TNU Play Report 2: Traveling to a Tower

The party, determined to make the most of the rumors Almuund picked up on at the end of last session, plots a course that will take them to the coast and back past what they identify as likely nightmares to plunder. Preparations are made and the group sets out, apprehensive of the Horseman they met last time. There is no sign of it, but in 0608 on the morning of the third day they see six figures down the road from them, standing still, facing north. Getting closer they see ill-maintained armor and weapons, desiccated flesh and skin, exposed bone. These mummified warriors are more interested in the woods than in the party, and the party has no desire to bother them and so skirts around them.

Tonight they will frighten a traveler, who will drop the goods they traded for.

There are less people overall at the river crossroads at 0708 than last time the party passed through. The assassin-jeweler is away at the Northmost Collaboration, and Elmas (the communist soldier that The Nanny spoke to last visit) has begun his journey north. “Jonas” is here and gives Hant a sardonic wave. The most notable newcomers are a group of woodsmen in huge hooded woolen coats with ornamental rabbit ears. I tell the players that they know these people used to be woodsmen for the royal family, showing their loyalty by embodying a prey animal in their costume. I think the truth is more complicated than that, but we will see if the game goes there.

Akela tries to pull her trick with the salvager’s guild and immediately has it seen through. The senior salvager is contemptuous of the idea that it is worth any money to know that some people who love books will be willing to pay for a printing press. Akela reacts poorly and moves to punch the guy. Hant does not want this and tries to intervene.

The way I referee inter-player-character conflict is to start with just comparing desired outcomes and claims of how to get there before ever reaching for the dice — I find that “PvP” that is put to chance by default can just be a Bad Feelings Generator. The method served us well: Akela’s player said that she thinks that physical intervention would work but draw her ire, and Hant’s player says they are fine with that. Hant grabs Akela’s arm, is physically lifted off the ground for his trouble, and the salvager leaves as the traveling companions argue.

The occult-futurist spy Rubello notes the conflict.

Some shopping is done before a night’s sleep, and early the next morning the party hits the trail. They follow the road along 0709 for a while before venturing offroad into the ancient overgrown earthworks of 0809, heading for the damaged tower that sits here in the foothills of the mountains. They reach the tower in the evening and do some preliminary venturing in to see if the tower is occupied. Akela and Almuund look around the ground floor, finding a series of looted rooms and a plinth where a statue (now snapped off) once stood. Hant climbs the rubble up to the other entrance, the hole knocked in the tower’s side by siege weapons long ago, and in the light of the setting sun looks down across the hills to see the encampments of long-dead armies begin to manifest below.