I must admit that I am mightily impressed with the fact that there is free wireless internet on the bus from Istanbul to Ankara.  I can honestly say I have never written a post while sitting on a bus before. This post is also unique in that it started in Europe and will finish in Asia, as I am crossing the Bosphorus, also known as the bounday between the two continents (it runs through the middle of Istanbul, in case you were wondering).

I can also sing  the praises of Singapore Airlines who provide free power for laptops on their flights. As a consequence I was able to write all kinds of adventure related stuff between Singapore and Dubai (I watched free movies on the flight from Sydney to Singapore,and Clash of the Titans was rubbish. Between Dubai and istanbul I scored a free row of seats so I slept.)

Hope all are well. I'm going back to writing for now - only five more hours to Ankara. 

So tonight the campaign got under way. I had budgeted an hour for character creation but this was clearly insufficient.

It was certainly a bit chaotic, but things will improve as people learn their characters and gain a greater sense of familiarity and ownership. Because of the rush around character creation I'm allowing wholesale changes of characters until we reach second level, although this only applies to this adventure and is not going to be a general rule.

Also as a general rule it will be the PCs job to track the important clues and plot points. However, because this was the first session (and there was so much chaos around character creation etc) I'm going to provide a summary of the plot points and pieces of information presented.

Adventure summary: The players arrived in Nerris as per the background (see the Adventures page). They quickly learned of the bizarre wintry weather occurring in midsummer which has been going on for three years and is getting increasingly worse.. Reasons for this included the bartender's insistence it was caused by "dark fairies" (also responsible for his bunions). More reliable sources suggest that it was the work of a warlock named Draidoch who used to live in a tower some 30 miles away on the other side of the Deepwood Forest, in the foothills of the Krystaliron Mountains. There are also reports of strange blue-skinned goblins.

 After meeting the civic leader (the half-elf Lady Alessa), the local Wizard Curuvar and the local priest of Oen the party set out for the tower by following the Liffey River south along the edge of the forest. After nearly a day's uneventful travel the party encountered an elderly lady living in a stone cottage. This was Margera Draidoch, the wife of the warlock. She reported that Draidoch died some ten years previously and could not be responsible for the bad weather (which only started three years ago).. The news of Draidoch's death was relayed to Margera by the eccentric wizard Chastity Marblemill, who still visits her every year. Draidoch apparently died at the hands of a "demon" on the faraway continent of Meshia.

The party shelters in Margera's cabin for the night and set out the next morning. After a few hours they reached the foothills of the mountains and turned east to find the tower. Ahead they could see that the weather was noticeably worse, with fog and snow flurries. After journeying a bit further they found there was a thin layer of snow on the ground.

After spying a trio of blue-skinned goblins dragging a deer to a cave they launched a surprise attack. Three more goblins and a (to the party's surprise) a small white dragon joined the fray and a tough battled ensued, although the party was ultimately victorious.

At the close of play the party were taking shelter in the cave. They had also found their first treasure - the petite hoard of the very young white dragon. (80 GP, 120 SP, five small gems worth 10GP each and a +1 amulet of protection).
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XP - total experience earned for the encounter was 850 combat, 250 story and 425 bonus:

• Chris - 305
• Pete - 305
• Tina - 305
• Adam - 305
• Tom - 305

Renown points:

• Chris - 3 (2 basic, 1 for snacks)
• Pete - 4 (2 basic, 2 for D&D purchases)
• Tina - 2
• Adam - 2
• Tom - 3 - (2 basic, 1 for a blog comment)

My first blog post for the Yerth campaign! The campaign will kick off on Thursday (it's Monday now) but I've been uploading all of the player info for the campaign.

It's still a bit bare-bones but the basics are there. I'm particularly pleased with the Divine Luck feature I've developed (see the galleries with the 75 cards I created). Some may not approve of the decidedly "non-fantasy" elements I've used in creating the cards, to which I say "eat chain".