Here's an AP report of our short but fun initial game of Godbound.

The PCs are Gian Carlo Menzogna Di Tretta, cunning and perverse envoy of powerful family Vissian merchant-princes, who binds the Words of Deception, Luck and Passion; Godar, a penitent Ancalian knight who witnesses the loss of his family and goes out into the world to fix it, with the Words of Endurance, Health and Sun bound to him; and Jinrei, a doughty Dulimbaian blacksmith who wields the Words of Artifice, Endurance and Wealth in a quest to learn about the world and forge new and wondrous things.

The trio's destinies converge in the heart of the Raktine Confederacy, where the roads from Drenkova and Gyorok, too, converge towards Krasna and the eastern shores. In the small village of Gorice, the small folk bars their doors and windows; it is the night of St. Svyatoslav, when the lords and ladies of the Black Academy called Obok Smerti, "Vault of Death" send forth their winged servants to collect a horrifying tribute in flesh.

Gian Carlo arrives while the sun still shines and gets rushed inside the tiny local inn, where the fear-stricken owners reveal the horrid tradition after being eased into trusting the Passion-binding scion. Godar and Jinrei arrive well into the night, to find a city of barred windows and unlit candles. Knocking on the inn and church is met with sepulchral silence, until two Uncreated horrors swoop down on the village!

Godar lights up the city with his Corona of Fury, scalding one of the beasts, a dragon-like abomination made of solid darkness who retaliated by vomiting a torrent of cold darkness and wounding him only slightly. Jinrei waits for the second monster to make landfall and tries to persuade it to take him to their masters above the mountain, which the beast seems happy to do (even bowing down so he may mount), but upon witnessing the onslaught of the other horror upon his fellow traveler, decides to lash out with his mighty hammer, severely wounding the strange creature.

Inside the inn, Gian Carlo waits as the struggle plays itself out. A lucky blow knocks Jinrei unconscious, but Godar restores the Dulimbaian to full health with nary but a gaze! Eventually the canny merchant-lord sends the innkeeper and her son off to the basement, disbars the door and joins the fray taking crossbow potshots at the monsters, downing one who was already grievously wounded. The other falls shortly after, and both lifeless bodies dissolve in nothingness, leaving no trace of existence behind.

While the population is still wary of their intentions and fearful of sorcerous retribution, Gian Carlo eases them as Godar visits households seeking for sick and wounded to care for, and Jinrei busied himself with helping the faltering harvest (Sustain the Multitude) and getting the good folk to gather stones (committing 1 Influence) to substitute the flimsy palisade with a mighty wall, which gets raised in a day (Ten Thousand Tools).

An uneventful night ends as the sun rises to the thundering of a dozen horsemen approaching south from Visegrad, the nearby sit of Gorice's liege-lord, the regal and capricious Prince Ondrej "the Pious." If his envoys are to be believed, the exalted lord is less than thrilled about three strangers moving into his breadbasket, erecting walls overnight, and above all upsetting the ages-old pact between the people of the lowlands and the lords of the Black Academies. Veiled threats are exchange from both sides, with Godar challenging Prince Ondrej's mandate and combat being averted by Gian Carlo's use of Banner of Passion to add intimidation to Godar's fiery words. The riders leaving, vowing to return...

...but Godar will have none of it, and miraculously transports himself to the road (Hasten By The Light, via miracle) seeking to intercept and slay them before they can reach the walls of Visegrad.

And this is where we leave our heroes.

Man, I suck at doing AP reports.

I'll try to give a synopsis of what's happened in the subsequent three sessions.

Session #2

Godar slays Prince Ondrej's riders in short order.

The characters, fearing retribution on Gorice, march on Visegrad to confront Prince Ondrej on his unholy pact with the Black Academy. They are joined by a fourth Godbound, a Dulimbaian deserter named Guang Jing who binds Endurance, Might and Sword. The Prince greets them with mockery from behind the walls, and in a few minutes a new swarm of winged abominations swoops down from the mountain... only for one of them to speak, in a human voice, offering to sdpare the village if the heroes agree to come to the Academy!

Upon arriving, they are met by a sect of wizards who reveal to them the secret of Obok Smert. The wizards who inhabit it are not evil diabolists, but the guardians of a Night Road gate that spews forth the Uncreated monsters from an ancient paradise, long ago created by a Made God, that's slowly being infiltrated by the Uncreated Night. The "blood tribute" is used as human sacrifice in rituals to bind the horrors (to prevent them from doing far worse to the population below) and to try and close the gate (never achieving more than temporary success). The blind Master of Obok Smert believes the newcomers have the power to traverse the Night Road and end the threat once and for all.

Session #3

The Godbound go down the Night Road, where they encounter two stranded travelers who also display mysterious powers over the Words of Creation; Veronike, an Ulstang pirate, who binds Bow, Luck and Night; and Prudence Miller, a Lom peasant who binds Alacrity, Sky and Sword. The two narrate their encounter in the northern shores of Lom, where Prudence's adoptive family (who took her in when she fled the household of her cruel antipriest father) watched upon an ancient jewel that Veronike's witch-queen sought, dispatching her black drakkar to retrieve it. Neither counted on each other's gifts and their battle destroyed the village and shattered the jewel, opening a Night Roads that somehow became co-terminous with this one.

The six stride forth to find a desolate plain upon which sits a jet-black ziggurat. As they approach they realize that it is a mass of black tissue, not unlike that of the winged beasts they fought, that covers the original golden color of the construction.

As they enter and explore, they discover inside a massive necropolis of elaborate golden sarcophagi, the walls covered in strange hieroglyphs (no one in the group has the mundane knowledge or the Gifts to decipher such ancient writings) where the pulsating black mass allows for them to read. They fight their way through a few of the monsters and descend into a deeper chamber, where a vast, undulating, tentacled mass of black tissue is spawning forth the monsters that wreak havoc on Arcem!

A dread fight continue as the horrid abomination uses The Cold Breath to stifle their power, and contacts their minds with thoughts of despair, beckoning them to join the inevitable oblivion of endless Uncreated Night. The scions break the dread charm and engage the monster, who lashes out creating dark tendrils from its protean flesh; some strike true and those that miss seem to cleave rifts in the very fabric of the world around them, letting in the unnatural cold and darkness of the Uncreated Night. Swarms of winged horror "hatchlings" also attack the heroes.

After a pitched fight, the horror and its spawn die with a psychic scream of anguish, and the earth shakes. They climb the stairs to the nercopolis above be greeted by the dead who rise from their sarcophagi, each embalmed and bedecked in a king's ransom of gold and jewels! Initially alarmed, they rest at ease when one comes forth as Irem, the founding priest-king of the dynasty that lies entombed therein. The mummified priest-king explains how their ancient paradise's mystical defenses fell into disrepair, despite his best attempts, when their Made God patron died in the old wars for Heaven's throne, and a horror from Uncreated Night broke into their resting place.

The heroes slew the abomination, but it is too late; its roots ran deep within the substance of the realm, and the added stress of their fight means the Night is pouring in and they shall all disappear into oblivion.

Irem entrusts them with treasures and lore from their long-gone civilization, that their memory may yet persist in Arcem even as their souls disappear into darkness, and urges them to return through the collapsing Night Road. The heroes rush back to the Vault only to find the black citadel, too, crumbling; the entropic energies of Uncreated Night are reaching into Arcem as well! The Master gathers the Acolytes and instructs the characters to take wing on the bound Uncreated beasts, as he and his coven work a last incantation to hold back the Night. The scions witness the dread citadel collapsing impossibly and disappearing into nothingness as they fly towards Gorice, where an awestruck populace greets them... and whispers of worship are first heard.

Session #4

The Godbound spend a few days of downtime helping the people of the village; Jinrei improves the fortifications and buils ballistas, and Di Tretta has long, long chats about theology with the local priest that culminates in a very... different sort of Mass as the local priest proclaims them to be "manifestations and messengers of the One who left our ancestors, and now returns in many guises." (And that's how a cult gets started.) The leaders of the other villages under Visegrad convey a council in Gorice, where they lay down their problems before the Godbound, requesting their help and also pointing out that the Black Academy's disappearance makes the province vulnerable to conquest from the neighboring lords, but soon enough the cruelty and capriciousness of Prince Ondrej dominates the conversation.

In time they decide to confront the Prince, and ride once more for Visegrad, where the lord disconcertingly receives them with wide open arms as the "heroes of Gorice, who lifted the opression of the sorcerers from our bloodied backs." The Prince is flanked by his advisors, Piotr, a taciturn seneschal, Stefan, the haughty bishop, and of course the beautiful but melancholy Queen Erszebet. The scions are mad as hell and denounce his callousness towards his subjects, as well as his thuggish reputation, but the Prince is cynically polite and urges them to join "a new pact for the protection of our domain. What is it that the heroes desire?" and no consensus is reached as both parties retire in preparation for a great feast in the PCs' honor.

Yet as the festivities commence, the sovereign begs for leave, feeling unwell. Godar knows what is happening, The others don't.