This continues a long-form campaign, Zen and the Art of Caravan Maintenance.

Emmett & Joshua successfully drove buggalo from Emerald City to the Porcelain Citadel. Now they’re going back to the Lime Nomad Steppes to look for clues to a document on raising the dead that Joshua found. And earn some money playing a tour-guide maybe?

Story

The pair meet with a Porcelain prince named ‘Spiral 8-body’. He wants to send a body with them on their passage through the Lime Steppes, and see their ‘authentic’ culture. The word ‘authentic’ is used a lot in the conversation, and gives Emmett and Joshua a hint that this tourist is a little detached from the reality of a caravan.

He promises to behave. His servant looks visibly unsure of this, but says nothing.

Nevertheless, Joshua agrees he can join the party for “€500 and a favour”. They optimistically agree to meet at 8am the next morning, to set off. Shockingly, he’s actually there at 8am in the morning, somehow1. His servant, Salmon (or Sam), has also been volunteered to accompany Spiral, and is terrified of the nomads. Unlike his master, he only has one body.

Spiral is thrilled to set off, and very comfy in the autogolem. He’s considerably less happy to discover they go all day. There’s considerably less breakfasts, and less stops than he expected. He really hates it when the rain starts.

The party are surprised to find some tumbleweed that change direction when the caravan approaches, and starts following them. They’re not as fast as the autogolem though, but it’s definitely weird. Emmett tries teaching Spiral to shoot (successfully) at them, and gives him further practice later.

Spiral likes shooting things. Hitting is optional.

They arrive on the Steppes and three members of the Celery clan are initially suspicious but pleased to meet Joshua and Emmett. They know the Pine clan of old, and have heard of the “buggalo ranchers”.

But the Pine clan aren’t here…

Lessons learned

This session was mainly around bringing along an annoying NPC. I want Spiral to be an in-game pain, but not a metagame pain (don’t annoy the players, just the PCs).

I decided to be safe on this, by stating this outright throughout the session. Might lose a bit of magic, but I think it’s worth it.

  1. He rolled incredibly well. ↩︎