Mira was asked to perform a small service for the town of Abon. In her capacity as an Iron Priest the town Overseer, Torgen, asked if she would perform funeral rights for four residents who had died. What started as a simple service quickly escalated after a miss with a match resulted in a Blighthound being summed into the middle of the gathering. After a short but brutal fight, Mira and her Warden companion manage to chase off the Blighthound but not before it broke Mira’s arm and sank its teeth into her leg. Mira succumbs to her wounds and falls into unconsciousness, and we rejoin her as she wakes up, hopefully feeling slightly recovered? The dice will tell.
Mira is down to one point of Spirit and one point of Health. The broken arm was a purely narrative consequence so there’s no actual debility there, but we’ll have to deal with the narrative implications until it’s cleared. That means no swinging the big stick around. I don’t know if I gave her a canonical handedness, let’s take care of that now.
Is Mira right handed? (50/50): 9, No
So she can still use her sling effectively, as long as she can load it. That’s something.
I’m going to start the session with a Sojourn move. My reasoning is that there are a few possibilities here, and I’d like the narrative to play off the results of the Sojourn roll. There’s a low chance that things could get worse, but I have a good amount of momentum to burn. I think it’s a chance I need to take.
Sojourn
Roll: 4 + 1 (Heart) vs 2 and 6 = Weak Hit
Burn Momentum: 8 vs 2 and 6 = Strong Hit
Momentum reset (2)
Take +2 Health (4)
Take +2 Spirit (3)
Mira starts to wake up, though it takes a minute to get her eyes open. The room is dimly lit and her head is pounding. She tries to lift her arm and it feels sore and heavy. As she brings it into her field of view she sees that her wrist has been dressed and splinted, and it’s as good a dressing as she’s ever seen. She won’t be wielding a staff or working any leather for the foreseeable future, but she should be able to make herself at least somewhat useful. She tries to sit up, and that’s when she hears movement from across the room.
“You’re awake!” cries a voice. Mira recognises it as the warden from the town hall. She feels a strong hand pull her into an upright sitting position and the woman walks round in front of her, smiling. “The wrist wasn’t that bad, a couple of weeks and I think it’ll set. No more fighting for a while.” Mira holds up her right hand and asks “is this your handiwork? It’s a very neat job.” The warden’s grin widens and she nods as she says “yep, I used to be apprenticed to the village healer back before I joined the wardens. Never had the brain for all the herbs and recipes, but I always had a knack for dealing with blood and bone. Useful skills for a warden, as you can imagine.”
She comes round and sits on the edge of the cot. Mira realises they are tucked into a corner of the overseer’s office, and it seems to be dark outside. “How long was I asleep?”. “It’s the early hours of the morning. You’ve been out for pretty much a whole day. I heard what you did for Themir on the gate, sounds like you were running on empty before the fight even started. I figured you needed the rest. Here, drink this.” And she pushes a warm cup of liquid into Mira’s hands. “It’s just about drinkable, and I can get myself another.” As she walks away the warden calls back over her shoulder “I’m
Roll: 31, 66, Nadira
Nadira by the way, but you can call me Dira. I think you’ve earned it.”
Let’s learn a bit about Nadira. We know she’s a senior warden, and through the narrative I’ve envisioned that she was once apprenticed to a healer. I’ve played her as friendly and stoic in the face of danger, and I’m happy for that to reflect her disposition. I’ll let the dice tell us a bit about her goals.
Character: Goal oracle
Roll: 99, Roll twice
Roll: 81, Fulfil a duty
Roll: 86, Prove worthiness
Solid goals for a warden. And let’s do a First Look roll just for flavour.
Character: First look oracle
Roll: 53, Menacing
She’s certainly not a menacing disposition, so let’s say she’s got herself a mean scar across her cheek that twists her mouth down a little.
Nadira returns and Mira learns that following the chaos of the fight in the town hall there has been a fragile but welcome respite in the illness that plagues the town. Those with severe symptoms have shown some improvement, and there have been no new cases since the Blighthound was banished. Nadira expects that it will be temporary reprieve, but it gives them a welcome chance to rest and regroup, and to investigate Nakura’s news from Foxhollow. “Since you won’t be swinging a staff for a while perhaps you could head over to the library and help with the research effort? After you’ve had a bowl of porridge, of course. Healer’s orders.” Nadira points to a bowl on the table and excuses herself to head out on a patrol of the settlement.
She pauses at the door and turns to Mira. “The people in the hall saw a lot of weird stuff last night. But what you did when you drove off that Blighthound. That shout…”, she takes a moment. “They’re not sure what to make of you. Just… bear it in mind. Some of them might avoid you a bit. It’s not personal. But they’re already scared, and that power is beyond their understanding. Beyond any of us really. Just give them time.” And she turns and disappears into the diminishing gloom.
Sounds like we helped make a dent in the progress of the illness, so let’s mark progress on that quest tracker.
Reach a Milestone (Dangerous): Help the city of Abon survive the outbreak
Progress: 2/10
Mira finishes the porridge quickly and wonders if it would be rude to try and find a second bowl. But the food is probably in the town hall, and she’s not ready to face that place again quite yet. She ignores her growling belly and asks a nearby warden for directions to the library. Seeing her limping slightly, the warden escorts her through the town and sees her into the building.
On stepping over the threshold Mira is immediately distracted by the shelves of books and scrolls. Many of these documents came from the old world on the same ships that carried her ancestors across the seas, but there are a good selection of new volumes documenting discoveries and mysteries of the Ironlands. There are probably a couple of hundred books, and double that number of scrolls. There are no open candles in this room, only lanterns, and Mira sees two people sat at a table with open books spread between them, and a pile of unopened books stacked next to them. They appear to be deep in discussion.
Mira listens into their conversation as she walks along the shelves and gets a feel for the way it has been organised. They appear to be arguing about a point of symbology - the figure of the dark hound. Mira allows the discussion to reach a natural break and then walks over, introduces herself and offers her services. They are both grateful for the help and give her a quick tour of the library shelves.
“The wardens have a good selection of reference material on the horrors they have encountered but obviously they focus on how to banish or destroy them, not on what summons them. We don’t have a book or section for diseases, but we have settlement journals kept by overseers and elders and they quite often record details of disease and cure. With Nakura’s information we have decided to search those accounts for reference to this illness, though it would be a damn sight easier if he’d found out the name of the settlement.”
One of them pulls a couple of volumes from the top of the unopened pile and sets them on the table in front of an empty chair. “If you can read, your assistance would speed things considerably.”
Mira winces slightly as she lowers herself into her seat and gratefully accepts another cup of hot, flavoured water. She breathes in the steam and recognises the scent of Yarrow. A little flavour of home. Then she settles down and gets to work poring through the texts.
This is a classic Gather Information situation, and Wits is Mira’s strongest stat to I’m hopeful for a good roll.
Gather Information
Roll: 5 + 3 (Wits) vs 6 and 5 = Strong Hit
You discover something helpful and specific
Envisioning something helpful and specific in these Mystery plotlines is always a challenge, so I’m going to throw this over to the Oracle tables and see what they give us.
Action / Descriptor / Theme Oracles: Eliminate Grim Hate
Once again the Oracles leave me wondering if the dice are listening to our story. A Grim is a supernatural, spectral, or demonic hellhound originating from English folklore, so I’m going to take that interpretation of the prompt at face value and say that Mira finds evidence that the Blighthound is causing the illness.
However, that still leaves plenty of questions for us to explore - Where did it come from? Why does it hate? Who does it hate? And can we eliminate its hate without eliminating the Blighthound itself?
Poring through the book and comparing notes with her fellow researchers Mira finds several instances in the histories of a Blighthound associated with the onset of illness in a village or town, and of the illness clearing up once the Blighthound stops appearing. It’s not clear whether the Blighthound causes the illness or the illness summons the Blighthound, but they agree that the Blighthound seems to appear around the time an outbreak becomes an epidemic. Maybe its presence somehow strengthens the disease?
In some instances it was chased off. If the settlement was lucky enough to have a couple of visiting wardens it might have been banished. And in others the desperate population seem to have made some kind of offering, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t.
By early evening Mira is bleary eyed and in desperate need of fresh air and a lie down, but between them she and her library crew have gathered a great deal of useful information. She knows she needs to present this to Torgen and Nadira before she can rest.
Reach a Milestone (Dangerous): Help the city of Abon survive the outbreak
Progress: 4/10
She makes her way back across the town toward the overseer’s building, arranging the information in her head and shaping it into a narrative that will make sense to someone who is encountering this for the first time.
The town has had a short respite with the hound being chased away, but that can’t last forever. I’m going to roll a D100 and use a kind of sliding scale to decide what happens next with it. A roll of 50 will represent a small but noticeable uptick in the severity and number of cases, and will be a sign that the illness is beginning to return. Higher than that, it’s coming back harder and faster. Lower than that, it’s slower and more subtle.
Roll: 89
Not the worst, but it’s bad. I think that roll demands a price.
Which of the town leaders is afflicted?
1-49: Torgen
50-100: Nadira
Roll: 17, Torgen
As she approaches the building Mira notices that something is wrong. There’s a small, restless looking crowd outside and Nadira is standing in front of them trying to calm things down.
“We knew this could happen, and Torgen and I discussed it at length. He asked that I step in as Marshal if he was to be taken until such time as he recovers.” A voice calls out “What if he doesn’t recover?”. Mira is close enough now to make out words and her heart sinks as she realises what is happening. “Then once we are through this plague we will select a new Overseer, by our custom. But the middle of this crisis is not the time for it.”
There is grumbling and some further back and forth, but after a few minutes Nadira gets the crowd to disperse and she catches Mira’s eye. She walks over and allows herself a deep breath. “Tell me you have something” she says as she ushers Mira into the building. Torgen is nowhere to be seen and Mira doesn’t question it. “Maybe. There’s a pattern, but the option we take depends how desperate we are.” Dira barks a short laugh. “Right now, I’ll take anything.”
And so Mira explains her idea.