Greetings, fellows!
I ran a game of Desolation on a German Con last week and here's the report.
I used the seven pre-generated characters Jamie sent me and the description of their talents and magic traditions on the second page were quite useful, though some of the players had their problems with the English language but it worked. The players especially liked the background stories of the characters and how they were linked to each other.
There were six players and the player character were:
Denner Khent, the Scavenging Dwarf
Esther LaVore, the Noble Sorceress
Krek of Kharhut, the Outcast Forester
Lem Ollender, the Ex-Legionnaire
Menelaris Covanalar, the Defiant Elementalist
& Tarl Ishrak, the Farmer with Faith.
The group arrived at the dead tree with the cages and fought off the attacking carrion reapers. They freed Tull and decided to rest at the crossroads. Tull fled during the fight. So they took a rest, cooked the dead creatures and decided to travel to Ridge River the next morning. They took Kal Chan who had served her sentence until then with them and finally arrived at Ridge River. They promised to help with the neromancer in the tower but as it was morning when they arrived they didn't stay the night in Ridge River. So I decided to let the warlander scouts arrive at midday. The group travelled on to Greeley's farm and found him and his mules dead/eaten. They fought off the attacking core delvers and finally reached the forest. As they realized that the skeletons were harmless they continued the path to the tower. There they found Crevin and talked to him. As they found out that he wasn't an evil necromancer they convinced him to help the village against the warlanders. Then they discussed for a long time about the right plan to defeat the warlanders and rescue the village. Finally they had a plan and some of them flew back to Ridge River with the help of magic (of course they landed somewhat before the village as they knew that the villagers were not the best friends of magic). There they convinced Kenly to withdraw the entire town population to the forest around the tower to fight off the warlanders using guerilla tactics. The riders would have their problems in the forest. I liked their plan so I decided that the village was still peaceful when they came back and that the warlanders were still on the march and didn't arrive at the village yet. So the villagers took all what they could carry and followed the characters to the forest. The other characters who had waited there already prepared traps and devensive works. They also tried to get the skeletons to the edge of the wood in order to frighten the arriving warlanders. Furthermore they took a dead core delver from Greeley's farm and impaled him at the edge of the forest. When the warlanders finally arrived they shot the chieftain from ambush and put the warband to flight.
The game session took much longer then I had planned (more than 5 hours) but it was in the late evening and we had the time. The player's feedback afterwards was very positive, they really liked the setting and the Ubiquity system. One of the players told me later that the Desolation session was his personal highlight at the Con. I was very glad about that! And one of them also asked where to buy the rulebook so I might have made some customers for you.
I'd say it was a full success and I think I'll run a game of Desolation at the next Con, too.
