Here’s a small actual play report from Cassandra Field. Enjoy!

First Session

Our first game session! Yay!

The story begins with our young heroes in Fauchschule: Liz, Barkoleoani, and Jared. The schoolteacher receives a note and calls the youngsters up to his desk. He lets them know that there was an accident at the water cistern, and their parents were injured. They’re going to be all right, but they have broken legs and they need rest. Liz goes home to her parents immediately, while Jared and Barkoleoani finish their school day before returning home.

Liz makes her mother (Primrose) and father (Cotman) some broth, and Primrose muses aloud that things would be much easier if her brother Hveðrungr hadn’t run off to live in the woods. Then he could help out around the house while Primrose and Cotman healed. Liz decides to venture into the woods to find him, and convinces Barkoleoani and Jared to join her. Their mother is concerned for their safety, but eventually agrees to let them go.

Our heroes pack snacks, sleeping bags, and games, and head out into the woods. Once they get out of their familiar romping-grounds, they’re uncertain which way to go until they spot a little-used path. They decide to try following the path, and they make good speed until it starts to get dark. Since they’re not very tired yet, they decide to light a lantern and press on for a little longer. A pair of owls take an interest in them. Jared spots them first and urges everyone to hide, which Barkoleoani does with ease. The excitement from the adventure makes Liz too wiggly, and she has difficulty hiding.

Eventually the scuffle alerts Hveðrungr, whose house is nearby. By the time he comes out, Jared has been hurt badly by the owls. Hveðrungr scares one of them away with a flame bolt. Because Jared and Liz are having so much trouble hiding, they decide to go on the offensive and eventually drive the other owl away to find easier prey as well. Barkoleoani patches up Jared’s lighter wound, but the deeper one is beyond his skill.

Hveðrungr demands to know what the youngsters are doing so far from town. They explain that they’re looking for their uncle, and about their parents being injured. Hveðrungr continues to insist that they should go home, but they point out that Jared needs to rest. Hveðrungr finally relents and lets them spend the night.

Jared is still very sore the next day, but he manages to make it back to town. Hveðrungr is reunited with his sister, who introduces him to her husband (“Who you would have met already if you had been there for the wedding!” she adds). When Hveðrungr learns that the family has a great supply of barley sausages, he agrees to stay and help out while Primrose and Cotman convalesce. He finds the food so alluring that he agrees to stay, while occasionally taking vacations to his beloved cottage in the deep woods.

Barkoleoani nurses Jared back to health, and the two of them nurse their parents back to health with Hveðrungr there to help out around the house. Jared builds Hveðrungr a lean-to on the side of the house, since he’s still a little reclusive. Liz makes him a new outfit. Hveðrungr challenges Barkoleoani to a sausage-making competition – but the outcome of that has not yet been decided.

Second Session

We’ve had a horrible time getting all the kids in one place lately, so I’m happy to say they finally got to go on their second adventure!

The young Michtims finally graduated from Fauchschule and prepared to embark on their apprenticeships. Jared chose to become a machinist, and trained under the engineer Gilly building robots to examine the water cistern. Interestingly, it was the same water cistern that had malfunctioned and injured the young Michtims’ parents in the last game. Barkoleoani and Liz, as aspiring adventurers apprenticed under Jasmine, who ventured out into the woods to gather exotic ingredients for the local grocery store/restaurant. Barkoleoani developed a bit of a crush on Jasmine, even though she was quite a bit older than him.

The youngsters learned quicky, and at about the same time they were nearing the end of their apprenticeship, it was also the Queen’s birthday. They and their sorcerer uncle Hveðrungr were called to the grocery store, where Cora the cook seemed rather frazzled. She had cooked some bocicne for the party, but she was late delivering them. She asked our heroes to rush them to the town square for the party. They obliged, with Jared constructing a robot to transport his share of the load.

When they got there, Cora´s brother Belisarius intimated to the party that the local newspaper man/printer Doderic had made a beautiful banner for the Queen’s birthday, but Belisarius had dropped it in the lake. Belisarius was frightened of Doderic’s temper, and asked our heroes to smooth things over with him. Reluctantly they agreed. Doderic wasn’t happy to hear the news, but they managed to calm him down and he agreed to throw together another (inferior) banner in time for the party.

Just as Doderic had calmed down, he got a message saying that the Queen was sick, and she might not be able to go to her own birthday party. Eager to help, the young Michtims and their uncle rushed to the palace. Barkoleoani gave her a refreshing drink and massaged her feet, and Jared constructed a medic bot to administer treatments to her.

Just as the Queen seemed to be feeling a little better, her room was overrun with bandits in masks, who began ransacking the place. Hveðrungr tried to frighten them by levitating furniture, and Liz proved to be a ferocious fighter! Finally the four of them drove the bandits off, and the Queen announced that the entire day had been a series of tests for the young apprentices. The rush delivery of the cakes had been an exercise in joy. Dealing with the angry Doderic had been an exercise in grief. Caring for the Queen had been an exercise in love. And confronting the “bandits” (who were in fact working for the Queen) and evading their attacks had been exercises in anger and fear.

So in addition to the Queen´s birthday, the city also celebrated the success of its newest citizens! Hooray!

PS: The Queen’s birthday banner wasn’t really ruined, and the Queen wasn’t really sick.