Well, it certainly has been a while since I last posted a summary of our gaming sessions.  I’ll need to quickly see where we ended the last one…

Hmmm, well.  In the last session, our “heroes” Caranthir and Halmir traveled to the Iron Hills in the company of some dwarves, and returned to Erabor just in time to spend Dragontide in Lake-Town.

So.  Onward to the next adventure!

 GM’s note:  For the following adventure, I tried something different.  The session was conducted with everyone sitting around a campfire, and so there no character sheets, maps, or dice rolls.  I had my notes, but had to arbitrarily decide the outcome of several events, on-the-fly.  Also, I have no written records of what exactly happened, so I’m going mostly by memory here. The experiment was fun, but I think a diceless RPG would be a better fit.

Caranthir and Halmir spend the first day of the festival enjoying the feasting, celebrating, and archery competitions.  As the day passes, they are approached by an elf who introduces himself as Lindir, and asks for their (discreet) help.  It seems that someone in the Lake-Town Merchant’s Guild is smuggling supplies into Mirkwood where it ends up in the hands of orc raiders.  Lindir wants to avoid making a scene, so he suggests that the adventurers investigate the Guild warehouse that night while everyone is watching the fireworks.  They agree, and go back to enjoying the festival.

Shortly before the bonfires are lit, the adventurers are again approached, this time by a man.  He is Mord, a member of the Merchant’s Guild, and he knows about the smuggling too, but insists that the Guild should handle without involving outsiders.  Since the adventurers had undertaken delicate missions for the Guild before, they are a natural choice to clear up this problem.  Mord believes that the smuggler will try to move a shipment of weapons out the Lake-Town tonight while everyone is distracted by the fireworks.  He suggests that they watch the warehouse, and try to catch the smuggler when he breaks in to steal the weapons.

After agreeing to the plan (and not revealing that the elves are already involved,) Caranthir and Halmir travel to the bonfires on the shore, for more feasting and telling of stories.  The well spoken and ever-tactful Caranthir wows his audience with the following tale:

“Hey, you guys remember when a dragon came and burned your whole town?”

Slipping away during the stunned silence, Caranthir and Halmir quickly travel back to the town, and silently take up positions outside the Guild warehouse.  Hours pass.  Eventually, they become aware that there are some other people hanging around the warehouse.  A quick but quiet investigation reveals that they are representatives of both the Guild and the elves, all watching for the same smuggler.  Suddenly, there is a disturbance inside the warehouse, and the adventures rush in to investigate.  They are just in time to see a man running out of a door in the back of the building.  A short chase later, he is caught.

Eventually, the whole story spills out.  The man, Torwald, is a minor record-keeper in the Guild.  His family died in the dragon attack, and a mysterious group has since been preying on his fears and insecurities.  They convinced Torwald that the leaders of Lake-Town and the Merchant’s Guild had been corrupted.  They claimed to need supplies for a band of true-hearted fighters deep within the forest, who were continuing the struggle against evil despite the lack of official support.  Eager to oppose the conspiracy he now feared and hated, Torwald agreed to supply them with whatever they needed, little knowing that those supplies were going straight into the hands of orcs and evil men.

With their job done, the adventures accept a small reward and leave the matter to the Guild.  They spend the rest of the Dragontide festival thoroughly enjoying themselves, and resolve to visit Beorn or maybe look into this band of orc raiders with stolen weapons, if they can be arsed.

On the last night of the festival, Caranthir entertains the crowds at the bonfire with this recounting of fearful evils and heroic deeds:

“Hey, you guys remember when a dragon came and burned your whole town?”