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Friday, June 1

Chapter 18: Grains of Sand - Introduction

This is the second hard point in year 2 of the Living Arcanis campaign, written by Brian Schoner and (loosely) set in the Arcanis setting. You can read more about Arcanis at http://www.onaraonline.org. Please note: This adventure contains spoilers!

Our cast of characters includes:

· Dungeon Master: Robert Taylor (http://www.storyboardz.net)
· Beldin Soulforge (dwarf fighter) played by Joe Lalumia
· Ilmarė Galen (elf bard/fighter) played by Amber Tresca
· Kham Val’Abebi(val rogue/psychic warrior) played by Jeremy Ortiz (http://www.ninjarobotstudios.com)
· Vlad Martell (human fighter) played by Matt Hammer
· Quintus Aurelius Ignatius (human cleric) played by Michael Tresca (http://michael.tresca.net)

Grains of Sand is one of those adventures where if you make an innocent mistake like say, chase one set of bad guys instead of waiting for hours for another set to show up, you can really botch the adventure. Fortunately, Rob’s a great DM and knows when to kick us in the butt to keep the action moving. He also confined the action to one room, keeping the adventure from bogging down into a slow dungeon crawl.

The group has come a long way since the early adventures. Now, Ilmarė fires arrows with the intent of disrupting spellcasters, Quintus memorizes spells to assist his companions, and Kham actually uses a feint tactic to sneak attack with his pistols. They’re all starting to act like a mid-level party (levels range from 4 through 7) and our tactics are beginning to gel. Nevertheless, Quintus soundly got whupped when the Big Nasty Thing From Beyond Space showed up.

This is another adventure that I moved out of the order of play (we played it after finishing the Freeport trilogy) for two reasons: it makes a great introduction for Jarel the Encali dwarf and also gets Quintus his farmland. Additionally, the last time we saw Quintus, he was tortured for three weeks by cultists of the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign. That kind of treatment will change a man, and it’s here that we see Quintus begin to have a change of heart about his allegiance to the Empire.

To say that, “Quintus nearly bought the farm” is a terrible pun, but it’s quite accurate too. Not his proudest moment, but Quintus has other things on his mind besides killing for once. He’s thinking about settling down, and a farm seems like a great way to start. If he ever survives the legion, that is. [MORE]

Labels: arcanis

posted by talien at 5:20 PM

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