“Death of Legends is a dark-fantasy roleplaying game that tells the story of epic deeds against great odds.
Twenty years have passed since the Enemy was defeated and its armies vanquished.
Twenty years since a small group of heroes rose from obscurity to become the stuff of legends, turning the tide of battle.
Twenty long years of peace and prosperity.
But now there are rumours that the Enemy has returned.
War is coming and nobody knows who can be trusted.
This is the story of the last great war against the Enemy.
This is the story of the Death of Legends.”—DriveThruRPG
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The following session report written by Tariq Ali, and was published on January 8th 2021.
It was one conversation between two brothers that saved the Free Territories from The Enemy. To untrained ear, it was an idle chat about gameplay mechanics.
But I had trained ears.
In another dimension, I used to play Mafia extensively, so when we learnt during gameplay that there was a Traitor within the newly-formed Council of Legends trying to undermine the war effort against The Enemy, I leaped at the opportunity. There was a chance that we could have retconned reality so that there was a chance of a traitor, rather than 100% certainty of a traitor, but I loved Mafia so much that I rejected the possibility of a treason-free Council. Bring on the witch-hunts.
In Mafia and its many variants, there are two major factions: the Uninformed Majority (Town), and the Informed Minority (Scum). For the Uninformed Majority to win, they must try to get as much information as possible. That means paying attention to cues and behaviors from other people, to identify Scummy traits that may indicate that they belong to the Informed Minority.
In this dimension, the Informed Minority is the Traitor and the Uninformed Majority is Everyone Else. My job is slightly easier than Mafia, as I don’t really need to find The Traitor – just someone trustworthy. But it is also harder because deaths don’t happen that often, so you can’t really gather more information just by randomly lynching people and seeing what their roles are.
As this game mechanics was new to me, I couldn’t really focus on looking for tells within the gameplay. So instead, I looked at metagame behavior and dialogue between the various people in the game, looking for any clues that might prove someone’s innocence…or someone’s guilt. I didn’t focus much on the newness of the game as much as searching for general scum-tells that could indicate suspicion.
My inspiration for this tactic came from observing a Mafia variant – RISK Mafia (MafiaScum wiki). It’s essentially RISK, but with a Mafia-twist, as the Townies (all playing the game normally) must cooperate to root out the Scum (the “Chokepoint Alliance”) who planned to cheat. Despite the mechanics being mostly the same, the Townies was able to quickly identify the Scum by looking at gameplay and metagame behavior. However, by the time they did so, the Scum consolidated enough power, putting them on the course to “win”.
I hoped that the Free Territories would not meet that same fate.
—
The Enemy, in this dimension of the Free Territories, was a race of shadowy sea Elves that attack from beyond the sea, riding crustaceans and sea horses into battle. They built this dimension themselves, and then left the Free Territories a long time ago via boat, for reasons that we may never know for sure. But they then came back, thanks to the efforts of a scholar named Corvus. (Rumor has it that Corvus wasn’t really a “scholar”, but a Elf demi-god assigned to already infiltrate and subvert the ranks of the Free Territories.)
Corvus figured out a spell that would make the Elves functionally ‘immortal’ – but this spell requires a lot of concentration. Were he to die, the Elves he would bring to the Free Territories would also fade away into existence. So he must use subversion and treachery, first to gather enough resources to cast the spell, and then to keep the war machine going long enough to overwhelm the Free Territories.
Corvus set up shop in the City of Endeavour, and waged a three-way war between a rabble-rousing rebel leader (The Praetorian) and a rich nobleman (The General) for control over the markets of Endeavour. I was the rebel leader, fighting to defend the markets from greedy merchants (Corvus) and the nobility (The General) trying to exploit the people by establishing a business monopoly. But I lost, and the General lost, and Corvus won.
Corvus used his newfound wealth to fund a research expedition into the Shattered Islands, where he would gather more knowledge about the Elves and how to best summon and lead them. Once the time was ripe to unleash the Elves, Corvus killed off his whole research team, except for one man (The Magus) who managed to escape the purges. The Magus, as it so happened, was also the elder brother of The General, who dedicated himself to scholarly studies while The General focused on serving the common good through military service.
There was also a Wildshaper (werewolf shaman), a wayward of cousin of mine who brought shame to my family for deserting the army and fleeing into the forests. And there was also a Buccaneer, who was sold into slavery on a crew but then worked his way up the ranks. The Buccaneer and the Wildshaper have a bond together – one owes a life debt to the other, though I don’t really remember who owes who.
Together, these five figures (The Praetorian [me], The General, The Magus, the Wildshaper, and the Buccaneer) banded together to fight off Corvus and his Elven army. The First Elven War began. Friendships were forged in the fire of war, traitors were rooted out and executed in public ceremonies, and even the conflict between me and The General soon ended – The General married my sister, ending the feud. While The General focused on managing key fortresses on the frontlines of the Elven war effort, I led rag-tag militias to take over the City of Endeavor and run it as a “de facto” military dictatorship.
During the First Elven War, there was a prophecy – “The Wolf-Soldier will pivotal against the Elves. The Wolf-Soldier must die.” The Wolf-Soldier was believed to either refer to the Wildshaper (who technically is a werewolf) or The General (his real name was Wulfstan). But nobody can know for sure, and the prophecy itself may be fake – implanted by the Enemy to further divide the Free Territories.
Several outlying fortresses and ports were destroyed during the First Elven War, but I personally found the seditious activities they did to be more interesting. Twice, we found out that the “second-in-command” of a military force (first time – The Buccaneer, second time – The Praetorian) was either an Elf doppelganger or a citizen who willingly defected to the Enemy – if the Enemy could subvert the leadership of a faction, they were as good as conquered. When we grew wise to their deceptions and terminated the Elf traitors, the Enemy then cast a spell to cause paranoia throughout the City of Endeavour – every citizen saw every other citizen as an elf. However, The Wildshaper saw through the illusions and came in to save the day.
We “won” the First Elven War, and we thought we could relax. We then founded Council of Legends and assumed de facto leadership over the Free Territories. But the Enemy in the First Elven War was merely an expedition party, a taste of what was to come during The Second Elven War. For this was when the Enemy ramped up their spy forces and recruited more traitors into their cause. By the time the Enemy declared the Second Elven War and released their main forces, we received word that one Traitor has infiltrated the ranks of the Council of Legends.
—
The Buccaneer decided to root out the Traitor by saying “Hello traitor.” to both The Wildshaper and to me. The Wildshaper didn’t say anything, but I couldn’t keep a straight face and laughed out loud. The Buccaneer saw this as proof that I was hiding something – that I was indeed the traitor.
Perhaps I may have harboured some deep sympathy towards the Enemy – to this day, I still wondered why they came back to this dimension and if they had some other grand scheme. Perhaps I may have a dark edge – at the start of the Second Elven War, I suggested simply abandoning all territories but one and then conceranting all our forces to defend it in a sort of “siege” mentality (a good strategy that would have easily won us the war, but would also be heavily immoral – nobody else on the Council supported it).
But I was not The Traitor. I still remained loyal to the cause and hated the Enemy, even if I resemble them in thinking.
I instantly suspected The Buccaneer of being the Traitor (probably in a bad case of “OMGUS”) and did so for the first half of the game – but I was on the lookout for any additional information that could prove otherwise.
That information came out during a talk between The General and The Magus (both brothers in the game lore), when The General needed to roll. I don’t remember the details of the conversation but it is something like this:
The General rolls.
The Magus – I have a special power to make you reroll if the roll is good, that’s my Traitor power.
The General – *laughs* Oh no, that’s not what the Traitor power does. The Traitor power allow you to sacrifice yourself to help another person resist the temptation of The Enemy.
The Magus – Ah, got it.
This incredibly weird conversation made me realize that The General was the only other person who mentioned The Traitor other than The Buccaneer. This suggested to me that The General’s behavior was a bit…off, more focused on appearing innocent than, you know, trying to help the system. I was immediately suspicious of him. More suspicious than I was of the Buccaneer.
Another fortunate event was The Magus’ death in the process of saving a magical fortress from The Enemy. Magus then revealed his secret card, which showed his ‘special power’ – which was to save someone from death by taking damage for them – that he can’t use, since he’s dead. But it was proof that The Magus was not a Traitor in that important conversation…which cast even more suspicion on the other counterparty.
After 3 years of fighting, we found evidence that a Weapon of Power (which assumes different forms on the basis of whoever’s wielding it – in our dimension, it was a Trident) lie in resident in the Grey Peaks – an area that The Enemy been attacking fruitlessly in both the First Elven War and the Second Elven War. The Council sent three Legends (The Buccaneer, The Praetorian, the Wildshaper) over to retrieve the Weapon of Power, leaving only one surviving Legend (the General) to fend off against a massive army of Elves. Naturally, the massive army of Elves won, destroying much territory (including the infamous Shattered Isles). However, the Council did effortlessly recover the Weapon of Power.
Now come the moment of truth, the moment where the accusations start flying and people start voting in Mafia. To destroy The Enemy and to win the Second Elven War, we need to assassinate Corvus. To assassinate Corvus, we need to give the Weapon of Power to one person to do the dirty deed. If we give it to the Traitor, we automatically lose, as the Traitor can simply give the Weapon over to the Enemy. Even if we give it to a loyal citizen, that citizen may still be tempted by The Enemy’s propaganda – and we can still lose that way as well.
I definitely didn’t trust The General, not after his comments to The Magus. But I still had some residual mistrust of The Buccaneer. The only (alive) person I did trust was The Wildshaper, so I voted for him to carry the Weapon of Power. The Buccaneer, for his part, still thought that I was the Traitor, so just randomly picked The Wildshaper. The General was surprised to see there not being much discussion or debate over who should receive the weapon, but as the (dead) Magus pointed out, The Wildshaper did nothing overtly suspicious; therefore he deserved the weapon.
At this time, we asked The Wildshaper to reveal what his true affiliations are. He did. The Wildshaper was indeed innocent.
The General then revealed that he was indeed The Traitor we were looking for, and that he joined up with the Enemy because he saw the conflict as hopeless. However, once he learned that the Weapon of Power was recovered, he defected – once again finding hope to keep him going. He sacrificed himself to help The Wildshaper resist the temptation of The Enemy. This was indeed foretold in the prophecies – The General was indeed the “Wolf-Soldier” who was pivotal in the war against the Elves by dying in a magical ritual. Thanks to The General’s sacrifice, The Wildshaper narrowly avoided temptation (by realizing that any offer the Enemy make to him will probably never be honored in the long-term) and then slew Corvus by biting his hand and then stabbing him with the Weapon of Power (in its current form as a Trident).
We won the Second Elven War (lasting 5 years in length), and there will not be a Third Elven War awaiting us. The Enemy faded away, leaving no traces as to their motivations and ultimate goals. But that’s a matter for the scholars to debate over. For now, the people of the Free Territories focus on the hard part: rebuilding…
Epilogue:
- Before sacrificing himself, The General wrote a letter to his wife (my sister) justifying all his actions and and telling her to “Never lose hope.” The letter helped redeemed The General’s reputation in the eyes of many.
- After the Elven Wars, The Wildshaper wanders the forests and nearby areas and helps out people in need.
- The Buccaneer sails off to the sunset with the wealth he gathered from his victories in the Elven Wars.
- The Praetorian (me) abdicates from power, disgruntled at the fact that governing the City of Endeavor is a lot harder than rebelling against it…and upset at the extensive costs of reconstruction following the Second Elven War. Still, his social reforms that he implemented after the military takeover did some good for The People, even if it never really met The Praetorian’s lofty expectations.
- Though The Praetorian may have lost hope for the future, The People of Endeavour have a newfound sense of hope that will probably help them through the process of reconstruction. This was helped by the fact that the Cities of the Free Territories were never attacked at all in the Second Elven Wars, enabling the Cities to better consolidate control.
- The Magus lie dead…if he was alive though, he may have followed in the footsteps of Corvus and try to assume control over the Elves. Could he reform them? Or use them for another devious plan of his? We may never know for certain.