It's Good to be the King, Origins 2008 After Action Report

[Dragondaddy]

Origins 2008 After Action Report --
Castles and Crusades
It's Good to be the King
Dramatis Personae
Rob Lambert, Antonio, Rogue Lvl 5
Bill Cross, Blynke, Illusionist, Lvl 5
Jacob Zumbrennan, Paul DeWulf, Fighter, Lvl 5

? , Cleric of the Sanctuary, Lvl 5

Mac ? , Evil Wizard, Lvl 5
Prologue

It's always good to be prepared when it comes to gaming conventions. I'm one who spends half a year preparing a new adventure for any major convention and had a good little short prepped for my Castles and Crusades game this year titled, It's Good to be the King.

The synopsis goes something like this:

A band of adventurers are drafted into the King's personal bodyguard where they must defend him during the time the King goes to War. What I didn't mention in the Convention Guide was that the King was a Barbarian King (The Horse Lord) who goes to war with another Barbarian King (The Sea Peoples). Another important development is that in my eagerness to get packed the night before the convention, Instead of putting a complete copy of this adventure into my C&C Convention notebook, I only put a copy of the NPC character sheets of the Horse Lords Barbarian King and his followers into the notebook. Fortunately, C&C is a very forgiving system, and I did happen to have a completed copy of last years adventure in my convention notebook, The Broken Tower, so I started the party off, with the patriarch of the Sanctuary requesting they recover an ancient artifact of the sanctuary in the graveyard of the abandoned village of the Broken Tower. The Cleric of the party coincidentally happened to be a follower of the Patriarch, so the adventurers equipped, selected their spells, and departed for the overnight journey to the ancient ruins...
The Arrival of the King

As the party got into the rugged hills and heavy forests south of town they had a run in with some local Barbarians. King Huoror immediately drafted the party to bolster his personal bodyguard (Already numbering 15. The simple description of the horse guard successfully intimidated the players into joining up with the King). The party did successfully persuade the King to allow them to finish their quest on behalf of the patriarch of the Sanctuary, and the King and the Horse Guard agreed to ride with the players to the ruins of the Broken Tower, so that the players could retrieve the artifact for the sanctuary. Who was a King who could not honor a LG temple, anyhows?
The Broken Tower

When the players got to town, they located the graveyard and the Mausoleum of the dead former Patriarch and went in to retreive the holy relic. The King and his guards encamped just outside the grounds of the cemetary, and awaited the players return. The players went in to the Mausoleum, located the Sarcophagus of the former Patriarch, and opened it up. The Cleric had no trouble locating the sacred relic (Which did damage to the evil members of the party if they got too close to it), and secured it. Then everything went downhill from there. The party Wizard chose to be CE while the party Cleric was LG, While visiting the tomb of the Clerics Patriarch, the Wizard took the dead patriarchs staff from the sarcophagus, and ran, and the player Cleric instantly challenged the Wizard to a duel for the staff.

The Wizard lit off a fireball, and flamebranded the Cleric, the rest of the party, and himself. They were all in a small 10x20 Mausoleum at the time. The Rogue escaped harm by jumping into the sarcophagus with the dead patriarch, and the Cleric proceeded to slay the Wizard in close combat.

The party still had the illusionist, and after the Cleric healed all of the other party members they returned to the King's encampment where they all rested and healed up. In the morning the party returned to the town where they started, and the King obtained horses for all the players, and they immediately set off for the Sanctuary, where they all received a heroes welcome from the Patriarch of the Sanctuary.

They overnighted there once more while the King finished his recruiting efforts for the upcoming war. The party then departed for the King's war camp to the North in the rugged hills, from where they would launch their attack against the Sea Peoples.

Enroute, the Rogue requested the Barbarians train him to use the obsidian tipped lance-like spears the barbarians rode into battle with. One of the barbarians, Hyarur complied with his request and challenged him to a duel. They both fought with spears, and the Barbarian beat the rogue senseless in a straight up fight. GM's note: I'm surprised the rogue didn't attempt a back attack during this fight, as that might have shifted the balance of the fight into his favor, although the bloody nature of the death of the party wizard may have put the rogue off some, and the unpredictable nature of the Barbarians may have impressed him as well.
Homecoming for the King

After several days of riding the King arrives with his bodyguard at his base camp, only to be attacked by a rival that seeks to usurp the King's throne, the players are engaged in a fast and furious melee in which they must protect the King, slay the attackers, and win the day (Time was running short on this convention round, so I changed up the BBG fight.). The illusionist laid down a fog in the battle area then changed his appearance to look like the King, he then rode to the King's side, and offered to take the place of the King. The King failed his Int save, and not knowing what was actually going on in the thick of the melee, refused to trade places with the Illusionist. The King was no coward in any event, and would never run away from a personal challenge, anyway. There was some general confusion from the party as none of them could figure out whom was the real king, and both kings issued orders in separate locations resulting in a disjointed pitched battle. The rogue put his spear training to good use and slew two barbarians usurpers with his newfound spear fighting skills, the cleric and fighter each claimed at least two foes on this day as well. The King and the Players finally prevailed though, and won the fight, just as time ran out on the convention gaming round.
Epilogue

It was great fun, I think even the evil wizard had fun, even though he died for his cause, and it was yet another great introductory round for Castles and Crusades gaming!

If you are interested in running It's good to be the King for your campaign at home, you can download this Origins adventure (and last years as well), from the Fantasyworlds Yahoogroup site located here: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Fan ... lds/files/

It's Good to be the King includes an NPC character from the new character class, the Witch, and plenty pregenerated barbarian NPC's making it a good addition for any GM.

[Thegreenman]

Maybe you could try doing an adventure centered around a supposedly haunted guild house or nobles' manse, where the adventurers are hired to find out what is really going on.