Category: Campaign Diary

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Our heroes are out late at night, helping Daniel, an enthusiastic villager, search for a strange beast that appeared during a fight between Lucia, our Paladin, and a ruffian named Opal. Daniel doesn’t know that the beast is right beside him, because Gleador, our Druid, is keeping his shape-shifting a secret.  It’s complicated.  Read the previous session for all the details.

Daniel is wearing a robe and slippers, with a poker in one hand and a torch in the other.  He peers down alleyways, prods piles of trash with his poker, and tells the sleepy villagers that he awakens that there’s a strange beast on the loose!  After about 15 minutes, Lucia and Gleador convince him that the beast is long gone, so they leave him and return to the Glazers’ house, where they are staying for the duration of the festival.  Once they are alone in their room, Lucia holds Gleador’s injured hand aloft, says a prayer, and the pain of his dagger wound is replaced by a feeling of peace.  They rest for the night.

Lucia has enough experience to level up, and she becomes a Cleric of the goddess of the Sapphire Islands.  She can now cast low-level Cleric spells.

The Glazers prepare a lovely holiday breakfast.  All the dishes, glasses, and mugs are beautiful multi-colored glass, because the Glazers are glass-blowers.  They tell their guests about the day’s activities: the market is open, with goods from all over the region; there’s a stage for bards & other performers; in the afternoon, there’s an auction for especially valuable items.  Our heroes accompany the Glazers to the market, where the Glazers have a stand to sell their glassware.  Our heroes act like they are going to wander the market for a bit.  They buy some fair food: fried dough & corn on the cob with mayo.  Lucia starts to feed her share to the stray dogs, but bystanders scold her.

Our heroes duck out to find the pickpocket’s house. (Last night, they had some dogs follow the pickpocket’s scent, and got directions to it.)  They recognize the house by the token over the door, even though the dogs described it in shades of grey and our heroes can see color.  It’s a nice, upper class house: no shop attached, a yard with stalls for horses in the back. Rich people live here. The streets are bustling with fair-goers so they are able to circle the house a few times without drawing attention.  Gleador wants to infiltrate the house and turns into a tropical hornet when he thinks no-one is looking.  A kid notices and tugs on his mom’s sleeve.

Child:  “Mommy, mommy! That man just disappeared!”

The mom looks where the child is pointing and only sees Lucia.

Mom: “That’s not a man. She just wearing armor.”

The mom thinks this might be a teachable moment, so she comes over so the kid can ask about Lucia’s armor.  Lucia would like to be left alone, so in addition to explaining the parts of her armor, she talks about dangerous quests and violent battles.  The mother looks uncomfortable. Maybe the child shouldn’t be hearing this.

Gleador flies into the open kitchen window. A servant comes in through the door to the dining room carrying three plates full of food. He grumbles that the guests left suddenly and no one told him until he had already made extra breakfast. Gleador wants to get into the dining room, but the door is shut. A young man in expensive clothing pops his head in the door to complain about something trivial: his pancake ripped or something.  Gleador buzzes past him to get into the dining room. The young man squeals and flails ineffectually as Gleador passes.  Gleador sees a table set for five. There’s an old woman at the head of the table, the young man yelling for help and looking something to swat him, and the three absent guests. Gleador leaves the dining room by another way and finds a way out of the house. The young man gets braver once the scary insect is gone and starts bragging to his mother about how he drove the awful creature away.

Gleador flies back to Lucia, who is still telling scary stories to the curious child. Gleador flies behind the mother & child to transform back unnoticed, but they turn to leave just as he does so!  Lucia claims that Gleador can turn invisible. The mother hurries her child away from these strange, dangerous adventurers.

Our heroes watch her go and see a pole with a little flag on it coming through the crowd towards them. As it approaches, they see the halfing that is carrying the pole.  He uses the flag so people know that he’s there.  He’s the Sheriff of this town, named Pepe.  He heard that Lucia drove off the strange beast last night.  Because of the attack, Pepe’s instituted a curfew tonight, and he’s collecting able-bodied deputies to search for the creature.  Pepe’s working hard to ensure the safety of everyone at the fair!  Since Lucia has fought the beast already, and her friend can apparently turn invisible, he asks them both to meet him at town hall at sundown and join the deputies.  They agree.

Lucia wants more information about the house. For all she knows, this rich old lady is the ringleader of a band of thieves! She waits for the servant to leave the house, looking for a chance to talk with him. About an hour later, he leaves through the back door with a basket under his arm, heading for the market.  Lucia follows and tries to bump into him. She underestimates her strength and sends the servant stumbling and knocks his basket to the ground. He recovers and notices his coin purse is gone!  Oh, it fell under the basket. Everything is fine.  Gleador approaches, complains about Lucia’s clumsiness, and offers to share some pipe-leaf with the servant.  He happily agrees.

His name is William and he serves Lady Poirot and her son Master Thierry.  Three guests (matching the descriptions of the pickpocket and the two ruffians) came in yesterday on a metal cart pulled by a pony. They kept to themselves.  He brought in their things and served them some food, then they went out.  When he got up today and made breakfast, the guests had already left, and no one told him.  Very frustrating! Our heroes commiserate with William and send him on his way.

Our heroes wonder how to gather more information.  They could have the stray dogs follow the scent on Opal’s cloak, or investigate the strange cart. They return to the Poirot house. There’s a shed divided into three stalls in the back yard. There’s a horse in one stall. The guests’ pony and the cart were probably stored in the other stalls.  Lucia promises to cure the dogs’ fleas if they sniff out Opal’s scent.  The scent leads to the stalls, but the horse won’t let the dogs approach.  Gleador goes to speak to the horse and asks about the pony.  The horse says that the pony and three humanoids got into the cart and the cart left. The pony was inside the cart, not pulling it!  Weirdest thing!  Some of the humanoids may have been dwarves or juvenile humans. The horse has trouble telling the difference.  Gleador thanks the horse for its help and gives it the corn on the cob with mayo they bought earlier.  Cart tracks indicate that the self-propelled cart left town going south.

Lucia lays hands on the dogs to cure their fleas as promised, but transfers the fleas to herself instead! How embarrassing and annoying.  How can she get rid of them? The bath house won’t admit someone with fleas, and the river is miles away.  Samantha the witch knows potions and remedies.  Maybe she can help. They return to The Brace of Pigs where they last saw her.  Lucia has to wait outside while Gleador goes in to inquire.  Samantha’s probably in the market, but so is everyone else. They don’t find her, but they do find a shop selling anti-flea oil.  The shop-keeper wants 3 bundles of Gleador’s pipe-leaf for the flea oil, but Gleador talks him down to two bundles, and they share some now.

They go into the shop-keepers tent. Lucia removes her armor and covers herself in the flea oil. The shop-keeper gives Gleador the pipe and tries to light it for him.  The flint sends sparks toward Lucia, who is covered in flammable oil!  She dodges, but drops the vial of oil, which catches fire . . . on the grass . . . inside the cloth tent . . . in the middle of the crowded market!  Lucia backs away from the flames and tosses a canteen to Gleador.  Gleador tries to remember if it’s OK to pour water on an oil fire.  It seems good to him, but he’s wrong!  He pours the water on the water and it splatters out further, setting one side of the tent on fire and sending flames towards a cabinet full of other potions!  Lucia tosses Gleador a container of milk. Maybe that will work. Gleador realizes that milk is mostly water and will have the same effect, so he doesn’t pour it out.  The shop-keeper drags his cabinet out of the tent and flees, yelling about the fire.  Now that they are alone, Gleador is free to transform into an earth elemental and smother the fire, but he fails and belly-flops onto the fire as a normal, flammable Elf!  He already stopped and dropped, so he rolls to put the fire out. He’s not on fire anymore, and neither is the grass. The tent still burning.  Lucia throws over a rug, which Gleador uses to smother most of the fire.  The remaining fire on the tent is just burning fabric, not oil, so Gleador douses it with the milk.  The market is saved!  Our heroes breathe a sigh of relief before the bucket brigade arrives and soaks them & everything in the tent!

Lucia goes to the bath house to wash off the flea oil. It did work. She’s cured of fleas.  Gleador goes back to the Glazers’ house to rest and level up.

← Session 2 | Campaign Summary | Session 4 →

← Session 1 | Campaign Summary | Session 3 →

My players enjoyed the first session so much they asked me to come back and continue the adventure.  Since Fairmeadow Fair is usually a one-shot, we didn’t talk about character backgrounds, and I didn’t build the world much past the town and the surrounding fields.  We spent the first part of the session brainstorming about those things.

Gleador is from the Sapphire Islands and was exiled for showing Lucia a secret ritual. This means that the Sapphire Islands have an organization of Druids that have secret rituals and can exile people. The Sapphire Islands are in the south and are more tropical than the plains and forests surrounding Fairmeadow.  Lucia & Gleador are heading north through this region to reach the Great Forest, home of the Elves, where Gleador hopes he can somehow redeem himself.  The central plains are a loose group of city-states with nominal allegiance to a central government that isn’t relevant to most people daily lives.  Each city-state sends a representative to high council, which elects a leader.  The current leader of the council is a queen.  We will fill in the details of Gleador’s exile, the ritual, and what he must do to be restored at a later time, as they become relevant.

Lucia attended a Paladin Academy, so there must be a number of Paladins out there, enough to sustain a school. Gleador owes Lucia some sort of debt.

Gleador: Why would I owe you a debt?

Lucia: Because I’m so cool.

When we last left our heroes, they just returned to The Brace Of Pigs tavern with the special festival wine, and everyone in the crowded tavern is celebrating. Every room in The Brace of Pigs was reserved long before the festival, but a couple is willing find other accommodations and let Gleador and Lucia have their room as a gift for saving the day.  Fairmeadow has a tradition of hospitality, where people open their homes to travelers, especially during the fair when the two inns can’t contain all the visitors.  Guests are given a sturdy token, big enough to fit in own hand, with a unique shape, pattern, or image on it.  This token matches a placard set over the door of the house, so they can recognize the place they are staying. Bill Glazer offers his token to our heroes. He’s a glassblower & lives with his parents, Fred & Eliza. Their token is beautiful multi-colored glass in a metal frame.  Our heroes choose to stay with the Glazers and let the other couple keep their room.

The tavern is bustling, because it’s the supper rush the night before the festival begins.  Gleador looks around to see what’s happening.  Ferdinand is excited to be accepted instead of an outcast. He’s had a few drinks and is arm-wrestling all comers. He’s pretty strong in elf form, so he’s winning for now, but he’s not so good at self-control and may “hulk out” if he faces stiff competition. There’s a table in the back where a bard (a regional celebrity) is holding forth, telling stories to the delight of his entourage and fans. Bards are entertaining and also bring stories from far-off places. There’s also a kid wandering from table to table, apparently not with anyone. As he passes our heroes’ table, Gleador notices that his coin purse is missing!

Gleador alerts Lucia to the theft. Lucia keeps her purse inside her armor, so she’s fine. She grabs for the kid but only gets his cloak, which drops to the floor with a heavy jingle of many coin purses. Gleador leaps over the table, tackles the kid, and knocks the barstool out from under a large man at the bar. Lucia takes the cloak to Hobert the barkeep and asks him to return the purses, since he knows everyone. Gleador is trying to keep a hold of the kid and calm the drunk man he knocked over, but it’s not going well.  Lucia comes over and tries to take the kid from Gleador. As they scramble and claw at each other, the kid’s hand lands on the hilt of Lucia’s sword! She can secure the kid or her sword, not both. She has a plan, so she secures her sword and lets the kid escape. He runs out the door past Gleador, who has managed to knock the drunk man over a second time.  Gleador plays the bar-fight trump card and yells, “A round for everyone, barkeep!” The drunk man is won over by Gleador’s generosity.

People come up to order drinks are are surprised to receive their coin purses as well! Lucia retrieves thief’s cloak from Hobert and gives it to Gleador so he can tell the local dogs to track the thief by scent.  The two dogs (Ralphie and Jollifer) agree, but demand Lucia’s drink.  She get a drink just like everyone else, but her vow of temperance means she’s not allowed to drink it. She complies, but doesn’t like the reminder of the fun she’s not allowed to have.

A lackey from the Bard’s table gets a whole tray of drinks for the Bard and his entourage. The Bard orders a fancy, expensive drink, and when it arrives, he salutes Gleador with it (like Leo in Great Gatsby). Gleador comes over and introduces himself. The Bard’s name is Dandelion, and he brags about himself. Gleador motions for Lucia to come over and use her Charisma on him. Lucia’s not sure what he’s implying.  Paladins from Lucia’s academy are not barrred from romance, but she herself is single. Instead of flirting she is a charming conversationalist and impresses Dandelion with her wide travels. Of course he turns the conversation back to himself and his travels.

Samantha (the witch whose herbs were stolen to make Hobert’s wine) sees Lucia chatting with Dandelion and pulls her aside. Samantha warns her to avoid Dandelion, as one of Samantha’s recent customers had some nasty things to say about him.  (Samantha sells potions, herbs, and components useful for magic and alchemy, so Hobert’s theft was especially unnecessary.)  Lucia wants more details, but Samantha hesitates, because her customers trust her to keep their secrets. She draws a magical seal on her palm, thumb & index finger. If Lucia will shake her hand and accept a spell of secrecy, she will tell her what she knows.  Lucia doesn’t know the consequences for breaking this unfamiliar spell, so she declines, saying she’ll respect Samantha’s professional courtesy.

Bill Glazer has definitely had enough, so Gleador and Lucia leave the Brace of Pigs to walk home with him. It’s nighttime now.  The dogs return with a report on the thief’s trail. Gleador steps away so he can talk to the dogs without letting Bill know his secret. The dogs give directions to the house the thief entered, and describe the black, grey, and light grey symbol over the door. Gleador asks them to stake out the house overnight, but the dogs decline. Too much work. Not enough food.

Lucia and Bill continue to walk along, but two hooded figures emerge from the shadows ahead and block their path. “You’ve cost us a lot of money! We want it back!” says the shorter figure. Lucia says she doesn’t have the money, and that Bill is not involved. The ruffians have a specific grudge against our heroes and aren’t ruthless leave-no-witnesses mercenaries, so they give Bill a shove and tell him to get lost. Lucia draws her sword and shouts “Let me pass” in her most commanding Paladin voice.  One ruffian is shaken by her command and freezes, but the other (a Dwarven woman) leaps at Lucia with a club.  She tries to knock Lucia’s sword aside and tackle her, but Lucia stands firm and the sword blade jams into the gnarled club, locking the weapons together. Lucia tries to disarm the ruffian but ends up flinging both their weapons away. Gleador hears the commotion and turns into a panther. The second ruffian, already shaken, hears a rumbling growl and sees green retinas flash in the darkness. She yells, “I’m sorry, Opal!” and flees. Opal, the Dwarven woman engaged with Lucia, attempts to throw her cloak over Lucia’s face to get an opening for escape.  Lucia catches the whirling cape and moves with it. The combatants switch places and the cloak flutters to the ground beside them. Lucia is now between Opal and her fleeing comrade, but Opal is closer to the weapons on the ground. As the two wonder how to react to this new situation, Gleador pounces from the shadows, knocking Opal flat!

It’s surprisingly difficult to knock a Dwarf over, but panthers are very strong. Gleador is on top of her, big paws on her chest, claws extended just enough to touch her leather tunic.  Opal has never seen a panther before, so she does not recognize the invitation to surrender.  She panics, screams, and draws the dagger at her belt. Gleador moves one paw back to swat the dagger out of her hand before it finds his belly. The dagger goes flying, but both of their arms are now bleeding.  The commotion has rousee people in the surrounding houses. Candles are lit and heads pop out of upper windows.  Lucia retrieves her sword and points it at Gleador, “Back! Back, foul beast!” she says.  Gleador understands her implication and vanishes into the shadows. The general populace doesn’t need to know that the Paladin is friends with monsters.  Two neighbors come out of their homes.  Lucia “helps” Opal up and keeps a tight grip on her arm. One neighbor wants to pursue the beast with his improvised weapon.  Another is ready to care for any injuries.  Lucia tells the neighbors that she should take Opal home and make sure she’s alright.  Opal does not want to be alone in Lucia’s power, but can’t openly resist lest it be revealed that she attacked Lucia.  Gleador returns as an Elf, yelling about a strange beast that ran past him.  His arm is still bleeding where Opal’s dagger caught him, so he keeps that arm under his cloak.  Everyone is talking over each other about what to do and our heroes end up on the wrong side of the consensus. The armed neighbor is hustling Lucia and Gleador off to chase the dangerous beast, while the kindly neighbor is taking Opal inside to tend bandage her claw wound. Insisting would be suspicious, but our heroes are clever and subtle. Gleador says, “Get your cloak, Lucia, and let’s go”  Lucia picks up Opal’s cloak, so they now have her scent. They follow the armed neighbor on his futile search for the strange beast.

We ran out of time and had to stop there. As a GM, I am very proud of my players for creating and managing such complex social situations. The last scene, with everyone hiding their intentions and relationships and choosing words that meant different things to different people, was so tense and so fun! I’d be proud of that if I wrote it in a story, and they improvised it. I am eager to see what they come up with in our next session.

← Session 1 | Campaign Summary | Session 3 →

Campaign Summary | Session 2 →

Fairmeadow Fair is a scenario that I use to introduce people to tabletop role-playing games.  My goal is to provide a wide range of activities so players can engage with the things that interest them: parties, conspiracies, thefts, fights. I don’t want people’s first introduction to role-playing games to be a fight to the death against implacable foes.  I’ve run this scenario for several groups, but this group asked me to return and make the one-shot into a campaign.

Our heroes are Lucia, a risk-averse female human Paladin, and Gleador, an impulsive & creative male elf Druid. They are headed to the town of Fairmeadow for the famous Fairmeadow Fair, which attracts people from all across the region. There will be good food, entertainment, new people, and plenty of excitement. I show them a sketch of the city, with major landmarks like the main roads, fairgrounds, town halls, and both inns.  Gleador wants to check the perimeter, so they go clockwise, right past the Brace of Pigs inn.

There’s a commotion at the Brace of Pigs and an Elf wearing a big backpack bursts out of the back door and runs out into the fields, away from town.  Jimmy, son of the innkeeper, gives chase with a broom, yelling, “Stop, thief!”  Our heroes try to stop the Elf with the backpack, but he turns into a bull and plows past them!  Gleador is a thing-talker, so he can shape-shift into things of the earth as well as animals.  He attempts to turn into wheat and entangle the bull, but he fails and ends up buried to the neck in dirt.  Lucia grabs a rope from her adventuring gear & attempts to lasso the bull, but is tangled in the rope and falls over.  Jimmy & his father Hobert catch up & extricate our heroes.

Lucia feels she must redeem herself from this embarrassing failure by capturing the bull.  Hobert explains that the man pushed his way into the inn’s storeroom and stole his special wine. The inn has a tavern in the front, a kitchen & storeroom in the back (that’s where the bull-elf exited) and rooms for rent upstairs.  Each year at the start of the Fairmeadow Fair, the Brace of Pigs Inn serves this special wine, and at the end of the fair, they bottle the next year’s batch.  It’s a point of pride for the inn and a tradition for the fair, so Hobert is very upset!

Gleador excuses himself (he doesn’t want everyone to know he’s a shape-shifting Druid) and turns into a crow.  He mobilizes the crows in town to fly out over the fields and look for the bull elf. They can cover a lot of area, but will take a few hours to search.

Lucia swears herself to a quest: she will recover recover the wine!  Her god grants her immunity to piercing weapons and senses that pierce lies but in return, she must demonstrate temperance. Even if the wine is recovered before the fair is over, she cannot eat any fair food or drink any alcohol (including the wine she’s trying to recover!)  Since the bull-elf knew exactly where to get the wine, Lucia suspects an accomplice, so she starts questioning people in the tavern. It’s crowded, since even people who aren’t staying here have come for lunch.  She overhears a woman excuse herself & leave the tavern & knows that her excuse was a lie: she wanted to avoid Lucia & her questions.  Lucia follows her.

The woman heads to the busy marketplace, but is unable to lose Lucia in the crowd. Lucia asks her if she knows the thief. The woman denies it, but Lucia knows she’s lying, so she grabs the woman. The woman makes a scene, yelling at Lucia & slapping her across the face. Lucia is forced to back off by angry onlookers, but later corners the woman in a more private place.  Gleador has turned into a dog & recruited other stray dogs in town by promising that Lucia will give them all her fair food this weekend. The dogs form a perimeter around the strange woman, but she turns invisible and runs off!

GM: Wait, you still have that boon that pierces illusions, so you can still see her.

Lucia: Yup. I act surprised, then follow her.

The crows report that the bull is in a swamp some miles to the east, and that’s where the strange (and apparently magical) woman is heading. At the edge of the swamp, the stray dogs balk. The swamp seems unnatural and they are scared of it.  Gleador sends them back to town to guard the inn and report any strange scents.  He attaches a note to one of the dogs explaining that he and Lucia are on the trail of the thieves and to please give these dogs some scraps.

This delay has let the woman get far ahead, so Lucia has to follow her tracks through the swamp instead of just watching her walk across the fields. Lucia’s not very good at that & blunders into some quicksand. Gleador turns into a tree with an overhanging branch so Lucia can pull herself out. As they are struggling to get free, the woman appears, having heard the commotion.

Gleador: I continue accessing the situation as a tree.

The woman fires a lightning bolt at Lucia, which misses, but hits Gleador, setting his branches on fire. Lucia grabs a burning branch and wields it against the woman, who meets her with a dagger.

Gleador: I think I attack her at this point.

Gleador turns into quicksand to overwhelm the mysterious spellcaster. The flaming tree bends and pours over her, the flames going out as the branches turn into sand. The sand engulfs her, knocking her over, and reforming into Gleador’s Elf form pinning her in a submission hold.  She knows she’s beaten, so she stops resisting physically, but yells and curses the town and our heroes. “It’s not enough that you pillage my crops and claim them as your own, but now you invade my home and attack me!”  Our heroes thought that she and the bull elf were the ones doing the pillaging, so they ask for clarification.  It turns out that the secret ingredient in Hobert’s special wine is a rare herb that Samantha (that’s the witch’s name) grows here in the swamp.  Hobert has been sneaking in and tearing out the herb, and Samantha stole his wine back as revenge.

Lucia is moved by their plight. Lucia & Gleador bring the wine, Samantha, and Ferdinand (that’s the bull elf) back to the inn. They return the wine to Hobert in the tavern, in front of all his customers, and give Samantha and Ferdinand credit for the wine’s unique taste.  The customers cheer Samantha and Ferdinand because they love the wine. Hobert can’t say anything against Samantha & Ferdinand lest his wrongdoing be revealed. But he’s got his wine back and the yearly tradition can proceed, so he’s happy too.  Everyone’s happy, except Lucia, who was rewarded with a bottle of excellent wine which she isn’t allowed to drink.

Campaign Summary | Session 2 →