Our First session of Castles and Crusades started today. Two
of my Minions participated. One of them played a human Paladin named Joshua and
the other played a Gnome Rogue known as “Little Peter”-(don’t ask). They travel
with a Halfling Mercenary swordsman named Kupo (who had a class that day) and
an NPC Cleric named Helga. Helga is a
standard NPC that I sue in almost all my games where a combat medic role is
needed. She is usually a no-nonsense Cleric of St. Cuthbert who has no
tolerance for evil, undead, or laziness. In this campaign however, I decided to
forgo the entire pantheon of god’s and simply take a cue from the works of the late
David Gemmell- I use “The Source” to represent the forces of good and “The
Darkness” to represent the forces of evil. So in this campaign Helga is a
Source Priestess, though still a foe of shirkers and cowards.
I’ve decided to run them through the introductory module “Shadows
of the Halfling Hall”.
To make a long story short- Helga and Joshua have been asked
by the local Abbott to travel to the Halfling shire of Newbriar to investigate
reports of the town leaders all disappearing after attending a party at a local
well-to-do Halfling’s estate.
Arriving in the small shire, Joshua and Helga (accompanied
by their comrade Little Peter) make their way to the local Pub and meet with
the interim Sherriff. Who fills them in about the missing Halflings, the party
they attended, and the loss of the patrol that was sent to look for the partygoers
the day after the party.
Our three heroes decide to make their way to the estate and
investigate. They arrive at noon and find the estate in shambles, with a very
definite aura of evil emanating from the darkened doorway. With their Halfling guides safely down the
road providing morale support, our heroes descend into the manor.
The grand main hall resembles a slaughter house of the
damned. Corpses and body parts are strewn about the place along with broken and
upended furnishings, rotting food and an overpowering stench of death and
decay. It must have been some party.
As our heroes continued further into the great hall the
bodies of the Halflings begin to reanimate and gather to attack the intruders.
Helga summons the power of the source and turns a good number of the zombies,
but not all. Joshua whirls his great
sword in a silver arc and wades into a group of Halfling undead. Little Peter
unloads his hand crossbow and imbeds a quarrel right in the eye socket of a
zombie (The first natural “20” of the campaign). The battle lasts several
rounds and though its close, our heroes are victorious. Little Peter was grievously
wounded and was drug out of the manor by Helga as Joshua dispatched the last of
the zombie welcoming committee.
Our heroes decide to return to the village, heal
up and await the arrival of their sword-brother Kupo, Before delving further
into the horrors of the Halfling Hall.
Now all of this was with the new Castles and Crusades (C&C) system I wrote about a few days ago. Well, I'm here to report that so far C&C gets two great big thumbs up! The character creation rules are a breeze and combat was fun and exciting. Now, I'm running this for my guys who are 11 and 12 years old so the roleplaying is slow and halting but it will get better as they get older and more comfortable with the system. But I am having a great time reliving that feeling of low level character death coming with every new dice roll and the elation when a solid hit is scored.
