Arath has entered Ubek’s Oasis at hex C11. I need to make
some decisions about how this Oasis is populated. I think it’s very likely that
one species sort of dominates the place. My dice strongly disagree. In fact, my
dice don’t even like two factions; they prefer that there are three factions
warring over this place. And I thought I’d find some peace here. Okay, time to
figure out who’s who in the Oasis. My dice lead me to these conclusions…
·
One group is humans. Unfortunately, they are a
snake-worshipping cult that resides in a fortress in hex A8. They control that
hex, and they have a sort of jungle step pyramid there. That’s fun. The dice
absolutely agree (natural 1) that these humans are worshipping a Naga of
Darkness. Lots of snakes here.
·
Another group is fauns. They have a small
community on the eastern bank of the lake that dominates the southern part of
the oasis. It’s a wooden-walled fort.
·
The final group is a group of werejackals that
were once humans, but over several generations have devolved into jackal weren
creatures. They hide in a series of caves on the western edge of hex D7. They
often try to raid the faun community, poaching creatures in the oasis and
especially fish that populate the lake. They and the faun continually skirmish
with one another. A bugbear has recently taken over one of their packs, and is
using it to stage increasingly aggressive attacks. This sounds like a good hook
to pursue first.
It is quite likely that the fauns send patrols into the
eastern parts of the oasis to control their territory. Oh yeah. It’s also
possible that their seer has had a dream about Arath, because Ubek did sort of
send him. I roll no, but decide to use Arath’s luck here. That would help him a
great deal to be the chosen one. Like, a lot. The luck barely puts me over the
line on that. Whew.
Within an hour of waking and starting westward, Arath is
approached by six fauns on patrol. He greets them (he got a natural 12 on his
mind lore check to see if the dwarves had told him about this), and tells them
that he has met Ubek, showing them the gifts he has been given and the mark on
his forehead. They are believers. I mean, the seer sent them to find him. So,
yeah.
They take him into their compound. There are only 40 faun
here, but they maintain a healthy little community here. There’s not a lot of
opportunity to barter here. They have some simple weapons, but they generally
would be druid sorts. I’m going to say that the wise faun druid in the core
rules is typical of their people, but they are led by a level 3 faun of the
same type. They have leather and wooden goods, but do not work metal at all.
They also don’t care much for money, and have no real need of it. They have a
barter economy, and trade with one another to meet their needs. Fifteen of the
faun are males, fifteen are female, and ten are children. It’s a small keep
with maybe ten buildings. They welcome Arath and will give him food and
shelter.
I’m going to give them a minor magic item – Bones of
Telling. This is a pair of awkward dice (that happened to be twelve-sided –
fancy that) which act as a minor form of Deck of Many Things. I’m not going to
work out all 144 possible options, but I’ll say this – if you end up with two
even numbers, that’s very good – higher the better. Ending up with two odd
numbers is very bad – lower the worse. On a mixed result, the more extreme
number is dominant. On a balanced roll (a 8 and a 5, for instance), there is
some force at battle within the character and things have yet to be determined.
The higher the good, the better the permanent effect. The lower the bad, the
worse the permanent effect.
I will allow him to have one re-roll (if needed) from luck.
I’ll use the rules for likelihood to determine the effect I get.
Do I really want to do this? Sure. Why not.
First roll is 11 and 3. That is really bad. My luck re-roll
is 5 and 4. That is slightly bad. Is it that fate will fail me at the worst
possible moment for a limited time? Natural 1. Okay. Every time I roll a 12, I
am likely to turn it into a 1. Once this happens three times, the effect has
run its course.
That sucks. It doesn’t suck as much as permanently reducing
armor to 0, or losing half my hits, or always having -1 edge on combat checks.
Those would all be a lot worse. The faun seer suggests that some dark force has
it out for me, and it will be following me all of my days. It has been sending
the shadelings against me in the desert. It is watching from the Shadowed
Obelisk.
It’s Sauron! Except it’s not. The Faun (we’ll call him Harn,
because that’s an old school gaming word you might have heard) suggests that
fate has selected Arath for some purpose, and the various forces are aware of
this. In this case, dark forces stepped in and nudged the dice – and opposing
forces stepped in to nudge the numbers back and minimize the damage.
I’m giving him 5 xp for this encounter. This counts as
character growth.
Arath asks how he can be of assistance to the Faun. While
they know that the jackal weren they continually fight are too populous to
overcome, their new bugbear leader Ragat has been increasing their aggression.
If he could be defeated, it would greatly decrease the threat these weren pose.
A Faun scout named Bika agrees to travel with Arath, and
lead him to the lair. I checked, and she definitely does not have a crush on
him. In fact, she finds humans kind of gross. She’s not wrong. Bika is the daughter
of the Seer Harn, so bringing her back alive is kind of a big deal. It will
affect how the Faun interact with him going forward. I’m also thinking he gets
a total XP bonus of +10% if he brings her back alive, and -10% if she dies. If
he dies, he just loses everything, so I don’t need to work out the logistics of
that. The campaign will just be over. I’m using the stats for a Faun Druid, but
giving her a shortbow 2 in addition to the Cudgel.
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