Volant Vanilla - Status Report

In my Wednesday Night IRC game, we've shifted over as planned to the players' second characters. The game is what I call Volant Vanilla, using the Volant rules for playing an earthbound fantasy game, where the giant birds exist, though they are very rare, but the flying ships and skylands do not. The Orcs are human religious zealots who use tattooing and scarification to make themselves look scary, the Elves were punished by the gods for supporting the Dark Lord with eternal life, The Dwarves were rewarded by a long life and a quick aging and death, and the game is set 200 years after a terrible plague left much of the world uninhabited or mostly so. The second PCs were supposed to go with the mercenary army as they traveled down to the southern lands to fight the Orcs with their allies there, but the first group ran into Orcs on the isthmus between their northern lands and their southern allies. The message from the first group, who were only supposed to find out if the eastern road was still traversable, caused some real panic, and the second group with a flying detachment was sent by sea to hold the Orcs at an old Dwarven city which was hidden under a mountain along the sea, and which the Orcs apparently did not know existed. Last session, they were attacked by Orcs at sea, and the session ended in mid attack. I love cliffhangers!

The thing is, the LotR feel is very much there! The only magic is alchemy, and the dearth of healing magic makes things gritty. Hell, the first group was pretty much slapped down by a pair of giant hornets. The huge spaces interspersed with old ruins and once domesticated plants and animals really capture the feel. Happy with this one so far! :D