An Unfriendly Face
Red Crag 2:3 - Tamsin's way is blocked by an enemy of Red Crag
Red Crag is a serial I am creating by playing a solo role-playing game. The hero, Tamsin Stonebreaker, is an iron miner sworn to restore her family’s honor. Click here if you want to start at the beginning. If not, join Tamsin as she tries to navigate a tricky situation on the banks of the Skrytin RIver.
Red Crag 2:3 - An Unfriendly Face
“Who you calling a feckin’ idiot?” A gruff woman’s voice answered from a distance. Startled, Jack barked back.
“Shhh, boy,” Tamsin put a finger to her lips and Jack obeyed. They stood listening. In that pause, she heard the loud rush of a river coming from just beyond the tree line.
“Well?” the same voice hollered.
Tamsin tried to peer through the woods to get a look at the speaker, but the foliage was too thick. Tamsin slid Coryn’s spear into the strap on her back. Holding her hands out in what she hoped was a peaceful gesture, she stepped slowly through the trees to the edge of the woods.
“I was talking to myself. I meant no offense. I promise you, I mean—”
Tamsin stopped speaking as she stepped out of the woods and gazed in awe at the Skrytin River. The river was half again wider than the Crimson River. It was running fast, high and loud. It crashed into, over and around huge, jagged rocks in the center creating swirling eddies below. The riverbank was flat and covered with stones.
“Well, feckin’ idiot, have you never seen a river?”
Tamsin turned to look upstream. She saw a darker-skinned older woman dressed in layers of brown wool with iron gray braids piled loosely on her head. She was standing twenty yards away near the edge of the river. Stripped branches and twigs were piled nearby. Other than the thick branch in her hand, the woman appeared to be unarmed.
“Ya,” Tamsin answered, “but, I don’t remember it being this… wild.”
“Ya, ya, it’s wild.” The old woman gestured at the rapids with the broken branch in her hand. Then, she turned to Tamsin and pointed downstream and upstream.
“Now you’ve seen it, head whichever way you’re headin’.”
Tamsin took a few steps toward the woman. The woman raised the branch and stared at her. Tamsin stopped and looked around. A short ways up the river, she could see a thin trail of smoke and a well-used camp. The fire ring had poles set over it with a black kettle in between. Behind it was a sturdy lean-to made of stone, clay, and poles. A sturdy looking short logboat was flipped over next to it. She understood. This woman had staked a claim to this piece of the river and Tamsin and Jack were not welcome.
“I’m heading across.”
“Ha!” the old woman barked, “good luck with that.”
“Is this Small Man’s Portage?” Tamsin asked.
The old woman shook her head and pointed downstream with her stick. “It’s about eight miles that way.”
Eight miles? Tamsin hadn’t been heading straight west after all. Her stomach growled and she realized she hadn’t eaten in awhile. She squatted down and pulled some bread and cheese out of her bag. She tossed a corner of bread to Jack then walked over to a boulder at the water’s edge.
“Mind if I take a minute to eat and rest?”
The old woman looked at her suspiciously and then looked back at the woods where Tamsin had appeared. “You got any friends in there with you?” she asked loudly.
Tamsin laughed and sat on the boulder. “No, just me. On my Faith.”
“Pah! You can keep your Faith. And, your distance, too.” The woman returned to her pile of sticks.
As she ate, Tamsin watched the old woman work. She was making something out the stripped sticks. Some kind of basket. Tamsin finished her meal and walked closer.
“I apologize for startling you earlier and for my rudeness.”
Tamsin placed her right hand flat on her sternum as she had been taught to do when speaking to strangers. “I’m Tamsin Stonebreaker from Red Crag. It’s a ways east of here. In the Iron— ”
The old woman looked Tamsin up and down, spit on the ground, and then went back to her work.
“I don’t mean to be a bother, but —“
“But, you are.”
Tamsin looked at the logboat resting near the woman’s lean-to. From the dirt on it, she guessed it hadn’t been used in awhile.
“I need to get down river. I’m in a hurry. If I could borrow your logboat—”
“No.”
“I could trade you something for it.” Tamsin reached into her bag.
“You got nothing I want.”
Tamsin watched the old woman work for several minutes. She seemed to be struggling to hold the sticks in place while she wrapped them with cordage. Her calloused hands were stiff with large knuckles.
“That a fish trap?”
“Ya.”
“Do you need help?”
“Not from you.” The old woman glared up at Tamsin, her jaw working with fury. “Not from a Stonebreaker.”
Tamsin stepped back, surprised. She hadn’t expected that her mother’s poor reputation would have spread this far beyond Red Crag. But, right now she had more important things to do than defend Gwynne Stonebreaker.
“Fine, I’ll leave you to it.”
Tamsin whistled for Jack and started to walk away. She’d gotten about twenty feet when the old woman snorted.
“Ha! Turn away, just like your Gran.”
Tamsin whirled around. “My Gran?”
The old woman was standing defiantly, her broken branch in her gnarled hand. “Ya, if your Gran was Sian Stonebreaker.”
“She was.”
“Ha! I could tell just looking at you.”
“And, who are you to be talking about my Gran?”
“Iren Lugbole,” the woman said. She glared at Tamsin with defiant pride.
Tamsin looked at her blankly.
“You know Flatrock, doncha?”
Tamsin nodded.
“Of course you do. Of course you do. Red Crag gets its fine clay from Flatrock, don’t you? Red Crag and Flatrock are in Faith together, aren’t they?”
Tamsin nodded. Iren started walking toward her. Slowly.
“Still are I’d guess even after all these years.”
“Ya, we’re still good friends with them.”
Flatrock was a small community, not even a proper village, up Crag Creek from Red Crag. Four or five families there dug the rose clay that Red Crag used to make and repair its smelting furnaces. The folk of Flatrock also made excellent clayware pots and platters.
Tamsin tightened her grip on her spear as the old woman stepped up to her. The broken branch in her hand was shaking.
“But, you never heard of the Lugboles, did you?”
Tamsin shook her head, “no, I haven’t.”
Iren jabbed broken branch toward Tamsin. “That’s because Sian Stonebreaker broke Faith with us.”
Tamsin’s grandmother died when Tamsin was just a tyke so Tamsin didn’t know her well. Her few memories were of a serious woman who pinched her cheeks too hard and talked very loudly. But, Sian Stonebreaker had been The Voice of Red Crag for almost forty years. The village spoke of her with great respect and reverence. Tamsin’s foster mother, Moll, always said that Tamsin looked like Sian and that was a good sign for her future. Denric said Tamsin had Sian’s bluntness and resolve. “Your Gran,” he said, “was firm and fair. She kept the Peace and the Faith with a steady hand and clear voice.”
Tamsin scoffed at Iren and shook her head.
“Of course you don’t believe it. No, no. Of course not. Sian Stonebreaker was a paragon of Faith, wasn’t she? Hmmm? And, Lugboles, we’re just uphill nothings. Isn’t that it?”
“I’m sorry for whatever slight you imagine she did. But, I’m just trying to get —“
“Slight? Lugboles had been at Flatrock for generations. We started the clay trade. We did. But, when outsiders came and weaseled their way into our Work, did Red Crag help us? No! We pleaded with Sian Stonebreaker to help us. To defend us. She turned her back. Said there was nothing she could do.”
Iren took another step forward. Tamsin held her ground.
“In the end, the strangers pushed us out. There was no longer a place for the Lugboles in Flatrock. No place for us anywhere. There’s no Faith between me and a Stonebreaker. So, don’t be looking to me for any help.”
Iren stepped right up to Tamsin, nose to nose. Tamsin held her tongue.
“You want my logboat, you’re going to need to use that spear to take it from me.”
Tamsin’s jaw tightened as she flexed her hand around Coryn’s spear. Eyes locked on Iren’s, she took a step back. That logboat could save her precious hours. She took a few more steps back. With a sharp whistle she called for Jack who came bounding out of the woods. Tamsin kept slowly walking backward.
“Keep your boat. And, keep your anger. I’ll keep my Peace.”
With that, Tamsin turned and walked away with Iren Lugbole glowering at her back.
“Coward!”
One cranky old woman isn’t going to stop Tamsin, keep reading to find out what happens next when Tamsin hits Rough Waters
The Game Behind the Story 2:3
At the end of the last episode, I rolled a strong hit with a match (doubles on the challenge dice) for Tamsin’s journey. That meant that Tamsin would find an opportunity at her next waypoint. Well, Iren Lugbole was that “opportunity.” I decided that Tamsin would meet someone on the banks of the Skrytin River.
Making new non-player characters (NPCs) is one of my favorite things as a GM in roleplaying games that I run with other players. Mostly, because I get to play them. Either I plan them ahead of time or I make them up on the fly. I give them names, voices, physical descriptions, and reasons for being in the story. I use them to challenge, fight, befriend, help, or engage with the characters being played by my friends (PCs). One of the best things is popping in with a character that surprises, scares, amuses or moves my friends at the table.
In a solo game, the question becomes how do I make NPCs that will engage in the same way with my PC, Tamsin Stonebreaker? Some, like the villagers in Red Crag, I just imagined as part of the initial world-building. But, other times, I use the mechanics to create a new NPC. That’s what I did with Iren Lugbole.
First, I asked the oracle if the NPC was human or Fenn (another race of people in my world). Human. Then, I rolled gender - female and age - 69. In Ironsworn you can flesh out NPCs by rolling the percentile dice (a 1d100 or two special d10s) on special oracle tables. The first table is Character Role. This describes what type of character they are - bandit, warrior, priest, leader, etc. The second is Character Goal. This helps to provide context and motivation for the NPC. The third is Character Descriptor. You can roll on this one, two, or three times to determine the NPC’s attitude and personality.
So, I rolled for Iren and got a hostile forager who wanted to create something. I decided that something was a fishtrap.
I imagined the scene. Tamsin at the side of this river that she needed to go down. An older woman trying to make a fishtrap. Maybe they could help each other. Tamsin makes the Compel move. Tamsin is using her earnest, kind nature, so I roll with +2 Heart. I rolled 3:9-7, a miss! I rolled on the Pay the Price table. The situation is stressful, Tamsin takes -1 Spirit.
Narratively, I saw this as an opportunity to strike at Tamsin’s feelings about her family. She’s a Stonebreaker. Part of a long line of women who were the leaders of Red Crag. She already has doubts about her mother. But, maybe the family’s dishonor goes farther back? Iren Lugbole is openly hostile when she meets Tamsin, maybe that’s not her general demeanor, maybe it’s personal. With that, the story unfolded.
Thanks to everyone who has subscribed! If you are liking Red Crag, please let me know by hitting the LIKE button below and let me know what you think of Tamsin’s journey so far by leaving a comment.
Wonderful scene and great new character! The dialogue is great, sweeps me up instantly. Your visual descriptions are fantastic. Stay strong Tamsin!
Great banter and I love Iren Lugbole. I get the feeling we haven't seen the last of her.