The Caravan Returns
Red Crag - Chapter 1:2 The Stonebreaker name takes another blow when tragedy strikes the village
Red Crag is a serialized story that I am creating by playing a solo role-playing game. The main character, Tamsin Stonebreaker, is an iron miner from a small village who is compelled to restore her family’s honor. I have no idea where her story will go. I just create the characters, set the scene, think about what Tamsin will try to do, and roll the dice. If you want to start at the very beginning, start HERE.
The Caravan Returns
Fair Nan, Voice of Red Crag, leaned heavily on a spear as she led what was left of the caravan up the muddy, rocky road leading into the village. Behind her, Billy, clothes covered in mud, gripped the halter of an exhausted mule pushing her to keep pulling the wooden cart forward. Big-boned Yael Turnstone, grimmer than usual, pushed the cart from behind. Young Rede brought up the rear, gently coaxing a limping mule up the track.
As soon as they were spotted, a shout rippled through the village. Denric was among the first to reach them.
“Nan, what’s happened?”
One of Fair Nan’s ginger and white braids had fallen loose and a deep purple bruise crossed her cheek from her eye to her lip. Her voice scraped as she answered, “Bandits.”
“Someone fetch Alyce!” Denric shouted, catching Fair Nan as the small woman stumbled. “Help me bring them all to the lodge.”
Racing ahead of Moll and Becca, Tamsin reached the lodge just as the caravan did. Villagers crowded around. Desperate, Tamsin looked for her brother, Coryn. She pushed her way forward until she reached the back of the cart.
“Yael, where’s Coryn?” Tamsin asked.
The older woman ignored her. Tamsin grabbed the bigger woman’s muscular arm and pulled.
“Where’s Coryn?
Yael pulled her arm away. She glared at Tamsin, her pale gray eyes rimmed with red, the deep lines in her face shifting between fury and distress.
“Gone. Coryn’s gone.”
Tamsin’s heart sank.
Coryn was one of Red Crag’s sentinels charged with protecting the villagers at home and on the road.
Yael turned back to the cart. Lying there, grievously wounded, was Yael’s daughter, Gilli, the caravan’s other sentinel. Her eyes were closed and her breath was shallow. Next to her was seventeen year-old Callin Joy, head bandaged with blood crusted on his cheek. Sobbing, Callin clutched the woolen jacket of his father, Phin.
Tamsin looked at them and, not seeing Coryn, turned back to Yael.
“I don’t… .“
“He ran.” Yael’s voice tightened. “He saw what they were doing to my Gilli, he dropped his spear, and he ran.”
Yael’s stare challenged Tamsin to argue. Tamsin simply nodded and helped Yael push the cart to the lodge.
Tamsin lingered outside the lodge as the injured members of the caravan were taken inside. Gilli Turnstone had been taken straight to the house of the village healer, Alyce Lichenfinder. Tamsin watched in silence as Moll, Mandy and Sore Tom guided the mules and the cart toward the stable. Phin Joy’s body was still in the bed of the cart but was now covered with a blanket. Several villagers walked behind or with hands on the cart, keeping Faith with Phin.
Young Rede Slowburn leaned against a post, tears streaming down his face as he watched the cart go by. He tried to light his pipe, but his hands were shaking.
Tamsin had known Young Rede all her life. He and Coryn had gotten into a lot of trouble together when they were scrapers. Old Rede used to chase them around the village whenever they “helped” themselves to one of his freshly baked loaves or pies. Young Rede had grown into a good-looking fellow with black hair and gray eyes. Over the winter, he had earned his place at the blacksmiths’ forge.
She lit the pipe for him and leaned against the nearest post. “In your time,” she said. Then she waited for him to speak.
He smoked most of the bowl before he began. “We held over in Green Meadows a few extra days because of the rain. Meets Ore Road is worse than usual this year. Slow going in the mud. First night back, we lodged in River’s Bump. Got a good start the second morning."
Meets Ore Road mostly followed the course of the Crimson River as it flowed down and connected the sparse villages of the Iron Hills with the market town of Green Meadow and the wide, fertile expanse of Bright Vale.
“We were just a couple hours gone, beginning the climb where the road gets steep, when we came upon two fellas. One of ‘em looked hurt, so of course, we stopped. Next thing I know, they’re drawing swords and a voice calls out from behind us. We turned and saw the rest of ‘em. Five more. Tough-looking folk. But, the woman speaking, she was… huge. At least a head taller than Yael and maybe twice as wide.”
Young Rede looked at Tamsin in earnest. “I’m serious. She has Great blood in her for sure.”
“I believe you,” she said, though Tamsin couldn’t imagine anyone larger than Yael Turnstone.
“Fair Nan confronted the big woman. It was somethin’ really. Nan not half her size, but she stood tall as she could. She got cracked in the face for her trouble. Then a sneaky little tough knocked her to the ground. He spit on her and told her to stay down. The big woman just thought that was the funniest thing. Well, you know Gilli wasn’t going to stand for that. She lit into that woman with her spear. Got in a good jab, too. I swear it. Deep into her gut. But, that woman just kept laughing. Gilli’s spear just jigglin’ in her belly.”
Young Rede stared into the air as though watching a moving image of the attack, trying to piece together what happened next.
“She grabbed Gilli’s spear with one hand and drew a fine sword with the other. She moved so fast, that woman. Just slashing and stabbing. Gilli taking each cut, trying to pull her spear free. Phin jumped in and that woman sliced him right across the stomach. Gilli dropped to her knees still tryin’ to yank her spear free. Yael howling trying to get to her, but the bandits gripped her fast and one of them whacking her in the head with a staff.
“I was doing the best I could with my hammer. I got in a couple of good strikes. I did, Tam, I did. But, the fight was over in a moment and Fair Nan knew it. She told us all to drop weapons and kneel. So, we did.”
Young Rede paused, looked at Tamsin and then looked away.
“Go on,” she said.
“Except for Coryn. He was just standin’ there. Untouched. He hadn’t moved an inch. He was just leaning on his spear, tip in the mud.”
Young Rede shook his head slightly, trying to make sense of his memory.
“But, he wasn’t looking at the big woman, or Fair Nan, or Gilli, or any of us. He was looking straight at one of the bandits. A tall, good-looking fella. That fella just kind of tipped his head toward the wood and Coryn dropped his spear and ran.”
With a sigh, Tamsin pushed away from the post and walked away. Wishing she was surprised.
Billy, the caravan’s mule driver, was sitting on a bench in the village circle surrounded by a few of the other teen-aged scrapers peppering him with questions. Tamsin went over.
“Why don’t you all make yourselves useful?” Tamsin pointed toward the stables. “Go help Sore Tom with Sweet Girl and Paisley. Get ‘em food and water and brush them down. Whatever Tom tells you.”
The scrapers hesitated.
“Move on!” Tamsin said and, reluctantly, they did.
Tamsin turned to Billy and asked, “How’re you doing? You hurt?”
Billy shook his head. “Nah. When the bandits come I hid under the cart.”
Shame creeped into his cheeks. Tamsin sat down next to him nodding approval.
“Right. Quick thinking. That was the smart thing to do wasn’t it? Nobody expects a scraper like you to fend off bandits, do they? No. That’s why we don’t give you a spear or a blade. That’s what the sentinels are for. You protected yourself, meaning they could focus on protecting Fair Nan and the cart. Ya, that was clever of you.”
She put a hand on his shoulder, “You see that, right?”
“Ya. I guess.”
“And what’d you do after?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the mules look tired but they don’t look broken. Seems you must’ve taken good care of them after the fight.”
“Ya, I did.” Billy said slowly as he looked up at Tamsin, “Of course I did. Paisley was limping so I took him into the river like Sore Tom taught me to cool his joints. Fed ‘em what I could find.”
Tamsin looked directly into his eyes. ““You probably saved Gilli and Callin, you know that, right? If you hadn’t kept the mules going, how would you have brought Gilli and Callin and Phin back? The four of you couldn’t have carried the three of them. Sure couldn’t have gotten here as fast as you did.”
She squeezed his shoulder and looked him in the eye.
“You stuck it out when it got hard, Billy. You kept Faith with your people. Be proud of that.”
Billy looked down and shrugged.
“Young Rede says he’s never been so scared. And, he’s a full grown lodger who’s been in a fight or two. He may look scrawny, but he can swing that hammer. And Yael and Gilli, they’re trained with weapons. Phin and Fair Nan, too. You’re not, Billy. You’re a scraper. What are you, thirteen, fourteen? Nobody expects you to fight hard folk like those bandits. You protected yourself. No shame in that.”
Billy sniffed and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.
“No shame in crying either. If I’d been through what you’ve been through, I’d be under a tree bawling my eyes out.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“Sure, I would. I’m a miner. I beat up rocks and ore, not people. Red Crag’s all miners. We’re not soldiers, or sentinels, or warriors. We’re not heroes.”
The Game Behind the Story #2
[For those of you who are interested, keep reading for a peek into how I play the game and then turn it into the fiction you are reading. Each episode, I will try to highlight a particular mechanic or important moment in the game.]
Most tabletop roleplaying games are played with several people; the players who each create and run a single player character (or PC) and the game master (or GM) who creates the settings, the conflicts, and the quests, describes the situation, and plays all of the non-player characters (or NPCs). In the most basic terms, the GM sets the scene, the players decide what their PC will do, the GM responds with their NPCs or the setting, if necessary the player rolls the dice to determine if their PC succeeds or fails at what they are trying to do, the GM decides what that looks like and continues narrating the scene. The story unfolds in this collaborative back and forth way; sometimes cooperatively, sometimes in opposition. The plot twists and turns as the GM makes choices, the players make choices, and the mechanics drive outcomes. With the input from multiple points of view, the randomness of the dice rolls, and the interpretation of the outcome of those rolls, there are always plenty of conflicts and challenges that arise to move the game forward. When you play an RPG (and I hope you do), the fun and the thrill comes from the uncertainty and surprise that comes from that exchange of control.
Here, I’m playing solo. That means I’m both the player and the GM. If I was just writing this story as a normal piece of fiction, I would sit at my desk and plan out the plot and how my characters behave. I would generate conflicts because as a writer I know that is how to move a story forward. And, those conflicts would be designed to carry my main character through the steps and stages of her hero’s journey.
But, I’m not just writing a story. I’m playing a game. I don’t know what lies ahead for Tamsin. I don’t know what challenges she will face and how well she will respond to them. All of that is generated by me by playing the game. But, I also want it to be fun and interesting. So, how do I keep things challenging and difficult, how do I make sure there is a risk of failure, how do I inject uncertainty? How do I surprise myself? As the player, I want to to win. How do I avoid making it too easy?
Ironsworn (and many other solo or GM-less RPGs) use an oracle system. At any point in the game where the player wants to trigger ideas, relinquish some control, or more randomly decide which way the story will go, they turn to the oracle mechanic. In Ironsworn, you pose a “yes” or “no” (or “this” or “that”) question, determine the likelihood that the answer is “yes,” roll the percentile dice (two 10-sided dice or d10s), and compare the result to a table.
The scene with the caravan returning to Red Crag, was the first scene that I played in my game. The first oracle question I asked was: “Is Coryn with them?” I set the likelihood at 50/50 and rolled. I got a 23. The answer was “No.” Hmm… Tamsin’s story just became more interesting.
Coolio! It was fun reading the scene and then learning more about how the story is being created, based on the role of the dice! It feels kind of like life. We think we know who we are and where we are going, but nothing ever turns out as planned. And our character is developed by how we respond to our fate. Keep playing and writing. I am looking forward to the next one.
Love this - especially the end of the scene & last line. Love the character of Tamsin!