Adventures in Oakstead

Game Master Foxy Quickpaw

Jewel thinks about it a moment. "Dad should have a saw, and a hatchet. Good point Dwayne. Birch grow pretty slow and don't get tall like the other trees unless allowed to grow a really long time. And the wood is hard. Makes sense that it would be for cabinets. It'll take a lot of time to work it."

"I'm pretty sure I haven't marked any birch trees. Like you say, they'd be too small for lumber. But I think I've seen a couple. We'll go check the shed and get something to cut one or two and get them out of the way. Thanks!"

They head back to the tool shed and get the hatchet. "I think I remember two that would do. There will be several branches that will need to be chopped off as well, but we should just drag the trees here to work them."

Tarjun gets diligently to work on the trees, humming as he does.

If I had a hatchet...

CHOP CHOP

I'd chop stuff in the morning...

THUNK THUNK

I'd chop stuff in the evening...

THWACK THWACK

All over this laaaand!

BOUM!

"That's one down! Let's start again! If I had a hatchet..."

Jewel watches Tarjun chopping. This was work, but he enjoyed it so she decides not to mention it.

"We can gather the pieces and take them home to be worked. I think you can make one drum with the wood green for now. Clara can enjoy it while the other wood dries. Let us know what we can do to help." She glances at Clara wondering if she will do anything other than watch since the wood is for her drum....

"Of course we still need the skin for the drum heads."

"You wanna fetch the skin while I work on the shell? I'd slow you down anyhoo," Tarjun grins.

"I'm sure mum has some skin hanging around. We just need to talk her out of it."

Tarjun's quite happy to stay by himself in his home and work on making a shell. The process is long and involves some trial and error, but it's not particularly complex with the tools he finds from the shed. He still has to ask his dad for a barrel of a sort to bend the planks into a suitable shape.

Craft (carpentry): 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (10) + 8 = 18

Jewel nods to Tarjun, leaving him to work as they head to find Mrs. Johnson. "We might want to start by promising that you'll never play the drum inside of the house...." She thinks for a few minutes. "And maybe not around any animals. If you pound on it by the chickens they might not lay any eggs for a while. That would upset several people!"

Reaching the house she calls out, "Hi Mrs. Johnson! Got a minute? Tarjun has agreed to make some instruments so we can all make music. Are you busy?"

"Oh, that sounds interesting. What instrument will he make?" Mrs. Johnson inquires.

"Well, you know he plays something like a flute. I don't remember what he suggested for me. I told him he'd need to teach me...."

"And, well.... Clara said she wants a drum." Jewel turns to look at Clara, hoping she remembers to make the promise. ??

"Yes, and now we need some skin to put on that drum. Do you have some left that we can use?"

"Okay... how big will that drum be?"

"Um... Tarjun is making it right now, but he didn't tell, did he?" Clara replies turning to Jewel for help.

Jewel thinks for a moment. "I didn't think to ask.... But it should be small enough for Clara to lift it. Otherwise it would have to stay where it was built. That wouldn't make any sense!"

She holds her hand out for her familiar and tells her, "Chirp. Go ask Tarjun how big the hide needs to be. In inches. He'll tell you a number. Come right back."

"Hopefully Tarjun will understand that. It will need to be a thin hide that can be stretched over the drum head, and dried tight. I'm thinking a higher pitched drum would work well for Clara."

"Is that what you were thinking Clara?"

Tarjun looks up from his work to find Chirp staring at him and chirping in his face.

"Do I look like I talk bird?! What's wrong?"

"I like it big and loud! Like thunder! But I didn't tell Tarjun."

"Maybe we should tell Tarjun to make it really big and craft it over there in the woods. About two miles in this direction I saw a big tree that toppled over that he could carve it out of." Mrs. Johnson replies with a smirk.

Chirp looks at Tarjun and pulls her head tall. She chirps a couple of times, and Tarjun heres "How big?Inches?"

Chirp is a Thrush. Familiar thrushes are capable of actual speech. Chirp speaks common....

Tarjun stares blankly at the thrush. "What on earth you talking about?!"

Even with the live translation, Tarjun asks Chirp to rephrase and repeat itself at least five times before he understands the question. By the time he answers, even the bird looks fed up with him. "Make it a 13 inches square. I'll cut off the excess skin so it fits."

Chirp looks curious as Tarjun finally answers the question. She hops around a little then repeats the question. Before Tarjun can answer, likely with irritation...., she adds in her twittering voice, "Make it a 13 inches square." "Chirp" "I'll cut off the excess " "Chirp" "skin so it fits."

I think that would be about right for an 8 intelligence?

She hops about a little more, turning her head to him like she is waiting for something, then hops into the air and flies back to Jewel.

Jewel listens patiently to Chirp when she returns. "Tarjun is working on a drum with green wood so we can try it. He says thirteen inches, and if that is excess we can trim it." She looks at Gertrud and smiles. "I like the idea of a big drum and hadn't though of an old stump. But surely there are some closer that we could work with? We'll search closer...."

I'm not sure what sense motive number would apply, but obviously Jewel understood what Mrs. Johnson was trying....

Working on the drum is slow, but Tarjun takes his time, finding some comfort in knowing it'll definitely be a small one.

"I'd say we wait til the corpus is finished. I don't want to waste a good fur for Tarjun to 'cut off excess skin'." Gertrud replies.

"If it is that small a rabbit skin might be enough."

"I wonder what they're doing with that skin," Tarjun says, to no one in particular. "It's taking so long, and they've literally got wings!"

"Soooo, are we going back to tell Tarjun, or are we doing something else and let him find out himself once he is done with the wood part of the drum?"

Jewel is still thinking about Gertrud's suggestion for a really big drum using a dead tree 2 miles away.... "Yeah. I mean yes, we should go back to Tarjun. He shouldn't have to do all of the work crafting the drum and have to carry everything over here. Let's go back to him."

She glances back at Gertrud as they leave, still thinking. What sort of skin would they use for a drum that big?

As they get close she calls out. "Hey Tarjun. Mrs. Johnson suggested that we should take the drum there rather than bringing the hide here and having to cut some off. Do you have much left to do, and do you want help?"

Tarjun looks down at the drum shell. "Honestly? It ain't that big. And you've been so long, I think the most of it has been done."

"Alrighto, let's bring it straight to Mrs. Johnson!" He lifts the shell - and suddenly, the reason he made it quite small appears quite clear. Even a kid as slight as Clara might be able to carry it around without too much problems.

Can I have some description what you actually created and how? And maybe a craft roll?

I've already rolled a Craft check, but I can do a second one if you want!

Craft (carpentry): 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (8) + 8 = 16

Honestly, I knew nothing about how to make a drum before I Googled it specifically for this scenario. It's crazy the type of things you have to research for Pathfinder! :D

I was thinking of a small drum - maybe something like that?

Right now, I'm thinking that Tarjun probably achieved just the shape of the shell, which, from what I gather, includes many steps of gluing the planks together and sticking them into a mold to give them a round shape. I have no idea how they did that in the middle ages.

Let's be a bit more realistic. Tarjun has some serious skills, but even if you could sell me that he knows how to make that thin layer of wood to roll it up and glue it together into a laminate, I say he doesn't have the tools. This is probably a lot closer to what he can create with a saw and a draw knife. Leave out the bottom and it makes a kind of drum corpus.

I agree. First off, have we ever seen a drum? If not, it would be crafting from imagination. We're not 7 year old kids trying to make something.... That's the age of my grandchildren so I know their skills! And Tarjun does have really good carpentry skills. But lack of tools and having to create something with no explanation? And the bucket without a bottom/drum may even taper some, like a bucket. Strap a cover on it and let Clara beat on it!

I didn't know if we were going the hand-wave route or the realistic route :P You are best judge GM!

The outline of the drum shell looks a bit rough, only slightly less plain than a bucket. But it looks like something that could decently be turned into a simple drum once a rabbit skin is slapped on it. "How'd you like it?" Tarjun asks Clara proudly.

"Looks nice." Clara replies. "How do we get the skin to stick to it?"

Jewel looks at the cylinder and thinks of the containers in their kitchen. That wouldn't work since the lids were all rigid....

"Well. I don't know. And the skin would have to be held tight. So hitting it won't just sink in into the drum."

"Honestly, that's the part I ain't sure of. I've never tried working with skins before."

"Think we could ask Mrs Johnson?"

"Sure. We have to go there anyway." Clara replies.

"Small enough for a rabbit skin. That's usually done with special nails. Or you can punch holes in and try to get tension on it with a weave of strings that pull it down."

Craft-Sewing?: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (4) + 7 = 11 LOL. I figured it was a related skill. I guess the die roller disagrees!

"So it would be like pulling a seam together on clothing? Would it need a skin on the bottom too?" Jewel looks a bit confused.

Tarjun scratch his head. "Sounds complicated, Mrs Johnson. Can you show us how? And where'd we find those special nails?"

"I'd try a cobbler. The next one is three days travel down the river." Gertrud answers.

"That could work too and be more durable if you sew in a ring and then attach the strings to the ring to tighten the fur."

"If it needs a fur on the other side too I don't know. We can try if it works with one and take it from there."

"Three days down the river?!" Tarjun is almost vibrating with excitement. "That's so cool!! We'll just have to ask our parents!!!"

Jewel feels the same excitement as Tarjun, but tempered with reality. "Don't forget that it will cost money Tarjun. Do you have any coins from our time on the ships? They took everything you earned from your music. Did you take any back when we left the ship?" She looks at the fur. "I can work on sewing the ring on the hide. It shouldn't take too long to do that."

"I see irony is lost on you boy." Gertrud comments patting Tarjun on the head.

"What irony?" Tarjun asks pitifully. "Does that mean we ain't going? Crap."

"I tell any of you to go out to the garden to fetch some cabbage for lunch you're all like 'I don't want to. Work again, how boring.'" Gertrud comments in a mocking tone.

"But for a handful of nails, you'd travel three days there and three days back and be excited about it? I don't get it."

"Ah, but you see, Mrs Johnson, we're making a drum for the first time," Tarjun explains with the complete earnesty of a wise man delivering one of the great secrets of the universe to a disciple. "If we had to make the same one every week in the exact same way, that'd be boring. And there's only one way you can grow cabbages and pick them up - instruments can be unique without too much effort."

"It ain't about the work, it's about the chores, see? It's repeating the same stuff that makes ya bored to death. Like always playing the same three notes - a kinda drone, not real music."

"I ain't ever travelled for three days and three nights down the river, Mrs Johnson, so that makes it thrilling. Doesn't matter if it's for a couple of nails or some cabbages. We're still kids, we'd do anything that feels brand new and kinda scary."

Jewel nods agreement to Tarjun's explanation, but then adds, "True Tarjun. But you know there are several different recipes you can make with that cabbage. You don't cook, but that's variety. And it can keep cooking and mealtime interesting."

I know. Groan! Right!?! LOL

"But it will still be cabbage!" Clara objects with disbelief and disgust.

"And we ain't the ones doing the cooking," Tarjun corrects his sister. "Mrs Johnson said 'when I ask you to fetch some cabbages. There ain't a dozen ways you can do that, unless you got some tricks to pick them up with your toes or something!"

"Well, I could do it myself, or ask you to do it, or ask Clara and then do it myself when she says No. I guess that's really only two options....

"Boiled cabbage. Cabbage rolls with pork or beef or chicken. Fried cabbage with various other vegetables and meat. Chop it and bake it into a pie with other stuff and soup.... Not just cabbage!:

"Hey Tarjun. Wanna do the cabbage cooking for us today? That'll be new and exciting! The kitchen is all yours." Gertrud offers.

Jewel's laughter is too hard for her to be able to speak coherently....