Lost in Story

Hexplore24 — Day 5

Weather: 2 - Blizzard!

Satis and Belus awaken to find the sky is a dark sapphire with heavy clouds and snow. It starts to snow, soon swirls and gusts of wind pick up, and the falling snow thickens until they can see no further than 20' ahead.

“We cannot travel in these conditions!” Satis shouts over the blustering winds.

The ground, still warmed from the past few days of mild weather, causes the snow to melt, turning the ground into a muddy slush that then starts to freeze.

"Yes – but we need firewood or we will freeze here!" Belus replies.

"I am afraid we will get lost if we separate – or leave our camp. It is so wet here – we should pack up, then stay together as we gather wood and find a more sheltered campsite," Satis argues.

Belus agrees. They pack up, growing cold from the wind, then staying close together they slowly scout for firewood and a better campsite.

I'll rule firewood is d6−2 per PC
They find a better spot if they don't get lost (3-in-6) else they have a bad spot which means fire starting is a 4-in-6.1
Each watch spent wood foraging reduces a lost check.
First watch: 4 hours of wood not lost.
Second watch: 0 wood not lost
Third watch: 7 hrs of wood – total 11hrs. not lost!2

They spend the full day slowly looking for firewood and a better place to camp. It's slow, cold, and dangerous. But, their luck holds and by the evening, freezing cold and exhausted, they find a sheltered nook in a hill, and enough wood to last 11 hours. They build the fire, warm up, and eat rations. Neither has the energy to tell stories, and they both agree they are ready to retire for bed when...

Rolled random encounter.
Beast - 1 Giant Toad
Reaction roll: Uncertain

A giant toad emerges from the hillside, shaking off the snow, and stands next to the fire.

"It must be so cold," Satis says.

"Careful – they have a nasty bite," Belus warns.

Reaction: 5 - attack3

Belus gestures and this movement is too much for the amphibian, who suddenly turns, ready to attack.

Satis and Belus have initiative.

Belus leaps up, holding his mace, he steps between the toad and Satis, ready to parry the dog-sized beast's attack.

"Can you calm it?" Belus asks.

Satis draws her spear, and says, "Not with magic..." then she tries cooing at the toad.

Belus is using his parry power.4
Satis is trying a Whitehack Parley5
To move the toad's negative to neutral, it's -6, and with no common language it's another -6, so -12. But, as the Toad is very cold, I'll give a +2 so with Satis' 15 in CHA and a +10 mod she has to roll a 1-9 on a d20.
A roll it's a 14!!!

By some miracle of the fire and the cold, the Toad hesitates, and watches them, seemingly calmed.

AMAZING. But it's not over.
I can either do a new reaction roll or - as I've already been doing WH parley, I’ll try that again to be fair. 6
So +0 b/c neutral, -6 for very cold. So +2 to any roll. Satis must roll 1-11 on a d20, or the toad attacks. Belus will have had 2 rounds of parry when toad attacks.
Satis rolls a 16. Toad attacks.
Belus doesn't have protect ability, so he can't force Toad to attack him.7 I'll say 1-4 on d6 it attacks Satis, A 2 - so it's Belus.

Toad is 2HD8, 6hp. So has 12 AV or 2 AF.
Belus has DF4 or DV14 so Belus' dodge roll is 2 < d20 <= 149
But Toad has +110, so it's 3 < d20 <= 14.

The Toad opens its mouth wide, and as something in its reptilian brain switches to fear, it lunges at Belus, its powerful toady thighs flying at him.

Belus rolls a 3. He's hit! 2 damage.

Belus leaps out of the way, but it's not fast enough and he grunts as the heavy toad bites with surprising speed.

Belus must save to not lose parry. He's Bold - I'll let that help him. He gets a 5!11

Boldly, Belus doesn't flinch even as blood bursts from the Toad's bite. Instead, Belus swings his mace, taking full advantage of the opening the Toad's attack created.

Belus has double advantage, so +4 AV and +4 Damage.12
So w/Toad's DF of 2 Belus must roll 2 < d20 <= 15 and he rolls... a 4! For 6 damage!

The mace comes down with terrific force, cracking and breaking the toad's skull and jaw, killing it before it even hits the soft snowy blood-specked ground.

Belus will use his strong ability to harvest the Toad tongue.13

Exhausted, Satis tends to Belus' wound and they both go to sleep.

Sleep check -2 due to blizzard.
Belus passes sleeps well, heals 1hp.
Satis fails, can't sleep, is Exhausted. (No night encounter thankfully)

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  1. These x-in-6 odds are from Dolmenwood’s advice on modifying camping for extreme weather.↩

  2. We got very lucky here they never were lost. 3-in-6 odds are not great, but not insurmountable.↩

  3. Here I roll the reaction again, even though Belus and Satis have not tried to directly engage with the toad. It’s had a moment to check things out, and when I see the reaction is bad I roleplay a reason why it might suddenly turn on them.↩

  4. Parry is a special Whitehack class ability Belus has, he can hold it multiple rounds, when he does attack it gives him a bonus, as well as a defense bonus, but if he takes damage he has to save or he loses it.↩

  5. Whitehack has its own reaction and Parley system. While I’m not using Whitehack reaction rolls, I do like its skill-based system for changing the disposition of another. Here you see me take into account modifiers for Satis and the toad not having a common language, and for the toad being hostile.↩

  6. The last round of Parley was to get the toad to neutral — but I didn’t feel that was fair for it to just hop away. So I rule that they need to do another parley to get it into a positive disposition, or it will attack.↩

  7. A special class ability Belus could get in the future, but dosen’t have now, is the ability to have opponents attack him first, allowing him to protect someone like Satis. Because he lacks that ability I rule that there should be a chance the Toad goes after Satis. I decide on a 2/3 odds because Belus is standing between Satis and the toad.↩

  8. Here HD is “Hit Dice” — which in Whitehack are always d6’s. I then roll the 2d6 to get this particular toad’s hp (hit points), which are 6. The other stats I am able to calculate based on the 2HD, which is what makes it so easy to adapt almost any OSR material for Whitehack on-the-fly.↩

  9. Okay, normally in Whitehack you always have the attacker roll an attack roll. But I wanted to try out having the defender roll a “dodge roll”. Whitehack has two stats you use in attack rolls: AV and DF, and I calculate their inverses, AF and DV, to create a roll that has the same probability, but is “from the perspective” of Belus. You do not need to worry about this if it dosen’t make sense to you, just know it’s not Whitehack RAW, and it makes no change to the underlying math.↩

  10. The +1 comes from the Toad’s Dolmenwood stats, and means it’s better at hitting than the average 2HD monster.↩

  11. Here Belus needs to save to not lose the Parry advantage he’s built up. In Whitehack each character has a specific color to their saves - Belus’ is “Bold”. That means when “Bold” is a good thing he can roll his save twice and use the best result, Other times when it’s a bad thing - like maybe being stealthy, he’ll have to roll twice and take the worse result.↩

  12. The double advantage is because he held his parry for two combat rounds. A +4 advantage to his AV means he’s 20% more likely to make this hit, and if he does he’ll do 4+d6 damage. It’s really helpful!↩

  13. Today’s quite the lesson in Whitehack mechanics! Belus’ class, the Strong, is able to take things from defeated enemies and use them [level] number of times. So here he’ll be able to use the Toad tongue once however he likes.↩

#hexplore24