Resolution 2020: Tainted Grail The Fall of Avalon play through

Caumacht’s menhir is failing and it falls to Beor to find a way to renew it. The completion of this quest is paramount so Beor had no qualms about spending the first day asking the villagers for help. He is given food supplies and a hunters spear – a useful weapon.

The next day a wave of refugees arrive and Beor uses much of his food helping them. Beor didn’t particularly care for their plight, but he expected to be rewarded for his generosity. Now running low on food, Beor decided it would be best to head North to the Hunter’s Grove. Upon arrival he found a wounded bowmaiden. As uncaring as Beor is he couldn’t leave someone to die, so after hunting for food he began the long journey south to bring the injured bowmaiden to the Island Asylum where he believed she could be healed.

Alas, the bowmaiden bled out at the Charred Conclave. To have arrived in time Beor would have had to push himself to exhaustion, or perhaps not taken the time to hunt for food and risked starvation. Beor just didn’t care enough about this stranger to take those risks. Since he was here, he took the time to pillage the remains of the burned druids, finding a Wych’s brew amongst the burned corpses. With the bowmaiden dead, Beor found no reason to continue south to the Island Asylum where he would risk catching the Red Death.

Beor travelled west to the Warrior Fair. There he asked around about the adventuring party that had left Caumacht before him. He learned that they had travelled west in search of an artefact. He found someone that he suspected knew more, but Beor lacked the wealth to bribe him or the conversation skills to tease the knowledge out of him. He would have to return later when he had more money. Beor spent a day doing combat training, then decided to head south.

In the Grubwood Beor was disgusted to find how haunted the place was. But surely such a haunting might indicate the presence of some power that could relight a menhir? Beor ploughed into the wood, sure the rewards would be worth the risk. He was assailed by a magical creature and was forced to use the Wych’s brew to defeat it. Undaunted, Beor tried to penetrate the wood again and succeeded in reaching its core. Beor knew he had found something significant, but he lacked the wits to understand it. Disappointed that he had wasted so much effort and gained nothing, he decided to head east to the Forlorn Swords. A blacksmith’s apprentice would surely understand any hidden meaning in giant metal swords.

At the swords Beor found an old friend of his master at work on a forge. Beor observed for a while and the old man told him how special his hammer was. Intrigued, Beor tried and failed to steal it. He came to blows with the old smith, and ended up beating him senseless.  Beor decided to get away from people for a while, and so climbed one of the giant swords. It was difficult, and Beor injured himself during the climb, but worth it. At the top Beor could see for miles and found gold in the sword hilt that he was able to prise loose. Beor was now rich and reasonably well travelled, but to the north he could see Caunacht and its fading menhir. Beor was frustrated that he was still no closer to finding the rites to relight a menhir. Perhaps the Fore-Dweller mounds, visible from the top of the sword far to the north-west, would hold the answer.

The next day Beor headed north, all the way back to the Hunter’s Grove, then went west to the Fore-Dweller mounds. With time against him, he ploughed straight into the mounds well off the safe path. His bravery paid off as he soon found himself in front of the gates of the central mound. Directness seemed to be working so Beor battered on the gates until he broke in. Within he found ancient artefacts and secrets that confused him, but by the time he stumbled back out he knew how to relight a menhir. Unfortunately Beor also knew that Caunacht’s menhir was beyond saving.

A dormant menhir stood near the Fore-Dweller mounds, so Beor strode over to it and performed the rites. Caunacht was close enough to this menhir that the Wyrdness could still be held at bay and the village saved.

Chapter one took two hours and five minutes to play through, which included set up and pack up time. That’s great as it means I should have no problem fitting games in the evenings once the kids are in bed.

The world and story continues to be interesting, and the timed element of the story kept the session tense.

Even in this one chapter I can see lots of replayability. I could roleplay as one of the other characters and go about everything differently. For now I will stick to soloing with Beor. Perhaps when I get more proficient with the game I’ll start using two characters to balance out Beor’s lack of diplomatic skills. In this scenario I was lucky that diplomacy was never required, but I was cut off from several avenues by his lack of mental attributes.