Solo Savage Pathfinder – Scene 4 – A Clue
I’ve got to admit that I have no idea where this adventure is headed. It seems to be turning into a mystery of sorts, which is great! That’s one of the main things GMs bring to the table – the unexpected twists and turns. So being able to emulate that and come up with interesting stories is a win in solo roleplay.
First a little pre-session bookkeeping. Ondo uses his advance from last session to add a new Edge. Elan is a good one, granting +2 on rerolls when spending a Benny – a very needed assistance when he has no support from a team.
For the next scene I’m going to leave it to chance and roll on the Mythic Random Event table. I haven’t been using it much so far because the pace has been moving along okay and the action has suggested next steps. But now we’ll really relinquish control to the fates.
I roll “NPC Action”. Now we finally get to use this Mythic NPC List we’ve been keeping! I roll on it and come up with the Sisterhood of Watery Hells. Wow, that’s crazy since, according to what we know about them so far, they’re ancient history. We established them as the original organization who owned the Pearl of Storms, defeated by the Delcorians many years ago.
Let’s get some more clarity on what’s going on, what they’re doing to warrant an appearance in the upcoming scene. (Oracle — “Deceive” “Aggressively”. I’m going to take that to mean that they were never really defeated all those years ago, but that they just went underground and have been waging a secret shadow war ever since. Oh, were the pirates who attacked Ondo working for the Sisterhood? – Yes! Okay, we can work with that).
Scene 4 – Investigating the Scene of the Crime
The next hour is a blur for Ondo. Gawking locals, healers attending him, town guardsmen asking him a lot of pointed questions about the dead man lying in the alley. He’s questioned by…
(using my new experimental name generator technique from the Solo SW tables – “Strong Person”. “Stro” + ”P”. Male/female? – Male. Rank (d6)? – 1 — relatively low ranking. Sergeant seems good. Is Ondo acquainted with him? – Yes. Savage Worlds Reaction Table — “Uncooperative”).
Sergeant Strop grills Ondo about the fight, skeptical about the mage’s explanations. He is an old veteran and knows Ondo and the negative reputation of the Baridad family name. Fortunately there were witnesses to corroborate the story.
Ondo is in pain and angry, but answers all of the questions truthfully. Strop is intentionally antagonistic until he realizes he’s not getting a rise out of Ondo and then gets bored with it. He’s ready to wrap up the investigation when Ondo says, “a moment, sergeant,” and brushes past the guardsman, stooping to inspect the body of the pirate slain by his summoned eagle.
Strop splutters something about “interfering with an investigation”, but Ondo ignores him and begins examining the corpse. (Is there anything to find? – Yes. Something that ties the pirate to the Sisterhood? – Yes.)
He holds his hand over the dead body and utters an enchantment (Casting detect/conceal arcana to reveal any hidden magic). A small bird with lily-white feathers appears in his hand. It flutters up, circles around above the body a few times, and finally settles on the ground near the man’s head. It twitters loudly, bobbing its head in the direction of the man’s neck.
Against the protests of the sergeant, Ondo rolls the dead man onto his stomach and pulls down the back of his collar, revealing a tattoo of… (oracle Creature Descriptions – “Stealthy”. Hmm, an octopus is stealthy).
Ondo pulls down the collar of the dead man, revealing a mystical tattoo of a black octopus on the back of his neck, sigil of the Sisterhood of the Watery Hells. Ondo scowls at the implications. (Does Strop know what it means? – Yes). Sergeant Strop stops his half-hearted protests and swears under his breath.
“Were you aware that there were agents of the Sisterhood acting in the kingdom, sergeant?” Ondo asks him. (Oracle – Yes). Strop nods dumbly, still staring at the tattoo.
“I mean, there were rumors,” he says, almost guiltily. Then he looks at Ondo. “Some smugglers we found working out of an abandoned warehouse on the waterfront. They had a jade statue of Straga Hycal,” he explains quickly. The name freezes Ondo’s blood.
(I’ll explain how I came to this. Rolling on the Mythic oracle came up with – “Value” “Odd”. So the town guard uncovered something strange and valuable. A jade statue sounds good. The Sisterhood probably worships demons and since their symbol is an octopus, it makes sense there would be 8 of them. To come up with the name of one of the demons – random name generator by combining single words from the Solo SW tables – “Strange” “Change” “Physical”. “Stra” + “Cha” + “Ica”… Stracha Ica…or Straga Hycal sounds better).
So Straga Hycal is the name of one of the eight demonesses worshipped by the Sisterhood of the Watery Hells. Ondo is suitably terrified by this news and the potential ties to the dead pirate at his feet.
“Show me this warehouse,” Ondo says. (Persuasion roll for the trust building that Ondo is sincere in his efforts to stop the pirates – success. I’m going to spend a Benny on this because it seems a pivotal moment in enlisting the local gendarmes to track down this conspiracy. The reroll does no better, but Strop’s Reaction still moves up from Uncooperative to Neutral).
Strop looks uncertain. “I’ll, uh…I’ll have to clear it with the watch commander first,” he says.
End Scene 4
Whoa, cool. Short scene, but Ondo has a lead now.
Technically Sergeant Strop still only has a Neutral reaction to Ondo, which means he’s not going to help our hero without something being in it for him. But we can gloss over that and assume that Ondo will figure out some method of convincing the guardsman, whether it’s a bribe, the royal seal on his letter of marque, or some intimidation techniques. Whatever it takes to get to the next scene because we know he’s driven.
If it becomes important to know exactly how he convinces the sergeant, we can always do a flashback later. For now I want to move along to the warehouse and maybe find some more action. We’ll assume that Ondo has been tended to by competent healers and has recovered all his Wounds.
