What Child is This

Ran the first (of two or three) session(s) of Nate Treme’s holiday classic, What Child is This, using my “foldie” game, Peasant, for my three sisters and my wife.

I started the party right outside the dungeon in the north west of the hex map—the Tomb of the Owl Lord. They delved in, killed the giant roaches, and descended through the well of illusory sludge with a rope.

In the chamber below, they encountered my first change to the original adventure: I made the cultist into an evil Santa type figure. I also downgraded the spined devil to a second imp. They killed Santa, but not before one of the imps killed one of them. After donning his festive robe, the two devils obeyed a command to slaughter themselves upon the door leading down into the tomb proper, which unlocked it.

Below, they looted all the treasures from the sarcophagus. Then headed back up, stopping to explore the final room. The carpet ghost was annoyed by all the dust, but was appeased after they cleaned the carpet, telling them they could have it—I changed it into a carpet of traveling, which can’t fly but can scoot along the ground at a brisk walking pace.

Outside, it was night. A random encounter roll had them meet the three wise men characters. Stars rained from the sky. One particular blue star descended about a dozen miles to the south. They set out together to see what they could see.

That’s where we ended it, to be continued when I visit for Christmas. Everyone enjoyed the adventure and Peasant worked out pretty well.

Has anyone else played this one?

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Not very helpful at all, I’m afraid, but I read it a while ago, and now, inspired by your post, have put it on the calendar. (Any German speakers? One seat left…)

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Let us know how it goes!

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Yesterday was the day. We had a Barbarian with a supernatural affinity to fairies, a baker/martial artist and a halfling mage constantly practicing lightning bolts at the cost of her companions.

It was a short oneshot, 2,5 hours, so quite a straight affair, without great detours, let alone the dungeon. They met the witch Valzifak, who transformed the halfling into a toad for her impudence, but the Child performed a miracle giving her back their halfling form quite a while later.

Next up were some snake devils. The group were ingeniously carrying two babies, one of which was a stone dummy, so they killed one of the devils with a stone throw, and the baker/martial artist folded another snake into a pretzel-type knot. Quite sensibly, the third devil fled.

They circumvented the robbers in the forest with the help of a fairy friendly to the barbarian. The fairy demanded a tooth in return, but they were unwilling to trade one of their own.

So after they later defeated the Barlgura at Cortezia (with the help of a barrel of lamp oil and some wizardly fireworks, I should add), they removed one of its teeth and hastened back to the forest to pay off the faery.

We all had a good time.