Guards of Traitor's Toll: The Hunt For "The Phantom"

Finally, at long last, I've got everything I need to play Guards of Traitor's Toll painted and ready to roll. Well, sort of: some of the buildings are not quite what I would have preferred to use (the Dwarven Forge stuff is perfect for RPG play, but very square and boxy for more cinematic play), but that's a problem for another day! 

Sit down and lend your ear (well, your eyes in actuality, but you get the point) while I regale you with a tale concerning the Wineskins. . .and their hunt for the Phantom! 

--

Captain Broln sighed as he put his helm on and slammed down the visor, as though the act of putting a thin sheet of iron between his face and the world would hide his obvious displeasure. Any who knew him could tell in an instant that he was annoyed, and he knew that. Guardsman Donns said it was the way he "hussl'd" when he was anxious, but Broln suspected it was more the fact that he became almost painfully curt when his mood turned foul that gave him away.

"His Lordship gave you a tongue-lashing, eh?" Sergeant Amwyth asked as she saw her captain burst through the door of the watchhouse. "Yes," Broln replied, turning his head to and fro as he looked down the street, almost as if he wasn't sure which way to go. "'Bout that Phantom fellow, yeah?" Amwyth followed up, her raven hair pulled back in a ponytail that made her gaunt face and half-hooked nose look all the more severe. 

"Yes," Broln replied, "get everyone. Now. We're meeting at Lion's Square. No, off it a little: meet by the well near to the brothel." Amwyth let out a single, miniscule sigh before nodding, knowing that the best thing to do when her captain was in a foul mood was to follow orders. 

The next bell hadn't even rung yet before Broln and the nine guards under his command met in a loose circle around the well near to the brothel off Lion's Square, where more than one drunkard had taken a bath over the years. "Cap'n-" Guardsman Donns began, but he was cut off by Broln's upraised hand. "We are patrolling Lion's Square today. All of us. His lordship insists we show the so-called Phantom that the guards of Traitor's Toll will not sit idly by while he works his mischief." 

"I heard the phantom was a woman," Guardsman Etheril quipped as he ran a finger along his bowstring. The elf, older than the oldest of the Wineskins by a century, was fond of interjecting rumor wherever he could, something which had landed him in trouble more than once. 

"A fine lookin' one too, 'sposedly," Guardswoman Jonna added from beneath the cowl she wore in both fair and foul weather alike, "Pelk says she's got an arse that you could-" 

"His lordship says this Phantom is likely an illusionist of some sort," Broln interrupted, "so bloody well keep your eyes out for anyone suspicious, fine bottoms or otherwise. And keep a cool head: if I have to report to his lordship that any of you lot riled up the citizenry, I'll have you polishing every damned breastplate in the city. Twice. Now get out there and spread out: folk should see we're out in force today."

As the assembled guards meandered out of the courtyard next to the well and into the streets leading towards Lion's Square, Guardsman Llark hurried to keep pace with Serjeant Amwyth, whom he decided needed a little company. "S' like we're doing one of those. . .wossit called, 'shows of aufority?'" the man whispered to Amwyth. "Aye," she agreed, "coincounters likely think there'll be no trouble if so many of us are struttin' about." 

"You fink there will be?" Llark asked, his hand unconsciously drumming the head of the mace looped through his belt. "Knowin' our luck? Aye."

---

Turn 1: 

As tends to be the case with most of my games of Guards of Traitor's Toll, turn 1 consisted of scattered guards around the edges of the table rolling frantically to patrol anywhere useful (usually towards the objective-dense center of the board). Things were poised to be quiet. . .too quiet, in fact! 

A quiet morning in Lion's Square. Will the Phantom appear, or will he (she? they?) cower with so many guards about?

A cry went up in the center of the market. Voices crying "the Phantom! It's the Phantom!" rang out through the morning air, though no guards were close enough to discern whom might be the source of the panicked shouts of the nearby townsfolk. The identify cards yielded that one of the two entertainers was the suspect, but until my guards investigated it was impossible to tell which. 

The snake-dancer and the peg-legged musician approach the peddler. Was it he who first noticed there was something off about them?

Meanwhile, Guardsman Pelk ambled towards one of the other significant figures identified by a plot card, a seer. The Wineskins could pay him for a fortune telling, but being short on coin (something which would not be alleviated during this game at all) the mysterious magician would have to go without Pelk's patronage. 

Seer: "Good guard, if my golden statue does not catch your eye, mayhaps I might part the veil of  the uncertain future for you?" 
Pelk: "Not now, magician. I'm keepin' me eyes peeled for some Phantom or another."

In short, turn 1 ended with the major plot in play and a seer sighing as he failed to win any coin from the guards. Guardsman Pelk was very close to the Phantom(s), but his Wits of 2 (lowered from 3 thanks to his Thug trait) meant that he was also absolutely the wrong man for the job.

Turn 2: 

Predictably, Pelk failed to discern a damn thing about the two entertainers. To make things worse, the suspects split up and the suspect token moved from the flute-player in blue to the peddler. I shall spoil the secrets of this plot card no further, but suffice it to say this is not a simple mystery to untangle!

Pelk might have shouted "WOT'S ALL THIS THEN?!" with all his heart, but it gained him naught.
 

Elsewhere on the board (in fact, just a few inches away from the still-being-investigated snake dancer), a little halfling lass dropped her spellbook and looked around frantically. Clearly realizing she couldn't hold back the spell she'd just read, she turned towards a nearby building and blasted the wall with a cone of arcane ice. The guards has an uncontrolled amateur mage on their hands!

Mage: "I-I can't control it! Everyone, stay back!"
Luckily, her random scatter roll resulted in her facing the corner of the building, which she painted with a blast of ice. A little bad luck and she might have shot the spell off into the market, and that would be real trouble!

Besides some repositioning, the guards didn't get up to much this turn. The only good news? At the end of turn 2, the remaining off-table guards (including Captain Broln) were ready to come into play. And it just so happened that there was a spawn point (called "side-street markers") just a few inches away from the spell-hurling halfling. . .

Captain Broln, Guardsman Etheril (the elf archer) and Captain Hrolgan (the halberdier) hear the shouting and spellcraft just around the corner, and they know what must be done.

Turn 3: 

This turn was a poor show all around. On the opposite end of the board from the rampaging mage and the reinforcements, Sergeant Amwyth repositioned in an attempt to approach the Phantom (one of them, anyhow), while Guardsman Llark decided that the corner of the table was in awful need of his attention. Cowardice? Incompetence? Hard to say.

Guardsman Llark crossed through the broken fence. Perhaps he believed the Phantom might be hiding around the corner? Either way, he wouldn't get relevant in any of the turns to come.

Meanwhile, the reinforcements tried their darndest to subdue the out-of-control halfling mage. Despite outnumbering her three-to-one and having the captain on hand, they achieved precisely nothing.

As luck would have it, the mage didn't get to act this turn. Not that this moment of exhausted inaction was capitalized on by the wineskins, who fail to subdue the tiny (and unwitting) menace.

Fate also determined that two more plot cards emerged. The old guard tower in one corner of the board groaned: something inside was about to collapse! Despite rushing a mighty eight inches towards it, Guardsman Kollis didn't make it in time, and the "something" in question gave out. Good thing that wasn't our guardhouse, eh? My headcannon is that it was an old tower, half rotted on the inside, that the Wineskins left long ago.

Kollis couldn't even be faulted for this one. Being able to reach the objective in one turn was already a long shot, and the very corner of the table (where a token was before the collapse happened) was just out of his reach when the dice said "nah, you do only get one turn to solve this one, loser!"

The second plot card? A random civilian collapsed, and the dice said it was once again the entertainer in blue. She's having an exciting day, isn't she?

Moments ago, she was a suspect. Now? The poor flute-player might be a victim. It'll be up to Sergeant Amwyth to figure out what's happened.

Finally, the peddler passed his suspect token to the haggard-looking fellow nearby. That means the snake-dancer and the vagabond are the two Phantom suspects at the end of turn 3!

On the up-side, one of my two-guard patrols managed to make it near to the beggar. Guardswoman Jonna and Guardsman Donns, figure it out, eh?

Turn 4: 

A sudden flurry of activity saw the Wineskins finally getting their act together. . .sort of. The mage situation was resolved when Etheril pushed her to the ground (gracefully: he is an elf and a gentleman, after all), only for Captain Broln to kick the hell out of the still-miscasting mage until her spells went silent. Brutal, but effective, I'm sure you'll agree. With his second action, Broln commanded Etheril to "take her away," giving us our first coins of the scenario for both completing a plot and taking a suspect into custody. We even got a Potion of Strength (likely taken from the mage as "evidence" or the like), though the captain did not find an occasion to use it in this game.

The one-two punch of pushing a suspect to the ground and having a nearby guard subdue them is effective, but forces you to really cluster your guards together. 

Sergeant Amwyth checked on the collapsed musician, who turned out to have been mugged. Given that the whole scenario was about the Phantom, I declared to myself that the Phantom (who might have been right next to her at some point) had stolen from her. She undoubtedly collapsed when she turned too quickly to check if she'd dropped her coinpurse, her pegleg slipping on the morning dew coating the cobblestones beneath her (or something like that, anyway). Still, that's another plot in the bag! 

Speaking of the Phantom, both Guardsman Donns and Guardsman Pelk managed to pass their investigation rolls, and neither found the bastard! Again, without spoiling the plot card, this is possible, as the suspect tokens move around quite dynamically. The Phantom was living up to their name, and was not possibly a dwarf. Or a another beggar-sort. Sheesh.

In just one turn, the suspect tokens practically rushed across the table! In the bottom-right, you can see Pelk finally passing an investigation roll, confirming the innocence of the snake-dancer at last!

Donns: "Right, you look non-spiritual enough: off you go." 
Beggar: "Non-spiritual? I pray every day, friend!" 
Donns: "Not what I meant, mate. Nevermind."

Just as it seemed things were going well enough, save for the whole Phantom situation, the sound of a very indignant-sounding man were heard near the brothel. A rabble rouser, the paunchy old noble (who had been speaking with a courtesan out front for most of the game), was going to be trouble. The guards needed to arrest him. . .quickly.

"See! See! A Phantom walks among us, and these blustering fools can do nothing to protect us! Wineskins? I call them wine-sotted!"

Turn 5:

This was the last turn of the game, and the gains of the previous turn were all snuffed out in one fell swoop. On one end of the board, the newly returned Guardsman Etheril managed to identify which of the two suspects was the Phantom, but his efforts but neither he nor Guardsman Pritts (who had been doing nothing all game) managed to subdue the nimble ne'er-do-well. 

To add insult to injury, Pritts knocked down the nearby blacksmith while charging in, which gave us a point of discontent. Also, you can see Pelk just out of the action. He wouldn't join the fray in time, naturally.

As for the rabble rousing noble, the guards closed in on him and began the process of trying to subdue him. It didn't go well: despite getting some good hits in and bloodying the man (twice!), the gaggle of heavy-handed guards couldn't seal the deal. One imagines the locals looked on, shocked by the scene and perhaps feeling sympathy for the message the shrieking, battered nobleman continued to cry from the ground. Oh, and in the process of joining the fray (or trying to, rather) Donns managed to knock down the beggar he'd just finished questioning. This was actually the result of a desperate gambit: I was so far behind on completing the plots that I had to subdue the rabble rouser right away, or lose the game.

"Look! They cannot even subdue me! How will they stop the Phantom, I ask you?!" 

Turns out, I lost the game. 

The Aftermath

When all was said and done, I had five outstanding discontent (two of which came from the guards knocking civilians over) and two coins to my name. This essentially means I finished with a score of. . .-3.

A resounding loss!

The Rabble Rouser and the Phantom both escaped, doubtlessly to continue plaguing Traitor's Toll in the coming days.

I had a good bit of fun with this scenario, and intend to play again in the coming months (it's been heckin' busy of late). When I do, you can bet I'll have the Wineskins on high alert. . .for the Phantom.

The only guards who accomplished anything of note: Jonna, Etheril, Captain Broln and Sergeant Amwyth. While his lordship is sure to berate them for their failures, they really did try their best.