Rough Waters
Red Crag 2:4 - In this ongoing serial adventure, Tamsin must survive the crushing currents of the Skrytin River to continue her journey to save Gilli!
Red Crag is a serial I’m 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 and her dog, Jack, find the fastest way down a wild river.
Red Crag 2:4 - Rough Waters
After she was sure Iren Lugbole could no longer see her, Tamsin broke into a trot with Jack keeping pace beside her. As she often did, Tamsin shared her frustrations with him
“I can’t believe I wasted my time with that slag pile. She was never going to help me, was she?”
“Maybe I should’ve just knocked her down and taken that boat. Would have been just, her talking about Gran that way.”
“I’m sure there’s a reason I’ve never heard of the Lugboles. Probably idlers. Gran never had a good word for those who didn’t pull their weight.”
“Can you imagine, Sian Stonebreaker not keeping Faith?”
Jack barked up at her.
“Right. Course not.”
Feeling better, Tamsin picked up a stick and threw it for him.
As best she could, Tamsin traveled along the riverbank looking for a good place to cross. But, the Skrytin River was wide and running fast and high with the early spring melt. There was no place where she could wade across and Tamsin didn’t like her chances if she tried to swim.
She plugged on. Thinking of Gilli. Imagining her feverish on Alyce’s sickbed. Yael’s massive form hovering over her; willing her to get better. Tamsin’s stomach knotted. She was Gilli’s only hope. If there was an antidote to the toxin killing Gilli Felt Foot, the Fenn healer, would have it. She needed to get to Owl’s Rage as fast as possible.
Travel on foot was difficult and slow. The river’s edge alternated between sections of large jagged rocks and tangles of trees and their roots. As she moved, Tamsin kept an eye out for anything she could use to move more quickly.
Finally, something caught her eye in the shadows of a huge tree leaning out over the river. It looked like a floating log. She picked her way across the thick roots, clinging onto the low hanging branches until she could see it clearly. Tamsin’s spirits lifted. It was an old logboat!
It took her a few minutes to pull it free from roots and grasses, but she finally managed it. The small boat looked like it had been dug out of an old oak with the bottom roughly flattened for stability. It was banged up on the sides but she couldn’t see any serious cracks or holes. She quickly cut and stripped a sturdy pole.
Tamsin didn’t have a lot of experience in logboats. A few times, Denric had taken her and Coryn out on Meadowsweet Pond to catch fish and explore the bogs. Coryn thought it was funny to tip the boat. After too many soakings, Denric gave up. Upstream, folks from Flatrock used logboats to bring their clay and earthen wares down Crag Creek to Red Crag and then on to the Crimson River. When they were fifteen or so, Macka Rosecup from Flatrock taught Tamsin the basics of paddling and poling. Tamsin smiled when she thought about learning other “basics” with Macka.
Tamsin pulled the logboat around to a flatter spot on the river bank. Here, the water was calmer, so she figured she’d have time to get the hang of it before hitting the faster current. Tamsin patted the inside of the boat near the front trying to coax Jack to get in. He shifted from side to side barking nervously then flopped down on the dirt. Tamsin scooped him up and placed him near the front.
“I don’t appreciate the lack of Faith, pup.”
Dropping her cloak, bag and spear in the center of the logboat, Tamsin carefully stepped in, balancing herself with the pole. The logboat wobbled beneath her feet. Drawing a breath and tensing what felt like every muscle, Tamsin planted the pole and pushed away from the riverbank. The muck in the riverbed grabbed the end of the pole and almost immediately pulled Tamsin in. But, Tamsin jerked the pole free. As she did, the logboat rocked hard from side to side. Jack whimpered and scrambled to his feet.
“Sit! Sit down.” Tamsin gestured for Jack to settle in the bow of the logboat. Reluctantly, he obeyed. But, he was tensed to leap out at any moment.
Tamsin pulled the pole in, bent her knees and evened her body over her feet. She remembered Macka’s words: “Don’t fight the boat. Don’t try to dominate it by standing tall and strong. Feel it through your feet and knees. Guide it with your legs and weight.”
Slowly, Tamsin stood. Keeping a bit of bend in her knees, she shifted her weight ever so slightly to one side and then the other. She felt the boat respond turning slightly downriver and then back again. She dipped the tip of the pole back into the water reaching for the bottom.
“The pole is an extension of you,” Macka said, “just like your hammer or chisel. Work with it. Don’t overdo it.”
It took awhile, but Tamsin finally got the hang of it. The river was moving quickly, so once she got headed in the right direction, she mostly used the pole to keep the bow pointed in the right direction. Occasionally, she would find herself picking her way through a shallow, rocky section of the river. She took those slowly, using the pole to push off the rocks or to drive the logboat from eddy to eddy.
As she floated briskly along, Tamsin scanned the riverbanks which were either rocky boulders or overgrown with hanging trees and shrubs. It would have taken her several hours to get downriver if she had stayed on foot.
She was looking for Small Man’s Portage. She knew the portage was above a clump of huge boulders that created a steep drop in the river. On either side, the bushes and trees had been pushed back away from the river’s edge clearing a path for travelers to pull their logboats and belongings around the drop. She remembered how loud and violent the water was there. As a child, she had been both frightened and fascinated as she watched the water crash over the huge, jagged boulders in the river. Below the rocks, the river widened and the water flattened. That was where they had crossed.
Jack heard it first. His ears perked up and he lifted his head. The roar of the water. Tamsin heard it, too. The riverbanks had been getting closer, making the river narrower, the water faster and rougher. The heads of rocks broke up the current. It was hard not to stare at them. Her heart raced as she used the pole to fend them off worried that at any moment the logboat would break against one of them.
“Look away, lean away,” Macka had said, “focus on where you need to go next.” Tamsin tried, but the river wasn’t cooperating.
She spotted the portage landing on the left side first and then on the right. Pushing with all of her might, Tamsin tried to force the logboat toward the landing on the right side. That’s where she needed to be. But, as she tried to turn in that direction, the current twisted the other way and the logboat twisted with it. The boat slammed sideways against a massive boulder trapping the pole between the rock and the boat. White water sprayed all around. Tamsin looked beyond the boulder and saw the river drop at least six feet.
Staring at the landing, she leaned and strained on the pole trying to move the logboat off the rock. She shifted her weight away from the boulder, once, again, again, again. Crack! The pole snapped. Tamsin was thrown into the rushing water.
Before she could think, the water pushed her against another boulder and then propelled her over the edge. Tamsin’s belly flipped as she dropped. She was flying and then she was submerged. The current churned her through the smaller boulders at the bottom of the rapid. Flailing, she sucked in water, gasping for air.
Then, the rush of water eased and she was floating. Coughing, Tamsin lifted her head above the surface. She kicked down with her feet to find the river bed. Finally, she found her footing and gathered herself. Holding her ground, she looked around.
“Jack!”
Jack was paddling frantically toward the riverbank. She watched as his feet struck the bottom and he was able to run onto dry land. There, he ran back and forth, barking in a panic.
“Good pup! Good pup! I’m alright. I’m alright,” she said over and over, first to him and then to herself until her heart stopped pounding.
She was wading toward the bank when she spotted her bag and her cloak caught up in the branches of an old bog oak that had fallen at the edge of the river. She retrieved these and made her way to the river’s edge. The spear was trapped between two rocks. It took a little more effort to get to it, but Tamsin wasn’t going to leave her only weapon behind.
Exhausted, she scrambled out of the water and immediately sat down on the ground. Jack flopped down next to her pushing his head into her hands. She rubbed his wet fur and gave him a good hug.
“Ya, ya. Sorry about that. I really thought I had the hang of it.”
Digging into her bag, she pulled out what was left of Old Rede’s loaf of bead. The cloth wrapping it was soaked and so was the bread inside it. Tamsin laid it out on the ground near Jack.
“It’s all yours.”
Tamsin nibbled on some cheese while Jack wolfed down the soggy bread. Then, she got to her feet.
“Better get moving before my body realizes how much that hurt.”
The Game Behind the Story 2:4
Honestly, some of the best storytelling in a roleplaying game comes from failed dice rolls. This is when conflicts deepen, a bad situation becomes dire, the way is blocked, an enemy appears, the character is wounded or in despair. Sometimes the consequences of a failed roll are obvious, but when they are not, or when the rules require it, we have to roll on the Pay the Price table.
In Ironsworn there are three tracks that reflect how your character is doing: Health, Spirit, and Supply. Health reflects the character’s physical well-being. Whenever the character is physically harmed - cut with a sword, poisoned, sick, falls off a wall - the damage is reflected on the Health track. Spirit reflects the character’s state of mind and emotional well-being. Supply reflects the tools, materials, gear, and resources the character carries or can easily access. (One of the things I like about Ironsworn is that you don’t have to manage a detailed inventory. If it makes sense that your character would have an item, and their Supply rank is high, then they have it on them.)
Each track has five ranks. A rank of 5 means the character is doing great, feeling healthy, in good spirits, or fully supplied. A rank of 1 means the character is in serious trouble. A rank of 0 puts the character at risk of suffering a significant Debility. Debilities may be temporary, long-term, or permanent conditions, banes or burdens.
In the last episode, Tamsin failed a roll to Compel cranky old Iren Lugbole to lend her a logboat. It seemed pretty obvious to me, given Tamsin’s deep-seated questions about her family’s honor and Iren’s hostile attitude toward the Stonebreakers, that this miss would harm Tamsin emotionally, so she took -1 Spirit.
There is also a track on the character sheet called Momentum that reflects how well the character is progressing on their journey, mission, or quest. Increased Momentum might reflect finding a short cut, hitching a ride, finding a key, getting assistance from townsfolk, or just moving at speed. Decreased Momentum might reflect being slowed by an injury, getting lost, inclement weather, or taking the long way around to avoid danger. The Momentum track goes from -6 to +10. Momentum is a resource that can be spent to turn misses into hits.
Of course, there has to be a way to recover from harm and suffering. In Ironsworn, when you suffer a loss of Spirit, you can make a move called Endure Stress. You roll +Heart or +Spirit (whichever is higher). On a strong hit, you can either recover +1 Spirit in exchange for -1 Momentum or take +1 Momentum. On a weak hit, you take the hit to your Spirit and keep plugging on. On a miss, you keep the loss to your Spirit track and you take -1 Momentum.
Clearly, trying to recover from one’s stress can be risky! Which brings me to Jack. Yep, Tamsin’s Hound has mechanics, too. He is a Companion Asset. When he is with Tamsin, he can help her with certain rolls. Of the three available benefits, I chose Loyal to start. When Tamsin Endures Stress and Jack is with her, she gets a +1 to her roll!
Here, I rolled 7/4-1 to Endure Stress. A strong hit! (Good doggie!) I took +1 Spirit and -1 Momentum. Narratively, this was Tamsin walking downriver talking out her feelings with Jack by her side.
As they progressed, I decided that Tamsin would be looking around, trying to find something to speed her along her journey. I rolled a strong hit to Gather Information (a broad move to search, investigate, track, or ask questions). That’s +2 Momentum! I decided that Tamsin found a logboat to float down the river. Then, I rolled a weak hit to Undertake a Journey. Tamsin reached a Waypoint but lost some food (-1 Supply) getting there. She and Jack were still in good shape and ready to head into the Fenn Wilds.
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.
The tension on the river was great. I was actually relieved when Tamsin and Jack were okay.
Wow! Great action! And we have a new character, someone who taught Tamsin "the basics" in more ways than one. I'm hooked again.