The Balance and the Girl

This is an adventure I played in two game fairs, organized by local shops here in Athens, last December and which I named (exaggerating a bit I think) "The balance and the girl". It is supposed to be an introductory adventure trying to catch some aspects of Law, Balance and Chaos. Most of the players where new to the game, and they found it quite amusing. I hope you'll forgive my English.

If you have any questions you can write me at nmoshon@softlab.ece.ntua.gr .

Background on Troos

The following information can be given partly as own knowledge to the players and partly as a result of research.

A great mystery covers the forest of Troos and the general area of Org. Even its own presence makes a great contradiction with the barren land that surrounds it. According to rumors, the forest is very old, older than the holy states of Vilmir and Ilmiora, older than Melnibonean Empire, even older than the time that the first human put his foot on earth. The opinions of the relationship between the Melniboneans and the forest are many and contradicting, while they agree at one point; both are spawns of Chaos.

After the emancipation of Northern Continent, Troos was comprised in the state of Vilmir. The governors and the holy men of the new kingdom showed interest in the area and a group of woodcutters and investigators was sent, in order to clear the land and search for truths that an
ancient place would hide. None of them came back. An army was sent immediately after, but they had the same fate. After that the area was blockaded and guard points were set around the border with the purpose not to let anyone go in or come out of the forest. The name Org was given to the area, taken from the cries of some repulsive creatures that were known to live there. The creatures look while humanoid, look more like a blasphemy of humanity.

A research in the library of the Church could reveal references on the forest in Melnibonean manuscripts thousands of years old. It seems also that the Menliboneans were not responsible for the creation of it. Even though many of the clergy have different opinion.

The caravan route goes through the northern part of Org and is the fastest way of communication between three states (Vilmir, Ilmiora, Weeping Waste) and many cities.

Another story

It is a warm summer evening of the year of purity 373. The initiate priest and nephew of the Vilmirian king Calvan Fornova lays on the bed in his tower in Jadmar, next to his servant-girl Anna and he is already sorry. The worst is yet to come.

Anna was pregnant, but she was no servant-girl. The young warrior-priestess of Phum received a prophesy of a birth. It spoke of a birth of a child that would help dearly the cause of the Order. The prophesy included a holy man, with royal blood, foreigner to this world. West was another world for the easterners, the rest was hazy for Anna, but then again, so are the prophesies.

After Calvan had known of the pregnancy he became miserable. He was the nephew of the king and he could hope only to the title of duke, already possessed by his father. The clergy offered him another opportunity for further advance, but after the recent revelations everything he possessed and even his family name was in danger. He could not marry a lesser woman and he could not "remove" them since it would have been a mortal sin. So, after the advice of Chancellor (someone like Cardinal) Pedron he put Anna in a women's monastery. The whole thing hadn't gone beyond the circle of him, his father and the Chancellor, so he could forget it for some time. He had to drop his priest status though.

When the birth came, Anna gave the newly born girl to a nun and asked her to take to Calvan. After that she disappeared from the monastery and traveled back to the East. According to the prophecy she would have to leave the child behind for six years. The first part of her quest was over and she would leave the rest to Fate.

With the child back in his hands Calvan became a ghost of his former self. He wanted to get rid of the spawn of his sin and suddenly the gods gave him the solution. At that time a strange black man (Erekose) had visited the city. He showed no respect to the gods and the authorities put him into prison. Calvan found his salvation in this man. He was an outsider with no interest in money and civilization. He had a strange accent and though he wouldn't say where he was coming from the only thing he wanted was to go away. That was ideal for Calvan who offered him the baby. Refusing any money he took the infant, went away and no man learned anything of him again.

That was for six years. It is now 379 YK. A caravan, in which Count Calvan Fornova had himself financial interest, was attacked by the beast-men of Org. That was three months ago. During the night-fight engaged by the surprised guards, one of them was chased into the forest and became lost. After a blind run he fainted and wounded as he was he would die, but a miracle happened and was saved. He awakened in a hut in the middle of the forest. Nobody thought that humans, save evil minions of Chaos dwelled in the forest, but there was his savior.

This was Erekose who had retreated in Troos, away from humans and gods. He had a little girl with him. The girl was maybe even stranger than the silent old man. With black hair around a moon-shaped face, her round black eyes were piercing and oddly knowing. The mercenary guard spent most of his time in the forest in a comatose situation and does not remember much. The black man helped him out of the forest and after he recovered he had a story to tell.

Calvan heard the story and felt the old demons along with new ones to come back to him. How had the black man survived the place? Maybe he was a wizard preparing the child as a nemesis for him; maybe the girl would come back and ask for her righteous heritage, or maybe the gods where testing him? Anyway he had to know and here is where (at last) the players come in. One of them should be the mercenary, in order to guide them; another can be a priest, particularly a young and romantic one. Due to the humid environment of the forest and the swamps that can be found in it, a barbarian hunter of the Weeping Waste can be of some help. They found someone, a slave along with his mother at the mines of Dolgar that can undertake the task with the exchange of their freedom. Finally, some other lowlife can be drawn from the prisons, or from the list of would-be arrested (a suspected witch, a thief, or both). These people (the players) will be traced by servants of Calvan and agents of the Chancellor.

A warm summer day these people will meet each other at the office of the Chancellor of Jadmar; Calvan will be in there. Chancellor Pedron will talk to them of a secret expedition to Troos that wants them to undertake. Calvan will tell them that he had made a mistake in the past and now
he wants the child back (actually he isn't planning to keep the child but to put it in a monastery or something like that). The Chancellor will explain the other side of the journey that he has in mind. The priest must keep a diary and take notes of everything of importance to the Church they find in Troos. Many truths concerning Law and the history of humanity could be waiting to be revealed in the ancient forest (Insight rolls may reveal that Calvin is more upset than interested in the fate of the child, also that the Chancellor is a very intelligent man whose interest in the welfare of the Church and the state is beyond doubt). The Leader of the expedition, which is to be kept a secret, is supposed to be the priest.

The adventurers are to be guided, until they reach the forest, by two servants of Calvan and by another priest. It is Summer time and the weather is warm. They need about 9 days to reach the guard posts outside Org.

On the road (Atlas of the Young Kingdoms, vol. 1)

Not all the details are given here, just basic descriptions I considered important. These can, of course, be altered, or others can be added to them at the option of the GM.

Duchy of Rignarion

Marble Highways, windmills and endless fields with weak plants. Hints of drought. The farmers look very poor and underfed.

The city, the granite palace, the golden pyramid-temple. Also, the beggars. The adventures are supposed to know about the statue of the prophet Vil Vilario and the supposed miraculous powers of it. Nevertheless, only known followers of Law can be granted with immediate entry in the Gardens. The priest is the obvious candidate to that.

If the priest sleeps under the statue, he will be visited by a dream. The dream starts with him in a misty and dark place. He will see the form of an unknown woman and she will call him. He will follow (ask him if he does), and will find him self in a dark room. Light is provided by a glowing object which possesses the center of the room. It is a large golden scale, taller than a man. The woman form is nowhere to be seen.

The golden scale doesn't balance perfectly. Instead, it bends a bit towards the left side. Suddenly he will feel something in his right hand that he hadn't notice before. Ii is a small oval black stone, plain but strangely beautiful. The scale seems to be unbalanced and the stone looks like
the stones used by the merchants to weight the products they sell. Whether he puts the stone on the left or on the right side of the scale, destruction is the result. The scale collapses with a deafening sound on the floor. A feeling of ultimate guilt overwhelms him.

The dream is a prophecy of the future dilemma that the adventures will face. The message of it is that they should not try to upset the balance. Of course, they may never understand it.

On the countryside again; the road offers depressing views of the never ending planes.

One of the stops is a monastery. It is a tower-like building with a large yard where gray-dressed nuns work and praise Donblas. Shelter will be given to them due to the presence of the two priests. Anna will be there, pretending the young nun. After dinner and during the sleep she will
approach someone of the adventurers (the one she thinks more likely to support her) and explains that the mother of the child exists and longs for it. She also tells him/her that she would need him/her to support her when the time comes. The approach can happen during the confession of one of the players, somewhere in the monastery halls, or in his/her cell. Anna would do whatever she thinks is necessary to take him/her with her side, but she will not use violence.

After a few days, when they will be on a country road, they will be approached by a hunched-back old woman. She pretends to be a religious devoted one (actually she is Anna under a Linken Shape spell) and will offer to the two priests one of the two breads she carries. Only critical Insight roll will reveal that there is something suspicious about her. Anyway, the other priest will take the bread. Actually it has a sleeping drug (POT 16). Who ever fails the CON vs. POT roll, will fall asleep in half an hour. Anna does this to get rid of the escorts of the adventurers. She approaches the camp in the night wearing a peasant-woman dress and without signs of her Chaos-worshiping nature. She wakes all the adventures up and tells them her story. She tells them that she is the mother and that she was parted of her child because the Duke was afraid of the scandal. She says that the Duke will never acknowledge the girl as his, that he only wants to avoid the noise around it and that he will probably have it exiled or killed.

If they ask her how she knows all these things, she will reply that she has conducted an investigation on her own and that she has some friends near the Duke. Insight rolls will show her true interest at the child, and that she is a very intelligent and canning person that can hardly be just a peasant girl.

Next day-an encounter. Sometime during the day they will encounter a band of ragged-bearing, cloaked people walking in column. The man on the head of the column is bearing a censer and he is mumbling something that may be a chant. A Search roll will reveal that their faces do not look exactly human. A critical Search roll is needed to reveal that they are jut lepers. The lepers will not respond in any call, since they are under an oath of silence. The priest may understand the situation with an INTx1. He is supposed to have lived in Jadmar and he has no experience of such sightings.

Nadsokor.

They will have to pass through this land in order to enter Org from the west border. Sightings of beggars might occur. The beggars may be a threat, people just asking for some food, or just observers.

The next stop, and final stop for their guides, is a watch tower at the western border of Org. The soldiers can help them and their animals cross the river. They may choose to cross it from a point further to the north, but Valkark is a wide and deep river. The soldiers will not give them a boat.

Org (Atlas of the YK, vol. 1)

The road to the forest.

According to their information the hut of the old man is somewhere between two marshes, the Sucking Swamp and Mudmere. The best way, in my opinion, to start, is to follow the river, (which flows along the western side of the forest), to the north until they reach the Sucking Swamp and enter the forest from there. The description that follows is based on this schedule. It may be left to the players to discover the less dangerous way, or the GM could propose it.

The trip along the eastern bank of the river to the north lasts about three or four days (with horses). The weather is warm and at the beginning of the journey they are met by warm winds. The weak grass and some rocky hills on the west contrast with the rich flora of the eastern bank
(willows, great poplar trees, bushes and tall grass) and even more with the main bulk of the forest which lies a few kilometers east. Very few birds live on the trees of the eastern bank.

The trip takes them further to the north. Day by day the vegetation becomes thicker and the unrecognizable plants more frequent. On the third day they a feeling that they are watched will possess them. It will not leave them until after they have left the forest.

At the Swamp

The river leads to the Sucking Swamp, which provides a sight of desperation. It is an endless flat area of black mad, bogs and a few very lonely swamp trees emerging from the gray waters. With an INT check, they can observe that there are no birds at this place.

No more than 20 miles separate them from the hut. Considering the thick vegetation of the forest, someone could cover the distance, on foot or with a horse, in two days, if he/she knew the exact place where the hut is. Daily Navigate rolls from the mercenary will be needed in order to keep moving towards the right direction.

In the green hell

The vegetation of Troos is weird, of completely unknown species and grows to supernatural proportions. The forest itself, is a very dark bulk in the midst of almost desert land and its blasphemous flora looks like a mockery of gods, humanity, even nature. Sometimes it seems like it is one
inseparable malevolent being. The GM should create the eerie atmosphere of the forest and give the players the feeling that they are in constant danger. The forest is of course dangerous by itself and apart from Orgians does not host any other form of intelligent life, or even fauna. The characters do not know that. It is said that demons and ghosts haunt the forest, and this is all they know. For a more complete description see "Atlas of the YK, vol.1".

They can take the horses with them, or not. Movement is a difficult and tiring process and the horses can only serve as pack animals. The animals are nervous and get easily frightened, throwing off burden and riders. With or without animals, it will take them 1d6+1 days to find the
second swamp and the hut (or the same time for Erekose to find them). Every day GM should roll the following checks:

a) Check for madness (Atlas of the YK)

b) Check for bogs. The leader should roll under POWx3, in order to avoid falling in a bog.

c) Check for drinking water. A successful Natural World roll is needed. Failing that the water will be harmful (POT 8+1d6) and drinking it may cause stomach problems. Assuming they have fresh water, check every 3 days.

d) Check for burning woods. The one who looks for them should roll under his (Natural World)/2 skill, or under POWx2, in order to find and cut some harmless burning woods. In a different case roll 1d8:

1): The root lash out and hurt the woodcutter for 1d6+1 points of damage.
2): The juice of the woods cause itching for a whole day (-20% in every roll) and the smoke from the campfire smells awful.
3): The bark is extremely hard and rolling under STRx5 results in breaking the axe.
4): The blossoms of the tree shoot seeds (a POWx2 is needed to avoid being sprayed by them). On the next day, and if the roll was unsuccessful, moisture
grows on the skin of the woodcutter causing 1d3 points of damage per day and 1 point loss of Constitution (Erekose can heal it).
5): Acidic juices spray the woodcutter ( POWx4 to avoid being sprayed at the face and a loss of 1 APP) damaging for 1d6 points.
6): Who ever carry the pieces of wood gets poisoned (POT 13) and gets skin eruptions.
7): Madness of Troos (no CON check).
8): Encounter with a dead tree that looks like a body, but nothing else happens.

(cont.)