Actual Play Report from the Fringes of Wermspittle

The map is a work-in-progress...

We recently had the opportunity to run a session of Labyrinth Lord for our friends and their offspring, one of whom is about to head off to college later this month. Our first session went very well, considering that they all began in an isolated village being bombed during the night by unidentified airships...

The following Actual Play Report was written by Jody. We both hope you enjoy it. We're looking forward to the next session!

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The party consisted of Q (Potentially a thief), N (Probably a Spell-caster), R (An archer-type Fighter), A (Fighter), and J (Another Spell-caster). Everyone drew a random index card for the gear they were able to grab on their way out of the village during the bombing and everyone had the opportunity to choose a Class for their character based upon how things went as we played through the morning after the bombing...

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Session 1

The bombing stopped around daybreak. It had been a long night but the group I fell in with (five of us in all) managed to stay out of sight and uninjured, which is pretty good considering we met in our mutual runs for cover. Everyone was hungry and thirsty, though. We left the relative safety of the woods and walked a bit on the road toward the nearest village. We could hear a few other groups of folks rummaging around in the debris, looking for fallen comrades or fallen goods, but they were all on the other side of town.

The first house we came to still had its walls, more or less. We figured the stench from the flaming outhouse would keep the others away for a while so we decided to some scavenging. Q went first, entering through a broken window as the door was locked or blocked. We heard a bit of a scuffle and some squeaking from inside but no screaming so N and I decided to check it out. A quick peek in the window showed three short, black-furred critters doing their best to hang on to all the goods they’d gathered. Hobyahs. Q had one in hand, thus the squeaking. N decided to go through next to try to talk to the Hobyahs. After a few words and a lot of gesturing N was able to convince the Hobyahs that we weren’t going to kill them out of hand and that we could work together to find more goods, and maybe some food, if they could be quiet.

We met R and A outside. They had checked out the rest of the little farmstead and found an ax, a bucket, and a nice jug of hooch. The bucket would come in handy if we could get to the town well. Unfortunately the well was close to a bomb crater that showed all the signs of being contaminated with Black Smoke. Yuck.

The next closest building to the farmstead had been a blacksmith or arms storage of some kind. Now it was mostly rubble. No food, but we were able to dig out various bits of armor and weaponry, enough for everyone to have something they could use. Some of it had Franzikaner markings, others were Pruztian. The Hobyahs were more interested in the boxes the stuff was packed in than in the goods themselves. I took a nice Vinkin coat and hat and some Pruztian gauntlets. I gave the chausses to A as they fit him. I figure the better armored my companions are, the more protected I am.

N managed to get a pretty nasty cut in their hand digging through debris. I was going to clean it and bandage it up but as soon as I pulled out one of the bottles of wine I had reserved for medicinal purposes one of the Hobyahs became very interested. At first I thought it just wanted to drink it but, with more gesturing, I was pretty sure it was trying to say it could take care of N’s hand. Knowing I had more bottles I decided to see what the Hobyah could do and gave the bottle in hand to it. It took a drink and slapped N’s hand right over the cut. N held up their hand to show the cut was gone. Hobyah can be helpful creatures, apparently.

Things were getting noisier off to our right. At least two of the other groups were fighting over something in another pile of rubble. R and N decided this was a good time to head for the well and fill up all of our containers with water. Q wanted to keep an eye on the fray and snuck around to see what he could see. He’s pretty good at being quiet. A and I chose to stay in the mid-ground so we could go in any direction we needed to.

Pretty soon R and N returned with full water containers. The Hobyahs were playing around with the boxes we had found, trying to get in them. One finally managed to get the lid closed on itself. When its companion opened the lid, the Hobyah inside was gone! We had checked the boxes out pretty thoroughly and they didn’t seem to be designed for helping things disappear, so we decided it must be a Hobyah thing.

Q came back with a report that the fighting seemed to be done and the losing party was heading our way. He also said he had shared the observer role with a winged monkey who was on the other side of the rubble. You never know who you’ll run into out here.

We moved back into the trees to observe and avoid interaction with the wounded group, if possible. They followed the road where it spiraled just past one of the craters and, poof, they were gone. Most likely a Weak Point. Hopefully they ended up in a better place for them.

Once the coast was clear we decided to check out the crater to see if there was anything worthwhile left from the bombing. We got lucky and found a couple of storage caverns. N was able to grab a couple of nice books, with some help from the rest of us holding the anchoring rope. We also found a meat larder and grabbed some sustenance.

While things were still fairly quiet we investigated a few more buildings. One had been set up as a temporary camp for the “winning” group from the skirmish Q observed. Since they didn’t bother to leave a guard we relieved them of an electric lamp and a couple of other goodies. The winged monkey showed up again, watching us through a hole in the roof. We attempted to communicate but didn’t get very far. I guess we’re better at Hobyah.

The rest of the day is a little blurry. I don’t know if I inhaled some Black Smoke by that last house or if I was just too tired to make clear memories. I do remember hearing a tiger in the woods, which we were able to avoid, and that there were five or so Yeren involved in the rubble skirmish that also headed our way. The winged monkey made a beeline for the mountains so we followed. Good thing we did, too. Yeren are nasty critters and none of us were up for a fight.

Turns out the monkey was with a traveler who introduced himself as Gnosiomandus. Nice old fellow. He offered us the sanctuary of his camp for the night, which we gladly accepted. We could all use a good rest before we figure out where we go from here.

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The group did very well for themselves and managed to gather a decent amount of usable equipment and avoid some pretty dangerous encounters. It was remarkable to see a group cooperate and communicate as well as these players did--and for most of them this was their first time at the table rolling dice and all that. I'm looking forward to seeing how N deals with the Hobyah Bond-mark and where the group decides to go from here.

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