Do we need a hallucinating albatross?
Episode 5, wherein the party created a more permanent home for the merfolk prophet.
Played September 22, 2023
The Party for Episode 5
- Vampirfella playing Brambles
- CaptainSabatini playing Esgorman
- Igneous playing Fiske
- mtb playing Manqoba
Another day, another trip into the Andrussian Basin.
Intrigued by the merfolk prophet they'd med at the end of the last session, the self-styled Crab Wranglers prepared to set out on another journey. They grabbed Hemmingway as usual but this time were also joined by Brambles, a woman who had lived in the forest and had tracked them back to town after their brief foray into it the day before. Quickly joining forces, they set out to find more permanent accommodations for the prophet.
Journeying south along the cliffside, they soon found themselves sliding down into a small space revealed by the collapsing seabed, a walled merfolk garden of beautiful marble statues and dying coral reefs. Unscathed, they scoured the place for anything of value and found that the weapons carried by the statues were actual working examples of merfolk craftsmanship. So Manqoba nabbed a bow and some arrows while Esgorman added a sharpened stick, a spear, to his existing inventory of a short stick (a club) and a long stick (a staff). They spent an uneventful night on the dunes.
The next day they found a small boat and nothing but some loose coins, but also the dais holding the prophet, who seemed to be doing much better since they'd seen him several days before. He didn't share a language with them, however, which confused them until the disciples explained that sometimes something speaks through him. Or it was the random rambling of a hallucinating dehydrated fishman. Either way, they shared more water and explained their plan to bring him to a cave with water that they knew was nearby. The disciples rapidly agreed.
Approaching the coral reef with the cave they sought, they found the wreckage of a boat which had a battle going on inside. Three mercenary types were holding off nine anglergoblins who must have been pretty intent on their blood to be out in the sun.
Although the weather result (previously unrolled) for that day was "Stillness. A mild breeze stirs and a cloudless, sunless sky casts a timeless atmosphere." So maybe it wasn't that bright out.
They debated intervening but Fiske, ever the pyromaniac, really wanted to blow something up, so they decided to ambush the creatures from a distance. Brambles lit an arrow and fired it at the monsters while Fiske chanted a feeding the fire spell, which when landing among the group exploded, singing three and engulfing another. Half the monsters broke off from the wreckage to charge the Wranglers but were far enough away to get off another exploding arrow, an arrow from Manqoba and his new coral bow, and a spear cast from Esgorman, most of which landed. Meanwhile, the three delvers opportunistically sallied forth and struck down two of the creatures. Down half their numbers very quickly, the rest immediately fled.
Fiske has a spell to turn a fire into an explosion. It's depiberately phrasesd so it doesn't create fire so it's more contextually useful instead of always useful. But igneous has been looking for ways to broaden this use by finding ways to throw or shoot fire at their enemies. This obviously makes the spell more useful, but requiring two people probably balances it out. But how many rolls should be required? The more you add, the more you guaruntee that it fails (which explains the group stealth rules). During the game I played it conservatively by requiring Fiske to pass a spell check, which balances the spell system, and Brambles to pass an attack roll.
Can I reduce it to a single roll? Sure, Brambles doesn't want to accurately bury the arrow inside a foe because that will immediately extinguish the flame which needs to stay lit for Fiske's magic. Shooting in the general area of the foes isn't challenging, and we can abstract the accuracy of the shot into the random spell damage anyways. I think it'll work this way going forward.
The two groups met. Devoss, the skull-faced leader of the band, thanked them but avoided any talk of joining forces after explaining that they'd been ambushed by the goblins and lost one of their own before making a final stand at the boat. So he, Tesslyn, and Bethan went on their way.
Moving on, the party found themselves at the coral cave. They crept along the right side wall this time but found the chamber to be a lot smaller than it initially seemed. It did lead into a small chamber, also filled with bones, where they found the remains of a wrecked carper's cart. It too led onward, into a chamber holding several kelp beds. It was around this time they started to hear moaning, and this set them on edge.
Creeping forward, they found a strange altar made of rocks, shells, the skull of something unknown, and a large pearl. The majority were fearful of desecrating what was obviously a shrine but the fearless Esgorman casually took the pearl, to no apparent ill effect.
Down a further passage, the moaning increased in volume until they found several bodies lying about. Upon the light touching them, they started to rise, revealing barnacle-encrusted mouths, limped-covered bodies, sores weeping seawater: late-stage searot victims, barneys. Thinking quickly, Fiske uncapped a skin of water and tossed it at them, and the 3 shambling unfortunates charged the water. Steeling themselves, the party decided to slay them where they stood, knowing that there was no cure and they could only continue to suffer and spread the disease.
Unnerved by continuing to hear something, but knowing that the prophet and retinue would be arriving the next day and needed the place secured, they crept down the final passage. Suddenly, a big-eyed leathery figure sprung at the torch-bearing Fiske, who managed to throw him off.
And so they met Olin, a former worker at the Leviathan extraction operation and now escapee lost on the seabed. He'd fled from the work camp, from anglergoblins, from sea plagued, and now was bereft of supplies and at a loss of where to head. The Wranglers were reluctant to send a potentially infected individual to Coiner's Shelf even with the quarantined plague colony nearby, so they gifted him some food and water and sent him to nearby Brost.
The next day was spent waiting to see if any anglergoblins would return and if the prophet would arrive. The latter eventually happened, although in the interim Esgorman got bored, and wandered around long enough to find another crashed ship which had its own purse of loose coins. The prophet and retinue arrived safely and he was deposited gratefully into the bit of remaining seawater in the cave. But now it was time to head back. Before they left, he rewarded them for their help with a small obsidian ritual knife.
One hundred interesting things to find on a boat and the results have been candles, coins, and more coins. Also, this area of the sea seems exceptionally deadly for small boats. I think that's 5 total crashed boats found in the hexes abutting the cliff or directly adjacent to those.
On the way back north, they came across a party which approached them...and turned out to be Devoss and company. The party was suspicious that they just seemed to be waiting around but didn't press further.
Nearly back to town, they came across another crashed boat, this one with one of those massive Anrussian Albatrosses nesting within. Realizing that they might want to work their way back into Garvym's good graces, they ran back to town, bought a net, and came back out to find the bird still there. They failed to sneak up on it and so just charged. Manqoba, who had a background in herbalism, dashed a handful of hallucination powder across its face sending it staggering around drunk while the others attempted to subdue it with the net. They just managed to do so without injury. With the avian in hand they searched the boat and found 3 large eggs.
I wasn't satisfied with how I handled this. Dexterity checks to sneak. Wisdom check to get close enough to the bird to use the powder. Strength check, strength check, strength check to subdue the bird.
Partially this is because the game doesn't have a separate attack stat, or hitdice, or classes. But I need to think about how to handle chaotic events like this next time in a way that gives the players interesting choices to make. My first inclination is to crib from tunnels and trolls, but we'll see. Other people proposed presenting the things that could go wrong, seek explanations how they would be mitigated, and roll to handle the remaining. Some of my first posts were about a similar idea. I'll be doing some thinking about this.
Garvym happily accepted the bird and eggs back in town, and Robert Oldwine bought the pearl, though was dubious about any stories of goblin shrines. They headed to bed while planning another trip to Brost.
Statistics
Hexes Explored: 9
Dungeons Explored: 0
Treasure Obtained: 1371 previously + 17 loose coins + 110 albatross egg + 190 live albatross + 117 pearl altarpiece = 1858 coins + 2 unsold magic anchors
Wages Spent: 420 previously + 60 = 480 coins
Map
Episode 5 Notes
New player! Vampirfella joins us having never played a game like this before. His character, Brambles, leans towards a druid-like archetype and came from the forest nearby which we'd so recently explored. Once again, chance has provided unexpected connections.
Between Manqoba's herbalist background and Fiskes's found purple lotus powder, we have two sources of hallucinogens in the party. Which is a lot and also means that I need to be prepared for player entheogens and weaponized hallucinations.
I mentioned above and also during the fight with the anglergoblins, I was relying a lot on ability checks, which in general I'm not a fan of. This led to a conversation on the OSR Discord the morning after the game about the utility of ability checks. I definitely realized during the game that, on the one hand, it gave me a ready tool to use. But on the other hand, I don't feel like it's a good one. It might be too easily used, and so replace the essence of the game, choice.
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