Stupid Fat Fingers

Note: This Episode encompasses sessions 1 and 2.

Campaign Setup


Summary of Events
The approaching men turn out to be the first mate of the vessel and some loyal members of the crew. The First Mate speaks in riddles and half-statements. The ship is apparently cursed with no wind for the sails, and the First Mate has seen visions that it is because the PCs were taken aboard the vessel. He would normally have just killed them as sacrifice, but the visions are clear: they are to be set free. After extracting a promise from each character not to retaliate against him or his crew, the First Mate and company release the heroes and guide them to the deck. There they pick up supplies and steal one of the small row boats used to get to shore.

Once ashore, the characters start exploring their surroundings. As they make their way down a rocky beach, one of the large rocks erupts from the ground. The giant crab quickly darted in and grabbed up Magni in his deadly pincers. Magni was no alone, however, and his two companions Varick and Tayla began beating on the crab with rock and oar. It did not take long for the crab to try to escape to the water; with the unfortunate Magni still firmly clasped in the pincers. Luckily, Magni's companions were not easily driven off. They gave chase and pressed the crab. Magni was able to free himself, just as Varick gave a mighty uphanded swing, knocking the crab onto its back. Magni wisely backed away as the other two finished off the crab.

After a few minutes to recuperate and staunch the bleeding from Magni's wounds, the companions crept further down the beach, avoiding the crabs by hugging the cliff wall that prevented them from going inland. A short walk later, they found the half consumed corpse of somebody. A protruding jaw and large canines betrayed the creature as something not entirely human. Still, they were able to get a rusted iron knife off of the corpse and fashion a crude spear from the oar and the knife.

Just a bit further up was a dock and a shack, neither one used in some time and now fallen into decrepitude. The party examined the shack and though it was messy and had large cracks between the planks that made it up, they decided to try to fix it up as shelter from an incoming storm. While they salvaged planks and nails from the dock, they would occasionally here strange noises and see things from the corners of their eyes. A large fish tail descending quickly beneath the water, a distant baying of dogs on the hunt. That sort of thing.

By mid day, the party had fixed up the shack. They had even found a crude drawing of the island on an old parchment. Now they needed to find a way to light a fire for warmth. The only choice was to venture inland. First they had to find a way up the cliff. Fortune was once again with them, as whoever had constructed the shack and dock, also built a primitive lift system to hoist things up and down the cliff. Though the actual lift and long since fallen apart, the ropes still clung to whatever anchored them at the top. Taking a chance, the companions scaled the cliff wall.

A survey of the island led them to figure out where they were at roughly. Next they had to figure out where to go. Magni, a rune caster for his village, tried to cast yet another rune in an attempt to further his site. Much to his surprise, it worked....for a moment. In that moment, he was able to see a raiding party (of the same stock as the corpse from the beach) leaving an encampment of some kind. The encampment had been set afire. Magni could learn no more before his vision snapped back to normal.

It did not take long to weigh the risks of investigating the encampment and decide to chance it. The party walked far to get the camp. There they found little to assist them, but there were a few cast offs that provided them more chance to survive the coming storm. Chief among those were embers from the fires, a knife made of chipped, black stone wrapped at one end with rawhide, and bits clothing and furs. Magni was able to locate a brooch on the corpse of one of the aggressors. He noted that the style of craftsmanship could well have come from one of their own ancestors.

As dark was settling in, they party heard the baying of approaching dogs. Thinking that the sounds might be ones that these strange creatures made, the companions hid in the surrounding brush to see what they could learn. In fact, the baying noise came from dogs. Powerfully built, yet still lean, these dogs were obviously feral and even more obvious, were intelligent enough to use tactics and communication. One of then scouted the encampment to make sure it was safe before calling the others in. If the rank and file of the pack were powerful and smart, the alpha was the supreme example of that. Being much larger and more intelligent than the others, he made his way into the camp. He spotted the party almost immediately, yet did not attack. There was already food aplenty for his pack.

Yet he watched them and weighed them with eyes that were far too intelligent for any canine to gaze upon the world with and behind that intelligence was an almost palpable sense of malevolence. The castaways decided it was time to retreat when the great dog barked three times and and answering barks came from the grasslands. The companions made haste back to camp, fearful that the pack of dogs might catch them unaware during the night.

Back at camp, they finished their preparations for the storm by gathering stones for a makeshift hearth. They set up clay pots that they found in order to collect fresh rainwater. Once set, they waited out the storm in the hut. Come morning, Magni discovered some runes on one of the stones. They warned against an old woman. Upon leaving the shack, Magni got the strange feeling of being watched. Looking up to the top of the cliff, he saw the alpha male staring back at him. With almost an evil grin, the big dog turned and trotted casually out of sight.

Behind the Scenes

Spoiler: Players don't read
Spoiler:

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The characters built for this game are literally Everyman level with a few points allotted for the player to customize his character a wee bit. As such, I depowered the giant crab a lot from the Bestiary version. Even still, I thought it was going to be over when Magni lost half of his Body and nearly all of his Stun to the creature. Being that it is "epic" Everyman, I do not use the Stunned rules. Otherwise Magni would have been in a heap of trouble. Well, Magni was already in a heap of trouble. He just would have been worse. Luckily, it all worked out. I granted no exceptional bonuses to the players. I simply ruled a Str vs Str Escape tie to go to Magni and gave Varick a bonus for Attacking from Behind. It was a pretty epic combat for such low powered heroes. I really enjoyed that.

One of the things that I wanted to impart was the sense of danger, isolation, and loneliness this island has. It is out in the middle of nowhere, with no settlements of any type. It is populated, both on land and the nearby sea, with dangerous fauna and primitive, savage humanoid creatures. There was once some better place here, but it has been cast down and forgotten in time. That is why I had them see and hear things that were of no immediate danger.

The dogs happened today. I was not ready to run the PCs against the humanoids. I had not even decided if all of the humanoids, some of the humanoids, or even none of the humanoids were immediately hostile. So I thought about other dangers on the island. My first vague thoughts were actually of something like Velociraptor-esque creatures. I felt that might be too cheesy, so I moderated it down to pack hunters. I wanted them smart though. Perhaps not language or tool-using smart, but smart enough to be tactically aware, hunt in coordinated attacks, and use simple communication to achieve better results. Then the alpha entered my mind. I knew there was going to be an alpha. I just didn't know how to portray him until about ten minutes past start time. Then I decided that I would take all the intelligence of hero dogs like Lassie and combine that with something brutal and sadistic; a canine mixture of Cujo and Hannibal Lecter. Then I had my alpha. I even have ideas on how to use the pack in a non-traditionally confrontational way. I have to be careful though, the party is still relatively vulnerable to TPK at this point.

Awards
Awards are going to come relatively quickly at first. Today was the first award. Everybody got 3 XP. In additon, each character got a bonus based on how they were played and/or significant rolls made.

• Magni has been using runes, traced in the air in front of him, constantly. As a result, he got a bit of an END Reserve to start things off.
• Tayla made some very good rolls with thrown rocks. As a result, she gets a +1 CSL with Thrown Rocks. Merry and Pippin eat your hearts out.
• Varick was very active with his PS: Hunter and Survival skills. His player roleplayed the coordination of fortification of the hut and a bunch more stuff. He got skill levels in those two skills.