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One Shot Open Table Play Report

Mythic Bastionland

The Salt Knight

The Leaf Knight

The Riddle Knight

The Fanged Knight

Myths

The Toad - NW Island

The Boar - Center Island

The Troll - NE Island

The Spectre - radiant

Prologue

I had two players from the last one-shot join my game again. I was hugely surprised by how much they remembered from last time (it was either very fun or somewhat traumatizing).

I had kicked myself a little that I had given little thought to epilogues during the last session, mainly due to time constraints. But here arose the chance to make amends and let these two have a prologue. The Salt Knight, being the Salt Knight, decided that they were able to understand the intricacies of the salt market and they became a provider for many food service establishments.

The Fanged Knight had spent some time with Meredith, the old coot. Meredith nursed the Fanged Knight back to full health and I would say they are probably good friends at this point. I sure hope nothing bad happens to the Fanged Knight.

Arrival

The Fanged Knight's player decided Meredith had a dream of the sea, and the Fanged Knight would know that it meant new knights would arrive at the southern tip. So she traveled to the Pale Keep to pick up the Salt Knight and together they rode south.

The Leaf Knight (who was actually in the previous game, but the player was new, so the arrival made sense in the moment) and the Riddle Knight arrived by boat as the other knights arrived at the bay. Some friendly words were exchanged and the Fanged Knight tried to bite the newcomers.

Wilderness Roll Alteration

During the last one-shot we hit several Inferno omens before reaching the Pale Keep and it seemed obvious to continue in that direction. I didn't like this because it seemed too likely that the main island myth will be followed over the myths on the other islands. So I changed the Wilderness Roll to only include The Spectre, the radiant myth. And then after visiting the Pale Keep the other omens would show up.

You'll see how this played out as you read on.

Spectre 2 - 008.011

Since I had two players who remembered a substantial amount of what happened last month I decided against redoing the first omen.

I had a black crow, larger than any normal crow, perched on a branch, eye fixed on the party. The Fanged Knight, with a large interest in speaking to a seer (since that didn't happen last time) yelled at the bird. Something like "you silly seer, you can't fool me". To which the bird roared like a wolf and then flew away.

The bird was simply unwilling to chat. "Aha!" exclaimed the Fanged Knight, "Surely the seer is in that direction!"

Around this point the Riddle Knight opined that the bird used to be a wolf and whatever process altered their form had halted prior to completion. Writing this now, I kind of wish they had followed the bird for longer. If they had managed to turn it back into a wolf that would make for a really cool pet. For now the bird occasionally visits the Pale Keep, so who knows what the future might hold?

Spectre 3 - 008.010

The Afternoon brought another omen. There was a decrepit cabin along a stony shore, shuttered up and battered by the sun, it was looking pretty rough for wear. Tin cups and wooden utensils were flying around inside, furniture was being tossed around. The Company headed to the door, stacked up and then slammed the door in. For a brief second there was a whirlwind contained in the cabin, but the entrance of the knights caused the Spectre to manifest out of the whirlwind and leave through the door where my knights were stacked up.

I had them all lose d6 CLARITY as the cold wispy apparition passed through the lot of them. The Riddle Knight was the one who kicked in the door and coincidentally dropped to 0 CLARITY, which I thought was rather fitting, sometimes the dice have better story instincts than I do. He played it out pretty well, laying on the floor for a moment and then later acting pretty intoxicated in a dullish way.

The Company found some dried fish which they took without asking any questions. They cooked it to attract the crow back, but some flies visited instead.

Spectre 4 - 008.010

The knights settled down to camp for the evening. A seer sent a guiding star which was promptly ignored.

The Riddle Knight, feeling rather sub-par, headed to sleep first. As soon as his head hit the pillow there was a loud boom in the distance (direction unclear) and the world turned black while the sky was bright white. Don't ask me how I got to this from reading "the world appears as it will when all has turned to ruin".

The knights didn't really know what to do with this, and looking back I don't blame them. I was waiting for the knights to disturb something in the world, but they decided to confront their problems by closing their eyes and hoping it all goes away. But having a bright white sky sure didn't make fertile ground for a good night's rest so two knights took a dip in CLARITY. Ironically the Riddle Knight snored the whole night through.

When morning came the world returned to normal. A better referee might've done more with this omen, but in the moment I didn't think up anything worthwhile, so we pressed on.

Wilderness Roll Alteration - Reprise

Now at this point the Company had traveled 2 hexes and hit back-to-back-to-back omens. I felt introducing other myths was folly. I had clearly painted myself into a corner, luckily not one I felt too bad about being in. But my system needs to be refined.

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.

 

These lands wander in dankness, a foul stench afoot

None gold, none silver, spice and wine as loot

But these here hills do gaze with eyes shut

Could it be? An empty throne as the root.

 

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.

Its land is under threat, abominations undertoe.

Nothing under hand dead, these words contain no lie

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

 

So go now yonder

Take your leave

Through day and dark

Your mark to leave.

I gave the poem to the same player as last time and again asked them to read it out loud. For some reason it was more cause for confusion than last time (my poetry skills have clearly regressed). A discussion emerged about the inclusion of the word "dankness" and I could do nothing but proverbially shake my head in dismay at the linguistic drawbacks of meme culture.

Someone asked Yonnic, the Steward of the Pale Keep, about seers and he said he thought there might be one out east (Hey! wasn't the bright star in that direction too?), but he wasn't sure. He suggested to ask some smallfolk in the lands to the east. Now this was me being way more helpful than last time, even though I don't think the Yonnic that makes sense to me would know or care for this stuff. It didn't pay off though because the Company decided that the seer mentioned in the poem was the one to visit, someone implied that this seer was also the only one in the realm and I have no idea what I said to give them that impression.

The Salt Knight had some connections with the smallfolk of the Pale Keep and he wanted to find some remedies for the knights' ailing CLARITY. That made sense to me. He spoke of a strange herbalist that lives just outside the walls. People are reluctant to visit her, but sometimes you just need some herbal tea to get the jive back in your step.

I figured she would provide the first package to her "salt guy" without hassle and then I had my player roll three CLARITY saves to represent negotiations for up to 3 more packages. Not realizing just how low their CLARITY was at that point. I know, it should have been hard to miss. They rolled with it and received one extra package. Oh, and they decided that preparation and consumption should take place in the middle of the square. Some of the smallfolk joined the dancing and chanting.

The Company then organized a sea voyage to the eastern island to seek out the seer mentioned in the poem. Were I a better referee I would have a wolf's cry in the distance as soon as the vessel left the harbour.

Heading to the NE Island

In a recent conversation with Brian (of Luck Roll fame) we chatted about omens while afloat, I usually don't love them, but I felt inspired by Brian to lean into it more. I eye-balled the distance and figured that since I have 4 players let's give them 4 rolls. They summoned 2 omens. Meeting the Spectre at sea sounds like it should work, so I didn't try to bring in the myth of the NE Island.

Spectre 5 - Somewhere at Sea

"Three sages, close to death" randomly popping up while sailing made little sense to me. Luckily I had time to read the omens and think about it while my players were still rolling to see how many omens would show up.

I decided on a lucid dream. A shared one. I have done this once before and I think it fits the game really well, but I am glad that I waited until this point to drop it in. I strive to escalate the weirdness in one-shots.

The dream might be dangerous so I had my knights make a CLARITY save to see whose consciousness was partaking. In this session I probably called for more CLARITY saves than all my previous sessions together. It wasn't something I did on purpose, it just made sense. The fact that only the Fanged Knight had maximum CLARITY above 10 was rather humorous to me though. The Fanged Knight had normal dreams that night.

Entering the dream the knights were back at the location of the trashed cabin. Only now it had been replaced by a large flat rock. The sound of the three sages chanting seemed, in a very dreamy way, like it was coming from a place much further away. The three knights saw the sages and immediately tried to disturb the chanting. Rude! The Leaf Knight then joined in and all was right again.

The Salt Knight joined in and with gusto belted out the chant. This was enough for me to summon the Spectre. I had had enough time to realize it would be fun to weave omen 5 and 6 together, since I didn't want to have a second dream sequence. So I had a ghostly hand emerge from the middle of the group and reach out for a knight.

Spectre 6 - Somewhere on the Waves

The Salt Knight awoke with a scream, the face of the Spectre had materialized in front of him. Her face now recognizable as the Moth Knight.

I had the Company start the fight in a four bed chamber with the door locked from this side (knights have privacy from the lowly trash of the working-class). The Spectre attacked like a soul of hatred and vindictiveness. Had she just gone after the weakling that we have come to know and love as the Salt Knight the fight would've ended in her favor rather swiftly

General highlights:

• The fight happened at first light, orange beams of light poured in through the portholes.
• The Riddle Knight attempted to impair the Spectre's weapon. I rolled a 20 to save against it and my table sighed. I explained we are not playing DnD, my table cheered.
• There were deck hands outside the door, but the players either didn't expect they could hold their own in a fight or just didn't want them to die.
• No one had armor on. I don't expect one would, prior to sleeping, just toss their mail over the back of the chair. But I think in retrospect that it makes sense that their mail was close enough to allow a one-round-don.
• The Salt Knight had some choice insults to throw at the Spectre as they used Inspire Ire.
• The Leaf Knight saved smite for a crucial moment and then rolled a 3.

The Spectre, viewing the Fanged Knight as more worthy of attention, ignored the Salt Knight's words. Little did I know how bad it would be when my Spectre became impaired. I was rolling 3d4 (impair a 2d8 weapon and it becomes 2d4, fight me!) but my players struggled to roll above a 4.

It came down to the Spectre on 8 VIGOUR and the Fanged Knight on 5. Although the Spectre was one round away from being vanquished she survived because my players flubbed their rolls. The players agreed that since their knights had just awoken, they probably weren't completely battle ready.

I went on to roll 5 damage (4 and a bolster) and The Fanged Knight goes down! Sliced in two across her belly. Her blood, a brighter red than normal (for obvious reasons), sprays around the chamber. It coats the white ghost in a very striking way.

After that, the Spectre survived another round of combat (!). So since her goal was completed she yelled out that she had overcome her shame and proven herself yet again. And the other knights simply meant nothing to the Spectre. She used the porthole as a portal (*wink) and in a swirl of white and red was gone. The sun now shone in the chamber again and a strange shock washed over the Company.

Epilogue

This time I did a brief epilogue!

The Salt Knight held a ceremony for his felled friend. The ship's crew joined in. The Fanged Knight now rests. Once on land, the salt trading started up again.

The Fanged Knight's player asked about the chances she would come back as a spectre herself. I had her roll for it. The dice wished her rest eternal. I think that makes sense. The player said the death wasn't unfair since the Company was rolling horrid. It also felt somewhat satisfying since the Spectre was at peace now.

The Leaf Knight had a prolonged sabbatical, pondering the human mind and how hate could be so overwhelming. She became a much more empathetic person.

The Riddle Knight first worried the Spectre was merely banished to a different realm (not a bad idea!). But felt no desire to chase after it. He returned to his daily duties as a knight.

Final Thoughts

I really liked the Spectre for a one-shot. It's high on the list right now. I have some ideas of creating a parallel myth. Watch this space.

I don't love getting so many omens of the same myth before hitting the Pale Keep. Ideas are brewing for next month.

One major goal I had was to get to the Pale keep faster (failed!) and have it be more obvious there are several paths to head down (failed!). I take some joy in that the players did many things I didn't precisely expect, but was prepared for. Between 4 myths, locating a missing ruler, several sites and a Seer visit, there are many ways this session could've gone. I was hoisted by my own system as written in the line above this paragraph.

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

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Mythic Bastionland