Events Leading to Adventure

Background

The flow of Five Leagues from the Borderlands is that you do "Preparation" in town or camp, by going shopping, doing odd jobs, hunting for food, and the like.  Some random events happen while you're doing this.  Then, you go out adventuring.

Adventuring may involve traveling to a new location, exploring a feature of your current place, or just riding around to see what is happening.  Typically (but not always) this will result in a combat against a group of npcs.  

One of the most fun things for me is to create a narrative out of all the randomness.  This isn't going to flow well like a short story, so I think I'll mostly structure it like Garrick's journal.  When I specifically go out of character to explain the game effects, I'll mark it as such.

12th day of Palesun, 1293

We finally arrived in the valley.  The cold on the trip through the mountain pass was terrible on my old shoulder wound, so I haven't been making regular entries here.  Things should be warmer at the lower altitude, so I'll be back to keeping my records.

Of course the blasted fey-blood wasn't bothered by the cold.  She kept bouncing around from rock to rock like she was a child at play.  She's lost some of that energy now that the rest of us aren't freezing, which makes her a lot easier to deal with.

As we approached the village of Mahn, the ever-watchful Dobbin pointed out some kind of an entrance in the side of the nearest mountain.  I could barely see the thing even after he pointed to it, honestly.

There was a shepherd out grazing his sheep, so we asked him about it.  He told us it was an old silver mine that was abandoned after the veins were played out, which was decades ago.  Every once in awhile some idiot goes there hoping to discover a new vein and strike it rich, but they never return.  Who knows what has taken up residence in there now?

We bid farewell to the shepherd, and headed into the village.  We're a bit low on coin, so rather than checking into an inn we reported to the guard barracks.  A lot of these frontier settlements are in need of extra bodies to patrol the streets and surrounding areas, and are willing to give some basic room and board for people willing to help out.  Luckily, that was exactly the case here, and we bedded down for the night.

(Out of character) The group travels to Mahn, and when traveling to a settlement there is no need to make a random travel check.  We do still get some news, which after a few random rolls leads to a new delve.

13th day of Palesun, 1293

We spent most of the day exploring Mahn as we patrolled the streets as temporary members of the guard.  Things were a little bit busy, since apparently today was a big market day as goods were delivered from Kethra.  We looked at a lot of stuff wistfully, but in the end we could only afford a bit of used armor for Campbell.  As our newest recruit to the company, he hasn't had a chance to really gear up, and I want to at least give him a fighting chance.  Literally.

We spent the evening in the barracks drinking with the other guardsmen and swapping stories.  We didn't really learn as much about the area as I'd have liked, but it is always good to make nice with the locals.

14th day of Palesun, 1293

Today, our duties took us on patrol outside the city.  We ran into the same shepherd that told us about the mine, and since everything seemed quiet, spent awhile chatting with him.  I found out his name is Samuel, and he owns the biggest flock in the area, so he's constantly moving around.  He definitely seemed eager for some human contact, and I get the feeling he meets a lot of the travelers that come through.  He might become a valuable source of information on local happenings.

As we headed back into town, we noticed that a large military force was also out patrolling, which probably explains why everything was so quiet.  It does make me wonder what our purpose in going out was, though.

(Out of character)  A typical preparation turn involves a random event, which in this case was that there was a market day.  Then you choose two actions to perform: we assisted the town guard so we don't have to pay upkeep costs, and met the locals drinking to get a "story point" which is a resource used to help out when the dice go against you.  Next, you can sell stuff (nothing to sell, yet) and buy an item, which was us getting the armor.  After that, you can "research" to either check connections or try to discover a hidden location.  The group is a long way from being ready to go after a hideout, so we check connections... but we don't yet have any friends and nothing happens.

(Out of character) Our adventuring phase is to go out on a "ride patrol," which typically results in a combat encounter that is easier on the difficulty scale.  This time, we only encounter a "chatty herder."  We can either ignore him and go for another encounter, or talk to him and make a friend.  Since we've already been burned once by not having any friends, we add him to the list.  Finally, with no battle, the only thing remaining is the news, and a random roll gives that the local army has been patrolling.  This would help with travel, but the company will be staying in this area for a bit so it doesn't matter.

15th day of Palesun, 1293

We set out to patrol the village again today, and some cheeky sod nicked our purse.  We didn't have much coin to begin with, but we lost the last of our gold marks.  I guess we'll be on guard rations for awhile more.

16th day of Palesun, 1293

Eleseth, Dobbin, and I continue to patrol the settlement, but I sent Kurt and Campbell out to do some odd jobs and try to make some cash.  Being totally broke really limits our options.

I also sent Wilfred to talk to the city council to see if there was some job we could do for them.  Apparently, they've noticed cultists in the area, and want to know more information.  We'll ask around town, and if we can rustle up enough news we can earn a bit more money.

17th day of Palesun, 1293

I brought everyone together again to ride a patrol outside of Mahn.  No sign of Samuel today, but we encountered some suspicious individuals poking around a small copse of trees.  Dobbin with his amazing eyesight noticed that their armor is the same style as the military folk we saw a few days ago, but much more unkempt...  Probably deserters.  

Well, this is how we earn our keep...

(Out of character):  Event:  Pickpocket, lose 2 gold marks, which is all we have.  Our town actions:  help the town guard for free upkeep, and do hard work to make a gold mark.  We skip past the buy/sell phase, and our research turns up a contract to investigate a settlement.  Fortunately, the random settlement turns out to be Mahn, so we don't have to travel anywhere to do it.  

(Out of character): For the adventure phase, we again go on a ride patrol, but this time get a battle encounter.  There are several steps to rolling up an encounter, but I'll save that for the next blog entry after we've actually done the fight.