Bay 12 Games Forum

Alice's homeland is a host of little villages, with lots of cattle and horses between them.  Ranches, little streams and little villages, one every few miles, linked by dusty roads.

People with cat ears are more common around here, about one in three or one in four.  Hmm.

You're not quite going to go to her home village, but there's a bigger one, a militia outpost a couple days from the stage station.  There you'll try to pick up some reinforcements and then head to the destination.. which when you view close up, doesn't seem to be any place in particular.  Just an unmarked spot in the open plains.  Hmm.

However, before you get there, you stumble upon a narrow hole in the ground, too small for your horses, but big enough for a person.  Alice stops the party immediately.

.."This is a den for Dire Coyotes.  They're much more dangerous than you'd expect ordinary animals to be.. they have a bunch of team up and harrying skills that limit people's actions.

You want to engage with them?  We might get beat up in the process, and they're unlikely to attack anything until there are pups several months from now."

Fight?

Give the Sparkling Moonlight Slime a follow up pounding from my d6 fists.

You chat for a bit with Alice as you change coaches, moving from one with simple brown livery to one done up in the yellow of the old Losoan Empire.

"Maybe we should stop by there later for some more questions.  They've got some stuff from the Trisamorian city that was there before Losoa.  And some of it works!  There's most of a couple of buildings that are powered and active."

This is interesting and you talk about it for a while, but it eventually gets through that you're older than the Trisamorian empire.  Still, though, she does say that if someone ever finds their archives, they should have information on dragons.  Even if they were ancient history for them, it would be a thousand years more recent than today.

..Of course, nobody knows where they were.  Or even where their capital was, although it should be somewhere on the Eastern Continent.

Another mystery.  And one Uncle can't help you with.  He says that the consensus is it's somewhere south of Valterre and north of Losoa, and on the Eastern Continent, but that it got buried or destroyed in some kind of great upheval.  His personal guess is that it's somewhere in the Bay of Marshes on the eastern coast, but he's quite clear in not knowing the exact location.

This last leg is westward, across the old highway leading to the sea, which runs for a while along a series of dry gullies and old riverbeds.  This part has gotten a lot drier from when the empire was at its height, and you pass a number of struggling farmsteads and abandoned buildings.  Still, there is enough traffic to keep many of the encounters down, and enough rain to keep the occasional cisterns full.

You do have two encounters on this last stretch.  Some very weak oozes and some agressive horse-like quadrupeds.  There's nothing that's a threat to a high level party, but hopefully it'll bring in a little cash.  Eventually, you hit the end of the stage route, at a crossroads inn on the western coast, under the flag of Losoa.  Yellow borders on blue, with a gearwheel in bronze.

How do you proceed from here?  There are two major choices:

The direct route, where you're likely to encounter the Beastriders of the plains, and have to negotiate passage.
The less-direct route, meeting up with some of Alice's kin first.

Try it again!  Maybe I can break these obelisks.  Or break something about how they work.  Or get something unapproved done.  It's good practice at not getting murdered by mana, in any case.

Do this as many timse as possible until we go elsewhere.  Getting murdered by magic is bad.

Take a D6 catnap to get healthy again.

smash the typewriter slime right back!

"This isn't quite what I expected", says Willis, riding inside the closed coach.

"What did you expect?"

"I don't know, a little more excitement.  Maybe some running battles, I could launch Fireworks! against monsters while standing up on the roof, stuff like that."

"This is day two.  We've got two weeks to go.  And you can ride on the top if you want."

"Really!"

A couple of hours later, a significantly more wind-burnt Willis drops back in.

"Maybe later.  Lets just talk for now."

---

Alice does bring up another god.  This time it's Pelagius, god of ships and storms.

"Ships and storms both?"

"Yeah, that's the way it is.  A lot of sailors tend to be superstitous, and think that they deal with a different ocean than those who farm the sea.  They might at that, the monsters at sea aren't the same and there may be something up with the great storms.  I'm not certain Pelagius is any different than Sirocea, god of fish, lakes and calm waters."

"Can't you tell from those checks or something?"

"Not really.  Sometimes gods are friendly with each other and respect each other's champions.  Sometimes gods have more than one major aspect, as well, which can be two different names, two different kinds of blessings, depending on what suits you or what you do as an offering.  Really, I'm just not certain."

"So what would you get from Pelagius?"

"Probably some good group buffs or offensive wind or lightning spells, depending on what I ask for.  Useful stuff.  The main issue is that it'll either require a long voyage, where I'll have to make an offering on two altars in opposing seas, or I'll have to spend a week on a deserted island or something.  Not the easiest god to dedicate oneself to."

To be Continued.

Try for the typewriter slime this time.

"Make it 6 and I'll fight with you."