Resolution 2020: Tainted Grail The Fall of Avalon play through

Beor knew that there were only two people who could tell him what to do with the Tainted Grail. The closest was the Lady of the Lake, who was only a short journey west from his current location. Travelling to the lake and calling for the Lady to show herself, Beor was shocked by her alien appearance when she surfaced. She had two pairs of arms, each with two elbows and her skin had a sickly blue tint. The Lady was sad to see the Grail, as it meant her favoured Knight must be dead. The Tainted Grail dissolved into seaweed and moss in Beor’s hand as the Lade explained it was one of two decoys she created. As she sank back beneath the water the Lady suggested that Beor’s former master had travelled to the First Farmhold with either the decoy or the real Tainted Grail.

Beor knew he had to head back to the First Farmhold, and conveniently Whitening was on the way so he could deliver Fael’s letter to his widow on the way. Fael’s widow was understandably upset at the news Beor delivered. So much so that she led Beor into a secret room in her hut which was hidden the Knightly gear of Galahad! For some unknown reason he had abandoned the life of a Knight and taken up residence with his wife in Whitening under the alias of Fael. Beor considered his options. The law stated that on a Knights death his posessions be returned to Kamelot along with an explanation of his death, but this equipment would prove useful in Beor’s quest. Eventually Beor decided to obey the law, primarily because he felt it would cause too many awkward situations having to explain wearing Galahad’s armour and weapons.

Beor travelled east to the First Farmhold. First he combed through the remains of the farmhold, but found only a vagabond looking for handouts. Then he visited a nearby watermill, but found nothing more than an odd mill keeper. Now Beor’s food supplies were dwindling so he had to journey back to the west to find hunting grounds and re-supply.

Returning the the First Farmhold a few days later Beor tried to climb the wall of the fort. Reaching the summit Beor could see within many damaged tents, one tent still in good condition, a slimy pile and a large hole in the centre of the fort. Assuming the tent to be his masters, Beor checked that first. However it was in fact from an expedition of masons who had come here to try and put the fort back into use. Obviously something evil had befell them. This led Beor to believe he should check the hole. Finding a blood trail leading down the hole, Beor was saddened to find his master’s knife discarded on the floor. Beor knew Erfyr would not have been parted from his knife, so he must be dead. Seeing boot prints from after the massacre gave Beor hope that his master might be alive after all, so he cautiously followed the tunnel further.

Within the tunnel Beor found a Wyrm, but thankfully it was still sleeping. He turned to leave and then saw the pile of bodies, among them was Erfyr’s corpse. Sneaking over Beor found a note. Erfyr had one of the decoys, but had given it to Morgaine as a trick. Neante and Lancelot had the true Grail. Beor needed to get to Kamelot.

Beor travelled north to the Titan’s Steps where he found a besieged temple. Seeing the besiegers were a rabble showing signs of the Red Death Beor tried to keep his distance and talk them down. That didn’t work so Beor lost patience and fought them off. Only a few hours later Beor had to cover up the red lesions starting to form on his forearms. Within the shrine Beor found an injured Sir Gawain. He tasked Beor with bearing Excalibur’s Scabbard to the Tombs of the Order, as he was too injured to make the journey. Beor solemnly accepted the quest. Beor lit the Menhir here, then continued on his way.

Beor knew Kamelot lay further to the east, but it was beyond the range of the Menhir at the Titan’s Steps. Unable to see any other Menhir to light, Beor headed east regardless. Perhaps there was a way to reach Kamelot via the plagued borough.

Beor continued east towards Kamelot. In the suburbs outside Kamelot Beor found the settlement in chaos, with bands of rabble and Knights with men-at-arms in open warfare. Needing to press on to the east, Beor entered the settlement and helped the Knights for a while as he passed through. Beor was forced to stop as the Wyrdness blocked his path further east.

Beor was forced to travel all the way back to the First Farmhold and then travel east again. In the Dark Morass he know found another Menhir that he could activate, banishing the wyrdness from Kamelot. But the extra travelling had drained Beor’s food reserves, and as he had passed the First Farmhold he had been forced to battle a Wyrdchild. Badly beaten and with his wits shredded, Beor travelled to Tangleroot to hunt for food. While there he was woken from his sleep by non other than a Fore-Dweller! Beor’s quest had attracted some terrible attention. Beor was too poorly to travel fast, so he used his magic scroll to teleport to the Plagued Borough.

Beor stumbled further east to the gates of Kamelot, only to be turned back. The gates would not be opened until the troubles in the Borough were resolved. Dejected, Beor returned to the Knights there to aid them once more, helping them to gain the strength to quell all the rabble.

Now able to enter Kamelot, Beor requested an audience with Sir Lancelot to ask about Neante. Lancelot was reluctant to help, but eventually Beor was able to persuade him to talk. Lancelot has sent Neante with the true Grail north to the Tombs of the Order with a retinue of Knights. There she is to perform a ceremony with the Grail, but Lancelot has not heard from them in some time.

This chapter turned into a marathon session, running for nearly four hours. It was great fun but towards the end got frustrating. I encountered a couple of situations (wyrdness blocking my path to Kamelot, then not being allowed in because of the riots) that forced me to backtrack. The gates being closed I understood, but the map design and menhir locations seems to be deliberately designed to frustrate your journey to Kamelot. You are forced to travel through several locations that trigger encounters repeatedly, slowing down the story and wearing down your character.

Managing food supply seems to be an important element of this game and this repeated travel back and forth almost finished me off.

Also I have noticed that you may win a fight but if you are too badly injured your ability to do anything with your character is significantly impaired as your action points are capped by your current health. You suddenly require two or three days to perform actions you could do in one day when at full health, and that is when you start to burn through your food supplies.

In the end, given it was now 12:30 at night and I wanted to finish the chapter, I had to cheat for my last few days to push on to Kamelot and assume I passed the diplomacy check with Lancelot. By that point I only had one health, so could only perform one action per day. I was insane, so had a 50% chance of not doing anything when I tried to use that single action point, and the Fore-Dweller was chasing me across the map!

There is an optional rule where your action points are not capped by your health and you do not panic if you insanity exceeds your health. I think I will use these rules from now on, just so I can continue to control what I do in combat and diplomacy and so I don’t get into this situations where I’m alive but effectively crippled.

The other change I’m going to make is that I will always start new chapters on full health, action points and with no insanity. Otherwise I would have to start the next chapter on one health with only one unit of food and no means of hunting for more. In other words I will simply die in a matter of days when the menhirs all run out and there’s nothing I can do about it.

To end on a positive, I spotted my first Easter Egg. When I visited the water mill the exchange with the mill keeper was exactly what happens in the Heroes of Might and Magic games. In those turn-based strategy games you heroes can wonder the map and when they visit water mills the mill keeper gives you 1000 gold pieces once per week, but if the gold has already been taken they ask you to come back later.