CoD 1: Session 07: Rest of the City Tour

  Pre-scene Notes

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Scene setup/conflict: 

Considering they had almost been to all parts of town, the party went to see the Trades’ Hub and the Docks as well. They can go south first then east along the coast to the beaches to search for Stella.

No interrupt/altered scenes.

Scene: 

Zar said he wanted to buy some knick-knacks, as best to get ready even if they are not immediately going to the Cave. He returned Filli’s net he retrieved from fight with the Captain and gave him his  old fishing net as well. He had bought many random small adventuring consumables from the stalls, including a fishing rod, ten foot pole, chalk etc. He tried to haggle and it turned out very well, surprising the other two. He said he had to learn to be prepared due to his bad luck, and he still had some ways to go before completing his knick-knacks loadout. Filli, as he got himself an extra net, offered to get a paring knife for Zar, and Yankovic said he was knowledgable in skinning when he had hunted before. He commented this was the first sign of teamwork for the quest ahead, but only wished it was a more of a glorious mission that getting crab meat. Filli said he would also like to eventually get a new suite of tools as well, as he could not carry the ones from home. Zar agreed, saying apart from adventuring gear, he would fancy a flute. Yankovic said they should jam together with his lute as well, he can always hire Zar to the church choir when it got set up. 

The party also brought some cheap food to eat, apart from Yankovic. When questioned, he just said he was not hungry. He was a kind of Weird Elf after all, so he ate, drunk and slept much less than usual people. Filli knew Elves mostly meditated instead of sleep, but had not heard about food before. Zar jeered he was not the only one with secrets. 

It was usual back in the day for people to only have one meal a day. As a house rule, I would demand a regular two means at least, or minimal one at a long rest. I guess it may be situational, but Weird Elf would get a bit of advantage here.

Party then went to Trade’s Hub, or the Commoner’s Quarters as some called it. Filli had an eye full as a tinkerer of the smiths and tradesmen that were there. The place had messily strewn about buildings of many architecture types, devoid of town planning protocols compared to the Noble’s Quarters they had passed this morning. Visiting a random blacksmith, they enquired about weaponry and armour. The blacksmith said they could get a discount if they brought raw workable materials to him, especially if precious metals. Still most of the costs would be labour costs, or more than usual if the material were hard to work with. On the other hand, the blacksmith might even be willing to pay for the party selling rare material directly to the blacksmith, avoiding the middle man of the merchants. The party made note and headed south.

The Docks had a few gambling dens. Zar being unlucky put the party off in trying to gamble for money. It was indeed a shady place. There was another more run down tavern at the docks, more of a pub, and it was filled with sailors. The party asked about both the Blue Horizon and Stella there but got nothing. 

When asked about the fog however, the sailors, especially those recently arrived, did say they also experienced it. The captains of those vessels were just more experienced, and been to the island before, so could navigate through. But no one knew the reason for the fog. 

The party then moved east and headed out of town.

This would be the mundane shopping trip I’d experienced in most campaigns. I could have made it more interesting, but wanted to progress with the mission. Dice gods surprisingly meant no one tried to stab the party at the Docks, but at least the whole town had been explored. As the chaos factor is abysmally low, as an author, it is clear there may be too much background exposition since the heroes landed and more personal action for the PCs are required. During editing, maybe some of the exposition can be rearranged, or other threads for the future sown in later if it arises. As a GM, it is possible to make shopping trips more fun, but considering the campaign progress is very slow, it was best to speed things up for now.

Scene close-out: 

• Chaos factor remains at 3 as it was a bit overkill to decrease again for such a small scene. 
• +character thread: Zar to complete his collection of knick-knacks loadout by adding caltrops, ball bearings, bell, 10ft string, ink, blank book, paring knife, climbing kit and pitons.
• +character thread: Zar also get his proficient tools.
• +character thread: Filli to get all his proficient tools. 
• +party thread: Get materials for blacksmith to create equipment. 

Post-scene Notes

I decided it was best to just have this as a stand alone scene, although it could have been tagged onto the last post. Ultimately this was because I had expected something to happen in the Docks. I guess a short scene is fine with a bit more character information, but it just means another setting needs to be phrased. As an author, this may be a one-off scene, or just happened off-screen in the party’s conversation as we travel into Chapter 3. In retrospect, maybe the last two scenes was not set up well enough, as both had potential for conflict that was not realised, or would have had minor effect to the party’s motivations. I will post the next scene with this post as this was short.

As I have no screenshots for this scene, it’s time to post another PC portrait. This is Phillipe Fallafo the Second (Filli). I would have preferred a much bigger backpack, but it was closed to what I had in mind for the character. Apparently he is the main character Yuri from a video game/anime that I had no idea about, so I hope it doesn’t get mixed up with any preconceptions.

Portrait from the creators of the game and anime of Chain Chronicle