Building Bhakashal – Session Report – They Split the Party!

Today’s game was a good example of how to handle a complicated session.

My Thursday group split up to do different things:

Group 1 stayed behind in the city to address some housekeeping tasks, one of them wanted to spend a week training his new pet baby wyvern, the other wanted to train for a week riding his new mount, a Kestram (giant bird).

Groups 2 and 3 were tasked with helping Brass Blade Guild raiders (the Brass Blade Spider’s Guild is Bhakashal’s Thieves Guild, the PCs are now running it) who were being foiled by marshland patrols from House Tairn. It’s a delicate situation, and the remainder of the party split into two more groups, Group 2 stayed behind in in the raider’s land camp, Group 3 went along with the raiders as they attacked an incoming merchant ship.

So, we had three groups on three fronts.

I know some referees dislike this sort of play, but Bhakashal is a true sandbox game, which means that whatever the PCs choose is what we do, if they want to split the party, then it’s my job to run the encounters.

The rule at our table is this, when the party splits, the referee switches from group to group, splitting up the session time roughly equally between them. Players have two choices, they can stay around the table when it is not their turn, but if they do so they must pay attention and not be disruptive. I will usually get them to roll dice for me or run any party NPCs with that group, so they have something to do.

Alternatively, they can leave the table and come back when it is their turn. I actually somewhat prefer this option as it keeps them in the dark to things happening when they aren’t there.

This week they opted to stay at the table.

We started with the group who was mid-combat at the end of last session. There was one action left from the end of the last round (the first round in combat), when the raider’s ship, The Domino, caught up with the merchant ship, The Astrolabe. The party Spartan (monk) had to shoot his bow from the raider’s ship. He managed to hit the spellcaster on the Astrolabe twice, doing decent damage.

Then the new round started, initiative was rolled and the combatants were sequenced. As an aside, Bhakashal’s combat system is proving to be ideal for large fights between big groups, roll initiative, add modifiers for weapon speed or spell casting time, and the segment of your action is determined.

Easy as pie.

Things moved fast and furious.

The bandit crossbowmen shot en masse, slaying 1 and wounding 2 crewmembers on the merchant ship.

 Their ship was slowly closing the gap, but they were still at medium range and taking penalties.

The House Tairn Chitin Warlock, Umi the Chaolite, cast Flame Arrow on the crossbow bolts of several House Tairn regulars who shot a volley off at the Domino. The party spartan managed to knock two of the flaming bolts aside, but another sailor on the Domino was killed, another wounded, and one of the bolts set the sail alight, sending crewmembers scrambling to set out the fire.

The spell caster on the Merchant Ship, one Asil Merr the Mirach, cast a Protection From Normal Missiles spell as he was spooked by the Spartan's shots.

The House Tairn warlock on the second barge, the Malu, Chilonder Bix, cast Phantasmal Force (as an aside, many people forget that regular magic-users can use Phantasmal Force too). He created the illusion of a group of 4 Malu boarding the Domino from the water. Malu are well known as sailors and it would not have been unusual for a few to enter the water when the fight started and swim over to attack this way, so I did not give the crew disbelief saves, and the PCs suspected nothing, only one noting that Chilonder Bix likely cast a buffing spell of some kind, as they saw him casting something but saw no effects.

Two shots from Domino’s ballistae hit the Astrolabe, both were on the side, high above the waterline, warnings that they could shoot lower and have the ship take on water.

Then Thurva, the leader of the raiders and a Thaumaturge, cast Moonsal’s Ichorous Syphon from a scroll. Thaumaturges are thief/magic-users that only use scroll spells. This particular casting of the Ichorous Syphon was scribed at high level, so this gave her the range to cast it near the Astrolabe, she used the Syphon to collect water and caused it to rise up like a snake and crash down on the  Astrolabe’s warlock, Asil Merr the Mirach. Unfortunately for him, he failed his saving throw and the spell drowned him on the deck of his own ship.

We broke their and shifted to the group doing the training. The party Conjuror (a new player) and the party Mercenary (fighter) spent the day in the Bhakashal marshlands, the Conjuror learning how to ride his Kestram while the Mercenary stayed on land below training his baby wyvern. They were heading back at night when I rolled an encounter.

As an aside, in a factional game there are always people after you, to reflect the possibility that one of these parties might show up unexpectedly, when I roll for encounters I roll an extra d6, on a “1” the encounter is with one of these NPCs/monsters who are out to get the party. I have a list of these NPCs/monsters, it's getting long!

As it happens, I rolled a 1 on the d6 so the two PCs were going to encounter someone who was out looking for them. In this case it was two NPCs that had been sent to spy on the party as they are suspected as being the new leaders of the Bhakashal Brass Blade Guild. House Magnar (Crest: Gold Dragon on Black), who are in command of the commercial/banking ward are angling to take over the guild, so they have sent NPCs to keep tabs on the PCs and determine if they are indeed the new Guild leaders and collect information about them.

They, of course, have no idea about this.

So the PCs, flying on the back of their Kestrem, see two people in the marshland below, with the coils of a purple liash plant around them. This was entirely a set up, they were feigning being in distress to draw the party’s attention.

And it worked.

The two of them flew down, dismounted and used a Charm Monster spell to get the plant to relax, releasing the two NPCs, one was “unconscious” and the other instantly gave him a drink from a potion bottle, acting desperate to save his life.

They fell for it hook, line and sinker.

They began to talk, asking who the NPCs were, what happened, etc. The represented themselves as travelers (I rolled a chance that the PCs might have met these men before in their time in the city, but that came up negative), heading to the city on their way through the marshlands. It was a plausible story.

The two NPCs gave the PCs gifts to thank them for the “rescue”, a large gem and a magical dagger (+1). The conversation went quite well, and the party fighter offered to help track and retrieve the mounts that the NPCs claimed were spooked when the plant attacked. He and one of the NPCs (a spartan) went off after the mounts

The PC conjuror and the NPC fighter walked along together discussing the NPCs plans in the city and his position on various issues of the day.

The NPCs are going to stay in the party’s orbit, playing the part of grateful friends rescued from certain death by the brave PCs, offering themselves up as “henchmen”, and report back to their masters when they have gathered enough information to be sure that the PCs do indeed run the guild.

It’s like an onion.

Then it was on to the last group.

The party warlock (magic-user), spider/warlock (thief/magic-user) and Slayer (ranger/assassin) were staying at the raider’s forest hideout with the 10 raiders that did not go out on the Domino, guarding the hideout.

The PCs were gambling with the raiders. When PCs want to gamble in the game we generally break out the cards or dice and actually play a game at the table. Today we played Onitama, it’s a variant on chess where the moves for the pieces change between moves outlined on cards that you draw and play. Games like this are perfect for the table as they are similar to games they know (in this case chess), but different enough that they feel appropriate to the game world.

In Bhakashal you can play a game of chess where the moves for the pieces change as the game progresses, that feels just different enough to fit the vibe of the setting, but it is similar enough that it feels familiar to the players.

That’s the sweet spot.

They played a round of the game then decided to call it a night. I rolled for a potential encounter in the night and one came up. All the PCs were sleeping when it did.

Their ledger of “people looking for them” was actually pretty long. I rolled for the last encounter and the two NPCs came up. This time I rolled the d6 and got a 1 again, so this time it was a Gyre that showed up.

The PCs took over running the guild, the former House Quannar Warlock that ran the Guild before the Raosk and City branches were unified by the party was one Riyan the Raze. She was extremely pissed that the PCs managed to convince the other factional leaders to vote for them and put them in a position to lead the newly unified guild.

Riyan decided to send someone to bloody their noses and keep them off balance.

She sent Ghanglor Terrik a 7^th level Garudin (bird-person) Wind Gyre. Gyres in Bhakashal manipulate raw magic energy into their particular aspect. As a wind gyre, Ghanglor is essentially an air-bender. 

Since the party was sleeping their perspective on the encounter was this,

“You awake to a cacophony outside your tent, screaming winds, crashing, cries of pain and panic, you look outside and you see 8 of the 10 raiders from the camp flailing about in the air, cartwheeling past each other, sometimes crashing into each other, crossbow bolts fall from quivers, as do swords and knives. The wind is deafening, like a concentrated hurricane, and leaves and branches whirl through the air, blinding you.”

Ghanglor can summon air elementals with a magic item of his, and he sent one in.

Elementals are EXTREMELY POWERFUL in Bhakashal, and we'll see how they handle this.

We stopped there.

Each group got about half an hour of direct play while the other groups rolled dice or played NPCs.

It is fascinating as any of these encounters would have been much different if the whole party was there, they are all around 8^th-9^th level, pretty formidable all things considered. Splitting up changed the tenor of the encounters considerably. Next week the fighter and conjuror are supposed to be flying out to meet the party at the raider’s camp, we’ll see if they bring along the two NPCs they “rescued”, and if they arrive to a raider’s camp full of corpses.

Once again I am reminded that once you start up a sandbox game, it runs itself. The consequences of party actions in a factionalized setting will generate an endless array of new encounters and adventures for the PCs.

Good stuff.