the matter of norfydd, part two
This week, the knights met a Seer who is also the ruler of a holding, and were deeply unimpressed with him. Rather than heed the Seer's immediate call for service, they escaped into the dark to continue their own quest for the local Myth - a Myth which has taken an dark interest in them.
Burgith, Alana, and Matilda entered the holding of Caer Gynnydd. Caer Gynnydd is in the heart of the Bright Mountains, and it features very old pueblo architecture - but its population has dwindled to a fraction of what it once held. What's more, the population that remains is largely destitute, even worse off than the peasant farmers and shepherds of nearby Sage's Vale. The knights rode forth, with some locals taking note of their splendor, and others considering which would make for an easy mark.
In the fortress at the heart of the holding, they met the unconventional ruler - Feldag, the Enthroned Seer, whose head is swollen to massive size and stuck in the walls of his own home. (My touchstone for Feldag is MODOK from Marvel Comics.
In the page marked "People & Realms," Seers are described thus:
Those who understand the nature of Myth enough to glimpse into our future. Their visions grant legitimacy and direction to a Knight’s quest. They know when a Squire is ready to become a Knight, and when a Knight is ready to seek the City.
Seers obviously fit into a Merlin or Nimue type role, but the descriptions of them read more like monsters or other terrifying threats. Here's part of the description from the book for the Enthroned Seer:
They are a twisted heap of flesh, bone, and spikes of precious metal. Sees glimpses of the ultimate fate of anybody taking up a Seat of Power. Demands a humiliating level of reverence from visitors.
Yikes! I had decided I wanted a Seer as holding-ruler for this out-of-the-way holding before I rolled the Enthroned Knight, so I gave him a face, but kept him a manipulative monster. They meet him in the midst of servants literally pouring food into his mouth, surrounded by used bowls and tankards.
When the knights met him, he demanded they kneel before him. He insisted they take up a quest for him - to escort his daughter (the tall but normally-proportioned Tegwen, an athletic and enthusiastic young woman) to the capital, so that she may marry King Ludlow, who Feldag holds in very low esteem and very clearly wants to manipulate.
The knights learn that Jigen, the deafened Weaver Knight, was once in Feldag's service, but was punished for breaking her knightly oath in some way. Feldag pretty plainly knows what's going on with the Myth, who he refers to as a "checkered magister," but is short on details. He explains condescendingly that if the knights do not break their oaths, they have nothing to worry about.
Aluna joins Feldag's remaining knight, Madrigal - an old, wiry man covered in fresh tattoos - for a tour of the holding. Madrigal makes it clear that Feldag is bleeding the realm dry, and anyone who could do anything about it has left. He will not break his oath of service, but beseeches Aluna to send knights to Gynnydd if she meets them in her travels.
Already, the three knights are considering whether Feldag ought be overthrown for the good of the realm, but they decide that pursuing the Myth at-hand is the more pressing matter. I tell them that if they stay the night, they'll have a harder time leaving in the morning, so they sneak out of the holding and camp out within the same hex for the evening. It's already evening when they escape, which means they don't get a full night's rest - SPI damage! Matilda takes the worst of it: we justify this given that she's been eager to return to civilization after weeks of travel, and now is being forced to flee back into the wild. The wilderness roll for the night is all clear.
The next morning, when Burgith enters Dawn Contemplation, the three knights confer on a wise set of questions that helps them pinpoint the location of the Myth within the mountains:
- If we travel due west, will we be closer to the Myth? No.
- Are our squires (who'd been sent to Sage's Vale, in the hex directly to the southeast) closer to the Myth than we are? No.
- Is the Myth on this side of the river? No.
The knights are thus reasonably certain that the Myth is to the southwest. They head southeast in the morning, as they want to put some distance between them and Gynnydd in case someone comes looking for them.
In doing so, they pass the area on the trail they'd encountered last time where a circle of stone chairs sat - only to find the chairs were not present.
However, with a roll of a 2 on the wilderness roll, it was time for another Omen for the nearest Myth.
Three Sergeants of Law deliver a scroll to the Knight called for judgement. The Knight will be retrieved when the time is right; a horn will be the warning.
Sure enough, three knights astride horses, clad in shining armor and checkerboard great coats, rode to a silent halt in front of our company of knights, and the lead presented Aluna with a scroll, whose contents I DMed to Aluna's player:
ALUƝA, ƇALLƐƊ ƬHƐ ƁLOOƊƳ ƘƝƖƓHƬ
ƑOR OAƬHS ƑORSAƘƐƝ AƝƊ ƑORSƜORƝ
ƬAƘƐ ƝOƬƖƇƐ OƑ RƐƇƘOƝƖƝƓ ƊƐƑƐRRƐƊ
ƜHƐƝ ƇOMƐS ƬHƐ ƁLOƜƖƝƓ OƑ ƬHƐ HORƝ
ƳOUR ƑAƬƐ RƐSƬS OƝ ƬHƐ JUƊƓƐ'S ƜORƊ
Aluna, properly spooked, suggests to the crew that it's time to move on. They excuse themselves from the silent Sergeants' company and search for a path to the west. They spent the next phase hunting down a vantage point - an abandoned windmill - from which they can see that the path to the west and southwest are too steep to climb normally. This is a Barrier that I created during map creation, and is represented by the purple line I've placed on the map above. There's lot of other Barriers in Norfydd that the players will have to discover.
Thus informed, they head to Sage's Vale to retrieve their squires and spend the evening, where they dine on a hearty meal of goatmeat and mild potatoes cooked in yak's milk.
The next morning, Burgith turns Dawn Contemplation to the question of Feldag:
- Is the Seer eating all the food in Caer Gynnydd? Yes.
- Is the Seer responsible for the Myth? Maybe.
Finally, answering a question the players had wondered since meeting the bulbous-headed man:
- Can the Seer defecate? Yes.
Accompanied by their squires (and Matilda's newly-adopted page, the shepherd boy Moroi), they begin their journey further south to get around the steep cliffs.
Once they return to the road where they'd first ascended the mountains, we get another 2 on the wilderness roll, which means the local Myth's Omens just keep on coming!
One of the Knights vanishes into mist, forced to give witness to the trial of a Knight that they know. After testifying they are returned in a swirl of mist.
Aluna, who has already been marked by the Myth, vanishes from atop her horse to witness the trial of a knight from her past. We roll it up and get Ludwitte, the Coin Knight. Aluna's player says they had once met at a silver arch in a desert to the south, which becomes a doorway at a certain day at a certain time each year. The two of them ventured inside together to see what lay beyond.
In Aluna's vision, she sees Ludwitte on trial in the center of the stone chairs, now occupied by judges who seem to all heed the painted woman at their head, who sits with a massive hammer across her knees. I ask Matilda's player who Ludwitte is on trial for, and he says the Coin Knight - who possesses a flute hated by rodents - is being judged for defrauding a berg by accepting money to drive out rats when rats still remain in that place.
I roll on a table relevant to the Myth and the checkered magister proclaims that Ludwitte is guilty (and all of the other judges agree, near-immediately) but that sentencing will come later. Before the vision ends, she fixes Aluna with a steely look.
With the party restored by silvery mists, Matilda takes it upon herself to try and challenge a goat-antelope in a feat of fleet-footedness, in the hopes of finding a path to the west, where there are no roads. She fails (taking VIG damage), but the party is able to follow the fleeing goat-antelope nonetheless, making their way ever closer.
They make camp for the knight in the cliffs, and roll - you guessed it - another 2 on the wilderness roll, triggering our last Omen for the session:
A clear horn is heard across the Realm.
This is the signal for Aluna's trial, heard at midnight when Aluna and her squire are keeping watch.
I decide to add to this the sniffling of a great beast just beyond the fire of the campfire, which got the knights and squires roused. This isn't technically part of the Omen as-written, but we've now gone two sessions without a proper fight and it's about the right time for one, so I decided to foreshadow a nice big monster: an elephant-sized dog, clad in armor and checkered tassels. We'll see what they do about that next time.