In the last episode, our heroes faced down a thunder drake — a dangerous saurian with the ability to belch forth thunder and lightning. The beast had appeared during a meeting of the village elders, who were preparing to render judgment on the question of Padrig’s bandits — would they be allowed to remain and call the village home, or will they be asked to move on?
We closed the last episode with the drake slain — but not before it claimed the lives of Cadoc, a herdsman and a close friend of Anwen’s, and Aled, one of Padrig’s fighters. Anwen was also badly injured and will require time to convalesce. We’ll begin this episode with only a very small gap in time — after all, there is an outstanding question before the elders.
But first, let’s find out how last week’s reader poll fell out:
Iron Will has fallen off pretty substantially since the last level up poll, which very reasonable, since we haven’t really seen Anwen in a mind-control type situation since her brief interaction with the Judge at the Crossroads in Session 3.2. In the Armored vs. Payback faceoff, Payback wins the day. Furthermore, in the comments section last week, readers noted that this might represent a slightly darker turn for Anwen where her anger might lead her astray. PTFO:Stonetop is at its core a heroic story, but even heroes are challenged by powerful emotions sometimes, so we’ll play to find out how that manifests for Anwen. This episode however, will focus on Padrig and Vahid. Anwen’s had a lot of spotlight lately, and she needs time to heal a bit, while Vahid has been waiting patiently to delve into Stonetop’s ancient history.
We’ll pick up the action shortly after the drake was slain:
Scene 7: The southwestern watchtower, continued
The sun has just begun to set on the Standing Stone, and as quick as it arrived, the thunderhead above has dispersed into scattered clouds painted red in the dying light. With the storm quiet and the danger passed, a crowd of more than a hundred have gathered around the watchtower, taking in the aftermath of the struggle. Militia injured by the drake’s thrashing are tended to, and Anwen, unconscious and bloodied, is borne from the field at Cerys’ direction with Vahid trailing after her.
Padrig leads his men back down the embankment to the spot where Aled fell. They gather around him and fashion a stretcher from a pair of broken spears, and shields loaned by the militia. There is little talk and what there is, is quiet, tense, and full of unvoiced anger.
Padrig clears his throat. “There’ll be time soon to talk about Aled, and the man he was. But I want to talk to each of you now. I know this isn’t the home all of you’d choose,” he inclines his head to Ozbeg. “But it’s the one we can have. Brennan’s over there in Marshedge, offering the same plan he was in Gordin’s Delve: Overthrow the Old Families, take over the place, and rule like a petty king. We were all there for what happened in the Delve. I won’t be a part of it again. Those of you who want to leave, I’ll see you leave with coin in your purse. But I’m going back up there to get an answer from the judge. Them that want an answer too, follow me and bring our fallen.”
The crew is willing to go along with it, but they want some additional assurances.
It’s a bit of a GM/player negotiation whether this Persuade roll needs to take place. Arguably, Padrig already persuaded his crew to go along with his plan to stay in Stonetop last episode, and scored a weak hit — their price was a promise from the elders that they’d have a place in Stonetop. So why roll again?
You can argue their confidence has been shaken by Aled’s death, and Padrig needs to deal with that consequence, especially since the elders seemed to be turning against them. I think for our purposes, it’s the right thing — if Padrig had failed this roll, I think we would be justified in putting his crew under threat, perhaps creating a countdown clock to their desertion or betrayal. I prefer a slow-burn or opt-in approach to threatening key character assets (like the Marshal’s crew) — that tends to feel both fair to the player and dramatic for the story, which we discussed a bit in the comments last week.
Back to the action, to see what assurances Ozbeg and the crew will require:
Ozbeg listens, tapping his hand on the sheath of his fighting knife and not meeting Pad’s eye as he speaks. When he finishes, Ozbeg looks up, meeting his gaze resolutely. “If we’re going to stay, it can’t be like it was with Brennan,” he says.
Pad motions for Ozbeg to continue. “You can’t be second-in-command anymore. You can’t let that bastard Owain lord over us. If you let him give the orders, he’ll get us killed if he gets half a chance. And he wouldn’t lose a single night’s sleep.” As he continues, his voice grows louder. “If you had been in charge instead of Brennan, might be things would have gone differently in the Delve. But you didn’t have the iron to stand against him. Do you have it now?”
“You’ve been thinking about this for a time now, haven’t you, Oz?” Padrig asks with a careful tone.
“Weren’t just me,” Ozbeg says, shrugging defensively. “Quiet Quill’s been at me every night since we got back, singing this same song.”
“That so, Quill?” Padrig turns to him. Quill’s a dark-haired man of 29 winters, with a narrow, hatchet face and hard blue eyes. He stands at Ozbeg’s shoulder, his thumbs hooked into his quiver belt.
“Aye,” he rasps.
“I’m sorry. I should have stood against Brennan years ago when he hanged old Ulrike, or a dozen times after that. It won’t be the same with Owain. You have my oath on it,” Padrig meets each of their eyes in turn as he speaks. “What say you?”
They stand quietly over Aled’s body for a time. Then Ozbeg breaks the silence. “Right! Enough malingering, lads. You heard the chief — let’s get poor Aled out of the mud.”
With that, they take up the stretcher and bear Aled back to the village green. They pass under the watchtower and through the dozens of folk that crowd around the scene as the militia wrestle the fallen thunder drake onto a sled of wooden rollers. When they see Aled’s body pass by, all go quiet and watch, a few breaking off from the crowd and following along to the Pavillion of the Gods.
Scene 8: The Pavillion of the Gods
The elders have returned to their place before the shrine of the Lawkeeper, but the assembly has thinned — many have returned to their homes, fear and uncertainty still lingering even though the beast is dead. Of those that remain, all eyes are on Padrig as he enters the pavilion, while the Companions wait outside with Aled’s body.
Padrig stands before them. Pryce regards him with an appraising eye, while Marged looks down at her calloused hands, her face anxious and guilty. Garet’s face is grave, while Cerys looks on inscrutably.
“I await your counsel, elders,” Padrig says grimly. “One of my men is dead. Did he die for coin? Or for his home?”
Padrig did make this roll last episode, and rolled a Miss. But, with the role the Companions played in defending the village from the drake, particularly Aled’s death, we can rule that the situation has changed substantially, and Padrig can take another shot.
And this time, the elders will let them stay, but there will be a condition.
Garet returns Padrig’s gaze. The kind old publican that Padrig remembers from his youth is gone — Garet has come the judge of Aratis with intent.
“You have confessed to terrible crimes, Padrig. In Marshedge, in the Manmarches, and in the cities of the shining south, who worship Aratis and his laws above all, bandits hang from dool trees and rot in cells of iron and stone. For your crimes, despite the love I bear for you and your family, Aratis would have me turn you and your comrades away.” Before he continues, he looks to Marged and to Pryce, but Cerys doesn’t meet his eye.
“But,” he continues in a loud, clear voice that belies his age. “Here, Aratis’ judgment must yield to Tor. And Tor bids us honor blood-debts above all others. I will not see it said that the people of Stonetop do not honor the valorous dead. Nor that we turn our backs upon the guest-right and shun those who have given us gifts they hold dear — as dear their very lives.”
An excited stir runs through the assembly. Rhys raises his voice for Padrig. “Aye, Garet! Let them stay! Thrice now they have faced danger for me and mine. Thrice they have protected us, for nothing more than a share of the commonweal. I would see them stay!” Others raise their voices in loud support. Owain, flanked by a few members of his warriors’ circle, looks on, silently simmering.
Garet sternly holds his hands up for quiet and receives it. “Listen well to them, Padrig,” he says and turns to Ozbeg and the crew, watching from beneath the eaves of the pavilion. “Listen well, Companions. You have won the faith of these folk with your courage. Do not break that faith.”
Padrig bows his head. “We will not.”
Cerys glares at Garet expectantly and prods him, her bone and antler bangles clattering on her wrist. He continues. “Padrig, you offered an oath to Cerys — that you would see that your bandits did not raise strife in the village. Will you swear that oath still? Will you share the judgment for any crime they might commit?”
“I so swear,” Padrig says. “Before all the gods of this place. If any of the Companions stand before you accused, I will stand with them.”
Garet nods. “My counsel to you is that you remain among us, with your Companions. For as long as you stay here, heeding our laws and keeping our traditions, you may call Stonetop your home, and its people, your people. So must it be.”
The assembly echos, “So must it be.”
“Thank you, elders. We will heed your counsel.” Padrig rejoins the Companions to lay their fallen comrade to rest, and the assembly disperses throughout the village, news of what’s happened spreading to every household by nightfall.
Padrig swearing the oath to secure his crew’s place in the village also triggers the Strengthen Your Bond move for his crew — their cost is “Risks taken by you, to help them,” and this feels like it qualifies. Padrig marks 1 Loyalty for his crew (he can hold up to 3 at any time), and Loyalty can be spent to bypass a Persuade or Order Followers roll in the future, which will be useful as Padrig integrates his crew with the village.
Setting the Scene for Vahid
Vahid’s been waiting in the wings for a long time for a crack at the cistern, and while Anwen convalesces, we have some time to advance this thread. Part of Vahid’s plan to explore the cistern below the village is his scheme to build a water collection system so folk don’t have to gather rainwater and snowmelt all the time. You can see the in-game description of this improvement here on the Stonetop steading sheet (Improved Rainwater Collection is at #N36).
That project requires the village to Pull Together (reference here) three times over three seasons, and we’ll do the first of those rolls now. Vahid and Padrig trigger this move in the fiction by gathering up a substantial work crew and putting them to the initial steps of the project. We established that Rhys and the folk who tend the farms his family oversees were the most willing to help, thanks to Vahid and Padrig’s efforts to rescue Blodwen when she was lost in the Great Wood. Let’s see how the work is progressing — Padrig makes the roll, thanks to his Logistics move granting advantage on this sort of thing:
The work’s going well — we won’t dwell too much on the specifics of the project, other than to envision that some of the work has uncovered an older system of channels and drains, built into the bedrock, which suggest a more extensive complex beneath the village which also made use of collected rainwater. We’ll posit that Vahid has already spoken to Rhys about his plan to enter the cistern, and has made a roll on it:
Vahid triggers Persuade: 1+6+1 Charisma = 8. Weak Hit.
Rhys agrees to help Vahid descend into the cistern, but he has a requirement. From a GM’s perspective, we don’t really want to roadblock Vahid from exploring this, since it’s a core part of his character goals, but we do want to involve other PCs in the scene, so we’ll envision that Rhys is superstituous about the waters of the cistern, and asks Vahid to take someone with him for protection, and Vahid will choose Padrig.
In prepping for this story thread and this scene, I did a bunch of thinking about the ruin and what power it might contain. I won’t go into the specifics so that there can still be some discovery and surprises in store for you, but from the GM’s perspective, the important prep considerations were:
The ruin is connected to the Makers broadly, and the Azure Hand specifically, so that Vahid has a key role to play in whatever unfolds.
It reveals something interesting about Stonetop and the Hillfolk, since the Hillfolk sorcerer is a key antagonist for Vahid, and we want this discovery to tie him and Stonetop tightly to that conflict.
In the medium-to-long term, it creates a dilema for Vahid — is using the power contained in the ruin worth the risks or the cost?
With that in mind, we’ll pick up the action as they are just about to descend:
Scene 9: The village green, by the cistern.
The sun is setting on a hot, midsummer day, and work continues apace on Vahid’s design. Rhys and his work crew are finishing for the day, laying out the last of the terra cotta channels converging on the cistern’s opening near the center of the village green, in the shadow of the Tor’s great standing stone.
Padrig sits, leaning against the pale, smooth stones of the well as he checks and re-checks the knots in a long ladder of hempen rope. Vahid paces with anxious eagerness.
“It beggars belief that no one in the village has done what we are about to do in living memory. Even the Chronicle of Stonetop is silent on what is within the cistern.” Vahid says. “To have something so clearly left by the ancients, but to leave it undisturbed and unexplored. Remarkable!”
Padrig grunts noncommittally, glancing down into the depths of the cistern. “Folk here mistrust dark, still water, even if they’ll fill a bucket and drink it. That fear is hard to shake, even when you know you should. When I was a boy here, folk always told stories about foolish young children falling in and never being seen again.”
Vahid turns to him, a little surprised. “Are you afraid?”
“I’m more afraid of whatever you imagine we’ll find than monsters in the well. What exactly did you tell Rhys and his men we were going to do down there?”
“I told them the truth,” Vahid replies, ticking his points off on his fingers, one by one. “First, that we needed to inspect the depths of the cistern to see if its capacity could be expanded. Second, we need to find the destination of the channels and drains built into the bedrock that he and his men uncovered while laying the foundation for our new ones — a fascinating clue that this site is more extensive than what we have seen so far. Third, we needed to see if the construction of the cistern remains stable after who knows how many years of use. And finally, we’d would be wise to do it now, at midsummer, when the cistern is at its lowest ebb. ”
“A fine argument. What did Rhys say?”
“He agreed to help, but that I should not descend without protection. I volunteered you, naturally,” Vahid says and then lowers his voice. “I did not think Owain the right man for the job.”
Padrig smiles grimly. “We can agree on that, at least.” He holds up the woven ladder and nods. “This looks serviceable. I’ll find Rhys and some strong backs to hold the ropes while we descend.”
He stands, and motions to the work crew, who gather around the edge of the well, taking hold of the ropes and casting the ladder down the cistern, into darkness. Anxious glances and nervous whispers abound as Padrig and Vahid collect their gear, mount the ladder, and descend to the surface of the water, 25 feet below.
Padrig splashes into the water first; it comes up just below his knee, soaking his worn deer hide boots. Vahid follows, knotting his linen tunic and girding his loins1 to keep his clothes dry. From his pack, he produces a lantern and flint; together he and Padrig strike a spark, kindle a flame, and illuminate the long-forgotten chamber.
The cistern is a dome-shaped room of the same pale, dark-veined stone of the well above. The blocks that make up the chamber’s walls are large — twice as tall as a man — and perfectly fitted, with barely a seam between them. The water at their feet is as clear as crystal — a thin layer of grit covers the stone floor, kicked up by their feet into blooms of murk, but it quickly settles back onto the stone, leaving the pool pristine once again.
The chamber walls are smooth and featureless, save for an alcove to the northeast, which holds a tremendous semicircular door. Once it may have been carved with runes or relief, but it has been thoroughly and wholly defaced by dozens of deep gashes in the stonework.
Vahid splashes slowly through the water to the door, his lantern held high, and the Azure Hand at his side. “Who could have done this?” Vahid asks breathlessly. “And why?”
Padrig follows behind him, his eyes searching the shadowed corners of the cavern for any danger.
He chooses the question “What happened here recently?” From a GM’s perspective, we have a lot of freedom in how we answer — we could easily say “nothing,” since the site has been undisturbed for quite some time. But recency is relative, so we can instead provide the most recent thing that happened here, which lets us give Vahid a few more breadcrumbs to follow. Vahid will then respond to Padrig’s discovery with Know Things, which in the past few episodes has not gone great for him — let’s see how the dice fall this time:
Vahid triggers Know Things: 4+6+2 Intelligence = 12. Strong Hit.
Vahid learns something useful about whatever Padrig discovers. Back to the action:
Padrig reaches gingerly below the clear water’s surface and draws from it a worn, worked piece of metal. Together, they peer at it in the lantern light — it is the bronze head of an adze, a flat-bladed axe, with a badly notched cutting edge, covered in a thin layer of bright green corrosion. At the base of the door, under the water, Vahid spies a half-dozen more discarded blades, as well as the remnants of whatever once adorned the stone — fragments of carvings and runic letters, hopelessly shattered.
“Adze are a weapon of the Hillfolk,” Padrig says, not speculating any further.
“It’s written in the Chronicle that the Hillfolk and the people of Stonetop have warred before,” Vahid says. “One of the earliest entries in the tome speaks of a dire conflict between the grasslanders and your people, where Stonetop was defeated and humbled, and forced to yield some of their greatest treasures. I wonder — could this place be one of the ‘treasures’ that was yielded?”
“Does the Chronicle not say what the treasures were?”
“Once it did, no doubt,” Vahid replies. “But many of the early tales of the village seem to have been overwritten by other, more recent ones or lost entirely. Garet and I have often speculated that it seems intentional — that those Chroniclers who came before sought to hide things from their successors.”
“For good reason?”
“Perhaps,” Vahid allows reluctantly. “But now we must make our own decision — and we cannot do that without knowing what we would be forsaking.” With that, he steps back from the door, and awakens the Azure Hand, extending his perceptions into and through it, sensing the currents of elemental energy all around him.
Through the thrum of the staff’s aetherium headpiece, Vahid feels a strangely familiar presence — that of the storm that raged overhead some weeks ago when the village faced down the thunder drake. Flowing through the door, and the chamber beyond, Vahid can feel the storm’s vis, bound and waiting to be awakened. He strains to hear the strange whisper that he heard that fateful day, but whatever anima was present is silent or departed — only its energy remains, drawn to the staff, as though eager to be called forth.
“Whoever did this was trying to hide whatever is beyond this door, but they could not hope to destroy it with the tools they wielded,” Vahid says, his voice almost a whisper. “The works of the Makers are still here, ready to be commanded.”
Before Padrig can speak a word of caution, Vahid concentrates his will upon the Azure Hand, grasping the elemental energy contained within the door before him. The door begins to glow from within with an unearthly blue-white light — intricate, angular tracery of aetherium hidden beneath the surface of the pale stone. The Azure Hand glows in sympathy, sparking blue and white, overpowering the lantern light and filling the chamber in flashes.
In his mind’s eye, Vahid grips the energy flowing before him and urges it to life. The water at their feet begins to tremble, ripples emanating out from the door, and the grinding of stone on stone can be heard. Dust falls from the ceiling as the massive stone door rotates and slowly begins to roll to one side. The water starts to rush into the gap, surging forward. Padrig sets his feet and stands fast against the current, but Vahid is almost pulled down — struggling to steady himself against the door’s stone frame, he drops the lantern and it vanishes into the rushing water, leaving the chamber lit only by the Azure Hand’s fading blue-white glow.
Scene Breakdown
There are three moves triggered rapidly in this scene, two of them relating to the Azure Hand — let’s take a look at them and how they resolved. You can review the rules for the artifact here. First, Vahid uses the Azure Hand to perceive the currents of elemental energy around him, and in doing so triggers the Seek Insight move:
Vahid triggers Seek Insight: 4+2+1 Wisdom= 7. Weak Hit.
He asks the question “What here is useful or valuable to me?” and discovers that the ruin has somehow trapped and stored the elemental energy from the storm, some weeks ago. Vahid then uses the Azure Hand to take hold of that energy and use it to power the magic of the door.
Vahid triggers the Azure Hand: 5+2+1 Constitution = 8. Weak Hit.
He was able to take hold of the elemental energy and make use of it, but it takes all his focus. He selects the “Use the energy to fuel or empower other magic” option, and commands the door to open. As the door opens, the water rushes through, and Vahid and Padrig must Defy Danger to keep their footing. Padrig scores a Strong Hit, and Vahid a Weak Hit, so we drop his lantern into the water as a cost for success.
The cistern swiftly empties into the chamber beyond as the great door opens wide, revealing a long, broad hall of white stone. Before they can take it in, the pair hear Rhys shouting down to them, his voice tinged with panic. “Vahid! Are you all right? What has happened to the water? What is going on down there?”
“We are well!” Vahid shouts in reply. “There is another chamber down here, and when we opened the door, the water flowed into it — I suspect the drains we discovered in the bedrock above lead to whatever reservoir the water has found.”
“Pray you are right,” hisses Padrig. “If we’ve just drained the village’s water supply, it will be a long, hot summer indeed.”
“It seems clear that this ‘cistern’ was never meant to hold water, but given the signs we found above, somewhere in this complex was. We will find it, and the village will not go thirsty — do not fear,” Vahid says, his tone not quite conveying confidence. “Come. The only way is forward.”
Padrig silently sets his jaw and trails after the scholar as they press onwards into the halls of the Makers.
We’ll conclude this episode here, having wrapped up Padrig’s thread for this session and begin exploring Vahid’s. Next episode, we’ll delve into the ruins to find out what Vahid discovers hidden beneath Stonetop, and we’ll pick back up with Anwen as the village prepares for the initiation rituals.
Before we wrap up, we’ll also choose an advancement for Padrig’s level up — having secured a place for his crew in Stonetop, it’s a good moment to reflect on his experiences. Here are a few options:
We’re doing all-new options for this level, to represent some of Padrig’s changes. First, we have Sir, Permission to Die, Sir, which will let Padrig keep his crew alive a little more effectively — something that’s always been important to him, but perhaps even moreso now. Front Line Leader represents Padrig’s oath to the crew — that he’ll be the one leading them into battle, not Owain, and it’ll allow him to command them more effectively and protect them from danger. Finally, we’ll also consider Improved Stat, adding +1 Charisma (taking his bonus to +2) — Padrig’s done a lot of public speaking lately, and it’s gone pretty well, all things considered. Click below to vote, and as always, thanks for reading!
Substack just released its app for iPhone, and they’ve asked all the writers on the platform to plug it a bit, if we’re excited to do so. Here’s my endorsement: If you generally read this in your email, it’s worth considering reading it on the app instead — the reading experience is pretty solid, and you’ll have easier access to the archives. It reminds me of dear, departed Google Reader:
Read PTFO in the Substack app
Available for iOS and Android
If you don’t have an Apple device, you can join the Android waitlist here.
After Aled’s death I wanted to vote Permission, but I think narratively Front Line makes more sense.
Quiet Quill is 7 years old.