Before we dive into the episode, I am excited to announce that this is the first installment that will be sent to more than 100 people! This project started back in October 2021 with just a dozen of my close friends, whom I dragooned into reading the first handful of episodes. Since then, it has grown steadily, with folks joining us from Reddit, Twitter, Discord, and a friendly blog post.
The 100-sub milestone is a nice opportunity to say thank you to everyone who’s followed along with our heroes so far. For those of you reading more-or-less live and voting in the weekly(ish) polls, I hope it feels at least a little bit like we’re sharing a gaming table together. I often think of PTFO as the largest group of players I’ve ever GMed for.
And now that we’ve hit 100 people, we’re on to the next milestone! Is that 200? 500? 1000? Who knows! We’ll play to find out. If you want to help spread the word about PTFO, score a Strong Hit on this share button and tell your friends.
On a 10+, you bring a player to our table! On a 6-, Brennan tosses you into the oubliette.
Last episode, the Stormcrows struck against the Sun-Spear, stealing into their encampment under the cover of night and a sorcerous veil, and went about sewing terror among the nomads. Fires were set among the tents, and a windstorm sent by the hdour stirred them into a wildfire, and an assassin stole into Juba’s tent, badly wounding the meistr’s wife.
Padrig and Anwen set about supporting their allies, Padrig hunting down the assassin who struck in Juba’s tent, and Anwen charging after Kirs, the young nomad war leader with whom she has formed a bond. Above, Vahid contended with the storm-spirit the hdour had sent to accompany his human assassins.
In the final moments of the episode, Anwen and Kirs ran down one of the assassins in the burning wreckage of the nomad campsite. Pressed on both sides, the assassin called upon a figure he called ‘Stormcatcher’ to grant him power, and his call was answered. The storm-spirit entered his body and marked him horrifyingly by blackening his flesh with strange scars, but gave him the power to quickly overpower Kirs.
Anwen & Kirs
For the reader poll, we asked the question: Does Anwen love Kirs? If she loves him, even just as a comrade, the threat to his life will trigger her Anger is a Gift move, perhaps giving her the strength to overcome her fear and stand against the assassin.
I’m not going to paste the chart here — the “other” option makes it quite messy — but nobody voted “no.” It’s clear from her past actions that she felt a kind of way about Kirs, and a “no” decision here would’ve been a bit of a twist. But several readers felt that romantic love was premature for the pair. Personally, I think two attractive young people who are interested in the same stuff and spend a bunch of intense time together are probably going to feel something, even if that something is tangled up in a confusing web of other emotions and wants. Given Anwen’s other ambitions, that’s probably the state she’s in — feeling intensely about Kirs, but still unsure what that intensity actually means.
We’ll rejoin the action right where we left it, with Kirs in the grasp of the now-empowered Stormcrow, Anwen looking on in horror — but with a growing anger at this threat to a loved one.
The storm-spirit enters the Stormcrow. Source: Midjourney
Scene 4, cont’d: The burning ring
Anwen’s heart thuds and her blood roars in her ears, and she rises and rushes at the assassin. The Stormcrow doesn’t see her coming as she slams bodily into him, leading with the oak of her shield. Kirs, knocked from his grasp, tumbles nimbly onto his hands and feet and scrambles for one of his fallen daggers.
The assassin rounds on her — his face is twisted with hate and triumph, and his body seems to swell with the power of the storm-spirit that has filled him. His clenched fist comes down towards Anwen in a hammer blow, and she raises her shield to meet it. There is a boom of thunder, and Anwen is thrown backward, rolling into her back and skidding away in the ashen earth. Her shield hangs uselessly on her arm, utterly shattered. She throws it aside and struggles to her feet.
The Stormcrow has now turned his attention to his true quarry. Kirs dodges a few savage strikes — Anwen can feel gusts of wind when the assassin swings, and when he strikes the thick, burnt timber of a tentpole, it shatters like tinder. Kirs slashes out with his dagger, trying to hold the monster at bay and stall for time.
Riding from the smoke and shadows, a pair of Kirs’ warriors arrive, shouting cries of alarm in the Steptongue. The Stormcrow turns towards them and lets loose a war cry that rolls over them like thunder. This is too much, even for seasoned battle-mounts, and the steeds turn from their charge, one throwing his rider and falling to the ground, its legs lashing the air in panic. The other rider throws himself from the saddle as his horse turns to flee, scrambling to his feet and readying his spear.
Like lightning, the Stormcrow is on him — he splinters the spear’s haft with an open-handed blow and caves in the man’s chest with a closed fist. The rider stumbles back, his face filled with terror and confusion, and he falls.
Meanwhile, Anwen scrambles through the wreckage looking for anything she can turn to a weapon against the assassin. Gleaming in the firelight, she sees the other of Kirs’ daggers jutting from a pile of burning embers. Without hesitating, she snatches it, and the near-red hot metal burns her hand. She clenches her teeth and wills herself to grip the blade tight, fueled by rage at the senselessness of the chaos and death.
Blade in hand, she turns to face her foe. Kirs has opened a distance between himself and the enemy, and seeing Anwen armed and ready, he circles to flank the assassin. The Stormcrow glances only for a moment at Anwen before charging at Kirs. Fueled by the storm-spirit, he crosses the distance in an instant, and a crack of thunder sends Anwen’s heart racing as she charges after him.
Kirs meets the Stormcrow with his blade, plunging the dagger into his chest, and driving it towards his heart. The blood that flows hisses and boils in the night air, and Kirs cries out as his dagger sparks with barely contained energy. Heedless of the wound, the assassin strikes back, dealing Kirs a brutal backhanded blow across his jaw.
Kirs’s face jerks to the side, and there is a sickening crack. His body goes limp, and the Stormcrow tosses him aside with contempt, into the still-smoldering wreckage of a pavilion, before turning to meet Anwen’s charge. She screams, plunging Kirs’ dagger towards his chest to join its twin, but the assassin catches the strike overhead, holding Anwen back.
Their eyes meet, and she can see his strength is flagging. The wounds riven by the storm-spirits’ possession of his body are bleeding freely now. Panic flashes in his once-exultant eyes as he realizes his life is ebbing away, but then he is retaken by zeal, and the triumph returns to his face.
“We have already won,” he rasps.
Anwen can’t reply; she is overcome by wrath. She pushes through the Stormcrow’s weakening guard and drives the blade into his chest. He roars in pain and spends his last measure of strength to strike back, his blow launching her back with the force of a thunderclap. The blasted ground rises to meet her, and everything goes dark for a moment.
When her vision clears, she sees pandemonium. The storm-spirit has been cast from its vessel, and with its life ebbing away, it vents its dying anger. A powerful gale surges, lifting the debris and whipping up the flames once again, and all around Anwen, there is a terrible howling of wind.
But as soon as the howling begins, it is pierced by a sharp tap of metal on earth. Anwen turns and sees Vahid, the Azure Hand summoned to his charred and blackened hand, its headpiece glowing an intense blue, matching Vahid's vivid, cerulean eyes. Katrin is by Vahid's side, her arm around his shoulder, keeping him upright despite his bone-deep exhaustion.
Its vis drawn to the Azure Hand, the storm-spirit is left no strength with which to rage. The gale stills, the wreckage settles again, and the flames die. A gentle breeze, summoned by Vahid’s familiar-spirit, banishes the smoke, and as the moonlight begins to shine through the breaking clouds, Anwen can see the Sun-Spear nomads returning to their ruined homes and counting the cost of the attack.
Vahid collapses to his knees, and Katrin kneels beside him, offering him water and a bitter herb to chew on. Trembling, Anwen crawls over to where the wreckage has partially buried Kirs. Sobbing, she uncovers him. His eyes are closed, and she lays her head on his chest, listening for a whisper of breath or heartbeat. There is only silence.
Vahid releases Katrin from his side, who goes to Anwen, kneeling beside her, and they weep together. Around her, Kirs' people begin to gather, and a soft rain falls on the burnt ground.
Scene Breakdown
This was quite a fight — there were moment where it seemed as though Anwen and Kirs would lose outright, but Anwen has a lot of tools to pull through really tough situations. Unfortunately, she wasn’t wasn’t able to save Kirs — and we’ll talk a lot about that moment and how it was adjudicated. Let’s get into it:
The fight starts with Anwen triggering Anger is a Gift (reference), thanks to the readers confirming that, whether as a lover or a comrade, Anwen feels strongly for Kirs and a threat to him awakens her rage. She spends one of her two hold immediately, to set aside fear and doubt and do what must be done. Then, she rushes in to protect Kirs — primarily aiming to defend, not inflict damage — this is especially appropriate because she has no sword (she dropped it in the chaos), only a shield.
She holds 2 — one additional hold for wielding a shield. She spends one hold immediately to draw all attention from your ward to yourself (see the full list of options here). In response, the assassin drops Kirs, who gets clear and tries to find his weapons, and Anwen gets attacked. Her best bet is to endure the strike, so her fictional positioning is blocking the attack with her shield:
Anwen triggered Defy Danger with Constitution: 1+2+2 Con = 5, Miss.
This is where things go quite wrong indeed. Given that this is intended to be a tough fight, we’re going to trigger two GM moves instead of one — Hurt someone (Anwen, specifically) and use up their resources. The empowered Stormcrow deals a ton of damage — 1d10+2 — and he rolls well on this attack, dealing 9 damage and he destroys Anwen’s shield with the force of his blow.
That’s bad news for Anwen: She’d lose more than half of her total HP in one go, and she’d lose her one piece of gear in this fight. In response, she spends her second Defend hold to halve the effect or damage of an enemy’s attack. We pay that off by negating the damage entirely but keeping the destroyed shield. The Stormcrow’s attacks are now forceful in addition to being quite damaging, so we also envision Anwen being pushed back by the force of the blow.
Anwen needs a weapon to deal damage to the Stormcrow — normally she might be able to fight unarmed, but this is a enraged supersoldier she’s up against, so at the gaming table we’d set the expectation with the player that fisticuffs are not a viable option here. Unfortunately for her, the best way to find a weapon is with her weakest stat — Wisdom.
Not too surprising, but fortunately Anwen has a tool for this: her move Impetuous Youth, which I’ll share here if only to break up this colossal wall of text:
Source: Stonetop // Jeremy Strandberg
She gives it her all and upgrades the miss to a weak hit, earning a single question from the Seek Insight list — she chooses “What here is useful or valuable to me,” and as the GM in the context of this fight, we need to give her a weapons she can use against this guy. Naturally, we give her Kirs’ other knife — it has a nice symetry (especially given how the rest of the fight turned out). We choose the consequence you get hurt (2d4 damage and an actual injury). Anwen takes 4 damage and burns her hand on the heated metal — she spends her last Anger is a Gift hold to ignore the pain and soldier on, but she’ll still have disadvantage when using this hand thanks to her injury.
While Anwen looks for a weapon, we envision a bit of combat between the Stormcrow and some other nomads, and we foreshadow some of the powers he has gained — we don’t want it to feel like Anwen and Kirs are totally alone on the battlefield, but we do want to show that they are the only ones capable of dealing with this threat.
Now armed, Anwen attacks the Stormcrow with Kirs. In the fiction, they are attacking together, but given Anwen is a PC, her player makes the roll. With Kirs’ aid, she has advantage, which cancels out her disadvantage:
Anwen triggers Clash: 2+5+2 Strength = Weak Hit.
The narration of this roll has a bit of GM sleight-of-hand. Anwen and Kirs attack together, but the exchange of blows is entirely between Kirs and the Stormcrow — Anwen doesn’t get in there. My rationale as GM would be that Anwen’s presence in the fight forced the Stormcrow to rush Kirs and ignore his own defense, allowing Kirs to get the blow in, but take one in return. Kirs deals 7 damage, leaving the Stormcrow 4 HP1. with Unfortunately for him, the Stormcrow rolls max damage — 12 to Kirs. Even if I specced Kirs out as a very hardy NPC, he likely wouldn’t have 12 HP, so we put him down.
Killing Kirs
Initially, I wasn’t sure whether to narrate Kirs being knocked out or killed. The Deploy roll in the previous episode suggested that no named NPCs would be killed, but this is a special circumstance in the fiction — a high-stakes fight starring one of our heroes, so it doesn’t really fit within the framework of the Deploy roll.
Ultimately, I put it up to Ironsworn’s Yes/No Oracle — it’s not quite a coin flip, because it contains “No, but” and “Yes, and” results in addition to the simpler outcomes. I framed the question “Does Kirs survive?” and the result I got was a simple “No.” Was that the right call? Dead is dead, but let me know what you think in the comments!
The fight ended with two moves triggered. First, Anwen triggers Anger is a Gift again (it would be hard to tell a PC no in this context, IMHO), and then attacks, spending an Anger is a Gift hold to act suddenly, catching them off-guard, although she still has disadvantage thanks to her burnt hand.
She spends her second Anger hold on +1d6 damage, and she triggers Payback for another +1d4 damage. She totals 7 damage, enough to put the Stormcrow down. His final act is to deal his max damage once again — 12 damage to Anwen, along with the 4 she’s already taken, is enough to put her at zero. Instead, she triggers I Get Knocked Down, halving the damage but briefly losing consciousness.
At this point, I can very much imagine Vahid’s player at the gaming table: “Hey, can I get in here?”
And yes, indeed he can — the opposing storm-spirit was bound into the assassin, so the skies cleared and Vahid was able to descend. He arrives as the fight is ending, and the enraged storm-spirit, in thrall to the hdour, emerges from the assassin and begins to wreak havoc. Vahid still has disadvantage from the strain of his vision, but he has to try, so he uses his staff to calm the storm:
Vahid triggered Eye of the Storm: 2+5+6+1 Constitution = 8, Weak Hit.
Vahid successfully calms the storm and the flames — it takes all his concentration, and he has to suffer a consequence. He’s already got blue eyes and a weird burnt claw-hand, so he opts for something a bit more temporary — he suffers 2d4 damage (I rolled 4) and another debility — I chose weakened. He’ll most likely have a chance to rest off some (but not all) of that before the next big throwdown.
That was a lot of breakdown — now we return to Padrig, on the trail of the last living assassin:
As they passed the time under the night sky, Kirs told Anwen of a ruined Hippodrome of white marble where the young nomads go to test their mounts and their mettle. Source: Mid Journey
Scene 5: A ruined Hippodrome
Hari is the first to spot a sign of the assassin, a half-mile from camp: A grey feather, trapped on the seeds of a tall grass stalk, trembling in the breeze. From there, they find his tracks in the dry ground, and they follow him, quickly and quietly, until they sight him.
The assassin has led them to a ruined Hippodrome of crumbling white marble, its tiered seats fallen and overgrown by golden grass, its grand columns still standing in neat rows under the starry sky.
He stands among three horses, tethered to a bronze spike driven into a fallen stone column. His red mask is gone, his cloak is thrown off and draped over his horse’s haunches, and he paces, his feet crunching gravel underfoot in a quick patter. From the direction of the camp, there is a peal of thunder, and the Stormcrow hops into a stirrup and stands tall, looking in the direction of the camp, his gaze sweeping over the Companions as they stalk through the darkness in the tall grass.
Padrig silently signals to them to spread out and surround their quarry, and silently they steal through the ruins, taking up ambush positions. Pad himself nocks an arrow and rises slowly, holding his bow low but ready. He takes a deep breath and advances toward the young nomad.
“I don’t think your brothers are coming, friend,” Pad says softly.
The assassin whirls and reaches for his sword. Pad holds up a placating hand. “I wouldn’t do that.”
Undeterred, he draws, his iron blade shining in the moonlight, and he makes to move towards Padrig, but the old bandit signals with a whistle, and Ozbeg, Hari, and Hartig rise from the grass, bowstrings taut. Reluctantly, the nomad halts and stands fast.
“I am not afraid to die,” he says. He has a young, fresh face and bright blue eyes. He fights hard to hide his fear, but Pad can see it in his uncertain stance and hear it in the sharpness of his voice.
“Nor am I. But I am not racing to the Last Door. Are you?”
“I fight for my kin, same as you,” the assassin bites back. He takes a step forward, his confidence growing, but Ozbeg hisses at him and steps forward, ready to loose, and he steps back.
“Murdering a woman as she sleeps? With her granddaughter sleeping beside her? This is how you fight for your kin?”
The assassin’s eyes dart between Pad and the waiting Companions. “Is she dead?”
Padrig pauses for only a moment before lying. “Yes.” The assassin nods with grim resignation.
“She was your target,” Padrig says, his eyes narrowing in appraisal. “Not Juba. Why?”
The assassin’s eyes go wide. “Every Heoling is my enemy! She was in my way — if I could have slain Juba, I would have.”
Padrig sighs in resignation and dismisses the assassin’s lies with a soft wave of his hand. “Friend, you’re young. I can see you don’t want to die. You’ve done a terrible thing. You’re not alone in that. But there’s a chance to find a path that doesn’t lead you to the Crowmother tonight. I promise you: Whatever future you think you’re killing for, it’s nothing — it’s grasping at smoke. Come with me, and it might be you could find peace someday. The peace that’s been denied or taken from you. I swear you will be spared if you walk back with us and speak the truth to Juba.”
The assassin’s eyes dart away from Pad’s — his mind is racing. But then, they harden, and he looks back up to the old warrior. “Peace,” he spits. “I hate the word. Let the Heolings choke on their peace. We will have only glory.”
He raises his sword and charges, and is near-instantly struck by Ozbeg’s arrow. His charge arrested, he staggers forward as Hari and Hartig’s shots find their mark, and he collapses onto the stones of the ruined track, his blood spreading across the white marble.
Ozbeg looks down at the fallen warrior. “A fine speech, I thought. Shame he didn’t listen.” He claps Padrig on the shoulder and motions for Hari and Hartig to collect the body. They doff their cloaks and cobble together a crude sling to bear the fallen nomad back south towards the Sun-Spear encampment.
Padrig stands amid the ruins for a moment after they’ve gone, looking up at the twin moons before following.
Scene Breakdown
We will conclude today’s episode there! I’ll break down the moves triggered during this scene and then wrap up with some brief housekeeping notes and a level-up poll for Anwen.
We begin the action with Padrig ordering the Companions to surround the Stormcrow. He’s able to use Read the Land to ask the question “What’s the best place for an ambush, and conveyed this to the Companions on their approach. When the time was right, signaled them to take up their positions. This lets him use Order Followers with advantage:
Padrig triggers Order Followers: 5+6+1+1 Quality = 12, Strong Hit
Once they are in position, Padrig reveals himself. He makes some threatening implications to disuade the assassin from attacking:
Padrig triggers Persuade: 5+1+1 Charisma = 7, Weak Hit
A weak hit on Persuade means the NPC needs some proof or assuance, so Padrig signals the Companions to reveal themselves, and promises of violence are made. The assassin relents, and doesn’t charge just yet.
Some conversation ensues, with Pad trying to get some information about the motives and plans of the assassins.
With his one question, he asks “What here is not as it seems?”and learns that Juba was not the target — Laurl was. The assassin tries to cover up, but Padrig is certain he was specifically ordered to target the meistr’s wife.
At this point, Padrig thinks he’s gotten what he can, and decides to offer parole. He appeals to the nomad’s youth and tries to instill some hope for a possible future.
It doesn’t go great. The nomad charges, the Companions fire. Given the situation, I didn’t roll for that attack, he was just cut down, concluding the scene and the episode.
Housekeeping
It’s summertime, and that means a bit more travel. Next week I’ll be on the East Coast of the U.S., visiting some friends and family. Given the various commitments, and my complete inability to write good PTFO in any other spot than the one I’m currently sitting in, we will be skipping next week. If I have time, I will write up a no-fiction installment that discusses in a bit more depth the mechanics of the empowered Stormcrow — how I designed the encounter, and the broader role it plays in Anwen and Vahid’s storyline.
Anwen Levels Up!
Anwen’s been overdue to go to Level 4, and she’s had the requisite downtime training with Kirs and spending sojurning among the nomads.
For her level-up, we’ll consider three, including options from other Playbooks:
Source: Stonetop // Jeremy Strandberg
Guardian: This move comes from the Heavy playbook, and represents Anwen’s desire to protect her allies — especially in the aftermath of Kirs’ death.
Animal Companion: This move comes from the Ranger playbook, and would represent Anwen’s bond with her horse. She’s trained with Kirs, she’s fought alongside the horse and protected it from danger. She’s a bit of a physical prodigy, so this also represents her quickly becoming a skilled rider.
Never Gonna Keep Me Down2: The fight with the empowered Stormcrow was one where Anwen took a beating and kept coming. This further emphasizes her toughness — this move will make her nigh-unkillable.
There’s also a second optional field: What does has Anwen named her horse? Recall that she is a grey-and-white piebald, and Anwen has a black dog at home named Shadow, so she’s a somewhat literal creature-namer.
Loose a well-aimed arrow at the button below to vote:
During my GM prep for this episode and the last, I prepared two versions of the Stormcrow — the mundane assassin and the empowered version. The mundane version had 6 HP and suffered 5 damage. The empowered version had 16 HP, and I transferred the damage onto him, leaving 11 HP remaining.
Wow, those were two intense scenes. Poor Kirs. It's horrible but I react more to the death of a named character than the other unfortunates caught up in the storm. I loved that Padrig tried to talk the assassin down.
I'm torn between the animal companion and completing the Chumbawumba trifecta. As a player I'd try to avoid having to rely on extra death saves, and lower damage when I'm already hurting, but it's so in keeping with Anwen.
As awesome as the animal companion would be, chumbawumba is so her muse…
Wow, those were two intense scenes. Poor Kirs. It's horrible but I react more to the death of a named character than the other unfortunates caught up in the storm. I loved that Padrig tried to talk the assassin down.
I'm torn between the animal companion and completing the Chumbawumba trifecta. As a player I'd try to avoid having to rely on extra death saves, and lower damage when I'm already hurting, but it's so in keeping with Anwen.