If you go down to the woods today...
The long Easter weekend was spent rampaging around Westeros while eating cheese and rhubarb.
A year ago, our characters discovered documents that implied that an enormous force of wildlings was gathering north of the Wall, armed with shiny weapons obtained by selling slaves, and that they were about to sweep down and destroy everything we held dear, unless we stopped them.
Naturally, our party decided to turn its back on the continent, and sail across the ocean to Lys to go shopping. My character, a doughty master-at-arms called Jacob, never entirely understood this logic, but it seemed to make sense to everyone else.
Our captain, Patrick Spens, didn't seem to know where Lys was, but that didn't deter us. We just sailed in a roughly eastern direction until we bumped into a native, then thrust some Skagosian mead at it, while shouting "LYS?" and conveying the impression of a lost tourist by way of mime. This process resulted in us accidentally buying a very large amount of over-priced fish, but did lead us to Lys.
In Lys, bunn's character, Jared, bought an over-priced saluki, and Edmun, philmophlegm's character, bought an over-priced philosopher. (We hadn't set out to buy a philosopher, but it kind of happened, rather like the way you can pop into the shop for a loaf of bread and come out with a piano.) We discovered that slaves from Westeros were being traded in House Murillo, and started forging elaborate plans for a break-in, before realising that we didn't know what we were trying to steal, that we'd spent so long dithering that our only person with thiefy skills was dead drunk and draped over some new best friends, and that none of us could read the local language, anyway, so wouldn't recognise incriminating documents even if they jumped up and waved at us.
We returned to the ship to regroup, where Ariston, the philosopher, politely pointed out that we were being watched by some suspicious characters on the dock. See how well hidden the spy was! It's no wonder we missed him.
We attempted to jump one of these spies and interrogate him in mime, in a cunning plan that involved various people pretending to be innocent mastiff-walkers, sea otters, or clueless spaniel-walking tourists. Naturally, it All Went Horribly Wrong, the City Watch got involved, and we beat a hasty retreat.
Two innocent dog-walkers strolling back to their ship while dragging a friend backwards in a friendly fashion. I see no reason why the City Watch should have been suspicious.
Back in Westeros, we popped back home to keep our lord and master informed, then headed up to Eastwatch by the Sea, where we joined with the Night's Watch in their attempts to investigate the mustering of wildlings at Grimup in the North. In our first foray, we landed a party ten miles south and tried to walk to Grimup. Jacob and Edmun didn't go on this excursion, being too jangly and useless, respectively, so Philmophlegm and I got to play NPCs. We gave them character backgrounds, motivatations, hopes, dreams and photos of their sweethearts back home. Naturally they both died hideously in the ensuing Skirmish Of Nothing But Critical Hits, mine dying legless, gasping, "sing... songs... of... me." No-one did.
Rethinking our strategy, we went in by rowing boat, where we managed to catch a terrified wildling who said that the Big Boss, Coldaxe, wanted to retrieve the legendary Axe of Grim, which would show all the assembled wildling clans that he was their One True Leader, but was currently dithering because of all the tales of the HIDEOUS DOOM that would befall anyone who entered Grim's Mound.
Naturally, we set out for Grim's Mound, although Jared and the mastiff decided that it was all a little bit scary, so spent the whole quest hiding in a bush outside. All the NPCs also decided not to play, and stayed lurking in the gorse. See the picture below, and marvel as the verisimilitude of the gorse-strewn scenery!
Since we were in the heart of enemy territory, we naturally left a torch burning at the entrance to the mound, and hammered various stone slabs with mighty echoing blows, in order to see if they were hollow. (I understand that the local wildling guard patrol kept throwing 1s at this point.)
Inside, various undead thingies attacked us, causing us to desperately find way for our characters - who, strangely, were unfamiliar with the works of George RR Martin - to accidentally discover that fire worked pretty well against them. Unfortunately, our characters also discovered that fire worked pretty well against their own cloaks, but managed to overcome this sufficiently to make some pleasing bonfires.
At length, after much fighting and some disturbing ickiness that got IN OUR HAIR! and GET IT OFF! IT'S EVERYWHERE! we found an important looking dead chap with an important looking weapon, and thus did we obtain Grim's Axe, which was all glowy and cold and rather alarming... and which caused the scariest scaries yet to leap out and attack us.
We only narrowly escaped with our lives, mostly because Edmun "Butterfingers" Darnell kept dropping the axe on the way out, but emerged just in time to flee to the boat, leaving an irate Other screaming its unearthly rage at our rears. Or something.
Finally, despite having barely a hit point between us, we set out for Castle Black, where the library revealed legends that one day, when the Others rise again, Grim will rise from the dead with all his chosen men, and smite them with the axe he was buried with. The axe that we now have. The chosen men whose skeletons we smashed up and piled on a bonfire.
Er... Ooops?
__
Out of character, there was much indulgence. On Saturday morning, doubt was expressed about the ability of the dwindling hillock of cheese to last the weekend, so a raiding party set out for the deli in Cowes, where was bought an ENORMOUS slab of Cheddar, and the ripest, drippiest brie in the world, the dregs of which still lurk in our fridge like some hideous token of doom. The deli contained large baskets of uninviting dried meat sticks. Having now watched episode 2 of the TV version of Game of Thrones, I can now confirm that these were dried horse meat a la Dothraki.
Four of us ventured Outside on Saturday afternoon for a very nice barbecue, cooked in the Dothraki way over what looked like burgers of dung. Rhubarb crumble happened, and chocolate cake. Doctor Who was watched. Extreme disapproval was expressed by cats. The local ice-cream van's rendition of The Teddy Bear's Picnic was deemed to be deeply sinister. Next door had a party. And... Well, and all in all, a very enjoyable weekend. It's a shame we have to wait a year for the next one.
A year ago, our characters discovered documents that implied that an enormous force of wildlings was gathering north of the Wall, armed with shiny weapons obtained by selling slaves, and that they were about to sweep down and destroy everything we held dear, unless we stopped them.
Naturally, our party decided to turn its back on the continent, and sail across the ocean to Lys to go shopping. My character, a doughty master-at-arms called Jacob, never entirely understood this logic, but it seemed to make sense to everyone else.
Our captain, Patrick Spens, didn't seem to know where Lys was, but that didn't deter us. We just sailed in a roughly eastern direction until we bumped into a native, then thrust some Skagosian mead at it, while shouting "LYS?" and conveying the impression of a lost tourist by way of mime. This process resulted in us accidentally buying a very large amount of over-priced fish, but did lead us to Lys.
In Lys, bunn's character, Jared, bought an over-priced saluki, and Edmun, philmophlegm's character, bought an over-priced philosopher. (We hadn't set out to buy a philosopher, but it kind of happened, rather like the way you can pop into the shop for a loaf of bread and come out with a piano.) We discovered that slaves from Westeros were being traded in House Murillo, and started forging elaborate plans for a break-in, before realising that we didn't know what we were trying to steal, that we'd spent so long dithering that our only person with thiefy skills was dead drunk and draped over some new best friends, and that none of us could read the local language, anyway, so wouldn't recognise incriminating documents even if they jumped up and waved at us.
We returned to the ship to regroup, where Ariston, the philosopher, politely pointed out that we were being watched by some suspicious characters on the dock. See how well hidden the spy was! It's no wonder we missed him.
We attempted to jump one of these spies and interrogate him in mime, in a cunning plan that involved various people pretending to be innocent mastiff-walkers, sea otters, or clueless spaniel-walking tourists. Naturally, it All Went Horribly Wrong, the City Watch got involved, and we beat a hasty retreat.
Two innocent dog-walkers strolling back to their ship while dragging a friend backwards in a friendly fashion. I see no reason why the City Watch should have been suspicious.
Back in Westeros, we popped back home to keep our lord and master informed, then headed up to Eastwatch by the Sea, where we joined with the Night's Watch in their attempts to investigate the mustering of wildlings at Grimup in the North. In our first foray, we landed a party ten miles south and tried to walk to Grimup. Jacob and Edmun didn't go on this excursion, being too jangly and useless, respectively, so Philmophlegm and I got to play NPCs. We gave them character backgrounds, motivatations, hopes, dreams and photos of their sweethearts back home. Naturally they both died hideously in the ensuing Skirmish Of Nothing But Critical Hits, mine dying legless, gasping, "sing... songs... of... me." No-one did.
Rethinking our strategy, we went in by rowing boat, where we managed to catch a terrified wildling who said that the Big Boss, Coldaxe, wanted to retrieve the legendary Axe of Grim, which would show all the assembled wildling clans that he was their One True Leader, but was currently dithering because of all the tales of the HIDEOUS DOOM that would befall anyone who entered Grim's Mound.
Naturally, we set out for Grim's Mound, although Jared and the mastiff decided that it was all a little bit scary, so spent the whole quest hiding in a bush outside. All the NPCs also decided not to play, and stayed lurking in the gorse. See the picture below, and marvel as the verisimilitude of the gorse-strewn scenery!
Since we were in the heart of enemy territory, we naturally left a torch burning at the entrance to the mound, and hammered various stone slabs with mighty echoing blows, in order to see if they were hollow. (I understand that the local wildling guard patrol kept throwing 1s at this point.)
Inside, various undead thingies attacked us, causing us to desperately find way for our characters - who, strangely, were unfamiliar with the works of George RR Martin - to accidentally discover that fire worked pretty well against them. Unfortunately, our characters also discovered that fire worked pretty well against their own cloaks, but managed to overcome this sufficiently to make some pleasing bonfires.
At length, after much fighting and some disturbing ickiness that got IN OUR HAIR! and GET IT OFF! IT'S EVERYWHERE! we found an important looking dead chap with an important looking weapon, and thus did we obtain Grim's Axe, which was all glowy and cold and rather alarming... and which caused the scariest scaries yet to leap out and attack us.
We only narrowly escaped with our lives, mostly because Edmun "Butterfingers" Darnell kept dropping the axe on the way out, but emerged just in time to flee to the boat, leaving an irate Other screaming its unearthly rage at our rears. Or something.
Finally, despite having barely a hit point between us, we set out for Castle Black, where the library revealed legends that one day, when the Others rise again, Grim will rise from the dead with all his chosen men, and smite them with the axe he was buried with. The axe that we now have. The chosen men whose skeletons we smashed up and piled on a bonfire.
Er... Ooops?
__
Out of character, there was much indulgence. On Saturday morning, doubt was expressed about the ability of the dwindling hillock of cheese to last the weekend, so a raiding party set out for the deli in Cowes, where was bought an ENORMOUS slab of Cheddar, and the ripest, drippiest brie in the world, the dregs of which still lurk in our fridge like some hideous token of doom. The deli contained large baskets of uninviting dried meat sticks. Having now watched episode 2 of the TV version of Game of Thrones, I can now confirm that these were dried horse meat a la Dothraki.
Four of us ventured Outside on Saturday afternoon for a very nice barbecue, cooked in the Dothraki way over what looked like burgers of dung. Rhubarb crumble happened, and chocolate cake. Doctor Who was watched. Extreme disapproval was expressed by cats. The local ice-cream van's rendition of The Teddy Bear's Picnic was deemed to be deeply sinister. Next door had a party. And... Well, and all in all, a very enjoyable weekend. It's a shame we have to wait a year for the next one.