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, Issue 6b: The Offering

On June 28, 2025July 5, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction1 Comment

In the precious few moments of respite they experienced after she and Maly had killed the last of the monstrosities in Sami Suttar’s basement, a truth had wormed its way into Emah’s mind:

She had, without a doubt, been poisoned.

Her mouth was dry as a bone. Emah felt hot everywhere and couldn’t seem to stop sweating. Her hands trembled slightly, the same tremble that threatened her legs and back. For a moment, her vision blurred, as if she’d spent the night carousing in a local tavern.

She assumed it had been that creature’s quill, the one it had launched at them like crossbow bolts. The place on her shoulder where it had embedded was an angry red sore, and searingly painful to the touch. The ratfolk priest had two of the things protruding from its body, and Emah guessed that it wasn’t the impact of the quills that had killed it, but the toxin.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t dwell on it now. No sooner had she taken stock of her symptoms than Maly gasped and pointed with one dagger. The shambling, rotting, scaled creature with the fish head was stirring despite its many grievous wounds. Worse: Emah noticed the bones of the child-sized skeleton and the maggoty pulp of the quill-thrower also quivering, like ripples in a pond of something lurking beneath.

“Damn it all to the Nine Hells,” she swore, and planted her feet. “What are these things?”

“Demons, Destiny says,” Maly whispered, wide-eyed and frozen at the creatures’ movements.

“Okay,” Emah exhaled, then swayed on her feet. She shook her head to clear it. “So how do we kill them for good?”

“He… hasn’t answered me,” Maly scowled. “He’s been silent. I don’t know.”

Abruptly, Kami stepped forward and hammered a fist onto the rising demon. It went down in a heap, unmoving. They were all silent, Emah holding her breath. One heartbeat. Two. Three. And then the rotting, scaled demon began to stir.

Maly whimpered in frustration and kicked the scattered bones further apart. The other two demons felt a long way from reemerging as threats, but the fish-headed monstrosity was unrelenting.

Emah cast her blurred gaze around the room, mind working slowly. Sweat fell into her eyes and off her chin. She released one hand on her sword to wipe her face with the back of a glove. That done, a thought struck her.

“The box!”

Kami stared at her in the dim basement light. “What of it?”

“I don’t know,” Emah gritted her teeth. “The priest did something to summon them from the box, right? So can we put them back?”

Kami hammered another fist down upon the rising demon. It stilled momentarily.

“But how?” Maly asked, her voice higher in pitch and closer to hysteria than Emah had ever heard it. “What, we just put the hand back in the box and shut it?”

“I don’t know!” Emah barked, then swayed. She wiped her face again. How had it already gotten coated in sweat? “Do you have a better idea?”

She felt herself rapidly succumbing to poison, so a lengthy debate was out of the question. Instead, while Kami stood over the fish-headed demon and Maly sputtered in surprise, Emah stepped forward, sheathed her blade, and scooped the mummified hand from the dirt floor of the basement. She intended to, with her next step, grab the bejeweled box and shove the macabre trophy inside.

Emah never got the chance.

The world around her blurred and, quite suddenly, she no longer felt on the verge of collapse. The trembling of her limbs and feverish burn within her abruptly vanished. Even the dull ache of her ribs was gone. Emah closed her eyes, straightened, and exhaled a long and even breath. She felt herself again, better than she had in weeks.

“Ah, another one, and so soon,” a pleased, male voice said.

Emah snapped open her eyes. The low-ceilinged basement had been replaced by what she somehow knew was a vast underground chamber even though its perimeter disappeared into darkness beyond her perception in all directions. The air was cool and wet. In front of her, perhaps ten strides away, was an ornate throne of gold, encrusted with jewels. The seat itself emanated light in a broad halo around it. Emah thought that it all reminded her of something, the throne and light, but she couldn’t place it, so distracted was she by the dizzying change of scenery and her newly revitalized health.

Upon the throne sat a man.

He was entirely ordinary, old enough to be a young grandfather, with an average build and pleasant face. His short, dark hair started high on his forehead and grayed at the temples, becoming completely white across his jaw in a close-cropped beard. Emah had trouble immediately placing his family origin, though he was probably Mescan by his olive coloring, full lips, and dark eyes. He wore a flowing, colorful shirt and well-made, stitched pants. Emah didn’t see any weapons on the man, and his posture showed interest rather than threat.

Still, she drew her mother’s sword. “Who are you? Where am I?” she demanded.

“I assure you,” the man chuckled, finding her display somehow charming. “That won’t be necessary. There is no fighting here, only negotiating. So,” he raised his full eyebrows. “What are you offering?”

Emah faltered, confused. “What am I… what?”

“Oh!” the man sat back, surprised. “You’re here by mistake! I see! Oh! Please, please: Spare no details. Where were you when you opened the box and touched my hand?”

Emah kept her sword in one fist and took a cautious step backwards. “Your hand?” she narrowed her eyes.

He followed her gaze and looked down. Confusion creased his brow for a heartbeat and then he barked out a full-throated laugh. He clapped his two hands together and rocked in his seat with glee. “Oh! My, my! You truly are here by chance! How wonderful!”

Emah had had quite enough of this madman, she realized. While he tittered, she edged further back, away from the glow of the throne and into the graying gloom of the cavern.

The man suddenly sat up straight and barked a sharp warning. “Ah! Go no further, my lady. Come back to the light, now,” He licked his lips, genuine concern on his face. “You won’t like what lurks in the darkness.”

As if in response to his words, something brushed her back. She spun, blade up defensively. Emah squinted and peered, but she could only make out the faintest of details. What she glimpsed, though, terrified her: A squirming, writhing mass of what looked like bloated tentacles, moving in a living wall just beyond the light. It was either one massive creature or an enormous pile of smaller ones, shifting and overlapping to make her mind reel. As far she could see, the darkness was filled with undulating tentacles.

She yelped in surprise and horror, stepping back towards the throne.

“There’s nothing but pain beyond the light,” the man said gravely, all humor gone from his voice. “Come closer, please. The only way out of this place is negotiation, and we can’t negotiate until you understand the terms. Come, come.”

Emah frowned. Once she had taken several steps away from the darkness, she could sense nothing but the two of them. Everything beyond the light was simply still, silent shadow.

“Please,” the man repeated. “This must all be overwhelming for you. Come closer and speak with me and all will be made clear.”

Sword gripped tightly, she moved within several strides of the man. Close enough, she reasoned, to impale him if needed but far enough away to not appear able to do so.

“Good,” he smiled, exhaling with relief. “Now, let’s start over, shall we? I am Salo Jaena. What is your name and from where do you hail, my dear?”

She frowned. “Emah. I’m from Oakton, within the Kalee Empire. Where am I now?”

“Oakton,” Salo mused. He smiled with white, straight teeth. “You know, I’ve met one other man from there! Two visitors before you, in fact.”

“Was his name Sami Suttar?” Emah asked.

“It was!” the man clapped his hands in surprised glee. “Do you know him?”

“I do not,” Emah said cautiously, her mind still stumbling frantically over this impossible situation, trying to fit the pieces together into something that made sense. But Emah Elmhill was first and foremost a scholar, not a warrior. Despite herself, she was intrigued. “We—my companions and I—found the box with your…” she cleared her throat. “Hand in it within the abandoned Suttar home.”

“Ah, I see. Yes. Poor Sami was unwilling to make a deal, I’m afraid. I thought sure it would work with him, but he was more of a collector than a giver. Shockingly stubborn, that man.” He must have seen Emah’s face scrunch in confusion, because he quickly added. “But enough of that. It’s not important. So, what then? You found the box, opened it, saw the hand, and… picked it up?”

“What? No!” Emah shook her head. “The box had been spilled open, the hand lying next to it and the body of a ratfolk priest–”

“Ratfolk?” Salo raised an eyebrow. “Ah, my last visitor, yes. They don’t call themselves that, of course, but it’s an apt description from one’s point of view.” He smiled encouragingly. “But I interrupted you, please. What next?”

She licked her lips. “There were… demons there. In the basement and standing over the box and body.”

“The First Three, yes.” The way the man said the words, it was a title rather than simple description. “Xapha, Kavac, and Vakal, if I’m not mistaken. Interesting that you identify them—quite correctly, I might add!—as demons. You must have had a force of warriors like yourself to still be alive. Ah, and I’m seeing it now!” He looked up and made a grand gesture with his hands. “The demons defeated, you stooped to retrieve the mysterious hand and box! A blink later, and here you are, Emah. What an unfortunate turn of events for you! Most who seek the box do so deliberately. Yet here you are with a monumental choice you never intended to make. Such tragedy! The stuff of poems and theater, truly.”

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me again, sir,” Emah scowled. In the brief pause that followed, her ears strained. Nothing but silence, except their echoing voices.

“Yes, yes of course. So now we reach the agonizing decision you must make. The box is called the Raft of the Nine Gates, and it is ancient. No one I’ve spoken to knows its true origin. Yet, when opened, it demands an offering.” He opened one hand, palm facing her. “Provide something of true sacrifice, that is most dear to you, and you gain power.” He opened his other hand with the same gesture. “Fail to do so, and, well…” Salo shook his head, his face mock sorrow.

“And it releases demons,” she finished the thought.

“Oh, it’s much worse than that, I’m afraid. The supplicant dies, of course, but the demons look to ruin the entire community as well, wiping it from existence. Whole cities have fallen to the Raft’s vengeance.”

“But,” Emah said doubtfully, interested in the fable despite herself. “My companions and I defeated these demons. Yes, they seemed to wish to rise, but we could… we could cut them to pieces… scatter those pieces… keep them from reforming. How could they destroy Oakton?”

“Those were merely The First Three, Emah,” he said with a tone of gentle admonishment. “Then will come nine. Then twenty-seven. Each wave will be three times as large as the next, and each demon stronger by three than the ones before. So it will go until everything the supplicant holds dear is gone. And there the Raft will sit, waiting for another to come along to offer a bargain.”

Emah’s mouth went dry, but not from poison. If what Salo Jaena said was even remotely correct, they would all die. The army of monstrosities would carve into the ratfolk warrens and Oakton alike. Maly and Kami would be gone. Her father. Her mentor. Would anyone survive? She closed her eyes and sighed.

“Ah, I see you working it out,” he said sadly. “Truly, you stand between the death of everything you know and power. There is no middle ground with the Raft.”

“I’m not here for power,” Emah said, frowning.

“I see that. And yet, it is that or endless horror for you and all you know,” Sado’s voice sighed.

Perhaps she was not a scholar, first and foremost, Emah thought. In the same moment, she opened her eyes and thrust her sword forward, into the chest of the man.

It was a well-timed attack and her aim was true. The tip of the blade pierced his breast, exactly through the heart.

Except that the sword passed through Salo Jaena as if he were a ghost. She stumbled with the lack of resistance. He merely chuckled.

“It was worth a try,” he said, smiling wistfully. “I don’t begrudge you the attempt, truly. But I’m afraid there is no avoiding the choice, and there is no killing me. I’ve already said that there is no fighting in this place, only negotiating.”

Emah regained her balance and shouted at the man. “And who are you then? Are you also a demon?!”

He blinked, surprised. “Me? No, no, no. I was a painter!” he said with a wide smile. “Merely an overlooked, poor painter who wished for his work to be recognized. I wanted fame, Emah, which is why I sought out the Raft. Unlike you, I knew exactly what I was doing when I opened the box and spoke with the person in this throne.”

Emah scowled. “You… offered your hand. Your artist’s hand. For power,” she said slowly while he nodded encouragingly. Her cheeks burned with the embarrassment of her failed attack, and for the growing fear at the situation Salo was describing. She still refused to sheath her sword, though. There may yet be a way to fight her way free, she thought, though not with much conviction.

“I did, I did. My most precious possession, and the Raft delivered. I had great fame and wealth until my death, despite my missing hand. And I hid the box so no one else could find it. You see, I worried that if someone else made the bargain while I lived, that the gains it gave me would disappear. Instead,” he shook his head ruefully. “I trapped myself here for hundreds of years, waiting for someone to find my clever hiding place. Truth be told, I’m grateful that the Raft is being passed around now, in this Oakton of yours. Whether it’s you or someone else, I suppose my time on this chair is finally nearing its end.”

“You’re saying that if I make a successful offering… I take your place there?” Emah realized now that the throne looked like the Raft itself, reconfigured into a seat instead of a box. The jewels and gold were the same, however. It’s what she had recognized upon first seeing the throne.

The painter Salo smiled a pleasant, unassuming smile. “Not right away. Only upon your death would you take my place, and then… yes, you would sit here, having this same conversation with anyone else who opened the Raft and touched whatever you’d offered to it. You would provide them the same bargain: Death for them and all they hold dear, or the power to change their life.”

They were silent for a long while then. Salo was a patient audience, studying her face and grinning warmly. Emah glanced at him every now and then, yet she mostly fixed her eyes on the throne. Thoughts crowded and careened off one another, working over what she’d heard.

“And once you’re free?” Emah finally growled. “What then? You’re off to the Nine Hells?”

“Well,” he cleared his throat, gesturing wide. “That’s the unknowable question, isn’t it? If you know what happens to this shade of me, I would truly love to hear it. But alas, I suppose that neither of us are priests, Emah. I’ll find out when it happens.” Salo sighed, shook his head, and then sat straighter. “So! Enough of me. You’ve heard the terms. What do you offer, and what do you seek?”

For a moment, she wondered what was happening within the basement while this conversation occurred. Was she standing transfixed, with Maly and Kami attempting to shake her out of it? Had she disappeared from the room? Or was all of this happening in the instant she touched Salo Jaina’s hand? Truly, in the last several days she had witnessed so many things she would have deemed impossible. An age of wonders had swept into Oakton.

“Emah?” he asked.

“I have a few more questions,” she said numbly, looking down at her mother’s sword, held firmly in one calloused hand.

In her heart, however, she already knew her offer.

Next: Emah’s choice

Age of Wonders, Issue 6b: The Offering [with game notes]

On June 28, 2025July 5, 2025 By MagicJMSIn Age of Wonders, Fantasy Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Superhero Gaming, Tabletop Roleplaying1 Comment

In the precious few moments of respite they experienced after she and Maly had killed the last of the monstrosities in Sami Suttar’s basement, a truth had wormed its way into Emah’s mind:

She had, without a doubt, been poisoned.

“Damn it all to the Nine Hells,” she swore, and planted her feet. “What are these things?”

“Demons, Destiny says,” Maly whispered, wide-eyed and frozen at the creatures’ movements.

“Okay,” Emah exhaled, then swayed on her feet. She shook her head to clear it. “So how do we kill them for good?”

“He… hasn’t answered me,” Maly scowled. “He’s been silent. I don’t know.”

Maly whimpered in frustration and kicked the scattered bones further apart. The other two demons felt a long way from reemerging as threats, but the fish-headed monstrosity was unrelenting.

“The box!”

Kami stared at her in the dim basement light. “What of it?”

“I don’t know,” Emah gritted her teeth. “The priest did something to summon them from the box, right? So can we put them back?”

Kami hammered another fist down upon the rising demon. It stilled momentarily.

“But how?” Maly asked, her voice higher in pitch and closer to hysteria than Emah had ever heard it. “What, we just put the hand back in the box and shut it?”

“I don’t know!” Emah barked, then swayed. She wiped her face again. How had it already gotten coated in sweat? “Do you have a better idea?”

I am again finding myself somewhat stuck plot-wise, so let’s go back to the handy Mythic GM Emulator and its Oracle tables. I’ll focus on the Action tables and roll twice, hoping that the words there conjure some sort of solution to the PC’s predicament. I get Succeed & Extravagance. Okay, let me contemplate the mysterious oracular words and see if inspiration strikes.

I’ve said all along that the box is bejeweled and gilded in gold, so whoever first created it clearly valued extravagance and success. It has a mummified hand in it… maybe it belonged to a ruler of some kind—ooo, or a skilled and wealthy artisan who works with his hands!—who severed his own hand to place in the box as an offering to an otherworldly entity? I like that, but then how did Tatter “activate” the box to summon these demons? Maybe she didn’t know the trick to appeasing the thing, and releasing these demons is the punishment for not providing an offering, or maybe she was stuck in the basement and didn’t have anything significant to offer. It doesn’t really matter which. The important point is that the box is a two-way sword – provide an appropriate offering, and you gain power. Fail to do so, however, and the demons come for you.

Now the question is: How do the PCs find out this information? I let Destiny provide the names of the demons, which felt a little cheesy, but I liked that solution better than them speaking their own names (I didn’t want them able to speak Oakton’s common language). I’d rather avoid that same fallback here. Oh! I’ve got it…