Additionally, last October 19 I ran 13th Age with a couple of players who were unfamiliar with the system in Virtuacon 2013, and the adventure was... well, pretty funny. We had the following characters at the table
- Olaf Brightmane, he Dark Elf Barbarian who was raised by Dire Wolves
- Ganzo, the Human Barbarian who had a very sensitive nose for unwashed bodies
- Inore, the Halfling Paladin who stole the Dwarf King's shield
- Mazadar the Blue, the Human Wizard who abhors the color red
- Talia Zakkaru, the Tiefling Cleric who struggles to fight off the influence of the Diabolist (magically sealing off the corruption in her in an effort to do so)
[ At first I was thinking of preparing all these stats, maps, and other stuff... but then I remembered that 1) that's not how I run the game, and 2) I shouldn't really stress over a game. So I decided to just prepare what I felt was necessary (a table, a bunch of figures to represent where the characters are positioned, a few stats especially for the big bad, and a random name generator for kicks :) ]
Mazadar was an avid follower of the Archmage (so much that the reason why he went for Blue was because that was what the Archmage often wore), and so when he stumbled upon the Archmage's diary from a previous age, he learned that there was this tower in the Dire Woods where the Archmage did a bunch of his earlier experiments. He later learned that there was a wizard who was poring through all the Archmage's old notes, something that he was certainly interested in himself.
Talia was originally a cult leader and enforcer of the Diabolist, but now she's a cleric and enforcer of the Priestess (who never really approved of the "enforcer" bit, but never brought up the matter with her or her immediate superiors). She arrived in the Dire Woods with Ganzo and Olaf with word about a wizard who was trying to raise demons.
The four adventurers gathered in the tavern at the edge of Dire Wood, where they saw a celebration taking place. It was here they met up with Inore the Paladin, who was supposed to investigate the same rumors as Talia but apparently got caught up with the carousing. The bartender and various other locales had mentioned that they were celebrating because their local wizard, Soldert "the Mad", had disappeared and they were finally getting the rest (from being guinea pigs) that they deserved. They decided to see what had happened with old Soldert, and proceeded to venture to his tower deep within the Dire Wood.
After having a good talk with an imp (who recognized Talia) that was running away from Soldert's tower, and an unexpected skirmish with the undead as a result of the imp's recklessness in running away (it accidentally disturbed the rites that were keeping the nearby dead at bay), they eventually reached the tower.
(It was at this point that Mazadar's player had to retire for the night, as it was 2AM at his timezone, so I ruled that his character was too exhausted from the last fight and had to go back to town to recover his spells.)
They found a secret passage that got them past most of the tower's defenses and landed them a sweet pile of loot, and guided by Olaf's sensitive nose, found themselves exiting the wardrobe where they caught Soldert by surprise. In the following skirmish, Ganzo proceeded to head butt the wizard to oblivion, while Inore saw that Soldert was holding a young woman captive and proceeded to unbind her. Sadly, Olaf was doing poorly with his weapon attacks, and kept missing round after round. As they were about to kill the wizard, he decided to complete the unstable spell by touching his pendant with his ring. This caused him to mutate into a vampire, hastening his movements and allowing him to pummel them multiple times. Still missing, Olaf's player asked me, "attacking doesn't seem to work, so what can I do?" I said, "well, he's next to the cauldron, maybe you could tip it over and then smash him with it?" Lo and behold, he started rolling very well from then on, eventually becoming the guy responsible for crushing the pseudo-vampire to oblivion (with the help of Ganzo, Inore, and Talia).
Talia was the star of the show for the most part, as it was she who was the most leader-ish of the group (and both she and Mazadar were doing most of the NPC interactions :D ).
Sooooo there. That's all for now ^_^
