Choose Your Adventure: Session 3

What dangers will the party face on the road? Plus: Session 2 wrap-up and XP awards

Happy Monday! Our party just wrapped up their first homefront session and set out on the road to Marshedge, so today we’ll mostly be wearing our GM hats, awarding XP and planning what dangers the party might face on the road to Marshedge. Before we dive in, let’s recap what happened in Session 2.

Session 2 Recap

Session 2 opened with the party’s victorious return from the Great Wood, which they had braved to locate a lost villager named Blodwen. Stonetop was relieved that she had been returned safely, but when the time came to hear how she became lost in the woods and what happened to her in the ruin, Cerys, the village’s influential priestess of Danu, forbid her from spreading her tale, lest the village incurs the Goddess’ displeasure by meddling with forbidden artifacts of the ancient Green Lords.

Unable to further explore the ruins in the Great Wood, Vahid, the party’s scholar and antiquarian, turned his attention to the Maker-crafted ruins inside Stonetop itself — specifically the ancient cistern which the villagers fill with water every spring to draw upon during drier seasons. Speaking to Padrig, Vahid outlined his plan to build a system of channels and gutters to automatically fill the cistern with rainwater and snowmelt, freeing the villagers from those labors. At the same time, the project will allow Vahid a close look at the cistern itself, perhaps giving him a chance to learn its true purpose. When Padrig was reluctant, Vahid revealed that he was aware Padrig had lied about the Companion’s honorable past and suggested that working on behalf of the village would be an opportunity to prove his good intentions, despite his deception. Padrig begrudgingly agreed to aid Vahid in this plan.

The first step in Vahid’s plan is to secure building materials from Marshedge, a town 8 days to the southeast. Padrig and Ozbeg agreed to help, and in secret, used this as an opportunity to gather intelligence about Marshedge, where their old bandit chief had taken up residence. They learned that he has been made captain of the guard there, and speculate whether it’s honest work or part of some greater scheme.

Vahid then needed to secure funds to purchase the material. He plans to sell an artifact of the Green Lords that Blodwen found in the ruins while she was lost there. She agrees to give them the artifact (a strange, flowing metalline garment) but refuses to speak about how she came in possession of it while lost in the ruin.

Treasure in hand, Padrig, Ozbeg, and Vahid set off for Marshedge, but before they get far, Anwen catches up with them and demands to join the journey. After some back-and-forth, Padrig agrees.

End-of-Session Questions

To close out the session and award experience points to each character, we ask a few end-of-session questions.

First, each character answers these questions, and for each ‘yes’ answer, marks an XP.

1. Did you demonstrate or struggle with your instinct?

2. Did you change your relationship with a PC or NPC?

For Padrig, I think he marks both XP. Getting the lay of the land in Marshedge before the journey reflects his Caution instinct. And for question #2, He restored a bit of his relationship with Ozbeg by holding up his end of their bargain, and he treated Anwen as a bit more of an equal by agreeing she had the right to join the expedition to Marshedge.

Anwen for sure marks both, but we need to revisit her Instinct. In her Session Zero, we marked her Instinct as “Earnestness: To prove yourself to others,” but then during the Session One wrapup, we awarded her XP for “Defiance: To refuse to back down, give up, give in.” Poor editing on my part, to be sure, but this kind of stuff happens all the time in TTRPGs — you discover the character as you play them. Based on how events have unfolded, I like Defiance as an instinct better for her — it explains her conflict with Owain and Cerys, and it better tracks her behavior in the story so far. So, I’m going to make the switch on her character sheet and write an update in her session zero post. In this session, specifically, she was defiant with Padrig when he tried to send her home, and that conversation certainly changed her relationship with him, placing them on more equal footing.

Vahid marks both as well. His curiosity about the ancient cistern is driving this whole project, and he used his mystical insight to press Padrig into service, advancing their relationship substantially — I’ve found shared secrets are a really powerful way to tie PCs together, and that’s one of the reasons I always encourage my PCs to share their “secret” backstories as quickly as possible.

That does it for individual XP. Now, we answer these three questions on behalf of the whole party. For each, the whole party marks an XP:

1. Did we learn more about the world and its history?

2. Did we defeat a threat to Stonetop or the region?

3. Did we improve our standing with our neighbors?

4. Did we make a meaningful improvement to Stonetop, or make progress towards doing so?

Here, I think we mark 2 XP — For questions #1 and #4. We learned about Brennan in Marshedge, and we made progress towards improving the cistern.

Each character also gets an XP for each time they rolled a six or less, which did not happen at all this session. Padrig and Anwen, however, each received 1 XP because of Vahid’s efforts to persuade them. Added to what they received in Session 1, that makes a total of 10 XP for all three characters. Leveling from 1 to 2 costs 8 XP, so we can now trigger the Level Up move.

Source: Jeremy Strandberg // Stonetop

One could argue that traveling to Marshedge doesn’t count as ‘downtime,’ but we’re going to err on the side of the PCs and level up during the journey — eight days and nights of walking a great time to ‘reflect on one’s experiences.’

Let’s Plan: Session 3

Now let’s really put on our GM hats and plan the road ahead. To plan for an expedition like this one, Stonetop’s GM playbook has this guidance:

Source: Jeremy Strandberg // Stonetop

The journey to Marshedge doesn’t take much in the way of Requirements. It’s 8 days there, and it’s a straight shot on the old Maker’s Roads, so there’s no need for a map or a guide. What we’re going to focus on are the Challenges.

We don’t want this journey to take too long — the main event is in Marshedge itself. So we need one, at most two Challenges to throw at the party on the way, and we’ll do so with a quick reader poll. Here are some threats that might menace our heroes on the road to Marshedge.

1. The Nosgolau: The Maker’s Roads themselves are quite safe, thanks to the ancient enchantments woven into the very paving stones. But canny travelers tell tales of the nosgolau, strange witch-lights that appear in the night and lure unsuspecting travelers off the roads and into terrible danger. When they appear and a traveler hears their call, it can seem irresistible.

2. The Hillfolk: The steppe lands and flats that surround Stonetop are home to many tribes of nomadic hillfolk. They are herdsmen, hunters, and occasionally raiders, and both Padrig and Vahid have a dangerous history with them.

3. The Claws: As the party gets closer to Marshedge, there is a chance that they will encounter members of Padrig’s old bandit crew, who will likely be up to no good.

If it’s a landslide, we’ll just do one challenge; if it’s more of a split decision we’ll do two. Excited to see what y’all select!

UPDATE: Voting has been closed as of 12/8.

Housekeeping

Just a quick update on publishing schedule: Today I’m starting a new job, which will likely leave a little less time for running this campaign (at least at first). I’ve had a blast publishing this newsletter twice per week, but I’m concerned it won’t be sustainable at quality. So, I’m going to take the proactive step to pare back a bit and go once per week for now. I very much hope to ramp back up as soon as possible, but I wanted to give a heads up that we’ll just publish on Mondays for the time being. Cheers!

Next Episode: Session 3.1: Beyond the Crossroads