This week I was back at our friendly local game store, Game of Boards, and was ready to either continue our campaign with the full group venturing into The Tower That Fell, or finish our dreamcrawl at The Cave Our People. Alas, that didn’t happen and only two players showed up (and only one of them was playing on the cave adventure).
So after a quick debate over our options, we decided to make another set of characters and do something else. That way we keep playtesting the game, and develop the campaign in another direction, like those old-school RPG campaigns of yore.
The game is set in the same campaign, with some of the same players, and different characters. The ideas is thar Brikla, the PCs tribe’s leader, has returned to Lakit, the initial settlement of the game, and after a couple of days inside The Cave of Our People, she calls the remaining tribe members and explain the situation (things are going to get tough on Mother’s Vale, see in this report). They need to contact the other villages, and possibly the other people that live in the vale. For the game that means contacting the other “human” and “non-human” settlements, including those that their tribe doesn’t have a good relationship with. What was coming was worse for sure. The characters the players creates are the following:
- Boh, a Gentle Brute (Concept Tag) fascinated by shiny things and afraid of the dark (Problem Tag).
- Rohr, the Voice of the Tribe, a great orator who dreams of one day uniting the Free People of Thaia, but whose big mouth has put the tribe in danger before.
So the first step, according to Brikla, was to warn Ferik, the forest village of their people, who lived with the Pekik people (what are like the halfling, monkey people). And the players said that since they were already allies they would send just a owl with a skin with drawn symbols they knew meant meeting. But I didn’t know if they had that. Could they?
Well, maybe they could, but that’s too global north for me, so I say they have prehistoric big parrots tha repeat short messages. That made their job easier, but was more in line with what I imagine the setting to be like, with a bit of Brazilian fauna and prehistoric creatures. So they sent that, and hoped for the best (I will ask someone for a Luck Test next week to see how it went). They wanted to do something more. They wanted to reach out to one of the other people of the vale. The Winged People, the birdkin? Or the Simian Empire remnants, the Apekin? Maybe the Amphibian Queendom in the swamps?
Then we remembered the group has Ray, a Birdkin Warrior-Priest kind of character, and the player who created Ray came up with this (with the hell of the rest of us): after a bloody conflict between their tribe and the Winged People, in an effort to establish closer relationships between the peoples, one of each if them would live with the other. Lakit got Ray, and the Winged People got Okulah, a Resourceful Hunter. They haven’t seen Okulah for years, as soon after the two people became “strangers” again. But times were changing, and this needed to change too.
The two characters got the supplies they needed and planned their small trip to the east, to the mountains where the Winged People lived. It would be a 2 whole day trip, skirting the northern boundaries of the Deep Green Jungle, until they get to the mountains, where they expected to see the eerie where the Birdkin live. They were not sure how they would be received, but the last person from Lakit to visit this place was one of them, as Rhor, the Tribe’s Voice, visited the Birdkin a year ago more or less to trade. So their chances were better.
I looked at our hex map and then decided to put the Winged People’s Eyrie to the west of Lakit, where the northern borders of the Deep Green Jungle meet the Fiery Mountains. The group took a few minutes to make some preparations for the journey and left early the next morning. I rolled on the Random Weather table for Thaia (it will be on the first released issue of The Primal World of Thaia) and got some light rain at the end of Autumn. So that was it, the adventure had begun.
I rolled to see if we would get Random Encounter on the trip (multiple rolls actually) but didn’t get any, not even a sign of an encounter. Which was alright, as the hook I am presenting them will have some causality to this very event. I say to them that they traveled for a whole day, being as careful as they could, but didn’t really see any living creatures besides some small critters and insects. The one Auroch they saw from afar was completely dilacerated and had its skin close to its bones as if their blood had been drained somehow.
The night arrived and they sought shelter at the high branches of a huge Ceiba tree, where very few animals could reach from below, or so they hoped. They had an uneventful night except for a sinister howl in the middle of the night when the Blood Moon was full (Thaia has 2 moons, the Blood Moon and the Spirit Moon – each with their special effects on the full and new moon phases). It didn’t sound like anything they heard before. It was chilling (foreshadowing the threats).
Anyway, the second day wasn’t much different. The jungle was quiet as if death itself was around. As they were traveling in the outskirts they soon saw the mountains (by the way, I rolled for Random Encounters but got nothing again), and in a tall one, which had flat platforms near its top, they could see the structures of the Eyrie and a few of the Birdkin scouts and hunters flying nearby. It was very likely they would be seen from above once they left the Deep Green Jungle to approach these people’s settlement.
The players, wisely, choose to approach openly, with they weapons lowered, and soon enough a 2 warriors and a red feathered Birdkin, who was wearing a velociraptor skull as a helmet, approached them. This one’s name was Jonathan (see the first session report as why Birdkin has American sounding names – but once this is ready for publication his name is going to be Blood Beak) and he wanted to know who they were and what they wanted. But once he got closer and saw Rohr, he remembered him.
Rhor player than quickly summarized what was going on and asked them if the Winged People could help them, and thus help themselves, as the Death Siblings would inevitably come for them in the future. But Johnston said they had their own problems for now, but that they would take them PCs to speak to the tribe but the characters would need to hand over their weapons. The players traded suspicious glances at each other but complied. The leader signaled to the other two Birdkin, and they grabbed the PCs by the arms and flew away, up to the Eyrie.
I tried to describe how the rise to the platforms in their nest felt like to them as non-flyers. As they flew higher and higher their stomachs dropped, and they felt a bit nauseous. Everything below now seemed like a small miniature of the real world, and then they saw her, Okulah, meeting them in midair, flying a glider.
They landed a bit after her, and soon enough the small tribe (for the looks of it they were about 40 or so) had gathered around them on the platform. Jhonston addressed the gathering saying the visitors came here asking for help, and as the pact they had made years ago with the PC’s tribe they were going to listen to them.
But even after a good speech about the need for unity and the greater threat who will befall them all, the fact remained that the Winged People had a more immediate problem. I said the PCs could see with their eyes. People were starving. Some were almost just flesh and bones. Food was scarce. A demon from the Abyss, as they said, was killing everything in the region. Devouring every prey. Drinking their blood and pissing in the remains. An evil poisonous urine.
A few of their people saw it and tried to fight back but were slaughtered. If the PCs would help them get rid of the demon, the Birdkin people would help them against the Death Siblings.
The players didn’t exhitate too much and quickly decided to help (as one of Motivations of their characters was To Bring the Free People Together). So the tribe designated Okulah to be their guide, and she would lead them to the demon’s territory and what they believed to be its lair. They would leave the very next morning, so they could make preparations tonight. Okulah showed them to a tent, and they were served watered down bone chowder. During the night they asked for some more information about the demonic creature and what they could get as rumors in the Winged People’s Eyrie was that some of them believe it to be a blood drinking demon wolf (and some say it has 6 legs), others say its a malignant shadow that takes the shape of evil things like wolves. They heard a brave warrior once killed this demon but it just turned to a dark smoke and flew away, returning weeks later, stronger and more evil than ever. Okulah believes the only way to finally kill the demon is to kill this smoke, or at least imprison it somewhere.
Anyway, the night didn’t come with any surprises (I might think of some internal conflict for the tribe in the final write up of this) and the next day begins with them climbing down the mountain and heading north with Okulah. She could fly there, but they couldn’t, so she walked by their side, telling them stories of the years she had spent with the Winged People.
Then she remembered the stories of an old province of the Simian Empire that ruled the region hundreds of years ago. They were led by a king, a vassal to the Great Emperor, but a courageous warrior nonetheless. He possesses a weapon that could kill even ghosts, the legend says, as it destroyed their very essence. Maybe, if it was true, they could go to this king’s tome and use that weapon against the demon. Or maybe there they could try to contact the king’s spirit and ask for guidance?
Anyway, it was a dungeon with ancient treasures from a past civilization, so obviously my PCs bit the hook, and they headed West, deviating from their path just a bit. During this time I rolled for an Omen in the Random Encounters, so they found the carcass of a Brontosaurus, completely destroyed and mangled. It’s blood gone. A trail of blood leading north again.
They arrive in the old tomb in the mid afternoon, a low hill, built with huge stones, with a small stream of mineral water waving through the vale and accumulated in a shallow pool in front of what seemed to be the entrance. It was barred by a great boulder. As they approached, they felt something under their feet in the pool, loose objects of varying sizes. They stopped to check these out, and as they pulled rusted weapons, small trinkets and other objects, the water was drained and suddenly a creature made of rocks and cold water was formed, resembling a snake (I was ripping off DCC’s Doom of Savage Kings adventure here and there – Harley makes such great pulpy adventures – but the final version will be different, as I was improvising here). It demanded the PCs return everything they took from the pond and leave.
The group quickly realized this was some sort of guardian spirit, and addressed it as such, showing respect, and offering an item each of them were carrying. They tried to offer worthless junk, but the spirit would only consider useful or valuable items. They offered the stone tip of a spear, a feathered headband, and a shiny rock (always a favorite). The spirit dissipated and they were free to go. They expected the door to just slide open magically, but things are not that easy in the mythical stone age.
Okulah was with them, and they didn’t have much problem pushing the boulder form the entrance. It revealed a damp rough hewn corridor that went ahead as far as they could tell. It was dark, humid and cold inside. They could certainly smell rot and death from inside too, and slow scratching sounds.
The group lit up a torch and began exploring the place. They walked for a few minutes until they reached the entrance to a roughly square room, with the floor tilted towards the middle, where there was a hole in the ground. Lichen, water and mold covered the earth beaten floor and the mois stone walls. To the other side they could see a passage, and the corridor continued. This is a very simple room with a challenge trap that will make players exercise their problem solving in ways their character sheet can’t help them. It’s an iconic OSR encounter.
So they spent a few minutes discussing possible approaches, whether they wanted to go all the way to the other side, if they wanted to go down the hole or whatever. What they ended up trying was tying up Boh, the Gentle Brute, and slowly letting him down the hole and he could scream if anything was wrong and they would pull him back. So that’s what they did. Boh held a torch and slowly began his descent.
What he saw was that there was another rough hewn square room below, where in the middle were several bone stakes, looking like mammoth teeth, and a still decomposing corpse impaled by them. As Boh approached, however, the creature revealed itself to be a deathless, and attacked the PC. Luckily, he didn’t get hit, and was quickly pulled up by the companions.
Now they had a slightly bigger problem, and they decided to go back and just bash the undead with their sticks, which wasn’t a big deal (it was just one, so they can see what they can find deeper inside). So this was quickly resolved. They say that the room downstairs leads to a set of stairs and eventually to the corredor up ahead of the first room with the hole in the ground. With that, they threw rope around and after a while they all crossed to the other side. Carefully and steady.
The game was getting to an end by now, and we only had enough time to explore just a bit further, discovering a side room with a large stone tomb in the middle. But as soon as the PCs touched the tomb, from the shadows a swarm of Shadow Serpents appeared, hissing and gazing at them with bright scarlet eyes.
That’s how the session ended! Who knows what will happen next!
I don’t think we will have a game this week, as there’s a lot going on down here, but we will see. I will try to create characters online so people can see how it goes!
In the next post we will be back with some more details on playing Weird Stone & Sorcery adventures with Old-School Essentials, and more details on Primal Quest and The Primal World of Thaia, an upcoming zine for Old-School Essentials and Primal Quest!