Foes - Stánford and the South

[Eclecticon]

Looks like there's no sign of him in the darkness, unless someone wants to spend a Hope point...

[Posterboy]

  I'll spend that point of hope.

A rule question: if I spend a point of hope to succeed,  do I still get the benefit of an extraordinary success?

Also: if I were to use a trait to auto succeed, would I still get the benefit of the extraordinary success?

[Eclecticon]

I've always taken the position that using Hope to achieve a success entitles you to all the usual benefits, including great and extraordinary successes, AP etc. 

Using Traits is different, though.  They're meant to speed up play and help players blow through things where failure would be boring.  They're an alternative to rolling dice, so they only ever provide a basic success (unless you use them to get a roll where one wouldn't ordinarily be allowed, which you can also do).

All this assumes a tabletop setting, of course.  It's a bit hard to pre-empt the need for a roll when the GM does some of the rolling for you.  So my policy will be to allow people to ignore the result of a GM roll if they have an applicable Trait.

[Posterboy]

  Awesome! I'll still use that point of hope.

I'm out for the next few weeks. NPC as needed.

[Eclecticon]

The three search in vain for Oderic's trail, confounded by the passage of time and the darkness of a cloudy night.  The cold wind is unrelenting, and it is with lips gone numb that Tate finally cries out for the others.  The light of a torch shows indentations in a muddy bank, several hundred yards downstream from the crossing, where a man pulled a boat ashore and then pushed it once more out into the current.  From there, his tracks head west into the lone lands before the Misty Mountains. 

The trail is plain, and Beorn's hounds are loosed. 


A little travel montage follows.  First, Lore rolls:

Esgalwen

1d12 : 9, total 9
Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1

Tate

1d12 : 6, total 6
Rolled 3d6 : 3, 5, 1, total 9

[Eclecticon]

Tate gets a bonus die to use in any travel-related roll.   

[Eclecticon]

Fatigue test:

Esgalwen

1d12 : 9, total 9
Rolled 3d6 : 6, 2, 4, total 12

Tate

1d12 : 12, total 12
Rolled 3d6 : 5, 1, 5, total 11

[Eclecticon]

For several days, the three hunters follow the spoor.  The signs of Oderic's passage become harder to find as his path wanders, his destination unknown likely even to himself.  The clouds hang low and ponderous in the sky, and the wind that raced up the river valley disdains the lands away from the water.  Instead, the world is filled with the cries of birds flying southward, and half-seen movements as the beasts of the hills and fields make their preparations for the coming winter.  But a footprint here, a broken knife there and periodic signs of campfires lead them on as the trail bends southward, towards the land of the Woodmen.  These campsites are closer together than the hunters' own.  Oderic, it seems, was not pressing forward in any haste. 

On the third day after crossing the river, the three come to the side of a brook, barely a trickle in this dry autumn, where the trail of Oderic meets the footprints of many, and the trail dissolves into confusion. 


Aaaaand now it's time for some Riddle rolls:

Esgalwen

Rolled 1d12 : 4, total 4
Rolled 1d6 : 1, total 1

Esgalwen

Rolled 1d12 : 9, total 9
Rolled 2d6 : 6, 2, total 8

[Eclecticon]

I'll pause the narrative here to let Doug jump in with anything he wants to include before we get the results of Tate's roll. 

[tomcat]

I will have a post up tonight, or tomorrow

[Eclecticon]

This pleases me.

[tomcat]

Esgalwen enjoyed the march. The land here was very much like her own Ithilien, though at times it was more chill and the mountains did not seem so ominous. Still, the terrain was familiar and her boots were steady upon open rock, grassy field, and the scrub that clung to the land.

Occasionally, their quarry had found and used old hunter-paths, or broken roads of the ancients, and though good, he had not completely hidden from his hunters - they clung to his trail. At times, the Ranger felt her skill lacking compared to her companion. Tate had proven to be quite the outdoorsman, as well as a skilled man in social tact. Still, it was their combined effort that kept them on a clear trail.

Along their path, Esgalwen oft marveled at the totems that would appear - painted carvings that signified the many tribes of this land. Also they would come upon the works of her folk - great stoneworks that had been done by Gondorians long ago, or even the adventurous Númenóreans before them. Time had aged these works, and some were in ruin, but still they were evident. It was these times that Esgalwen would slow their pace to study the skills of her forebears, for she was passionate about old-lore. Tate would add a song or two when he saw her staring, and she would drift off to places long ago.

"C'mon, Gwen...we should be moving," he would gently say to bring her out of her reverie.

Poplars, maples, and fir trees sprouted up all around them and the wind would sing through their boughs. Rain fell and the autumn sun shone. It was everything that Esgalwen enjoyed... even her purpose. As a Ranger of Ithilien, they were tasked to hunt the lands for dangers of Mordor, and though Oderic was not such a threat, the task was the same.

On day three of travel, they came at last to the near-dry creek and the broken trail. She knelt close to the ground to observe the prints left. So many. They crossed over one another and mixed into a tangled riddle.

"Was it a scuffle? Perhaps a fight between two wandering companies? I see many heavy boots, but they are so jumbled that it is not easy to discern if they were the Men of this land, or something worse. What is worse, I cannot tell if Oderic passed the location by or if he were mixed within this disturbance."

Esgalwen moved on the outskirts of the tracks, so as not to disturb any possible signs. A true hunter would know this story, she thought. You have spent too much time outside your duties, Ranger. In her head, the self-admonishment only increased her confusion. But then another voice spoke - her grandfather's - Gwen, we are always learning; always making better our skills. Treat every moment as book and not a hammer, for it is only the steel that prefers such reshaping.

"Yes, Grandpa, but I cannot decipher this book before me..." she said in a low-voice, to herself.

The two men heard her soft words and looked over to where she squatted near the ground. Their looks only made her more frustrated and she said, "Well?! Is there something that you two can discern from these tracks?"

[Eclecticon]

When Tate answers, it is with the twinkling eye of one who fancies himself to be quite, quite clever.  "Our quarry," he says, oblivious to Williferd's pained expression, "most definitely met others here, and gave them battle, or they him."  He points out tiny slivers of wood, trodden deep into the loam and missed by the Ranger.  "See here.  Much would I wager that these were brast from a shield.  And there is this."

He moves his foot, revealing a scrap of waxed leather cord, the fresh cut at one end clear to see.  "From this, I hazard that he fought, but was overcome and bound, and borne elsewhere by his captors."

He smirks at Esgalwen.  "My ears are sharp, and little passes your lips an that I know of it.  Do not berate yourself so!  We cannot all be blessed with such insight."

[tomcat]

The tension on Esgalwen's face faded at Tate's comment and a smile of her own bloomed at her cocksure friend.

"If only," she feigned a swoon and both gave a chuckle. Becoming serious once more, "Well then, it seems Oderic will now be less mobile. Williferd, who resides in these parts and might have had reason to take him captive? Do you know of any that Oderic might have caused offense? And Sir Bard, might you apply that keen insight further and see if a trail can be discerned as to the direction they went?"

[Eclecticon]

The Lake-Man points, "south, it would seem."  Indeed, the trail of half a dozen men or more is easy to follow from here.  For the remainder of the day it wends its way among stony hills and across marshy dells.  Land and waters alike here slouch south-east, and it occurs to Esgalwen that they cannot be far from the Gladden Fields.  A chill takes her at the thought of that place of misfortune and ill-omen for the folk of Gondor, but her step does not falter, nor does her countenance betray any trace of fear.  Nonetheless, she cannot shake the sense that there is a wary watchfulness about the land, as if they trod across a giant of an elder age, now uneasily a-slumber. 

The going is harder than the fair lands across the river, and it is plain that Williferd, unaccustomed to long journeys far from home, is struggling to keep up with his more experienced travelling companions.  He shivers in the breezes atop the hills, and his legs are soon covered in mud from ill-chosen steps in the fens between them.  His breath is scarce, and he does not waste it on speaking. 


Let's do some Travel rolls, shall we? 

Esgalwen

1d12 : 6, total 6
Rolled 3d6 : 5, 1, 3, total 9

Tate

1d12 : 5, total 5
Rolled 3d6 : 6, 1, 1, total 8