Sorcerer and Sword: The Sodden Lands of Snia Mer, The Final Session

After eight sessions, we brought an end to our mini-campaign using Ron Edwards’ Sorcerer and Sword supplement.  You can access the video by clicking here. 

I’ve now run two games of Sorcerer, and in both cases it took a full 7-8 sessions to bring the kickers to a satisfactory resolution. The players for this series literally ranged around the globe: I’m in central Florida, Rod is in Texas, and Aybars is in Istanbul. To state the obvious, scheduling was a challenge, and it’s a testament to our commitment that we pulled this off.

I have some more sessions recorded, and we’ll see if I have the time to get those edited. This session, however, provides much food for thought, so rather than wait, I’m releasing it now.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I tend to run games that operate on a slow burn, and despite the fact that our session builds to a dramatic crescendo, there are signs of that deliberate style in ample evidence here. Some players will balk at my approach, but I like the way all of this developed in our game. In terms of why the slow burn occurs, I can put my finger on a number of sources.

First, I’m not making it easy on the players. I regularly introduce situations or scenes where you will see the players mulling over their options . . .  and I let them linger in their uncertainty. You’ll see a number of examples in this session.

At the start, for instance, the two Sorcerers have to decide whether to drug their friend (Zeki) who is experiencing an intense withdrawal, or to leave him behind to complete the process. You’ll see them working over that question, until Nagimo (played by Rod) opts for a low-dose drug option, only to have Balder (played by Aybars) rescue the situation by creatively coming up with a creative placebo option (aided by a successful roll of the dice).

And, towards the end of the session, you’ll see the duo encountering a number of fraught situations where they are thoughtfully debating what the best course of action might be: Do we sneak into the compound of the necromancer (named The Prime Herald) or do we take a more direct approach and ask for an audience? Do we try to contact the powerful demon named The Chryxen Butterfly, and if so, what should that timing be? Afterward, should Balder risk a binding with that demon, realizing that, by doing so, he will be initiated into the necromantic arts? The dilemmas come streaming down, and one consequence is that the game sometimes veers into anguished debates over tactics and morality instead of pulse-pounding action.

This session features a number of Humanity rolls. I love the way Balder/Aybars comes to a gradual realization that necromancy is nasty business . . . and there’s even a spot where he tries to justify (mostly to himself) dabbling in this very dark and wicked art (see the sequence starting at 1:14:00). Aybars is in fine form as he works through the ethics, and eventually he arrives at that favorite refuge of morally ambiguous decisions (at 1:18:00): “I have no other choice. . . I’m too deep in this!”

Sorcery and accompanying Humanity rolls are firing on all cylinders as things come to a close. At the 48:30 mark, Balder decides to contact the Chryxen Butterfly, and he uses a wonderfully described blood ritual along with some group sorcery to build up a sizable pool of dice to pull off the Contact. This again takes time (about 15 minutes of game play, some of which is edited out), but it builds up to some memorable rolls and some dramatic and satisfying outcomes.

During planning, I had determined that the Chryxen Butterfly was in a rebellious state with respect to his “current” master, The Prime Herald, though this fact was not known to the players. With the successful Contact roll and some nice role-playing on the part of the Sorcerers, the demon breaks free of The Prime Herald, and Balder then attempts to Bind the demon, In the fiction, this involves a gruesome and excruciating moments as the object demon fuses itself onto Balder’s skull. Normally, the sequence goes Contact ⇒ Summon ⇒ Bind. But since this was a case of an unbound, rebellious demon, we rolled the successes from the Contact directly into the Binding roll. There didn't seem to be any need to Summon a demon who was already there.

Balder ends up losing one of his Humanity checks, which was clearly making Aybars nervous. The session then ends with Nagimo and Balder trying to get the Chryxen Butterfly to reverse the soul entrapment afflicting Nagimo’s friend Zeki (start around 1:30:00). Eventually, the demon comes around to the idea, but notes that this type of reversal draws on necromantic forces--meaning, of course, that a human life is required. The two creatively decide to offer up the life of a former nemesis (the giant named Baseer) whom they knew to be at the complex. So the dark designs set in motion just continued to cascade!

The reversal of the soul entrapment was a puzzle for me: On the one hand it required a human sacrifice, which clearly risked a Humanity loss. But at the same time, the effect was one that was beneficent, restoring a human life (Zeki) to wholeness. In the end, I ordered Aybars/Balder to make two Humanity checks: One to see if he lost a point of Humanity for mercilessly sacrificing the giant Baseer; the other to see if he gained a point of Humanity for restoring Zeki’s soul. He succeeded in both rolls, meaning he ultimately gained a point of Humanity.

With that, the kickers were wrapped up. Nagimo had not only found his friend Zeki, but managed to have him healed. And Balder had achieved his drive for power . . . though I wonder how long it will take for him to wither in corruption like the previous Prime Herald.

As you can tell from this account, Balder had the spotlight in this session. Nagimo in fact had contemplated whether he even needed to travel to the Prime Herald to bring things to a satisfactory (or at least liveable) conclusion. Had the two Sorcerers decided on a secretive operation when they landed , then Nagimo’s superior physical abilities would no doubt have come into play. Thinking about the sessions as a whole, I believe Nagimo commanded a number of key spotlight moments throughout. Still, given that we knew this was driving towards a concluding moment, I would have liked to have found some way to give Rod more of a closing aria. It may be some consolation that Nagimo clearly has more potential as an enduring character in an ongoing saga.

We have a short session debrief at the end, which will provide some insights from Rod and Aybars. I invite them or anyone else interested to offer additional commentary here. We decided to set the game aside, though as I noted to them, it still lies ready in the dock, and I look forward to continuing to develop the setting if others are interested in trudging through the sodden lands of Snia Mer.

I’m itching to take another dive into Sorcerer. Given the frightening COVID-19 pandemic, I’m mulling over Jared Sorenson’s Schism (which is aptly subtitled “A Virulent Setting for Sorcerer”) as a timely supplement in these dark days.

Sorcerer and Sword: The Sodden Lands of Snia Mer, Session Two

Click here to see the actual play video of session two of my “Sodden Lands of Snia Mer” campaign.

A few comments:

I often consider myself a “slow burn” type—I’m a GM who enjoys the gradual build-ups. But I often worry how this will come across to my players, who might be interested in a more pulse-pounding pacing. As I was editing this video, there are some signs of payoff to my slow burn approach:

The start of the session involves the two sorcerers meeting up on the destroyed village of Tainu. After some Q and A, the two settle in for the night, but Nagimo wakes up to find that his NPC companion has gone missing, and he makes a search, which leads him to his hireling Skintu and a discovery that there is some strange presence on the island. There is plenty of mystery that is mounting here, but it is a slowly rising arc. If you are looking for an actual play session to be the same as a rapid fire, Hollywood movie, you will be disappointed.

But then, leap to half way through the video—to the part carrying the subtitle “Demon Contact.” The other sorcerer, Balder, has joined Nagimo to get to the bottom of what lured Skintu onto the island in the middle of the night, and this leads to a decision to attempt a Contact ritual. The ritual succeeds (at the price of Humanity loss), and there is a suitably creepy exchange between the sorcerers and a “Sentinel Demon” named Asmund.

I notice a number of things clicking in the scene. When the demon calls his refrain, “Come closer,” there is some genuine, unsettled laughter around the table: All of us realized that this was a scene that was dripping with consequence, but we also didn’t know exactly where the fiction was going to break, so this resulted in some pregnant, high-level suspense. The scene also had some duration, and the nervous energy was sustained for the length. This energy wouldn’t have been possible without the slow build. Nor would it have been possible if I had scripted a narrative in advance. Part of what made it all work was the perceived sense that the outcome depended on what the sorcerers were deciding (and upon the outcome of some key dice rolls).

The sorcerers ultimately acceded to caution and opted not to push a confrontation with the demon. I think some GMs might have been disappointed with that direction, but I was delighted. The fact that they didn’t force a conflict with Asmund means that there is a powerful chord of mystery and tension playing in the background. Of course, I would have been happy to play along with other decisions as well, but I’m relishing the rich suspense created by that unresolved encounter.

At the close of the session, the sorcerers run across a hybrid monstrosity—a combination crocodile and bear—and you’ll see us working through the combat mechanics. It was an exciting encounter, though I’m also working hard to keep faithful to the mechanics. Here again, some might fault me for slowing down the pace to get the rules right. But for the fans of the slow burn, there are continued payoffs, such as one roll where Nagimo and the “Beardile” monstrosity match their highest three dice, so Nagimo finally gets a victory on his fourth highest die.

Due to schedules, we skipped this past Friday, but session three is lined up for this week. The sorcerers are landing at the garrison of Muskcross Grange, and it’s quite possible that at least one of the kickers will be resolved. Nagimo has heard that one of his tribe is working at the garrison for the enemy, and he is determined to find out what’s up with that apparent act of double-cross. Will he discover the truth behind his friend? And if so, where will that lead him? I don’t know, but I’m eager to find out.