Black Hart

To Kill A King

DM's Notes: Chapter 2 - Aftermath

Hopefully the horror of a field hospital, inspiration courtesy of 'Dances with Wolves', 'Sharpe's Sword' and 'Zulu', comes out here. The parallels between Eloi and Akhan's initial fates are interesting, and not entirely unintentional.

Akhan's Eye was intended to provoke reactions from others, PC's and NPC's alike. Would the immoral Eloi be able to resist having it flaunted in front of him all the time without even thinking about stealing it? Would people react in horror to the half-elf with an emerald (and a big one at that) in his eye socket?

I took particular fun in relieving Eloi of all his treasures - Stuart had been most happy at the amounts of money I gave to Eloi. It was fun seeing his realisation that even though he was immensely rich all the money was behind 'enemy lines' and he could not use it. I guess I have a sadistic streak :-)

Bermen's background is a classic tragedy of epic proportions. One thing I wondered was, given the choice, who would Bermen have, Eldrave or Ehlonna? Probably we will never know, since the players 'retired' their secondary characters at the end of 'To Kill a King'.

In developing JP, Stuart and I had originally discussed him having a 'crisis of faith' due to the misery and overpowering evil that surrounded him. Somehow this never transpired.

Niole Dra is based, from the 'canals' angle, on Amsterdam, although it looks nothing like that city. One great loss of mine during the many accidental erasures from my hard drive that have haunted me, is a bitmap of the city of Niole Dra that I made quite early on in the campaign. I really liked it and put a lot of effort into it. Bugger!

One point of note that may be seen is that the Earl Holmer of Walworth is not dead/captured IMC - this is solely down to the point that I have never owned FtA and had no knowledge of its events at that point in time.

A bit of trivia nobody has ever mentioned is that Akhan and Eloi actually recuperated in the same temple, a few rooms apart.

There was still a lot of 'setting up' in htis chapter, but the party are getting closer to unity, most of them anyway. JP took a while longer because initially it was only Stuart and I that played. Stuart got bored hanging about ND waiting for the others to start playing (first Colin then Peter) by e-mail, so I packed JP off west to help fight the Hordes. After a couple of large-scale skirmishes everything was up and running and he came back to the fold.