DM Carbide's Kingmaker (Inactive)

Game Master John Woodford

Katya quietly shakes her head as she removes her hand from her spell component pouch. "No, I am afraid I did not prepare anything for dealing with a troll today. Though now that I know there are trolls in this forest, I will be more prepared tomorrow."

Bea takes another step back. "Alright, you heard her. We can't tangle today - back away slowly and let's get out of here."

The troll continues to work on the carcasses as you leave, its loud slurping and chewing noises staying with you for some time after it's out of sight.

After all of that, the night is uneventful, and you all rest well. None of you are fatigued any more.

Feeling reenergized, the party fords the river and continues exploring. The weather isn't too bad, but it rains a bit in the afternoon.

As they ride through the forest, Bea can't stop thinking about their encounter with the troll. "Adam, how good are you at throwing? I think we should grab a bag full of alchemists fire from Oleg's in case we run into him again."

Jacyn stops Smoke in his tracks, motioning for the others to quiet down, "I think I heard something over here."

Over his shoulder he whispers to Simn, "You see anything?"

As you stop to listen, the horses begin acting a bit skittish as well. Suddenly an immature wild pig comes tearing across the game trail in front of you, bleeding from a wound on one flank. (It would, of course, have run through/into the party if you hadn't stopped to listen.) It's just crossed the trail into the underbrush on the other side when a lean grey shape leaps across the trail from behind it, followed by two more. There is a brief flurry of activity, a hideous squeal, then silence.

Havrin draws his bow and nocks an arrow to the string, aiming toward the underbrush into which the wild pig and lean gray shapes disappeared. "Keep riding," the ranger whispers to his companions. "If they're just wolves they should be focused on their kill. Hopefully they'll leave us be if we leave them alone. But keep an eye out just in case."

"We might hope that these wolves are not of the same intelligent kind as the one we previously encountered. They kill quickly enough, I am reluctant to attempt diplomacy with them."

Jacyn, it was hard to tell since they were moving quickly, but the three shapes didn't seem to be as large as the talking wolf was (as far as you can remember).

The party rides past the feasting wolves. One looks up and growls at you, but if you don't approach them they don't go after you.

"These look smaller than the talking wolf, Adam. To me, anyway. All the same, let us hope they aren't intelligent."

"Either way, they have food and we're far too much trouble to try and put on the menu," Simn pointed out. He kept an eye on the wolves, but didn't seem unduly concerned about them

You leave the wolves alone, and they return the favor. You're finishing up for the day when you come upon a small hollow in the side of a hill. It looks like the perfect spot to camp--convenient stream, shaded, and well-drained. Best of all, it doesn't seem to have any of those plants you remember all too well from the first couple of nights.

The night passes uneventfully and restfully.

1d20 + 3 ⇒ (3) + 3 = 6 - str

Bea rises in the morning surprisingly well rested and almost has a smile on her face as she goes about her morning routine. As she's cleaning her sword you hear her grunt and she looks at once frustrated and surprised. "Someone use my sword last night? It's uh..." she makes some motions as if trying to pry her fingers away from the hilt, "sticky."

She looks around and waits a moment before continuing. "Look, I know a prank when I see one - I was in the army long enough to see plenty of them. But this is hardly the place for them - what if we were ambushed in the middle of the night and I needed to use this sword?" You can see her hand is still stuck at an awkward angle on the hilt as she works it free slowly. "Honestly...I didn't take any of you for pranksters. I don't even care who did it this time, just make sure it stops."

Simn looked thoughtful, "I think any pranksters would have shown their colours before now," he said, "They've had plenty of time back at the trading post, and with rather more suspects to hide behind. No, this seems like something else."

Fae, perhaps? It was something of a lazy answer to simply attribute any unusual happenings out in the woods to fae, but they were one potential culprit. "Nobody else has noticed anything strange?" he asked, checking over his own gear for anything out of place.

Katya looks up from her early morning studies to find Bea's hand sticking to her sword hilt. Shaking her head as she casually waves her hand in the direction of Bea, who suddenly finds her hand no longer sticking to the cleaned sword (Prestidigitation), Katya says without an ounce of humor, "Hopefully whatever, or whoever, is doing these practical jokes has the common sense to stay away from my personal things. Still, perhaps we should prepare some traps at tonight's camp."

"Traps sound like a good idea to me. Might not hurt to rotate someone on a watch through the night as well." Jacyn adds as he goes about checking all of his own gear to make sure none of it is similarly 'boobytrapped'.

Adam dumps his water out on the ground and refills it from the stream, after thoroughly cleaning it. "These pranks aren't just normal pranks.... they're potentially deadly. Undrinkable water and an undrawable sword."

I've been assuming that you've been setting a watch. Best to be explicit, now--who's going to be on watch when?

Since Ive got no spells to need to be refilled by getting enough sleep, I'll gladly take a watch. Whoever wants to plot it all out by person is fine with me.

"Ok Jacyn, tonight you go ahead and take first watch. I'll take second - Havrin, you take last watch."

Jacyn, as far as you can tell your gear is fine.

From here, you can go south (which would take you to the bandit camp, if your mapping is correct), WSW to forest, WNW to forest, north to forest, or ENE to thinning forest.

Exploration map HERE. It's kind of crude so far, but I haven't been working with Hexographer that long. Give me time....

NB: I've marked terrain and such only in the hexes that you've fully explored. (Except for the compass rose...I think you'd remember seeing that!)

Bea sits down with Adam and takes a look at his map. "Let's head north from here and follow the edge of the forest around so we at least know the boundaries. We can fill in the middle once we know that."

"North sounds good to me," Havrin says, coming over to inspect the map.

Nice map, DM Carbide!

"I agree, North."

Adam is fairly proud of his cartography skills. :P

"You're the one with the reigns, madam."

"North sounds fine," Simn said, "We're in no great hurry and knowing the lay of the land will be a definite plus further down the line."

Katya slips her backpack onto a hook on her horses saddle and climbs up onto the strong animals back and looks towards the deeper end of the forest.

"Some times I really do hate the feelings I get. I hope this forest is not too large or it could take us months to get around all of it, especially if you plan to map all of it."

You head north. Today, the wind is coming the other direction at high speed, bearing with it large volumes of freezing rain. It's really hard to get any mapping or exploring done when the papers are practically torn from your hands by the wind and the ink runs in the rain, so you might as well find a sheltered area and hunker down until it blows over. It's miserable.

At some point during the day, Havrin and Jacyn catch another flash of blue in the canopy above you, but with the wind it's impossible to hear anything moving that far away.

"How is everyone doing on rations? That is something we may want to take into account before deciding how much further to go on a single trip out."

Bea looks around at the woods around her. "There's plenty the forest can provide, though we might need to take a day to acquire food if it comes down to that. Havrin, you're an accomplished hunter, are you not?"

There's another point, that I should have thought of before--also note that in the forest, your horses can't always forage (or they can, but it adds to the time it takes to explore a hex).

Bea looks around at the woods around her. "There's plenty the forest can provide, though we might need to take a day to acquire food if it comes down to that. Havrin, you're an accomplished hunter, are you not?"

"I've got a bit of skill in that area, yes," Havrin responds to Bea's question. "With Erastil's blessing we should be able to find food here in the forest."

Per the description of the Survival skill, it's a DC 10 Survival check to forage for food for one person, with the ability to provide food and water for one additional person for every 2 points by which the check result exceeds the DC of 10. So providing food for all six of us should be a DC 20 Survival check.

Survival check to forage for food: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (16) + 6 = 22

Did anyone actually bring horse feed though? I think I might have some listed on my sheet (though I dont remember for sure lol), but I definitely know I didnt mention grabbing any extra before we left.

Adam smiles, mischievously, then returns to his normal sour expression.

"We have a basket of turnips."

I'll give you that for the day before the storm. On average, where it nominally takes you two days to explore a forest hex, you can do it in three while living off the land (including feeding the horses). Given Havrin's bonuses on Survival checks and the fact that Bea can aid another more than half the time, don't bother with the rolls unless I ask you to. On average, though, Havrin is going to use two arrows a day hunting.

Towards evening, the storm breaks, and it's merely wet and chilly overnight. By the next morning the weather has cleared and you're able to go north.

The party has been riding slowly through the forest for a couple of hours, mapping and jotting down notes on the lay of the land, when Havrin spots a glint of metal in the undergrowth, directly in front of his horse.

Havrin pulls his horse to a halt and dismounts to inspect the glint of metal in the undergrowth.

Bea pulls her horse aside Havrin's now riderless horse and looks down. "You find something Havrin?"

Jacyn guides Smoke through the brush, putting he, Smoke, and Simn directly opposite Bea and Adam, flanking Havrin's horse. Jacyn gives a brief look down, but quickly goes back to surveying the area, making sure that anything that might take this opportunity to attack doesn't take them by surprise.

There is a very faint chance that something adverse will happen, but it doesn't. Havrin, you gently part the undergrowth to reveal a primed and ready animal trap. If your horse had tripped it, the trap could well have broken its leg.

Pulling her horse short as the rest of the group stops, Katya looks down at Havrin, curious what he is picking up. A look of distaste passes over her mouth as she realizes what it is.

"How... barbaric, fortunate for us that we caught this one before one of our horses got hurt."

"Very fortunate. We should probably disarm it and bring it with us. Wouldnt want anyone or anything else accidently falling into it, would we?" Jacyn says while patting Smoke's side. "And we should keep a look out for more of these."

Jacyn will take a 10 for Perception from here on (at least in this area) to look for more traps.
Out of curiosity, does anyone know how people would put a horse down before the invention of the gun. I was trying to think of how that would work, and I cant think of anything that would work quickly.

Quick and merciful blow with a hammer to the skull. Or break its neck. I'm sure that horses that were used for meat or glue factories were killed in relatively humane ways.

Jacyn, you don't find any more traps in the immediate area, but that one was very well concealed--you're not sure you would have spotted it, even with a careful search. By dint of triggering it with a stick and pulling up the stake that secured it, you manage to get the trap disarmed and packed up. You continue on your way. The rest of the morning is uneventful, as is your break for lunch. After lunch, though, as you move off through the forest, the party encounters another trap. This one, though, no one spotted until Havrin's horse stepped on it and triggered it. The horse has taken 9/15 points. The pain, and the discomfort of having one leg pinned in place, are enough to panic the animal, and it kicks out with its rear hooves and neighs shrilly. Havrin, make a Handle Animal check to control it.

"Whoa there!"

Handle Animal check: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (16) + 5 = 21

Havrin is able to keep his horse under some semblance of control, but he knows it won't last unless the trap can be removed and the horse treated.

Bea jumps down from her horse to inspect the horse as Havrin struggles to keep it under control.

Seeing the trap, she struggles to remove it.

1d20 + 3 ⇒ (12) + 3 = 15 - strength check

Bea, the trap's jaws don't budge. It feels like it'll be a two-person operation to get them levered apart.

Jacyn jumos off Smoke and kneels on the ground, opposite Bea, trying to help her get the trap off.

Str check 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (16) + 3 = 19

"Remind me to kill whoever laid out these damn things if we ever find them." Jacyn says with a mix of fury and concern in his voice.

With the trap off I assume, anyway, Jacyn steps back from the leg, giving Simn plenty of room to work.