Before we dive in, a brief aside — a chronicler of our quirky niche by the name of Croaker was kind enough to take the time to interview me for his blog, Croaker’s RPG Corner. Croaker is focused on solo RPGs and solo actual plays, so this interview goes into a good amount of depth on process and motivation rather than rehashing the basics. If you’re interested in hearing me hold forth a bit, by all means check it out.
Recap & Setting the Scene
Last episode, while the party waited late into the night for Vahid and Katrin to return from their vision quest, the sorcerer struck back. He sent a small band of assassins, known as the Stormcrows, to attack the Sun-Spear encampment and wreak havoc. Anwen and Kirs first spotted signs of trouble in the horse pastures, which were attacked by a group of small, nasty dinos called Pack Drakes. At the same time, Padrig, waiting restlessly in the party’s encampment, spotted signs of danger as well, and helped to raise the alarm.
We ended the episode with a reader poll to determine where our heroes go as danger looms. Anwen could follow Kirs, the young Hillfolk war leader with whom she has become fast friends, or she could stick with her people and return to her companions. Padrig faced a similar decision — make sure Anwen is safe in the chaos of the attack, or look to his hosts (and the mission) and make sure Juba, the leader of the Sun-Spear, is safe.
We’ll start with Padrig’s choice, which was, as you will see, a bit more straightforward than Anwen’s:
Padrig looks to the mission they’re on — he and Juba have forged a bond, and if Juba dies, the friendship between the Sun-Spear Band and Stonetop will be cast into doubt. Padrig doesn’t hesitate for a moment: He will head to Juba’s tent to make sure the old nomad veteran is safe. No doubt he’s been watching Anwen progress as a warrior, and knows she can handle herself — especially if she stays by Kirs. We’ll rejoin the fiction with Padrig:
Scene 3: The Hilltop Tents
Padrig quickly surveys the view from the hilltop. He hears cries of fear and pain from the tents hidden in the tall grass and sees flashes of out-of-control flame blowing in the strong southerly wind. To the east is Juba’s tent — one of his sentries waits outside, alert but uncertain where to turn his spear, while the other sprints down the hill towards the rest of the camp. And to the south, beyond the hill’s rise, Padrig can hear the chaos in the pasture, where Anwen last was seen — horses snorting and stamping their hooves, signaling danger to one another.
Behind him, Ozbeg and Yana await his orders.
“They’re not here for livestock or treasure; It’s blood and ashes they want,” Padrig says. “Yana, take half your warriors and get the Sun-Spear and their supplies out of the path of that fire — the wind is growing stronger and it will fan the flames. The rest should mount up and circle around the south side of the camp; Close off that avenue of escape for the raiders, and watch for reinforcements coming from the Black Road.”
In response, Yana barks her orders to her warriors and whistles for her mount, and her riders scramble to obey. “What will you do?” she asks as she vaults onto the saddle of a mud-brown mare.
Padrig is already breaking into a run, motioning for the Companions to follow. “We will see to Juba!” he calls, then, under his breath, to Ozbeg: “Were I commanding these assassins, that’s where I would send them.”
He doesn’t want for Yana’s reply, but he hears her mount thundering past him, down the hill and south. Overhead, lightning flashes, playing among the clouds, and in the brief glimpses of the pasture below, Padrig thinks he spots Anwen’s mane of red hair, disappearing into the tall grass and heading into the fire and smoke.
Two moves triggered in quick succession here. First, we must manage the big picture of the ‘battle’ — how the Sun-Spear and the Yellow Cloud deal with the fires, the chaos, the storm, and assassins sneaking about. This uses the Deploy move:
The Sun-Spear have +0 Defenses — they’re in a weakened state right now, and their campsite is not very defensible, so that seems appropriate. Padrig makes the roll, since he’s sending folk into danger:
Padrig triggers Deploy: 5+6+0 = 11, Strong Hit
Lucky break here — that means that the damage from the attack will be relatively minor, and no named NPCs will die during the battle.
Next, Padrig has to talk his way past the sentry in front of Juba’s tent — the camp is on alert, and things are tense.
Padrig triggers Persuade: 4+1+1 Charisma = 6, Miss
Oof. We could tick up the Hillfolk suspicion clock, but I think in a faster-paced scene, it’s good to take opportunities to drive the action forward and amp up the stakes. We’ll use a GM move instead — reveal an unwelcome truth — and reveal the assassins have already struck in Juba’s tent.
As they approach the entrance to Juba’s pavilion, the guard raises a hand to challenge him, and Padrig prepares to bowl the young sentry over, but he sees they are already too late. The meistr storms out of the tent, his sleeping linens darkly stained with blood. His eyes lock on Padrig’s with deadly intensity.
“Infamy! Unforgivable infamy! Such terrible revenges I will visit upon the sons of jackals and carrion-drakes who have done this! By my bloodstained hand, I swear it will be so!” Through the tent’s open entryway, Padrig can see Juba’s wife Laurl, laying on the woven rug, a deep wound in her belly being frantically tended by Juba’s granddaughter1.
“What would you have of us, Juba?” Padrig asks, wary of the nomad’s boiling anger.
“You are a hunter of men, are you not? Hunt down the man who tried to take the life of my best-beloved, and bring him to me alive. I will know who gave the order. Do this, and you will have a friend in Juba until he rides through the Last Door!” When Padrig hesitates for just a moment, Juba seizes him by the shoulders. “Make haste, kamarad! I must look to my people — the assassin is but only a few minutes gone. Find him!”
Juba storms past Padrig, who leads his scouts around Juba’s campsite, searching for any sign of the assassin’s passing. At the rear of the tent is a neat cut in the hides but no tracks lead to or from the ingress. Padrig swears under his breath, and gazes out onto the darkened plains, the grass bending nearly flat in the growing wind from the south.
Padrig gets to ask up to three questions from the Seek Insight list about the situation at hand — he now strongly suspects that the assassins are being hidden by some strange magic, so he’ll start with “what here is not what it appears to be?” Pad’s not very knowledgeable about magic, but he does know the land and the outdoors very well, and he’s very observant.
Once again, we have to decide whether Padrig’s heroic attributes (in this case, his perceptiveness and tactical acumen) can overcome the hdour’s magic. In keeping with the principles of Stonetop, we’ll be a fan of Padrig’s character and say yes: Not just anyone can find ways to pierce the hdour’sVeil ability, but Pad’s years of experience and keen eye can.
The wind howls and pulls at the collar of Padrig’s wool cloak. “Something’s not right,” he mutters. “The wind — I felt it even inside Blej’s tent, when the Stormcrow nearly got the drop on me. And it blows now ever harder as we seek the assassin’s trail. The sorcerer is protecting them, somehow.”
Ozbeg hisses and makes a sacred mudra against evil spirits. “What can we do against such power? Let us go tell Juba he has escaped, and see to the camp!”
“Not yet,” says Padrig, his voice abstracted by thought. “Spread out. Turn your back to the wind and follow where it leads you. If the wind is their cloak, let it betray them.”
The Companions begin to move, northwest with the wind, searching for any sign of the assassins. “They’ll have left their horses out of sight somewhere,” Ozbeg mutters. “Not more than a mile or two from the campsite. That’s where they’ll regroup.”
“Then if we catch one, we catch them all. Eyes sharp, war-dogs — on the Flats, there’s always a sign.2”
The four of them spread out into a loose skirmish line — Harri and Hartig in the middle with Ozbeg and Padrig on the flanks, and they move low and slow through the grasses and into the darkness, searching for a sign of their quarry, or a sign of his passing.
We’ll use Defy Danger here to figure out whether Padrig is able to fully overcome the hdour’s protection. The ‘danger’ we’re defying here is twofold — first, that the assassin escapes cleanly, which would be a tactical defeat for our heroes. Second, if they escape, it could be used to cast doubt on the good intentions of the party, leading to a rift between them and their Hillfolk hosts.
And once again, Padrig proves resistant to the hdour’s trickery, but there’s a tradeoff. In this case, we’ll use time as a cost. Padrig can find the tracks, but it takes a long time, and he will be unable to help Anwen with what comes next.
Now, we’ll check in with her. First, we’ll have to see where she’s headed amidst the chaos, which was the subject of the second half of last week’s reader poll:
Makes sense that our young champion of Stonetop is a bit more conflicted about what she should do than her somewhat harder-bitten traveling companion. She is at war within herself, but when the dust settles, she is staying by Kirs’ side — at least tonight.
The camp is burning. Source: Wombo.ai
Scene 4: The Tents in the Tall Grass
Kirs turns back to Anwen and puts his bloody hand on her shoulder. When he looks into her eyes, she can’t help but think of his unanswered question, but he does not speak of it. “Our enemies are here. You are a champion of Stonetop, Anwen — you belong with your people. Go!” With that, he runs into the night, joined by two of his warriors as they race towards the dim lights of the Hillfolk tents. Overhead, the dark clouds rumble.
Anwen looks up to the hilltop where Juba’s pavilion is pitched, alongside their own. In the dark night, for a moment she thinks she sees Padrig’s tall silhouette looking down on her. She hesitates for a long moment before turning to sprint after Kirs. When lightning plays in the cloud above, the flash illuminates a great, billowing cloud of smoke looming over the tall grasses, and she steels herself and races into the choking, stinging shadows.
The Sun-Spear encampment is in chaos. A few scattered tents have been set alight, and the wind has carried the flames to the surrounding grasses, whipping up a growing wildfire. Anwen shoulders through nomads fleeing for their lives, carrying their meager supplies or bearing goats and sheep on their shoulders. All around her, shouts and a great chorus of cries in the Steptongue ring out, punctuated by the few words Anwen can make out — “Ride! Hurry! Beware! Danger! Where? Here! Here! Here!”
Anwen has to push through a tough situation here, so we call for a Defy Danger. The situation is risky in many respects — it is confusing and chaotic (which Anwen’s low Wisdom is ill-suited to deal with), and the flames, heat and smoke pose a physical danger (which her high Constitution is well-suited to handling). At the gaming table, Anwen’s player would be looking to make this roll with Constitution, so naturally, they would describe her toughing it out:
She toughs it out, but there’s a consequence — we’ll envision that she’s physically capable of enduring it, but the confusion puts her at a disadvantage. One of the GM moves is use up their resources, and a key resource Anwen has in this scene is her sword — so we’ll narrate a scene where she loses it:
She pushes through the smoke and heat, her head reeling and her lungs burning. A dark shape rushes out of the smoke at her; Anwen’s sword arm tenses, but she holds back as a screaming Hillfolk girl, her face black with soot, careens into her. Anwen drops her sword and seizes the girl up, holding her tight and carrying her away from the flames. The girl is whimpering, an unbroken stream of whispered Steptongue into Anwen’s ears, until another nomad appears, taking her from Anwen’s arms. The girl wails and clutches at her, and Anwen reaches back, but then the pair of them are gone, as though they had both been an apparition in the smoke.
Finally, she breaks into the camp center, and catches a glimpse of Kirs, surrounded by a dozen warriors from the Sun-Spear and Yellow Cloud — the young war leader is bellowing orders in the Steptongue over the din, and the nomads move in pairs and threes amidst the burning wreckage of the campsite, searching for those trapped or too frightened to flee, as well as their tormentors.
She catches Kirs’ eye, and a mixture of elation and exasperation flashes on his face, she comes to him and he pulls her close. “Stay close to me,” he rasps, fighting against the choking smoke. Hearing her own language snaps the world back to focus, and she falls in alongside him.
The pair of them move through the burning camp. The autumn night has been turned to a kiln; the heat is baking and oppressive, and the smoke is everywhere, drawing Anwen’s eye this way and that, swirling like the dark cloak of an assassin. Deeper into the camp, they hear a scream, and Kirs charges ahead with Anwen close behind. They race by a wounded goatherd, her deel robes stained black with soot and red with blood, and in the next clearing, they spot their quarry.
He stands over the crumpled body of an old man, his grey wool cloak billowing in the firey winds. He wears a red mask over his nose and mouth, and when he sees Anwen and Kirs, he turns and sprints into the wind, running deeper into the fire and smoke.
This assassin has no interest in squaring up against these two champions. He takes off, and Anwen and Kirs must keep up. Anwen makes the roll, and Kirs’ aid gives her advantage.
They catch up with him, we’ll envision that the fire closes in around them. He is trapped with them, and they with him.
They run the Stormcrow down to the ruins of the goatherds’ camp. A semicircle of thickets once hemmed in the herd, now it is a sheet of roaring fire. The panicked assassin squeezes through a pair of burning tents, and when Anwen and Kirs follow close on his heels, the crumbling bones of the pavilions collapse into a twisted pile of burning wreckage, closing the trio in a warrior’s circle.
Trapped, the Stormcrow turns to face his pursuers. Kirs and Anwen split apart, moving to flank him. The assassin raises his weapon — a crude dagger carved from drake bone — and points it to Anwen.
“We have no quarrel with the people of the storm hill!” he snarls. “Our blood-debt is owed to the Heolings alone!”
“A blood-debt paid by elders and children! How could you? Do the storm-folk have no mercy in them?” Anwen cries.
He spits. “The dogs of Heol have humbled us since the days of old! Now their sun will set. Tor wills it!”
Kirs crouches low, gripping his long daggers tightly. “You have shed the blood of the innocent and broken the laws the tu’d holds most dear, Stormcrow. Now we will give you justice.”
“All the laws of man are evil,” the assassin intones. “Only the law of Tor is just.”
And with that, they fall upon him.
Scene 4, cont’d: In the sky above
A red glow and a column of smoke can be seen on the horizon as Vahid and Katrin approach from above, borne high in the sky by His-Laughter-is-the-Thunder, the mighty storm-spirit bound into Vahid’s cloak. Cradled in the grasp of the spirit by a cushion of swirling wind, Vahid struggles to remain conscious — the ordeal in the roots of the Fate-Tree left him drained and pale.3 Katrin, face-to-face with him and wrapped in the Flying Cloak, lays a cool hand on his forehead and mutters softly in the spirit tongue.
The sensation of her skin on his and the sound of her voice brings him back to his body once again. His eyes, now solid blue and glowing softly, perceive a riot of elemental energy — below, the flames and wind dance and stoke one another to new, frenzied heights, and above, the powerful vis of a storm is growing ever stronger.
Vahid silently wills the spirit to descend, but in his weakened state, it does not heed him — instead, it picks up speed and rises higher into the sky, pulling Vahid and Katrin into the billowing grey stormclouds ahead.
“There is another presence here! The sorcerer has sent a storm-spirit of his own, and it bars the way!” Katrin shouts. As though in answer, Vahid hears his bound spirit bellow a thunderous challenge, and the hdour's servant answers with flashes of lightning and a lash of freezing rain.
Vahid shuts his eyes tightly, drawing on his last reserves of strength, and reaches out through the Azure Hand, seeking to quiet the storm before it can make good on its challenge.
Through the phantom-sensation of the Azure Hand, Vahid grasps at the flow of the storm’s energy, seeking a handhold with which to rein it into submission, but to no avail — the spirit is in the thrall of the hdour’s song, and though he cannot hear it, its resonance and power travel through the staff and rattle the Seeker’s skull, sending a painful shock through his body. His twisted left hand4 falls limp and the Azure Hand falls to the grasslands, hundreds of feet below. He and Katrin cling to one another as the two storm-spirits circle one another, bellowing thunderclaps and lashing out with forking fingers of lightning.
Scene Breakdown
The scene opens with the narration of the failed Persuade check Vahid rolled at the opening of the session, which set all these events in motion. We could’ve envisioned the spirit directly disobey Vahid while the campsite below burns, but I think that would detract a bit from the gravity of the situation. Instead, they have their own challenge to contend with up above, while the camp is being attacked.
Following that miss, there’s only one other move that triggers here — Eye of the Storm, when Vahid tries to take the wind out of the enemy storm-spirit’s sails. Unfortunately, Vahid has disadvantage to attempt this — his vision quest has left him too drained to make good use of the Azure Hand:
Vahid triggered Eye of the Storm: 6+2+1+1 Constitution = 4, Miss.
Once again, Vahid missing gives us a golden opportunity. First, we inflict a few consequences on him: 5 damage (leaving him with 11 HP remaining), and the loss of the Azure Hand (which is quite temporary, since he can summon it back with a little focus).
We want to escalate this situation, and reveal a bit more of what the hdour is capable of. One of the threat moves Cirl has as a Magical Entity (see the whole list here) is Offer Service, Secrets, Power. That power can be offered to a PC, of course, but it doesn’t have to be. And there is someone in the battle below who would be interested in a bit of extra power. Back to the action:
Scene 4, cont’d: The burning circle
The assassin fights with fervor, but he is no match for Anwen and Kirs. He darts in and out of the Stormcrow’s reach, slashing at his arms and legs, seeking to drive him to yield, or bleed him into unconsciousness. She hems him in wherever he flees, beating him back with the rim of her shield, forcing him to face Kirs’ blades.
The pair deals 5 damage — almost enough to kill our Stormcrow, who has 6 HP. Now, we bring Vahid’s miss into play:
Once more, the assassin twists away from a fateful blow, and scuttles away from his opponents, putting his back to the burning wreckage of the camp. All three combatants are exhausted, their lungs filled with choking smoke, their flesh stinging from the relentless heat.
“Yield,” Kirs says. “Or die.”
His shoulders slump, and for a moment, Anwen thinks he will lay down his arms. But his head turns, as though an unseen ally whispers at his shoulder. Then his jaw sets, and his eyes harden. “Die. But never yield,” he whispers.
He drops his dagger to the ashen ground, and looks up to the roiling sky. “Stormcatcher!” he calls. “I am yours! Give me the strength to fall upon our enemies like a thunderbolt! I offer my life to the storm!”
Kirs rushes forward, his daggers seeking the assassin’s heart, but he is too late. The burning red of the world is dissolved by a pure blue-white flash, and the roaring of the flames and the howling wind are subsumed by a deafening crack. A powerful shockwave drives Kirs into the ground — Anwen steels herself against it and bears down behind her shield5. Around her, the wreckage of the camp is blown asunder, and the flames are nearly extinguished by the force of the blast.
When her vision returns, ringed by flashing stars, the Stormcrow stands on a patch of scorched earth, surrounded by an unearthly stillness and laughing maniacally. His cloak and vest are burnt away, and the flesh beneath is scored by a multitude of black-red burns, radiating from his heart and crawling down his arms and chest in fractal branches, still sizzling and smoking.
Anwen watches with horror as he stoops down and seizes up Kirs. He hauls him into the air as though he is nothing more than a child’s doll, holding him by the throat, the nomad warrior’s feet dangling helplessly in the air, his fists beating uselessly at the Stormcrow’s iron grip.
The Stormcrow doesn’t even see Anwen pick herself up from the blasted earth or raise up her shield, so consumed is he by the agony and exaltation of his newfound power. Anwen’s heart pounds; The Stormcrow’s ravaged flesh is monstrous and terrifying, and his eyes are alight with cruel madness. Kirs meets her gaze, and his hand reaches out for her as his struggles begin to weaken.
We’ll pause here, and pick up back up next week with this very moment. There’s one very small decision to make here. One of the triggers for Anwen’s Anger is a Gift move is “threats to your loved ones,” and one of the triggers for her fear is “monsters.” The Stormcrow has certainly become a bit monstrous, so the open question is this: Does Kirs count as one of Anwen’s loved ones?
If we were at the gaming table, and Anwen’s player asked if Anger is a Gift could be triggered, that would be the question they would have to answer, so I’ll put it to the group here: Does Anwen love Kirs? It doesn’t have to be romantic love to qualify — she might love him as a friend, a comrade-in-arms, a teacher, or just for something that he represents to her.
The outcomes for poll are less straightforward than past polls — rather than choosing a specific course of action for this character, we’re simply declaring something to be true about her and the story we’re telling, and the ramifications could be great or small. So, hit the button below to make your choice, and if you feel so inclined, hold forth in the comments.
Next episode, we’ll see if Anwen and Kirs can go toe-to-toe with a storm-spirit bound to flesh, whether Vahid can help them despite his weakened state, and whether Padrig can track down the remaining assassin. As always, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next week!
I strongly considered having Laurl be slain, not wounded, but it felt like it violated the spirit of Padrig’s 10+ on Deploy — if he had scored a weak hit instead, things would’ve unfolded differently for her.
Padrig made this same observation back in Session 3.1, when the party first came to the Flats. The grasslands and the Steplands are the terrains where Padrig is the most at home, which is another mark in favor of him being able to pierce through the hdour’s Veil.
Recall that Vahid was marked by the Azure Hand by a terrible burn that will not heal on his left hand — the hand that holds the staff and can summon it with a thought.
Seems like yes to me since she chose to find him over looking for Pad.
Yes, Anwen loves Kirs because that's more interesting and holds more hard decisions in the future for her than not loving him.