Through the Oldoak Forest

Daphne has not yet reached Askalon. When she woke from her sleep, she felt her hunger raging vigorously. I allowed her to take another Foraging test with the failure clause of getting lost (7 dice vs. Ob 2, doubled to 4, +1 Ob disadvantage due to hunger – failure). Daphne was wandering through forest valley and over hilltops and collected whatever she could find – berries, mushrooms, roots. At noon, she was sitting below an old oak, having eaten and realizing that she had no idea on how to get back to her horse. I called for an Orienteering test (Base Ob 2, doubled to 4 – another failure). Daphne went astray in the forest and when she finally found her way back, her horse had wrested itself free and was nowhere to be found.

Fortunately for Daphne, her horse had left obvious tracks on the soft ground so she succeeded at an Ob 1 (2) Beginner’s Luck test for Tracking and finally found her horse on a small forest lake at nightfall. Daphne tied the beast to a tree and then climbed the latter and made rest in a comfortable crutch.

When the next morning came, Daphne continued her journey in an eastern direction. Just before noon, she found a road that was winding through the woods which Daphne took in order to advance a bit more quickly. After an hour or so, I had Daphne take a Perception test which she failed, so she didn’t notice the ambush she was riding into: Suddenly three men jumped out of the thickets before her, two in her back.

Startled as she was, Daphne took a Steel test and hesitated for 4 heartbeats. This activated her Raw Talent of course and as the infernal might built up in her mind, an Aura of Fear manifested around her, so the thugs – that were none other than her pursuers – hesitated as well, one heartbeat longer than Daphne did.

The girl took the chance and put spurs on her horse, the beast whinnied and reared up, trying to throw Daphne out of the saddle, but the girl held fast and finally the horse jumped over the thugs and down the road. Moments later the thugs ran for their own horses, cursing angrily – a chase!

Daphne’s horse failed all three linked Speed test and so a complication arose: A fawn had fallen into a hollow next to the road, whimperin miserably and obviously unable to escape the pod that was filled with water from the recent downpour. Out of compassion, Daphne went with her belief, jumped off her horse which continued to gallop down the road after receiving a clap on the back and having bit and bridle removed. She then climbed down to the pod, grabbed the fawn and bolted for a wayless scarp some paces farther away from the road. With 5 successes on 5 dice for her Beginner’s Luck climbing test (Ob 1, doubled to 2, +1 Ob disadvantage for carrying the fawn), Daphne managed to hustle up the slope with the dexterity of a monkey, leaving her pursuers behind.

When she had reached the top, Daphne realized, that the thugs were audibly arguing. One of them stated that they had continue their pursuit of the “witch”, the other disagreed, telling him that she was way beyond any area that was of interest to Arcadia and so they didn’t care about her any more. The other man grudgingly agreed, so eventually, the thugs left and Daphne was free to go wherever she liked (except for Arcadia, of course).

Daphne next tried another Beginner’s Luck Animal Husbandry test to assess the condition of the fawn, linked to a Beginner’s Luck Field Dressing test to splint the fawn’s right front leg which was broken – success, Fate point earned.

So Daphne’s could finally continue her journey, yet she was without a horse, again. After she had waited for a while to make sure her pursuers were really gone, Daphne climbed down the scarp again (Let it Ride) and tried to track down the beast – failure. The failure clause we had negotiated said that Daphne would be able to track her horse but the beast would have gotten into distress:

At sunset, Daphne arrived at a clearing in the middle of which there was the ruin of an ancient tower, desolate and crumbling overgrown with vines and obviously occupied as there was a reddish flickering light shining from the window holes, the merry tune of a fiddle, laughter and song could be heard. Daphne sneaked up to the building (Beginner’s Luck Stealthy vs. tower-dwellers’ Perception – success) and glanced into the building through one of the windows. Inside there were four men, sporting enormous beards, drinking wine out of bottles, dancing around a campfire and singing obscene songs – forest brigands as it occured to Daphne.

The tower also had a wooden outbuilding, obviously built more recently and with less skill than the tower itself. When Daphne approached that structure, she could hear a horse stamping its hooves and snorting inside. Daphne plucked up her couraged and knocked against the crudely crafted wooden door that was barely fitting into the door frame of the tower ruin.

Immediately, the fiddle ceased to play and song as well as laughter fell silent: “Who’s there?” a craggy voice asked from behind the door. Daphne didn’t reply but simply opened the door and entered which confronted her with four startled brigands pointing their weapons toward her. “Are ye mad, lass?” one of them, obviously the leader, asked with a confused expression on his face.

Daphne then explained to him that she had been a captive of a caravan of slave traders passing through the forest but she had managed to escape with one of the slavers’ horses but then she had been thrown out of the saddle and the beast had ran away. She had tracked it to the tower and now she was here.

When she mentioned the caravan, the brigands pricked up their ears and examined her doubtfully as they hadn’t seen any slaver caravans in this forest yet. Daphne insisted on her story and so I told her to take a Beginner’s Luck Falsehood test that would act as a linked test for her Oratory which she would then test in order to establish her Body of Argument for the following duel of wits. Daphne’s BoA was 7, the brigand got 0 successes from his test, so he only had his will – BoA 3. Daphne’s intent was to convince the brigands to go and look after the caravan in order to raid it. The brigand’s intent was to settle the fact that the girl’s story was nonsense and that there weren’t any slaver caravans passing through this forest.

In the first exchange, Daphne scripted point, point, point, the brigand leader scripted incite, avoid, rebuttal. Daphne added details to her story, trying to adapt her manner of speaking to the rude ways of the brigands and added some Soothing Platitudes as well as a little Seduction (dangerous game, you are playing, girl!). Anyway, she only to reduce the brigand’s Body of Argument to 1 during the first exchange, so another one was scripted. In that one Daphne started out with a Dismiss – successfully (but barely: 2 successes on 8 dice versus the Brigands 1 success on four dice).

The brigand leader looked to his companions unsurely: “Well, maybe, we should at least look after it?” The others agreed and so Daphne remained at the tower with the fiddle player while the other three brigands headed out into the twilight.

Once she was alone with the fiddle player, Daphne tried to convince him to leave the tower with her (I didn’t understand exactly *why* she was doing that, but anyway). Beginner’s Luck Persuasion, base Ob 3 (brigand’s will), doubled to 6, +1 Ob disadvantage for Daphne really having nothing to offer and the brigand having no reason to trust her and leave behind his companions; 4 dice from will, FoRK from Oratory, Seduction and Soothing platitudes, so 7 dice vs. Ob 7 – 2 successes – uh oh.

The fiddle player ceased playing, yelled at Daphne to shut her mouth because he couldn’t bear her gibberish any more, and then he grabbed her, bound her with a piece of rope and bumped her into the outbuilding next to her horse after kicking her with his boot for a light wound.

At dawn, the other brigands returned and, oh sweet surprise, they were in high spirits. They actually had found a “caravan”, a group of cowards on horses, armed with artisan tools who surrendered as soon as the first of them had taken a cut from the brigand leader’s sword. The bandits captured the horses as well as some coin and the tools of the cowards. Those cowards were Daphne’s former pursuers, of course. The brigand leader ordered the fiddle player to immediately release the girl from the outbuilding. He told her that she was a nice little rascal, laughed and finally introduced himself as Diodorus, King of the Oldoak Forest.

He then asked Daphne for another favour: He had once been a simple peasant in a village east of the forest, called Harran. When he was caught committing adultery with his brother’s wife Mariam, he was exiled from the small community and forced into a brigand’s life. Yet Mariam had been beaten terribly by her husband and back then, Diodorus had promised her that the two of them would leave Harran and travel to the free city of Arcadia were nobody knew them so they could start a new life. Diodorus finally asked Daphne to travel to Harran, contact Mariam and convey a message to her for him.

This is a minor complication I introduced because Daphne had failed every single test that happened after the Duel of Wits. She was at the fiddle player’s mercy and didn’t succeed at anything that would have granted her freedom. So I played on her belief to “Always concede a favour” to throw another obstacle in her way that she will have to overcome until she finally reaches Askalon.

—

So that’s it for now. Actually I had a rather hard time as a GM because Daphne failed almost every test (except the easy ones in which she got 5 successes on 5 dice). Interpreting failure is cool but if there’s only failure, the story meanders a little aimlessly. Maybe, in our next game, we will start out with 4 LP characters.

Advancement is also pretty slow at the moment because most of Daphne’s skills are not that useful in the wilderness (Read, Write, Oratory, Seduction, Soothing Platitudes and Book-wise) and it takes an eternity to open a skill via Beginner’s Luck (Daphne still needs at least 3 more tests for her skills being learned). Anyway, she is only 1 challenging test from advancing her Speed to B5.

Conclusion: Prefer a variety of low exponent skills to a set of very limited but good skills during character burning.