1220 AD: Home Sweet Sandy Home

Before we talk about what happened in 1220, let’s talk about the Adventure Oracle. The Adventure Oracle is your bread and butter when you’re playing solo. Basically, you take all of your covenant’s hooks, your character’s story flaw, and any other situation, flaw, or even some virtues that might generate stories, and you assign each of them a numerical value from 1-100. Major hooks and flaws should be 30 and minor ones 10, if playing true solo. At the beginning of each year, you roll a d100 for every entry, and if the roll meets or is below the value assigned, an adventure happens that year, which is generated via the other solo play tables. What follows are my rolls for 1220. 

Adventure Oracle Rolls

Cabal Legacy—10% (17, no adventure)

Seeker—10% (21, no adventure)

Poverty—10% (11, close but no adventure)

Multiple Sites—10% (7, adventure!)

Road—10% (34, no adventure)

Tribunal Border—30% (92, no adventure)

Unsafe—10% (13, no adventure)

Unknown—30% (79, no adventure) 

Now, we generate the adventure.

Difficulty—rolled 6, ease factor 15, reduced to 12 for grace period

Origin—rolled 11, peasant (appropriately), ease factor 12 means a local.

Timing—3, the adventure will happen in summer.

Complexity—7, another very complex adventure. 

Type—83, Thriller/Wilderness, 64, Legal/Diplomatic, 51, Magic. An interesting combo. 

Here I can choose to opt out of the adventure or check the omens, which tells me how many botch dice I’ll roll. I’m choosing to opt in so hopefully I can unlock another vis source. 

Omens—2, only 2 botch die. 

So! In summer, Jabril will be having a very complex adventure relating to the Multiple Sites hook. I’m very excited, let’s get started.

***

Spring 1220

Once work on the temple fort was completed, Jabril found himself the master of a formidable compound indeed. There was room enough for a sanctum and a decent laboratory, a dry storage area for his books, and enough larders for any other supplies they should need, in addition to a decent kitchen and sleeping areas for the covenfolk. As the stonemasons left, Jabril set to work establishing his laboratory, and hardly left the compound throughout the season. For their part, the covenfolk simply got to work, with Ahmad establishing himself in the watchtower. 

Summer 1220

 

Rumors of Power

 

Early in the summer of 1220, Jabril finally left the temple fort for the first time since he had arrived in the oasis. Much work had been done, and he felt it was time to tour the town a bit. He had already introduced himself to most of the sheiks--the elders and leaders of the town--but believed it was a good time to familiarize himself with the defenses of his new protectorate. And so, with Ahmad in tow, Jabril set out on a sight-seeing mission to explore the town. 

 

Siwa held very little of interest to a magus of his type: powerful mudbrick walls to be sure, but otherwise a dusty nowhere filled with people who knew more of date farming than they knew of letters. Still, he found himself intrigued by some of the legends and stories that the two heard as they spoke to various people within the town. One of the zaggaleh, in particular, had a strange tale. The young man had come across a strange pool near the ruins of Aghurmi while patrolling the edges of the plantations. He was quite thirsty from his patrols, as the midday sun had been beating on his head, and so took a drink from the pool. To his shock, it was cold, nearly freezing, even at the sun's height. Later that night, he took some of his friends there to show them the new source of water, but found instead that while the moon was high, the water in the pool was so hot as to be nearly boiling!

 

To Jabril, this sounded very much like something magical, potentially another site within Siwa Oasis that could be turned to his purposes. Unfortunately, the young man had quite forgotten where exactly the pool was, and so, despite his frustration, Jabril vowed to trek out near Aghurmi and find it himself. 

 

The next day, Jabril, again with Ahmad in tow, began to travel around Aghurmi, looking for this mysterious pool. Unfortunately, it turned out there were quite a glut of such resources near the town--none magical, but Jabril's keen eyes found several good sources of water. It was nearly a week before they finally happened upon a small, hidden depression some distance to the west from Aghurmi, where, looking down in the moonlight, they beheld a bubbling pool of water. However, the pool had inhabitants: a pack of African wolves, lean and starving, who seemed to be hungrily ranging around the spring for any food they could find. 

 

Thinking quickly, Jabril unrolled the hyena pelt he carried on his back and cast Woolen Steed of Araby to imbue it with the power of flight, taking wing while Ahmad found a nearby hollow to hide in for the night. Over the course of the night, Jabril on his floating pelt drifted near-silently over the spring, observing as the wolves scavenged and--eventually, as the dawn rose--left. Heading down to investigate the spring, Jabril and Ahmad were once again stopped by the sounds of shouting and screams of pain from the direction the wolves had gone. 

 

Moving quickly, they found a young man with a shepherd's crook battling the pack of hungry wolves while goats scattered all around, bleating in terror. With a shout from Jabril and the clanging of steel on shield from Ahmad, the wolves fled, but the young man was not untouched by their teeth, suffering numerous bleeding bites. Quickly moving to him, Ahmad drew on what knowledge he had of cauterization in order to burn out any sort of infection. 

 

Soon, the young man was stable, but exhausted, and fell asleep. Although irritated by the holdup, Jabril opted to set up camp near him and his herd of goats for the night. 

First challenge: Per+Survival (specialty, rolled 1, reroll was 4, doubled 10+0+3=13 for a success), Dex+Stealth (specialty, rolled 4+0+3=7, cast Woolen Steed of Araby to add magnitude 3 and spent a confidence to succeed), Ahmad rolled Dex+Chirurgy (specialty, rolled 8+2+4=14 for a success). Three successes. 

Negotiating with the Goatherd

 

In the morning, the young man had recovered enough to slowly walk, and had recovered even more of his good humor, introducing himself with a smile as Ali. He thanked the two for their help in driving off the wolves, and laughed off Jabril's grim attempt to scare him off, clearly unfrightened by the young mage. 

 

Once he learned the two were there for the spring, however, he grew serious and taciturn, and told them that for three generations, his family had led their goats to this spring during the great heat in the middle of the day, and thus, by the right of use, owned it. While he was happy to let them drink from it this once, he could not in good conscience give up this amazing source of cool water even to his rescuers. Young Ali began to change his tune, however, as Ahmad stood towering over him, and gently reminded him that it was thanks to them that the goatherd could even stand and tend to his goats, subtly flexing to drive home his physical power. 

 

For his part, Jabril tried a more diplomatic tack than he had before, arguing eloquently and rhetorically that it was an offense for such resources to be claimed as the sole property of one herd of goats, and that they, as warriors, stood a far better chance of keeping Ali and his herd safe if they could have free access to the spring at any time. The two approaches together seemed to overwhelm the young man, and he stutteringly agreed to allow them perpetual access to the spring, although Jabril insisted that he continue to water his goats there, reasoning to himself that it was unlikely to damage the magical qualities of the spring, if it hadn't already. 

 

Thus agreed, and after the goats drank their fill, the three parted ways as co-owners of the spring. (Bit strange for a Legal/Diplomatic Challenge, but I argue that this sort of customary law is likely the most commonly practiced out here in the Sand Sea.)

 

Second challenge: Pre+Folk Ken (rolled 4+0+3-3=4, failure), Ahmad rolled Str+Leadership (specialty, used Reserves of Strength to add +3, rolled 1, reroll 2, doubled 6+4+4=14 for a success) Com+Artes Liberales (rolled 8+3-3=8, spent 2 confidence to succeed). 2 successes. 

Studying the Spring

 

At last, Jabril was free to examine this strange new magical resource. He spent some days with his books by the spring, studying to see whether anyone else had encountered such a magical thing before, and was able to piece together enough lore to realize that this was a potentially unique vis source, that would provide Aquam vis in the middle of the day, when cool, and Ignem in the middle of the night, when boiling hot. 

 

Next, he attempted to collect the vis, first using the basic knowledge of Vim he had to attempt to isolate it. Unfortunately, this provoked a volatile reaction from the pool, and it heated up quite rapidly as he was waist-deep within it, forcing a quick retreat, although luckily, his Parma was strong enough to resist the heat. More cautiously, he began to investigate the pool with his spells.

 

Unfortunately, he was not quite cautious enough, and provoked the opposite reaction, with the pool nearly freezing over around his hand. Although the sudden freezing hurt, he luckily survived with no frostbite, but noticed that a strange ring of blackened flesh around his wrist had yet to go away, even after several days. Despite this warping, he was able to figure out precisely how the spring worked with some experimentation: on the full moon corroborating with the ancient festival of Thesmophoria, between the end of October and the beginning of November, 6 pawns of either Aquam or Ignem vis could be collected at, respectively, midday and midnight. 

 

Thus having discovered a new and potent vis source, Jabril returned to the covenant in triumph, although not without some marks upon him.

 

Third challenge: Int+Magic Theory (rolled 9+2+3=14 for a success), Sta+Parma Magica (rolled 2+2+1=5, failure, cast Sense the Nature of Vis to add magnitude 1 and spent 2 confidence to succeed), Qik+Awareness (specialty, rolled 0, botch dice 2, 0, botch!). 2 successes, 1 botch.

Result: Success, with a caveat. Our successes give us 3 rewards +2 xp, in addition to 9 xp from the difficulty and number of challenges (becomes 14 overall from Independent Study), and 9 confidence points. I should probably spend more of those. Unfortunately, our botch also forces a guaranteed loss on us. Using the saved rewards plus the new ones, we purchase a new vis source for 30 build points: the Spring of the Sun, producing either 6 Aquam or 6 Ignem depending on the time of day the vis is collected. For our loss, I roll a 6, meaning, oh no, 3 Warping Points gained, which means I need to roll for Twilight! Rolled 6+2+0+1=9 against a roll of 2+3+3, avoiding Twilight just barely. Jabril walks away a little more warped, but mostly unscathed. As an aside, Self-Confident is proving to be really, really strong for solo play. 5 more exp goes into Folk Ken, 5 into Magic Theory, and 4 into Animal, increasing it to 11. It took 17 days to adventure, and Jabril spends the rest of summer internalizing the lessons of his adventure.

Fall 1220

Jabril has not yet been able to collect his new vis, so he instead spends the fall finishing his laboratory setup, finally giving him a basic laboratory. It is prominently located in the central hall of the temple and with the Stele of Alexander in sight, giving him the ability to study Rego here despite his Study Requirement: the symbol of the greatest conquerer of the ancient world, I argue, is enough to meet the requirements for now. In addition, he uses the 4 pawns of Animal from his personal source to cast Boundless Wealth of the Ocean, summoning a massive amount of valuable pearls, inscribed with his sigil. This gives the covenant a typical source of income from wizardry for this year, as Ahmad trades the pearls with traveling caravans. However, relying on this source perpetually may be foolish. At the end of the season, Jabril collects 6 pawns of Ignem from the Spring of the Sun.

Winter 1220

Now armed with both the 6 Vim vis from the Stele of Alexander and the 6 Ignem from the Spring, Jabril finally sets to work. He spends the season out in the bright sun at the edge of his laboratory, studying Ignem (1 pawn spent). At the winter solstice, he uses 4 pawns of Vim to cast his first Aegis over the temple (rolled 2+16+3+3=24, giving only 4 measly points of penetration), and plans to seek out the Neo-Mercurians next year so he can cover both Siwa and the temple. 

Vis study: Rolled 8+3+3+2, gaining 16 Ignem exp, bringing our score from 1 to 5! Pilum, here I come.

At the end of winter, we are left with 2 Vim vis, 5 Ignem vis, and 137 pounds in leftover funds, which I think I will use to hire more covenfolk next year.