Solo 'Through Sunken Lands RPG', a Tilly and Moonwane adventure, session 7

 

Prolegomenon

Having spent some time working on a new Beyond the Wall RPG campaign and trying to get to grips with Chivalry & Sorcery 5e, Tilly and Moonwanes odyssey through the Sunken Lands has rather taken a back seat. There is a lot to get through with this Through Sunken Lands adventure, in fact I don't know when or if it will end, so while I put together and flesh out my Beyond the Wall campaign I will consign C&S to the 'giving it up to stop my head hurting' bin, at least for the foreseeable future, and continue to play Through Sunken Lands to see what happens to Tilly and Moonwane.

In our last session (read it here) we left Tilly and Moonwane (along with Whiskers and Farhad) captured

by soldiers and being taken to the island fortress of Tavin.  Their weapons have been taken from them and placed on the back of a camel but otherwise they are not constricted in any way.  Waiting for the tide to turn sufficiently to reveal the causeway and allow the men passage to the fortress, the soldiers relaxed on the beach.

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 NPC's that may come up
Randomlists.com for a few verbs if I need a hint to work out what is going on.

Also, I have started using Evernote.com to keep my game notes, the free version of Evernotes does the job fine.

As with the last few Through Sunken Lands games I am using Zathrum 2.2 GM emulator.  I rolled on the Theme table (d20 = 1) Enemy Action, I also rolled on the mission table (d20 = 17) Escort

Skirmish on the shore.

When the attack came it took the men from the fortress by surprise.  The chaos children came from out of nowhere, once men, these are creatures now twisted into shapes and forms unknown to both the wicked and the wise, heads transformed into those of animals and beasts, face that had seen things no man should ever have seen, their whooping and screaming alerting the defenders of the attack.  

In the initial confusion Tilly was able to sneak to the camels and reclaim Moonwanes battle axe and her own sword, able to defend themselves against the attackers.  Farhad took refuge by the shoreline behind the camels whilst Whiskers, Moonwanes winged cat simply blinked out of existence, disappearing to who knows where.

The skirmish ended almost as quickly as it had begun, the soldiers from the fortress swiftly rallied, organising themselves against the Chaos rabble charging towards them whose initial advantage rapidly turned into rout, many of the Chaos Children cut down by the more disciplined and better armed men of the Fortress. 

Some of the chaos children managed to get in behind the defenders and two of them captured Farhad and begin to drag him towards the hills, as the melee dies down, Tilly spots Farhads plight and runs after him, amazed at her own swiftness, she quickly dispatches the two chaos children and rescues Farhad.

Moonwane seeks out the chaos champion leading the group of chaos children, noticing the champion isolated from the rest of the chaos forces, Moonwane leads a small group of foot soldiers and they are able to surround the chaos champion who fights like a berserker,, taking out two of the soldiers and injuring Moon before finally being struck down by Moons battle axe.  This action sees the few remaining chaos children scattered, fleeing the battlefield and the skirmish ended.   

This skirmish was played out using the rules for epic battles which are in the War and Battle chapter of the rule book.  Although the idea is to allow you to play out battles on a grand scale involving thousands of warriors, it is a simple matter to scale down  for a smaller engagement such as this one.

The two cameos  that occurred in the battle, Tillys rescue of Farhad and Moonwanes melee with the Chaos Champion, were both played out using the normal combat rules which added a nice extra layer to the battle, these two situations came about when I determined the result of the battle.

It was fun to see the tide of battle swing in favourer Pc's and the defenders and away from the chaos forces as I played through the abstract battle process, in the end the rout came down to a poor die roll by the chaos champion and a very good die roll for the defenders.  
I won't go over the rules or the process on this occasion, if you have the rule book, (and it you don't you really should, its a great RPG), the rules are there, they are also in Beyond the Wall supplement, Dangers near and Far, which is available on DrivethruRPG.com as pay what you want, so you can download it for free if you want to check out the mass battle rules.

The battle is over, the tide has turned and the leader of men of the island fortress, impressed with Tilly and Moonwanes fighting prowess asks them to join his fortress army, he tells them they will be valuable help in the coming conflict against the Chaos hoards.

I ask the oracle if  he is able to say more about this conflict with the chaos hoards, I roll 15 so get 'Yes(in order to)'.

The fortress leader tells Tilly that he had taken a detachment of men from the fortress on a reconnaissance mission in order to find out the scale of the chaos army, they found only small scattered units of chaos children moving up from the southern deserts, groups of between 50 to 100, attacking villages and taking people off, perhaps as slaves, perhaps worse.  This group must have followed his men back here.  He believes it is only a matter time before the chaos hordes combine into one large army, perhaps marching on the great city of the God-King himself.  He tells Tilly that he needs the help of people like Moonwane and her in the struggle to come.

Tilly explains that they are on a mission to meet Karloak further to the east and they cannot help him. She asks that they be allowed to continue their journey as she believes Karloak must be fighting the Chaos armies there.

I ask the oracle if the fortress leader has heard of Karloak, I roll 5 which is 'No (unless)'.

The fortress leader tells Tilly that he knows of no one by that name, unless, a rumour from the east tells of a mighty sorcerer, not from this world, working to defeat the chaos children, perhaps this Karloak she speaks of has joined him. 

Tilly says that it is likely and they must go and find him.

I ask the oracle if the fortress commander lets them go, I roll 20, Yes (on the contrary).

The fortress leader agrees with Tilly, he gives them not only their weapons back but their camels and additional provisions too.  He also orders 4 of his camel riders to escort them as far as the next village, there may well be some chaos children still around waiting in ambush and there is safety in numbers.

With that, Tilly, Moonwane, Farhad and 4 warriors all on camels head east along the coast, if will be evening before they make the nearest village.  A mile further on from the fortress a small winged black and white cat land on Moonwanes shoulders and curls itself around his neck.

And that,s where I will leave this session, in the next session we will find out what they find at the next village.