All this year I’ve either been running or playing games set in the 20th century or the 1890s. I was hungering for some sword and sorcery but had been unable to find enough time to get work done on a couple of ideas I had for S&S. But this past week I could not get a scenario I’d dreamt up for our 1950s Psychic Spies game to work on paper. So, when in doubt turn to Garnett Elliott.
 
So, I turned to his scenario in the Sword and Sorcery Codex: ‘Wild Night in Ulthmar’. Inspired by Fritz Leiber’s tales of the Twain, it looked like a good one-shot to tide me over until my brain was working again. I ran it using BoL.
 
So Alison made a PC called Sparrow – a short brown skinned fugitive, a former slave from the other side of the sea, who escaped and became a sailor and was now a thief in Ulthmar. I gave her a ‘Allied NPC’ – Raven – a tall and beautiful female thief with long legs who was nearly a foot taller than Sparrow. Knowing Alison’s propensity to escalate conflicts I thought they might need some help, so enter Speizel the Philosopher – a pre-gen from an old scenario of Garnett’s who fitted right in. A bravo, duellist, remorseless killer of shark cultists, and sometime assassin; and like Sparrow a non-native of Ulthmar. Speizel and Raven had had an affair a while back which she was very keen re-ignite!
 
The game lasted 3 hours and it was a lot of fun. The visit to the Parlor of Peaceful Repose did not go well and there is an opening for a new sheep’s feet vendor on the streets of Ulthmar. The team came through the events of the night bloody but unbowed and had the grateful thanks of the authorities and a reward for freeing a captured niece of the Great Tyrant. Lady Chiaris was thankful for her release and for the team’s silence on certain matters which would wound her uncle. She hopes to put work their way in future.
 
Alison’s only complaint about the scenario was the inclusion Grivas the Rat. She hates rats on principle and currently we have a rat problem in our cellar! (I saw one yesterday – it was a big bugger!) Alison said to me, “Tell Garnett – no more rats please!”
 
We had a lot of fun, and is always the case with one-shots in our house, we will be returning to Sparrow and Raven (and probably Speizel) sometime very soon! 

I can recommend a visit to Ulthmar.