Summons of the Seer was intentionally designed to be more of a traditional dungeon crawl adventure - long on combat and short on puzzle solving and role playing. That didn't mean there would be no role playing or problem solving, of course, we just tried to emphasize combat strategy and tactics. The characters lived in a stone age environment, with primitive tribes vying for the scarce resources available to a world gripped by an ice age. One day the smoke signal from a far away mountain signaled that the ancient Seer (a wise individual venerated by all tribes) wished the tribes to send their bravest warriors to meet with him. To prove themselves worthy each tribe would send a team of warriors to the Island of Testing. There they would look for opportunities to prove their courage, bringing back whatever trophies they could. To guide them on their quest they had the legends of their people, telling about the brave things past warriors have done. After proving their bravery on the Island the party went to see the Seer, who told them the Age of Spirits was coming to an end. Far away, in a hidden cave, new beings called gods were choosing the tribes they would protect and cherish. Each tribe should send a party to this cave, to show their worth to the gods and so gain a patron of their own. This was round two of the tournament - the trip to the cave and the tests the gods laid before the party. Eventually each tribe that succeeded was chosen by a deity.

The characters in Summons of the Seer did not have a lot of role playing hooks - this was more of a combat oriented adventure. Since everyone was a fighter, we had to work to make them have their own unique specialties. One way we did this was using weapon speed (the only time we've ever used that in a KORG event). Some characters were fast, and so got their attacks off earlier than others. Each team was playing characters from a different race, so the names were different for each team. However, each team had the same six set of statistics, weapons, and so on, so in fact they were all playing the same teams. Note that this was a stone age setting, so everyone was armed with flint daggers, spears, axes, and so on.

• Sling: This character was armed with a sling, and had first aid and herbalism non-weapon proficiencies. Given the lack of any clerical magic, this made her quite useful!
• Knife: This was the fastest character (with regard to weapon speed), and used two daggers in combat. He was the only character with the stoneworking proficiency, which was critical in replacing broken weapons (as all party weapons were made of flint and broke on an attack roll of 1 or 20).
• Tank: This character was the big tough guy - the most hit points and armed with a huge stone axe. Other than that he didn't have any skills (but didn't seem to miss them).
• Totem Wearer: Every tribe had a totem animal that was sacred to them. This character wore clothing made from the skin of the sacred animal of his tribe, and used weapons derived from that animal (wolf teeth, bear claws, etc). Kind of a religious leader for the tribe. Many parties assumed he had clerical spells, and were quite dissapointed when they realized he didn't.
• Tracker: A hunter/ranger type, with tracking skills and armed with a spear. The spear was tipped with a sabre-tooth tiger fang. This was special because all the tribes considered the sabre-tooth tiger to be sacred and because it (unlike all the other weapons) would not break on a bad roll.
• Armor: This was the only character who wore armor, and all the other people of the tribe looked down on him for it. He had a wooden shield and animal hide armor, and as such had the best armor class of the party (by a lot - no one else wore armor of any kind). Also good hit points and a decent attack.

In round 1 the characters went to the Isle of Testing and looked for way to prove their bravery. They did this by defeating monsters, going to known dangerous/haunted places, and so on. When they were done they returned to the tribe to impress the elders with their tale and show off any trophies they brought back. This was a role playing opportunity - parties that did a good job in spinning their tales of bravery got more points.

In round 2 the parties went to see the Seer, who sent them on to the cavern where the new deities were waiting. Along the way they were tested by agents of these deities as well as their tribal totem spirits.

• The Sun People: The sun people were basically dwarves (none of the parties were of that tribe). The dwarves had something none of the other tribes did - mastery of metal. The dwarves wore bronze armor and used bronze weapons which reflected the sun quite brightly (and thus earned them the name "Sun People"). A sun person was guarding a dwarven holy site. Defeating him and taking the huge bronze gong there was a great way to show a party's bravery.
• The Fingerbone Wizard: A crazy old sage living on the Isle of Testing, he would peer into the future - for a price. He wore a necklace of fingerbones, and if a character offered to have a finger whacked off and gave it to him he would use it to tell their fortune. The better the finger, the better the fortune - so for a pinky or ring finger you'd get a fairly useless fortune ("Danger lies ahead"), for either of the first two fingers you'd get a moderately useful fortune, and for the thumb you'd get a really good clue about how to show your bravery. Giving up fingers cost you, though - from -1 to hit for giving up a pinky all the way to -2 to hit and -1 to damage for giving up a thumb. We told the parties the penalties before they got a finger cut off - those that gave up a thumb got more points (for being braver). And no, there was nothing in a later encounter to get back lost fingers.
• The Grodan Beast: A huge, dangerous creature (rearrange the letters in "Grodan" to see what this is an ancestor of) living in a cave. Inside the Grodan Beast's cave was a rune, carved there by a tribal hero long ago. Parties that snuck into the cave, saw the rune, and could later describe it to the tribal elders (we didn't let them write it down, as the characters had no paper or ink, so each party had to memorize the rune) got points. One party actually killed the Grodan Beast, although it cost them a couple of characters. (We were amazed they didn't all die - the Grodan Beast was tough!)
• Yeti Challenge: A group of young yeti had built ten snowmen. Five were near the party, five near them. One very aggressive yeti smashed a snowman with a fist, then waited. The idea was that the party would do the same, in kind of a ritual tough guy contest. This continued as snowman after snowman was stomped, torn in half, and so on. The last one was destroyed by the yeti running right through it. Pretty much every party had Tank do the same thing - and smack right into the stone pillar the yeti had built the snowman around. This was the yetis' idea of a very funny joke, and they hooted and laughed as they bounded away. Most parties (with the exception of Tank) laughed too.
• Touching Lord Sabre Tooth: Living on the Isle of Testing was a sabre toothed tiger, known as "Lord Sabre Tooth" by the tribes. Touching him (and living to tell the tale) was a major bravery bonus. The right way to do this was kill a reindeer and drag it near Lord Sabre Tooth's cave. If you crept up behind him while he was feeding, touched his flank, and ran like heck you could get out without being killed. Lord Sabre Tooth would take one swipe at you - getting hit and showing off the claw marks to the elders was the best trophy you could get.
• The Final Test: The last test was a great big monster with a rather unique power. He always went last in a combat round, and always hit. He would do exactly as much damage as he took the last time he was hit. So if Tank hit him for 12 points the monster would do 12 points to someone. Clever parties figured this out and had their least dangerous characters (damage wise) hold their attacks until after the big hitters had gone. All the parties won the fight, although some got a few people killed.
• I Choose You: At the end of the adventure each party was chosen by a deity. The deity matched their race - thus the orcs were chosen by Grummsh, the humans by Odin, the elves by the elven god, and so on. Each of them gave reasons for choosing that race that seemed reasonable - Grummsh complimented the orcs on their strength, Odin on the human's wisdom, the elven god on the skill the elves had shown. Of course, no party really showed any more strength, cleverness, or skill than any other. But it sounded good, and made it seem like the party had been specifically chosen due to the way they'd played.
• Where's the Play?: Players who had participated in previous team tournaments wondered why there was no play for them to perform, as there had been in every past KORG team event. The simple answer is that we could not come up with a good way to have stone age people performing a play (given that none of them could read), so we left it out. Rest assured that future events will include plays, if only because it gives the KORG folks a chance to sit back and enjoy the show.

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