Fengrave, Session 1
Between the border of the Isstlands and the Shores of the Undoing sit the Conceded Territories. Offered up by the Isstlander nobilities as tribute to the Unseelie Court, an attempt at appeasement to halt further encroachment of the Undoing. Now, a wild land of ruins and lost history, home to the desperate and the outcast.
The cathedral tip had been a ruse. Senn’s contact Tarin had knowingly led them to the Hob-King’s lair in the hopes that her and her band would make easy pickings. Jarathor perished from his wounds in his sleep, and Rakk had parted ways with Senn not long after the two of them returned to Crow’s Barrow, their betrayer having fled elsewhere.
It was in the old Tavern at Crow’s Barrow where she struck up a drunken pact with Ismale, a young Urisk drifter, recently fled from the Isstlands after double-crossing a noblewoman. Ismale boasted that she knew of a long-abandoned Uaisle archive a days’ walk north, and that in return for helping her loot the place, she would help Senn track down Tarin.
The Party:
Senn, Melancholy Sellsword, Sidhe. (Lv 1, HP 3, STR 3, DEX 5, WIS 2) Boon: Noble Duelist, Scar: Vertigo. Equipped with a khopesh (parry, disarm)
Ismale, Wandering Swashbuckler, Urisk. (Lv.1, HP 4, STR 5, DEX 4, WIS 2) Boon: Frenzied Dervish | Scar: Twisted Guts. Equipped with a two-handed harpe (Heavy, Weighted, Sunder).
NOTE: The overland travel section is done in a series of 3-mile increments and uses a modified version of Luke Gearing’s hexfill procedures for Wolves Upon The Coast. The distance of the Uaisle Archive was determined ahead of time by rolling 3d6 for number of 3-mile increments. If this wasn’t a solo game I would likely hexfill a map ahead of time.
Day 1:
8am - Outset. The morning brings rain. Senn and Ismale set off from Crow’s Barrow. The Autumn sun casts long, cold shadows between the pale amber light. The fields surrounding the village are mostly fallow, grazed by the odd deer or small flock of sheep.
9am. Around 3 miles out, the fallow fields give way to woodland, where ruins of a few long-abandoned villages have been devoured by ravenous pines. Little light penetrates, and the air is still.
10am. The forest continues with no clear end in sight. Following a river, the land splits into a ravine, the ruins of an old fortress sits atop the eastern edge, overlooking the pass beneath. Senn and Ismale decide to beat a path up towards the ruin in hope of a better vantage point. A strange scent suffuses the air - Senn correctly identifies this as a mark of Goatfolk territory. Goatfolk are rarely friendly, but the pair decide to take their chances regardless. The ruin is daubed with the territorial markings of Goatfolk.
ENCOUNTER: As the duo cross the boundary into the remains of the ruin, they are ambushed by two goatfolk warriors (Lv1 | 3HP, light spear) and a chieftain. (Lv2 | 5HP, medium axe). The two warriors charge forward, each taking on one target. Senn deflects the incoming lunge - she attempts to parry, but the attack caught her off-guard, and her khopesh clatters to the ground! Ismale braces, and manages to successfully deflect, her harpe holding steady. The Chieftain, seeing an opening, lunges forward at Senn, but the attack goes wide. Senn picks her khopesh up off the floor and prepares to defend. Ismale sees an opening, and turns to charge at the Chieftain as his back is turned. Unfortunately, this attack swings wildly and also misses! Senn once again deflects the warrior’s follow-up attack. The second warrior sees an opening as Ismale leaves herself exposed after the failed charge, however she deftly swings her harpe around, parrying the charge, and cleaving the warrior’s torso in two, its bisected body falling to the floor! The Chieftain is enraged, and turns to attack Ismale in turn, however she carries through the momentum of her killing blow, parrying the axe-lunge and once again parrying successfully - however the only manages to inflict a gouging wound on the chieftain, who howls in rage. Senn swings her khopesh at the remaining warrior, and successfully lands a killing blow, blood spattering up the nearby wall. Ismale swings again in a wide arc, and lands another blow on the Chieftain, cleaving clean through his skull! All goes quiet as the duo see no more goatfolk luring nearby.
11am-12pm. Senn and Ismale spend a while clearing away the bodies, and take a short rest in the old fort, sharing a pouch of rabbit jerky and a waterskin. The fort is high enough that it peers above the tree-line, and to the north, they see the forest fade into a vast stretch of fen, dotted with old ruins. Ismale remarks that the old fort would make a good safehouse with a bit of work. Meanwhile Senn goes in search of anything the goatfolk may have stashed in the lower levels. In among a pile of rusted human tools and junk, something glimmers. She pulls an arm-guard of ornate segmented metal plate, coated with a pearl-like lacquer from the pile of junk, and as she holds it, it hums gently. Donning it, she suddenly feels invigorated, as if having just had a good mug of ale (NOTE: This is the legendary armour-piece Fairlin’s Pearl Armguard, granting +1 to WIS).
1pm. The duo emerge from the forest into the fen they had seen from the old fort. The skies have cleared and the midday sun glares down, causing a mist to rise to around waist-height, obscuring the path forward. Ismale takes point and tries to navigate using the landmarks of some old ruins, however the further in they go, the higher the mist climbs. Before they know it, both of them stumble into a bog, and wade through chest-high brackish water and old roots. Suddenly they freeze, as to either side of them, they hear a strangulated moaning, like gravel on metal. Out of the mist, 11 bog-wraiths emerge, keening in pain from perpetual unlife,sodden rags and bones floating suspended above the water. Thankfully, so far none have noticed them. They forward through the near-freezing bogwater, taking great care not to break the water’s surface, as the keening and screaming continues all around them. After what feels like an eternity, they reach solid ground, cold and sodden and shaken.
2pm. The fen gives way to field again. The pair find a sheltered clearing and spend the hour disrobed, leaving their clothes to dry over a small campfire that they huddle around for warmth. However, the campfire alerts a nearby band of crop goblins. Quickly gathering their clothes and weapons, they retreat to a nearby patch of woodland, eluding their likely assailants.
3pm Clothes and belongings still damp, they continue through the fallow fields, withering crops of wheat hiding their passage. However, a screeching cry from behind them signals that the band of crop goblins who investigated the campfire have picked up their trail. Ismale trips on a tangle of root and yells out in surprise. Senn picks her up, and they break into a sprint in an attempt to outrun the hunting party.
4pm Stopping for breath as the fields give way to jagged hills, Ismale spots what looks to be the opening to a cave. However, venturing inside, they begin to see carved stone, and old old, rusted sconces…
End of Session:
I am experimenting with a very simple leveling rubric, partially cribbed from Forbidden Lands.
At the end of each session of play, look back on what your character achieved. Did they:
- Train for a cumulative period of two weeks or greater?
- Survive a particularly dangerous situation?
- Vanquish a powerful foe?
- Retrieve a valuable treasure?
- Had a near-death experience?
- Fail at a crucial moment? Roll a die for each that occurred.
If any dice rolls a number higher than your current level, advance one level and consult your character’s advancement rules as usual.
Both characters survived a dangerous situation, Senn found a valuable treasure and Ismale vanquished a goatfolk chieftain, so both rolled 2d10, although in this case advancement was guaranteed as both were Lv1. Party is now as follows:
Senn, Melancholy Sellsword, Sidhe. (Lv 2, HP 7, STR 4, DEX 5, WIS 2) Boon: Noble Duelist, Scar: Vertigo. Equipped with a khopesh (parry, disarm)
Ismale, Wandering Swashbuckler, Urisk. (Lv.2, HP 5, STR 5, DEX 4, WIS 3) Boon: Frenzied Dervish | Scar: Twisted Guts. Equipped with a two-handed harpe (Heavy, Weighted, Sunder).
Closing Thoughts:
- 2d6+mod targeting 12 still holds up, and I’m more convinced than ever that it’s actually the right way to go. Checks are tense but winnable, and opposed rolls in combat really helps with mitigating stuff from getting too lethal.
- Ismale’s stats were rolled with 4d6 and then dropping the lowest. Given that Senn rolled exceptionally well with the old schema, this feels like a good way of ensuring 1st-level characters have reasonable odds of success.
- Just picking a general direction and hexfilling as we went worked surprisingly well. Again, I wouldn’t do this if I was actually GMing a game, but for the scope of the current solo games, it’s totally fine.