Nighthaven Redux Session 1

Wererat? There rat!

Nighthaven is back! After my original Nightaven campaign fell apart at the end of last year, I began formulating a way that I could bring it back for the players in the group who were robbed of the chance to actually play the game by the people who took up all of our game time with side conversations. With the completion of my first draft of The Rake’s Codex, I was given the perfect way to restart my campaign with a new group and a new system; ACKS! After surmounting a few scheduling misfires, we finally got together for our first session last weekend. This new group consisted of three players from my last group with a fourth player who will be joining us in a couple weeks. The party is currently made up of Alkazar, a Human Explorer; Silas Brynn, a Human Thief; and Kraag, a Dwarven Fury (Barbarian). We began the game with 1st level characters entering the city of Nighthaven.

The beginning of Corpse Walk involves the players being pulled aside by a Guard Sargent and being asked to help track down a monster in exchange for a bounty on the monster (1000 gp) and an additional 150 gold. The players are given a few details on who to go see for official paperwork (The Captain of the Gate District Garrison), and a few leads on where they can find information. From there, the players are given free reign of the city to pursue the monster or anything else they might want to do. The players decided to go to the garrison to get their paperwork and begin running down leads. At the Garrison, the players encountered a handful of NPCs including Captain Carver, captain of The Gate District Garrison, his right-hand man Lieutenant Simm, and a crazy old man named Willem who used to be renown across the city as a vampire hunter. Through this interaction, they were able to determine that the monster loose in the city is likely a vampire, the City Guard have been ordered not to pursue the monster by their superiors, and that there may be more than one monster causing havoc. They also learned of a few survivors of the attacks being treated at a local temple called The Sellsword’s Mission of Kador. The players left the garrison and headed over to see what they could find out from the survivors.

At the temple, they gained a little more information and met another NPC who could potentially be of help to them; Brother Clement, Rector of The Sellsword’s Mission. Clement introduced them to a nobleman who had been attacked and informed the players that the monster had absconded with his wife. He further sweetened the pot by offering a gold reward for the return of his wife. The party struggled a little bit in their interactions with the acolytes at the Mission, even at one point using their god Kador’s name in a flippant manor. It didn’t help their reputation at the mission that they asked a desperate man for cash up front to cover the cost of supplies to help him find his wife and then decided that they would go question witnesses at the local brothel. Brother Clement decided to keep an eye on them and hold onto the money they asked for until they were ready to purchase supplies and begin their hunt.

The players never made it to the brothel though because they decided to pursue a random encounter and help a cheese merchant deal with a wererat problem. Here the players experienced the lethality of ACKS combat for the first time. The players ended up catching the wererat and his three giant rat companions by surprise…which did them zero good whatsoever as nobody rolled over a 10 for the first four rounds of combat. It got so bad that Silas was dropped in two rounds, Kraag was barely holding on and Alkazar was close to being overwhelmed when the tides started to turn. They were able to kill two rats and force a morale check which the wererat and the remaining giant rat failed, causing the monsters to retreat. By this time, the cheese merchant had gone to grab the guard and the players were able to go check on their fallen comrade. Silas was then forced to roll on the mortal wounds table and discovered that his condition was worse than expected. He was in critical condition and, to make matters worse, one of his ears had been crushed and was rendered permanently useless. The session ended with the City Guard rushing out to assist the players who by that point were looking forward to two weeks of rest.

All in all, I was happy with the session. My players were gung-ho to get involved in the world, pursue leads related to the monster attacks and even had enough moxie to pursue a side quest that nearly got them killed. They’re adapting to ACKS well and they all seem to be enjoying what they’ve gotten involved in so far. I am dealing with some serious GM rust though. I was very inconsistent with reaction rolls and I am still learning where everything can be found in the ACKS books. This is the kind of thing that will only get better with time though. I just need to keep studying and keep playing to get a handle on the rules. While I strive for perfect RAW, perfect RAW is a process that cannot be grasped on the first, second or even tenth go-around. It takes time, study and patience with myself and my players. I’m very excited to see how things unfold as the campaign continues.