Reavers! Grand Retrospective.
I have ran Reavers since the start of last summer when I had finished my Alfheimr campaign and Canyon asked me if I was willing to co-GM wolves. I am glad he did it really improved me as a GM and led to some of my all time favorite TTRPG memories.
In total Reavers ran from our first session on September 9, 2022 when it was just myself and 2 other players in a boat with Canyon sicking a Griffon (called the Gryps) on us and stealing our sheep. We landed on shore and traded tools and sheep with local men of iron in exchange for information about the surrounding area. With the information we received we managed to draw this super early map of a very rough outline of Ruislip and the west coast of Albann. Little did we know the stories that would come out of this.
From that first session we did a total of 88 scheduled sessions of which 9 where scrapped due to scheduling issues or GM cancellation for a variety of reasons. So 79 sessions fired with dozens of players having played in the campaign.
We radically transformed the world that Luke Gearing crafted for us. The island of Ruislip has only a single one of its named NPCs still surviving 6 settlements having been destroyed (with Dorbog having been rebuilt) and that is just in the "demo area" of the game.
We ended up with several players having been turned into powerful NPCs or monsters by the end with Shepherd being the most noteworthy. Played by Patrick this character was alive from session 1. He started with not much too him but a herd of sheep and through a year+ of tribulations he killed a stone horse that sinks ships by ripping out its tongue and making a sacrifice of it to a Demon God. He now stands in Contin as the Shepherd of Onthloug's flocks 3 tongues lolling from an Ogreish face. Stealing the tongues of every man and woman that journeys north of Guthrem as tribute with his few remaining sheep with mouths like wolves and a taste for flesh.
Not every character survived of course. We had a total of 23 PC deaths or disappearances (one is secretly an ogre commanding the orcneas of Ruislip). The most glorious and painful of which was one I GMed for. Played by Lewis we watched his 6 boast PC named Aymeri who was sent to seek the Druids of Albann fall victim of his own hubris. He fought the Martyr of Onthlough in a ruined monastery deep in the Moerheb Weald. His body ripped asunder by he who was the first king of Albann and the saint who brought Christianity to its shores. Now around his dismembered bones crawls a dozen dry tongues of those monks who fell on the fall of that first kingdom.
A few things I noted running this game is that very few PCs ended up becoming spellcasters. I love the way that Wolves makes magic feel dangerous and forbidden. The terrible things a man (or woman) must do to embrace magic just makes it outside the comfort of most and even can lead to some ostracizing of PCs in the open table party itself. A major example of this was when my long running PC Lirann (long before he silenced the Screaming Rock and rebuilt Dorbog) wanted to seek a subtle spirit for the sake of gaining access to magic he had to venture south beyond known lands to a desert haunted by a woman whos sight turned men to stone. To find the spirit he killed a dog and put children in peril in a city where druids are burnt to gather rats and mice and all sorts of rodents to make a rattle that showed him the way. He then led men across this desert and even when one turned to stone and supplies ran low he promised all his money from slaying a dragon to men who had little in order to convince them to carry onward against their own self interest. He then pried an eye from his own skull to make a home for an echo that then lived with him until he became Lord of Dorbog and he set it up in a temple (in what was once a Manticores Cave) where people bring it fine works of art in hope it will heal them.
All of these stories where some of my favorite things about running this game. They made me actually feel things and made incredible moments. The great moments in this game made me actually decide to write a zine with Canyon to help people run this game and see what Wolves is about to us at least.
I just have to say to anyone wondering if they should pick up Wolves Upon the Coast to do so. It is an incredible game and Luke made a masterpiece with it.
Thank you to all my players and friends that helped make this campaign happen.
Overland Map of Reavers following the loss of the Reavers West Map. The players never rediscovered Dorbog.
Map of the Isle which filled a 15 session long arc of what the campaign was doing up until Aymeri left seeking Druids.
