The players- Dani, Drew, Ian, Jim

The story started by the death bed of one of the Sweet Water clan elders, the grandmother of one of She-Who-Laughs-Like-Brook who had been infected by a sick stranger they had taken in. (He had died pretty quickly.) They shared a touching moment before She-Laughs-Like-Brook went to talk to her cousin, She-Climbs-Mountains, who believed they should take some sort of action. She-Who-Laughs-Like-Brook agreed, but wanted to wait until her grandmother was better.

Sadly she died the next day. In dreams She-Who-Laughs-Like-Brook learned that there may be a cure in a nearby place. She-Who-Climbs-Mountains was going to go with her. They had an exchange with the creepy sorcerer who essentially had another face in the back of his head. He gifted She-Who-Laughs-Like-Brook with a stone.

They found that the place wasn’t deserted. The dwellings were as strange, but not as strange as the inhabitants. They were spirits who had been deserted by their former worshippers. They told them how to cure the plague. At first the clan was resistant but She-Who-Laughs-Like-Brook convinced them to give it a try. And it worked.

This set off a chain of events. She-Laughs-Like-Brook was prepared to devote her worship to these new gods, much to the chagrin of the woman she secretly loved and her clan! She-Climbs-Mountains was less sure. The sorcerer wanted to talk to these spirits.

The penultimate scene happened when She-Laughs-Like-Brook brought one of the village members to sacrifice to the spirits and She-Climbs-Mountains met her there with the sorcerer. One of the clan elders, who turned out to be the avatar of the river deity they worshipped appeared. There was an epic battle where She-Laughs-Like-Brook was victorious. She converted most of the village to the worship of the fire gods, including the woman she loved who returned her feelings; her cousin lead those who didn’t wish to observe these new practices to a new place.

This was a really fun game! After a second time playing, character creation feels a bit awkward. There’s not much for the Inside and Outside Players to do. Maybe providing them more input into the characters they’ll be facing would be a good way to remedy this. Setting up the village and creating the world was really neat though!

I enjoy the way scene framing works and the Corruption mechanic is neat. The last scene turned into one long drawn out scene which worked great. There wasn’t much official conflict, which also worked out just fine. There were some cool moments, especially towards the end!

And we all had fun around the table. The others seemed to enjoy the system and the setting for the most part. We all helped each other out and there was much fun had all around if I’m not mistaken. All in all it went pretty smoothly!

Thanks to Drew, Ian, and Jim for a fun night around the table and being willing to give this a try.

- Dani