Everway At Gamehole Con 2021-Return to Fire's Wall

"Garden of Rest" by Em Niwa

I had a great time running Everway-Silver Anniversary Edition as part of the virtual game track at Gamehole Con 2021 last night. It was a great experience. The PCs had an adventure in the Realm of Fire's Wall, one that I explored for the first time earlier in the year with my home game group. While in my earlier campaign, the Realm of Fire's Wall was mainly a starting point to bring a new group of adventurers together, last night the PCs solved a fundamental mystery/problem in that realm. 

They did great with the adventure, and found that a bit of violence actually helped move things toward a solution. This felt like a bit of a surprise for the players, but each of them chose Spherewalkers who had histories of violence, so it kind of made sense. 

That being said, the violence was of the "last resort" type, in the face of an inflexible adversary who was doing real damage to the realm.

To prepare for the game, I created form-fillable versions of the sample characters from the Player's Book. Careful readers of the book will note that these are the signature characters and mostly complete sheets, except that the third image tied to the character's story is blank, as is the space under the image for players to create a brief narrative interpreting the image's relevance for the character's story.

It's great that the third picture and narrative detail are blank, as that creates a great way to pull the players into co-creation of their stories. So I made the third picture and narrative block form-fillable to support that ideation.

I provided about 20 PDF/PNG images in a Vision Card folder (including the one up above) for players to select an image that called to them. I collected these from various online art sources. Once everyone had an image, I had players introduce their characters and say something about why they selected that image, and how it related to the PC's story. Then we entered a Questions phase, in which players asked each other questions about the images and their significance for the characters, digging deeper.

This worked really well, the players were clearly engaged with the process and their characters, which set the stage for a great, character-driven game. This activity took about 45 minutes, but it was time well invested and enjoyable for everyone. 

I'll be using this technique again for convention scenarios.

First Session of the New Everway Campaign

 

Snip from "Fire Dance" Vision Card by Janine Johnston

With three characters ready for play (and one more on the way next week), we set out to play Everway. While I have run a few in-person Everway one-shots, all of my previous campaigns as a GM or player have been play-by-post games. So it is great to play my favorite game again after a number of years, this time for my regular Thursday night gaming group!

The action started with Pahoeho Sun, a fire mage, seeking to find what is on the other side of the firewall in the great ocean of Fire's Wall. Too much steam, and turbulent seas, and Pahoeho swims back to his iron dinghy, and goes back aboard the local's much larger wooden fishing boat.

From the deck, the spirit mage Perceives That Which Others Do Not (Percy for short), gazes into the sky and sees an armored figure falling from far above into the sea. The figure goes into the depths, and Percy summons a water spirit to "push" the young warrior up towards the surface. Pahoeho dog paddles back to where the warrior now bobs on the surface, while fishermen follow in the iron boat. Together they pull the warrior, who they soon learn is one Osbert Haukmune, to safety and back to their big fishing boat.

Pahoeho's question to Osbert: "What did you see on the other side of the fire wall?" His answer was unclear [ahem].

The odd thing was that it looked like Osbert fell from a flying mount, but no one saw the mount. In fact, Osbert had lost a flying mount some time ago, and was on his way to Everway to see if he could learn more about how this might happen. One of the PCs had a definite impression that something in the air had been snatched by a fire spirit, just before Osbert fell. Osbert's memory was of taking the "normal" Earth gate route between spheres, but perhaps somehow he fell through an air gate upon arrival at Fire's Wall.

From there, back ashore Pahoeho commences a debauch in the beach bars on the firewall-facing western shore of the island, Nearest the Fire. The island is kind of a tourist trap, since the nighttime view of the firewall is astonishing, and in the daytime, this is the point of departure for boats taking people for a closer look at the firewall.

Everyone is drinking rum, even Osbert has some even though he seems unaccustomed to carousing. As the night goes by, there is some boasting between members of the party, and Pahoeho uses his earth magic to create a "grave" in the beach sand. The party and a number of the locals go out to look in the resulting pit. There are a lot of mussels there. The locals collect them for a clambake!

But suddenly Osbert's sword Demonbane is out of its sheath and pointing at a man carrying a bucket of mussels to the fire. He sets the bucket down. The sword points toward the bucket. The PCs open and inspect the clams. One has a Black Pearl inside. Demonbane is all eyes for it!

The Black Pearl morphs into a dragon, which starts out the size of a large shark, but gradually grows. This dragon is aquamarine. Osbert is "all-in" with trying to kill this thing immediately with Demonbane! Percy summons a spirit of calm to try and cool Osbert's spirits, as well as the dragon's.

Percy hears draconic speech. The dragon speaks its own language, not the Tongue. How odd! He wracks his brain for dragon lore from his studious past, on his rules-bound home realm. He remembers stories that dragons once challenged the gods, made war on them to displace them as the rulers of creation, and were defeated. But are dragons inherently evil? Demonsbane seems to think so. And the priests and scholars of Percy's native realm certainly thought so. One dragon above others, deceitful Alurax, certainly was evil. But Percy's knowledge of the lore of other realms suggests that dragons are viewed with more nuance elsewhere:

• Dragon knots are often found in the designs of clothing and textiles
• Some view dragons as incredibly wise
• Others know of dragons as rare beings who sleep long enough to become mountains

The dragon unfurls butterfly wings, begins to hover like a hummingbird, and begins to rise. 

The spirit of calm loses its grip on Osbert. He (or is it Demonsbane?) lunges, and chops off one of the dragon's paws. 

The dragon quickly rises and flies away to the west. It passes through the firewall, or at least seems to do so. Pahoeho is intrigued: what IS on the other side of the firewall? Could one ride a dragon through the fire? 

After the battle, Osbert is a bit pissed. Maybe embarassed. He doesn't want to be known as the Dragon Wounder... hopefully nobody starts calling him Osbert Dragonscratch! But that evening the PCs are celebrated as heroes. Osbert primly rejects amorous overtures from several locals. More drinking ensues.  

In the bleary morning our heroes arise, and seek out one of the ships of the Sea Traders. They want to go to Everway and seek answers to questions about dragons and missing mounts. 

Art by Jenny Dolfen

There is a long sea journey to a Sea Trader city. In the temple on the hill there is a gate maze, and soon they pass through a gate to the realm of Roundwander. 

[They emerge at gate #22 on the new map of Roundwander in Everway Silver Anniversary Edition Book 1: Players.]

To the north they see the huge orange-red tower mountain that is Phoenix Rock. The gate Keepers inform them that a barge will be along within a couple of hours. They can stretch their legs for a bit and wait for it.

Map by Richard Thames Rowan