Solo 'Through Sunken Lands RPG', a Tilly and Moonwane adventure, session 5

 

Prolegomenon

It shall be when ink rain falls, two friends witness the beginning and trigger the rise of doom.

Prepping for the next part of the adventure so as to give me the illusion that I am organized and know what I am doing has taken a little bit of time, also it will be useful to remind myself of where I am at with this adventure before I get lost with it all.

Lets start with my two PC's, 

• Tilly, a Licenced Thief from Jundarr, the impossible city, ran foul of the Merchants Guild in my first adventure and it turns out the Jundarr Thieves Guild are not happy with her either. 
• Moonwane, a Cosmic Champion aligned to the Balance, (Neutral),  was brought by an old Priest to Jundarr.  He was told to wait for Tilly at the Temple and then bring her to the Southern Lands. He now has been adopted by a black and white winged cat called whiskers (yes I pulled whiskers straight out of Michael Moorcock's  Corum books).

Tilly and Moonwane, (called Moon for short), are now in the city port of the Empire of Trackless Sands.

Now for the NPC introduced in this adventure, 

• Whiskers, the little black and white winged cat, (stats given in the last session report), has attached itself to Moonwane but we don't know why or where the cat came from.
• Jerhi Yarll, captain of the White Serpent Galley Ship.  He is for now out of the adventure so I will not need to detail him but I will keep a record of him for future adventures.
• Karloak, the mysterious old hermit whilst at the same time the mysterious old priest.  He seems to be different things to different people.  Moon was supposed to bring Tilly to the Southern Lands to meet up with him but so far that has not happened.  I need to find out not only where this mysterious NPC is but also who or what he is and his reason for wanting Tilly and Moon to come to the Southern Lands to meet him/
• Farhad, (meaning helper), a young first level mage apparently sent by Karloak to meet Tilly and Moon and guide them to him.  Although Farhad is an NPC I will roll up his stats as per the character generation rules.

            Name Farhad        Alignment Neutral  Class Mage      Level  1  Base Attack Bonus 0  Initiative 1

            Strength 9   Dexterity 11    Constitution 8    Intelligence 15    Wisdom 12    Charisma 14

 

            Armour Class 10    Fortune Points 3    Hit Points 6

            Sense Magic, Cantrips - Hand of Will, Mage Light,  Spells - From the Brink, Great Endurance,                 Ritual - Mage Armour

                Languages, Common Jundarr, local Empire language

                Weapons, Dagger
                Trait - Very Helpful

                Skills -Cooking, bargaining.

At the top of this section I have written a little prophecy which was generated randomly but seemed to be applicable to the game, I also have have a desire to introduce a threat pack, I have in mind one I will adapted from Beyond the Wall, I will come to that in a while but now lets get to the adventures.

Tools used in the session and other stuff.

We will be using the following toolkit for this session,

Through Sunken Lands and other adventures RPG

Zathrum 2.2 GM emulator

UNE for any NPS that may come up
Randomlists.com for a few verbs if I need a hint to work out what is going on.

In the last session Tilly and Moonwane were met by a lad with information about Karloak, we now know him to be Farhad a 1st level mage.  

East along the Empires Shores.

The end of the first day in the Empire of Trackless Sands

Farhad takes Tilly and Moonwane to a small hostel, there he tells them what he knows of Karloak which is very little except that he is to take them east along the shores of the Trackless Sands to the village of Nayzil, about four days ride away from the great port.  Once there they are to await Karloak.  He hands a small locked trinket box which Karloak gave him, it is locked and there is no key but he says Karloak told him Tilly did not need a key to open such a box.

I ask the oracle if Tilly is able to pick the lock, roll d20 = 15, so Yes (in order to).

Tilly studies the lock and the box for a while, in order to open it she needs to use her thieves tools but she quickly picks the lock inside is a large number of silvers (350 in fact) and a note from Karloak which simply says use the monies wisely, buy supplies, transport and weapons, it confirms Farhads story finally warns them of coming storm and a battle ahead.

Tilly pushes the note to Moon, "we could just take the money and head back to Jundar".

Moon reads the note, "you'd be dead within a week Tilly if you head back there, I for one would rather take my chances with the old Priest, or Karloak as you both call him"

Tilly pushes her chair back and stands up, reaching out to take the box and the money "oh well! dromedaries for each of us it is then, I have no doubt young Farhad there knows just where to get three, I am off to my room".

Moon snatches away the box before Tilly can get to it "I will look after the money Tilly, thank you, lets all retire and we can start the journey in the morning"

Tilly glares at Moon "nice to be trusted, fine, until the morning then", she storms of to her room.

The Second Day

I roll on the Theme table in Zathrum 2.2. to see if anything will happen today and rolling my d20 I get 12 = 'News', so at some point in the day the group will get some news related to whats going on.

I also want to see if they have an encounter in the City, I use Zathrum 2.2 again, this time the probability table, rolling d20 gets me 9 so 45% change of an encounter.  I roll my %dice and get 48, so there is no encounter whilst they are in the city.

Finally I roll a d6 to see how many hours they spend in the city before heading eastwards, roll = 6 so they will be leaving the city in around 6 hours or early afternoon.

The following morning the three are up and about early, Tilly seems to be in a much better mood than the previous evening, Moonwane is keen to get moving and Farhad says he knows where he can pick up three camels for the journey, he also suggests stocking up on water and provisions.

Farhad takes them all to a animal market where he haggles over the price of three scruffy looking camels and tack, the seller wants 240 silvers for the three, Farhad tries to haggle to get the price down.

I allow Farhad to make a charisma roll, allowing him to also use his bargaining skill to give him a +2, meaning he needs to roll 16 or less on d 20 to get the price of the camels down. He rolls 10, so he haggles the price of the camels down to 200 silvers.

Having paid for the camels the trio set off to purchase further items to help them on their journey,

Large Tent (big enough for them all 40 silvers

Various pots and pans to cook with    5 silvers

Waterskins each holding 5 pints x 6   3 silvers  (cost 5 coppers each)

5 days rations each @ 2 coppers       3 silvers

2 days iron rations each                    3 silvers  (cost 5 coppers per day)

1 weeks feed for each camel              1 silver 

In addition they purchased 100 ft of rope, a large sack and a spare set of peasants clothing each for a total of 8 silvers , that totals up at 263 silvers adding an additional 7 silvers for their rooms and meals, that means out of the 350 silvers in the small box given by Karloak they have 80 left, not including the 24 silvers Tilly still has and the 16 silvers Moonwane now has. 

Having got themselves set up with camels and tent and food for a few days, Farhad leads them out of the city on the road east along the sea.  He tells the that they are five days from the place Karloak told him to lead them to, he assumes that is where they are to meet the old Priest but he is not sure, he just knows that Karloak will contact them when they arrive there.

My party are walking down the coast road and I roll to see if they have an encounter before they set up camp for the night.  I use the encounter table in Further Afield, encounter chance on roads id 2 in 6, I roll 2 on d6 so there is an encounter.  Rolling to see what that encounter is I get  a 3 on a d6, so Fellow Travellers.  To find out who the travellers are I keep it simple using the three suggested in Further Afield, roll d6, 1/2 = pedlars, 3/4 = refugees, 5/6 = fellow adventures, I roll a 5.

I make a charisma check, Farhad has a charisma of 14 so I roll against his and get 12, so they pass the charisma check and have a friendly encounter.

I ask the oracle if the adventures have any news for my party, roll d20 = 15, 'Yes (in order to).

To get an idea as to what news they have I get two random verbs, I get 'trap' and 'continue'.

Two hours out of the city, the party meet a group of dishevelled fellow adventures heading towards the city, they are on foot and look in need of water.  Farhad offers them some from his waterskin which they gladly accept and strike up a conversation.  They tell my group that they were looking for the tomb of Agellar on the desert planes of Aganderis, they found only creatures of chaos, indeed in order to get safely back to the city they have had to keep off the road, Men twisted and deformed by chaos roam the lands, that these foul creatures are moving west, heading toward the city itself.  they add that if my party continue along the road, they will be walking into a chaos beast trap.

Thanking the adventuring party for their advice, Tilly, Moonwane, Farhad and party decided to continue along the road, Farhad has heard nothing, neither news nor roumor about chaos men until this moment, he suggest the adventures are suffering from heat exhaustion and talking nonsense.  

As night draws close and the air begins to cool, my party set up camp just of the road.  I roll for an evening encounter, this time giving just a 1 in 6 chance, rolling a 1, another encounter then.

I decided to roll d6, 1/2 Children of Chaos (1d4_4 of them), 3.4 Soldiers (1d6_4), 5.6 Merchants

Rolling the dice I get a 4, so we encounter 7 soldiers.

I roll a further charisma check to see if the party get a friendly reaction from the soldiers, roll d 20 =3 so yes, the soldiers are friendly

The party find a good place to make camp, setting up their tent and feed their camels, Farhad then begins making a stew, no sooner has he got the fire going and the pot simmering away than a group of soldiers appear from the south.  They look tired, exhausted and some have wounds and injuries.  Farhad offers to add more vegetables to the stew and feed the soldiers, they readily accept, in return they are able to brew up a dark amber tea like brew and offer it to my party.  They say they are from a village 3 days south which has been attacked by foul deformed men of chaos, they overran the village and spared non, the soldiers only manged to escape and are now on their way to the city to get help from the Emperor.

They talk for most of the night, eventually Tilly, Moon and Farhad turn in, a little black and white winged cat keeps watch perched on top of the tent.  The night passes without further incident, in the morning, the soldiers are gone.

Moonwane wants to go south to investigate the village but Tilly and Farhad disagree and want to to continue east to find Karloak, they get their way, and the party set of east along the coast road.

And that where I will end this session, are our heros heading into danger, seems that way, we will find out soon,

Adventure on!