Entering the Land of the Midnight Sun

The day that seemed like it would never come has arrived.  The Black City is alive.  Alive!  Some of you have been reading random ideas and concepts for this campaign for well over a year, since I started musing about it early last year.  Friday night, dice were rolled, blood was spilled, and the campaign was launched.

We had our full crew present, which meant 7 players (five adults and two kids).  The guys went 3d6 in order and rolled 5 sets of attributes.  They chose the best set for their character, the second best for their retainer, and the remaining 3 would be additional retainers and henchman that could be hired back in camp.

I really liked Chris K's random LOTFP equipment generator (you can find it on the Hill Cantons blog), so I created an altered version for use during character generation in the Black City, Ye Olde Faste Pack - for Vikings.

When all was said and done we ended up with the following characters:

• Mylar of Arabia, a scimitar wielding desert warrior
• Uther of Alfheim, an elf
• Brutok the Strong, a dwarf
• Shamus  Bloodstar, a Gaelic wizard
• Mulnar, a Northman cleric
• Kolfina Insvarti, a halfling
• Agnar Beigarth, a Northman fighter

Henchman included Ulf Skullcrusher (specialist), Arthur the Fair (specialist), Ayerick the Young (fighter), Bjorn Fjordrunner (fighter), Skoldig (specialist), Irina Edvards (fighter), Brick Bunnycracker (halfling).  The group was a mix of Northmen, ex-thralls, and foreigners that have joined a Northmen adventuring party in return for crewing a ship.

We had enough time at the back end of the session to introduce the characters to Thule and let them make a first, tentative foray into the city, descending into the Well of Woe to begin exploring the under-city.

Their noise and light attracted the shambling corpses of some dead explorers, and they were taken by surprise while everyone was searching a chamber not far from the entrance way.  The city claimed its first player character.  I'll get a regular game report up later in the week.

The other thing I did in advance was to take all my manuscript notes and dump them into a word doc (so I could put in a hyperlinked table of contents for quicker access at the table).  Holy crap, the first installment of the campaign setting is already weighing in at like 45,000 words, 90+ pages.  What a load of bloated hot air.   Oh well, now the real work starts.  It's good to finally put theory into practice and start seeing what works and what's unusable at the table.  Wish me luck, and I'll endeavor to regale you all with captivating tales of Vikings and mayhem as we embark on this exciting new setting.