Session One

Jon E, Q, Chris D - Ian, Math, Tony

Once upon a time there was a Troll named Anthony Rockheart. He lived in the Isle of Wight, and was an honest soldier in the Counts' Guard. Tragically he was accused of a crime he did not commit, so he chose to flee into exile, leaving the Baron angered. He travelled across to the mainland on the ferry, and hitched north, sleeping his first night away from his homeland in a field outside Devizes. At dawn he woke, shouldered his rucksack, and walked to the road, planning to hitch anywhere the Dan (fate) took him.

He had only been waiting a few moments when fate arrived in the form of a student riding a powerful motorbike. The student was actually a Sidhe noble by the name of Sir Math ap Eiluned, who was in the mundane world a Folklore student at Devizes College. Seeing a fellow in need he stopped to assist as he was geased to do. The noble explained his Quest; it was to ride to a village in East Anglia named Woolpit to examine ancient legends of two green children who apparently appeared to mortals in the village in the 13th Century. The troll swore himself to the adventure, and together they set forth, the massive troll riding pillion on the huge motorbike.

Their journey was interrupted on the outskirts of Bury St Edmunds when they were pulled over for speeding by a police patrol car. Fortunately Sir Math was able to use his command of cantrips (fae magic) to convince the policeman to let them go on with his journey, though both police officers seemed very interested in Rockheart. It became clear that he had a surrealistic quality about him, which attracted the attention of mundanes; this is a dangerous curse for any changeling.

On shattering the peace of the sleepy village of Woolpit by riding in on the bike they parked by the beautiful churchyard, and failed to notice for sometime the Cat-Pooka who was performing juggling tricks to a bunch of mundane children and tourists on the green. The Pooka, whose name was Ian, noticed them however, and quickly ended his act. They introduced themselves to him; he said he had seen many, many changelings in the village and had been there a very long time, weeks in fact. They immediately guessed he was lying!

At this point two mortal children got interested in Anthony, and a small crowd of children gathered round, talking to him. The annoying distraction was quickly forgotten however when suddenly the sound of howling wolves was heard, though only by changeling ears - it became obvious a chimerical hunt was running swiftly into the village. The changelings ran for cover - the Churchyard. Ian would not enter the church, but leapt via cantrip onto the roof of the porch. The Troll and the Knight stood below, hefting axe and sword and grimly waiting for the wolves.

There were nine of them; great hulking beasts with dark grey pelts and burning red eyes, and they split into three groups of three, encircling and then closing on their prey. Just as they reached the Kithain they stopped, jaws slavering, ready to pounce, but called off by a knight in full plate armour on a mighty war-horse who rode up to the churchyard, followed by his squire, a young boy, also mounted. The pair dismounted, and strode over. The Knight, Sir Roderick, called on the three strangers in the realm to surrender; they did so.

Meanwhile the Pooka, Ian, claims he noticed a tiny man with the head of a sparrow in a monks robe, some six inches tall, cleaning the window inside the church, and had a conversation with him. Ian doesn't like churches much, and who can believe a Pooka?

Having been introduced formally to Sir Roderick, Master of the Hounds, the troupe learnt it had been arrested by order of the Countess of West Suffolk, Her Excellency Isobel, and were required to accompany Sir Roderick and his squire Owain to court. They rode, the Pooka on Owain's horse, for a couple of miles, until they came to a farm, and there they found an austere freehold, with spartan furnishings. The only feature of interest in this small room at one end of the barn was a large wooden trapdoor, some nine feet across, made of oak and ornately carved. Sir Roderick explained it was the gateway to a trod; before opening the road he sent Owain to fetch refreshments and asked the prisoners to eat well and prepare themselves for the journey. He performed a divination with tarot cards; the omens were bad, and he forbade Owain to accompany the group.

Then, while the troupe stood outside and ate and conversed with Owain, he opened the trod (a fairy road). They went in again, and found the pit open, a spiral stone staircase descending through drifting indigo fog. Sir Roderick led, then came Sir Math, Ian and finally Anthony, guarding the rear.

They marched through a dream landscape of pine forests and gently falling snow, with a starlit sky above. The way was marked with a silver path, and Sir Roderick warned under no circumstances were the Kithain to stray off the path, or stop moving, or worse still step backwards. They hurried down the trod; Sir Roderick informed them it emerged back into the mortal world in Bury st edmunds, at the Court of the Countess of West Suffolk.

Just then the path began to shimmer, and then blister and writhe like a diseased toad, the silver turning a corroded yellow. Ahead of them on the trial appeared a frightening chimerical monster; a huge black cat, with scrawny fur hanging in clumps from leprous yellow skin, eyes like a bluebottle, and a vile scabrous yellow forked tongue which flicked out like a snake. It was clearly no normal dream chimera, but a corrupt creature of nightmare; and it attacked. Sir Math and Tony stood their ground; they did not slay it, but wounded it and suceeded in driving it off

Meanwhile, despite his warnings, Sir Roderick had left the trod. Ian turned and fled, fleeing the nightmare creature, fell of the trod and immediately became lost in the dreaming. It was only luck that he stumbled into Roderick; Ian claims he saw a ruined homestead, recently destroyed, here in the dreaming - but who trusts a Pooka?

Eventually the party arrived safely in Bury, though Sir Roderick was wounded by banality and a nother nightmare cat he had encounter3d while off the trod. Roderick had never seen anything like the cats before...

The three Kithain emerged from the trod, to be greeted by Grot the Troll and other troll guards. They were immediately incarcerated in dungeons, on a charge of High Treason. Asking how they could be guilty of this, Grot replied cryptically - 'you are not - yet!'

End of session one.

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CJ '99