Bayaz, First of the Magi, suspecting mutinous thoughts
amongst his weary warband, leads them to an infamous drinking establishment
hoping to re-tie the bonds that have led them thus far on their adventure. As
he enters the forecourt and sights the huge Ogre bouncer brooding next to the entrance,
with snatches of laughter, pipe music and a curious mix of odours emanating
from inside, he halts the warriors. "The Blue Oyster Bar: You will never
find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious." With
that warning, the warriors gleefully head inside...
After a bruising encounter for Bayaz's human warband previously,
it was some relief for me that the scenario for game 8 in our
Songs of Blades and Heroes campaign, '
Last
Orders', centred around a bit of a ruckus in a bar, with serious injury being
the worst outcome. Considering
The Dogman,
Caul Shivers,
Nicomo Cosca and
Jezal
dan Luthar have all gone back to the mud, the Bayaz Fellowship is quickly unravelling!
For this scenario, the owner of the Inn, Fat Eddy, decided to turn in early. Taking the
evening off, he leaves his customers in the capable hands of a full complement
of bar staff. A drink is spilled! The brawl begins...
As usual,
Arabainknight supplied some excellent scenery
representing the Inn with two rooms and an outer yard.
The warbands are scattered about the inn when
the trouble starts. We determined who had the most expensive model points-wise,
(Bayaz, 120), which dictated how many points may be initially deployed by each
player. We then randomly determined which section, either of the two rooms or the
yard, each warband character starts in.
The scenario includes rules for searching for
improvised weapons. However, as the warbands had to surrender their tools of the trade
to the ugly ogre at the door, we dispensed with this rule for this
campaign game. In addition there are also 'random happenings' which each player
rolls on a D6 at the start of their turn. We decided to incorporate three
of these rules (out of the 6 provided) -
Kitchen Hands,
The Buxom Barmaid and
Liquid Courage.
This proved to be a most entertaining and thematic game!
Whilst Arabianknight's elves outnumbered my humans, the knowledge that the
muscle-bound and injury-free
Rudd Threetrees would be making a unwelcome return
to Bayaz's crew, had them very nervous indeed. Especially with Rudd more than a few flagons
down! And on cue, a drink spilled and the eves and humans were at it, fists
flying, elves leaping over barrels, characters from both warbands crashing
through and out of doors, spilling into the yard with the ogre bouncer paralyzed
with indecision given the turmoil about him.
The elves even somehow started fighting amongst themselves, after the Machiavellian
'Buxom Barmaid' had worked her intrigues! Rudd Threetrees, the great hope of
Bayaz's crew, proved to be too lathered to do anything useful; he staggered
about mostly arriving to help his friends just as they were flying across the
furniture. When he did finally get a chance for a one-on-one with an elf, he
swung his great fist so clumsily the elf could all but stand from laughing.
The greater number of the elves, haphazard dice rolls - suitably
reflecting the mutual warbands state of inebriation - and the general mayhem in
The Blue Oyster bar, finally ended with Ferro Maljinn, the lone 'conscious'
survivor from the humans still standing, completely surrounded by the remaining
elves. As she was too 'drowsy' (ahem!) to move due to a Liquid Courage roll,
she forewent her usual tactics of stealth and agility, and instead thought she
could do what Threetrees couldn't; she traded a few jibes and them launched into
a frenzied, drunken mix of martial art disciplines. Inevitably, it didn't go
well.
And so ends another campaign battle, with the elves picking up yet another
campaign point to add to their hoard, whilst Bayaz's crew collected many, many
bruises and one hell of a group hang-over.
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