more traumatic than facing an army of paladins), there was a brief panic when I couldn't find which ohne of myriad notebooks had the plot in it (or at least the plot of the game). Joe rightly pointed out that if the notebook went back in the D&D draw after I was done writing, I'd make my life easier, but who wants that?

The party had finally reached the location that they were ultimately heading for, on their mission to bring back a fostered noble. They stopped to camp adn plan their assult, but made the unfortunate decision of allowing Esselt to cook. He manager to give food poisoning to most of the party, apart from himself, and Turk, who wasn't going to touch that shit.

Nezt day, Talia, Charles and Esselt went of to try adn carry out their misson by pursausion, while Turk and Bandez stood ready to assult the castle at a moment's notice. The rescue attempt when far too smoothly for the party to be happy with, especially as this is the place where Bandez may have done a bit of flaying a while ago.

Quote of the evening:
Bandez on Esselt and Talia - Well you argue all the time and you don't have sex so that's just the same as being married.

It's quiet. Too quiet...

The party have made it through their stay at the resistance camp with mimimal problems. This may have been down to good planning and copius amounts of alcohol, but hey, no one's bleeding, no armies have attacked and no forest squid have sucked anyone's brains out. So Turk and Bandez are a little jumpy.

As they are finishing off breakfast, Esselt makes a comment about Banez's ability with a rapier. Bandez can't let this pass, and offers a chance to proove himself - a gentleman's dual with Esselt. To first hit, nothing nasty. Esselt agrees, but seems to have misheard the part about a swordfight, so by the time Bandez has drawn his rapier, Esselt has put two crossbow bolts in him.

Nobody is terribly happy about this, least of all Bandez. The other resistance memebers who have been watching and expecting a good fight, all start jeering and demanding a rematch. Esselt points out he doesn't have a sword, and is promptly handed Zephyr's sword. The fight begins again, and again Esselt gets the first hit. Bandez still isn't happy, but accepts he lost fair and square.

Esselt walks off, still carrying Zephry's sword. Various party members try to convince him to give it back, but Eseelt isn't listening. Zephyr knows he can't beat Esselt in a fight, so casts a suggestions spell on him - for the next ten hours, Esselt thinks that everything Zephyr says is a really good idea and goes off to do it. Zephyr's first suggestions are to give back the sword and go and make him breakfast, which Esselt promptly goes off to do.

The rest of the party wait for Miranda, who soon appears and then (once they've collected Esselt from his breakfast tasks), ride off towards her uncle's castle. Turk and Bandez are even more worried. Nothing's gone wrong yet. Even Esselt didn't get himself into that much trouble, although it may get worse when the spell wears off.

Later, they reach the castle. They are treated well, there are no armies, nothing bad is still happening! Miranda goes off to speak to her uncle, while the party are left to stew in a room. Turk and Bandez are visibly sweating, Charles is pissed off with Zephyr, Talia is optimistic and Esselt has just realised something.

"Something's very wrong Bandez."
"Yes?"
"I've got the strange urge to make Zephyr breakfast."
"Really?" Bandez and Turk take up position by the door, ready to stop Esselt if he goes out on a mission of revenge.
"Yeah. And then I'll make him eat it. Rectally."

Esselt is later cheered up by the idea that Turk put money on Bandez winning the fight, and so lost a silver.

The queen arrives and tells them that her uncle will not commit forces to her yet, because his son is fostered off to another lord who he suspects has designs on the throne. He is concerned that if he seen to act with the queen, something will happen to his heir. So, the party have a new mission. Go bring the boy back, and check out the opinions in any castles they come to on the way.

They leave the castle and no disaster falls. However, on the costal road, they come across 4 aromoured men, riding towards them. They appear to be paladins, but they are also wearing four symbols on their tabbards and cloaks: the symbols of Yangus! Fight enuses, Charles is mounted death and meatshield, Turk avoides taking a blow, Bandez gets a suggestion off on one of the fallen paladins, but has to watch as his source of information is chopped down by the remaing paladin, proving that paladins are sneaky bastards whichever continent they come from.

Still, bad stuff has happened, and that makes Turk and Bandez feel much better.