SoloDark: Pelor's Quest ep76

-/-- Welcome to SoloBickering! It's a solo rpg, which means I roll dice generate a story and decide outcomes, and lose arguments with myself as I portray the exploits of my adventurers. 

--/-- Join me on a journey into the game world I play face to face in, and it may sound vaguely familiar to you. Like many another DM I stitch my world together from any bits and pieces I fancy, adding them into a standard setting, Faerun's Sword Coast.  

--/-- AI and NSFW: For this adventure the stars are young and moderately hot, and I'll be using CoPilot AI to buff my romance bar, because I'm useless at romance, and for side situations that need social interactions. Some of the situations the young protagonists find themselves in may turn out to be NSFW. I won't be deliberately aiming for that, but oracles are what they are. So if on either account you take an ethical stand against those, skip this episode and listen in to Rollohi, my other SoloBickering output. 

--/-- And having said that, let's get the game started. 

https://larrymannplayssolobickering.blogspot.com

Transcript

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Hi, I'm John from Tale of the Manticore. Robin from Stories from the First Watch. PJ from a Wasteland Story in the Solo Roleplayers Podcast. Simon from Legend of the Bones. Brian Rideau from Swords Against Madness. Cody from the Lone Adventurer. And I'm Trevor from Your Story Will Be Different. And with our solo roleplaying audio, narrative, actual play, drama powers combined, we are the Solo Roleplayers Podcast Network. Usually accustomed to delving the depths. Scouring the desert. Surviving the wasteland. Or facing the dragon alone. This time, we have teamed up to bring you a curated collection of the best, highest quality, most dramatic, and diceyest solo roleplay podcasts in the world. So if you're looking for your next solo roleplaying adventure, roll over to solo roleplayersnetwork.com. Sample and subscribe to something that takes your fancy. And discover your new favorite solo roleplaying podcast. See you there. Now the somber hills. You crossed wild country before. But the Sumbers and winter? That's a different kind of trial. Trails vanish, landmarks shift. A clear sky can turn to a white wall in the time it takes to draw breath. You've all done well. More than well. This ride, this is the hardest thing you're facing yet. The world itself is cold and uncare. Trust me. After that, well tell us what comes next. The sombers ain't waiting. Welcome back to season two of Paylor's Quest, a solo dark adventure. For this venture, the stars are young and moderately hot, and I'll be using Copilot AI here and there to buff my romance bar, because I'm useless at romance, and for side situations that don't really need tools. Some of the situations the young protagons find themselves in may turn out to be NSFW. And if you're uncomfortable on either of those two scores, skip this and head over to the world of Rollohy. Otherwise, having said that, let's get on with this show. Rightly or wrongly, Garrick, the guide, has judged that they ought to push through a forced march during the night and make Beliad by dawn. It's extremely cold, making visibility truly excellent, and we're going to pick up with Garrick sending the alarm. It's Garrick that spots them. Just changes of shadow between the trees, but fast moving. He yells at first to spur the mounts and then yells again. They're much too fast. Wheel. Get the horses tethered together. We'll make a stand. Already his hands are feverishly lighting the first torch. He hands it to Winnie. Winnie, you've showed you capable. Keep the horses quiet. Keep this torch alight and aloft. We'll beat depending on you, girl. Understand? Is all Winnie can say. And then bows are being bent. Stands being taken. Let me make it clear that I really am playing Solar Dark. But the encounter with the Weasels, or Ermin, since they're winter creatures here, is generated off a night encounter table that I cooked up using AI. Co-pilot to be specific. And because of the difficulties of Theatre of the Mind with this sort of encounter, I used another prop, Virtual Battle Map, or VBM, which I recently signed up to. It's very, very simple, but it allowed me to use an existing winter battle map that I had for Roll 20 use. Drop a bunch of pony icons onto it, and then upload some Roll 20 suitable pictures of my characters and some cute little ermine faces that I found online. Giant ermen are anything but cute, but here again, there's no specific resource for it. Giant weasels appear in all sorts of OSR literature, and I relied on Osric and one or two other sources to decide that they are seven hit points each in this case, representing one hit dice plus one. And with a d8 bite. With no definitive guidance as to number appearing, I relied on my faithful 2d4 and rolled a five. There will be five giant airmen. And I did also check whether they are all equally the same size, and the answer is yes. They're all evident at once. The other difficulty of this kind of homemade encounter table is that it doesn't really come with distance. So I turned to Shadow Dark and determined that they originally appeared at long range. And the reason that I say that Garrick saw them is that he is the only one who made a good wisdom perception check at disadvantage. The first thing I'm going to do is make a test of Garrick's hand speed. If he can get Winnie the lit torch in very quick time, he'll make time to use his own bow. Nope, it's a three. All they can do after that is draw his weapon. He slides his hatchet out of his belt as well. Like Lucinda, he's learned to help defend himself using two weapons. As Lucinda bends her bow, the weapon snaps with the same kind of explosive popping sound that she's been hearing for the last 24 hours. The cold is simply too much for her. Ignoring the sting of the bowstring on her hand, she snarls drawing both her weapons, pushing herself toward the front. But she's on the wrong side of the pony. It's going to take her time. And those white shapes, so supple and fleeting, are already closing in. With the torch aloft, Drum has the flicks of light reflected in the creature's eyes to aim for. As arrow sinks through six damage. Here's Natalie's shot. She misses Clean. And with that, the giant ermine or mink are getting close enough for me to relate to you. A rough mental image. The horses and ponies, only three or four of which are in really good shape for running, are clumped around Winnie, who's doing her best to hold a torch aloft and keep the horses from panicking. The ermen are coming in from the east flank. The river, if you like. Garrett has been riding point or running point, depending on the terrain. And he is at the front of the party. Sake is immediately behind him and just to the east, closest to the ermine. Lucinda, dismounting on the wrong side, since she intended to use her bow, is right across the west side of the ponies from the action. Natalie is just to the southeast of her, still using her bow. And Drum, having applied his bow effectively, does have time for one more shot. And two of the Ehrmen are within Sakeb's immediate range, or close, if you like, as they move in. And it will be up to Garrick to score a good initiative roll to catch up to Sakeb. He rolls a six. In that case, he and Sakib will meet those two Eirmen. It's time for Drum's next shot. It's no good. He misses. Here's Natalie's next shot. It's a hit, not a particularly good one. And her arrow simply kills the one that drum wounded. Take it off the board. Lucinda will use an athletics check on strength. Rolls a 10, but with her good strength that gets her to DC 12. Perfectly adequate. She plants herself in front of Drum so that he can shoot past her. If a second ermine decides to join in with the ermine that's right in front of Lucinda, she will be in trouble. But it's more likely it will go for the horse. However, that's not this round. This round, we're looking at Garrick and Sakeb using their swords against two Ermen, who of course will spring to use their teeth. Garrick misses clean. Sakheeb, with his sword powered by his built-driven strength, scores a decent hit, but minimum damage. The two ermin leap in. Garrick steps to one side and it jumps past him. But the one fighting Sakheeb accurately goes for his chain clad throat. Giant Ermin will do a d8 damage. 7. Ouch. Sakheeb's okay. Too much more of that, and he won't be. It's time for round three of the actual combat, and I need a little decision tree as to whether the unoccupied ermine is going to go for a mount, which is, I think, fairly likely, or join its mate tackling Licinda. So I'm going to roll the likely oracle. Yes, it goes for the mount. That means that Winnie is defending with a D4 torch, which could go out. As she's an NPC, I'm going to give her a morale check. She's okay. First, let's deal with the arrow shots of Natalie and Drum. Drum will be loosing at extremely close range to help Lucinda. Natalie will be loosing across the mounts to help Winnie. Complete failure, although Natalie's was somewhat close. I can imagine the arrow caroming off some baggage. Lucinda against the same Ermin. Two very solid hits, remembering that she doesn't power her hand axe with the same power as she does her short sword plus one. However, with her bonus from Malay, that is a dead Ermine. Ermin attacking the mount. A clumsy attack. It's trying to get through the baggage to the mount's throat. Winnie's fire attack. She waves it, and the torch is in danger of going out. It does not go out. Ermin against Sakeb. It fails to hold on. Its grip on his chain armor weakens and it drops clear. Sakeb's response, not quite a crit, but very close. His blessed sword slices down max damage. That is a dead Ermin. Ermin against Garrick. Messes again. He once again slides clear. His response with a long sword is good. Definitely not maximum damage, but is fairly severely wounded. I think that calls for a morale check from the two Ehrman left on the battlefield. They're fine. Seeing that they're still being attacked by vicious fangs, Drum, with Natalie close behind him, will keep moving around on Lucinda's flank so as to drill those arrows in at very close range without endangering their own combatants. Well Lucinda will once again use athletics so that she can pile in to help Winnie directly. Here's Lucinda's athletics check. Nat 20. She earns herself a luck token. And she will be directly in combat. I think we will begin with her attacks. Both excellent attacks, and that's a dead Ermin. The Ermin in response definitely cuts at, or bites at, I should say, the sandwich, scoring two damage. Finally, as Sakeb repositions himself, he makes a fairly clumsy attempt to get around the plunging mounts, and so it's just Garrick against the last Ehrman. Ehrman against Garrick, successful. Garrick takes two damage. Garrick against the Ehrman, unsuccessful. He's simply parrying it off as best he can. In round five, Natalie and Drum are making sure that Ehrman are actually dead and not just playing Possum, if you like. Lisinda is going to make another athletics attempt to get right to the fore of the party, racing across the back of the mounts to get to help Garrick, and Sakeeb is going to just keep repositioning. He won't need to make a roll this round, but in order to make an attack, he does need to. So we'll make first in it an athletics check down. He falls over. I'm gonna put him back where he started. Here's Lysinders. Not that good. She will not get there this turn. I think I'll spend the luck token. Exactly the same result. Sorry, Lysinda. Somewhat comically, Lysinder ends a straddle but facing the wrong way on a very nervous mount, which is bucking and twitching and screaming. Taking on Winnie's control of the torch. Great, she's got it fully lit again and it's still burning. Ermine versus Garrett. Successful. Garrick takes another. Five damage. He's seven down. Garrick against the Ermin. He misses clean. His hand axe is not effective in combat, so all he's doing is increasing his armor class. That's another fail. Round six. Sakeb gets back to his feet and slowly, properly joins Garrick in the fight. Liscinda gets to DC9, which is the rest of the way across the mount, slides down. She will be in action next round if need be. Herman against Garrett. Another hit. Minimum. Erick is down eight now. Garrett against Ehrman. Finally connects. Kills it. The aftermath of the fight feels blank and silent, even though that's not the case. The mounts are still worried and fretting and snorting and stamping. Two of them show very obvious signs of distress. Drum and Lucinda both, almost as if their puppets and their strings had been cut, fall to their knees. Natalie hurries to Drum's side, but she too is shaking with fatigue, and all she can do is kneel beside him, leaning against him. Sakeb looks a little puzzled and then back at Winnie. Winnie, you alright? I'll be there in a minute. Hold them steady. He's referring to the mounts. Garrick, too, seems weary, his years sitting hard on his shoulders. He says at length, as though he feels the need to say something. Over the mounts. The two most weary ponies have keeled over in the snow. See if you can get them to their feet. If they lay down now, they'll be stiff by morning. We'll cut them loose. They can walk on after us. Garrett commence. Drum. Drum. Ermine sells well. Meat's not bad if you're not fussy about what it might have been eating. Yep. Smellishes into a fan. Pulls himself back to his feet and napped with him. He walks over to the nearest Ermine corpse and stirs it with this time. Damn solid. That's that's muscle. I suppose if we uh gut them, they'll weigh quite a bit less. Maybe we could just uh lash the corpses on to the horses. Maybe not on, but if we can lash a sledge together. Yeah. Yeah, we've got a fighting chance of getting them to believe it. Okay. Lucinda, what's with you? Ah, nothing. I think I've pulled something trying to get over those horses. Cinder makes a a try at getting herself back to her feet and fails. Concerned, Garrett walks over to her, his legs very heavy in the hard snow, packing the row. Knowing that she's a considerable weight and no stripling like Natalie or Winnie, he puts a good deal of muscle into leveraging her back to her feet. No bones broken. Can you ride? Yep, yeah, yep, yep. I can ride. Now that she's back on her feet, Lucinda sets about getting her legs moving again and organizing the mounts along with Winnie Drum and Saki. Natalie is carefully set to one side, if you like, atop a couple of furs. She's obviously too tired to help, but they don't want her freezing to death. Here's a organise a sledge kind of roll. It's going to take about an hour, maybe a bit less if the roll's high. Base roll of 17, that's gonna hit 20 with Garrick's wisdom, so less than an hour to quickly whip together a sledge that has a fair chance of being pulled straight along the road behind the mounts. Garrick selects his sturdiest horse other than the one he himself rides. Winnie is still to ride it, but it'll have the added job of pulling the sledge. Then Drum, Lucinda, and Garrick turn to gutting the ermine and with corpses lashed onto the sledge, the convoy is once again made safe and set to. Thank you so much for listening. Your rating or review will be much appreciated, and if you really want to help the channel, share the link. As well as being able to contact me through the SRPN website, you can contact me on Mastodon, where my handle is at Larryman Place, or by email where I'm LarrymanPlace at gmail.com. That's two R's in Larry, two N's for November in man. Larryman Plays, all one word at gmail.com. Thanks, and let's go adventuring together again.