Tales of Escia

TALES OF ESCIA: Running an OSE Hexcrawl 08

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 08 - Of hostages and demigods

TL’DR: The party bought the hostages’ freedom and were in for a divine surprise on the way back to Margrave Keep.

Negotiations

After a few hours of waiting, the party was picked up by the guard they met the day before and brought to the meeting with the hobgoblin chieftain.
The meeting was held in the common room after dinner, and after the tables were emptied, Melora and Myr’tacae found themselves alone with five hobgoblins: the chieftain and his four wives - one of which was lying head down on the table, snoring rather loudly.
The chieftain himself was rather open-minded about reestablishing positive relations with Margrave Keep, although he insisted ransoming back the hostages.
The wife nearest to him, and next to the sleeping one, was not so agreeable; trying to convince him of their current course. But, being outargumented four-to-one, her defense of concerns and fear mongering quickly crumbled, and she admitted defeat.
When being confronted with her overtly agressiveness, she admitted semi-regular contact to a man dressed in black robes - someone who tried to contact the chieftain, but was turned down because he found them too suspicious.
The chieftain confirmed the beginning of the discourse in the demihuman camp as corresponding with the time the man in black started visiting the different folks living there, while his wife described him as being overly nice and giving out presents, showing a silver bracelet to the group.
After agreeing about the ransom, Makkad brought the party to the room where the hostages were held, as the chieftain needed to adress another emerging problem: A scout matching the description of the dead hobgoblin in the goblin storage was reported missing and the camps guards suspect the neighboring orcs as the culprits. Makkad and the party exchanged glances, but otherwise kept their silence.

Freeing the hostages

At the prison, they found the halfling merchants wife, Pearl, as well as another halfling introducing himself as Sandy Honeyman, an obnoxiously positive jam vendor, a human called Loren Ipson who speaks only gibberish, as well as three religious breggles who went on to praise St. Marcia for their timely rescue.
The party agreed to escorting the six ex-hostages back to the keep, agreeing to depart as soon as possible.
Makkad gifted them a small chest containing some coins and a small wooden wand for their help, as well as the leftovers of the sleeping herbs, before they left.

Late night festivities

On the way back to Margrave Keep, the dice indicated another random encounter for the night - “a demigod or his avatar”.
After turning in for the night, the travelling group noticed rythmic music and chanting slowly growing louder from all around them and when Myr’tacae went to investigate, she discovered a human-looking man and an entourage of fauns surrounding a campfire in jolly celebration.
When she tried to back away and return to the camp, the fauns noticed her and gaily approached her.

Closing thoughts

Melora and Myr’tacae are on the way to complete their first major quest - Pearl walks free once again!.
The talks with the hobgoblin chieftain were largely in their favor, as the remaining traditionalist wife had little to pressure him with when she found herself cornered by her opposition. Nevertheless, she gave some more insight in what is going on in the recent past events.
Most of the hostage NPCs were taken from Gig Economy, a neat little supplement containing 200 retainers, hirelings and henchmen. I’m having a lot of fun with them, especially Loren Ipson, who just recites the Lorem Ipsum text but otherwise seems to be a decent fellow.
We also had a lot of fun with Melora trying to bond with Sandy Honeyman over her love for apiculture and him dead-pan not being into it, despite his name.
The divine random encounter ended the session on an unexpected note and I’m excited to see how Myr’tacae reacts to the requests and whims of what is basically a being possessing awesome power, but the temper of a five-year-old.

See you next time. =)