Dodushkun: Session 0

The System: Savage Worlds

The setting: Dodushkun, the City of Isles. On the coast of Lake Dannr, and the seat of power in the kingdom in all but name only, it's a huge city marked by structures left behind by whatever race inhabited the planet originally. Technology is equivalent to late 1700s, with guns being wide-spread, magic regularly studied but rare, and the feudal system drying up.

The player characters:

Saldo: The dashing, somewhat dumb kid, he's the youngest of the group at nine years old. Enjoys wrestling, and not much else.

Gorvis: A caster, he'd been on the streets for a year or so before getting caught breaking a minor law and getting entangled in the system. Used to living on his own. He's the oldest, at eleven.

Ingevla: The cousin-of-a-cousin of an aristocratic family, her parents died and she was put into the system instead of being put up with. Pragmatic in the extreme, and always willing to use her Imperial Citizen status and natural charm to get her way. She's the middle orphan, at a new ten.

The Non-Player Characters:

Mother Alvra: Young, pretty, and head of Mother Alvra's Home for Wayward Souls, she has recently purchased three orphans from the church for an unknown purpose. She seems well-liked by the people in the district, and is always treated with more respect than normally afforded people of her age.

We start with the orphans arriving at their new home. Mother Alvra gives them a short tour [1] of the orphanage before leaving them on their own with instructions to not burn down the (stone) building. After hearing her joke fall flat, she leaves on errands, saying she'll be back within the hour.

Left to their own devices, the orphans are a little unsure of what to do. After getting some short introductions out of the way, Gorvis asks Ingevla for a few of her hair-pins, which she surrenders because he's bigger than her. He immediately makes his way through the building and then wanders over to Mother Alvra's chamber door and tries picking the lock.

Ingevla shrugs, changes into her sleep clothes, and tries to take a nap.

While Gorvis is trying to pick the lock, several other orphans enter the building, though some cursory glances reveal that they obviously don't live there. The newcomers show confusion at someone else being there, and say they didn't know someone was already trying at the joint that day. After managing to convince the newcomers that yes, it was indeed Gorvis's turn to steal from the orphanage that day, they leave the three PCs a marking to follow if they want to know what the business is.

Gorvis goes back to trying to break the lock. Saldo, apparently still unsure of his new lot in life, sans-parents, stands around and eventually gravitates, naturally, towards the older boy.

Gorvis picks Alvra's lock and steals five marcs from her desk drawer. Saldo, feeling the stirrings of what might grow into that ever-elusive conscience, tells him to put it back. Gorvis, unimpressed, tries to push past.

Saldo isn't taking that shit. He successfully grapples the older boy in a headlock.

Hearing the commotion, Inge rises from her bed and goes to see what's up. Seeing the two older boys beating each other up, she begins to hit herself on the arm enough to bruise herself. After a few hits the absurdity of the situation sinks in, and Inge sinks to the ground, sobbing.

Meanwhile, Gorvis has managed to get himself untangled from Saldo's grapple. In an attempt to get the boy out of the way, he lashes out with his magic in an icy burst along the ground, through the mistress's doorway.

Saldo sees the motions and dodges to the side, leaving the sitting, sobbing, and bruised Ingevla directly in their path. The ice pierces her and she immediately starts bleeding onto the stone floor.

"Oh fuck," was stated, both in- and out-of-game, as Gorvis realizes that he almost killed Ingevla...just as Mother Alvra returns.

Alvra drops her things and rushes over, pushing the two boys out of the way. She manages to get Ingevla fixed up, who immediately begins sobbing. Alvra calls her on her bullshit and gathers the kids at one of the tables, after shooting them a knowing look after noticing her door is unlocked. She tells them she'll get them targets for their...aggressions, and makes them clean up the ice and blood.