Dugeons and Dragons: The Ashfields of Telarna Part 2 - From Slavery to Freedom

Today, March 11th, was the first session of the new campaign for our DnD group. As I mentioned in part one of this series I had planned for many contingencies and I told you dear reader my thoughts on the different actions the players could take. It still didn't go 100% as planned which I expected. I didn't know at the beginning what races or classes my players would choose. One of my players has a character named Rorin who is a male human/white tiger shifter fighter. The other player is a female Tiefling druid/wizard who hasn't decided on a name as of yet.

The campaign started much as I had thought, they were both blindfolded and chained in the hold of a slave ship. Rorin was in a private cell due to his ability to 'shift'. A shifter is basically a were-animal but with such a small amount of non-human blood in them they don't shift much at all. Rorin gets cat eyes, fur, and claws, but none of his bone structure changes or anything. Shifting basically gives him increased speed, agility, and strength. This make him to be a very large threat to the slave traders.

The other character on the other hand is a bit more tame but just as weird. She is a Tiefling, a human with a small amount of demon blood. Just enough demon blood to give her a tail and horns and such but not enough to make her a full fledged demon.

So when the players finally reached the port town Rorin was told he was already bought for the hefty sum of 15,000 gold. My other player was to be auctioned as a sex slave (not just a sex slave but mainly a sex slave). This made my normally shy player deal with her character in the nude in front of a crowd and being show off as a play thing. She went to a female dark elf (a.k.a. Drow) named Tilema and seemed quite accepting of her fate as a slave to this rare 'good' drow. This was completely unexpected. I had planned for my players to try and escape, to fight their owners tooth and nail. However my plans were utterly destroyed by this player and I had to modify Tilema to be more caring towards her slaves than I had originally planned.

Rorin on the other hand played his part just as I predicted and threatened his mater with death to the point he was caged and returned to the slave traders. It was at this time that a rival slave trading ship came to port and started lobbing cannons fire into the deck and auction podiums. Rorin, left alone ina cage was rescued by Tilema when her new property was begging to help the "poor cat man". Once again I had to modify Tilema a little, rather than have her do the rescuing I had her make her new slave do it. It worked as it did develop a small bit of trust between my players and Tilema, but not enough they weren't wary of her a little.

On the way out of town Tilema bought my players weapons and shields. It was on the outskirts of town they met the second part of my plan. A giant cave dwelling beast named Osric and three men attacking him. The players worked it perfectly, trying to stop the fight and not choosing sides until attacked. I had both sides attack them, but made it so Osric attacked the tiefling while the three guys attacked Rorin. This set up a small rift in the party they had to resolve to continue and decide who to side with. My players decided to help Osric and kill the three bandits. Unfortunately I had to dispatch of Tilema so my players could have freedom to do as they wanted in the world and not solely what I wanted. One of the bandits attacked and killed her during the battle, with the tiefling slightly saddened and even Rorin, who had sworn at her under his breath feeling a slight sad at her death.

Osric became their favorite character. Basically an idiot savant Osric is a cave giant standing 15 feet tall. He brought the players back to his cave for the night so they could rest and treat their wounds. Osric was voiced by me in a manner similar to Red Skelton's Clem Kadiddlehopper or the buzzard from those Bugs Bunny cartoons, and as such he became quite the friend of the player, including telling the players about his brother Charlie in the mountains to the far north past the range with the volcano in it. This was the first leg of their journey to find their lost clans and families, something the players themselves had thought up, rebuilding their families and such after being thrown into slavery. This also brought about a secondary arc of them fighting against slavery in any form, to the point Rorin will fight to free any slave at all.

As the players left for Charlie's place they came across a small cabin boarded up inside and out and with no way to see in. all they can notice is a rattle of chains, but then they knock on the door they are greeted by a friendly man telling them that "if you don't know what we do here you are here too early." The players went mad for this, to the point of almost breaking down the door before resigning to coming back some other day to find out what this cabin is. Truth be told I had not gotten to that point myself and decided to have the cabin as a callback later on in the story when it could serve a purpose for me, like bringing them back to the port city or once they are captured and brought back to Tilema's.

As they continued past the cabin they crossed a raging river with a tree (not that hard and just a very minor puzzle) and found themselves in a small settlement. This was the most fun for me aside from Osric as I could do unique and interesting characters. The first person Rorin asked for directions to a certain store was deaf as a result of a drug. The general store was run by a person who was ambiguous in their gender. Could have been a male or a female and I found myself having to speak softly and choose my words carefully as to perpetuate this ambiguity. It was a fun game between me and the players and even now they still don't know. That I feel is a big key to selling your characters is giving them something to have the players focus on. It also helps to have a variety of voices or such to use, but I think most would prefer it if you didn't have wigs and costumes and such.

We ended the session with the players going to the tavern/inn to drink and rest for the night. It is seldom a good idea to stop a session in the midst of battle and we find it helps to break in a inn or a camp in a safe area of a dungeon.

The only things I have to worry about now is what do they do the next time? In reality I have many choices here. I can spread a rumor about escaped slaves, about Tilema's death, I can have someone mention the cabin and drive my characters further insane by making it something they will HAVE to know about. However they are things they can do I will not think of. After all, I didn't not expect my players to be nice to their "owner" especially when one of them was sold as a sex slave to her and was exactly thrilled at the idea.