This continues a long-form campaign, Zen and the Art of Caravan Maintenance.
Joshua and Emmett are now cattle ranchers, both seeking a quiet change in career for various reasons. They’re driving buggalo from Emerald City to the Porcelain Citadel. Currently they’re in Violet City, hanging out with some Lime Nomad pilgrims, after irritating some lovable street-life.
More drugs, some commeuppance.
Story
Joshua and Emmett are in the Plucky Penguin again, back from the Elevated Tree. The nomads are drinking again, they go to bed.
Well, almost. Emmett goes and has a chat with a friendly dwarf. He’s still in withdrawl from the cat coffee and could do with, you know, something that might, well, perk oneself up a bit. The hotel dwarf is keen to help, and comes back (or is it a different one that returns?) with Whizz. Emmett discreetly pays with his gambling winnings, and saves it for a rainy day. Joshua is none the wiser.
Now they’re in bed. But Emmett is woken to find someone quietly on top of him with a knife coming for his throat. Without thinking he stabs them1 in the belly. Turns out, she’s only a little thing. A man called Cassidy paid her to do this, and offered to get her brother out of trouble.
Questioning will have to wait as once one of the dwarves comes and sees the blood, everyone is woken up and gets quite excited. Joshua demonstrates his Stance in the hopes of showing the pair are not undefended. This certainly quitens things, but the nomads never look at him the same way again.
The nomads accompany Emmett and Joshua just after first light, and they promptly leave Violet City. However travelling with buggalo is slow, and some of the nomads rapidly get impatient with the pace. Tugeloc Pine offers to go ahead, another called Lemonc thinks they should all stay and do what they promised.
The four of them bicker, until Joshua talks to them. Tugeloc goes on ahead, the others remain. Notes are left in the sand every day thereafter, including a warning of an approaching megapede.
Emmett, still suffering from the cat coffee, eats for two and devours the supplies2. At least he finally starts to feel a bit better by the time they arrive at the Pine clan. It’s a host of tents, with a large two-pole one in the middle, large enough for everyone to fit in. The pair are invited to the evening ceremony, which is a very moving lightshow.
The Matriarch honours Emmett and Joshua in her speech, thanking them for meeting with “the pilgrims” and walking the path with them. Everyone is very impressed.
They are summoned for a private audience.
Tools
I have the remastered Tome of Adventure Design by Matt Finch. For those who’ve not heard of it, it’s “just” a bunch of tables to roll on. Like, 400 pages of them.
I’m trying to use them to add some “life” to the places in UVG, by rolling to see what’s going on when the PCs arrive. There are tables for urban encounters, for factions fighting it out, for the food available on the menu, stuff like that.
Lessons learned
- The Usage Dice are performing terribly. A d6 seems to fail every time. Either a d8 is the minimum for a trip, or give up on Usage dice for survival, it’s a bit too exciting.
- I had a player ask “are we going to roll on the Misfortune table?” - I was only rolling on it for failure, and any encounter I more introduced through the narrative. I’m going to make some of the rolls a bit more obvious, as they’re appreciated!