Nighthaven Session 1 Report
13 to 1? I like those odds...
Session 1 of my Nighthaven campaign was…interesting. As always, there was plenty of joking, references and social bonding that comes from bringing a new group together. Everyone is still getting a feel for each other, myself included, but I think the group is getting along well. Everyone is new to Castles & Crusades and everyone is also new to me as a Game Master, so there's additional hurdles for everyone to overcome before we can truly begin cooking.
Session 1 started with everyone rolling on a table I created to determine connections within the party. Many players were surprised to discover that their characters had checkered pasts that included prison time and gang affiliation. One character, a Half-Elf Ranger named Bracca, discovered that he was an orphan who grew up in an orphanage with the party's first patron, Kieron Devitt. The players were pretty receptive to the table and largely embraced their connections to each other, implications and all.
The party was summoned to a local watering hole called “The Shady Inn” in a slum district of Nighthaven called “The Maw” where they met their patron, a thief-catcher named Kieron Devitt. Kieron offered them a hideout, albeit a rough and unfurnished one, and the chance to help him out on cases for money. Kieron’s first case for them was the chance to collect a bounty on a gangster named Dietrich the Devil. Dietrich is a lieutenant in The Headless, one of Nighthaven’s most fearsome gangs. To further complicate matters, The Shady Inn was full of Headless gang members. One of them, a Half-Orc fighter with a missing tongue named Scar, decided that he would take this as an opportunity to…well, I don't really know what he thought he was going to do. He wasn't looking to make conversation as evidenced by the fact that he smashed a tankard over one of the gangsters’ heads.
Four Headless responded immediately, with an additional 11 moving in on him. Scar decided to cover for his actions by claiming that the gangster had groped him. The blatant lie didn't dissuade the Headless from clubbing him over the head and throwing him in an alley. The rest of the party decided that they wanted no part of the plan and, aside from a couple token efforts from the party's 3 spellcasters to cause confusion and cover Scar’s escape, left Scar to the consequences of his actions.
The session ended with Flinder, a Gnome Illusionist, and Jurgen, a Dwarf Cleric, stabilizing Scar and giving him some magical healing. The Headless are annoyed and will be hostile towards the party in ways that will be revealed later. For now though, the players have a target with a 200 GP bounty on his head and a gang that's a little miffed with them over a bar fight.