Hexplore24 — Day 15
HEX I07
Snow Storm, Azure Billows
Morning arrives with unwelcome winds and snow. It is falling thick, and though occasional patches of light and clouds billowing against a cold blue azure sky can be seen, the storm remains steady.
Malla is annoyed at the progress this will cost them, but allowing nature to call the shots, she tells all to remain in their tents for the time being.
Hazard Die: 5, Signs1
Later the snow thins, but the winds pick up — allowing them to see the winter landscape they can’t cross.
Malla, cheeks and nose flush from the biting air, leads Belus, Satis, and Aima to forage for more fire wood. As they crunch through the ice crusted snow and break branches, fingers aching, Satis sees something in the distance.
“Look, are those riders?” she asks, and all turn to see a great distance off, figures watching them, seemingly mounted.
“Blain saw similar watchers yesterday,” Aima explains before turning to Malla, “Do you know who they could be?”
FC: Does she? 17: Extreme yes
Malla squints, pulling her cloak tighter, and brushing her grey locks away from her face. “Yes, possibly,” she says. “But I don’t think they have any part to play in our rescue mission. They — if they are what I think — should be in the forest, not here on these plans.”
They gather 15 hrs of wood.
All four are exhausted from being out in the storm. 2
HAZARD: 5, again.
Winds pick up and cause the campfire to huff with each gust, as the weary foragers warm up their cold hands, glad to be back at camp. Snowflakes fill the air again, obscuring their views, though Malla can still see the watchers in moments when the snow fall thins.
HAZARD 6, Evening near. Malla’s story check is a crit.
Darkness falls, the snow now gentle and thick, winds mostly calm. As everyone is warming by the fire, Malla tells a story.
Near a year ago, when she was first learning the New-Old lands, and Beacon was just a mess of tents in the mud, Malla climbed the nearby hills with a small group, and found a secluded forested valley. Her companions were seeking news of the old lands people. They met Yegril, giant purple beasts, and, they met people — but none like they had heard lived in the old lands. These people rode the Yegril, and never seemed to dismount. To her shock, Malla discovered it was because they were people with a lower body of Yegril, torsos like humans.
They barely interacted, the Yegril-men were shy or suspicious.
She’s suspected ever since that the other forests could have Yegril-men as well. These, she believes, are the watchers.3
All sleep soundly, no encounters.
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Errant says a roll of a 5 on the event/hazard die results in seeing signs of whatever the next encounter will be. Yesterday we rolled a 5, and we have not yet rolled the actual encounter, so any additional 5’s will be signs of the same impending encounter. This is what lead to a tense chase in week 2 with Giant Weasels following the PCs. Now they are being stalked by these watching figures.↩
The exhaustion rules I’m playing with are a blending of my base ruleset Whitehack, my travel rules from Dolmenwood, and Errant. Errant, which provides my weather tables, says that any travel in Severe weather results in characters taking a level of exhaustion.↩
Yesterday I rolled “Centaurs” for the encounter that we were seeing signs of. Wanting to incorporate it into this setting, and being fond of the Yegril that Satis met in week one, I decided to make them Yegril Centaurs, as Malla describes here. I know nothing more about them, but I assume we will meet them before long... we just need to roll a 1 on the Hazard die.↩