Mythras: Tarnen the Wanderer Part 4

Tarnen is in the small city of Queenstead trying to solve the mystery of how an unemployed ropemaker, Anmah Yarvan was killed on the roadside south of the city. A man called Faval, gardener at the temple of Asoth and friend of Anmah, is helping him.

I'm using Mythras: Classic Fantasy, Mythic GME 2nd Edition and the D30 Sandbox Companion.

Scene 3 | The Veteran’s Garden, Queenstead | Year 645, 2nd of 7th Month | Chaos Factor: 5

Threads: Find work in Queenstead, The Beast, Investigate the dead Var follower, Ogres near Queenstead, Queenstead economic crash
Characters: Family, Ally 1, Ally 2, Contact 1, Faval

When I used the D30 Sandbox Companion to generate Queenstead it determined that an economic crash was imminent in the city, and that there's a 1 in 30 chance of it happening each day. I've decided to incorporate this as a Mythic thread instead so it becomes part of the "core rules".

Testing the Expected Scene

Expected: Tarnen tries to find a ranger or someone with tracking skills.

D10 roll: 7. Over chaos factor: Scene goes as expected.

Tarnen buys some bread from a nearby bakery for breakfast (-1 CP) and then returns to the Veteran’s Garden and begins asking around for trackers.

Fate Question: Is there someone with tracking skills known to anyone in the inn? (Unlikely)

17: Yes.

Does this person live in the city? (50/50)

No.

I’ll ask the oracle to see if this person has the ranger class, and if not they’ll either be a common hunter or trapper (meaning they won’t be very good at combat or want to join Tarnen on his adventures).

Are they a ranger? (50/50)

Yes.

A retired woodcutter tells Tarnen of a ranger who lives in a cabin in some woods to the (D8) northeast of the city. It’s about (D12) six miles away which means Tarnen and Faval could go there and back in a day. Wasting no time, Tarnen makes sure he has enough rations (he has five days' worth), then collects Faval from the temple of Asoth.

End of Scene Bookkeeping

Chaos factor lowered to 4.

Scene 4 | The Downs | Year 645, 2nd of 7th Month | Chaos Factor: 4

It's another pleasant day outside the city as Tarnen and Faval head out onto the plains. I'm still developing the travel rules but here's what I've got so far:

• Each day in the wilderness I roll for a random encounter (1 in 6 chance). I use the encounter table I made for the region.
• If there's no random encounter I'll treat the journey as a Mythic scene.
• If Tarnen is going off-road his party needs to make either a Locale or Navigation skill check, whichever is higher. If no one succeeds they get lost and we use the rules for that in the D30 Sandbox Companion.
• A critical success allows them to reduce their journey time.
• A fumble will result in a wider angle of varience from the original direction (as per the D30 rules).

Random Encounter Roll

1 in 6 chance: 3, no encounter.

Since this is a short journey within a single day I'm going to overrule what I just wrote on this occasion and skip the Mythic scene procedure. I'll go straight to the skill rolls.

Tarnen makes a Locale check (42%): 80. Failure.

Faval makes a Locale check (54%): 85. Failure.

Off-course determination: Mild impairment.

D30 roll: 24 = +24° off-course.

The ranger's forest is two six-mile hexes away to the northeast. Going +24° degrees off-course (to their right) means they walk through the first hex to the northeast but then drift to the east and enter the hex to the south of the one with the forest. It's now around midday so they still have time to try and correct their course.

Tarnen makes a Locale check (42%): 63. Failure.

Faval makes a Locale check (54%): 45. Success.

As they trudge across the open plains under the sun, which is growing warmer by the hour, Faval points to the north. "Look!" He says, "That looks like a small forest over there, we've gone the wrong way!" They curse their terrible sense of direction and turn towards the forest in the distance, a couple of hours' walk away.

They arrive at the treeline in the mid-afternoon that day.

End of Scene Bookkeeping

Chaos factor raised to 5.

I'm going to stop here as I'm planning to use the Delve expansion for Ironsworn to turn the forest into a mini-dungeon crawl. In brief, when delving into a dungeon in Ironsworn you use the "moves" system to determine whether you get a strong hit, weak hit or miss as you move from one area to the next.

You add one of your characteristics to the roll, chosen based on whether you're sneaking, charging through quickly, or being observant of your surroundings. I'm going to have Tarnen make a skill check using the most appropriate skill for how he tackles the current area, and a critical will be treated as a strong hit, a success a weak hit and a failure as a miss. I guess a fumble will have to be something even worse.

This will let me simulate a dungeon crawling experience in a more personalised way for Tarnen, rather than just generating a map like I do when playing OSR games.