Hexplore24 — Day 9
Mild for the season
Sky: Bright swells
The dawn is radiant, bright, and full of clouds that scatter the sun's rays.
Belus, tired from a poor night's sleep, squints against the brightness as he helps Satis and Goster pack up the camp.
While improved, the mud still slows them down, the cold night having frozen the soggy soil overnight, which is now melting anew.
Still 3 points per grasslands hex so they can only move 2 hexes today
The travel goes smoothly enough, and as they look for a camp site, Satis discovers some natural hot springs.
I rolled they found a feature. They have not had any encounters today. For the feature, I used the POI table from Kal-Arath1.
Finding the area suitable, they set up camp nearby. They locate 9 hours of firewood, then as the sun sets in a bloody shimmer, they each get into the hot springs, the hot water pulling caked mud from dirty skin and soothing sore tired muscles. Each realizes this is the most relaxed they've felt in some time. 2
Later, around the fire, Goster tells them a story about how he and his companions had all been sea sick the full voyage to the New-Old Lands, which had led to some unfortunate interactions with other passengers.3 Both his recounting, and the mere fact he is interacting with them like this, has Belus and Satis laughing hard at his tale. While it ends on a bittersweet note of missing them, Goster seems to have, at least for the evening, shed a weight.4
All 3 sleep soundly through the night, undisturbed, by the shores of the bubbling steamy springs.
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Kal-Arath is a fun solo Hexcrawl game that some people are using for their own Hexplore24. While it wasn’t the right ruleset and vibe for my own Hexplore24, I really like a lot of the tables in it, especially the d66 points of interest table.↩
Solo roleplaying can be tricky to have the right level of roleplaying in it. When I can find little moments like these, even if I don’t want to get into a whole scene and dialog, I try to call it out. It helps me personally believe in the story and the characters even more.↩
I’ve been making up the little stories they tell around the campfire up — but I’ll have to see if I can create or locate an oracle to try using here. I don’t mind writing them — it is fun — but I would love to be surprised by a story oracle.↩
I don’t want Goster’s grief to dominate the story, and a moment like this allows me to pay homage to it. Grief comes and goes, and even when one is sad you can still laugh at a joke. Goster feeling a bit better from the hot springs and story in no way means he is done processing any of what he’s just lived through.↩