[Celjabba]

I ran the game this WE.

I followed on Phil Masters suggestion and made a party of 25pts travellers who took a wrong turn in a backward area in the mountains between NoThingfjord and Genua.

Party was
-a farmer on his way to deliver eggs to a valley where a mysterious plague kill poultry.
-his talking horse associate (with a rather high merchant skill).
-an agatean tourist (with camera).
-an Ecksecksecksecks backpacker.
(both joined the farmer to travel to the next village as a group in the rather dangerous area).
There was also a young 'rebelious' dwarf and a travelling menestrel, but those pre-rolled characters were not selected.

It was scheduled as a beginner game (even if most players were actually quite experienced).
Everyone had fun, I believe. I certainly did :)
The player who took the talking horse did an amazing job in setting up the tone and interacting with the others players.

Story summary:
-The players got lost. (Planned, but a critical fail by the farmer mean I didn't even had to fudge it)
-They had a close encounter with a group of wolves but managed to scare them away with a hastily made fire, torches, an intimidating prancing horse and a nicely aimed arrow.
(the tourist did smash some of the farmer eggs with a misthrown stone ... On the good side, he made some amazing pictures).
-They ran away and found shelter at a isolated manor house whose light shone nearby.
--The manor had a Poultry farm on the side, with mad inventor mechanics (wheels, levers, ramps, ...) to distribute feed and collect the eggs. And an nice collection of lifelike statues of wild animals (and one human aristocrat) in the lawn near the poultry cages.
-They were welcomed by an Igor Butler (the manor master, M. GenTso, a naturalist having been AWOL for a while.)
-The Igor led them to guest bedchambers (and stable), drawn them an hot bath, and announced he would fix a chicken soup supper.
-Severals players did attempt to explore the manor houses non-guest areas, and encountered the Igor making a discreet cough from just behing them and informing them of the correct location of the dinner room.
-However, the time set for the supper came and go, and no supper. Investigating a burning smell form the kitcheen, they found no Igor.
-They did found a nice statue of an Igor in front of the chicken cages.
-They also notoced that the human staue next to it looked exactly like the latest portrait in the manor gallery.
-They deduced that the Igor had been petrified, and verified the theory by trying to open a closed door in the manor. When the Igor failed to appear at their back, they knew.
-They found barrels of stone eggs, deduced that M. GenTso had developed chickens that laid stone eggs for easy storage and transport, and that he, the Igor and various animals got petrified.
-By examining the kitcheen and a good use of serendipity, they found that vinegar reversed the transformation.
(they unfortunately never managed to force open the doors to GenTso study or lab).
-The horse had great plan from a commercial empire based on producing stone eggs, but an unpetrified GenTso had to confess that he never managed to get a stone egg to hatch, and that soon their would be no more "Poulatrix" chicken-cockatrix hybrid left. (And getting another cockatrix to make new ones was not easy).
-The matter of the escaped Poulatrix throwback with an actual petryfying gaze was not settled, as time ran short. (and nobody wanted to go hunting for it anyway...)

It was short, easy, silly and fun ...