COD 1: Session 27: Her motives

 Pre-scene Notes

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Scene setup/conflict: 

After escaping Jasper’s estate while his hexblade patron wrecked havoc, the party finds a temporary shelter somewhere to regroup and devise what to do next.

Altered scene; As an author, at this stage it’s a turning point where the PCs will have to have a new motive to act I guess. I rolled random terms to help, which led me to thinking we should make the Empress’s motives a bit clearer.

Scene:

The party ran as fast as they could away from Jasper’s estate, deciding to stay off the path and head away from the city. The party came across a small hamlet, and Filli being a common folk, worked his charms with his Rustic Hospitality ability to have some farmers take them in for the night. Weird Elf’s gold coin also helped, meaning Zar did not have to use any intimidation. There were no pursuers through the night, Jasper’s hands probably full from his former patron’s escape.

The party had a long rest and at breakfast, discussed what they were going to do inside the old barn house. 

Zar said, taking a bite from the unleavened bread the farmer’s wife had prepared for them, “What now?”

“What now? We’re going back to ask that hexblade what yours has got to do with Xanthia!" Yankovic exclaimed. 

Still trying to get over a hexblade confirming it was practically impossible to break a warlock pact as it continued to corrupt him, Zar stayed silent while Filli tried to defuse the situation, “We don’t know what happened after our escape, let alone what happened with the hexblade or Jasper.”

“What are Jasper and the Empress planning anyway? Just to overthrow the king?”

“Either way, a revolution is no good for a country. It’ll plunge the life of all commonfolks into chaos for who knows how many years?”

“And how do they plan to do it? The king has a whole legion of well-trained soldiers. I’d place my bets with them any day against some unorganized gladiators, no matter how many. The hexblade mentioned some sort of ritual?”

“Why do we have to care?” Zar joined the conversation. “I’d thought for this cave dive, we just have to be the best gladiators, but I guess that’s not the objective? Can’t we just let the event play out and wait until we return to Cavesmuth?”

“No one can say how long a cave dive is, and does the objective even stay the same? Would it change depending on what the adventurers do?” Filli theorised from old fantasy stories he read as a child on the nature of the Cave of Dreams without better references. “What if we don’t do anything, the revolt is a success, and we can’t return to our world until we restore the rightful heir?”

As a DM, at this point I would welcome the party asking for a hint. I had Yankovic roll Insight for a premonition… He rolled only a 6, so I had him use his Knowledge from a Past Life ability, twice, to make a passing roll for me to give a hint.

Weird Elf took out the dried up fin Osran had given them, “I just have this feeling… We’d hit a dud last time with the Greenhand Outpost. This time, we must be due for something connected with this. I don’t know why, but Solomon’s spell rising a Aboleth from somewhere in my memory just bugs me.”

At this point, the barn door open and a timid little girl walked in. “M-ma asked if y-you would like more bread?” 

“Thank you very much little girl, but we are full, thank you for the delicious breakfast." Filli answered, ”We are just discussing our plans. Where are we exactly?“

“The farm. My father said we’re a few hours ride from the capital?” the girl answered simply, probably not having stepped foot outside of the hamlet in her life. She hastily added when Zar let out a grunt, “ T-this region is where the Empress came from you know! Just down the road past the old rowan tree!”

Zar rubbed the back of his head in chagrin as Filli gave him a reproachful look. Yankovic asked, pocketing the dried fin again, “The Empress came from this village you say?”

“Y-yes, I have to go now.” The girl fled as Filli gave Zar a shook of the head, as he had obviously scared the little girl. 

“I guess that’s our next clue. Let’s leave some gold and skedaddle before any pursuers get here. Don’t want any misfortune to fall upon these nice farmers.”

#

The party was unable to glean much from only bare information from the farmers regarding the Empress’s origins. The story went that she had been an ordinary farm girl nearby in this region a few years back. When the famine hit that year, her farm was ruined and she was forced to enter the palace as a servant. She caught the eye of Emperor Nero and they wedded. The honeymoon period was short and as the arena fights got more frequent, more rumours went about the Empress wanting to overthrow the Emperor. Considering the excess of having gladiators fight and die every three days, not many villager broadcasted themselves to share the Empress’s home town any more, but the party at least got a direction. 

The party bid the farmers farewell and reached the Empress’s old farmstead past the old rowan tree.

Nice map from Worldcraft Flow https://inkarnate.com/p/Rpj2ay--worldcraft-flow/

The party spent quite a bit of time searching the fallen buildings. It had been a few years, and therefore had very little personal articles that could have identified this as anyone’s former residence, let alone Empress Ceres. 

Filli rolled 19, Zar 5, Yankovic 15 for Investigation. Average 13 but generally a pretty high one. In a scenario like this, as a DM, it’s frustrating if you’d seeded a lot of info here and the party rolled low. For solo, I guess it’s even less useful to have rolls. I can use Mythic as the roll, but I feel ike it’s better to use the PC’s stats, then use Mythic as an ideas generator if I don’t know what they’ll find. I did have something in mind in this case.

Zar was unable to find anything in the fields overgrown with weeds. Yankovic was able to find a ticket stub for a gladiator’s match starring their old friend Jasper (just a favour text), but Filli was the one who hit jackpot. Noticing an uneven floor board, Filli instructed Fido to pull it up to find a diary in tatters. Filli was able to decipher some text, but through the years, some pages were torn with mice teeth marks, ink smudged with moisture that seeped through, and some pages just crumbled on touch.

The diary depicted a little farm girl’s normal life, which was mostly humdrum. One entry mentioned she was able to watch a bit of a gladiator's match when delivering vegetables into the capital and was dazzled like any typical country girl. Unfortunately, as the diary went on, life on the farm worsened under the degenerate rule of Emperor Nero. Before the death of her parents, there were some mentions of a book that turned up when the family were selling all their old belongings for food, but that was the full extent Filli could make out.

If the investigation score rolled higher, it would be a full diary explaining Cere’s past and/or let the party find a dark magic book in the fields if they had a better Investigation roll.

Yankovic made a 20 wisdom roll to explain the extent of the diary.

“It seems like it’s tale as old as time. Corrupt governments, making the life of the everyman worst, and breeding enough tragedies that one turns out to be determined enough to burn it all to the ground.” Yankovic shook his head. “We’ve got the Empress’s motive, but this book mentioned something suspicious. It may have something to do with how the Empress plans to enact her plans?”

“I doubt we’ll find something else here,” Filli shook his head.

“I’m just saying, we can still just walk away and see if there is another way to end this cave dive” Zar said just as noise of horses and metal thundered outside. 

The party grabbed their weapons but a small army already surrounded the farmstead. Enough spears pointed at them that any wrong move and they would be hedgehogs. Empress Ceres soon parted the soldiers and shook her head at the party.

“Now you didn’t think you would escape that easily, did you? I’m surprised you made a beeline for this place. This is definitely the closest place in the Empire you could’ve escaped to that would make me think twice about returning. I’ve had both happy and bitter memories here.” Empress Ceres took a moment to look about her old home. She clearly blinked when she saw what was left of her old diary in Filli’s hands.  “It’s awfully rude to read someone else’s diary little one.”

“Listen, you don’t have to do this.” Yankovic and Zar both restrained a sigh from the young boy’s cliché line. 

“You’re going to pity me now?” The Empress feigned hurt, “But you do agree the state of the Empire had fallen to ruins thanks to that old goat, right? You can’t right a cart on broken wheels, gentlemen. It’ll take a few years to start from scratch, but the old must be brought to the ground before we can have new happier beginnings. Now, you want to join the good side, don’t you?”

“That’s not a given. How do we know you’re not just like Nero? You’re the one who ordered to have more gladiator fights and more bloodshed than Nero decreed before you joined him.” Zar remarked sarcastically.

“The gladiatorial matches were started by the old fool, not me,” a fire burned in the woman’s eyes. “And they are only temporary. Once enough blood is shed, it’ll wash everything away. No one will remember past sins if the new world shines bright enough.”

“I really don’t care for that metaphor,” Yankovic muttered. “I don’t know my past, but it’d shaped me into a believer of Xanthia. Without Xanthia, I’m nothing.”

“Fine, enough metaphors.”The Empress waved her hand, “My invitation stands, especially considering poor Jasper had passed away last night. As I’d said, I am in need of fine strong men like you. Getting rid of Nero is only a start. I need strong help to rule the empire with me after the old fool dies. Join me and live.”

I tried to think how would each character answer the problem of ‘finding out the queen’s plan and foiling it’.

1 Yankovic’s actually more astute with a high wisdom score, so he would have made a connection between the world they had come into may have something to do with the dried up scale, and the scale belonging to a possible monster, and the monster likely the Empress’s gambit. So he decides to go to the palace and find info from the inside.

2 Zar only knew a life like a gladiator’s in his background, so he would use his knowledge and strengths in the arena, come what may due to the familiarity, even if it’s stepping into what he probably knows is the empress’s trap. Moreover, he would be much more concerned about his own warlock pact and want to know more on that.

3 Filli, he would rather die and would oppose more people dying because of the Empress, so I guess as a DM, I’ll have to arrange something for him to do that. It was also established from Yankovic’s high rolls before that the Emperor may not be completely clueless as to something was going on with Jasper and the Empress, so at least Filli may be best fighting for the crown as such. 

Considering they are all different, the only way forward I think is to do the impossible in normal DND games - split the party. As solo play however, splitting the party I would think is probably wanted, especially if you want to spend more time developing one character. Soloplay means you’re completely free to do so as there aren’t no other players that needs to sit there for multiple sessions doing nothing. I would think splitting the party is really a definite advantage playing solo than not. 

I’d been a bit elaborate in thinking about each character’s motivation, more as an Author. As just a solo player, I could’ve rolled on Mythic or use the character sheets to determine the actions of the characters to see what happens. Just pointing out there is that freedom.

“Well, if we can’t fight them, join them.”Weird Elf shrugged and walked over to the Empress with his hands up. 

“W-wait! What do you mean? She’s committing treason!” Filli  looked on incredulously as Yankovic started walking towards the Empress.

“I need your word though, even if the the others don’t join me. I want you to make sure they can leave unharmed,” he said.

“Fine. One out of three is better than none.” The Empress turned without another bat of an eye.

Weird Elf at least came back and patted Filli and Zar on their shoulders, but actually leaned in to whisper to the both of them, “I’ll be back after I learn a bit more from her royal highness’s library.”

As the guards started to retreat, Filli and Zar turned to each other. Zar signed and asked, “Yankovic has a plan, I think. He can take care of himself. What do we do now?”

The two started walking in the other direction, with Filli riding on top of Fido, “I don’t really know. I mean, ever since we started this cave dive, we’d just been at the coliseum or the estate as gladiators. We can go back to the city or -”

I’d though about asking Mythic, or beginning a new scene, but it’s probably more realistic that the Empress would renege on her words. I made Zar and Filli do a DEX saving throw, the former got a Nat 1 and and the latter a 19. I was wondering if I should do a chase scene or something to separate the characters, but I think this negates the need for it. I also haven’t really experienced many good chase mechanics to use despite the PHB having some blurb about it. Maybe another time.

Two arrows came out of nowhere from behind the two that halted their conversation. Filli was able to react quick enough to dodge out of the way but the other landed on Zar’s back right at the back of his leg as he fell to the ground.

“Run!” Zar roared and punched the semi- sentient Fido, carrying Filli off in a lurch forward like any spooked horse would. “I should’ve known not to trust that woman. Keep running! There are too many of them just for the two of us! Just run and I’ll meet up with you later!”

Filli knew Zar was speaking the truth in that there would be no way they could take down a squadron of private guards, but definitely lying that Zar could escape. However, Fido was already hundreds of feet away from Zar before Filli recovered on the mount. Filli turned Fido around but at this point, a wall of guards appeared from both sides of the path they were on in an ambush that separated them. If Zar had not spurred Fido forward, both of them would have been encircled and surrounded.

Filli already heard Zar’s roar as the fight started inside the circle of guards that Filli could not see. At the outer wall though, the guards started advancing towards Filli, pushing him and Fido off the path and deeper into the woods. Before long, he was surrounded on all sides, with just a cliff behind him. 

“You’d better survive Zar!" Filli shouted to his comrade regardless of whether he could hear him, and jumped with Fido off the cliff, hoping he would land in the river below. 

Scene close-out:

• Chaos factor down to 6 because in a way, they had broken off the chase from when they escaped Jasper’s estate. 
• No change to threads, so maybe this scene wasn’t too successful…

Post-scene Notes

The last section was mostly exposition on how I plan to round off this campaign. To be honest, I admit this particular trip had gone on for far too long for it having started as me just wanting to add more battles. Just part of the learning experience with solo play that campaigns runs away with you. I think I tried to do too much tying in Zar’s and Yankovic’s backgrounds. Thanks again for reading.