Session 3 - The Spriggan's Curse
Thoughts
Two big things happened this time around: I decided to be freer with simply roping the players into things, and tested out the sturdiness of the system regarding mass combats. Both of them were a success.
For the first, I get too paranoid with forcing the players into situations, or having too many "cutscenes" where they have nothing to do. The solution, I found, is to be confident in the coolness of the situation I'm roping them in, and in letting them act and tailor the situation, even if it doesn't change much ultimately. Sometimes holding on the long description of something adds to the game, as long as it's not the entire game.
For the second, I do miss HP sometimes. There is certain dice magics that are easier to do with HP and abstraction, but the one I'm using works too. This doesn't come as a surprise - the idea to remove HP and just track "Injured or Out of Combat" came out of reading a bunch of Osprey Wargames after all - but the individual duels suffer a bit from it.
The big thing I want to work on is my delivery. It is limited naturally for my occasional long pauses to think on what I'm about to say, which happen both in English and my native tongue of Portuguese, but aside from that I still think I can deliver things better if I slow down a bit more and think through what I'm about to say more often.
Recap
November, Weekend of Week 3
Cora receives a call from Belina inviting her to hang out. She says Francesca had informed her that Cora was sad for her continuing rebuffs so Belina decided to lay low for a little bit. Cora spent her action phoning Francesca to thank her for that.
Fiorello, knowing that a tournament is coming up, called Rina to establish a truce in case one of her friends was in his team. Rina accepted, with the caveat that she doesn't have that much control over her friends.
Alessa trained her beetles.
November, Week 4
Their professor, honest D. Antamonte, requests a thesis for the end of the week with random group doubles. Fiorello and Alessa make one about the inherent Chivalry of the beetle.
Cora and Belina spend some time in the library studying the life of Lancelot. Eventually Belina gingerly offers for her to come to her birthday this weekend, since her birthday will be on the Monday of the tournament she's anticipating it. She should bring her friends too.
November, Weekend of Week 4
All of them get her presents for Belina and show up to her birthday party. It's a flop, none of her friends (Rina et al) have shewn up. After a while, Cora blows her fox whistle from last session and calls the foxes to do a party. The foxes turn the entire party into a fairy party, convoking talking animals, transforming the terrace of D. Antamonte's House (where Belina lives) into a mythical rainforest.
Alessa talks to a big beetle which speaks like a New Yorker, Fiorello talks with a jaguar, and Cora asks what is Corina - her changeling twin - what she is doing there.
By and by, Derl the Spriggan appears1 and says he's come to claim the Bride - Belina - and that the 15 years her dead father had protected her are up. It is revealed that Belina has a demon inside of her and whoever wins her, controls the demon.
The Spriggan grows to the size of a giant, Belina cuts open her arm and summons the demon - a gigantic flaming ape - and hugs Cora for her to pilot it. They do battle and Cora eventually wins, the fairy party evaporating in air.
They take Belina to the hospital to have a nun look over her, on the way back Fiorello and Cora tell their own personal stories with Derl the Spriggan, and Belina explains that the ape demon inside of her escapes the closer she is to death.
It is revealed to Corina, who was here too, that the reason her family hates her so much is that she's a changeling, and so she runs away crying.
December, Week 1
A tournament is organised. This was half the session but it is boring to relate it beat by beat. Suffice to say, Fiorello's player controlled one side, Alessa and Cora controlled the other, they did a 6 v 6 battle with the staging of fake city blocks built out of wood to simulate a real world situation.
Corina, who was in Alessa's team, defeated most of the opposing team almost singlehandedly and with no modifiers to the dice. The in-world justification was that she was discounting her anger. Even though they defeated all of the opposing team, Alessa's team lost overall because they also destroyed too many buildings on the process, and thus lost points.
Next session we'll be doing a winter ball, so that's something to look forward to.
In Fiorello and Cora's backstory, they had rolled that both their parents had helped kill him, which is extra strange.↩