My All-Women Campaign Kicks Off

So! That game. First session went fairly well. One of the players was expectedly late, one was unexpectedly late, and another didn't show up as well, but we still made characters, came up with some starting backstories, and played enough for them to decide on and prepare for their initial expedition into the wild.

Currently the roster consists of:

Helene, Elf 1 -- Exiled from her people for reasons currently unknown.

Sister Amalia, Cleric 1 -- A native of the port city to the north, Kythrea, who left when her researches led her to the cult of the archangel Inara, Lady of Morning, one of the many such cults banned by the city's Sorcerer-Tyrant.

Skeltinath, Fighter 1 -- Another native of Kythrea, who abandoned the city's petty tyranny in favor of freedom! And also treasure.

Sun, Fighter 1 -- A mermaid princess who sold her voice to a sea-witch to become human, so she could avoid the responsibilities of mermaid princess-hood. She's since had a bit of a hard time in human lands, and is prone to starting fights with shady men in bars.

I printed out an extra copy of the character creation info (the first 30-something pages of the PDF) which helped quite a bit. Especially since the Lamentations of the Flame Princess book starts out with a handy, step-by-step explanation of what to do in character creation. I probably should have also printed out a couple extra copies of the equipment list, so that everyone could have had one to peruse. At some point I need to get around to making a list specifically for Stormwatch, or whatever town they spend the most time in, that includes some items from And a 10' Pole. But for now I'm too lazy for that.

They ended up deciding that they hadn't known each other before they arrived in Stormwatch, and all met in a tavern, the Unquiet Cat. I pointed out that, all being women travelling alone and looking for adventure, they actually all had a fairly good reason to seek out each other's company, and they seemed pretty happy with that as an explanation for why they ended up at the table together. I'd handed them each a few clues to some of the adventuring site's I'd outlined in my notes, and they chatted about that and eventually decided to go for the one that Sun had heard contained a huge, possibly cursed, ruby. Then they picked up some extra equipment for the expedition, and we're all set to start the next session off with some dungeon-delving.

They seemed a bit hesitant about how exactly to begin -- only Sun and Helene spontaneously shared the clues they had -- and I probably nudged them a bit too much in response because I wanted to get that section figured out and out of the way before we wrapped up for the night. In the future, I'm going to try to give them more time to work things out on their own, and give them time to dither a bit if that's what they need to do.

Sun also started a fight with a guy in the bar, which gave us the opportunity to demo the combat system. I wish I'd had the presence of mind to orchestrate a slightly more involved combat, with more of the group involved, and to particularly to get to the point of someone being "knocked out" so they could see how easy it is to get to zero hit points. But they'll figure it out fairly quickly once they get into the dungeon, and several of them do have enough old school D&D experience to know at least that combat is pretty deadly.

Next time: the mysterious ruin of Phra Chedi Nam, which may or may not contain a giant cursed ruby!