Fate: Dark and Stormy report #6

Having dispatched the noggits in the rain-dripping room, the party searched the next hallway. At the end of this hallway was another dark, dusty room. Rwake stepped in first to examine the room. Hidden among the dust were tiny sparkles of gold, strewn all about the floor. In the center of the room was a large stone table - the resting place of an ancient dagwir (big beastly humanoid) knight. Elros and Leo came up to join Rwake just as the dagwir rose up as a zombie, ready to defend his tomb. He prepared to attack Rwake, javelin in hand, spiked mace at his belt. Below you can see the party heading into the room. J forgot his LEGO dude, so for this session he borrowed a little mini from AC - a mini that well represented J's little Lufan character.

Rwake is always first initiative-wise because he has the highest alertness. He immediately used his "Vital Spot" stunt to give himself a free +2 to his next attack. Elros, having just entered the room used his Empathy skill to assess the dagwir's motives, but failed. We had a laugh because the dagwir's motives were pretty clear - javelin ready to throw and all. On the other hand, AC is really skilled at doing the unexpected, which makes the roleplaying experience better for everyone.

Leo ran past the others, quickly pulling out and launching two daggers at the dagwir zombie. The dagwir rolled a -1, but used a fate point to invoke one of his aspects, giving him a reroll, which came up even. He took 4 stress from Leo's daggers grazing him.

The dagwir let his javelin fly at Rwake, who took a meager 1 stress. Rwake quickly pounced onto the dagwir hoping to get a knife in him, engaging the dead knight in a grapple. The dagwir took 2 stress from Rwake's knife. Careful to avoid hitting Rwake in the low light, Elros stepped forward and lunged a stab at the dagwir's knee - Elros rolled 8, Dagwir rolled 4: the dagwir took 4 stress, which rolled up to 5 since he already had taken 4 stress earlier.

Leo took this time to run around to the opposite side of the room for a new vantage point. I hadn't decided on a difficulty, but he rolled a +2 ("Fair" in Fate terms), so I called it a success.

The dagwir, with Rwake in his grip, rolled using his zombie melee skill, achieving a -2. Using another aspect (and spending a fate point) to reroll, he came up with a +1 on the dice, which added to his Average (+1) skill and his Acid Spit stunt (+2) gave him a +4 total. He opened his mouth and spewed a vile stream of acid aimed at Rwake's head. Fortunately for the tribesman, he also rolled a +4, barely managing to get his head out of the way, avoiding the acid attack.

Rwake spent his next turn successfully swiveling around, effectively placing the dagwir between himself and Elros. From his new angle, Elros slid his sword blade under the leather straps on the zombie's shield and sliced them, with 7 shifts on his roll. This was a good experience for us because had had so few opportunities to resolve maneuvers. Elros used his shifts to kick the shield aside and place a 1-round aspect on the dagwir: "Where's my shield?" For those learning the SotC system, this is called a "fragile" aspect - it wears off rather quickly. Temporary aspects that hang around longer are called "sticky".

Now that the dagwir had an aspect on him, the first tag of it was free, which Leo took. After a poor initial roll, Leo used his "Trained by Sporren" aspect to reroll the dice. (Sporren was the character played by Llama in our first ever Fate adventure - he was a knife throwing master. J wove that character into Leo's backstory, which was very cool.) The dagwir struggled against Rwake, trying to secure his now shield-less side, but Leo's sidearm knife throw was perfectly aimed, causing the dagwir knight another 6 stress.

The dagwir then broke free of Rwake's grasp and swung at him with his large spiked mace. Rwake rolled, adding +2 using his "Oratune, King of the Jungle" aspect to boost his defense. After all, Rwake would have avoided animal attacks several times in his days as a jungle master. That gave him enough to avoid taking damage from the dagwir's blow.

Rwake then thrusted his knife in, causing 2 stress to the dagwir. Elros, the quick and ready swordsman managed a successful stab at the dagwir's chest, causing him 3 more stress. Leo, seeing another window of opportunity threw another knife sinking it into the dagwir's abdomen, causing 4 stress, which rolled up to 8. And the dagwir just kept fighting, as the undead are wont to do.

The dagwir now turned his attention to the Laani swordfighter, Elros, who easily blocked his swinging mace, achieving defensive Overflow. This Overflow will apply as a +1 to Leo's action when we begin next week's session.

AC played his role very well in this session, thinking outside the box, and testing various aspects of the game, giving us some laughs along the way. For this reason, I rewarded him with a fate point.