So, as expected, last night was more character creation and ask/answer about the city than anything.
The players were: Gilgamesh, a halfling rogue; Terra, mysterious half-elf cleric of Zia (and florist); Ginrai, a human monk from a previous campaign of mine who was found passed out in the woods and doesn't remember why (plot device!
); and Smack the Lizardfolk Fighter. Most notable about this party is that I have 3 LNs and 1 CN; woot for the non-good party!
The game opened up with everyone preparing to attend the "Dragon Bowl" festival, the premier Blood Bowl-like sporting event in the city. Terra had a cart set up to sell her flowers and space in a private booth to watch the game later thanks to her wealthy uncle. Gilgamesh tried not to be noticed and went his roguish business. Smack went into the stadium early to find a good seat and Ginrai was the first to hear the horns in the distance as the parade approached. The parade came marching through with displays and floats from each of the districts and Ginrai attempted to hop in with one display of circus performers, though made a fool of himself more than anything. Gilgamesh snagged someone's coin purse, narrowly escaping the view of the guard behind him. Terra's worker and friend showed up so she went inside to her cushy booth to watch the game. Outside the stadium various art displays and performances continued to entertain anyone who wasn't interested in watching the game. The game's opening ceremony started with an ambiguously effeminate elven bard botching the word's to a famous song to the crowd's dismay. The teams facing off were Azog United, a team of mostly Orcish composition and The Rahme's Landing Adventurers, a spattering of the starting races from the PHB. The game began, with both teams scoring on their first plays. The crowd was crazy excited and both teams grew more defensive. It was at that point that a large hole opened up in the middle of the ground and an Ankheg appeared, grabbing the nearest player. The guards sprung into action, though there were very few of them present for some reason (come to find there was a display going on as part of the parade outside of the stadium). A state of emergency was declared and the cry of "militia" was issued, meaning anyone with weapons would receive militia pay to come help in the fight as more holes opened up and more bugs appeared. The players came forth and much generic battling ensued, the rogue and cleric teaming up to save an innocent bystander from being dragged into the tunnel while the monk and fighter bashed one's face in. After taking down a few more, the choice to join others to follow the tunnels and try to save the people that got taken away or to go find more info presented itself with the promise of continued militia pay either way. The cleric knew the creatures were acting strangely.
For the next portion of the game and the first "real" session, I'm going to have a disinformation squad hired by whoever was responsible interfering with any investigations about it and I'll try to cement the characters as actual contacts with one another despite the differences in background. From there I'll use character specific hooks to enrich each one's background and start creating political drama (for example, the rogue started trying to take bets rather loudly and drew the attention of a local gambling ring who wasn't too fond of him encroaching on their territory). From that point the adventures will really start writing themselves as players choose their paths, splitting up and rejoining as necessary. I'm excited!
I'll have a "battle report" on Saturday hopefully. So far we've got a Cleric of Zia (goddess of balance for all intents and purposes - I got to make a Time domain that I'll give later) and a Monk from the Tsun Du monastery, who started in life as a circus performer.
