To bring you up to speed, the players in Bladelands are the people of the newly-formed fief of the Black Rose, whose leader is Lord Montoya.  Since our formation, we've been at war, and we're trying to deal with that...

The event opened the night before our ceasefire with, uh, almost every other fief on the Bladelands expired.  We'd discovered that the interred priests at the heart of the conflict had escaped their confinement but then been mugged on their way home, and were hoping that would be enough to get everyone off our backs.

We were aware that a Schooltown delegation were on their way that evening, so we postponed our planned summoning of Waylan, the trapped/sleeping spirit who inhabited the magical Nexus below our main building, until after they left.  However, when they arrived, it turned out that they were there to arrest and execute my character Raoul for heresy (specifically killing a priest) with Lord Montoya's permission.

There didn't seem to be any way out, until it turned out that they were planning to use the Black Sword of Ilium, which would have eaten my soul rather than just killing me the old-fashioned way.  Upon hearing this, the Fist of Thales (a knight of the god of justice) demanded trial by combat on my behalf.

At this point, it all kicked off, as the Schooltowners summoned a wraith as their champion and Sir Ulrich, the Fist of Thales, called on his closest ally, the wizard Kraken.  Ulrich won the fight, but Kraken was killed in the process by a Schooltowner priest who'd been possessed by a demonic Outsider.

With that over with, and the fallout still occurring, a few of us went ahead with our summoning, which was successful.  So we were able to present the master craftsman Waylan to the assembled masses, who managed to impress him with gifts and good behaviour.  Unfortunately, it seemed that the area directly above his workshop had become consecrated to the Powers (the mainlander gods) by repeated use for prayer, so Waylan decided to leave so as not to cause a fuss.  This led to a huge conflict between the priests and pretty much everyone else, as the priests had been specifically told not to consecrate the building.

The next day, Lord Montoya ordered his subjects, led by Sir Honor, a knight of Elektra (the goddess of war, passion and sovereignty) to clear the Schooltowners from the local area -- the ceasefire was over, and everyone else apart from the Schooltowners had decided to stop fighting us.  So the group went out, killing Schooltowners as they went, but eventually encountered a group of the Children of the Dragon (a Keltoi cult who revere changelings) who managed very efficiently to cause chaos in the Black Rose ranks and kidnap Sir Honor, who they'd had their eye on for a while.

That afternoon, one group of the Black Rose were sent to infiltrate Schooltown by disguising themselves as peasants, while the other went to try to retrieve Honor from the Dragonkin.  Comprising mainly of changelings and people with faith, there was some difficulty in getting through a barrier the Dragonkin had erected across the dragon-path to their location but it was easily enough achieved in the end.  However, the encounter with the Dragonkin went much less smoothly, with a number of PCs almost dying and two changelings being abducted by the Dragonkin.  Still, we discovered that Honor's spirit had been knocked from her body, and that she was now the Dragon Queen, a powerful native spirit in mortal form, who wanted to wipe the Bladelands clean of outlanders.

Later, we were attacked by a sorcerer from the college Xadamos (reknowned as mind-controlling demon-summoning bad guys) with some evil flesh-eating servants, out to steal a magical dagger with a link to the Outsiders.  He was just about stopped, and so the priests performed a ritual to cleanse the dagger, which left everyone in the chapel filled with disease.

After this, we split into two groups again.  One group were sent out foraging, but in reality this was a flimsy cover for some tomb-raiding.  The other group set off into the void, that part of the spirit world where there are no safe paths, to recover Honor's spirit and get it back to her body.

The mission into the void was really very fraught, as there were few places of safety and many bad guys all around, but eventually that group managed to recover Honor, in the process losing Cornelius, the longest-established sorcerer in the system.  The tomb robbers found any number of important documents and goods, as well as discovering that the tomb bore the names of two Norsemen in the group.

The following morning, we tried to raid the Schooltowners' magical forge, without much luck - they fought us to a standstill and forced Lord Montoya to surrender.  So, we came back much better prepared (and with Sir Honor, who had escaped, in charge) and rescued him.

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As ever at Bladelands, this event was a really good mix of heavy combat and more cerebral activity.  The system rewards people who stick to their niche (fighter, priest, sorcerer, thief, etc.) and do conspicuously heroic stuff around it (battling many foes, leading prayer rites and religious ceremoies, performing dangerous magical rituals, stealing stuff) - especially if it's for the benefit of the player group as a whole.

The play-and-assist system (where you play your PC 2/3rds of the time and crew for the other 1/3rd) can be a little jarring sometimes, but ultimately means that there's always pretty stiff opposition for encounters - combat encounters are normally evenly-matched in numbers.  It's a good, old-school fun system that runs regular cheap events.  New players need pay only £20 for their first event!

The next event is this weekend, but there's another in November and they're also trying to schedule one in between.  Definitely recommended!

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Joe Rooney - Battle Vegan

Insurrection LRP: high fantasy in a dystopian setting. Event Four is October 15th-17th 2010, at Consall Scout Camp Site, Staffs. Book now for a £10 discount!

Bladelands: Raoul Twice-Dead - all-round bad guy
EOS: staff - NPCing and fighting a specialty
Maelstrom: Carlito Rossini, Sol Igneus Co. - Flembic Weaverite explorer/adventurer/bailiff for hire
Odyssey: Mirrikh, Favoured Immortal of Shah Jalila of the Eyes of Darius. Died spilling Greek blood!

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