Session Report [O1]: The Lone Lost Soul

I had my first online game last night.  It was a bit tricky because I am travelling for work and there were complications, but it happened.  With somewhat notice, I only had one player, but it worked out fine. The random generation and some role playing produced:

• Feener: wielding a mighty lucerne hammer and a painted egg (that when blown through creates a terrible whistle) this solo fellow was practical.  He had some blue chalk, a bit of string (plumb lines?) and a bag of goat jerky.   

Waking up for the first time in this campaign is tough enough, but now imagine it alone.  Some highlights:

• great exploration of the cavern - discovered the hole in the ceiling and the "glass bowls" that are the remains of some caustic goo
• figured out that the sand covering the cavern was charred and ground bone
• had many painful adventures trying to get up the cliff opposite the ceiling hole
• attempting to use his lucerne hammer as a pole for pole vaulting - it failed and now he has a regular war hammer with a pointy bit on the handle
• found a bunch of strange "holes" carved into one wall that lead to another chamber of some sort, but not one he could get to just yet
• got clever and started piling up sand against the cliff face
• discovered a buried iron chest - rusted and corroded with age that contained the Silver Serpent Sword (more on that in a moment)
• After making a god-awful bunch of noise Feener caught the first glimpse of the large beast that lives beyond the field of statues (up on the cliff).  Several huge spidery legs that at the end split into a hundred filaments and threads touching everything obscenely.  It accidentally put out the torch tossed up on the cliff then fled back into the darkness
• After some puttering a strange antlered spirit attacked, but our game time was up!

After the failed pole vault, Feener sat in contemplation of his situation and spent XP to regain a memory:
GM: You were so proud at that moment, why was that woman screaming?
Feener: I had completed the quest in which I returned our hero's Hammer to the village, but the woman was screaming because her son did not return with me.  I had dared him to quest as well, and I feel terrible because his death is on my hands.

This is the kind of stuff that I can completely dig as a GM.  The player is defining "alignment" through action and reaction.  Love it!

GM Notes: The hardest thing I've discovered is for me to talk less and encourage the players to talk more and be more descriptive.  When my player said "I do a circuit of the cave" what he meant was "I want to probe the edges of the cave looking for another way out".  We had a brief aside discussing using the narrative to drive the game - it was a good conversation for both of us.

It was another short game, but in these busy times we do what we can.  I feel that 2 sessions have already inspired me to get working and flesh out more and more details of this environment.  The farther away from play things are the lighter the notes, but as the adventurers explore I'm embracing the "Leave Banks" and "Play to Find Out What Happens" mentality a bit more than in the past.