GM: Stras Acimovic
Players: April Walsh, Jeremiah Frye, Sean Nittner
System: Spell and Blade by Stras Acimovic
A few names from last session
- Sekkara – Entrepreneur and Explorer with access to mushrooms.
- Draxo – Alchemist in Rul
Before we swore oaths and set off for adventure, Ydra and Xravic talked about defenses that could be erected if there was an undead threat. They were surprisingly civil with each other.
Skanya rounded up supplies and tools capable of repairing the Wyrm Hunter’s boat. She didn’t know how to sail it, but she was going to be ready to fix it if anything went wrong.
Ship Roles
To sail we need three people (at least):
- Lookout: Loddi stood at the bow searching out a path for us to follow. Dodging drifts and dry patches, steering us into the snow and ice where the skids would skim smoothly.
- Sails: Skanya worked the sheets and winches to keep the sails capturing wind, tacking as they turned.
- Helm: Rulgara was at the wheel, turning it with great force amplified by the advanced mechanisms in the hull to shift the skids and steer our boat.
- Xravic pointed our way, he could see the invisible starfall in the distance, guided by Akta’s vision.
Though the Wyrm Hunters could stich sails and form the planks that made the hull and the skids on the boat, but they paid preciously for the gears, rods, sprockets, cogs, chains, and axels that only skilled mechanists with specialized tools. It there was anything we needed to keep safe, it was those gears.
It needed a strong wind or all of us pushing to get it moving. It was slow to start but picked up speed as we went. On the back of the boat were grapnels to slow it down and to anchor it. We traveled for a few days getting accustomed the ship under the broken moon, the small moon, and possibly under the invisible phantom moon.
We found that if we got too much speed the skids would lift off the ice and we’d lose traction and control. We needed either more weight (which we couldn’t easily make happen) or to slow down. Much as Rulgara and Skanya wanted to go as fast as possible, they had to reign in both their excitement and the sails.
Clear paths were tricky to find by Loddi’s keen senses guided us safely!
Danger in Camp
A few days after our journey started we noticed fires behind us when we camped. We knew we were being persued, but not by who.
We all wondered who might be following us. Xravic said the Church would have a religious claim to the metal. Normally the acolytes of Maya smelts the metal into ingots, a complicated process involving Ice Flame. Rulgara asked what does the flame consume? We’re not sure, but it’s tied to the moon. The flame that is not fire shapes the metal that cannot be shaped.
If it were they were the foreigners that approached Rulgara and who turned down, but might still be following ups to take the star metal by force.
Skanya snuck over to find out. At night she crept low to the ground, guided by the Eye of Akta. Wheh she was close she determined that though there were several fires, there was a single encampment. The group was a mix of local guides and foreigners. Most Iskani, even when on guard duty are nonchalant, not trained to expect real danger to surprise them. These men however were trained and disciplined, alert and ready.
She recognized one guide who was on guard duty. He was a hard-bitten man who took odd jobs bit never had a sense of place in the world.
Little Moon Shadow considered her options. She could talk to the man, find out what they were up to, but that was dangerous and probably wouldn’t yield much. Through the eye she could tell there were secrets in the main tent, but it was well guarded. She could try to sabotage their sleds, but they had many of them, and even if she slowed them down now, they’d have plenty of time to make repairs.
Skanya returned to camp, reported what she found, and we discussed options for evading them. We decided to try going for speed and lose them in the frozen north. We set out in the middle of the night, forgoing rest to get ahead.
Reindeer Crossing
We were pushing ourselves to go fast and the herd of reindeer caught us off guard. We thought that we if could get on the other side of them their tracks might obscure our trail, but things went sideways, we hit a bad patch, and the boat capsized, bending one of the struts that the skids were affixed to.
This turned out to be a true test of our meddle. Skayna looked at the damage and determined that thankfully none of the intricate gears were damaged, but it was an involved process. We used planks to prop the boat up and remove the strut but it couldn’t be repaired without a forge.
We decided to split up. Rulgara and Xravic would walk to the nearest village (thanks to Loddi’s family map!) while Loddi and Skanya worked on carving a temporary wood brace the boat could limp along on till we got to the village.
What’s it like being a chosen?
As they set out, Skanya gave them a blessing “A chosen of Akta and a soon-to-be Chosen of Maya off on an adventure to mend the bent strut!”
Xravic scowled as they left “You have no idea what it means to be Chosen.”
The comment wasn’t meant to invite conversation, but Rulgara had to ask “Is it like a family?”
“More like a bad roommate. She (Akta in this case) is sulking because I went underground where she can’t see me.”
“Do you regret the choice you made?”
“Would you like to have your sister muttering in your head constantly?”
Gar thought on it. She was much more accustomed to Skanya than Xravic was and for the most part embraced her little sister’s cheer. “Would you council others who want the same thing?”
“People get married all the time. I get why. Most people are just so happy to have someone as powerful as a god see them. Makes them feel special. But after years of adventuring the shine wears off, but the demands never stop.”
An uncommon price
Rulgara and Xravic made it to the village in good time. The found a smith with a forge and asked to use it. He looked at Gar’s silver and black eyes and asked why they were in such a rush. She told him we sought the starfall before foreigners who are chasing it could make it. The smith offered his forge, but asked that on way back for Rulgara to take his son and prepare him to take the Oath of Starfall. “My son wants to be a star smith, but I can’t train him to do that.”
Gar met with the young man and he was full of excitement about forging rulhim and impressing all the other young women of his village, but had no idea what starsmithing entailed or the responsibility that it requires. He just wanted shiny toys to show off. As she talked to him Xravic crunched and apple (loudly) and laughed “Oh, a young person who just thinks this commitment will be nothing but fun and adventure. What will you do?”
Gar could have rejected him. She could have seen that he wasn’t a serious person and never given him the chance. She could have given into Xravics cynicism. But she’s a better person than that. She had an honest conversation with his father and told him that is son was not ready to make the Oath of Starfall, but that she would take him as her apprentice and try to train him. Rulgara the Teacher!
She fixed the strut. In the morning Skanya and Loddi had not made it to the village so they walked back to find them.
Back at the boat
It’s just a mater of mechanical advantage. We didn’t need a metal strut that had as much tensile strength, we just needed a spare shaft that could hold the weight long enough to get back into the village. Skanya couldn’t fix the old one (Gar was heading out to do that) but she could surely use all the extensive materials she brought with them to fashion something that would hold for a bit. By the twin goddesses, she had a lathe!
The new strut was cut and tooled, measured and placed, texted and hardened in fire. The attacked it to the boat, removed the supports and—SNAP—the wooden splintered like kindling. Skaya had invested so much in this. She spend all her gold buying tools and materials. She studied the mechanisms. She worked carefully. She had promised Loddi’s father than they would bring back the boat undamaged. She promised. And she failed.
From an outsiders perspective, this wasn’t a catastrophe, but in that moment Skanya only knew that she was a failure who couldn’t do the one thing she promised to do. She rain in into the snow, crying big sobbing tears.
Loddi waited till the others returned and then set out to find Skanya. He brought tea. By then her tears were dry, but her eyes were still red.
“It’s all my fault!” she half-balled, half-babbled.
“We’re oathsworn companions. We share the burden in all things, including this.” Loddi consoled her as he offered her the tea. It was hot and strong, just the way she liked it.
Skanya was roused from her self-pitying state, at least enough to return to the boat and make camp safely with her companions.
Silly Girl
In camp Rulgara could see Skanya was working to keep her composure, and as she had many times, she put her big arms around her little sister.
“Do you think it’s silly for me to chase after a goddess?” Skanya wondered, second guessing her chosen career.
“Not silly at all.” Rulgara recounted what Xravic had shared with her and gave her thoughts as well “He should have struck a harder bargain.”
Into Ice Wyrm Territory
In the morning we set out again. Based on Loddi’s map we had two paths forward. One through a mountain that would be safe but came with an exorbitant toll the tribe that controlled the entrance. The second over the Ice Wyrm territory controlled by another Wyrm Hunter tribe and we might get eaten by an Ice Wyrm there.
To the lake we would go!
Perhaps because she got a good night’s sleep, or because the boat was now fixed, or because the love her family shared with her, or just because her optimism can’t be held down for long, Skanya was in good spirits again. “Ooh, I’ve never seen a Ice Wyrm!”
We passed lands controlled by the Wolf Clan, a tribe that was in good standing with Loddi’s family. As our boats crossed paths he told them about the foreigners behind us and offered them salt from Rul. Loddi’s greetings to them was as taciturn as he always was, but he did show the proper forms of greeting and we left on good terms. Whether they would do anything to slow our pursuers though, we did not know.
We made good time across the ice. There were no wyrm attacks because Loddi (our pathfinder) told us to watch for steam above the ice from their heat glands.
As the day turned to night, we spotted a big cave where we could rest for the night, but as we got closer we realized it was a wyrm hatching ground turned graveyard. The bones of a huge queen wyrm were inside the cave.
Queens were not usually hunted as they were necessary to ensure more wyrms were born, but they did have very valuable materials among their bones. Acta’s Blessing, this one died naturally! Thought this was Wolf Clan territory if they had not found the cave already, we might be able to harvest valuable remnants!
Three things are known to be found in the body of a queen wyrm:
- Wyrm Call, a bone used to summon Ice Wyrms
- Sensory bone that helps detect vibrations and warn of incoming Wyrms.
- Rock eating acid in the queens skull cavity. Possibly strong enough to eat away the rocks that encompass star metal!
At each encounter, Skanya was more an more convinced that these opportunities and challenges were placed before them not only to aid them on their journey, but also to teach them of themselves. This wasn’t just an adventure, it was a pilgrimadge.
As they approached, they saw something move between the giant ribs of the wyrm…Rime Spiders!
Notes for next game
The fluid that articulate rime spider leg motion can be used in brewing to have an effect the opposite of Hearthfire, that would reduce a persons body temperature so they could not be detected by Icy Wyrms and possibly the Undead!
Questions we thought about a lot, and to keep asking
- How do you relate to your religion?
- What do your characters care about?
- Should Skanya peruse being a chosen of Akta
This was a very character driven session, much more about our interior selves than about big action adventure. That was coming soon!
