A Foray into Five Leagues

The game doesn’t come with any real information regarding how things ‘work’ in the world – that’s left up to the player/GM to figure out depending upon what sort of theme or flavour they want the game to run in. For me, that means an alternate reality medieval/dark ages set-up and so I’m adopting as many ‘standard’ earth norms as possible – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, etc. I will be rounding things off to a flat 4 weeks in a month to keep bookkeeping simpler, but seasons and weather patterns will all be the same as if it was western Europe.

The Felhunters’ campaign will start out in springtime. There’s still a hint of frost in the air, but all of the lowland snow has melted and folks are venturing out again now that the roads are clear. Our band of heroes (yeah, we’ll go with ‘heroes’) find themselves at the frontier of civilised lands, having heard tales that there may be coin to be earned, or at the very least, adventures to be had, throughout the region.

Things begin as they enter the village of Oak Wall – so named because of the sturdy wooden palisade encircling it. Initially greeted with a mixture of awe, fear and mild distrust, they soon put the villagers at ease and find them to be surprisingly friendly and welcoming.

NOTE: The first campaign turn and the tabletop battle will be quite wordy as I wish to convey some of the rule play and showcase what sets many of Nordic Weasel’s ‘Five Core’ games aside from similar games such as Frostgrave, Mordheim, etc. for those who are familiar with them. Future turns will be briefer with hopefully only odd/new occurrences needing additional clarification. There should also be pictures. Yay!

[Italicised and bracketed text is my commentary regarding rules, choices, etc.]

Campaign Turn 1 – Springtime, day 17 of the second month.
Village Events: Offerings of food and ale
If you have any Upkeep costs, you do not have to pay them this turn.
[It appears the village is friendly, although they may be trying to butter us up. Either way, I won’t look a gift horse, etc. as I don’t have a lot of free cash to begin with.]

Pay Upkeep: None for warband (8 or fewer members).
[My warband is at maximum ‘free’ capacity. If I take in any more members I may have additional expenditure in future turns.]

Healing Up: None required, all uninjured.
[Since we’re just starting out, we haven’t yet had any chance to take damage so we’re all at 100%.]

Carry out Activities: Pick up to 2, can take the same one twice. Bonus activity – Fishing.

• Interact – whilst in the village, we met an ex-soldier named Hengus, engaged in some polite chit-chat for a while but nothing of note came of it.
• Forage for herbs – Avina went out and came back with 1 dose each of Medical, Protective and Energizing herbs.
• Fishing – Ulrik elected to try his hand at a spot of fishing. [Initial rolls determine locale and opportunities to catch anything.] He finds a pretty decent spot to fish, it’s a nice day, and the fish seem to be eager (not a bad day at all and Ulrik will have a chance to catch three fish today). [To catch a fish, you first have to trick it into taking the bait and then tire it out in a battle before finally attempting to land it.] Fish #1 is Cunning (2) Strength (5). He gets it to bite first time and the fight is on! Ulrik drops the fish’s Strength to 3 and the battle continues. A close call (this fish sure is a fighter) but Ulrik hangs on in there and manages to drop its Strength to 1 – it’s almost over for Mr Fish. Despite its brave struggle, Ulrik eventually tires him out and he gets caught. Yay! Now to try for fish #2 – this one is a bit wilier (C3) but not as strong (S3). Once again, Ulrik gets a bite first try and the battle begins. Ulrik quickly begins to tire the fish, dropping its Strength to 1. Despite a last-ditch flurry of activity, the fish is rapidly drained of its fighting spirit and joins #1 on the grass by the water. As the sun begins to wane, Ulrik goes after his final quarry. This one is the smallest of them (S1) but clearly the smartest (C5) – could Ulrik have met his match? It ignores his first cast. And his second. In fact, it goes on to ignore his next eight attempts before Ulrik realises that the fish has outsmarted him and moved on without him noticing. Hmph! Still, at least he’s not going home empty-handed. Back at the village, he has some options: he can sell the fish for cash or turn it into rations. He elects to smoke the fish (+2 rations) and the party will invest in some new fishing gear to try and improve his chances next time. Although fish #1 was a decent size, it wasn’t a noteworthy specimen. (Ulrik gains +1 Activity Point)

[Fairly self-explanatory, you get the chance to do a couple of activities from a decent list and these were my results. Interacting could get me some leads or hints, although not this time. I went foraging because Avina has a skill that gave me a chance at free stuff, which is always good. The fishing bonus activity came from an expansion to the game. I opted to use it (a) because it adds more flavour, and (b) I actually like fishing.   The Activity Point is a form of mini-XP and can be used to level up certain skills through use.]

Where are we going? We plan to go adventuring locally around the area of the village to see what we stumble upon.
[Since I have no leads to go on, we have to start somewhere and we may as well stay local for now.]

Sell Unwanted Gear: Nothing to sell other than the fish Ulrik caught but we’re keeping those to eat.
[<sigh> One day…]

Trade: Spend gold to buy items. Here’s what I bought/acquired:

• Bandages x2 Single-Use B (2x 2gc)
  Remain stationary one full turn to remove the effect of a Wound. Can be used after a battle to remove the effects of the Battered & Bruised Post–Battle effect.
• Rations x2 Single-Use C (free, thanks Ulrik!)
  After a Roadside encounter, you may eat a ration to continue adventuring and roll for a new encounter. Can also be used to avoid certain encounters.
• Perfectly balanced fishing rod C* (2gc) for use by Ulrik
  When battling a fish, you win on a draw.
• Talisman W (5gc) given to Vulfila
  During the post-game sequence, if the character would suffer an Injury, roll a 6 on 1D6 to avoid.

Outfit for adventure: Pack up our backpacks with our spare gear. Armour and main weapons don’t count.
Items marked with a B must be packed in your Backpack to be used.
Items marked with a C are Campaign items and can be used even if they are Stashed.
Items marked with a C* do not take any space in your campaign log.
Items marked with a W are Worn and do not count against any limits but must be assigned to a specific character.
Items marked with an H are Herbs. All Herbs carried count as a single Backpack item.
Single–Use items are discarded after use.

Leaving us with 4 gold coins in the coffers. Not a lot, but hopefully there’ll be more soon.

[OK, so there’s a lot of stuff that’s just bookkeeping there, but basically you can only carry so much stuff on you into combat (Backpack and Worn items), the rest are considered to be Stashed ‘somewhere’ (it’s to hand, but not handy enough to be used in combat).]

Recruit some villagers: None needed. Full ranks.
[We could have recruited some extra help but that would most likely incur extra expense and we can’t really afford it now and until I see how dangerous combat is, I don’t think I need it.]

Go adventuring: Off we go!
[Head out on the highway… Lookin’ for adventure… Born to be why-ee-ayeld… erm, yes, anyways. We head off into the immediate locales.]

On our travels, we have a Roadside Encounter – with Ingmar, a Priest, who turns out to be a friendly sort. You never know, we may bump into him again sometime in the future (noted down for possible further interaction later).

[We struck out with regards to anything obviously helpful, but the priest could turn up again and we may get to turn him into an ally. I could also have used a ration to extend our outing and allowed us another chance at having something happen but I was conscious of our limited supplies and dwindling funds. In hindsight, that’s what I probably should have done and what I’ll definitely do next time.]

We return to Oak Wall after two days on the road.

[I’m saying two days since there’s no actual time scale listed for these things – stuff takes however long you think it should take. In this case, I think we spent a day going out, nothing happened to keep us out, so we turned around and came back. I’ll advance time and then move on to Campaign Turn 2.]

It is now day 19.