Path: Chapter Five

With this session things get a little complicated. My fiance Maria was visiting for two weeks, and wished to play. I asked the players if this was OK and they jumped at the chance to play with her (Naomi's my youngest sister and Mitch is a coworker who'd been wanting to meet Maria anyway), and so I thought of a way to include Maria. 

In the previous game the major villain was Marian, the Countess of Fire. When she was a little girl she had lost both her parents. Her mother had died because of a plague. Her father had become The Eaten One, a dictator appointed at the behest of an evil spirit named The One in the Deep to overcome a major threat to civilization named The Vermin Lord. The cost for such power was that The Eaten One be thrown into a dark well of The One in the Deep's choosing. Standing above that well, Marian swore revenge against all of civilization for sacrificing her beloved father. In the following events that took place over 50 years Marian found the Fountain of Youth and drank from it in order to have the longevity necessary to find and defeat The One in the Deep.

As detailed in Revenge of the Countess of Fire Marian's attempt to destroy The One in the Deep backfired, and she wound up accidentally giving the evil spirit a body to command instead. She and the player characters Kincaid, Lenore, The Hungry One, and Claire Romar went to the center of the planet with The One in the Deep, who planned to overthrow the Eternal Flame that was the light of all goodness and supplant it with his own. Touching The Eternal Flame, The One in the Deep was burned by it instead and his enemies shoved him in, destroying his body. Marian, driven to the point of suicide, was convinced by the players that the only worthy thing she could do with her immortality was to make the world a better place for as long as she could. 

So that's Marian. For whatever reason things clicked with me, and I asked Maria if she wanted to play Marian as she looked for Insel des Todes, the Fountain of Youth. The original idea was for her to play two sessions with us and set up some crucial information about Golau, who Marian had interacted with. We had decided that, in order to find out about Insel des Todes, Marian had seduced Bonaparte, a fellow mage, into letting her into a secret society that was all about the island. After finding out what she could Marian faked her death by setting their library on fire. 

Oh, and the standard magic for this setting is Art Magic, with the optional rule that you can't cast outside your schools of magic in effect.

OK, enough yakking. You know enough, I think.

Beliefs for the Naomi and Mitch were infuriating to get through this time. It was like pulling teeth to get them to write Beliefs and not Instincts!At some point I gave up and let them have their crappy Beliefs. My blood pressure can only go so high.

Augustes's Beliefs
1. I am going to investigate this elf.
2. I'm going to get the artifact before Golau gets to use it. 
3. To make this dark world a better place I'll save it from Golau.

Eva's Beliefs
1. I really want to trust this elf-something feels good about him.
2. Golau is working with my father. I will stop them both by guiding my companions to Golau.
3. I will not set sail before my father is stopped.

Marian, the Countess of Fire's Beliefs
1. Power is efficiency; I will drink from the Fountain of Youth.
2. I live for revenge: it is the point of my existence.
3. People are a means to my end. Bonaparte's usefulness is ended so I will ignore him.

Marian, the Countess of Fire's Insticts
1. Always remember my goal: revenge.
2. Never let others gain the upper hand. 
3. Never trust a stranger (roll Observation)

Also, it should be noted that Marian started off with a G6(!!!) Sorcery skill, as well as a B4 Astrology skill. To say that she is a powerful sorceress at 5 lifepaths is a bit of an understatement. We asked Naomi and Mitch if it was OK that Marian be that powerful, and they not only approved but they begged for Marian to be MORE powerful. This request was not granted :P

Marian's schools at the time of the campaign are weather, plants, and fire.

-150 Years Ago... Marian set sail for Insel des Todes, The Fountain of Youth. She makes an untrained sailing test to get to the island safely after making sure the weather's favorable via a weather control spell. She fails the sailing test and crashes her ship, winding up on the beaches of Insel des Todes. The time for the test was three years.

-Present Day... After a brief introduction (Kincaid is the new elf's name) the three set out. After being told in a vague way how to get to the center of the planet Eva sings The Song of Paths and Ways... and fails. They wind up in an underground spider outpost and are captured.

-147 Years Ago... Marian slowly picks herself up and examines the island. There's cliffs to her right and left, with plains in front and dense woods farther away. Before she can decide which way to go the clouds scar the sky and an eerie green light starts to shine behind her. Looking behind her Marian sees a ship way off in the distance, surrounded by green light and clouds. It's sailing this way.

-Present Day... Augustes and Eva awaken, hanging upside down from the ceiling in the pitch black tunnels. Mattias is still unconscious, and one else seems to be around. The spiders didn't bind them up very tightly (STUPID SNARES ROLL OF 1 SUCCESS!) so Eva breaks free and lands quietly, more or less.

-The same can't be said of Augustes, who, even with a great amount of effort, lands wrong and pops a suture in his stomach, causing him to scream out in pain. This attracts a spider, of course...

-Fortunately Eva has lit a torch and has her sword out (when surprised draw your sword!), so a Fight! starts. Positioning did not go well for Eva, as the much nimbler Hunter Spider got up inside her reach and charged her, intending to bowl her over. Eva jumped out of the way however (Avoid), cause the spider to sail right past her. The spider tried to change direction (giving up a future action so she could script Avoid) but Eva lopped her head off in one blow (Strike at 5[!!!!!] successes over Obstacle 0, stupid dice...)

-With that out of the way Eva and Augustes cut down Mattias and take a look around. There's a lot of webbing that goes down one particular passageway, so Eva sets it on fire in an attempt to distract the rest of the spiders while she and the others get away. She then sings The Song of Paths and Ways, successfully this time, and leads them away down another tunnel, further into the darkness...

-147 Years Ago... After seeking shelther in the cliffs Marian consults with the sun, Amaunator, using Astrology, trying to find out more about the ship. The ship belongs to Golau, the most powerful sorceress ever, and she's on her way to Insel des Todes to destroy The Fountain of Youth. 

-With that, Marian follows the now disembarked crew (who are composed of a lot of slaves!) at a great distance. They enter the woods, and she follows behind them, looking through plants so she can maintain her distance. Unfortunately Golau looks right back through the plants at her too!

-At the moment Marian feels a presence behind her, and hears her dead mother's voice. Marian makes the Steel test with flying colors and pays it no mind.

-That's when Bonaparte, her old flame, comes up from behind Golau, and chomps down on a slave's neck, revealing a set of vampire fangs. Turns out that Golau is a vampire as well, and is actually Bonaparte's sire. 

-Bonaparte grabs a wicked-looking lance and turns to walk towards a clearing with a small cave that produces a spring...

-... and that's when Marian strides out and sets fire to Bonaparte and Golau with a stunning 12 successes on her Kill It With Sorcerous Fire! roll, a B12! Bonaparte is completely incinerated and Golau falls over from the sheer ferocity of the attack, screaming in pain. Golau's servants drag her off, leaving the spear behind. 

-Marian examines the spear and consults with the sun, Amaunator, and finds out that this is the great evil spear, Schander der Guten. Golau was going to use it to defile and thus destroy the Fountain.

-Still holding Schander der Guten, Marian goes into the small cave and climbs down a modestly-sized cliff. There's a light at the bottom, which turns out to be in a pool of warm water. As Marian wades into the pool she feels the urge to walk in so far as to submerge herself. Once she's done so Marian realizes that the water is breathable and so she takes a deep breath. Life courses through her, and Marian realizes that now she will never get sick again, nor can she ever die. 

-Coming up out of the water Marian grabs hold of Schander der Guten and calls upon Amaunator again, asking how she can get home with her boat smashed...

Unfortunately after this point Maria and I got really sick, and we were unable to hold the next session while she was around. The rest of what happened to Marian will have to wait for another game. I'd mostly switched to Maria at the end because Naomi was getting ready to pass out, and Mitch was interested in finding out about the setting, so he was more than happy to sit back and get an info-dump. And what a useful info dump it'll be...

Note: I accidentally put in Chapter Four as Chapter Three, and the numbering got screwed up. This was originally Chapter Four