Hexplore24 — Day 16
HEX I07
Light snow, not a storm. Ivory Rays.
Morning breaks with pale ivory rays of sunlight piercing the clouds. A light sparse snow falls, with no wind. All is quiet and cold, but Malla is happy and says everyone should pack up because today they travel.
Not lost, Event: 6 nothing. They spend 3 points to travel to J08
The snow slows down progress, but after a day stuck due to the storm, all are glad to be crunching through the shimmering frozen meadows, breath fogging in the crisp air.
The path takes them by the hot springs Satis and Belus have fond memories of, but Malla only notes their location on her map — there will be no soaking today.
Lost die: 1, Yes. Result: Enter adjacent hex. J09 is only choice.1
Event: 4 local. Random Event “Stop Sufferers”, “Deliberately Feeble” “Animals Emotional”2
The ground grows icy, and steep slides keep forcing Malla to change direction. The snow fall grows thicker, and they can only see 200 yards off.
Then, with a sinking feeling, Malla sees the river they need to cross, but in the wrong place.
“We’ve gone off course,” she says, glumly, “and ended up in the hills. We will camp tonight and then find a new river ford or head back to the grasslands I wanted us to be in.”
Hiking a bit longer, as Malla finds the campsite, a curse, shouting, and a scream from a mule.
One of the animals slipped, all its cargo scattered across the snow, its front leg broken badly and bent in a painful twist.
After a brief conference, it’s determined there is no other recourse, and the donkey is put out of its misery.3
Event — 5 again! 12 hrs wood
The mood is somber as they make camp and forage for wood, finding just enough to last them the night.
The snowfall thins again and the mountains they are entering become visible. Giant looming spikes of stone tower above them, like a bouquet of titanic thorns. Again, Satis sees and points out the shapes of the watchers in the distance.4
Satis discusses it with Belus, Blain, Aima, and Malla as Malla butchers the deceased donkey. All are unnerved by them.
“Should we go find them? Meet them on our terms?” Blain asks.5
“Could be an ambush,” Aima counters.
“Maybe we should leave them an offering, a sign of friendship?” Belus suggests.
“They may be more curious than anything else,” Satis muses, “we are an unusually large caravan from Beacon, right?”
Malla, cooking some of the meat for their dinner, frowns. “There is so much we don’t know about this place, still, a year later.”
Malla fails cooking check, so no benefit from the meal. Belus passes story check.
They eat dinner together, the meat dry and overcooked from Malla’s distracted disposition. Belus lightens the mood by leading the group in singing some rowdy hymns.
Satis wonders if the watchers can hear the music, and if they like it.
All sleep well
Watches are uneventful
Also, Satis & Belus leveled up to Lvl 2 recently! 6
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I use the lost table based on OD&D, as published in FMC, there is a great blog post talking about it here.↩
An Event/Hazard roll of 4 is a “local effect”, and I’ve decided to roll between the effect being a change in weather, a discovery of a point of interest, or a Mythic GME random event. This is my first random event since adding in these rules. I rolled a few times on the Action meaning tables in Mythic to get this prompt.↩
This is how I interpreted the random event. It was a surprise, but also felt like a natural consequence. Especially, as according to the Dolmenwood rules, traveling with Mules should be essentially impossible in the terrain of this hex they accidentally ended up in.↩
Still waiting on a roll of a 1 to actually encounter these watchers.↩
Errant suggests PCs might choose to go seek out the encounter they are seeing signs of.↩
I’ll make a post soon about how I’m approaching XP. Level 2 in Whitehack is not a big jump, though they do each have much more HP now, which is nice.↩