Session 3.4: The Fen

The ambush's aftermath. A conversation at the Last Door. The bridge to Marshedge.

In our last episode, the party was approached by a group of Hillfolk riders who were seeking to capture Vahid and return him to their meistr, who has been hunting for him. The party was able to set a trap for Vahid’s would-be kidnappers, and a short, bloody fight ensued. We ended last episode with Padrig making a split-second decision whether to loose an arrow at the final, retreating rider (who might bring reinforcements), or to offer him parole and attempt to spare his life. We put it to a reader’s poll — let’s see what decision you chose for him!

Padrig’s a bit conflicted, but he knows what he has to do. Now let’s see how true his arrow flies:

With Pad’s +1 Dexterity, we score a weak hit, and he rolls the maximum 8 damage. Padrig takes the rider out, but it costs him his remaining arrows as a consequence of the weak hit — easy to deal with, since the fight is in its closing moments. Back to the action:

Scene 9: A Steplands canyon.

Padrig hesitates for a bare moment, as Anwen calls out for the young Hillfolk rider to surrender, but his eyes focus on the target and he releases. The arrow leaps from the bowstring towards the fleeing youth, but arcs wide over his right shoulder. The rider looks back in panic and urges his horse to a wild gallop.

Swearing under his breath, Padrig nocks the last arrow from his quiver and lets fly. This time, the arrow strikes true, the force of the impact driving the rider from the saddle and into the dusty ground where he lies still. His horse runs on, heedlessly down the canyon. Padrig’s eyes linger on the fallen rider as Anwen runs to him before he turns back to look after Ozbeg and Vahid.

Oz watched him take the shot, and when Padrig meets his eyes, he nods approvingly. “This one’s gone to meet the Lady of Crows,” he says, gesturing to the rider at his feet. “Maybe your friend Adm still has life in him.”

Padrig nods, and looks to Vahid. “If Adm is alive, I have questions for him. Your special insight would be useful, scholar.” Vahid nods, dusts off a flat, low stone, and sits to meditate. Padrig rounds the bend to find Adm. He has crawled a short way from where he fell, and he is leaning against the canyon wall, Padrig’s arrow protruding from his chest. His sword lies at his side, and his hide vest is soaked with blood. His breath is shallow and ragged, and he looks up at Padrig with unfocused eyes.

“Not a sellsword, then.” he grimaces.

“No,” Padrig says. “Perhaps not, anymore.” He kneels next to the dying rider and takes a sip from his whiskey skin. “Drink?”

Adm nods, wincing in pain. “I knew you and I would be friends. Yes, give me drink.” Padrig holds the skin to his lips, and he drinks deeply, only stopping when a fit of coughing takes him.

“Stonetop whiskey. So you really are from the Storm Hill. The first caravan I ever took, as a stripling rider, carried Stonetop whiskey. When we celebrated that night, I had far too much and made myself sick. Ris, an older rider, mocked me endlessly afterward. My stomach still churns at the taste of it,” he says.

“Where’s Ris now?” Padrig asks, glancing back towards Vahid.

“Dead. I killed him in the circle when I was twenty-five. I still ride his horse,” Adm says, squinting off into the distance. “Where has she got to?”

Vahid emerges from around the canyon bend, his third eye glowing pure white on his forehead. Adm sneers and looks to Padrig. “It’s true; he is a magi. I hope he rewards you well for your services.” Padrig doesn’t reply, just offers Adm more whiskey. He accepts. As he drinks deeply, a bit of the tension leaves his body, and his breathing slows.

“That young hothead said your meistr commands some power that can drive travelers off the Black Road. Is that true?”

He grins. His teeth are stained red. “Yes, stren, yes. We are led by a powerful hdour. He is born of the thunder, and when he and the storm are one, not even the magic of the hated Old Masters can stand against him.” Padrig looks up at Vahid, who nods in confirmation.¹

“How many ride for this sorcerer? All of the Ash-Pickers?” Padrig asks.

Adm’s voice grows raspy and quiet, but more urgent. His breathing is very shallow now. “All of us, and more. Many bands, a hundred riders. All the stren — the thrice-cursed Delvers, the frog-eaters of the Fen, and even your folk on the Storm Hill will pay us tribute.”

“Now he is just telling us tales,” Vahid says.

“Tales can come true, stren, if the faithful fight for them. This one will, I promise you.” he says, his voice just a whisper now. Padrig is about to ask him another question, but he continues, wheezing. “I see the Crowmother. She is beckoning me to the Last Door. Enough talk.” He coughs a bright red mist.

Vahid kneels beside him. “What does she look like?” he asks, the mote of light shining brightly on his forehead. Padrig raises an eyebrow quizzically.

“Come closer, magi, and I will bring you to meet her,” he says, through clenched, bloody teeth. His hand is on the hilt of his sword, but he hasn’t the strength to tighten his grip. His breath quiets now, and he is still. Vahid sighs, and closes his eyes as the mote fades from his forehead.

Padrig takes the sword from Adm’s hand, and closes his eyelids with his fingertips. “What do you know of hdour, Vahid?”

“I know they are very dangerous,” Vahid replies.“Some of the Hillfolk are born with the spirit-speech, and the natural world — birds, beasts, and spirits of the wild — converse with them from a young age. These youths are trained by others with the talent, and they intercede with the spirits on behalf of their clan. But some of them choose a different path, and enslave, or are enslaved by, the spirits. These are the hdour — hated and outcast among their people.”²

“This one is not outcast. He leads a band,” Padrig says. “If he truly can strike at caravans on the Makers’ Roads, many Hillfolk warriors would follow him for that alone.”

“Troubling,” Vahid says. “We should let the folk in Marshedge know. Get a message to Gordin’s Delve, if we are able. And we should contact the bands closest to Stonetop to see if they know of this sorcerer.”

“Yes, and we should not linger here. See if you can coax Sweetfoot back towards the road. I need to speak with Anwen,” he says with a grimace.

Around the canyon bend, Ozbeg is negotiating with the piebald mare, which shies away from him as he attempts to take its reins, and Anwen sits quietly beside the fallen Hillfolk. He is turned on his side, laying still, his hand outstretched towards Anwen, and his blood stains her face and shoulder. Padrig stands beside her and waits for her to speak.

“He didn’t speak our tongue. He kept saying a word, and gave me this.” In her hand is a talisman — a shard of clear, dark green glass wrapped in a bronze wire cage, still wet with his blood. “It sounded like ‘promise’.”

“People say all manner of things when they stand before the Lady of Crows. Vahid might know better what that keepsake meant to him,” Padrig says. “I’m sorry I couldn’t offer him parole. There were too many risks.”

“I know that,” she says, shortly. “I’m not a fool, I knew you would shoot the moment I said it, and I knew it was the proper thing to do. But I was watching him, and I don’t think he was like the other two. He might have accepted.” She pauses, then continues bitterly: “And if I had just held him down, we’d know for sure, and he might be alive.”

“There are other ways he could have stayed alive today before he put himself in your hands,” Padrig says. “This is your first fight. If you want to be a warrior, there’ll be more, and they won’t all be this clean. Best keep busy — see if you can help Ozbeg bring that mare to heel.”

Anwen nods quietly. Vahid has joined Ozbeg as they try to calm Adm’s mare. The horse’s nostrils flair as she scents the air, and she paws the earth with her hooves. “Every one of these gods-damned Hillfolk horses has a demon inside them, I’ll swear to it,” Ozbeg grumbles as he dodges a lashing hoof.

“The Hillfolk breed them for their strength and fighting spirit. They can smell fear and doubt in their would-be riders, it is written.³ You must approach it with confidence,” Vahid says, from a safe distance.

Ozbeg barks a laugh. “You sound quite confident, scholar! Why don’t you approach her?”

But it is Anwen that steps forward.

Scene Breakdown

I’m curious what folks think about this interaction between Anwen and Padrig — my hope is that we can portay her as idealistic, but not naive, so their conversation about Pad’s choice isn’t a blow-up, drag-out fight. It has the potential to be quite tedious if she’s constantly upset with the party when violence occurs, so instead we want this tension to be a bit more of a slow burn — if Padrig goes too far, Anwen will see this moment as the first sign. If you have strong feels one way or the other, share them in the comments!

Now, let’s talk about these horses — why are we spending so much time on them? From a player perspective, these horses are valuable — an Upland Steed is Value 3, which, for context, is the entire cost of the goods that the party is trying to acquire from Marshedge, and, if translated into coins, is more money than anyone in Stonetop has at this moment. It’s also a powerful benefit if they don’t sell it — Stonetop only has two horses, and they’re broken down draft horses, not riding horses trained for combat. It’s simply not a resource they can or should ignore.

And from a GM perspective, we can give Anwen a moment in the spotlight to try to tame this noble steed. She’s the Would-Be Hero, and it’s a fun opportunity to express that archetype — like Alexander the Great taming his horse Bucephalus or Perseus capturing the Pegasus.

So, how are they going to do it? Anwen and Vahid will work together a bit.

First off, Anwen has 1 Resolve saved up to power her Anger is a Gift move (you can see the text from her Session Zero post, here). When she demanded that Padrig hold his fire and let the Hillfolk live, she was able to trigger her shiny, new Speak Truth to Power move (shown at the end of Session 3.2, here), and when Padrig did not agree, she gains 1 Resolve. She can now spend that resolve to set aside fear and doubt and do what must be done. She can approach the mare without any sign of fear or doubt, which will give her a fighting chance to persuade it to come with her. Normally, we’d have her Defy Danger to even approach the mare, but since she is able to spend Resolve, she bypasses that obstacle.

She is also following Vahid’s advice, triggering his (likewise shiny and new) Sage Advice move (referenced in Session 3.1 here), which gives her advantage to use the Persuade move. Anwen has a +0 Charisma bonus, and rolling three dice and keeping the two highest (thanks to advantage) gives us 8, a weak hit. Anwen will use her Impetuous Youth move (referenced here) to upgrade the weak hit to a strong one. As a cost, she chooses to take damage and suffer an injury (much like Padrig’s ammo, from a player standpoint it’s the most straightforward choice since the immediate conflict is over and there may be time to heal up on the road). Back to the action:

Anwen meets and holds the mare’s gaze as she approaches, and she stills, but only just. Her ears are alert, and the skin of her flanks twitches, ready to flee or strike at any provocation. As she moves to the horse’s side and takes the reins in hand, the mare tenses on her hind legs.

Without hesitation, Anwen leaps onto the saddle and clings to the horse’s mane like a bur as it takes off at a gallop. The mare bucks and rears, desperately trying to shake her new rider from her back, but Anwen holds fast, even when the mare slams her into the canyon sidewall and her vision goes white with pain. Her body aches with every motion, but the mare is slowing, and she recaptures the reins and pulls them taut. The horse comes to a lurching halt, her body still tense and ready to run, straining against its hide-and-sinew bridle. Anwen waits, her battered shoulder on fire until the beast finally begins to slacken its pull and calm. Then, calmly, slowly, she slides off the saddle and leads the horse back by the reins to the rest of the party. Ozbeg gapes, Vahid looks smug.

“You see, Ozbeg? All that was required was a little determination.” Vahid says.

Padrig steps up to her and nods approvingly. “Well done. Are you hurt?”

“Not too badly,” Anwen grimaces.

“We’ll tend to that shoulder when we camp next. Let’s move. We want to be days from here when these three are found. With luck, their band won’t be able to tell where we came from.”

“We’ve never been that lucky,” grumbles Ozbeg, and the party makes its way back to the ancient road.

The World’s End, the party’s path marked in red. Source: Stonetop // Jeremy Strandberg // Illustration Credit: Lucie Arnoux // luciedraws.com

Scene 10: Approaching Marshedge, three days later

Near sunset on the eighth day of travel from Stonetop, the party reaches Marshedge. The land has evened to a rolling, green prairie dotted with puffs of white wildflowers and the smell of wet earth everywhere, and they first see the curling grey smoke and clustered firelights from the top of a shallow knoll. The town is clustered and crowded on a hill overlooking Ferrier’s Fen, which spreads out to the north like a dark stain on the green land. At the base of the hill is a tall wooden palisade, all sharpened stakes and burning braziers, and blocking the party’s path is the broad, slow river Sruth, spanned by a narrow wooden bridge, only just wide enough for Sweetfoot’s wagon to fit.

Padrig and Anwen lead the way across the bridge, him leading Sweetfoot’s slow, deliberate tread, Anwen with the Hillfolk mare, who dances nervously on the wooden planks. Ozbeg and Vahid bring up the rear. Perched in the wagon, Anwen’s hound Shadow growls suspiciously at the strange scents in the air. In the center of the span, the bridge sways alarmingly, and Anwen looks down into the Sruth’s thick, green-black water.

“How can anyone live so close to these depths?” she asks. “Most folk in Stonetop wouldn’t come within miles of this place. The things that must crawl out of it…” she trails off, shuddering.

“It is written that when the first settlers came here, many died,” Vahid replies. “Sickness, corrupted creatures from the waters, and starvation claimed them. But a few of the brave, or lucky, found the secret ways of the Fen — particularly the burning of Bendis root, which is anathema to those corrupted by the things below. You can see the braziers burning it on the wall there, day and night. Those that survived are the ancestors of the Old Families that now rule this place.”⁴

Anwen looks to Padrig. “Have any of you been here before? In your travels?”

Padrig shakes his head. “No. Never had cause to, til now.” Ozbeg grunts in agreement.

“I visited here on my way to Stonetop, and spent the night in the Edgemarket,” Vahid says. “There is an old Maker waystation that persists there, though its protective magic is weakening. There we can meet merchants who may know where we can find our contact, and who might be interested in purchasing our rarity,” Vahid pats the small wooden box that Blodwen entrusted them with at their journey’s start.

Marshedge. Source: Stonetop // Jeremy Strandberg // Illustration Credit: Lucie Arnoux // luciedraws.com

As they approach the gatehouse, his voice grows a little quieter. “I don’t recall quite so many guards when last I visited.”

At the gatehouse are five guards, geared in iron scale armor and half-helms. Their shields, slung over shoulders or hanging from the gate, are painted green with a white sigil of a willow tree. Two of them — nervous-looking young men — are engaged in searching another wagon, halted in front of the heavy wooden gates and laden with bales of green fiber. Their leader, a hard-faced woman with close-shaved black hair, looks on as her men root through the cargo.

The party comes to a stop behind the farmer’s wagon. The farmer, an older man with long, stringy grey hair, wrapped in a straw cloak looks on as the guards do their business. One of them grins triumphantly and holds up a small, canvas satchel. The gate sergeant raises her hand, and he tosses it to her. When she opens it, it spills out the contraband — bundles of weedy green plants topped by pale yellow flowers. She glares at him. “Growing and selling Crowsbane is the province of the Herbalist’s Guild, Coln. You have been warned before. I don’t want to turn you over to the guildmaster, but you leave me little choice.”

“I-I-I thought there was a new arrangement at the gate, sergeant?” he stammers. “A fine, only? I have the silvers right here!” The man digs into his pouch and produces a heavy handful of shining bezants, holding them for inspection.

She looks down at the silvers, pity and suspicion mingling on her face. “I have my orders from the town council, and they have said nothing about a ‘new arrangement.’”

Before she can continue, an oily voice comes from the gatehouse. “I can help, I think.” Padrig swears under his breath when he hears it. Anwen turns to him with a questioning look, but he shakes his head and says nothing.

The man that emerges from the gap in the town gates is unremarkable, of middling height, perhaps 35, with close-shorn black hair, and armored in the same iron scale as the other guardsmen. He has a round face with a bland smile that doesn’t quite reach his muddy blue eyes. “Colm has made an arrangement with the Guard. The guilds do not enforce the laws of Marshedge; we do, Maeve. You would do well to remember that.” He strides up to the farmer and takes the coins, counting them before depositing them in his belt pouch. “On your way, Colm. Stay out of trouble, now,” and he winks kindly.

Colm looks hopefully at Maeve. Her face barely contains her irritation. “I am the gate sergeant here. We’re here to protect these people and uphold the law, not shake a few bezants into our own pockets. You don’t even have rank, as far as the Council is concerned.”

“I had my orders from the Marshal’s own lips. New recruits don’t outfit themselves — more’s the pity — so he’s decided to levy a bit of a tax, for the common good. If you like, we can go speak to him about it. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if we troubled him about this,” he says, his smile never slipping.

The other guardsmen watch this exchange with rapt attention. The newcomer notices and turns his smile on them. “Here you are, lads. Your cousin Bertrim’s got a little something for you today, in case your kit needs a bit of polish,” he says. To each of them, he hands a small stack of silvers. They are slow to pocket them, under Maeve’s angry glare, but once the first man does the others fall quickly. Maeve turns, fuming wordlessly, and returns to the gatehouse.

Bertrim waves magnanimously. “Move this fine yeoman along, my friends. He’s worked a hard day and must get home to his family. Who’s next?” Bertrim looks up, and he sees Padrig.

There is a momentary flash of surprised irritation, quickly mastered behind the bland smile. “By the Thunderhead! Everyone is saying you’re dead, Pad.”

Padrig nods curtly. “And yet.”

Bertrim’s smile widens. “And yet! Here you are. And is that Ozbeg I see, in the rearguard as usual?” his dead-level gaze alights on Anwen, at Padrig’s side. “And who is this? New blood?”

Padrig shrugs noncomittally. “Maybe. She might not have the mettle. We took her on as extra muscle, guarding this traveler who was on his way here anyhow,” he says, gesturing to Vahid. “What are you doing here, Bertrim? Are you a tax collector, now?”

Bertrim laughs — a few hollow, unconvincing guffaws. “Really? She seems like she’s got potential,” he says. Anwen tenses, her jaw set, but she says nothing. He looks back to Padrig. “As for me, I do whatever Brennan needs doing, Pad. As I always have. Just like you, no?”

Padrig refuses the bait. “My employer has business in town, Bertrim. What will it cost him for you to make way?”

“Any friend of yours is a friend of your cousin Bertrim’s, Pad.” He looks at each of them and taps his forehead. “And I always remember my friends.” He turns and waves them through. The guardsmen dutifully make way as Padrig and Anwen lead the party into Marshedge.

Session End Notes

Welcome to Marshedge! Took a bit longer than expected, but if the conversations on Stonetop’s Discord are any indication, these sorts of journeys often have a way of grabbing a little extra spotlight. Quick plug — you can get access to the Stonetop Discord (and engage directly with the awesome creator!) by preordering the game through Kickstarter. If you do, you can get the playtest kit we’re using to run this story, which will make it a bit easier to follow along on the rules minituae.

To close out the session, we’ll do end-of-session XP questions and awards and we’ll level up Padrig with a reader poll.

As a refresher, here are the character-specific end-of-session questions. For each ‘yes’ answer, the character marks an XP.

1. Did you demonstrate or struggle with your instinct?

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

This was a pretty long session (4 episodes in total), so there were ample opportunities for all the PCs to check these boxes:

Vahid demonstrated his Curiosity instinct by inadvertently revealing the Azure Hand to the Hillfolk that were trailing the party, and he became more of an equal with Padrig by demonstrating his insight in the encounter with the nosgolau.

Anwen demonstrated her Defiance instinct by standing tall in front of the Judge at the Crossroads, in spite of her fear at its corrupted visage. In that same moment, she demonstrated her bravery and strength to the rest of the party, and to herself.

Padrig demonstrated his Caution instinct by taking the shot and killing the young Hillfolk rider to protect his companions and the village as a whole, and he changed his relationship with Anwen in the aftermath of the nosgolau encounter by revealing the truth about himself and the Companions.

The partywide session questions are also pretty straightforward:

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?

We’ll mark 3 XP — #1, #2, and #4. We had ample opportunity to learn about the history of the world on the journey to Marshedge, we defeated (but did not destroy) the Judge at the Crossroads and denied it its prey, and we made progress towards Vahid’s long-term project of improving Stonetop’s cistern (and exploring its Maker origins in the process). So, total, each PC marks 5 XP to close out session three, leaving our XP totals at:

Vahid: 7
Anwen: 5
Padrig: 7

Leveling Up Padrig

Finally, let’s level up the old Marshal and choose a new move:

Source: Stonetop // Jeremy Strandberg

Prepare a Welcome advances Padrig’s Read the Land move, allowing Padrig to create traps and other surprises for his enemies. One drawback, however, is that it uses +INT, which is -1 for Padrig; so not the most reliable. If we choose this one, we will probably want to raise his INT next.

Stentorian is a strong support ability that can be used to help the rest of the party hit harder or get out of trouble. Padrig’s voice has been characterized as cutting through the din of battle a few times in the narrative, so this fits with how we’ve portrayed him already.

Call the Shot is borrowed from the Ranger playbook, which is not currently in play. Would’ve been nice to have this in the canyon — maybe next time, Padrig will have another option.

And per usual, we’ll also consider an Improved Stat advancement — in Padrig’s case, we’ll look at Dexterity (raising it from +1 to +2), since he’s using it pretty frequently in combat.

Hit the button below to help choose how Padrig develops, and I’ll see you in Marshedge next week! (voting closed on 1/7/2022)

Next Episode: Session 4.1: Welcome to Marshedge

1. Vahid has used the Seek Insight move, combined with his third eye from his minor arcana, to ascertain whether Adm is lying during this questioning.

2. Vahid triggers Know Things, with advantage because we are discussing “The civilizations of humanity,” which is one of his specialties for the Well Versed move. He rolls low on all three dice, and ends up scoring only a 7 — nothing immediately useful, just general information.

3. Vahid once again triggers Know Things and scores an 11. Something interesting and useful, which he can provide as advice using his Sage Advice ability.

4. Vahid triggers Know Things and scores a 10. He learns some interesting background about the Old Families of Marshedge and how they gained their power, plus something useful — the burning of Bendis root keeps creatures corrupted by The Things Below at bay.