Fabula Ultima - The Romance of Ys - Session 18
The party have a three-way showdown on the road back to Caer Ys, then get a new assignment from Sir Cai this session.
Episode 4, "Foul Garden: Trouble in the Onion Castle!" Session 18
Cast
- Aurelia, she/her, Ex-Inventor Turned Spy
- Hemlocke, any, Loyal Servant Looking for Answers
- Mio, she/her, Headstrong Pugilist with a Heart of Gold
- Rhiannon the Blue, she/her, Academic Ghost Bride Looking for Answers
- Seren, she/her, Kindhearted Princess on the Run
Fairy Time
We open with the party stepping out of the tree arch that is the gate to Rhiannon's Steading, re-entering the normal world. Rhiannon and Mio check the trees, which had been hurt the last time they were here, and determined they have healed very rapidly. Too rapidly for a single day. Nervous that more time might have passed in the real world, the group lets out a collective sigh as their Magpie friend shows-up and confirms that it has been a whole weeks since he last saw them. He offers to trade them a brooch for shiny treasures, but the party decline. Mio gives him a zennit, though, and he happily accepts and flies off.
Roadside Tussle
Mindful that Aurelia's horse head curse deal has put them on the clock, the group debate heading directly to Castle Niyonin to acquire the book Puck demands of Hemlocke before realizing nobody knows where the castle is. Low on supplies, they opt to head to Caer Ys to resupply, learn where the Castle is, and check-in with Sir Cai.
The group make good time until they turn a bend in a road and are greeted by crossbow bolts - Manhunter Ilona and Boarfrost have tracked the group down! A fight breaks out, and Ilona spends the first part of it yelling at Hemlocke, who is wearing the costume maid outfit they took from the bounty hunter.
The party recover quickly and proceed to make short work of the bounty hunter duo. They - literally! - burn down Boarfrost, focusing fire attacks on the ice boarling until he collapses. Ilona proves more resilient, shaking off several status effects applied to her, but before the group can turn their full attention to her the fight is interrupted by a third group - a giant, fiery skull and two undead knights. A party from the Baronness has followed them from Rhiannon's Steading and is out for revenge!
Seren calls out for and surprisingly receives a truce from Ilona, then proceeds to destroy the two knights with a single lux spell. The party and Ilona are buffeted in flames by the giant skull, but with steady work they manage to break its thick skull, releasing all its fiery magic upwards.
Common foe defeated, Ilona stares the party down. Mio feeds Boarfrost an healing potion, Hemlocke returns the dress, and Seren convinces the bounty hunter to call this one a draw. Ilona agrees, and out of gratitude or respect, leaves the party with a satchel of rare romance novels. Seren excitedly starts to read them aloud to the group while Mio pockets an enchanted fragment of the Pyrrhic Skull.
Caer Ys Check-In
The rest of the trip is uneventful and the party make it back to Caer Ys the following day. While Aurelia, Rhiannon, and Hemlocke head to the markets to restock supplies, Mio and Seren venture to the castle to check-in with Sir Cai. As they walk through the halls they can tell something is wrong, as everyone is agitated and irritated.
The two young women find Cai in her office and a still battle worn Mio gives a report of their last adventure. She nervously shows Cai her now enchanted vambraces, but any concerns of Cai rebuking her for allowing them to be blessed are allayed as Cai reminds her that the vambraces are there to protect others, and by Mio's own account she did just that. Relieved, Mio asks why everyone in the castle is on edge. In response, Cai pours the three of them drinks and hands Mio and Seren a pile of dossiers.
Mio flips open the one with her name on it and finds a false identity to adopt - a foreign noble from the southern half of the world. Cai proceeds to explain that in the time the party has been away a joust was called in Queen Gwenhwyfar's name by King Niyonin. In normal times, Niyonin would not dare do such a thing, but Gwenhwyfar's not in a strong position politically - many nobles in Cymru doubt her claim to the throne and she can't defend that claim through military might since her forces are greatly reduced and spread thin dealing with Nova Sinfonia. Niyonin, meanwhile, has the political clout to make such a move and force Gwenhwyfar to host a joust she does not want. The question on Cai's and the Queen's mind is "Why?"
Cai then charges the party to head to Castle Niyonin, enter it under disguise, and find out why Niyonin has called for this joust. Confused but excited, the two young women accept it and take the dossiers with them. As the leave, Cai informs them that clothing and accoutrements for their false identities will be delivered to Greenhome and firmly suggests Seren - the princess with glowing eyes and teal hair - find a way to disguise her appearance.
Goblin Detour
Supplies restocked, Aurelia and Rhiannon detour to the Goblin Market to see if they can find a lead on the sale of the soul of Rhiannon's fiance, Rhodri. They struggle to find much of anything inside the cluttered fairy town, though, and leave without finding a single clue. However, Aurelia finds a lead on an old contact that she believes she can leverage for a tip or advice. They resolve to visit again tomorrow, after a rest.
Princesses and Maids
Aurelia, Hemlocke, Rhiannon, and Thistle arrive at Greenhome to find packages of clothes on the common room table and Mio and Seren trying on a noble's dress and maidservant's outfit respectively. The two point the others to the dossiers and explain their next mission. The group look them over and discover their assigned disguises:
- Aurelia - Dwarven Advisor
- Hemlocke - Local Guide
- Mio - Dimmtfolk Noblewoman
- Rhiannon - Guard
- Seren - Maidservant
- Thistle - Thistle
Hemlocke takes a look at the mess of clothes on Mio and proceeds to try and hem them to fit her better. The overwhelmed catgirl accepts, and Hemlocke asks if perhaps she would like to switch with Seren. Uncomfortable as she is, Mio assures the sensechal it is fine. Hemlocke lets out a sigh, then proceeds to provide Mio with a crash-course on how to act like a noblewoman. As she does, Hemlocke manages to reassure Mio that it is all rather silly, which goes a long way to helping Mio relax.
Excited to see Mio's cover identity is that of a foreign noblewoman, Aurelia and Rhiannon proceed to coach Mio on what it means to be dimmtfolk - a kind of monster-person tyrant. Mio cornered by the two academics, Hemlocke turns his attention to Seren, who is excited to play the maidservant. Hemocke tries to coach her, but Seren immediately fumbles even the basic task of carrying at tea tray. Dejected, she weakly says that maybe it is best that she and Mio change roles. Hemlocke again sighs and says it is fine, they will work on it.
The night winds down with the group exchanging lessons and discussing how to disguise Seren. Everything is floated, from having her wear a veil to dying her hair to creating elaborate prosthetics to make her look like a monster as well. The group retire for the night with no firm plans made.
Referee's Thoughts
This was another fun session! Having time off really helped, and I felt a lot less frazzled running this session. I think it turned out to be a good reintroduction to the campaign as well after our extended break from Ys.
The fight with Ilona, Boarfrost, and the undead was the mechanical experiment of this session. Two experiments, actually. The first was playing around with random targeting. By default, Fabula has the game master roll a die to randomly decide which player character or companion is attacked. This isn't a hard-and-fast rule, but having the GM pick targets tends to make combat very dangerous very quickly. I knew I wanted Ilona and Boarfrost to target Seren - the person they were told to capture - and Hemlocke - who was wearing the purloined dress - more frequently. Normally I roll a d6 and assign one number to each player character and to Thistle. This go around I rolled a d12 and weighted it so Seren and Hemlocke were more likely to be targeted.
In practice it worked fine! Hemlocke was targeted a bit more often, giving me time to play up Ilona's anger. It wasn't overwhelming because at this point the bounty hunter and frost boarling are the same level as the party and Mio is well equipped to draw aggro and intercept attacks. I don't think Seren was targeted once, but so it goes!
The second experiment was having a third group appear in the middle of the fight. The trigger for their appearance was Ilona or Boarfrost hitting crisis or the passage of three turns. Boarfrost getting focused fired meant the undead appeared on the second round, which was fine. From there, I played with targeting rolls again and gave Ilona and Boarfrost chances to attack the undead as well as the party, and similarly for the undead to attack Ilona and Boarfrost as well as the party.
This worked better, mostly because the Pyrrhic Skull could cast ignis, a multi-target fire spell, and hit up to three characters a round. Rolling for that many targets and including Ilona in the rolls drove home this was a free-for-all!
Interestingly, I never had to make a targeting roll for Ilona after the undead showed-up. Immediately after their appearance, Seren rolled a critical success casting lux. The damage from the spell one-shot the two undead knights and she used the Opportunity generated to create a Plot Twist - Ilona would help them defeat the Skull. This was especially amusing for me because I had intended this to be the last time Ilona and Boarfrost would appear. They had more or less run their course in the narrative and I planned to have Ilona spend her three remaining Ultima Points and be defeated. Instead she's still out there with two Ultima Points to her name and perhaps a grudging respect for the player characters.
Aurelia and Rhiannon immediately heading to the Goblin Market to search for Rhodri threw me for a loop. I really should have expected it, but I didn't and didn't have anything planned for them. I opted to prompt them for what approach they wanted to take and the two of them decided to punt on it for a session. Delightfully, though, Aurelia remembered she has the Agitator quirk from the Technofantasy Atlas, and declared she's going to create a contact in the Goblin Market using it.
The set-up for the next adventure went well. I purposefully kept things simple and just created suggested identities. The players eagerly took to them, and we spent about a quarter of the session playing out the group coaching Mio and Seren on their respective rolls. I was especially pleased that they discussed swapping rolls and tweaking Mio's identity - I really didn't want them to feel locked into what I gave them. I did ask the group to keep discussing their plans over Discord between sessions, but I am almost certain that a good hour or so of our next game will be them finalizing details, particularly names and what they will do to disguise Seren.
All-in-all a fun time! The plan for now is to hop back-and-forth between Ys and Celestial Echoes. Ideally, we'll swap arcs - one adventure in CERoW, one in Ys - but given how both Seren and I approach prep I suspect it will be more haphazard than that.