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Episode 9: Moon Unit - 15 Feb 2020 20:28
Setting
Androus the Yelmalian was still away, but the others were all present in Apple Lane.
Plot was a list of things that needed to be done for winter, but with an understanding that the adventurers might have their own ideas. They did, and it was entertainingly terrible. Plot enemy was provided by Tom McKinnell, who has deployed him against innocents.
IC Play
After a little time spent attending to such things as the cutting of trees and the dragging of wood, the adventurers gathered, their Rune points replenished, to decide how to deal with the great boar, Red-eye. Led by Ethrava, they concluded they were going to have to Heroquest to weaken the boar and strengthen themselves. They considered Orlanth and Aroka, but settled on a Yinkin quest, with Rastar to play Yinkin, and Laika to be Odayla, a huge figure out in the wilds.
Aileena did not offer to help, but Kareena the god-talker was happy to help them into the Heroplane, in the hope of seeing more of the great things they had previously done. Laika set off to the wilderness, carrying her crossbow just in case of trouble. Kareena danced a spiral in the snow for some time, and then the adventurers found themselves outlined by a longhouse, and Ethrava began to lament how her people were being attacked. She sang about it, and unfortunately did so without reference to the correct song.1 At that point, the enemy of the house - tusk riders - rode through the ritual. Laika, who was at a bit of a distance, noticed them, but everyone else was surprised as they burst out of the snow. One went for a farmer with a lance attack. Three went for Varaema, the softest-looking target.
Saronil snapped up a shield spell for Varaema, which undoubtedly saved her life, and she was hit twice, hard. However, it used up all of his Rune points. The tusk riders got away, with Ethrava failing to Befuddle a tusker.2 Laika tried to shoot, but missed, and the tusk riders got away into the snow. The adventurers turned out to be bad at tracking, and could not work out where they had come from or where going to.3 Varaema healed herself, first with magic and then with First Aid.
That evening, Rastar was earwormed by the music Ethrava had been singing. There was something wrong about it, and for a while he could not work it out. When it finally hit him, he realised there had been someone else singing too. Ethrava had made mistakes, but the other voice, also a woman's, had been malevolent, and taken advantage of Ethrava's errors to invite disaster in. When Rastar told his friends this, they managed to decide on another Heroquest to go after the voice and defeat their enemy, so they could get on with defeating Red-eye, without the previous defeat and the tusk rider enemies hanging over them.
Kareena was still happy to help, and Ethrava managed to cajole and persuade the farmers into enthusiasm, based on their cachet in the town4. They set off into another Heroquest, this one started inside where they could not be attacked, with lookouts posted. As they started to move into the Hero Plane to look for a thing, the Durulz cook from the Tin Inn came running to say their trophy had been stolen.
This time, they set out from Ernalda's longhouse. Ethrava found herself playing Uralda, the cattle mother, an Eirithan aspect. Ernalda was Laika. Rastar was Yinkin, but inside he was sure he was Eurmal really. They tried to set off, but Yinkin could not find any tracks, no matter how hard he cast spells or tried.
Ernalda, however, could feel something lying on the Earth that did not belong there, and they set off towards it. Soon, at the edge of the Storm Tula, they came across a longhouse in a round enclosure. Reddish smoke was issuing from a chimney, of all things. Humakt, or Saronil, recognised the shape of house, path, and wall as making up the Moon Rune. Ernalda, annoyed by the newfangled chimney or the Rune itself, ignited the thatch, which caught nicely but did not all burn away. In fact, the fire just stayed where it was, tame.
Yanafil Tarnils came out of the house to invite everyone in.5 Uralda accepted, and Ernalda hinted to Yinkin to go around the back, not through the door of hospitality. Saronil told Yanafil Tarnils he had nothing to talk about, and drew his sword.
Inside, Uralda was offered food and drink by a red-headed woman. The same red-headed woman simultaneously opened the back door to put out fish scraps and talk to Yinkin, although they did not realise this at the time. Time itself was a little strange in that longhouse, and they spent some hours eating and drinking, with the woman showing off all of her master's things but hardly mentioning the glowing, beautiful arm-ring that was set on a shelf. Yinkin, recalling he was really Eurmal in disguise, snaffled it. They left, and the door was barred behind them.
Outside, there had been all sorts of drama, subjectively fitted into a few seconds. Ernalda had cast Absorption on Humakt, while Yanafil Tarnils failed to cast his own magic. Humakt called on his own godly power, however, and managed to shatter the scimitar. Yanafil Tarnils did not surrender at that point. Instead, he cast Repair. The Moon God was plainly a better warrior, and Humakt was without his magic, but the magic that Yanafil Tarnils cast next went into the spell, and Ernalda felt her spirit refilled from the ignition of the roof. They put almost identical cuts on each other. Finally, Yanafil Tarnils got brought down by Humakt, but then his massively boosted Mindblast went off, punching through Humakt's spell protection. Then Ernalda went for him with an axe, and she'd spent all of her magic but Yanafil Tarnils hadn't, and defended himself successfully, then used Madness on her. Like Humakt a moment before, she fell.
The warrior god healed himself as Uralda and Yinkin stared, and he limped back to his home, and they went and sanctified an area for Ernalda, which gave them a cubic pit to climb out of back in the Middle World. Rastar had the arm-ring, which he excitedly showed off to the others and Kareena. Unfortunately, it now had a Moon Rune on it. They hid it, thanked everyone, and sent for Squinch. He was able to identify its magical properties - people would want it, and it was designed to bring Disorder. Ethrava noted they could use the Dragonnewt Plinth to get rid of the thing. Squinch suggested he look after it just to be safe, and was quickly pushed out of the door with thanks.
Varaema decided to Divine on it, and had a vision in which she could see people arguing, and… fumbled Harmony. And put the arm ring on. To save others from arguing, of course. To everyone else, it disappeared, and most people thought that Rastar had squirrelled it away.
Other Things
Apple Lane is now more likely to be quarrelsome and greedy. All of the worshippers will take a 10% boost to Darkness and Disorder. Those who took part, including Kareena, are immune to that, but may have other effects.
Saronil was imprisoned in his own mind, fighting Kargan Tor and losing every time.
Tags: 1625 apple_lane arm_ring chalana_arroy dark ernalda ethrava eurmal heroquest humakt kareena laika onjur rastar saronil uralda varaema yanafil_tarnils yinkin
Episode 8: Shinty Town - 14 Feb 2020 16:23
Setting
Dark Season in Sartar is a time of snow and gales, and also, I decided ice shinty grudge matches against nearby clans.
What is ice shinty? Well, like ice hockey, but with less armour and more cheating.
Plot devices were provided by other members of my RPG group.
An extra player and a missing player meant Asprag, Ethrava's tenant, was promoted from NPC to PC for the evening.
IC Play
Asprag the Farmer found himself voted in as captain of the Shinty Team for the in-no-way-a-grudge-match against the Varmandings, the clan team from across the river. With so few people living in Apple Land and the clan, and with travel difficult, he appealed to the adventurers for help. Laika, Rastar, and Ethrava were in the village, and agreed to help.
Laika was already a competent skater. The rest were issued with skates and some quick lessons. Rastar turned out to get the hang of it pretty quickly. Ethrava… less so. Asprag sent Laika out to check out the river where it was going to be held, and Laika managed to work out that yes, it was a river, and frozen, and then came back.
Meanwhile, Saronil had been offered a quick bit of escort duty by Graria, the Lay Captain6 of the Temple of Humakt. Escorting a man to Apple Lane was exactly the sort of thing he felt he could do. Graria asked if he knew what Shinty was. When he didn't, he was invited to take a healer along; naturally, he plumped for Varaema.
The journey was not difficult. On the way Saronil worked out that he was with another Humakti, but one he did not recognise. At Apple Lane they met the large group of clan players and hamlet folk on their way out, and quickly followed along.
Asprag went out to help the opposing captain cut the centre line, as tradition dictated. His opposing number asked why there was a White Lady present, complaining that he wanted to get home that day. It was agreed that if someone had been healed of a major injury, they would not go back on the ice.
Rastar, as the person in the brightest clothing, was sent to choose a sapling for a puck. After the tree had been chosen and looked at for a bit, Laika was sent to help him choose a better shaped tree, and it was cut down and the puck made.
Asprag chose to put Ethrava and himself on the ice first, with Rastar and a few others. He got himself in control of the puck pretty quickly, and Ethrava fell over and got stamped on pretty heavily. Apple Lane drew ahead in the game, but the Varmandings were definitely more violent.
While sitting on the sidelines and cheering, having had her ribs put back in place by Varaema, Ethrava noticed blood on the snow, and rather more than she remembered anyone spilling. She called over Laika and they investigated - the ground was bleeding. Varaema's patient noticed and the WHite Lady came over, to say she could not do First Aid on the ground. Ethrava called up an earth spirit to find out what was under there. It was prepared to talk to her and to Laika - Laika even understood from its habits of speech that it was the sort of spirit that wanted blood. It said there was a dead thing under the ground.
Laika, Ethrava, and a couple of farmers began to dig.7 They got to a bit of a body, and a ghost began to form, and this was not the talkative kind - it attacked them instantly, and they had to destroy it, which caused the game of shinty to be paused. Laika got covered in the physical touch of the ghost, a layer of frozen gunk.8
Afterwards, they were able to ascertain that the bit of body they had pulled up was just that - a bit. A quartered corpse had been buried, with pig teeth embedded in the skin here and there. Reluctantly they asked for a longer pause in the game and began searching for the other bits. They found more, and fought another ghost, while the Varmanding team did nothing to help, but did at least agree to the game being paused. This was fortunate, as Asprag was rendered unconscious in the fight, and had to be put somewhere warm for a bit. Laika got gunked again. It was just as unpleasant the second time around.
While Rastar built a snow-corpse to help with the preparation of someone who was missing a lot of himself, one of the Hiordling team turned out to be a hunter who went out to get his alynx. Using her skills, he found two more spots under the snow, and one where he was sure there would be… something. Asprag was just about awake enough to decide to use all of his Rune Points to protect himself in spirit block… and they fought two small ghosts and then a huge angry pig-ghost. Asprag ended up unconscious again, and so Saronil was put in charge.
Then, leaving Varaema to put the spirit of the corpse safely to rest, the others went back to finish the shinty match. The other side were not prepared for the tactical Humakti's instructions to his team, and could not keep up with the skill and ferocity of Laika and the other farmers. With the healer occupied, it was over before dark, and the Hiordlings won, taking the trophy, an arm ring with some history. Asprag came round again in time to take the trophy home.
There was a lot of celebration, and the Humakti who had been escorted to Apple Lane seemed entirely unmoved by it.9
Other Things
A man with a hide and a half of land including some oak trees made an agreement with Laika to have her pigs on his land.
Shinty is hilarious because extra rules keep cropping up. Yes, you DO have to be conscious AND holding the stick, in a hand that IS still connected to your body… and there is precedent for every single ruling.
Tags: 1625 apple_lane arm_ring asprag dark ethrava hiordling humakti laika malani rastar saronil shinty varmanding
