Loch Varn, Ran it tonight! plus session report

[Ocule]

So my first real game of the esteren universe figured what better day than hallow's eve and what better scenario than Loch Varn. It is one adventure ive really been wanting to run and it turned out to be the most difficult but also one of the best stories ive ever seen in a pre written scenarios. Some of the layout was a bit confusing particularly the bits around Urvan if hes a PC. The lack of flavor text took some improvising but we had three players embodying Liam, Urvan and Arven (confusing names the latter) i mistakenly thought urvan was necessary but just Liam was and I was oh so nervous because it was a new game to my party i had been talking so well about it and really wanted to do it justice.

So a series of events

Act I:
They are outside the magientist factory and under fire i didnt really make them roll for combat just put pressure on them story wise and was only going to actually take shots at them if they stayed and fought breaking the D&D mentality. They opted to flee from any ambushing "brigands" and when Liam confronted his brother he didnt know it at the time but Arven shot Tenet. Both Liam and Urvan were struck by arrows before entering. Inside the ruins they essentially just got massacred, one got swallowed by the giant plant monster and the other by centipedes. Arven was the only one to survive until waking up in the camp but this definitely set the tone they are NOT heroes and they definitely can die.

Act II:
This is where things got a bit tricky to run mostly just on what to do with Urvan who was not there and giving them all varying bits of information. First Inguard left them leery, the mismatched stories of what happened made it even worse. Plus the two missing characters of Urvan and the other guy who no one can remember. I think Urvan was supposed to be met at the chapel but accidently introduced him on the road but they found all the documents on visiting the chapel, hearing of the giant centipedes dragging people underground made them pretty worried. They reached the town incredibly confused as there was definitely something they couldnt figure out they talked to the townsfolk and shared their story. The look of horror on my players faces when they found out the person who was killed was Liam's brother was priceless.

The puzzle here with the rocks and invisible ink took them much longer than it should have, they couldnt make the connection to the islet so it took a bit of prompting. I did feel alot of checks here were a bit unnecessary other than practice on how to make them considering they cannot continue if they fail and they will miss alot of vital information if it is skipped.

Act III:
Well this part really screwed with their heads returning to the magientist factory i returned any damage they sustained prior to meeting Liam's brother and chose not to introduce new monsters inside the ruins. But the familiar music of silent hill - betrayal made them terrified. The tripping over the vine while i contemplated introducing more monsters here we were short on time by this point so i just let them atmosphere ramp up. They believed they were still dreaming at this point i was wondering if they were going to try to force themselves to wake up as per suicide sidebar it sounded like it would be hilarious if they did. They met Jearon and Deon and sided of course with the spirit when the demorthen summoned 2 swamp creatures, one of them killed Urvan the temple guy but the players were victorious. They discovered the geode, avenged the magientist and told the townsfolk of what actually happened.

The mood music helped alot it really added another dimension to the game, and left them wanting to play more so i thnk before running the other scenarios i might actually have them do it with characters they created instead of the pregens provided.

[Almeidafreak]

Awesome!

I have my own doubts on how to run this scenary, because it can be really confusing for the players. Heck, even I had a hard time understanding exacly how it went! The link to the islets is specially weak!

I hope to run it soon, good to know some of the pitfalls!