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Old 07-18-2021, 09:31 AM   #1
SolemnGolem
 
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Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: The Hall of Fallen Columns
Default Caravan to Ein Arris - adapted for a fantasy setting

I recently began a DFRPG campaign, and my players are enjoying it (as well as being generally happy with the GURPS system, which is a new system to many of them).

We've had an intro adventure already (You All Meet At An Inn, heavily modified and played mostly via Virtual Tabletop - links post#1, post#2, post#3, post#4, and post#5.) That intro adventure was mostly an action dungeon combat crawl, so for the second adventure we were ready for something with a bit more non-combat focus.

Caravan to Ein Arris Kiln'Urn

General changes:

To fit my setting's geography and settlements, I'm changing around the order of the adventure somewhat, as well as adding a few extra objectives. The basic concept is the same (PCs escort a merchant caravan through the countryside and various encounters) but the terrain must change from desert to temperate/hilly. Also, I need to include magic, since the campaign setting assumes that magic is slowly being adopted by the society at large. A few racial templates are changed around to include humanoid races and the assumptions of my setting (humans overran most of the tribes long ago and now there's a lot of interbreeding with peripheral races staking out their own economic and ecological niches).

General overview of encounters:
  • Meeting up at capital
  • Travel to the academic retreat to pick up Kira
  • Travel to wealthy farmhold to present gifts at wedding
  • Into the outback - bandits
  • Halfling peripheral tribe and final military outpost
  • Searching for old trade road across badlands - lost in the hills
  • Distant abbey and orphans
  • Final arrival at Kiln'Urn half-orc peripheral tribe in claypit badlands
  • setup for possible Mirror of Fire Demon desert adventure?

Meeting up at the capital - additional changes for mages:

This part is very similar to the published adventure. One change I made was for Katsaya (the caravan leader's wife) to actually be a non-guild magic user. She's not powerful, but she does have Magery 0 at least, and can sometimes get mage sight and other "gut-feeling" instincts that help out.

This allows for the party's mages to have an additional avenue of proving their worth to the caravan. (As usual, the scouts show off their archery skills, and the mercenaries show off mock combat - mages need some other test.) Based off of my party's spell selection, one mage was asked to demonstrate his spells for making and breaking, drawing applause when he showed how he could repair broken dueling swords and shields (and potentially things like wheel axles, ropes, etc.) with a simple spell.

The other mage had Diplomacy, Detect Lies, and Body Sense - so Katsaya had the candidate sit in with some other tryouts. Some had vivid tales of their magical abilities and backgrounds, and the PC's task was to detect any lies (magically or just through Savoir Faire/Area Knowledge etc.). The PC acquitted herself very well, and Katsaya reached out to employ the mage as her agent on the inside.

As an entertaining aside, the PC scout was a Mouse-man who has Intolerance for Cat-Folk. I changed Farvaro's character to be Ferravarro (complete with rolling "R" sounds!), a Cat-Folk archer who early on decided to antagonize the Mouse-man. On the archery tests, they were called upon to shoot a man-sized target at 50 yards... but Ferrvarro set up a Mouse-man sized target instead for the PC (at a further -2 to hit due to size).

The Mouse-man PC took a few IQ-based Bow rolls to gauge breeze and direction, and then several Aim maneuvers, and hit the target. As a later act of defiance, the Mouse-man then took an immediate second shot, hitting the target on the side and spinning it sideways, presenting the arrows in profile. Then he took a final fastidiously calibrated shot which sheared one of his arrows from the side. (GM's mention to the PCs: "In realistic skill levels, a Bow-21 skill level pretty much means 'the best archer history has ever produced'...")

Unrelated magic stuff

The prior adventure left the PCs with some magical loot that they had to go identify. The two mages also had spells they wanted to learn. The GM assigned costs for all of these services, which helped to mop up a fair bit of the $3000 liquid funds the PCs collected from the adventure (while also making the $600 to $1500 per PC offered by the Caravan rather enticing).

A few items were legally suspect. One was a gem of summoning small fire elementals (4 FP to cast, 2 to maintain), which runs afoul of the setting's tight controls on summoning/dimension-bending, since the "demons" and "angels" and "squidheaded squicky things" of yore are attributed to weakened dimensional bonds. One was a stone tablet of Rock Mite summoning (5 FP cast, 2 to maintain), although this one was a bit less offensive because it only worked to ask an existing nearby Rock Mite to show itself, rather than gating in a creature.

The Magical Guild also had a few snippets of political gossip and intrigues. One other request was for the PCs to gather up Caravan folk en masse to attend a water spring breaking ceremony at a new City District. This used the rules for Mass Casting in Thaumatology: Urban Magic and needed many people to contribute energy.

Obligatory bar scene:

This went smoothly, with no harm done to the PCs. One PC had Carousing and got into some good gossip and won a few bets. Another PC exercised her Dancing skills and danced with Tsorvettar/Tsorvano and a few of the guild leaders. After the dance, Katsaya met with her in a private room and offered her the secret mission objectives as Katsaya's agent.

The Mouse-man got into a feud with Ferrvarro the Cat-Folk, and they began a foolhardy "dagger between your fingers" tabletop game of dexterous amputation. Eventually one PC noticed that Ferrvarro, true to his nature, was cheating - he had palmed a bit of quartz and was using that instead of the glass shard he forced the Mouse-man to use.

A halfling huckster named Alma sold the equally-huckster PC mage a supposed magical ring of invisibility (in actuality it only has an enchantment on it so it never rusts). Alma also sold the huckster PC mage a map to some purported great treasure in the sands - some sort of Fire Mirror. (Future adventure fodder - stay tuned!)

The two Mages also succeeded on Public Speaking and Diplomacy rolls to persuade caravan buddies to attend the new spring well breaking (using the Size/Speed/Range tables to guesstimate number of folks swayed by their margins of success).

New encounter - spring well breaking

This was an optional encounter intended to show practical applications of magic in a medieval society with a functioning mage's guild. The mages provided food and refreshments for common members of the public who showed up at the ceremony, to participate in a Mass Casting of Ceremonial Magic (casting Create Spring, a spell in Urban Magic).

This was not a mechanically heavy encounter - just a few bits of dialogue showing the guild doing good for the general public, and then leading the public in songs. Only one song was actually sung at the gaming table, but it was easy to follow and simple to learn, and the PCs were given a bonus to the final roll if the players all participated, regardless of performance quality.

Quote:
Show what is hidden, within each well spring
Waters be risen, many from one
Praise to the current, joy to the waters
Mother to daughter, father to son.
(The lyrics can be sung to the tune of "Morning Has Broken" by Cat Stevens aka Yusuf Islam. Alcohol not required but it can help depending on the player comfort level.)

Setting out

The PCs all demonstrated themselves to be very accomplished (as one might expect of 250-point character builds) and so the caravan guild leader Halmaran offered them $1,500 each for the full six-to-eight weeks of travel and service.
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caravan to ein arris, fantasy, magic, noncombat, social challenges

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