.:Lampeter Pathfinder History:.
Here is a quick write up of the past few years of Pathfinder LARP in Lampeter. Just a few statistics, some detail of the OOC history and the IC history. The IC history of the is partly copied and amended from the Foinaven gazette and the IC newspaper the Foinaven Times. If you've got any additions or clarifications to the history email them to matt at obegron at yahoo dot com. Thanks, enjoy!
Firstly a big thanks to all who came along to Pathfinder Lampeter over the few years it was running. Specifically I'd like to thanks Rod Millard and Arran boyd for reffing at Lampeter for this last year. Then I'm going to list a few statistics about Pathfinder Lampeter.
Ok here are some quick facts about Lampeter:
In 2002 we ran 1 adventure and 1 tavern night
In 2003 we ran 18 adventures, ~18 tavern nights, 1 weekend event and 1 banquet
In 2004 we ran 24 adventures, ~24 tavern nights
In 2005 we ran 8 linears and tavern nights
That is a total of 51 adventures and roughly the same amount of tavern nights. 32 of those linears were run by myself. 17 of those adventures were run by Rod Millard and Arran Boyd.
As for characters we ended up with 76 characters on the records. There were a few characters who haven't yet been played and are currently in the pending file. There were a bunch of characters who were placed in the main records and were never played. Two characters reached level 9 during this period.
During the summer of 2002 Royce and Rod met on a Yahoo message group. Once Royce found out that Rod was in Lampeter and starting up a LARP soc there he offered Pathfinder up as a potential system for use in Lampeter. At this point I got bought on board, I was quite happy to run Pathfinder in Lampeter. I met up with Rod when I got back to Lampeter in the Autumn term 2002 and then set up the system, wrote some background and ran an adventure. This was as I recall rained off and we ended up running it tabletop in the TV room of Lampeter Students Union. We also started running some tavern nights in the Castle Green pub.Things really took off the following year, during 2003 I ran a total of 18 adventures and a similar number of tavern nights. During the middle of the year the Castle Green pub decided that they didn't want to open on Sundays anymore so couldn't let us use their backroom. They do still open on a sunday, so they obviously didn't like a buncha wierdos in the back room. We also used the Castle Green for our first and only banquet.
During October 2003 we ran a weekend long event, from the Friday to the Sunday. This came from an idea of Rod's to use a English Heritage site for a event. I thought this was a great idea, about the same time I saw a post on Pagga by Dave Hawkins of Naiad Entertainment about the Borwick LARP site in Newtown. I'd heard about this site before but that post gave me the impetus to go and check out the site. I went up to Newtown, met up with Dave and Jos, the husband and wife team who ran Naiad Entertainment, had a lovely time looking around the site and booked it for a weekend event. Royce, Rod and Jenny were very supportive and keen on the idea which gave me the confidence to run the event.
The October 2003 event was called Red Leaf Falling. It was a great but stressful weekend for me. We had a total of 16 people on the site. Most people slept out in the tavern building. But an amount of the players camped out. The weekend was fortunatly dry but was very very cold. The old tin barn that the tavern building was rather cold. Big thanks to all who came along and helped out. We had a bunch of players come down from Aberyswyth come down, who had a great time with the system which was really good.
During 2003 Rod began to train as a Ref for Pathfinder and during the same year he pretty much became a full ref. I'm pretty sure we discussed training up Arran at the end of 2003 becuase he passed his ref test in May 2004 if I recall correctly. When all three of us worked together as a team we did pretty well. Arran and Rod were able to give me some breathing space on the adventure writing front and allowed me a chance to actually play in Lampeter. I finished my degree at Lampeter in 2004 and handed over the reins to Rod and Arran. Rod secured the use of the backroom of the Royal Oak pub. It is a wonderful room which we managed to fill up most evenings, I think on one evening we managed to get 20 people at a tavern night which is an indication of how popular Pathfinder LARP in Lampeter became. They ran the system in Lampeter until march 2005, when the LARP soc there decided to move to a system of their own devising. I'm not sure if the LARP Soc is still running, but we wish them all the best in the future. That pretty much finishes up the history of Pathfinder LARP in Lampeter.
In 1506 Foinaven has experienced an increase in the number and severity of Wyldmen and Goblin raids on the area. These twin worries have plagued this area of the world and its inhabitants for a long time, but recently their nuisance attacks have increased in ferocity and frequency. This escalation began with the kidnapping of some of the Village children and the murder of a husband and wife, Jeremy DanGwain and Sarah VorGwain at their farm over a year ago now. At this point people were worried that the dead have been resting uneasily in their graves, there has been talk of a follower of Neroz calling them from their slumber.
Bandits were also been prolific in the area during 1506 and 1507. Especially one bandit king who has been plaguing the roads, it is thought that he maybe the famous highwayman, Nick B’stard. This robber king was the scourge of the Southern highways until and increasing Legionnary presence on the roads seemed to make his hold-ups impossible, but even then they kept on occurring. But about a year ago these robberies ceased. Is this the same person?
As well as the scourge of banditry it seems that there are smugglers abroad. Ugly rumours have been flying over Calsmeer about games where slaves fight to the death. Does this have any connection to King Ethan’s edict that Trial by combat for the condemned is to be reinstated?
Some of the villagers have also made the arduous journey down the road to Liathatch, where they have visited temples and joined guilds. The roads have also seen a number of caravans that make the long journey from Liathatch to Illevar.
Last Autumn in 1507 the being commonly known as ‘The Necromancer’ launched a concerted attack on the village. The Western pass into the valley was sealed in a landslide, at about the same time a swamp appeared this swamp now seems to cover the whole western end of the valley. The attack on the village involved Merion being kidnapped by Wyldmen, this was to prevent anyone from reversing the ritual that ‘The Necromancer’ had cast to raise the massive number of undead that he used to attack the village. The villagers mounted a brave defence, in which many were hurt and one was killed, fortunately Duaren DanAlrad was able to resurrect him.
However Merion was rescued and the attack on the village was foiled. With Merion’s rescue the villagers were able to formulate a plan. It was decided to try and reverse the effects of the ritual that ‘The Necromancer’ did. The route to the ritual circle was scouted out and then the villagers went to the circle. The ritual was performed successfully by Sulwyn, Brother Jerome and Karnak. Most of the undead then fell where they lay. However a few still had to be destroyed, but for now the villagers seem to have won the day.
The winter of 1507 was been a harsh one. Some villagers left for the capital, Appia. However Horace and Teyrnon are expected back in the spring of 1508. As well as the harsh weather there has been a serious increase in the number of attack by Wyldmen over the winter. Indeed there was a large attack on the village, just before the middle of winter. Shortly after a troll named Stormclaw came back to the village telling of how he slew Wyldmen on his way into the village. A week after that Duaren, Sylvana and Davor encountered a large number of Wyldmen on their way to attack the village, they slew them. Further up the path they encountered ‘The Necromancer’ and Davor was slain in combat, again Duaren was able to bring him back.
By now it had become clear to the villagers that 'The Necromancer' was infact a Black Dragon. A group of scouts led by Patches the Goblin went into the swamp to find the lair of the Dragon. Once the location of the Dragon had been discovered a plan was hatched to get rid of the menace. A group of villagers along with Sir Caldain and his Men and Women at Arms were sent to defend the village against the Wyldmen that the dragon was sending to attack. The Goblin Free Company were hired by the villagers to help clear the swamp of undead whilst a group of the strongest warriors were sent to deal with the Dragon. The party attacking the Dragon included, Sylvana, Duaren, Ash, Confucius and Davor. During the battle with the Dragon and his undead bodyguard Davor and Ash were slain. Davor was resurrected however Ash was risen as undead. Confucius was also mortally wounded but was able to be healed. Duaren using a magical item was able to teleport to Foinaven and then Sulwyn was able to teleport back to the swamp and rescue all the wounded and bring them back to Foinaven. The Dragon, Curian was slain but at a terrible cost.
The next few months were comparativly quiet while a number of buildings were rebuilt and many people moved into the town, but the absence allowed more havoc to befall the town of Foinaven. The town of Foinaven is now much bigger than it was previously was. During this period a group of bandits named the Black Wolves moved into the area and began to cause havoc in the area. After much struggle many of the villagers managed to kill and capture many of the Black Wolves and only the leaders of the group are left to cause trouble in the area. Recently in Decander 1508 several members of the Fellowship of Hermes in Foinaven including Sulwyn the Guildmistress were killed on a mission to track down members of the Black Wolves. Sylvana was killed but resurrected. Sulwyn was killed and then raised as an undead. The members of the Black Wolves were killed and Sulwyn's body was recovered. Her body was taken back to the Guildhouse where it was laid to rest. Later on that evening the guildhouse was attacked by the Acolytes of Life who killed Bernard the administrator there. By this time Sulwyn's body had disappeared.
Other odd occurences include the appearence of a group of Shashay worshippers including a altar to the Shashay on the land that the Baron and Baroness DeBromsash wish to buy. Also a group of extreme Osrose worshippers called the Acolytes of Life have caused an amount of hassle in the local area.
There is still more to be written in the History of Foinaven.
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