Burning Wheel AP - Episode 1 Dead of Night

This is crossposted at Luke's site. I have some of the night recorded (I hit the wrong button at one point) and will add that to my audioblog at some point).

So, our second session (first roleplaying session) of BW is complete and I wanted to come by and talk about it a bit. It's a time constrained game, with only five game-days allowed as the players vie for the head of the guild as their own.

Andy is taking Beliefs that point towards him getting revenge for the guildmaster's murder and redeeming the guild. Rick the bastard wants both the guild and his father's dukedom despite his lineage. Tim, the mad sorcerer, only wants to serve his demonic master and Travis, the forger, has kept his goals to himself for now. Everyone is hedging bets against each other and it is rocking.

The four lieutenants stood around the corpse of their leader and it was on. Schemes were flying and ideas working. We have decided that no one knows who killed him and that who did it will be revealed in play. Just when it got slow, bam! One of the characters heard someone in the room. A frightened slave girl had hidden in a closet. She stated that she couldn't see what happened but she was frightened out of her mind. Rick decided that the safest bet was to end her short life there with a knife to the throat. Andy's character reacted poorly if I remember and just then someone approaches the door!

It appears that Ilthmar's thieve's guildmaster has arrived at the party below with an entourage. I reveal to another player scrambling through some books that the Lankhmar guildmaster had invited them. Seems he was retiring and was making movements to retire in style. Was this the motive for his murder? We don't know yet.

As to the party, they are in a week of celebration in Lankhmar. I weave a tale of how one of the most famous guildmasters in the past had disguised his way out of capture again and again and even successfully impersonated the Emperor at one point. The guildmaster eventually reconciled with the Emperor and the two met in a public gesture to show that the Emperor was himself and the Guildmaster was separate. Thus, it is Day One of our game and Day One in a week of celebration. The most special days are 3-5:

Day 3: Chameleon Day - like Hallowe'en and Mardi Gras, except that everyone participates in the festivities all day, and participants come from far and wide - including Hell itself.

Day 4: Commoner's Day - Who can tell who is actually running the government? On this day, the commoner's get their own parliament, and if they can decide on anything as a group, it's put into law.

Day 5: Gretting Day - A guildmaster will have to meet the Emperor and prove again that the Emperor is himself. Who will be there? Will they survive the public meeting?

Anyway, back to the action. Tim, damn him, made me really think about my GM authority. But I rolled with it as he gave me a big in to screw him over. Dude summoned an imp to animate the guildmaster's corpse. Can you believe it? Luckily, he rolled a powerful one and I'll take my revenge on him soon.

Andy stepped up and came up with some cool ideas. Together we burnt up a cool story charcoal: The imp is demanding Tim take the Ilthmaran guildmaster's prized possesion and give it to him, and Tim accepts the bargain. What Tim's character doesn't know (but everybody at the table knows) is that the cask contains Tim's demon master's summoning tools!

Travis decides that there are too many players involved at this point and through a series of linked tests manages to three of his targeted four targets accidentally murdered: members of the Ilthmaran entourage. The fourth is virtually dead as he lay at the healer's hut with a severely broken leg.I'll have to use this little bugger somehow to complicate Travis' life.

Andy is, later on, going through the quarters of the Ilthmar guildmaster (who is completely absent, even the remainder of his entourage included). What he soon finds out is that Tim's imp is there too, sniffing out the cask just as Andy finds it. We left them on the rooftop, as Andy considers his options with the imp tracking him.

Travis decides to get a little supernatural back up. He successfully finds a 3/4 blind exorcist that has agreed to work for him. She assures him that Chameleon Day will allow for great results in regards to demons.

The final scene we played out was at Rick's house. I decided to go straight for the throat and bring his dad in. As soon as he was in the room his dad orders him to murder the guildmaster and hand over the guild to the Ilthmaran guildmaster. I knew this wasn't going to go well but Rich stepped up a notch and decided to whistle in his guards and attack his own dad! We used some bloody versus and Rich would have killed his father if it weren't for an awesomely successful spell on Tim's part which drew all of the swords out their owners' hands and even screwed with the metal in the door frame. Rich's dad is begging for his life as we end for the night.

We have four more game days to play out which may take less than four actual days, but we'll see. I'll keep everyone updated.