The Way Forward
Red Crag 2:2 - Far from Red Crag and desperate to reach Owl's Rage, Tamsin struggles to cross an unknown forest
Red Crag is a serial I am creating by playing a solo role-playing game. The hero, Tamsin Stonebreaker, is an iron miner compelled to restore her family’s honor. Click here if you want to start at the beginning. If not, join Tamsin as she journeys to find a hidden Fenn village where she might find a cure to save her best friend’s life.
Leaving Denric and Becca had been harder than Tamsin had imagined. She’d traveled away from them and the village before. But, this time was different. This time she might not be allowed to come back. If she failed to find the Fenn village. If their healer wasn’t there. If she couldn’t convince him to provide the anti-toxin that might save Gilli. If, if, if. There were so many ways that she could fail.
Tamsin shook those thoughts out of her head as she and Jack trotted down the familiar cutting trail off of the main road. This leg of her journey should be easy and she should move as quickly as possible. Red Crag’s iron mining, smelting and forging required cartloads of wood and charcoal. The first generations of miners had cut down large swaths of the pine forests lining Crag Creek north of Red Crag forcing subsequent generations to move further west and downhill to Ice Creek and beyond. There, the cutters discovered better burning hardwoods of ash, yew and thorn.
Each Spring, the villagers cut a new spur trail through the woods to Ice Creek wide enough for the ox to pull carts through. Cutters set up camps along the trail with space enough to dig charcoal pits. Savvy cutters like Yael and Gilli scouted through the woods like hunters selecting small stands of mature trees to harvest and marking out the path for the next cutting trail. In this way, the woods between Crag and Ice Creeks continued to thrive despite the webbed network of cutting trails threading through them.
Every now and again, Tamsin had been part of those cutting teams. As a scraper, she had tended the charcoal pits, lopped the branches off the felled trees, and driven the carts to and from Red Crag. Thus, she was fairly familiar with the trails that could lead her to Ice Creek. But, every decade or so, the cutters would give the near woods a rest and venture to the other side of Ice Creek to the vast forest between it and the Skrytin River. She would need to cross that forest to get to Owl’s Rage. It was the thought of navigating those woods that worried Tamsin.
After traveling for a couple of hours the familiar woods became dark and she stopped in a clearing to eat and rest. Jack flopped down at her feet whimpering softly until she tossed him a chunk of bread. Tamsin scrubbed him behind the ears.
“So, what do you think, Jack? Do we push on in the dark or rest here until morning?”
Jack cocked his head as he did whenever she spoke to him in that tone.
“Good point, we have torches.” Tamsin pulled a pouch out of her bag. The pouch contained a lump of wrought iron, flint stone and some char cloth. Tamsin piled up enough dry twigs to start small fire with which to light one of the pitch torches Denric had given her.
“C’mon, mutt. It shouldn’t take us too long to get to the creek.”
Each torch lasted about an hour. Not long enough. After the light faded from the second torch, Tamsin and Jack were left to fumble through the woods by what little moonlight filtered through the trees. It was rough going and Tamsin found herself turned around more than once. Finally, she heard the vigorous burble of Ice Creek. The trail she was on lead her to an abandoned cutting camp on the bank of the creek.
After taking a drink, Jack immediately dropped down on the grass, head on his paws, looking up at Tamsin.
The moon was a crescent sliver and barely illuminated the stream. Tamsin considered wading across it. Should she risk crossing it in the dark? She knelt and trailed her hand in the water. It was running fast and cold with early Spring melt from the mountains. They had been moving for almost six hours. Her feet and legs were heavy with fatigue. The night’s chill was creeping into her sweat-damp tunic.
Reluctantly, Tamsin took Moll’s advice. She quickly started a fire in an old stone ring and dined on cheese, bread, and a bit of sausage. Going back into her bag, she realized that she had forgotten her bedroll. Chastising herself, she stoked and banked the fire and then curled up under her cloak.
Shivering, she stared into the fire. She tried to picture Gilli the last time they went on a journey like this together. Gilli loved sleeping under the trees. Tamsin preferred the safety and warmth of the lodge. But, every time Gilli’s face came into focus it would shift to the way she looked now. Pale and feverish. The blue-edged wounds where the bandit’s poisoned blade had cut her down.
Eventually, Tamsin’s exhaustion overtook her and she fell asleep.
Tamsin woke just before dawn, ate and refilled her water bag with fresh, cold water from the creek. She stretched her back and shook out her cloak. She was stuffing her cloak into her bag when she heard Jack barking. Looking up, she saw he was on the other side of the creek.
“How?” she wondered aloud and whistled for him. Jack bolted upstream about two hundred feet. In the early morning light, Tamsin saw what she could not have seen the night before: a venerable pine that had been felled years ago lay across the creek.
Tamsin shook her head and jogged toward the tree. “Good boy!”
Travel was easy for the first few hours of the morning. Tamsin guessed that this side of Ice Creek had been clear cut thirty or so years ago. The main cutting trail was easy to follow. Tamsin had only been to Skrytin River once, on that first trip to Owl’s Rage so many years ago. But, she knew that if she continued west she would find it. Eventually.
Like the Crimson River that flowed near Red Crag, the Skrytin River flowed from the Barrier Mountains through the Iron Hills and, according to old Alyce, all the way to the sea. As it flowed down, it formed the western boundary between the Fenn Wilds and Bright Vale south of the Iron Hills.
By mid-morning, Tamsin and Jack had moved beyond the cleared area and were climbing up and over pine-covered hills. As they did, gray clouds piled up and rain quickly followed. Tamsin pulled on her cloak and grumbled. They had been making good time but the rain would slow them down. She pushed on trying to maintain her speed and heading as the rain poured down.
Up a hill and down again. Again and again. The ground was turning to mud and several times she lost her footing. Frustration was building as the rain came down harder. Tamsin didn’t remember there had been this many hills. Had they taken a different, less arduous, path? They had taken their time then, but surely the way was not this difficult. Tamsin paused at the foot of yet another hill covered with shrubs and pine. Looking around, she convinced herself that her mother had lead them to a shortcut somewhere near here. One that bypassed these endless hills. As the rain poured down, Tamsin searched for another path around. After and hour or so, Jack sat down with a sigh and refused to follow her. Tamsin crouched next to him and rested.
“You’re right. If there was a faster way through here, Alyce would have mentioned it.” She stood and headed up the hill with Jack at her heels.
The ground was steep and slippery with wet leaves but she finally gained the top. There were fewer trees here, but the rain and overcast sky made it difficult to get her bearings. What she could see of the sun’s diffuse glow was right above her. Midday. Was she still headed due west? She thought so. But, she wasn’t sure. She felt herself start to panic.
Then, she remembered something Gilli had said to her: “In the woods, don’t decide you’re lost until you know you’re lost. If the way forward isn’t clear, turn around and see where you’ve been. Find something familiar. Get your bearings there. Then decide which way to go. When you do, keep a straight line, look straight ahead, not at your feet.” Tamsin took a breath and turned around. The hill she was on was high enough to look over the forest she had been slogging through. She scanned the horizon looking for a gap or a dip in the line of treetops. That would be the clear cut area. There! There it was. That was east. She let out the breath she was holding and smiled.
“Ya Gilli, I heard you. Now, you listen to me. You hold on. Just hold on.”
With the gap at her back, Tamsin headed downhill.
A few hours and hills later that burst of energy was gone. The rain was letting up but the ground was covered with mud and slick leaves. Tamsin picked her way down a steep slope. Branches slapped at her face. She pushed herself to go faster, but she was tired. Suddenly, her foot caught a root and she fell hard. She slammed her forearm onto a knot of roots as she tumbled onto her side and rolled down the hill until she was stopped by a large rock.
She pounded her fists into the mud and shouted in frustration. Maybe Yael would have been a better choice for this journey. Or Binnie Delver. Tamsin wasn’t a cutter or a hunter. Sure, she was familiar with the woods and hills near Red Crag. And, she could find her way up and down Crag Creek for miles. But, she’d learned those trails from the people of Red Crag, her mother, Denric, Moll, even her father Brun. She didn’t know what she was doing out here miles and miles away from home. She’d been arrogant to think that she was the right person, the only person, who could make this journey.
“Feck!” she yelled as she got to her feet and gathered her things. “You feckin’ idiot!”
You don’t have to wait to find out what happens next.
Click here for An Unfriendly Face
The Game Behind the Story 2:2
It probably makes sense at this point to fully explain how characters take action. When a character is created, you think about what they are great at, what they are good at, and what they’re not that good at. In Ironsworn, there are five stats which represent these strengths and weaknesses. These stats are: Edge (quickness and physical agility), Heart (courage, will, empathy, sociability), Iron (physical strength and endurance), Shadow (sneakiness and cunning), and Wits (intelligence, knowledge, expertise and observation). Your two weakest stats give you a +1 to relevant rolls, the middle two give you +2, and your strongest stat adds +3.
Tamsin is an honor-bound miner. So, she is physically strong but not very agile (thick not quick). She’s protective, loyal, kind, and dislikes lying and liars. She’s not book smart but she is observant, a fast learner, and has excellent common sense. Her starting stats are: Iron +3, Heart +2, Wits +2, Edge +1, and Shadow +1.
Actions are taken by using moves. To use a move, you roll 2d10 challenge dice (two ten-sided dice). The dice are not added together, but are considered individually. This sets the difficulty of the challenge. If the same number is rolled on each challenge die, that is a match. Depending on the outcome of the action roll, a match represents either an opportunity or a complication.
Once the challenge is rolled, you imagine what your PC does to make the move and you roll the 1d6 action die (one six-sided die). To that, you add the character’s relevant stat plus any other modifiers which might come from things like assets, advantages from previous rolls, or help from companions or bonds. The result of action die+stat+modifier reflects how well the character performed the imagined action.
That action result is compared to each of the challenge dice. If it is higher than both challenge dice, it is a strong hit. If it is only higher than one of the challenge die, it is a weak hit. If it is equal to or lower than both, it is a miss. In my play notes, I track all of my rolls with the type of move, any modifiers, and the result. I write the result as (my action result) #:#-# (the two challenge dice).
Each move describes the specific ways you apply a strong hit, a weak hit or a miss. But, generally, a strong hit means that the character succeeded at the thing they were trying to do. A weak hit means that the character succeeded, but the effect is not quite what they wanted or there is a cost or disadvantage of some kind. A miss, not surprisingly, means the character failed and will suffer some kind of harm or loss. If that harm is not obvious or articulated, then you may have to Pay the Price by rolling on a special table provided in the book.
Here are a couple of examples of actions Tamsin tried to take in this episode.
At the outset, I rolled to Undertake a Journey. This is the move to begin travel where the way is unfamiliar or dangerous. I set the progress track for the journey to Owl’s Rage as dangerous. The result was a weak hit, 5:5-1. Tamsin got underway but suffered -1 Supply. In the story, this meant she ran out of torches while trying to get through the woods at night. (The missing bedroll was the result of having failed the Secure an Advantage move mentioned in the last episode.) The success part of the roll meant that Tamsin found a Waypoint; this was the old cutting camp. Finding a waypoint allowed me to mark Progress on the progress track for this journey.
At the old cutting camp, I made the Make Camp move and got 8/5-5. A strong hit with an opportunity! The mechanical benefit I chose was +1 Momentum and +1 to my next Undertake a Journey move. I decided that the opportunity created by the match would be that, the next day, Tamsin (or Jack) would find an easy way to cross the creek. Narratively, that went nicely with the +1 Momentum.
Once Tamsin and Jack crossed the river, though, I had to roll Undertake a Journey again to see how the next leg of the journey would go. Oh no, 5:7-6, a miss! That means Tamsin faces a perilous event. I rolled a d100 on the Pay a Price table to find out what that was. (Believe it or not, there are 100-sided dice out there. No, I don’t have one. I roll standard percentile dice - two ten-sided dice, one marked with double digits and one with single digits.) I rolled a 56 on that table. Hmm… the perilous event is something that causes delay or puts Tamsin at a disadvantage. Mechanically, I marked -1 Momentum. Narratively, I decide that Tamsin gets turned around trying (and failing) to find a short cut in the pouring rain.
The next Undertake a Journey roll was 6:2-2, a strong hit with an opportunity. The strong hit means I mark progress on the journey tracker and she finds a waypoint.
Has Tamsin finally reached the bank of the Skrytin River? Come back next time to discover the opportunity Tamsin finds there.
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.
Persevere! That is the take away for me. I need to be reminded to do that every second of every day. Thank you Tamsin! Thank you Susan! I wish that there had been more stories like this when I was coming up. Thank God there are now.
I really appreciate your post-script explanations of the gaming mechanics. I was thinking through what likely happened with challenges as I was reading. Got some of them right and learned more about others in your post-script. Thank you for those tutorials and perspectives. ❤️