This month saw Fantasy Grounds’ annual online convention – FG Con and this year a member of the Order of the Iron Crown (Chris Seal) was there and running a game of Rolemaster. Here’s what Chris had to say about the convention and the game he ran:
 
Murder most foul has a long history as a means of political advancement within the Tyrisian Empire. Today is no exception as you walk in on the scene of your friend and mentor’s horrific death. Galvinus Septimus Alto was a great man and you owe him a suitable revenge, but it would not do to attack the wrong faction and thus, the game is afoot…
 
The game began with the pre-generated characters gathering at the villa of G. Septimus Alto, having been invited to a luncheon. As they arrived in the villa they noted a hue and cry coming from the market that operates just outside the villa, but as such events are commonplace, didn’t pay it much attention.
 
On entering the villa the characters discover the still cooling body of their friend and mentor, Septimus. On inspecting the body and the room, the characters noted that Septimus had tried to leave a final message, writing a portion of his attackers name in blood, but most of the name had been obscured as he continued to bleed out.
 
The party also noted a foul smell in one of the far corners of the room that reminded them on the stench of sewers. Simultaneously they noted that there were several windows open, but failed to find any sign of ingress or egress.
 
Using magic, the characters were able to view a significant event in the history of the sewer’s cover and the scene showed them 4 armed men sneaking out from the sewers and entering the villa.
 
Heading to the sewers, the party discovered evidence of the assault in the form of burnt torches, broken pottery, a discarded wax tablet and a half burned note. The wax tablet showed evidence of a ledger of sorts, under the planning that was its most recent addition. Careful inspection of the partially burned letter provided the characters with the name of a local business, a coffee house owned and operated by one Lucilia Cupa.
 
In the meantime, more information was gathered by the party when they visited the market and talked to a couple of the merchants doing business there. From these merchants they discovered that the hue and cry they had heard was caused by several armed men, covered in blood, who left the Galvinus villa via one of the windows, and who ran through the market before dropping into the sewers. A pile of bloodstained clothing and a bloody dagger were recovered as a result of this information. While talking with the merchants, one of them mentioned that they recognised one of the men as being a patron of Lucilia Cupa’s coffee house.
 
Armed with this information, the party converged on Lucilia’s business.
 
On arriving at the coffee house, the characters were seated and their order taken. As Lucilia left to prepare their order, the characters stood and went to follow her. On their doing so, several armed men scattered throughout the coffee house stood and, after a short back and forward, engaged the characters in armed conflict.
 
A short and bloody conflict ensured, in which two of the thugs were quickly, and messily dispatched and several of the others, seeing the way things were going attempted to flee (only one managed to escape).
 
The party then were able to interrogate both the armed thugs and the proprietress of the coffee house, both of whom were able to confirm that their suspicions as to the mastermind behind the assassination was none other than Calventius Publii Clostra, one of Septimus’ chief rivals.
 
Using potent mind affecting magic, the party arranged for the captain of the guard in the Calventius villa to be brought to them at the coffee house. On his arrival, his will was crushed using similar magic and he arranged for the heavy guard at the Calventius villa to depart, opening the way for a potent ambush of Publii.
 
The master of the villa was caught completely off guard and the party were able to extract their ‘honourable revenge’, restoring the good name of their faction and sending a strong message to their rivals.
 
All in all the game was very fun to run and the party caught me off guard on several occasions. The clever use of mentalism in the closing phases of the game was inspired and neatly circumvented what would have been a difficult and dangerous combat.
 
The combat in the coffee house was particularly bloody, which one thug being shot through both lungs in the opening moment and another suffering a deadly blow to the back of his neck (inflicted by the lay healer who proclaimed, see I can do more than just heal).
 
The musket failed to fire due to poor priming and, unfortunately combat ended before we saw how effective musket fire could be.
 
Fantasy Grounds was particularly useful as there were a couple of players who had not played Rolemaster before. Being able to ‘offload’ the heavy lifting to the system helped me to focus on ensuring that they were able to ‘grok’ what they needed to do and I would like to heartily recommend it to anyone.
 
The software has its own learning curve and some of the controls are not intuitive. There are, however, excellent video tutorials available for the base software package and the Rolemaster forum at Fantasy Grounds (www.fantasygrounds.com) is particularly helpful (hat tip to Dakadin who is the main Rolemaster dev).
 
In summary, bring on FG Con 7.
 
Thanks to all of my players, I had a blast and I hope you enjoyed the game as much as I did.
 
Chris
 
A huge thanks to Chris for running the game and to everyone who took part and made it such a great game. If you’re interested in running an Iron Crown Enterprises game at a convention or want to become a member of the Order of the Iron Crown, visit The OIC page on our website or contact us.