I sent out the map and a bit of background and the first Omens for each of the 6 myths in an email. Looking back, that might’ve been too much. Perhaps I should’ve just done the myths and offered the background as we got started.

The process provided for making the map was really fun and easy.

I began with the omens for each myth and we decided out of character that we liked the stone archway:

In the shadow of the Western Mountain, in the Moresceam Mire is a huge stone archway, former temple. Stars flicker in the shadows. White ravens caw from the trees. An opening appears in the arch, dark but light at once. Then all is normal again.

We spent a little bit of time just saying what someone might notice about each knight as they discussed which myth they would seek out. The aging duke came over and asked them what they would be seeking out and as he walked away I described him as lonely and aging.

This felt very different than the bombastic, hail and hardy duke I might’ve depicted 20 years ago.

In my head the myths were already starting to bleed together and bounce off one another but I held off those feelings and thoughts until later.

They headed west to a bridge-town called Hara, had a small discussion about knights paying their way and hospitality. I rolled an encounter with the next Omen from a random myth but didn’t want to wander into other myths, so I stuck to the one at hand.

They encountered Sir Valenta, a knight in bronze armor that looked like she had pillaged a barrow. One of the players asked if the armor looked its age or that it was just taken from a grab and I said that it looked worn but not ancient.

When Valenta said that she was oathsworn to Arch-Duchess Armigil, they knew she was centuries old. Another player wisely asked if Arimigil was in their duke’s dynasty or a past rival. Good effing question – I rolled. Armigil was an ancestor of their duke, not a rival. Interesting.

Valenta told them that she had been sent by her Arch-Duchess to look into a gate in the shadow of the western mountain in the springtime but her memory was hazy after that. She knows she found the gate and tricked someone; she also felt she was being followed.

That night the trio of knights kept watch and encountered a shrouded figure looking to collect a toll – “silver or blood,” it insisted. After some tussling, one of the knights agreed to pay Valenta’s toll and so he was given a year and a day to do so and took on the burden – Dread. Sir Valenta swore to follow the knight while he paid her toll. A white crow was now following the indebted knight…

We ended there and will try to wrassle with our schedules to make a follow-up game work. We didn’t play long but still generated lots of stuff. Merithet, the wizard who bred white crows. The Siege of Hara.

One of the players suggested that a seer from another omen was someone who would know about the archway and the paying of the silver or blood tolls:

In the Old Anwig a legendary seer, beloved by her village, now trapped, inert in ironwood. Only the Fearmonger can break their binds.

I was totally embarrassed that I didn’t see that connection. Good stuff.

I’ll write more about the knights next time. It is neat the volume of adventurous stuff is stocked into the map.

The myths are evocative, offering lots of strangeness and questions but very few answers. I hope we get to play again. I’m hooked.