Quenching the Thirst

One Shot Open Table Play Report

Mythic Bastionland

The Salt Knight

The Leaf Knight

The Glass Knight

The Fanged Knight

Myths

The Toad - NW Island

The Inferno - Center Island

The Troll - NE Island

The Spectre - radiant

*I have altered the Wilderness Roll to be: 1: radiant myth, 2-3: myth from corresponding island.

Arrival

After a long voyage the Company arrived at the southern tip of the middle island. The steeds kissed the ground, glad to have solid ground under their feet.

Spectre 1 - 008.011

The Company was walking through a wooded area when they met the procession. They thought the mourners were kinda sussy at first, but the mourners turned out to be pretty chill. The Salt Knight was asked to maybe say a few words, and they were like "bruh what, I didn't even know them" so they settled on a prayer in silence.

Inferno 1 - 008.010

I felt "the ground is hot" was insufficient for knights traveling on horseback and to have the omen happen during a lunch break felt like a cop out. So I wanted to try and get at least one knight off their steed. I rolled [2,2] for a Nature Spark and saw that gave me "ashy heather" on the Flora table, perfect!

I described the flowers as desaturated in an otherwise vibrant environment and the Leaf Knight immediately dismounted to eat some of the leaves.

Inferno 2 - 007.009

The knights had to sleep before they found the Pale Keep. I rolled the next Inferno omen and this one just made a ton of sense. Only two knights attempted to stop the fire, the others justified their cowardice with their low SPIRIT. I felt I needed to up the mythical nature a bit so I described how the fire, now burning in a large circle, died down as a single entity. Stamping the flames at any point would cause the entire fire to diminish.

In the morning the Glass Knight thought the ground might hold some secrets, so he turned a patch of ground into glass to see what he could find. Seeing as the myth has some elements arise from the earth I decided the glass penetrates about a meter down, at which point a narrow dark crevasse opens like a cat's eye.

The Leaf Knight, wild as ever, wanted to lift the glass and jump down. Not sure I was ready to improv a mini dungeon in that situation so I would've probably had a single chamber with some shed skin or a lost fang. He was talked out of this by the other knights.

The Pale Keep - 007.009

Welcome knights from further and far.

Mighty have been those that stand where you are,

for the halls of the Pale Keep have stood for ages.

But your blood is still young, you bare naught a scar.

 

The realm has called out, you have heeded

The soil to the east at day becomes heated

Worry do the smallfolk that their harvest will fail

Torment does the creature who leaves nothing to eat.

 

An infection to the west, a land already grey

Something so sinister cannot be wished away

A blemish so sweet, so dark and so fearful

Linger, it cannot, lest the courts it does sway.

 

Come lend a hand, a hand, say the Seer stuck in snow.

It’s land is under threat, abominations undertoe.

Nothing under hand dead, these words contain no lie

Lend a limb, a hand, a finger, or elbow

 

So go now yonder

Take your leave

Through day and dark

Your mark to leave.

I gave a player this poem and asked them to read it out loud. It was up to the players how this poem interacted with them, which puzzled one or two of them. But later on when they got a better feel for the Seers one of them said "so the Seers were the ones that gave us the poem?" and I felt that was a good sign that the pieces were falling into place.

The poem was supposed to be a little awkward. It clearly attempts a rhyme, but it doesn't flow very well. Having someone read this was pretty entertaining for me, but I think my players might just think me a poor poet (not wrong!).

As soon as the poem concluded I narratively had the Company arrive at the doors to the keep. So they could discuss the cryptic message or chat with Yonnic, the Steward, who was there to greet them. This might not be super important, but I just think it worked pretty well for allowing them to ponder the poem or just dump it and socialize.

The conversation with Yonnic was clunky. I wanted to convey the sense that this dude was a bureaucrat and not in tune with the myths. An example is a Knight asked if him if he had seen any strange fires and me leaning into this guy being a pencil pusher was not very helpful.

The Poem

Now I had cryptically described the three main myths in the poem, but having the Company start on the southern tip of the island created the probability for them to get omens from the Inferno, which they obviously did! This colored their plans since it felt like they were already unraveling a thread, so they decided to head east and see what happens. Someone saw the volcano on the map and figured the answer must lie there. It wasn't there. At least not yet.

In future one-shots I might not have the Company start on the southernmost hex, but I am gonna do the same next time and see if the Company behaves differently. The nice thing is that it gives some direction as the myth of the main island is already "started", so to speak, I just don't want the other options to be neglected.

Meredith's Cabin 008-007

In a previous session another Company encountered an omen from the Plague in this hex. I liked Meredith, the old coot, so her cabin persists! I felt it fitting the Company encountered her and had her outside making a stew above an open fire (the theme is not subtle).

The Fanged knight chatted with Meredith, mentioning the Company's plans to head up the volcano. Meredith told them there was nothing up Mt Arduus, despite the white smoke the volcano hadn't been active in ages. The player saw right through my attempts to steer the Company away. After the session I mentioned this and I believe the player's words were "it's a knightly thing to go up a volcano", nothing in me wished to disagree with that statement.

Now, I had a wee issue. I didn't want them to head up Mt Arduus and find nothing, but fighting a dragon in a volcano, while being cinematic, might turn out to be a rather deadly endeavor. So I used the Rising Seer [p170] to send a message in the night.

The Vision

While getting ready to turn in for the night the Fanged Knight noticed through an opening in the tent that one star was larger and brighter than the rest and almost as if it was approaching her. She made a wish and then promptly lay down to sleep. I don't know why this surprised me, but my encounter was cut short.

The wish was that Mt Arduus would have the answer to solve this myth and at that point I felt it best to run with that.

Inferno 6 - 009.006

The Company trekked up the mountain and the Glass Knight peered into the volcano and saw the outline of the Red Serpent and heard it's breath, calm in its slumber. At this point we were close to running out of time, so I gave my players the following options:

• End the session here, have your knights write up their findings and I'll pass that on to the next Company. The session had been a laugh up until this point, so while being somewhat narratively unsatisfying for the players this would not have been a huge let down. Plus it would've been pretty cool for me to be able to hand something to the next group. Additionally, I had some epilogue stuff I was gonna do if this option was selected.
• Essentially do a film montage of the knights traveling somewhere else and setting a trap or getting reinforcements. This option also allowed for a visit to the Seer. The Leaf Knight wanted to feed the Red Serpent some poisonous mushrooms. I didn't feel a fire breathing mythic creature would be taken down so easily, but I had already suggested that the Seers might know how to brew a potent concoction. This option would open the door to such shenanigans.
• We force a combat. I thought a TPK could be a let down so I stipulated that the last knight standing would be able to escape and then still report back to civilization.
• (or something else that made sense).

I think the shift to these options was unusual for my players. One of them said afterwards that is was strange (but pleasant) to have such a high degree of freedom over the narrative. The players initially leaned into the first option, but at some point someone said "we came all this way, let's just fight it" and that got the rest on board.

Combat Highlights

Round 1: Brave sir Viralag the Glass Knight was eaten whole after slicing into the Red Serpent's underbelly.

Round 2: I rolled horribly for the Red Serpent, which translated into it still being hazy from having just woken up. The Salt Knight summoned his steed to aid in the battle, ramming and kicking the beast.

Round 3: The Fanged Knight rolled a 12 on their Smite die, which was bolstered by other knights and was enough to slice into the lower jaw of the Red Serpent, skewering their brain.

I was pleasantly surprised by this encounter. I gave it at least a 60% chance of a TPK, but the knights played very well. They made sure to scatter, used their gambits well, and all the while giving cool descriptions of what is actually happening. I could not have asked for better rando's.

Final Thoughts

There are a few things I am going to change next time. The main issue is I need to improve on my social encounters and the balance between "realism" and narrative.

The Inferno was great for a one shot. We only did one omen of the Spectre, so I will use it again next time to see how it works as a secondary myth.

For now I have some more elements to fit into my world.

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Mythic Bastionland