Everway: The Fisher of Souls

At the Garden State Games Fair, I played in Bob Dushay's The Fisher of Souls for Everway. There were four players, doing a streamlined version of character creation -- we each got a pack of EW collectable cards (first set), and picked 3. Well, I picked 5, but I already knew what I was doing, since I was updating Mazes for Bob's game. I decided that he'd spherewalked to a place where folks rode mammoths (V45) and really hadn't been dressed for it, so he was teased and called Wears Lots of Furs. Then he got separated, attacked by a beastie (V75), rescued by another and taken to an odd temple (V65) where he met a sinister man in a grey robe (V50) who sent him roaming the spheres to find stuff for him, so he became Grey Robe's Finder, or just Finder. Since we were told that our pcs needed to have worked together before, I chose V25 to represent Finder hooking up with others.

Finder has Earth 7, Fire 5, Water 3, Air 4. We weren't playing with specialties. He had two powers: 0 points - Grey Robe could talk to him (but not vice versa) while he wore a special amulet. 1 point - he could ride any normal animal. Virtue: The Smith - Productivity. Flaw: Overlooking the Diamond. Fate: The Unicorn -- Purity vs. Corruption.

Bob cut the Q&A short when it was my turn, as I was the last, and I already had a clear idea of who Finder was. Josh created Clear River, the son of a human and a woman who was really a river. Animals could talk whenever Clear River was around. Matt Brockman (?) created Despair, a man who came from a gunpowederless, but otherwise fairly Renaissance-level tech sphere where he didn't fit in. A woman taught hiim how to spherewalk, and he became her lover for six years. Then she died of a horrible disease, and he took his present name. He also wears all of her jewelry. She died a year and half ago.

Finally, there was Lore, who could switch into a satyr-like form. His people worked for a woman called Whitefeather, who had a cat that was said to be her mate. She told his people to protect the humans who followed her, but Lore started to questions why things were as they were, especially after he saw some oddly stunted people who might be related to his people.

Originally, the player tried to buy the shift-to-nonhuman form, but this would have been expensive, so Josh suggested he do it the other way around: Buy shift-to-human form. Bob like this, and so did the player.

Bob asked how long we'd been together, and we agreed on two weeks. He commented that this seemed a short amount of time, and I said that what had probably happened was that we were all going the same way. Despair was moping. Lore was wide-eyed at this new world. Finder was collecting things, and ticking items off his list. Finally, Clear River said, "Hey, guys? You know how we all get up at the same time, walk along the same road all day, and stop at the same inn each evening? Why don't we travel together?"

Bob told us that we'd had at least one adventure in which another spherewalker, Trust Falcon (which I'd heard as Trussed Falcon), had been possessed by a wasting spirit, and there was one person who might know what to do. He asked who had been the closest to Trust Falcon.

Me: Clear River was the closest, but Despair probably feels the most guilt.

Clear River: So, we're going to see this guy.

Finder: We are?

Clear River: Yes.

Finder: Oh well. Maybe he can tell me where to find a cat with one green eye and one blue eye.

Despair: Enough talk. Let's go.

We learned that there was one group that might be able to help, but they were too far away. However, if we asked the people in a nearby sphere... Now, these people would trade for useful things and for well crafted things, so, with our friend dying of a wasting disease... We went shopping.

Finder purchased spoons with heads carved on them, cups with feet and claws, and similar carved dinnerwear. The others bought similar things, and we went through the Gate of Cats into another sphere.

The first people we met were little sprites talking about the evil ogre, Bonecrusher, the red herring of the scenario. They also mentioned that Grunder had some pretty that he wouldn't show anyone. That was a Clue, and one none of us remembered two seconds later. Finder clipped some holly for Grey Robe, and gave the sprites a bead for payment. They answered some of our questions, not very helpfully, and flew off.

We tried to find the human village and followed beautiful, sad music to a group of satyrs, male and female. They were very sad, which we knew was unusual. It seems that the humans were no fun anymore and didn't run away when they attacked. And they'd stopped making wine.

Finder and Clear Water (aghast and disbelieving): They've stopped making wine?!

Satyr: Hey! You're asking questions.

Satyr: You're new here, aren't you?

The satyrs charged. Finder figured that they wanted fun, and might be prepared to answer some of his questions if he obliged, so he slapped his horse on the rear and rode away, chased by the male satyrs. He made sure not to lose them, and called out questions as he ran. He was starting to get some useful answers when his horse fell in a bog. (Bob drew The Smith reversed.)

Bob said that Finder needed rope if he was to get the horst out again, and I showed him my character sheet. Before we'd started, under equipment, I'd written: "Lasso, more rope." And the satyrs helped Finder, once they'd caught up with him.

Back in the clearing, Lore jumped up a tree, changing to his non-human form, surprising the satyrs who backed off. Despair either drew his sword or moved his staff into a defensive position -- the gesture Matt made could have been either. The satyr women asked if he didn't find them at all beautiful.

Despair: You are indeed beautiful, but not as beautiful as she whom I lost.

He asked them to play the sad music again, but they weren't in a sad mood, and played a jig instead. Meanwhile, two female satyrs approached Clear River, who just waited.

Bob (to the players of Despair and Lore): Clear River disappears under eight female satyrs.

Josh: Eight? You said two.

Bob: Well, there were two at the beginning.

Lore: Do you need any help?

Clear River: Um, not yet.

Lore and Despair withdrew to discuss philosophy, Lore asking why Despair seemed so disgusted by the satyrs.

Despair: They are empty, even emptier than I am.

Meanwhile, a green being holding a glowing sphere appeared to the satyrs with Clear River, telling them to go away.

Satyrs: But, Grunder, we're just having fun!

Grunder: Fun is bad.

The satyrs and Grunder vanished, to Clear River's surprise.

Grunder then appeared to the satyrs who helped Finder and told them to go away, saying that humans caused all their troubles. Finder tried to ask what he meant, but Grunder and the satyrs had already vanished. Finder trekked back to the others, covered with mud.

Two notes on the satyrs. First, Bob commented that the portrayal of satyrs in Everway was G, and he stressed that these were not G-rated satyrs. Second, we all used our knowledge of satyrs when the pcs encountered them. Then again, the pcs were spherewalkers, and presumably, had met satyrs before.

Our Heroes headed downstream, looking for the human village. Clear River asked a baby squirrel where it was. Sucking its thumb, the squirrel pointed upriver.

Finder: I don't believe I just asked a squirrel a question. You'd better not talk to my horse!

(Bob did a fine imitation of a horse just pulled out of a bog, incidentally.)

We reached a fisherman who moved somewhat mechanically and answered questions the same way. Finder waved his hand in front of the fisher's eyes and was chilled to see that the fisher did not react.

Our Heroes followed the fisher's directions to the village, where most of the people were in the same state as the fisher. Those who weren't surrounded us, hailing us as heroes, asking if we were there to save them from the Fisher of Souls.

We agreed. I can't speak for the others, but Finder quickly grasped that the villagers couldn't help Trust Falcon unless they were saved, and anyway, he was chilled by the entire situation and would probably have tried to help anyway.

The Fisher was a giant who caught souls in his net. The few villagers who still had their souls hid in a howe each night. We followed them, but there was no way to get the horse down into the howe, a small area at the bottom of a fifty foot shaft of earth.

Finder had no intention of letting his horse's soul get stolen, and he'd learned from the villagers that Grunder was the Lord of the Wood, and had little to do with humans, and vice versa. Reasoning that the horse would be safest with Grunder, he unloaded everything from the horse and sent hiim into the woods.

Once everyone was in the howe, we realized that this was where the spirits of the ancestors of the villagers rested, and asked if they could ask these spirits for advice. They were dubious, but agreed to try the next day. This idea was forgotten, however. We also learned that the villager who could help Trust Falcon was currently soulless.

Finder offered to climb up the shaft to watch for the Fisher. That is, unless someone else wanted to do it instead.

Despair: I'll go.

Finder: No. I'll do it.

Clear River: I'll watch with you.

Finder: Fine. You, I trust to run if you have to.

On the one hand, it could be argued that I was using my knowledge from the Q&A session. On the other, the pcs had been through an adventure already, so it's not too improbably that Finder would know enough about Despair to worry about a possible deathwish.

I think we decided Finder would watch first, and then Clear River, but the Fisher came early on, and Finder climbed down to describe what he'd seen. The villagers confirmed that it was the Fisher. Then, we heard a digging sound, and dirt began to fall down the shaft.

Despair decided to climb out of the hole. Finder tried to talk him out of it. Then, he decided to use his lasso to stop Despair, but Bob pointed out that there wasn't enough space to use the lasso. Grumbling, Finder climbed up behind Despair.

Then, Despair fell, knocking Finder down and landing on top of him.

Finder: Despair, I don't mean to disparage your strategy, but would you mind getting off of me?

Despair obliged and got into a discussion or argument with the others about the wisdom of climbing up the shaft again. Finder took advantage of Despair's distraction to climb up the shaft himself.

Bob: So, what are you going to do when you get to the top?

Finder: Er, I haven't thought about that.

Bob: Better start thinking. You're almost there.

Finder climbed out and tried to look for some way to cover the howe up. Bob pulled a card: Energy Sapped. The Fisher saw Finder as soon as he climbed up and caught his soul in the net. Finder fell down the shaft again.

Despair climbed up part way, discovered that at the rate the giant was digging, it would take him five days to dig down the entire shaft. And he seemed to have lost the desire to do something really stupid.

Despair (climbing down): We can all hide in our hole. He won't reach us tonight.

The next day, the pcs set out for the Fisher's castle, Finder tramping along, sans soul. In game terms, this meant he followed orders, very literally, and all his stats dropped to 2.

The pcs found a fellow called Redcap fishing in the sea below the Fisher's castle. The name worried us, and we spent some time wondering if he might be the Fisher. He didn't seem at all like the Fisher, and he told us to watch out for the Fisher's hounds. Despair wondered why he seemed unafraid of the Fisher and asked if Redcap had a soul. Redcap only laughed.

Bob said that every other group used canoes to go out to sea, avoiding the hounds. However, someone - I think Lore's player - claimed that the kind of canoes we had couldn't really navigate in the ocean, and the rest of us took his word for it.

Jonathan Tweet had told Bob that the hounds needed beefing up. However, Bob ran them as he'd written them, and they were too much for us to handle. On the other hand, he intended to use one hound for every two pcs, and there were effectively three of us facing two hounds, which is a higher ratio than intended. Also, none of us had created a hero who was primarily a warrior.

Finder was no use of course. And, despite having a soul, he moaned in fear when the hounds arrived.

Bob: You are beside yourself, as much as a soulless person can be.

Clear River and Despair fought one hound, managing to wound it, which made it really mad. It grabbed Despair's leg at one point, which did not help. Lore tried to ride one off the cliff, but that didn't work. Bob kept drawing terrible cards for us.

Then, the hounds paused and withdrew.

Josh: Oh shit. This means that the gm realizes we're getting creamed.

It also meant that the Fisher was coming. Everyone, except Finder, of course, fled, going in different directions, as he couldn't get all of them that way. Bob drew a card which meant, roughly, that Murphy's Law was working overtime, and figured that this would most apply to Despair, so the Fisher stole his soul as well.

And then there were two.

Lore and Clear River convinced Redcap, who was really creeping us out, to loan us his canoe, which I gather could, sort of, handle being out in the ocean. I'm not sure if we used 2 canoes or if the soulless folk stayed on the shore. The Fisher came out, looked at the folks in the canoe, looked towards the village, looked at the folks in the canoe, and, to everyone's relief, headed for the village.

As soon as he was out of sight, Lore and Clear River went back to the shore, and led the soulless folks to the Fisher's castle. At this point, Bob said that Matt and I could make suggestions. We located the Fisher's bedroom, and found a jug containing all the souls. Lore and Clear River tried to pry it open, but this didn't work -- it was a huge jug, made of stone, and the stopper broke Despair's walking stick.

There was another room with an arch with handprints, and fish pictures on the wall. In the center was a marble depression/basin. This could be filled with water and used for scrying, but we didn't figure that out. Instead, Clear River and Lore tried to push the jug into the basin, sort of the equivalent of carrying a piano down one long spiral staircase and up another. They had made very little progress when the Fisher returned.

Luckily, he didn't have his net. And we never found the kennels for the hounds. Bob still isn't sure where the hounds come from. But Lore and Clear River didn't want to fight the Fisher, which was fortunate.

The Fisher looked extremely stupid, and communication was frustrating. He wouldn't give back the souls, although he didn't really want them. He was looking for something else, something that belonged to him, but he wasn't sure what it was. I suggested that it might be his soul, not sure I believed it, and that turned out to be the case.

Just then, we only knew that we were looking for something, but had no idea what it was. And the villagers had about 3 nights before the Fisher stole the last of their souls. He gave us 2 nights to find what he wanted, promising to free the souls if we did. Bob drew a card during the negotiations, Treachery, I think, but didn't interpret it literally. However, the Fisher absolutely refused to release even the souls of Despair and Finder until he had what he was looking for.

Frustrated, we wondered whom to ask for help. Grunder wasn't talking to humans.

Lore's player: Maybe we should talk to the ogre Bonecrusher.

Josh: Why?

Matt: He's the only one we haven't spoked to.

I pushed for Redcap, and they agreed.

Now, Redcap, as it turns out, did not have a soul. He was a faerie. But he hid from the Fisher in a hole, because if the net touched him, he would turn to dust. And he was Grunder's brother.

He listened to what the Fisher wanted, and heard about how Grunder thought fun was bad.

Redcap: That doesn't sound like Grunder to me.

Well, remember the sprites talking about Grunder's new pretty? Neither did we. Nor did we remember that Grunder was holding a glowing sphere. But Bob wanted to wrap things up as it was late and we were starting to fade. So, Redcap volunteered to talk to Grunder, and he went off and did this, returning with the glowing sphere.

Bob explained that he'd originally intended for the pcs to talk to Grunder, but one group he'd run the scenario for had said to Redcap, "You can convince Grunder better than we can. You're his brother -- you know him better." Redcap realized that they were right. So, Bob used the precedent set in an alternate universe.

The Fisher pushed the sphere into his chest, and a spark of intelligence showed in his eye as he received his soul back. He picked everyone up and walked to the village and broke the jug, releasing everyone's souls.

Lisa: So, Despair and Finder come to and see that they're being carried by the giant who stole their souls?

Once everyone calmed down, the Fisher presented the lower half of the jug to the villagers, telling them to use it as a cauldron. If it were half filled with food, it would fill itself the rest of the way, so they'd never go hungry. Then he left the sphere.

Finder mentioned wanting to trade for an amulet to heal Trust Falcon, but the villagers assured him that they were quite satisfied with what they already had, and made 3 amulets. We headed back for the gate, where we were met by Grunder and the satyrs. Finder was relieved to see that his horse was fine.

Grunder was greatful to us and announced that the faeries would be friends with the humans, and said that we could each pick something from a bunch of gifts. Bob said that we can use them in other campaigns, and he added one to his list -- a kitten with one green eye and one blue eye, since Finder was looking for it.

So, Finder got the kitten. Josh, Matt, and Lore's player were told to write down what they took. Unfortunately, they each wrote down the same thing: a lodestone that will always show the way to the nearest gate. There was only one of those. Oops.

Despair didn't have a problem with someone else getting that. After all, Lore and Clear River had just saved his bacon and his soul. (Josh, who did wind up with it?)

Despair took the three sleep darts, reasoning that he'd get at least three good nights of sleep.

As for player boons, Bob had four novels. He proceeded to boggle me by saying that Finder had done a very brave thing by going up the shaft.

Lisa (and Finder): Brave? It was stupid!

Bob: You saved Despair.

He decided that this qualified for first prize for role-playing, which I guess is as good a way to decide as any, since I think everyone was good. (I mean, how many groups are there at convention runs where players will philosophize at the drop of a hat? Matt and I had a sort of in-character discussion about the pros and cons of being soulless.) First prize, in this case, meant I got first pick of the books. I'd narrowed it down to two, and Josh took one of the ones I was considering. Realizing that I could borrow it from him, I took the other, and we asked Lore's player and Matt if that were okay. They confirmed that it was. Bob apologized for not having a copy of Everway to give away, but he let us keep our booster pack, our character sheets, and the guide to character creation.

I cannot describe the feeling of satisfaction at this game. It was like being given a cool drink on a hot day, or of being given a dish one had hungered for for a long time. I enjoy Matt Steven's pulp game very much, and I enjoy the rare sessions I attend of Leslie's games, but neither of them have the same style I do. Josh and I talked about it, and said of Bob, "He understands!"