ToC01: A Decent Job [with game notes]

On August 2, 2025August 9, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Fantasy Fiction, Tabletop Roleplaying, Tales of Calvenor2 Comments

Artwork by © anaislalovi. All rights reserved

I.

Frostmere 14, Thornsday, Year 731.

The Heart & Dagger tavern crouched near the lakeshore, its weathered sign showing a bleeding heart pierced by a long, crooked dagger. The sign swung gently in the nighttime breeze, lit by two smoky torches that shimmered hauntingly in the chill, lazy lake mist.

Inside, the tavern was low-ceilinged and lantern-lit, dense with the smells of hearth smoke, stale ale, and spiced fish. The oak beams were blackened with age and soot, and voices echoed off mismatched walls. Dunfolk traders, off-duty Iron Thorn enforcers, and a half-dozen loud drunks all competed to be heard over the constant din. Candle stubs guttered atop crowded tables, their wax pooling on warped old boards.

From a back table, Vessa scanned the entrance for the hundredth time, swearing softly. Her long black hair, tied with a frayed leather cord, revealed a sharp, freckled face. With long, lithe fingers, she absently rubbed at her bent nose, something that had become a nervous habit since the accident that broke it two years ago.

“He’s bloody late,” she murmured to her companion. When it was clear she hadn’t been heard she leaned over and said more loudly, “He’s late!”

“You’re too impatient!” Maelen bellowed back. Where Vessa was lean and wiry, built for balance and speed, Maelen was thick and powerful, built for breaking bones. The woman’s pale, nearly amber eyes flicked from Vessa to the entrance and then down at her half-empty mug. Maelen took a long, loud draught, then wiped the back of a calloused hand across her mouth.

Vessa, irritated, barked back, “And you’re too… too… gah!” She threw up both hands. “We need this, Maelen!”

Maelen’s grin showed more predator than warmth. The scar decorating one cheek tugged when she grinned. “He’ll come, lass.”

A small brown mouse scampered across Maelen’s shoulder and curled into the crook of her elbow. The square-jawed woman’s face entirely transformed as she looked down at it, from hard to soft, like a doting mother. With a thick finger, she stroked the small creature’s head. Tatter the mouse had been Maelen’s only friend when Vessa had first been introduced to her two years ago. Now, she supposed, it was only herself and Tatter, with the rest of their crew gone. It was a dark thought, and Vessa scowled back, rubbing at her crooked nose.

Maelen, meanwhile, pushed herself from their table to go order more ale at the bar, reflexively moving Tatter from elbow to shoulder as she stood. Vessa reached for her own mug, hardly touched, and caught a glimpse of the tattoo of a lark upon the inside of her wrist. The glimpse only made her mood darken. Her whole life was a curse. Damn the Larkhands, all dead but her and Maelen. Damn the Latchkey Circle who’d hired them last year. Damn the incident that had killed her friends and left them in debt, scrabbling for scraps ever since. Damn sneaking jobs outside the watch of the Guilds for pips and spare copper oaks. How had her life come to this at only eighteen years old?

As if reading her thoughts, Maelen returned and cuffed her on the shoulder to bring her back to the present. Vessa rocked to one side from the blow and ale sloshed over the side of her mug.

She opened her mouth to complain when she saw him.

A pale-faced young man in robes stood in the doorway, squinting in the candlelight and looking wholly out of place. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but Vessa saw immediately that his body held none of the hard edges of real work, and none of the menace of someone who knew how to wield a blade. That said, he looked like a priest or scholar, not a privileged merchant or noble. His tunic was brown and simple, tied at the waist with a cord, and his boots were beaten and worn.

“He’s here,” Vessa announced with a slap of the table. In one fluid motion she was out of her chair and weaving through the Heart & Dagger’s maze of tables towards the doorway. When she was already within range of a knife thrust, he finally saw her, gray-green eyes going momentarily wide. Up close, he had a handsome enough face, with heavy brows and an obvious sharp wit. He seemed close to her own age, maybe just under twenty.

Once they’d made eye contact, Vessa turned and waved for him to follow. She paused, though, and cocked an eyebrow when she saw the young man’s first, shuffling step. One of his feet turned inward, the leg thinner than its mate. It looked like a condition from birth rather than injury, but regardless, it gave the man a shuffling, loping gait as he made his way across the common room and to the table with Maelen.

His face shone with sweat as he settled into his chair, his eyes darting between the two women. Vessa had to give him credit, though: She was sure he’d never been to the Heart & Dagger before—maybe not even to this side of the lake—but neither his hands nor lips were trembling, and he met their gaze without flinching, even Maelen’s. He might lack a fighter’s build, but at least he wasn’t a coward.

He leaned forward to say something conspiratorially, but his low voice was lost to the din of the crowd. He frowned, clearing his throat, when he realized the predicament.

“Is there a place we can speak privately?” he asked loudly. His voice was rich and deep.

Maelen gave him that malicious grin of hers. “You can say anything in the Heart & Dagger, lad. Don’t waste our bloody time and get on with it.”

He pursed his lips, clearly not liking the situation, and ran a calloused hand through his thick, brown hair. Vessa knew that she was not the most charming or persuasive person in Oakton, but she may have some of the keenest eyes in the city. This man—who she decided was a Marchlander scribe by trade, and a low-ranking one at that—was a thinker, a planner. He hadn’t expected such a chaotic, noisy conversation and was now adjusting his approach. Vessa could almost see his mind working, like a great water mill. After no more than three heartbeats, he nodded almost imperceptibly and straightened his posture.

“Alright,” he said, leaning forward again but this time speaking so they could hear him. “I need an escort, out of the city and over the western hills. Perhaps two days’ travel, and back. I was told you were available to hire.”

“Out of the city?” Maelen scoffed. “You need a ranger, lad. Do we look like woodsmen to you?”

Vessa shot her companion a sharp look. They needed the coin, desperately. Even the expense of Maelen’s refill of ale gave Vessa heartburn. But her friend just winked at her and fixed her dark grin on the stranger.

“I don’t need a ranger,” he said, nonplussed. Vessa noticed an ink stain on the inside of one finger. “I have a map. What I need is protection,” he nodded to Maelen, “And a thief,” he nodded to Vessa.

So. The scribe had done his homework. This whole situation had the Latchkey Circle’s footprints all over it, but then she supposed all their jobs did since… the incident. Normally, she’d have interrogated him about how he got their names, but she guessed it came through a chain of middlemen. He likely had no idea that he was dealing with one of the most powerful and least known guilds in Oakton, or that she and Maelen were so deep in debt to the Circle that they would accept his job no matter how little it paid.

The man clearly misinterpreted their silence, because he reached into his robe and pulled out a fat purse that he dropped onto the table before them.

“I have coin,” he announced. “One hundred thorns for the job. Sixty now, forty when I’m back here safely.”

Maelen snarled and grabbed the man by the front of his robes, pulling him into half-standing. “You bloody idiot! Lower your voice!”

“But you said–”

“That was before I knew you brought a sack of silver that could get us all gutted,” she hissed, and then released his robe. She nodded to Vessa, who swept the purse off the table and into her lap faster than a blink. It sat there heavily, and she didn’t need to count them to know the coins were indeed thorns, and a lot of them. She nodded back to Maelen.

The scribe looked momentarily confused, straightening his robe. “She took the purse,” he said. “Does that mean you accept?”

Maelen’s eyes scanned the tables around them to see if anyone had overheard or seen the money. Finally, she licked her lips, slapped the table, and stood.

“When do we leave?” she smiled at him, her scar tugging at her cheek and making Maelen look somewhat crazed.

“Oh! Very good. Tomorrow morning?” he also stood. Vessa stayed sitting, the heavy purse weighing on her thighs. “How about we meet at the Root Gate?”

“Done,” Maelen nodded. “Watch yourself getting home, lad, and we’ll see you at first light.”

“My name’s Alric,” he said.

“Don’t care,” Maelen scoffed. Her face hardened as she jerked a thumb to the doorway. “Now get out. We’ll be seeing enough of each other over the next four days.”

“But–” he sighed. “Fine.”

As the young man shuffled his way awkwardly out of the Heart & Dagger, Vessa caught Maelen’s wide smile, displaying her chipped front tooth, and grinned back. Perhaps the Gambler had finally decided to favor them, after all.

We gotta start this new story in a tavern, right? I had this opening scene in my mind when I rolled up the three PCs, with Alric hiring the indebted Vessa and Maelen to accompany him on a quest to find some ruins in the forest. I decided to pool their silver coins from character creation and then have Alric give them over as a first payment (and no, he doesn’t have the second payment, the silly man), which helps establish their starting wealth.

But I’m not working from a prewritten adventure, and so whether they actually go find ruins in the outlying forest is an open question. In fact, my first roll is going to be a fun one: On the Carousing table! Vessa is not what you’d call “responsible with money” and so will blow through some of their newfound wealth before ever meeting up with Alric in the morning.

A few things about carousing in Tales of Argosa: First, it costs at least 20 silvers, so the purse is automatically lighter by a third. Second, it can lead to its own adventures, which could take our opening tale into some unpredictable and wild directions. Let’s see. The Carousing Table is d100, and I roll a 96. That gives me—gulp!—this result:

“Fool’s Dare: While highly intoxicated, a fool’s dare or act of bravado causes you to (i) shave your head, (ii) shave your eyebrows, (iii) pull out a tooth, (iv) kidnap one of the watch’s hounds, (v) steal the watch’s lucky anvil, (vi) kidnap a maligned merchant, hog tie them naked to a horse, then set them loose in the main street. Make a Luck save. On a fail, the guards know it was you (2d6 months prison, 1d6 x 100 sp fine, and kidnapping brand on forearm).

Whoah! Rather than assume that all of that happened, I’m going to roll a d6 for how many of those things occurred on Vessa’s night of revelry. Four. She: a) kidnapped one of the watch’s hounds, b) shaved her head, c) pulled out a tooth, and d) stole the watch’s… something (maybe not an anvil, which is difficult to picture, but something important).

Now we get to the Luck roll, which will be a straight d20 roll versus her current Luck score of 11. She needs a result of 11 or less (everything except attack rolls in Tales is “roll under”), so she has a 55% chance of success here. I roll… 3. Whew. So Vessa will not be actively wanted by the Oakton authorities. She also gains 1 xp for her night of debauchery (for reference, level 2 is at 10 xp). That’s the good news. The bad news is that she’ll start the journey into the forest down a Luck point as, even on a success, the score drops to 10 until she gets a week of rest (i.e. after this quest).

I’ll increase the Mythic Chaos Factor from 5 to 6 for the next time the PCs are together, signaling that they are a little less in control of the plot than they’d want. What does the Chaos Factor do? When I ask Yes/No questions to determine outcomes, the higher the Chaos Factor, the more often the answer is “Yes.” It’s a neat ebb-and-flow mechanic for storytelling that will become evident as we go.

Frostmere 15, Goldday, Year 731.

Vessa woke because someone was licking her face. She groaned and shrank away from the offending tongue. Blinking woozily, Vessa attempted to gain her bearings. She lay atop a straw pallet, and she had that cotton-headed feel, so familiar to her, of a night inhaling too much lotus leaf.

“By the Rootmother,” she wheezed, running a hand over her face. She moved her fingers higher and found only a thin layer of stubble where her hair had been long and tangled the night before.

Vessa sat up straight, blinking. Stubble?

A dog sat a stride away from her, panting happily and tongue lolling. Right. Someone had been licking her face, and it was, apparently, the hound.

She groaned again and ran a palm over her shaved head. Where had her hair gone? And… her tongue probed a gap at the side of her mouth… why was she missing a tooth?

Vessa scanned her surroundings. Other than the dog, she was alone. It appeared that she had not been sleeping on a straw pallet, but simply straw. It was a barn, and not a particularly clean one. She was still clothed in her leathers, which was a blessing, and both shortsword and dagger lay unbuckled nearby. Apparently, she’d come here of her own volition, not been dumped unconscious.

In a flash of panic, she patted her belt but heard the jingle of silver coins. Vessa still had the money from that scribe at the Heart & Dagger, or least most of it. Well, some of it, anyway. The problem with heavy purses, she found, was that she used them for lotus leaf. And drink. And gambling. And brawling. And usually sex. She gently probed her face and neck with long fingers, then stretched. She wasn’t injured, thank the gods, so maybe last night had been more drink and lotus, and less of the rest.

That’s when she felt something else in her pouch, sitting oddly and poking her in the ribs. After some fumbling, she pulled it out and examined it. The item was a heavy piece of polished brass, about the size of a large walnut, shaped into a hexagonal stamp. Its face bore the stylized sigil of Oakton—the Argenoak framed by twin scales—and ringed in delicate, curling script spelling out “By Order of the Castellan.” Its handle was bound in dark, cracked leather to give a firm grip, and the underside was caked with red, waxy residue. A thin iron chain, snapped at the clasp, dangled from a drilled hole in its spine.

A writ-seal? From a clerk of the Castellan? Vessa shook her head, trying desperately to recall the previous evening after the Heart & Dagger. The hound panted its way closer, pressing its head into her hand. She stroked it behind the ears idly, her mind working slowly at the problem of a strange barn, friendly dog, and a government writ-seal.

“Shit!” she exclaimed, startling the animal, who yelped and jumped away, tail between legs.

Vessa buckled on her weapons and started running, the mysteries of the evening forgotten. It had just occurred to her that light had been slanting into the barn from outside. Sunlight.

Wherever she was, it wasn’t the Root Gate. She was late, very late, for the first decent job she’d landed in a year.

Next: Into the woods [with game notes]

Tales of Calvenor: Three Oakton Adventurers

On July 26, 2025August 2, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Fantasy Fiction, Tabletop Roleplaying, Tales of Calvenor1 Comment

Welcome to the second post of my new project, Tales of Calvenor, an amalgam of solo-roleplaying in the background and fantasy fiction in the foreground. If you went on holiday and wonder what the hell happened to Age of Wonders, check out last week’s installment, which gives a broad outline of what I’m doing here and introduces you to the core game system: Tales of Argosa. We have a lot to do today so let’s dive in.

Disclaimer: If you’re only interested in the story and would rather skip the tabletop roleplaying stuff, today is not for you. Check back next week for the first chapter and you can ignore everything below. Today I’m tackling all the juicy game stuff that took many posts in Age of Wonders: I’m rolling up three characters (teaching the system as we go) and discussing any rules tweaks that I’m contemplating.

Welcome, anaislalovi!

Before we jump into the game stuff, I’d like to warmly welcome anaislalovi, the artist who will bring the characters from today to life. Isn’t the cover art on these posts amazing? That’s a stock image I purchased from her DriveThruRPG shop, and is by © anaislalovi, used with permission, all rights reserved (I’ll be adding this same language to the custom photos she’s done of our three protagonists… don’t be a jerk and steal her stuff). Custom artwork, you say? Yes indeedy! See below for more. Thank you, Ana, and I’m thrilled to be working with you!

A Brief Note on the World

Learning from my last project, I picked up the astounding Tome of Worldbuilding from Mythmere Games. Highly recommended. It’s an amazing tool, and really, really helped me nail down what I hope are primary ways this world will come to life for you as a reader and me as a storyteller. Rest assured that I have… um, many pages of deep exploration across various parts of this world that will help ground me as I play and write. Rather than reveal the results of working with the Tome, I’m going to let these details come out in the fiction, starting next week.

Suffice it to say, this is a low-magic fantasy setting. Our story will take place on the continent of Nomun, which translates to “The Known Lands,” and is made up of dozens of principalities sparring along uneasy borders. We’re starting in the Princehold of Calvenor, one of those principalities, on the eastern edge of the continent. More specifically, our story begins in The Redwood Marches, a broad set of settlements around a bay along Calvenor’s coast. Our protagonists all hail from Oakton, a large coastal city in the Marches. That’s a lot of names, but gives you at least the main hierarchy of locations. Each boldface entry above sits within the entry before it.

Introducing Vessa

There are seventeen listed steps in the Tales rulebook for character creation, which sounds like a lot but many of them are simple and quick. Plus, again, it’s a system that’s easy to puzzle out if you’ve played any traditional role-playing game. Let’s dive into our first protagonist…

Step 1 is to roll for Race. I’m going to slant the rolls here, since my setting is dominated by humans. I’ll roll a d10 to begin, with 1-9 being Human. If I roll a 10, I’ll then roll the table as suggested, a d12. I roll a 1. Human it is! Humans are great in ways that will become clear throughout this process.

Next, I roll d66 for Background. What’s a d66? It means rolling 2d6 but instead of adding them, you use one number as a tens integer and the other as a ones integer. I roll 52, which is Street Acrobat! Cool. That grants her (I’m sticking with at least two of the three characters being female) a +1 Dexterity (max 16), the Acrobatics skill (which grants a +1 bonus to relevant checks and allows for using a precious Reroll on failed checks), and a 10’ pole. Okay that last one is my least favorite old-school item because of how immersion-breaking it is for me, but we’ll make it work.

Step 3 is generating Attributes by “rolling 3d6 seven times and allocate the results in order to Str, Dex, Con, Int, Perc, Will, and Cha. You must have at least one attribute of 13 or higher and another of 15 or higher. If not, increase one attribute of your choosing to 13, and/or one to 15, as required. You may then also swap any two Attribute scores, if desired.”

Here we go! Strength 13, Dexterity 12, Constitution 9, Intelligence 10, Perception 17 (!), Willpower 16 (!), Charisma 9. Wow, those are some amazing rolls. From the rulebook, high Perception means “your character has excellent aim, a sixth sense for danger, and notices subtle details.” I’ll keep that high, but swap my Dex and Will scores, giving her a Dexterity of 16 and Willpower of 12. Because she’s Human, she gets an additional +1 to a single score, not to exceed 16. I’ll give it to Constitution, slightly increasing her hit points. She’ll now have a +3 modifier to Perception, +2 to Dexterity checks, a +1 for Strength, and no negative modifiers. Wheee!

Step 4, based on the rolls so far, I choose my Class. The two that make the most sense are Ranger, which relies on Perception and is a ranged specialist, and Rogue, which relies on Dexterity and backstabbing. Given her Background, Rogue feels like the obvious choice. That gives me a bunch of class abilities, equipment, skills, and such as detailed below.

As with all first level characters, her Luck is 11 and Dark & Dangerous Magic (DDM) score is 1 (more on what this score means if she ever tries to cast a spell or interact with a magic item). Because she’s Human, she gains 2 Rerolls. What are Rerolls? Exactly as you’d expect, though we’ll get into these more during play.

The next three steps are calculated scores. Her Initiative is the average of her Int and Dex scores, rounded down, so 13. Her Hit Points, as a Rogue, are her Con score + Levelx2, which is 12. And her Death Save score is 10 + either her Con or Will modifier, whichever is greater. Both are zero, so she has a score of 10.

Step 9 involves tallying her Skills. She already has Acrobatics, and being a Rogue automatically adds Stealth, Sleight of Hand, and Traps & Locks, all of which are self-explanatory. In addition, she rolls d10 for three additional skills and I roll: General Lore, Gather Info, and Apothecary. Those first two make sense: She’s streetwise and good at rumormongering. I’ll have to think about why she’s also a decent healer.

Probably the most fun step is Class Abilities. As a Rogue, she’ll gain a) Backstab, which helps her ambush and assassinate her foes, b) Finisher, which helps her pick off injured foes, and c) two Tricks: Glue Pot and Cat’s Grace, each of which can be used once at 1^st level (she can regain these uses on rests).

In terms of Gear, Tales of Argosa uses a modern system of Gear slots. She gains half her Str (5) each in Battle Gear (things that can be accessed in combat) and Pack Gear (things that can be accessed outside of combat) slots. All characters begin with a bedroll, torch, tinderbox, and rations, all in Pack Gear. She also has that 10’ pole, plus thieves’ tools, leather armor, a shortsword, and dagger thanks to her Background and Class. That takes up all her Pack Gear slots and 3/5 Battle Gear ones. I’d like to get her a ranged weapon because of that sweet Perception bonus, but with only 10 starting silver coins, she’ll have to wait.

We’re in the final stretch of character creation! Her Armor Class is 10 +1 for leather armor and +2 for her Dex modifier, for a total of 13. Her Attack bonus is 0 as a Rogue, +1 for melee and +3 for ranged thanks to Str and Perc, respectively. Meanwhile, her Age is 1d20+16 years. I roll 2, so she’s 18 years old. So young for this life of danger!

I have a custom name generator for this land, and her name is Vessa Velthorn. Some nice alliteration there. Per the rulebook’s suggestion, I’ll roll on the Tales of Argosa hireling personality and traits tables for inspiration. Oh my! She’s a “lotus addict” (hello explanation for Apothecary!) and has a broken nose. A true rogue through and through, I’d say.

The final, seventeenth step of character creation is Party Bonds, which we can’t do until we have a party.

See? Easy stuff. Even having never made a single Tales of Argosa character before, the game is elegant and the rulebook easy to follow. Here’s how her character sheet looks after this process, plus anaislalovi’s awesome depiction:

Welcome to the team, Vessa! Let’s see who she’s facing danger alongside…

Introducing Alric

For our second character, let’s return to Step 1. I roll a d10 for Race and get 8, another Human. A d66 for Background gets me 55: Scribe! That’s a +1 to Int (16 max), the General Lore skill, and a parchment & ink in gear. Already very different from Vessa! Love it. I’ll also make this a man to shake things up a bit.

General Attributes do a lot to define the character, of course. I roll 11 Strength, 7 Dexterity, 12 Constitution, 11 Intelligence, 14 Perception, 11 Willpower, and 13 Charisma. Excellent. I’ll swap Perception and Intelligence, which with his +1 makes 15 Int. I’ll also add the +1 from being Human to Willpower. That means his only positive modifiers are +2 Intelligence and +1 Charisma, with -1 Dexterity. Not impressive by any means but he meets the minimum standards. What’s up with that Dex? My son was born with club feet, so that’s the first explanation that popped into my head, and that’s how I’ll explain his Dex score.

Next is Class, and I believe we’ve found our Magic User for the party. Or maybe… Just kidding. We love spellcasters, so if there’s a chance for a Magic User, a Magic User he shall be.

His Luck, Rerolls, and DDM are the same as Vessa (11, 2, 1). His Death Save is 10, also the same. His Initiative is a nice, average 11. He has an impressive (for a Magic User) 13 Hit Points.

Skills-wise, he gains Arcane Lore and Apothecary, and he gets three more determined randomly: Detection, Divine Lore, and Stealth. Interesting. This guy certainly fits as a scholar: So much Lore. What’s up with the Stealth, though? Sneaking through the scroll stacks to steal forbidden knowledge, perhaps?

In Class Abilities, a Magic User gets… spells! At first level, he’ll know two spells based on d100 rolls: Sever Arcanum (basically Dispel Magic) and Cradle of Formlessness (basically Gaseous Form). Weird! He can cast one spell per rest at first level, whichever one he wants each time. He also can, twice per adventure, use Sense Magic (basically Detect Magic).

Next is Gear, and thanks to 11 Str our Magic User has the same gear slots as our Rogue. Two of those five Battle Gear slots go to a spellbook and a longsword (I see you, Tales!). Meanwhile, all the Pack Gear slots are taken thanks to the same bedroll, torch, rations, tinderbox, and parchment & ink. Like Vessa, he’ll have leather armor.

…Which is good, because his Armor Class is 10 +1 for the armor and -1 for Dex. That 10 AC is scary. No Attack Bonuses, but he does have a few languages: Calvenor (i.e. common) and two others that I’ll figure out later. Age-wise, he is 3+16… 19! A young crew. I was picturing him as significantly older up until that roll.

In fact, now that I know that he’s a teenage scribe just finding his way into magic, his longsword makes less sense. I love the idea of a mage with a real weapon, but I’m going to give him the silver for the sword and then spend 1sp on a boring old, stereotypical Gandalf staff.

Who is this magical dabbler? His name is Alric Mistsong, a club-footed young man who is, according to random tables, quite blunt (that will be fun to write!). I’m curious how he and Vessa know one another, but we’ll get to Pact Bonds after our final protagonist.

Here are Alric’s character sheet and portrait:

Introducing Maelen

Let’s meet our final PC! Once again, we begin with a roll for Race and get another 8. Easy Squeezy… even without my tilted, homebrewed odds, all three protagonists are Human.

For Background I roll a 24, which is Brigand! That will give her (yes, back to a female character) +1 to Strength (max 16), the skill Stealth, and, hilariously, a wine flask. The dice have created a really balanced party if this one can handle fighting.

To that end, here come the Attribute rolls: 12 Strength, 14 Dexterity, 11 Constitution, 12 Intelligence, 12 Perception, 11 Willpower, 11 Charisma. That’s about the most average, even rolling I’ve ever done in a “roll down the line” set of scores. Funnily enough, it also doesn’t meet the minimum requirements of at least one 15 or higher. The rulebook allows me to then bump one of my choice to 15, which will obviously be Str. With the Background bonus, that makes her Strength 16. I then have a +1 from being Human, which I’ll add to Constitution. Great.

Class feels obvious. It’s a Fighter, right? I suppose she could have also been a Barbarian, or even a Monk. But yeah… she’s a Fighter, and can definitely “handle fighting.”

Once again, Luck, Rerolls, and DDM are 11, 2, and 1. Her Initiative is a respectable 13. Thanks to her Class, her Hit Points are a more-than-respectable 16. Her Death Save is 11.

Next, we turn to Skills. She already has Stealth (something all three characters have… maybe I’ll build in some infiltration somehow into their adventures), and being a Fighter adds Leadership, Athletics, and three rolled randomly: Gather Info (also there for all three!), Animal Lore, and Traps and Locks. Yep, she’s definitely a scoundrel.

What Class Abilities do Fighters receive? First, she’s Adaptable, able to access multiple fighting styles. She begins with two (her Str modifier) styles: Two-Hander (gains “advantage” when rolling damage) and Opportunist (can get a second attack when a foe drops to zero HP). Like spells, she can use one of these abilities per rest. Her second ability is Deadly Strikes, expanding her crit range to 19-20. Cool!

Her starting Gear as a Fighter is, of course, slanted towards bloodshed. She has a whopping 8 slots each for Battle Gear and Pack Gear. In terms of Battle Gear, she begins with a longsword and shield, but I’m not loving a shield for a brigand who wields a sword two-handed, so I’m going to eschew it and give her the 20 silver pieces instead. She also gains a chain shirt. For Pack Gear, she has the standard array of bedroll, torch, rations, and tinderbox, plus that wine flask. Might she buy something else? For now, I’ll give her a dagger for 1sp. After that, I’ll have to think about whether she would buy a bow and arrows or not.

Even without the shield, her Armor Class is a sweet 14 (10 +3 for the chain shirt +1 Dex). Her Attack Bonus as a Fighter plus her Attribute modifiers are an equally sweet +3 for melee and +2 for ranged. How about age? I roll 5+16… 21. She’s still young, but the eldest of our trio. I really thought we’d have more age diversity, but I rolled 2, 3, and 5 on three d20 rolls!

Consulting my own charts and the hireling ones in the book, her name is Maelen Marrosen, a callous, hardscrabble mercenary with a “lucky pet.” Heh… let’s give an ode to Age of Wonders and make her pet a mouse named Tatter. I also love how this detail ties into her Animal Lore skill.

Well, it’s certainly a scruffier crew of characters than my last story, and perfect for a Sword & Sorcery tale. Let’s roll some Pact Bonds to see if we can puzzle out how and why these three find themselves adventuring with one another. For my first bond, I roll a 42 on d66 and get “Joint debt to someone/thing.” That sounds like our Rogue and Fighter’s bond. I rolled a second bond to see how Alric fits in, but I didn’t like the result and have another idea that… can kick off our story next time!

I don’t know if I was simply lucky or if the system is just that good, but I’ve ended up with a balanced party of interesting characters and am thrilled. I’m tempted to force a cleric (in Tales, called a Cultist) into the mix for a classic old-school band of PCs, but I’ll let the dice tell the story for now. Maybe they’ll find a cultist along the way.

Any Rule Tweaks?

As I’ve mentioned many times in this blog, as I read through Crusaders as the backbone of my Age of Wonders story, I made a metric ton of homebrewed rules changes. As I’ve also said many times, I consider the ability to make these sorts of changes a strength of a rules-light system, and these tweaks enhanced my experience with the game. Imagine, then, my enthusiasm when Tales of Argosa explicitly states, “The GM is the final authority of all rules, which are expected to be tweaked to fit table preferences.”

That said, I find myself ready to embrace Tales right out of the proverbial box, without any need to mess with anything yet. I’ll likely lean more heavily on the Mythic GM Emulator for solo play than what’s directly in the suggested solo play rules, and I’m sure to find little ways (like the Race rolls above) to tilt the game slightly towards my setting. Other than that, I’m happy with what I’m reading so far.

The only rule that I considered changing is that attack rolls are the only place in the game where you want to roll high on a d20, whereas all other rolls you want to roll low. That strikes me as odd. I’m no lover of THAC0, but just for the sheer elegance of it, I wondered about essentially making AC a low number (so, Maelen’s 14 AC would become 6), rolling low to hit. It’s an easy change, though it does mean that any “nat19” mentions become “nat2” and probably a few other conventions that would need me to flip-flop my brain. In the end, I decided it was a cosmetic change that forced me into more thinking than I needed for something that ultimately would function the same way. All of that said, it’s still in the back of my brain in case the inconsistency bothers me.

Oh, and I should also say that my intention heading into this project is not only to play Tales of Argosa as it’s written out of the box, but to do the same with Mythic GM Emulator. I only started dabbling with Mythic towards the end of Age of Wonders, but this time I’m going to try and follow it as Tana Pigeon and the book suggest, using as many of the tools as possible. The result will likely be lengthier “game notes” versions of each weekly installment, and more reliance on random rolls.

As always, if you’re enjoying these posts or have suggestions, drop me a comment below or feel free to email me at jaycms@yahoo.com.

Next: Our story begins [with game notes]

Tales of Calvenor, Meet Tales of Argosa

On July 19, 2025October 1, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Fantasy Fiction, Tabletop Roleplaying, Tales of Calvenor1 Comment

Welcome to my new project, Tales of Calvenor, an amalgam of solo-roleplaying in the background and fantasy fiction in the foreground.

This project is a continuation of my writing and gaming journey, which started with Dungeon Crawl Classics, writing fiction accounts of my solo games there, and most recently my Age of Wonders story. Come to think of it, those stories began because of my Age of Ashes novellas, which were essentially retelling of my playthrough of a beloved Pathfinder 2^nd Edition adventure. In many ways, I’m on a quest to tell serial fiction like my Age of Ashes treatments, without the aid of a published setting and adventure.

As I outlined in my Age of Wonders reflections last week, my intention here is to:

Continue to improve my worldbuilding chops in an entirely homebrewed setting.
Focus on compelling characters, improving upon my earlier efforts.
Lean more heavily into emergent storytelling via the Mythic GM Emulator and other solo gaming tools.
Find a game that will support my enjoyment of the story.

Next week I’ll focus on our cast of characters, touching briefly on the setting (unlike last time, I’m aiming to reveal most of the worldbuilding within the fiction). Today, I want to spotlight the game system I’ll be using in the background of this story: Tales of Argosa.

**Why Tales of Argosa?**

I’ve been buying a lot of tabletop roleplaying games the past several years, which I think is borne out of equal parts: a) an explosion of new games thanks to platforms like Kickstarter and Backer Kit (both of which I’m slightly addicted to), b) me dedicating more time to playing tabletop games – right now I have no less than four group games running concurrently, and c) a nostalgic realization that reading TTRPG game books makes me happy, and we all need some escapist happiness these days.

Most of these games, past and present, sit on several bookshelves in my house, which my wonderful wife—even though the shelves are in her home office—accepts without complaint. The newest acquisitions, however, sit in my home office, on what I’ve come to refer to as The Stack. The Stack is a literal stack of books that I have at best skimmed, but which I’m excited to read. Once I’ve given a book from The Stack a thorough cover-to-cover delve, I almost ritualistically carry it from my office to my wife’s, placing it upon the shelf with its brethren.

Right now, The Stack is out of control, and I’m willing myself to buy less and read more. Every day, I enter my office and see Evolved, Shadow of the Weird Wizard,Worlds Without Number,Mythras (plus Mythras Classic Fantasy and Destined), DCC’s Caverns of Thracia, and Shadowdark, soon to be joined by Legend in the Mist, Dolmenwood, and Reaver, all staring at me. Indeed, The Stack has become such a point of embarrassment for me that I spent an entire weekend recently reading game books.

One of those books was Tales of Argosa by Pickpocket Press. I can’t even remember why I bought Tales originally, but I believe it stemmed from a podcast review of someone raving about it. I’ve been on a real Sword & Sorcery kick over the past year, reading, among other things, the original Conan stories and comics, and Tales sounded a lot like the Dungeon Crawl Classics’ (probably my current favorite game system) answer to playing Sword & Sorcery games… a modern system with an old school feel.

Here is a Discord conversation I had that Saturday afternoon with a friend of mine:

Unlike Age of Wonders, when I spent two full months exploring what game might fit my vision, I immediately knew in early June that Tales of Argosa would underpin my next story. No, it’s not a superhero system. No, it’s not extremely popular like some of those games on The Stack (which I’m sure I’ll also love and want to play). But, as I said to my friend Rob, dammit all if it doesn’t sound like tons of fun. Maybe I’m just a sucker for old-school black and white art.

If you’ve been reading my blog over the past couple of years, you may be shocked that I’m not playing Evolved, which is literally my favorite system applied to superheroes, my deepest genre love. And yes, on the surface it seems like a silly thing to overlook. Here is my rationale: First, Evolved comes pre-wired with a specific setting, full of time travel and technology. I dig the setting and flipping through the 480-page (!) rulebook makes me drool, but it feels like the sort of game you play as-is without massively customizing it, at least at first glance. Because I want to keep going on my homebrewed setting, that’s a no-go for me. Second, as I mentioned, part of the fun of DCC is the high death count, which necessitates many PCs, and right now I only want to juggle 3-4. Finally, as I mentioned, I’m currently hip deep in a Sword & Sorcery phase, a subgenre of fantasy that’s well explained here. It’s clear from Age of Wonders that my creativity was tilting towards fantasy and away from superheroes, so I might as well fully embrace that for now. I’m never too far from a spandex phase, though. Soon enough, it will be time for Evolved, probably in a live group game. For now, it stays on The Stack.

Why I Love Tales of Argosa

Okay, I joked about it before, but I truly do love the art. From the awesome cover by Luke Eidenschink to brilliant pieces throughout by artists such as Earl Geier, Jeffrey Koch, Dean Spencer, Marcin, Anaislalovi, Eric Lofgren, Thomas Denmark, Blake Davis, Rick Hershey, and many, many other talented folk (seriously, I only gave up listing them because it was feeling silly to keep going). It’s possible to have a subpar game with amazing art, but the art here is inspiring to my storytelling brain. And, thankfully, it all comes attached to a kick ass tabletop roleplaying game.

Tales of Argosa is the second edition of Low Fantasy Gaming by the same company. I admit that I hadn’t heard of LFG, but then my Sword & Sorcery obsession these days is relatively recent.Mechanics-wise, it’s a standard d20 system and thus recognizable for anyone who’s played any edition of Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder. It’s the tweaks that make it exciting, though. I could describe them to you, or I could use the handy summary from page 5 in the rulebook:

Because the game funded via Kickstarter in April of 2024, shipped to backers in January of this year, and released to the public shortly afterwards, there aren’t a ton of in-depth reviews that I could find. Check out the reviews on DriveThruRPG, however, and you get nuggets like, “THE Sword & Sorcery game you NEED! Buy this NOW!,” “This is wonderful. No singular gimmick that soon loses its appeal for a selling point but instead, many well thought out additions and modifications that create probably the best D&D style RPG out there!,” and, my personal favorite, “If you enjoy, DCC, Shadow of the Demon Lord, OSR, low magic settings, and a non-bloat set of rules, Tales of Argosa is the game for you.”

In addition, the rulebook even has a section for solo play, and the game comes with its own Mythic-like oracular card deck (called, awesomely, the Deck of Signs), plus special Fate dice that can offer other fun ways to randomly shape an emergent story. Add all that good stuff together, and it’s no wonder that, as I read through the crisp 250-page rulebook (which is a guide for both players and GMs, and includes a bestiary), I could immediately see it as the system underpinning my next fiction project. Even going through the summary here has made me excited all over again!

In fact…

Let’s Begin!

Again, last time I had a lot of build-up to the narrative. After six installments choosing a system, I spent one post each on the setting and variant rules, diving into the history of Oakton, then one installment for each of the three protagonists. This go-round, I’m spending less time on set-up—at least from a blog point of view—and jumping in. Next week, I’ll make my three PCs, discuss any rule-tweaks I want to make from the start (spoiler alert: none, really), and leave the work I’ve done on worldbuilding to come out in the writing process. Then we’re off and running, jumping right into a story where I have no more idea what will happen than you do. I can’t wait!

As always, if you’re enjoying these posts or have suggestions, drop me a comment below or feel free to email me at jaycms@yahoo.com.

Next: Meet the adventurers

Age of Wonders, Issues 1-6 Reflections

On July 12, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying3 Comments

And that’s a wrap on my first six-Issue, Trade Paperback for this story! Up until this point, I’ve used these interstitial weeks to offer thoughts and reflections on each Issue, discussing where I’m adjusting either the story or game system, plus how I feel about my progress. Today, I’m going to step back and discuss this entire Age of Wonders experiment, beginning with my first inclination to start a new solo roleplaying game as inspiration for fiction. How has it gone, from my perspective? Most importantly, am I signing up for another six Issues of this story, with these characters and this game system, or switching direction?

I’m fundamentally a nerd who loved school, so the way I’ll structure these reflections is to look at each aspect of the Age of Wonders experiment and give myself a letter grade. After that, I’ll look holistically at where I go next. Spoiler alert: I’m keeping some things the same and completely changing others. What comes next will be a relaunch more than a completely new project. More on that topic later.

For now, let’s remind ourselves of my goals for this experiment!

Worldbuilding: C+

From my very first post about this project almost eight months ago, here is how I described the world I wanted to build:

“It’s a post-apocalyptic Earth that has become, with the fall of modern civilization, a feudal, fantasy-like setting where humans face off against monsters. No one remembers the world as it was. Suddenly a set of superpowered people—think comic book powers layered onto fantasy archetypes—emerge. What is the origin of these strange abilities? What do these powerful beings herald for the world? Can they save humanity? You get the idea.”

Recall that one of my insights after six months of Dungeon Crawl Classics is that I spent too little time fleshing out the world before jumping into play. I like discovering the world as I play, but it’s difficult for me to immerse myself in a story if I don’t have a feel for what the setting is in at least some broad brushstrokes. This time around, I wanted to be more intentional, creating a world in which I’d be excited to tell stories. Moreover, I wanted very much for this world to meld my two biggest escapism loves: Sword & Sorcery fantasy and superhero comic books.

If you’re an accomplished worldbuilder, either as a writer or GM, you’d rightfully give me a middling grade here. The world of Age of Wonders is typical fantasy faire without a lot to distinguish it, and while I do a lot of hinting at the changes happening all around our protagonists, it’s difficult to tell if things like a ratfolk community beneath the town, a bejeweled box of demons, or a telepathic black panther are linked to some larger mystery or just fantastical elements of a world with weird stuff in it. I also never really examined the “safe in the city, the wilds are scary” aspects of the setting, since all the danger occurs within the walls of Oakton. As a result, I probably deserve a C at best here.

But dammit, I’m proud of myself for dedicating as much time to thoughtfully scoping out the world of Age of Wonders, even if many of the elements of it haven’t yet reached the fiction, and even if I didn’t really know what questions to answer at first. As someone who has mostly relied on published settings like Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Golarion, Skarn, Ravnica, etc. etc. etc., being intentional about building my own setting was a treat. I will do it differently next time, but as a first step, I’m happy enough with my first foray.

Bringing Oakton to Life: C

I’m less pleased with how I brought the city of Oakton to life. I truly enjoyed using Pendulum to come up with Oakton’s history, though I now realize how flatfooted I was starting on that tool without having some broader questions about the world already answered. I was making up things like the Kalee nation, with its immigrants from Mesca, the Stone Isles, and Kaizuka on the fly, which was hugely uncomfortable and meant that I relied heavily on real-world analogues. More egregious, I didn’t bring the rich history developed with Pendulum into much of the fiction, nor did I even remember a lot of it as I was writing. That’s bad form from me.

What I like about Oakton: First, I like that it’s a diverse city—more of a salad than a melting pot—and the dominant culture isn’t based on a white, Western European history. I thought Roland Brown did an amazing job using these influences in his design of the three protagonists, and his depictions of clothing and style really brought the city to life for me. Second, I like the image of the giant tree overhanging the city, clearly signaling the fantastical nature of the setting without overdoing it. Finally, I like that it’s an all-human, low-magic city, which helps underscore the Sword & Sorcery vibe.

Despite those bright spots, I don’t think many readers could really picture Oakton in their mind’s eye like I intended. Were districts like the area around the Keep, the Coins, or the cul-de-sac of Sami Suttar’s home vivid? Was the City Watch interesting? What about the guild structure and how they influenced life in the city? How did the otherworldly, enormous tree affect the culture or beliefs? From my perspective, I fumbled the storytelling on many, many dimensions. Again, I’m giving myself credit for creating my own setting and trying, which is more than I’ve done in the past. And, as I’ll keep saying, I’m learning a ton. But the final output was clumsy at best.

Mashing-up Fantasy & Superheroes: D

By far the place I most let myself down was on the mash-up of sword-and-sorcery fantasy with classic bronze-age comic book superheroes. Pretty much the only way you could say these stories were comic book-y is that they came out in Issues instead of Chapters, and those Issue covers were awesomely illustrated by Roland. After that, meh. We had a stretchy character and… and… well, not much else that sits outside of typical fantasy. Nothing really nods at the comics of my youth. I do think that, if I continue, the story would evolve into more and more obvious superheroes and supervillains; the protagonists would continue to get more powerful and distinct in their appearances with each level-up, and they would distinguish themselves from “ordinary humans” more and more. From the first six months of the story, however, Age of Wonders looks a heck of a lot like simply a fantasy tale, full stop.

All my critiques above sound negative because I want to be honest about where I didn’t live up to my own expectations. That said, I’ve had a ton of fun since early December with this project and have been filled with creative energy the entire time. I’m thrilled that I’m pushing myself away from published settings and material to focus on my own worldbuilding and plotting, and I want to continue my journey that Age of Wonders (and DCC before it) began. Before I get to the next steps, though, let me pause on two aspects of the project that a) I consider successes, yet b) are absolutely changing in the next iteration …

**Playing Crusaders: B+**

Ever since I first stumbled across the Crusaders rpg, sitting on my shelf unread, I was in love. As a reminder, I had been sifting through games looking for a particular set of features:

A superhero game that can be played in a fantasy setting, plus allow for anachronistic weapons and technology. Basically, the superpowers and fantasy elements need to be satisfying, but allow for other genre shenanigans.
Is neither too crunchy (if I’m consulting forums or rulebooks more often than writing, that’s bad) nor too lightweight (I need to feel like the dice are guiding the story and enhancing the narrative). I want to feel like the mechanics support the story.
Level-up jumps in power. My idea is that the PCs start as “street level” heroes and become demigods as the story progresses. Something will be pushing them closer to godhood, which is a core part of the story. The game should not only allow for those different levels but be fun to play at all of them.
No hard-wired comics tropes (like secret identities, costumes, etc.). The story will be a genre mash-up, so I can’t hew too closely to any overly specific formulas.

Reading through the Crusaders rulebook, to this day, makes me smile. I love the whole ethos of the game, and the mechanics do a great job of not only simulating comic book action but also addressing the above list of needs. Yes, I homebrewed a metric ton of the rules, but I consider the ability to tweak rules to suit my needs a strength, and doing so was a joy. Even though I still wonder what would have happened if I’d explored the other games on my list: Evolved (now released! it’s amazing!), Destined, Basic Action Super Heroes (my vote for what would have unseated Crusaders back in December), S5E, Pathfinder 2^nd Edition (which, yes, I think can be easily tweaked into a superhero game) and now Outgunned Superheroes, I’m very happy that I jumped in to play Crusaders and launch Age of Wonders. Consider me a convert to the idea that playing fantasy games with a cinematic superhero system is not only easy but freeing. I will absolutely do so again.

So why isn’t this aspect of the project an A, and why would I change systems? As I’ve outlined in these monthly Reflection posts, what I’ve come to realize is that Crusaders is there to showcase superhero combat, period. It’s truly fun for what it does, but I’m already getting a little weary of only rolling dice when it’s time to bash action figures together. I miss mechanics for chases, social situations, and downtime, and I feel like I’m operating with too few handholds when I’m in noncombat scenes. The whole point of pairing solo roleplaying with fiction writing is to allow for randomness and game logic to my stories, after all.

Anyway, thank you Oliver Legrand and the Crusaders rpg. I’ve had a blast!

Characters & Plot: B

One of the things that most frustrated me about my DCC stories were how flat the characters were. As I launched Age of Wonders, I posited that some of the issues driving this flatness were juggling too many PCs and the neutral third-person narrator, both of which are semi-required in writing DCC-inspired fiction because of the characters’ high death toll. As a result, my love of DCC had transitioned to group games (no joke: I will GM a long, multi-year DCC campaign for friends in the foreseeable future), and I fully intended to focus more on character in this next project.

I sort of stumbled into the current format of the blog—with three primary protagonists, each spending a week as the POV-character for the story, followed by a reflections post—but I’m pleased with how it’s working. For me, the characters of Maly, Emah, and Kami are clearer and more distinct than my earlier solo play stories, each with their own personalities, motivations, and goals. I still feel like I should have pushed these differences further in my prose and emphasized their wants and needs more clearly. I’m still a work in progress when it comes to character realization, but again… Age of Wonders was a noticeable improvement from the last round. Even though the characters were done through random rolls, I also like that they’re all women, and each from a different cultural tradition. I don’t know how well I write women, but I certainly enjoy making powerful, kick-ass female characters.

Meanwhile, probably the biggest point of experimentation was how I found my story each Issue. I started from something emergent, reached back into published material for help, then abandoned that material to swing back over to emergent narrative via the Mythic GM Emulator. It’s been a ride. It’s also been hugely instructive. I have something like fifteen unfinished novels on my laptop, all with carefully structured, multi-page, detailed outlines. What I’ve found in longform storytelling is that I enjoy building the plot and characters, but I lose steam when telling them. One of the many reasons I’ve taken a break from novel-writing and shifted to shorter-form stories and serial fiction is to keep myself fresh and excited each time I sit down to write. Mission accomplished!

However, I’m new to serial stories or working without the aid of an outline. I’m also a forever-GM in games like D&D and Pathfinder, prepping endlessly for pre-defined set-pieces and story milestones from published adventures in established settings. Add these two factors together and doing something like Age of Wonders has been a massive stretch for me, and one I’ve really enjoyed. The past two Issues, I found my footing somewhat, delighted by ways the Mythic GM Emulator can help me. In fact, these revelations triggered me consuming several blog posts, forums, and podcasts on solo roleplaying in general, and I see how some of the ways I would alter my approach in my next project. Suffice it to say, I’m both more comfortable and eager to embrace the “let’s find out what happens next” allure of solo play, and the fiction that results from it. I’m even starting to wonder if I might write my next novel (if I ever aspire to do that again) using these methods, knowing that I can go back and edit out extraneous characters or plot points, emphasizing whatever key themes emerge after the fact instead of within an outline.

All of that said, knowing that I’m switching systems means that I’m also switching characters. I’m taking the lessons of worldbuilding from this project, retooling the continent and city of Oakton, and rolling up entirely new characters, in a new game, with only a plot-hook to start. It’s basically an Age of Wonders reboot.

It’s tempting to throw out an overall letter grade for Age of Wonders, but doing so feels significantly more arbitrary than grading each goal. Overall, I’m happy with what I’ve created over… sheesh, eight months now?! Equally, I’m ready to start a new project, incorporating the lessons from this one. Let’s gooooooo!

Tales of Calvenor

Currently, on my laptop there’s the “Age of Wonders” folder in “Games,” where I have all of Roland’s artwork, character sheets, and the various documents I use to run the game. There’s the “Age of Wonders” folder in “Writing,” which has these posts, separated in the game-notes and pure prose versions. As I began to think about my relaunch, I changed the names of both folders to “Age of Wonders v1” and created “Age of Wonders v2” folders. That was already confusing enough, but when I started thinking about how to name each file in the folders, my mind broke. As much as I love the Age of Wonders moniker, I’ve decided that it needs to solely describe this project. And hey, that means that I could always pick this story back up later without creating a bruhaha.

Instead, I’m calling this new project “Tales of Calvenor,” named for the Princehold of Calvenor, the nation in which Oakton sits. Thank you, Age of Wonders. Welcome, Tales of Calvenor! We’ll dive in… next week!

Before turning the proverbial page, a final, special Thank You to Roland for his amazing artwork throughout this project. He’s a joy to work with, and I hope to do so again.

As always, if you’re enjoying these posts or have suggestions, drop me a comment below or feel free to email me at jaycms@yahoo.com.

Next: A new beginning!

Age of Wonders, Issue 6c: An Unveiling

On July 5, 2025July 12, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction1 Comment

Kami Misaki followed the two City Watch guards through the winding stone corridors of the Keep. One of her arms stretched slightly out of proportion to allow her to carry a large wooden trunk tucked into an armpit. As a result, she walked less gracefully than usual. It wasn’t the weight of the trunk—which, she thought idly, would have taken both guards to carry—but the bulk of it under one arm made navigating the narrow Keep hallways awkward. Kami supposed that she could have asked someone to “help” her, but at the moment she was enjoying the stunned stares of everyone they passed. In many ways, her walk from the Golden Heron to the Keep, with her changes on full display, was her unveiling.

Eventually, they reached a heavy wooden door. One of the guards knocked, listened to a muffled reply, and opened the door. The City Watch had to move into the office to allow Kami and her trunk access, and they all did a clumsy dance of polite apologies as she entered and they exited, closing the door behind them.

“Good morning! What’s in the that thing, my dear?” Inspector Estancia Calenta asked with a dimpled grin. The stout woman leaned back in her office chair, the wood creaking, and folded calloused hands on the desk between her and Kami.

“Everything I own,” Kami shrugged, and placed the trunk down in one corner before making her way to a chair. She looked at the Inspector through her wooden half-mask, far less warily than she had during her first visit to this place… when had that been? Had it only been last week?

“Ah,” Calenta’s face took on a motherly concern. “Elyn kicked you out of the Heron, then?”

“It was a mutual agreement,” Kami shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve been absent and not helping her, and my presence now, she thought, would make the guests uneasy. Meanwhile, I find myself… focused elsewhere.”

“Focused Elsewhere,” the woman chuckled. “Speaking of which, where are the others?”

“On their way,” Kami said simply. “They should be here soon.”

“Good, good. Well, my dear,” Calenta leaned forward, resting her meaty forearms on the edge of the desk. “No need to wait for them to get started. So,” her eyes glittered. “Where is the box?”

Kami leaned back, folding her hands in her lap. “Emah says it’s called the Raft of the Nine Gates, actually. She has it, hidden and locked away. She says that there are those at the university who she’d like to study it, but that it’s not something anyone else can ever touch. It’s too dangerous, we all agree.”

“You believe her story? About the vision she had? Deals with demons?” Calenta looked skeptical, cocking an eyebrow.

Kami sighed, the first breath she’d taken since entering the Keep, she realized. “Given everything that’s been happening across the city and everything that happened in that basement, I don’t see any reason to question Emah’s account. To me and Maly, she touched the hand, and then…” Kami’s eyes unfocused as she recalled the scene, still so vivid in her mind. She frowned. “Well. When it was done, the demons vanished in a flash of golden light and the Raft was closed at Emah’s feet. She saved us all.”

“Poor, poor dear,” Calenta clucked her tongue. “How is she?”

“Fine, actually. She says the poison from the spined demon would have killed her before we ever left the basement, but the power that the Raft imbued in her must have cleansed it. I’ve only known her a week, mind you, but I’ve never seen her better. Despite the… lack of hand and sword.”

“You said her hand is in the box. The, er… Raft. You never found the sword?”

Kami pursed her lips and shook her head. “Another reason to believe her. Like so much happening these days, it all feels impossible.”

The inspector shook her head in disbelief. “It’s all happened so fast, ah? So many changes we must all accept. I heard someone in the market call it the Age of Wonders. It fits, no?”

“It does,” Kami gave a brief nod. “I like that, actually.”

“And look at you! Any changes besides the hair that you’ve noticed?”

Kami pulled a lock of her straight hair into her view. When the golden light from the Raft faded in the basement, it had left her hair bright green, the color of springtime leaves. There were other, subtler changes as well, but there was no hiding the hair. Though she felt less antagonistic toward Inspector Calenta than before, she still didn’t trust the woman. So, Kami said only, “Just the hair.”

“What do you think it means?” the woman asked, but it was a rhetorical question. Kami didn’t answer, and the inspector didn’t wait for her to do so. Instead, after a heartbeat, Calenta said, “And the ratfolk?”

Kami crossed her arms over her chest. “Either Emah saved them as well—though they’ll never know it—or the priest’s failure with the Raft focused the demons solely on them. Either way, I suspect we won’t hear from them again. Even if they survived, it was the priest, Maly says, that was stirring them up against Oakton. Now that she and her mad quest for the Raft are dead, well… I don’t believe they want to have anything more to do with us than we with them.”

“Still,” Calenta scowled. “The idea of underground tunnels, accessing wherever they like…”

“We’re not exterminators,” Kami said forcefully. “We’re here to protect, not kill.”

The inspector raised her meaty palms in defense. “Okay, okay! I’ll have someone else look into it, ah? You don’t have to think of them anymore. Truly, my dear, I’m just glad that you’ve decided to formalize our relationship. We need you.”

Before Kami could respond, there was a knock on the door. Inspector Calenta yelled to enter, and one of the same City Watch guards who’d led Kami here opened the door. He stepped aside quickly, and Maly, Destiny, and Emah flowed inside, one by one.

Maly and Destiny looked much the same, despite the golden flash of the Raft. She was still a lithe, pale Stone Islander with freckled cheeks and tattooed arms, her blonde hair cut short. He was still an enormous, deadly predator, a black cat whose shoulders reached Maly’s thighs, all grace and power. Destiny had, apparently, abruptly awoken soon after the situation in the basement had resolved, which only deepened the mystery of the Raft’s power and the cat’s origins.

The girl smiled at Kami and slid into the chair next to her. Destiny prowled, each step heavy and intentional, to the window and lay down beneath it. His yellow eyes watched Inspector Calenta intently.

Emah, of course, was not the same. She was still a powerfully built Kalee woman, with chocolate skin and eyes, her coily hair pulled back from a high forehead. She still wore a leather breastplate, tasseled skirt, and heavy boots. Yet Emah wore only one green glove, on her left hand. The other arm ended in a stump at the wrist, bandaged and dark with blood. Her ancestral sword no longer hung at her waist.

Despite her losses, Emah carried herself confidently, chin held high and broad shoulders back as she entered. She gave Inspector Calenta a nod, then smiled warmly at Kami. Instead of taking the third chair, she stood between Kami and Maly, feet set wide.

“You two have caught up?” Emah asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Not fully, but enough, dear. Thank you for asking,” Inspector Calenta flashed her dimples. Then her face took on that same look of maternal concern. “How are you, Emah?”

The warrior didn’t answer for a moment, as if unsure how to do so. Finally, she shrugged and said, “Well enough, I suppose. It’s been quite a week.”

Maly snorted and Calenta barked a sharp laugh. Kami kept her face impassive—she wasn’t sure she could be moved to genuine laughter and envied those whose emotions came freely—but inside she admired Emah’s acceptance of her choice within the Raft, and all it cost her. Would she have been able to make the same decision, Kami wondered, had it been her who’d touched the hand? And what could she have possibly offered that was as precious to her as Emah’s swordsmanship? They were all lucky it had been noble Emah Elmhill who’d negotiated for the city’s safety with the spirit of Salo Jaena.

In her reverie, she realized she had tuned out the conversation within the room. She blinked and focused on the present.

“Well, that’s certainly more than we’re making from the Adventurer’s Guild,” Maly said somewhat sourly. “But not a lot more.”

“I assure you, it’s more than most in the City Watch make, and all we can afford, ah?” Calenta said in response.

“The wages are fine,” Emah said, closing the topic. “But what about accommodation?”

“Ah, well… if the memories are not spoiled for you, I thought perhaps Sami Suttar’s place? He had no family, so the property is the city’s to claim.”

Kami looked from Emah to Maly and back. Maly looked surprised, Emah pleased. Kami supposed her own masked face was unreadable, though she tried to provide a subtle nod. The three of them seemed to reach silent agreement and turned back to the inspector.

“Fine,” Emah said.

“Good, good,” Calenta clapped her hands together. “I’ll have it all written into a new contract, and I’ll speak to the Adventurer’s Guild so no one is surprised. I must say, dearies, that I’m relieved to have you on our side, ah?”

“One final item,” Kami said. Three human faces and a feline one turned to her, startled.

“Yes, dear?” Calenta asked, studying her cautiously.

“We have right of refusal on what missions you offer. I won’t trade one brothel for another. You tell us why you need us, and we decide whether we will help or not. And I want that written into the contracts.” Kami said the words smoothly and clearly, without inflection. She studied the inspector as carefully as she’d just been inspected. The two met eyes and an uncomfortable silence reigned for several heartbeats.

“Fine, my dear. Just fine,” the woman smiled disarmingly. “But it means I’ll change the wages to be bounty-based instead of weekly wages. We won’t pay you to do nothing for Oakton.”

“Kami…” Emah said warily.

“Fine,” Kami nodded. She looked at Emah and smiled. “I’m confident, Ms. Elmhill, that we will have plenty to do based on recent events.”

“It’s a risk,” the other woman whispered. “We do need money.”

“We do,” Kami agreed. “Though I have some thoughts about that as well.” Her eyes drifted to Maly, sitting in the chair next to her.

The young woman widened her eyes, realizing suddenly that both Kami and Emah were staring at her. “Wait, what? Why are you looking at me?”

“Say,” Calenta added smoothy, tapping on her desk with a finger. She flicked her attention to Kami. “What happened to the East Bay Dragons boy you all captured? From your account, I thought he was wounded and unconscious when you all went down to the basement?”

“He was,” Kami added, just as smoothly. Her face remained neutral. “Whoever he was, he must have been deceiving us about the extent of his injuries. When we went upstairs, Destiny was awake, and the man was gone. The panther said he had not seen him.” She shrugged.

The inspector clucked her tongue and turned to Emah. “Didn’t you run him through with your sword? How could he have run away so soon after your battle?”

Kami waited, hopeful. Emah met Calenta’s gaze and said simply, “I did and don’t know, ma’am. Another mystery from the week, I suppose.”

The woman sighed heavily and pushed herself to stand with a groan. “Well, alright. We’ll look into that, too, then. I will get the contracts to you, ah? For now, get some rest in your new home. We’ll talk soon.”

Kami and Maly stood, and the panther climbed slowly to its feet to join them. Kami stretched her arm down to collect her unwieldy trunk.

“Hey,” Maly said as they began exiting. “What are we calling this group of ours? Do we have an official name?”

“I hadn’t thought about it, dear, but you’re right. Do you have an idea?” Calenta smiled and sat back at her desk.

“The Wonder Force!” Maly said brightly.

“Not the Wonder Force,” Emah grunted with a scowl, almost as soon as she’d said it.

“Come on, Emah! What don’t you like about—”

“Absolutely no,” Emah growled dangerously.

“Well, let’s have a think about it, ah?” Calenta nodded. “Rest up, dearies. I’m sure we’ll talk sooner than later.”

The door closed. Kami strode without speaking down the hallway, trunk tucked beneath one arm. Behind her Emah and Maly continued to bicker about their group’s name. Destiny stalked at Maly’s heels, yellow eyes scanning and startling anyone they passed.

When they exited the Keep, the great tree stretching above them, cracks of blue sky visible beyond the branches. Kami couldn’t help but feel the air crackling with something monumental. People all around them pointed and stared, whispering in awe.

Kami allowed herself a small grin behind her mask, her feet angling towards their new home.

Next: Reflections on Issues 1 through 6!

Age of Wonders, Issue 6c: An Unveiling [with game notes]

On July 5, 2025July 12, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying1 Comment