Adventures in a Doomed World: Session 10

I'm playing a mashup of Scarlet Heroes and Basic Fantasy RPG with a few supplements to turn it into a solo fantasy hexcrawl in the world of Eilobar, a doomed land entering its end times. I'm using the Level 0 Character Tumbler, Hexcrawl Aventures and also 47 Critical Hit Tables to Spice Up Your Game. Starting with level 0 characters I'm attempting to keep them alive long enough to level up from -100 to 1 XP and become actual heroes

Introduction

When we left the heroes last time they'd just lost the thief Ames to a gang of giant ants - I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea to fight them. I was having a read of the Hexcrawl Adventures supplement and I realised I'd missed out an important part of the rules: Movement points.

When travelling across the world map the heroes are supposed to move at a rate determined by the slowest party member. In this case it would be Stilda who in her splint mail can move 20 feet per turn in an encounter or 12 miles per day while exploring. This would give the party 12 movement points. Here are the costs for moving through different terrain types.

Jungle/Dense forest/Mountains/Swamp

18 points

Desert/Light forest/Hills

9 points

Clear/Plains/Trail

6 points

Each hex is 6 miles across, so when travelling through the swamp to and from the Tunnels of Mothric they should actually be clearing one hex per two days. Also, the random encounter rules say we need to make one check during the day and one at night. This suggests I should make night encounters tables for different terrain, maybe with werecreatures and undead included.

I've also decided to keep track of the calendar since the rules for Scarlet Heroes travel has different events tables for different seasons. There are three seasons: wet, dry and cold. We'll say the year is 300 days long, and each season lasts 100 days. I'm also thinking about adding gods to the world of Eilobar soon, and the idea of having a trinity of gods constantly sparring with each other sounds good to me. So the seasons could be named after each god or something. I was rolling for events on the wet season table, so we'll say we're now halfway through that period of the year now.

I've decided on a new rule for selling loot. In Keyham they'll only receive between 27-33% of an item's value (determined by starting at 30 and rolling a D6). In towns and cities they'll get 37-43%.

One last thing - I realise I should have been sharing out the XP equally after combat. I think this makes more sense than the way I was doing it.

Anyway, let's crack on.

The Adventure

Bryne and Stilda are outside the Temple of Zon. They've bandaged their wounds but Stilda is still not feeling a hundred percent. They decide to trek through the forest back to the village anyway, and see if Symath has managed to find any new recruits. They agree it might be better to take two new recruits with them if he's been able to find them (I wanted a small party since it's recommended for Scarlet Heroes and it cuts down on the amount of dice rolling I have to do, but I think we might keep losing people if we don't give them a bit of extra help).

This is dense forest so it'll take them four days to get home. The journey is uneventful and Stilda recovers with a good night's sleep each night.

Visiting Symath, let's say he's managed to find 1D4 recruits:

4!

I'll randomly generate them now and Stilda can pick two to bring with them. They'll start like the commoners from Laford in our original funnel adventure, at -100XP with no class, and they'll need to make it to 1XP to become a level one character. We'll give them 4HP plus their constitution modifier, and then update that once they gain a class at level 1.

I think a thief and another fighter would be helpful.

We've rolled up:

Helia, a female halfling beggar

Phomund, a male human vintner

Cyna, a female human farmer

Findanye, a female elf freed slave

A freed slave, we had one of them before. I think one of the nations neighbouring this one is going to have slavery as part of its culture, maybe some kind of caste system with one caste mistreated at the bottom rung of society. Something for the heroes to come into conflict with maybe, but that's for later on.

Based on their abilities, Stilda decides to take Cyna and Helia. It's an all female party - girl power! I quite like doing all this random generation, you never know what's going to happen next.

Cyna, female human farmer

Strength: 13 (+1)

Dexterity: 6 (-1)

Constitution: 14 (+1)

Intelligence: 12

Wisdom: 15 (+1)

Charisma: 14 (+1)

Hit Points: 5

Weapon: Pitchfork (1D8 damage)

Fray Die: None at level 0

Armour Class: 9 (Peasant clothing)

Traits: None at level 0

Age: 49

Appearance: Slumped shoulders, and sunburnt

Personality: Suspicious

Helia, female halfling beggar

Strength: 14 (+1)

Dexterity: 13 (+1)

Constitution: 12

Intelligence: 16 (+2)

Wisdom: 17 (+2)

Charisma: 10

Hit Points: 4

Weapon: Club

Fray Die: None at level 0

Armour Class: 9 (Rags)

Traits: None at level 0

Age: 53

Appearance: Rosy cheeks and matted hair

Personality: Serene

They add their few coppers to the party's wealth, and Stilda gives them both leather armour taken from the bandits in the temple. She gives Helia a shortsword and shortbow but Cyna prefers to keep her pitchfork. They buy a medium shield for her, which will give -1 to her AC in this weird world of descending armour class. I still think it's stupid.

They sell all the loot from the temple, making 72.40GP, and restock arrows, rations and bandages, but have to spend 17GP on bedrolls for the new recruits, leaving them with 10.27GP.

Stilda says there's no time for monster hunting or training, and that they should focus on ending the reign of Mothric so they can start securing the rest of the area around Keyham and then think about the bigger picture - the fact that monsters have been terrorising their land for decades now and it's only getting worse.

They head out towards the swamp. While crossing the wasteland on the first day they are ambushed by hunting creatures! This was a random terrain event rather than an encounter - interesting. It's eleven wolves! This should provide a good test for the new recruits.

This time I'm actually using the terrain generation system from the Hexcrawl Adventures supplement to create a very simple battlemap with rocks and boulders. It also includes trees and brush by default which doesn't make sense for the wasteland, but we'll ignore that for now.

The wolves move in on the heroes, still quite far away. Helia shoots at one, hitting it in the front of its body and bringing it down. Bryne considers casting Magic Missile but the wolves are still too far away. The others wait patiently for the wolves to approach.

Helia shoots at the closest one but misses, then Bryne casts Magic Missile at it. The orb of crackling energy slams into its chest, burning it but it keeps on running.

The wolves keep running, almost at the heroes now.

Helia shoots again, hitting the wounded wolf and killing it. She retreats back a bit to put more distance between her and the others

The wolves reach Cyna, Stilda and Bryne. One bites Cyna badly. Another slams into her but she blocks it with her shield. Another jumps at Bryne but she nimbly dodges out of the way. The next one bites her leg deeply.

Helia shoots again, critical hit! The arrow goes right into the animal's heart, slaying it instantly. Bryne swings her donkey's jawbone at the wolf nearest her but it flies out of her hand, forcing her to reach for it on the ground (critical miss, missing her next turn). Stilda hops in front of Bryne to intervene, chopping into the wolf's neck and killing it. Cyna stabs the nearest wolf with her pitchfork, wounding it badly.

There are seven wolves left. Once there are five they'll get a morale check, but not yet. The last of them arrive into the battle, leaping into action. One jumps at Bryne, still fumbling on the ground, but incredibly gets a critical miss and falls over. Three more attack Stilda but she fends them off, one of them falling over (critical miss). One bites Cyna again, but she parries another with her shield.

Helia shoots but misses. Stilda hacks at a wolf with her sword, cutting it. While Bryne finally reaches her jawbone, Cyna stabs at the one she wounded but misses.

One wolf charges at Helia, biting her. One bites Stilda deeply causing double damage (critical hit). Another attacks but she bats its face away with her sword. Cyna fends off the two attacking her.

Helia swings her shortsword at the wolf engaging her but the flat of its blade bounces off it. Bryne whacks a wolf over the head with the jawbone. She's the only one with a fray die in this fight since the wolves have 2 hit dice each (plus the newbies don't have fray dice yet since they're level zero). Unforunately her magic fizzles out before she can launch it. Stilda hits a wolf over the head with her sword, splitting it open and killing it. Cyna stabs a wounded wolf, killing it, then pulls her pitchfork out of it and stabs the one next to it too (she rolled 2 damage so the extra point was transferred to the second wolf).

Three of the remaining wolves lose their nerve and run off into the wasteland! The final two keep attacking Stilda, one biting her for one damage.

Helia shoots one in its flank. Bryne joins Stilda, missing with her jawbone but sending a green bolt of energy right through the wolf with the arrow in it, burning a hole through it and killing it. Finally Stilda swings her longsword at the final wolf's face, gashing it open and leaving it bleeding out on the ground.

That was a long and bloody fight, but at least we stood more of a chance with four heroes, even if it is a lot of dicerolling for me. Each of them receives 150XP from this fight, which means both newbies are now level 1! Next time we'll pick classes and traits for them.