KALAT

Row To Shore

S1 Teary Departure

[Day: 1]
[Chaos: 5]

? Scene Test
-> Interrupt Scene
-> NPC Action
-> Ambush/Goal

The docks are crowded with many people. Some have talks with their families for the last time in a while — sad, others happy. Most everyone feels a mixture of both. Departure is always sad.

Amongst them is the lone adventurer, Nura. He bears a strong smile, in front of his two friends. Ava Milson, and Felice Cleaver. She and he both embrace Nura in a tight hug. They don’t let go for a while.

They hold their hands together, strung across each others backs. Nothing else exists for a single moment. The passers who pass by, the many people who crowd the docks, the fishes who lap up on the shores nor the fishermen who reel their catch.

“So, are you having second thoughts?” Ava finally breaks the spell.

“Shut up,” smiling, Nura replies.

“I dunno, Nura. I’ve seen a lotta these folks mourning for those who didn’t came back.” Felice lets go now. His weary eyes, wrinkled and old, scan toward the others now. He directs Nura with a hand on her back.

Crying parents, and a gentleman with a hat on his chest. The father holds the mother.

“That’s gonna be Ava and I. Crying for the loss of their kiddo, Nura.”

Sniffling. Crying, actually, to his surprise. “Nah, no it’s not.” Nura holds Felice’s head, scruffling his hair. “I’ll come back in one piece. Just you wait in see — and, just you wait and see what this new project of mine’s gonna look like. I told you, —”

Interrupting him; “Blue and silver, dreamt in dreams, will the Shield of Velantra be. Sounds wish–washy, Nura, you might want to think of a different design for the shield, you know,” Ava scoffs, crossing her arms, nods to the wobbling ship. “Look, you better hurry. The cap’ns calling.”

Nura wipes his tears, then Felice’s. He nods, wordlessly smiling, holding a bracelet in his hand. Around his wrist it goes, as he embarks on the ship, and dons his leather cap.

Sunflowers. Ava and Felice watch Nura depart. The captain hollers, signalling the ship’s release.

S2 Bony Boarding

[Day: 1]
[Chaos: 4]

? Scene Test
-> Expected Scene

gen: Three skeletons climb up on a nearby rock, and leap onto the party's boat!
? Do they attack
-> Exceptional No
-> Destroy/Plot

Time passes.

The ship arrives near the shore. Past the wreckages in between the high red cliffs ahead, the shore lies in patient wait for Nura’s arrival. He pushes the rowboat off the ship using the oar, backpack in tow, waving in thanks to the merchantman.

The waving waters. Constantly in shift they are. It makes it hard to see ahead, a little harder to see below.

? Do they try to surprise Nura
-> No

A pale thing pokes out of the water, nearby. Nura takes notice of it. Squints at it, even.

@ Observe the pale thing
d: F

But in the shaky, difficult, unfamiliar waters, he can’t begin to surmise what it is. So, he keeps rowing. Albeit, in the opposite direction of the thing.

Then it rises further.

A head. A skeleton head.

Its bony fingers reach out from beneath the waters. Leather straps, are those?

Suddenly — and somehow, Nura didn’t notice them — as the skeleton unveils itself out of the water and climbs onto the rowboat, toppling it significantly, two other skeletons stand upon a rock, a boulder. It’s close enough, that they leap together onto the rowboat, joining the third.

Nura has three new skeletal passengers onboard.

S3 New Passengers

[Day: 1]
[Chaos: 5]

? Scene Test
-> Expected Scene

? Can the skeletons talk
-> No

Axes in hand, they make approach to the lone adventurer. One of them rummaging through the pack, and the other two in close proximity to him.

“Disembark, or you’ll die a second time, creatures of the deep.”

They halt in their actions, and consider it.

@ Reason with the skeletons
-> F

? Do they attack
-> Yes
-> Current Context
-> Inspect/Object

In the far back, the fellow with the longsword keeps his weapon sheathed, and takes note of the beautiful glinting metallic bits in the pack. “No! Hands off those!”, Nura shouts defiantly, drawing steel. The front two skeletons draw their handaxes, and leap forth.

? Do they go one at a time
-> No

Bones brush against bone, as the attackers both swipe horizontally, aiming for both of Nura’s arms.

@ Dodge
-> S, F

Stepping back, the left attacker trips over a bench, and falls over on the ground. The other attacker, however, leaps aggressively, landing against his right obliques, a serious, painful hit to his side.

Nura hurts, grunting loud at the hit. The axe scrapes at his gambeson, bruising his side. As it does so, he is able to keep hold on the right attacker with one hand, and push him down with him as he falls and aims his dagger, which is in his left hand, toward the left skeleton, who has fallen over on the floor, toward its chest. A severe, effective blow, rupturing some of the skeleton’s ribs. It remains there, while Nura unsheaths the dagger through its leather armour.

? Does the third join the fight?
-> No

Nura, still with his right hand on the first attacker, swiftly jabs towards the head, aiming his left hand to the back of the skeleton’s neck — if it were to have one. But it weaves underneath, and attempts to land its handaxe once again, swinging overhead.

@ Dodge
-> F

The handaxe hits its mark, on Nura’s left shoulder. Tears well up in his eyes, as he grunts in pain. While the handaxe is still on his shoulder, he deftly drops the dagger onto his right palm, trying to thrust it into the skeleton’s gut.

@ Attack the skeleton in the torso
-> S

It’s an impactful, adrenaline filled stab, a loud thud as bones break and even causes Nura’s fist to sting, even in the middle of a blood–pumping romp. As Nura’s dagger embeds itself through the skeleton’s armor, he walks forth, blood pouring from the handaxe in his shoulder, and steps towards the third skeleton. It still focuses its gaze on the glinting metals within his pack. A moment of hesitation from the thoughtless, undead thing.

So Nura uses this opportune moment to remove the handaxe from his bleeding shoulder, and toss it, aiming at the creature’s head.

@ Throw the handaxe
-> S

The metal cracks through the cranium of this lifeless being, and the skeleton and the handaxe fly into the waters. As it does, the rest of its body falls limp, bones scattering, boat wobbling.

S4 Bony Water Reclamation

[Day: 1]
[Chaos: 4]

? Scene Test
-> Altered Scene
-> Remove a Character × 2
-> Return/Technology

Nura kneels down. His body pulses in pain, adrenaline leaving it. He winces in the boat. Hah, he barely made it on shore before something befell him. Shoulda brought a friend.

Searching his pack for anything that could be useful, he finds nothing. His pain will continue, while he sails on. Hopefully he can make it unscathed. Perhaps he can rest on one of the islands — the shore is still a ways away.

? Did something kill Rosetta, the lady at the Capsized cutter
-> No

Up ahead, he spots a hull, upside down on a rocky, small point. He sees that there is a fishing pole poking out a square hole on its side. He grabs the oar, and weakly pushes at the sails, the skeletons’ bodies still on the boat.

While he rows, he does not think to remove the creatures’ bodies. But nature does it for him. Magically, or something to that effect, or perhaps circumstance, does it for him. Waters grab at the rowboat. It rocks slowly at first, then swiftly ramps up in wobble. The waters, aggressive now, take at the rowboat, but it does not seem to fill up or get heavy, nor does it sink. No — it seems the waters simply hold at the skeletons, then bring it back into the sea.

Nura halts his rowing. He does not know what to make of this. Magic is here, he supposes.

He waits.

It stops.

Then he, who hasn’t let go of the oars, sinks them back into the water, and rows toward the capsized cutter.

Reflections

Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for reading. Please, contact me with your feedback — I am open to any and all.

Today, take a look at Elmcat’s post: How to Set Up and Use Faction Turns.

Elmcat posted this some time ago — and I love the concept of it. It’s a useful “entropy” system that gives a simple framework, and albeit some prepwork, for factions in a campaign. Useful in a long–term campaign, maybe less so in a one or two–shot.

It forces the GM to delineate the different movers in a campaign, and specify some broad details. Broad details are hard to think up of sometimes, why not let Mythic and some dice rolls decide that for you? And by that I mean, I typically use Mythic as prompts for what things are doing, as you may have seen from this article above.

Dark Tunnels is a system by Matthew J. Ratcliffe, Musician and RPG Enthusiast, check them out!

After reading it through, I had no idea how it would go in solo play. I know Scarlet Heroes is a way to get things mathematically heroic in Old School maths based system, but was unsure if this hit location thing was going to jive with me before I tried it out in group play.

Boy howdy was I foolish in any notion that this would be too clunky — I had a lot of fun visualizing the Sifu, John Wick, Matt Murdock hand to hand fight with the skeletons. It was just a little taste in this session — but call it my socialization or culturization with violent video games or whatever else, my possum–rat–brain, or what have you; it was fun to come up with those descriptions.

Maybe it’s not for everybody? Or maybe those people just haven’t tried it yet — but I can imagine it being fun to try out at the table. The armor system and injuries system was not as cognitive–bearing as I presumed it to be, and made sense. The part which did slow me down was the glancing hits and degrees of success, specifically I rolled a 6 + 4 on an average roll, whose target is 5 + 5. To my understanding, that meant I in totality succeeded on that roll, because of

After reading through the rules again, it states:

“… if either one of the Success Dice falls below the Difficulty, the roll fails.”

So, I suppose, the degrees of success apply after determining whether a roll hits or misses in combat. That clears things up, silly me, not having read the rules close enough.

I ended up determining that my hits were Brutal Hits because I was afraid that Nura would be easily demolished in a 3v1, even after I split up the fight to be 2v1 then 1v1. Perhaps I will, next time, maintain that the dagger’s attacks inflict Severe injuries rather than Brutal injuries right away, and see how that goes.

More commentary will come on the next session of Raiding the Obsidian Keep, a sick adventure by Joseph R. Lewis, which I am solo playing in preparation to run it for a group in the future.

Thanks again for reading!