Tales of Escia

TALES OF ESCIA: Running an OSE Hexcrawl 03

Player Characters

Melora Kriss - Human Druid
Myr’tacae Malenia - Elf Fighter

The Premise

As explained in my previous article, we’re running a modified version of Old-School Essentials in a minimalist romantic fantasy setting, which will be fleshed out as we play.
We began with our first session of B2 - Keep on the Borderlands and decided on a bi-weekly rhythm every second wednesday evening, playing for 2 hours.

For the play report of the previous session, click here.

Session 03 - Of Baboons and Celebrations

TL’DR: The party decided to return to Margrave Keep to restock on supplies and find way to store the unexpectedly heavy treasure chest they found. They rescued a malnourished goblin from a hoard of baboons and found the keep in a state of week-long celebration: Duke Albanns heir had been born the day before.

Monkey Business

After the group found a heavy chest full of coin in an abandoned Thieves Guild hideout, they decided to return to Margrave Keep for the time being, to resupply and store their newfound wealth.
The dice indicated a random encounters for the day and my table result was ‘Troop of 10×1d4 baboons. Might grab and run.’. The d4 came up a 3, so 30 baboons - a whole harem.
The day before play, I realized that my prepwork offered the players no real opportunity to find the demihuman settlement yet, which is a hex’s secret location and requires third-party knowledge to discover. In light of that realization, I decided to use the baboon encounter to make up for that, and had the baboons harass a malnourished goblin by playing piggy in the middle with a loaf of bread.
The PCs were sympathetic with the goblin, but the prospect of having to fight 30 baboons was daunting. Melora came up with an idea of holding the monkeys with her Entagle spell, grabbing the goblin and making a run for it. Since all of the baboons were standing in a circle around the goblin, I ruled that the spell would be able to affect all of them, including the goblin.
With their focus being solely on the ppor goblin, the baboons were surprised by the sudden plant growth and only 10 out of 30 made the save. Being generally cowardly creatures with a morale rating of 5, I found it reasonable to have them check for morale right away, and all of them failed, causing the non-entangled baboons to run away and the entangled ones too scared to act, as Myr’tacae walked right up to the goblin and carried it to safety.

Dandelion

Shaking with fear but to weak to put up a fight, the goblin surrendered to its fate immediately. After being offered some honey and rations, it revealed its name, Dandelion, and told Merlora and Myr’tacae about the goblins plight at the demihuman settlemend: their storage had been plundered and they haven’t been able to find the culprit, leaving the whole clan hungry and desperate. He asked if the party might want to help him out and would offer the location of the settlement if they agreed and procured some food for his clan.
As they were being on their way to restock supplies anyway, the party agreed and took Dandelion with them to the keep, asking him to hide somewhere nearby and wait for them to return.

Party All Day Long

Arriving at the keeps gate, the party was held up by an obviously drunk guard. He explained that news of Duke Albanns newborn son had arrived at the keep the day before and a ten day long celebration had been ordered in light of this joyful event.
Much of the keep had been decorated and several bands were filling the streets with music, with nary a resident being sober.
Melora and Myr stopped by the provisioner first and found Cori to be an exception, voicing his concern about the keeps apparent vulnerability during the celebration. He offered his wares and suggested the party hire some help to carry their equipment and deposit some of their money at the Guild Houses bank to keep it safe. Stocked up with extra rations for the goblin clan, they went to the blacksmith next to have the shield repaired.

Guild Advertising

At the Guild House, the party met the local guild master, a male halfling called Cassyon Button, who explained the basics of depositing gold at the bank and how guilds worked in the earldom.
Cassyon asked if the player characters might want to join one and become subject to all the advantages of being a guild member, we talked about Meloras background as a beekeper and established that she was technically a member of the Saltmarsh beekepers guild, now on the run.

Off to new adventures

With their gold safely deposited, the party decided to call it a day and went to the inn.
The next morning, Myr picked up her order at the blacksmith and they met up with Dandelion, who told them the location of the demihuman settlement.
Or, as the residents of Margrave Keep would call it: the CAVES OF CHAOS.

Closing thoughts

I love random encounter tables. The whole session could have gone totally different if I had gotten another result.
Whether its ol’ reliable 2d6 goblins or something like the 107 mountain dwarves encounter from Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, random encounters make the world feel alive, especially if they’re not designed with combat as the default solution. Combine them with activity and reaction tables, you’ve got the potential to fill a whole session and lay the groundwork for future adventures.

I’ve come to structure of my random encounter tables based on Papers and Pencils blog post, where 2 is always a dragon and 12 is always a wizard and gave it an Escia-specific spin by adding a potential demigod encounter to the list:

2. Dragon
   
3. Territory
   
4. Territory
   
5. Territory
   
6. Territory
   
7. Recurring Character
   
8. Universal Threat
   
9. Universal Threat
   
10. Universal Threat
    
11. Demigod or their Avatar
    
12. Wizard
    

For every type environment there’s a day- and a nighttime table, with entries 3-6 containing encounters depending on the environment and hex contents (we’re in hillside territory right now) and 8-10 containing mainly encounters with local factions like the Knights of the Blue Shield, the Knights of the Golden Promise and others.
Encounters not rooted in hex contents or factions were filled with entries from Skerples brilliant Monster Overhaul.
Adding a demigod encounter to the list felt right after I read Rise Up Comus’ article about greek gods just being high level PCs. So in every random encounter there’s a chance of engaging with one of the 9 demigods or their avatar, possibly gaining their favor or pissing them off.

So for example, my daytime hillside table looks like this:

2. Dragon (Sruthkin form XXXX)
   
3. The Manticore from XXXX, looking for prey. (hex content)
   
4. 2d6 starving Lions stalk 1 Elephant. Might switch to easier prey or remember assistance. (Monster Overhaul)
   
5. 4d6 Addercapper Raiders from 0902, looking for easy money. (hex content)
   
6. Troop of 10×1d4 Baboons. Might grab and run. (Monster Overhaul)
   
7. Recurring Character (separate table)
   
8. 1 Griffon surrounded by 10×1d10 Knights of the Blue Shield, hoping to capture and tame it. (faction)
   
9. 3d10 Knights of the Waving Banner, patroling the road. (faction)
   
10. 2d6 Bandits, harassing a merchant and his cart.(universal threat)
    
11. Demigod or their Avatar (separate table)
    
12. Wizard (Stepladder Burke from XXXX and his pet lion)
    

See you next time. =)