Regular Folks Campaign* ** REGULAR FOLKS A Collection of Scenario Sketches and Miscellaneous Notes For use in any campaign using the Dragon Pass Map area. Preferred setting is to the West of the Grazelands, North of the Black Horse County. An amateur production. Please feel free to consider, add, subtract and dissect individual parts to your heart's content. Copyright 1992 Stephen R. Marsh License to copy for non-profit use granted from the fourth of September, 1992 to December 31, 1996. Commercial copy operations may charge a reasonable profit for their service in making and providing copies. All other rights reserved. Thanks to: Chad Clark, Dave Dunham ,Phil Davis, Steve Martin. I. SCENARIOS The following are a series of scenarios for "regular" beginning player-characters. Suggested skill level is trained + maximum points for fighter type characters, with one or two non-fighters who are average with minimum points. -. Storm's Promise. The PCs are part of a group of refugees. In late winter a Lunar military unit burned houses and destroyed stock in a "retaliatory" raid against a number of households and small freeholders. 5-7 characters, 2-3 potential characters and about 30 true NPCs are on the move, their major belongings and homes having been confiscated or burned by the Lunars. Outside North Post, the group is in despair, discovering that they are displaced and cannot be accepted by any community in Sartar or the non-Sartar grazelands where they have ended up more or less by accident. However, the group learns of a possible refuge. Lead-ins can include one of the characters hearing of the Lager House at a Geos as a load of food is delivered, or a wandering player suggesting the place, or a message from a relative who has already gone there. A PC may also be a member of spearbrothers and of heard of the refuge through the secret society. With no place else to go and food running short, the group struggles down narrow trails and through the snow to Lager House and the village of Storm's Promise. The weather has been remarkably mild during this time, sparing many of the group from certain death otherwise. 0. New Beginnings. ["A light dusting of snow has begun to fall again. It is warm, only about 30oF, though the snow is dry. It seems only to obscure your tracks but does not block the path in front of you. As you come around a bend in the trail, you see something like a lump of colored rock perched into the mountainside. Below it is a small village with three large stone and wood structures to your right. A small stream runs down from the village and across the path where a bridge crosses. You have reached Storm's Promise."] At Storm's Promise the PCs and their party are met by one of the patrons (see later chapter). ["As you walk towards the village a group comes out to meet you and your guide. The guide, who has been quiet since meeting you several days back when you were lost, is suddenly animated and cheerful. The group consists of a number of burley men armed with swords, shields and spears. Under bison hides they appear to be wearing real armor. At the front is {roll d8}: 1. Rakoch Windson, the biggest man you have ever seen. 2. Esteleon con Nachaan, dressed much too nicely for the weather. 3. "Bond," who looks almost like a dwarf, but who is wearing only a shirt and light pants as he walks through the snow. 4. Orea Nabareth, walking on the air and glistening with menace. 5. Brightson Mylonas, much too formal for a village, though large and graceful. 6. Jerrek Thereson, the most powerful looking bison rider you have ever seen. 7. Inora Morningsong, a grazelander woman, carrying a harp and wrapped in a bright colored cloak. 8. Semphesina, like light breaking through dark clouds and impossibly beautiful. 9. Sighing Winds, the oldest, most withered man you have ever seen still able to walk or take care of himself. Spirits surround him in a cloud. They extend to you the standard Orlanthi greeting (though 2, 3, 4, & 5 will stumble a bit with it)."] He or she puts the party up in a newly finished stone cattle barn that does not yet have cattle in it. One of the three large buildings to the right that the characters saw coming into town. At this point the characters and the party are offered the chance to take an oath, accept terms of probation, gain junior status and submit to an inventory. The characters must turn over all their "excess" equipment and money. In return, the Clan of Jerrek's Promise will give them a year to become one with the people and to become members of the clan. /////////box/////////// The Orlanthi Followers Oath The Terms of Clan Probation includes loyalty sacrifice obedience //////end box////////// [This scenario introduces the setting and at least one NPC. The NPC chosen (roll randomly on d8 if there are no pressing background ties for the choice of the NPC) will become the group's unofficial patron.] ///////box///////////// determining if a character succeeds on his or her term of probation. The Acceptance check. ///////close box/////// 1. Winter Hunt. Wild animal herds still migrate through this area in midwinter just as the caribou do in Valind (or Alaska). The PCs are asked to go on a hunt. (The participation is voluntary, but failure to participate will give each character who refuses a -1 on their acceptance check and a +1 on the selfish trait. [NPCs do not receive checks -- only PC adventurers are asked to go on the hunt.] Lawspeakers, scribes and others are all in a situation where normal excuses are not sufficient. It also results in a check for change on the cowardly trait if appropriate. Those who go may take a check on loyalty [clan]). [It is assumed that in a time of great personal change and turmoil, characters traits are more fluid and capable of both definition and change. The direct change, rather than a check, of traits occurs only during the first year of the campaign until the characters are fully defined] This is a typical winter hunt with two "random encounters*", one with wolves and one with winter broos (winter broos, also known as snow broos, relate to the environment as if 20oF was 70oF. Thus when it is 0oF out, a snow broos would be affected as a normal person is by 50oF weather. They are otherwise as normal feral broos, but rarely, if ever, carry disease. See the Winter Broos in the creatures book). (*The term random encounter is used throughout the adventure to refer to randomly rolled encounters as well as planned encounters that occur where a random encounter roll would otherwise be called for.) A substantial amount of meat is taken, brought back and made into jerky, sausage and similar products -- enough to make a substantial input on the community food stores. Expect to award several skill checks to the characters and to allow some training on related skills after this hunt. Any character with craft/butcher or similar skills will also have a chance to obtain an extra skill check at this time and 20 hours of free training in the skill. 2.a. Scouting. The party is assigned to scout an area to the North and/or West of Storm's Promise for a possible settlement. This will be where the party will be living (they can't stay forever in a cattle barn, sharing body heat and a smoky fire). This is an armed probe (after all, on the hunt they met feral snow broos following that herd...). Any arms and armor should be worn. Appropriate skills to roll against include Plant Lore, Scan, Scout Mountain/Broken Terrain, or similar skills for the farm land and Scout, Scan, Animal Lore, Track or Spot Hidden for the animal lairs. The party should spot some flat land that looks good for crops, some hardwood trees (may be fruit trees), a couple predator lairs, some old hillside ruins (look for tracks, but don't explore ruins -- they are too dangerous the party has been warned by the patron or a briefing file leader before leaving), etc. 2.b. Confirmation. The party goes back on a second scouting trip. This time they confront in the open one of the predators whose lair they spotted and are expected to hunt the other one down (they should set up an ambush outside of the lair). ["You are called in. You meet with {roll d8+1}. They tell you that between your visits and a hunting trip by another party, the area you scouted looks good for you. You are told to scout it out again and to pick out a place to build a small settlement for your people. You should also hunt down any dangerous predators while you are there to make later trips safe."] Winter Ends. Spring Begins Early. 3. Village Building.. Three long houses a stockade and a stockyard are built from the local pine trees and scrub. This should be a period of intense physical labor, broken by some spring hunting. Characters will have the chance to train 1 pt of STR or CON by means of the work they are doing. At this time the characters will also split up who lives where in the two long houses that are built (and the one barn, should anyone be so disliked). This is temporary housing, good enough for survival while the people earn their place. Outsiders will help some with this work. This experience should solidify the sense of community and the identity of each person in it. The unofficial patron will visit once while the building is going on. File leaders will occasionally pass through. 4. Spring Crops. The Uleria priestess visits for the planting festival. Each person in the community will sacrifice one point of attribute POW (somewhat like initiate sacrifice for r...
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