Session 6.1: The Flats

The party journeys through the grasslands, golden and blackened.

Last episode was all planning: We wrapped up summer in Stonetop, and as autumn falls and the harvest comes, we decided that the Hillfolk hdour would take center stage as a threat to the village. In last week’s reader poll, we decided how the sorcerer might threaten this journey and the party’s diplomatic mission to the Hillfolk. Let’s see where the votes fell:

Another surprising (to me, anyway) outcome. When I envisioned the hdour for these upcoming episodes, my instinct was to depict him as an up-and-coming warlord, but the votes (and the subsequent discussion in the comments) point in a different direction: a subtler, more mystical foe, which is what we’ll be exploring in Session 6. We’ll definitely incorporate visions in the storm, the sorcerer’s spies, and fire on the Flats — they all let the hdour flex some of his arcane might from afar.

That said, I still envision sorcerer building a coalition of Hillfolk under him — we established that much in his early introduction in Session 3, when Adm hinted that the hdour was uniting riders under his banner. But for now, he is moving with more magic and guile than might.

Of course, our heroes don’t know any of that just yet. In the last scene we played out, Anwen met with the Hillfolk as part of her initiation challenge, and Padrig asked her to find out whether any friendly bands were camped nearby on the Flats. We’ll skip over the detailed planning of the expedition (Stonetop encourages this kind of abstraction) and set the scene on the road.

Setting the Scene for the journey

First, we have to envision the instructions the Hillfolk traders gave to Anwen about how to find a friendly band’s campsite. The Hillfolk are, by-and-large, suspicious of outsiders, and don’t go around advertising the location of encampments, so the trader instructed Anwen to travel to a landmark and light a signal fire, whereupon riders from the local band would find them and lead them to their camp. We’ll begin the session with the party approaching that landmark. The fate tables for Discoveries in the Stonetop setting guide will help us generate one:

Source: Jeremy Strandberg // Stonetop

Note, not all of these results work well for a landmark — in the event of a 3 or a 2, we’d re-roll until we got something that makes sense for the situation. Rolling on this table, we get the piece of the Ruined Tower result, which has another table associated with it. What is the Ruined Tower? Maybe Vahid has read about it — we’ll play to find out.

Since this a journey, we’ll also trigger the Keep Company move — it’ll give a chance for the PCs to talk about the journey ahead, pool information (and make some Know Things rolls) and raise any plot threads we’ll be pulling on when we’re among the Hillfolk. You can see the full move text right here for a refresher. Here are the questions each PC will react to:

1. Padrig asks Vahid: What do we find ourselves talking about? These two will share knowledge about the Hillfolk — Vahid from his tomes, and Padrig from his bloody experience.

2. Vahid asks Anwen: What seems to be on your mind? Anwen is thinking about the Hillfolk rider who died in her arms back in Session 3.4. She still has the Makerglass charm he handed to her, and she’s wondering what it meant — this is a story thread we might pick up when we’re among the Hillfolk.

3. Anwen asks Ozbeg: How do we find ourselves passing the time? Ozbeg is starting to feel very avuncular towards Anwen, so likely he’s spending some time teaching her what he knows about soldiering — archery and scouting, most likely. This we may not cover on-camera, but we’ll look for opportunities in dialogue to establish that it has occured.

We’ll sprinkle in these interactions throughout the journey. Let’s jump into the fiction with #1 — Vahid and Padrig discuss the nomads, while en route to the meeting place:

Scene 1: An expanse of golden grasslands

It is late afternoon, and the dry, stiff stalks of the autumn gwead shine golden in the low sun’s light. Padrig and Vahid walk side-by-side, the grass snapping and crunching under their feet as they climb one of the endless, rolling hills of the Flats. Hari and Hartig trail behind, chattering quietly in Marchsprech with Ozbeg bringing up the rear, warily sweeping back and forth, searching for movement in the tall grass.

“What do the people of the south know about the Hillfolk, Vahid? Do the nomads range that far?” Padrig’s voice is a little strained — they have been pushing through the thick grasses for some hours now, and the sun overhead beats down, blazing through the early autumn breeze.

“Lygosi know precious little of the people of the Steplands, and much of it is ancient history: It is known that the Hillfolk are descended from a slave-people of the Stone Lords. During the waning years of the Makers’ dominion, they rose up and overthrew them.” Vahid mops the sweat off of his forehead with a linen cloth. “The nomads are notoriously difficult to study — they have no written language, and their shamans rarely consort with outsiders.”

“This is so,” Padrig confirms. “Each spirit-talker has a chosen guardian — sometimes more than one, in larger bands. They watch over the shaman like a child — speaking on their behalf, choosing who they will or will not treat with. I always thought it strang1e they allow themselves to be controlled — they seem to wield great power.”

“Perhaps it is not so different from the more reclusive scholars of the Lycaeum — there is a great temptation to quit the affairs of the powerful and focus on the pursuit of wisdom. And like those scholars, perhaps there will be some way to pique their curiosity and gain an audience,” Vahid says, scratching his black stubble thoughtfully. “What about you? What have you learned of the nomads in the seasons you’ve spent among them?”

Padrig’s brows furrow in thought. “I know if they truly wished to, they could rule these lands. There are many of them — hundreds of bands, maybe more. The Delvers would feud with a half dozen bands one summer before they rode south for the winter, and the next year, new bands would return from the Steplands — new faces, new banners, new champions.”

“Why do they not unite under a single leader?”

“They mistrust rulers and rulership — most bands are only a few families, and I have never heard of a Hillfolk who called themself king or lord over others. They have meistrs instead — the one who speaks first and last in council, and they are chosen by the blooded — those who have shed or spilled blood for the band.”

“Is that all? Many who mistrust rulers are yet ruled,” Vahid says, smiling ruefully.

“There are old, deep feuds between bands, as well. The Heolings — those who worship Helior, whom they call Heol — often feud with the Storm-folk, Tor’s people. Neither would suffer the other as ruler of the Steplands.”

Vahid purses his lips, concerned. “Does Stonetop not revere Tor above all others? Will we be in danger if we meet with the sun-worshippers?”

Padrig shakes his head. “It’s not so simple. It’s old, bad blood between the nomads — it has nothing to do with outsiders, even those that revere Tor. And some bands don’t care at all for those ancient feuds — those meistrs just want to see their band through the next winter.”

Vahid’s voice drops a bit, to a conspiratorial whisper. “Speaking of old, bad blood — is there any chance of meeting an old foe of yours out here?”

Padrig grimaces. “Aye, it’s not impossible. There were a few bands of brigands and raiders near the Delve who might remember me and the Claws, and not so fondly. But the bands near here should be naught but herders and hunters — we should be safe, so long as we mind our manners.”

Scene Breakdown

The above is mostly an answer to Padrig’s Keep Company question, but it also has a move trigger that contains some interesting interactions. Vahid is triggering Know Things, and Padrig is Aiding him, allowing the PCs to learn more about the Hillfolk by pooling Padrig’s practical knowledge with Vahid’s scholarly learning. Usually when we trigger Aid, we use it to secure advantage but this time we use the other option in that move — “They can accomplish more than on their own.”

Vahid triggers Know Things: 4+6+2 Intelligence = 12. Strong Hit.

From this result, Vahid and Padrig learn a few pieces of useful information — as GMs, we want to use this as an opportunity to set up a few plot threads for when the PCs reach the Hillfolk encampment:

• We establish that the Hillfolk spirit-talkers are difficult to approach directly, and that they have dedicated bodyguard-types who must be persuaded if Vahid wants to speak to one of them about the hdour or the House of Nine Thunders.

• We establish an overarching Hillfolk conflict — the tension between the Heolings and the Storm-folk. We don’t want to oversimply this conflict, but we want to lay the groundwork for the hdour’s machinations.

• We establish that Padrig may meet an old foe on this expedition, and we should be on the lookout for bandits, mercenaries or raiders.

That last item is the result of a corner-case interaction with another move — Padrig’s background trait, Penitent:

Technically, it was Vahid that triggered Know Things, not Padrig. But I decided to trigger it, for a few reasons — we rarely use it (Padrig’s Strength is +0, so even though it’s better than his -1 Intelligence, it’s still not a very good roll), and it lets us lay some interesting groundwork to connect Padrig’s history to the current action. At the gaming table, we’d obviously want to ask Padrig’s player to make sure they were OK with it, but as a player, isn’t it way cooler if your bloody past comes back to trouble you than if it’s just words in your 10-page backstory?

Back to the action — Anwen has been scouting ahead and she re-enters the scene to foreshadow one of our challenges.

As they approach the crest of the hill, Anwen appears, mounted on her tall grey Hillfolk mare. She shades her eyes against the sun’s glare — Padrig can see her face is lined with concern.

Ozbeg calls up to her. “Well girl? What did you see ahead? Are we near to the meeting place?” His face is flushed with effort and sweat beads below his dark hairline.

Anwen nods and reins the mare in, though she strains at the bit and paws the dry earth with her hooves. Anwen sits uneasily on the spirited horse¹ and unconsciously rubs at her shoulder — bruised from an earlier fall. “You can see the shape on the horizon at the crest of the next hill, just like the traders said we’d be able to. But there’s something between here and there you should see.”

The six of them descend into a shallow valley below. Here, the golden grass has been blackened by fire in a broad, long swathe for miles. The smell of smoke lingers very lightly in the air, and clouds of grey-black ash kick up from their footfalls as they follow Anwen down.

At the bottom of the valley is a scorched-dry stream bed, scattered with charred bones, human and animal. The human remains are clustered together, their limbs entangled, huddled against a fallen tree trunk, now burnt to charcoal. The animal remains are small — goats, perhaps — and are fallen here and there along the stream bed.

In summer and autumn, wildfires rage across the Flats, sparing none. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Padrig triggers Seek Insight: 6+1+2 Wisdom = 9, Weak Hit.

Padrig asks “What should I be on the lookout for?” and learns that the conditions are ripe for more wild fires, and that it might be a lean year for the Hillfolk. The first foreshadows an upcoming challenge for the journey, and the second sets up some of the overarching story for our time with the Hillfolk.

Padrig’s face is grim. “A wildfire. It’s the season for it. They must have fled here to the stream bed in the hopes that it would be safe from the flames.” He surveys the surrounding territory. “This summer was a hot one, and the gwead is bone-dry this season. We should be on guard for signs of fire, and if there is widespread drought, it might be a lean year for the Hillfolk. Not a good sign — they will be on their guard.”

“Or they will need our help,” Anwen says, her eyes still on the burnt remains. “Come on, the meeting place is ahead.”

Scene 2: A piece of the Ruined Tower

The company passes through the ashen wake of the wildfire and crests another grassy hill, coming to overlook a shallow, round crater where the dry stalks are patchy and low to the ground. At the center of the crater, rising easily 20 feet high, is the largest piece of Makerglass Vahid has ever seen.

It is a gently curved segment of wall, cracked and thrown some by some incredible force. Its supposedly indestructible surface is spiderwebbed by minute fractures, and it is melted and pitted in places. It is midnight blue in color, shining in the day’s fading light, but at the cracked edges, it darkens to opaque, pitch black.

Vahid shakes his head in wonderment. “I have seen a piece of Makerglass drawn from a white-hot furnace and held it in my hand, still cool. Imagine the power that would be required to do this — it is beyond belief.”

“Where did it come from?” Anwen asks. She dismounts and begins to approach on foot. Padrig and Vahid follow closely behind her, while the Companions circle the edge of the crater, keeping a watchful eye on the surrounding grasslands.

“The Ruined Tower. We saw it from the road when we returned from Marshedge — do you recall?”

“But that’s days away from here!”

“Yes,” Vahid smiles enigmatically. “It was the greatest work of the Tempest Lord Indrasduthir — the Maker who built the House of Nine Thunders beneath Stonetop. It was destroyed many hundreds of years ago, during the rebellions that toppled the Stone Lords and broke their rule over the Flats and the Steplands. No one knows what caused the cataclysm that broke the tower, but pieces of it are scattered across the Flats for hundreds of miles.”

The sun is setting in the west, painting the scattered clouds crimson, and the bowl of the crater shadows the base of the towering shard, where Anwen now stands. In the near-dark, it is hard to discern at first, but as Anwen approaches the pitted and warped glass, she sees the cracked dirt and dried grass reflected on the surface, but not herself. The landscape reflected in the Makerglass is eerily empty and still, the only motion is the patchy grass bowing rhythmically in the breeze.

She turns back to Vahid. “Something is amiss here — look at the glass! It reflects the land, but not us.”

At the ridge of the crater, Ozbeg hisses and makes a warding gesture. Padrig raises his hand and halts the rest of the Companions, who wait behind him warily. Vahid shoulders past them, the Azure Hand’s iron shod tapping on the dry ground as he descends into the crater, with an eager curiosity plain on his face. “It is written that the pieces of the tower are imbued with spells of all sorts — but most often, magic of protection and divination. We should not be in too much danger.”

But when Vahid extends his perceptions through the Azure Hand, the glass does not give up its secrets — the warped, unyielding surface does not react to the presence of the aetherium staff, and any vis contained within cannot be perceived through the Makerglass. He circles the shard, his steps quickening with frustration, but to no avail — whatever magic was worked into the glass long ago is beyond Vahid’s ken. Anwen waits a short distance behind him with bated breath, while Padrig and Ozbeg confer at the crater’s ridgeline.

“Best we build our fire up on the ridgeline, away from that thing, eh?” Ozbeg says suggestively.

Padrig sighs. “No. The Hillfolk trader told Anwen quite specifically to build the fire at the base of the shard to signal the bands nearby.”

Ozbeg shivers — the autumn wind is picking up in short, hard gusts, but the bandit from the Barrier Peaks isn’t cold. “I’m not sleeping in the shadow of that thing — it isn’t natural.”

“The nomads have used this place to signal one another for who knows how generations — and they’re more superstitious than you, old dog. ” He turns to Hari and Hartig. “Come on, you two. Fetch your hatchets — there was a copse of scrub trees a half-mile back. We’ll need a fire before nightfall.”

Ozbeg grumbles his assent, descending into the bowl of the crater to begin making camp.

Scene Breakdown

A handful of rolls here — first, at the opening of the scene, Vahid triggers Know Things to talk a bit about the Ruined Tower.

Vahid triggers Know Things: 6+1+2 Intelligence = 9, Weak Hit.

He gets some sketchy details that tie the Ruined Tower to the House of the Nine Thunders under Stonetop. Then, with Well-Versed, he gets a follow-up question — which is “Are the pieces of the Ruined Tower dangerous?” and he shares the answer as he approaches it. From a GM’s perspective, this represents an opportunity to signal to the PCs that we don’t intend to have the Makerglass harm them directly — that sort of communication can prevent the PCs from spending a lot of time protecting themselves from a non-threat.

Next, he tries to use the Azure Hand to examine the Makerglass:

Vahid triggers Seek Insight: 2+2+1 Wisdom = 5, Miss.

Given that this was a routine roll, and we haven’t signaled that the stakes are sky-high, we make a pretty soft move in response: Ozbeg grumbles a bit, and makes some noise about keeping their distance from the thing. Padrig, in turn, reminds him they have a job to do here.

Padrig triggers Persuade: 5+4+1 Charisma = 10. Strong Hit.

Ozbeg listens to reason and falls into line. Padrig hands out some orders to get a fire built, and we cut ahead to that being done, just after sunset.

When the fire is built, the reason for the trader’s instructions become plain. In the distorted surface of the Makerglass monolith, the fire is reflected — the flames dance and twist as strangely human-like figures, many-armed, nimble and limber, turning and twisting around one another as the fire grows. And as they dance to the time of the crackling fire and whipping wind, the midnight blue of the glass flickers with red light, flashes of indigo and amaranth in the dark night.

Anwen and Vahid watch, enthralled by the dancers. “Incredible,” breathes Vahid. “The Makerglass must serve as a mirror upon the unseen world. These are the spirits of the fire, a few of the smallest gods.” He trails off, lost in anxious thought.

“What is it, Vahid?” Anwen puts a steadying hand on his shoulder, her attention drawn from the beautiful spectacle of the fire-dancers.

“Nothing. It is nothing,” he says, composing himself. He smiles. “I have seen such wonders since I left Lygos and traveled here. It is enough to leave even one so long-winded as I speechless.”

Poor Vahid can’t catch a break. Seeing the fire-spirits in the Makerglass reflection, he tries to speculate what magic might be at play here, and it doesn’t go great:

Vahid triggers Know Things: 1+2+2 Intelligence = 5, Miss.

This is another relatively low-stakes Miss, so we use it to further foreshadow the threat. Our move (from the GM move list) is reveal an unwelcome truth: We reveal that the Makerglass functions as a mirror on the spirit realm, and we also let Vahid know that it’s very likely that if they can see into the Unseen World, it is very likely that spirits can perceive them as well. We don’t, however, outline a specific threat; it’s more of an anxiety or paranoia, which is why Vahid doesn’t share it with Anwen.

As an aside — I’m not sure how I would produce a story moment like this at the gaming table with PCs. It’s very difficult to introduce a nagging feeling or a worry to a PC, because as soon as the GM draws narrative attention to a potential danger, it seems like an inevitability that the danger will be realized. In a solo RPG, though, we can just envision that Vahid puts the worry out of his head — most spirits will have no interest in what humans get up to on the other side of this mirror, after all.

Back to the action:

Meanwhile, at the top of the crater’s ridgeline, Padrig and Ozbeg confer, as Hari and Hartig make a patrol of the crater’s ridgeline.

“At night, that light can be seen for a dozen miles, belike,” Ozbeg grumbles.

“Aye.” Padrig looks north, scanning the darkening horizon. “No doubt that’s why they choose this place as a meeting ground. It's good that you’re on your guard but remember: We are here to make friends among these folk. It’s not like the old days.”

Ozbeg snorts. “Ozbeg, the diplomat. The gods are laughing.”

“Let’s hope so. Maybe they’ll see fit to keep us around,” Padrig replies, clapping him on the back. “They won’t come from the south, towards the roads. We’ll set a cautious watch tonight — three asleep and three awake. Let the twins know — I’ll take the first watch with them, and you with your new pupil and the reader.”

“Right, chief.”

We’ll end here, and pick up next week when we meet the Hillfolk once again. You may note this episode is a bit shorter than the last few — in order to keep this project sustainable alongside some new work I’m taking on (plus parenting, of course), I need to do some load balancing.

I don’t want to drop frequency and go to twice monthly, so instead I’m going to aim for 3000-4000 words instead of 5000-6000 per episode. Episode length has been slowly creeping up as the complexity of the story (and my enthusiasm for writing it) has risen, but it’s probably smart for me to moderate that to avoid burnout.

For this week’s reader poll, we’ll make another GM decision together. We’ve established two sects of Hillfolk — the sun-worshipping Heolings and the Storm-folk, who revere Tor. We also established that there may be bands of raiders and mercenaries who remember Padrig and his old outfit. Now that the signal is lit, a nearby Hillfolk band will respond, sending riders to treat with the visitors and, if necessary, to bring them back to their campsite. The question is — who shows up?

1. The Heolings, beset by the hdour: If the hdour is aligning himself with the storm-folk, that means their rival sect will be in his sights. If we choose this, the band the PCs encounter have had their own troubles with the hdour, and they will be on their guard but in need of aid.

2. The storm-folk, infiltrated by the hdour: We know that the hdour has some affinity with storms — it is possible that he has sympathizers or agents among the Tor-worshippers, who could be a part of the band the PCs encounter.

3. Someone from Padrig’s past: Padrig has many enemies, and a few not-quite-enemies, among the Hillfolk. One of them showing up would complicate matters, no doubt.

Mash the button below to vote, and I’ll see you in your inbox next week. As always, thanks for reading!

1. This is a smidge of a retcon — we’ve never talked about Anwen’s uncertainty in riding, though there’s no reason to think she’d know how to ride well. Since we’re heading into Hillfolk country, we can set up a potential plot thread whereby Anwen learns how to ride from a Hillfolk (and could potentially bring that knowledge to Stonetop).