A Return to Milham

Some months have passed in the town of Milham and the character of the place has changed somewhat since the plague.  Perhaps one third of the population has died or left, and although the disease has abated for the most part, it will be a long time until industry and trade return.  The surrounding manses that provided food and jobs have turned inward either to deal with their own losses or to protect themselves.  The price of food is five times what it was in the spring and with no harvest coming, it will continue to rise.   Those now residing in the city are the unemployed field workers or poor craftspeople without means.  Many of the remaining townsfolk are sick and hungry   There are few homeless however, most of the town houses stand empty and squatters have taken up residence in the homes of those dead or otherwise moved on.  Those still living in their homes no longer recognize their neighbours and the handful of city watchmen who remain no longer patrol the streets at night.  Milham is a meaner and colder place than it was.

And so it was that when Kane the mage came to Milham by the north gate he was greeted by a lone guard who told him to return to the north.  Kane was seeking word of his brother the mage Halloway who had come to the southlands some many months ago in pursuit of adventure and riches.  His search of the town led him to the Scarlet Archer inn and to a pair of capable mercenaries, Henril of Butterbridge and Anistanja the Traveller.  Also along the way he couldn't manage to avoid hiring a very insistent porter/guide who, despite having a very low intellect, knew a meal ticket when he saw one.

I'm not sure how much the players were excited to get back to playing Beacon or returning to the town of Milham after almost a year, but I was pretty excited to be back running a game in this environment.  I did dabble a little in the setting when I was camping, but I was interested to see what my regular group would do with the rules changes.  I was also interested to see who would take the option to create new characters and who would make the changes in HP and Skill selection to translate their old characters from the previous version we'd been using.   So we got a chance to roll some dice and try out the new combat system and I got a lot of good feedback.  And that's great because it was fun, and it gives me stuff to write about here.