Mysteries of Toulouse Adventure 2: The Chantry

 

Welcome to another installment of my Grimme Perils TTRPG campaign, Mysteries of Toulouse. 

Adventure 2 began with Isaac and Clement Allenwright arriving safely in Toulouse at the side of the Magus Maliggi and his two surviving bodyguards. 

Since my friend Kurt was not playing this session, I was truly solo, and so I decided that Kurt's character, Clement, would not take part in this one. This is how I want my West Marches style campaign to go. If a friend (or two) can come by and join, all the better, but if not, their characters get shelved for future adventures. Knowing this, I decided that Isaac (my character) would need a Companion to back him up, and we'll get to that soon.

Once across the bridge over the Garone River, Clement parted ways with Isaac, vowing to meet up again once he had taken care of some personal business. 

Jan Annarealla's great Toulouse map from GP p. 167

Maliggi, Isaac, and the two as yet unnamed bodyguards went on to The Chantry, home to the Arcane Guild and the place that would hopefully become Isaac Allenwright's sanctuary in the great city. 

 One of the tenets of a West Marches game is the idea of the "safe haven," the place PCs can go after each adventure. They cannot be attacked or threatened there under most circumstances. Usually it's a civilized city, but since a lot of my action would occur within Toulouse itself, I decided that it would be a magical, walled compound within Toulouse

This Adventure's starting setup, with a look inside the Chantry. 

Because Maliggi owes a life debt to Isaac, he vouches for the young Sorcerer to the Chantry's council of powerful Magi. They agree to accept him as a provisional member and grant him a badge noting him as such. 

 This occurred due to some textual context I had already set up, and a nice Oracle and Meaning roll using the One-Page Mythic emulator. At this point I knew Isaac would need at least one bodyguard for these solo missions, so I asked the Oracle if both bodyguards he and his cousin had saved last Session would be assigned to him. Sadly, only one, Finnian Saltby (a name I generated using Knave 2E's great tables) was tasked to join him.

 In the previous adventure, we learned that Maliggi knew of a powerful witch in Toulouse who might know of the Dark Faerie who took the child, Inez Sandoval. But it turns out that while she lives within the city and relatively close to the Chantry, she is no friend to the Magi of the Arcane Guild. 

I asked this very question of Mythic, and got an Exceptional No--Cordelia was not friendly with the Chantry Magi. I didn't yet delve too deeply into the reasons why. I did also ask what sort of area within the city that she lived in, and the Oracle told me it was little dangerous. 

So Isaac and Finnian set out for Cordelia's redoubt, located in a shabby section of the city, and along the way they ran into a full-on riot, as a cadre of Barbarian Mercenaries were battling a smaller group of City Guard.  

 Again Mythic answered Yes when I asked if the pair ran into anything on their way. This time I rolled on Knave 2E's City Event table and got "faction war" as my result. I rolled that one of the factions were "barbarians", so I reasoned that a group of disgruntled, perhaps unpaid, Barbarian Mercs was rioting and picked a fight with some City Guard. 

I randomly generated a name for them, the Stonebrood Clan.

Why not just go around this carnage? As the intrepid pair was about to do just that, Isaac noticed something about one of the Stonebrood. He had a strange facial tattoo that bore the eldritch mark of the witch Cordelia herself! 

So I asked Mythic if Isaac would have any reason to get involved here. Mythic said Yes, so I rolled for Meaning. I got "information" and "strange". So at a glance, what strange information could these barbarians possess? I then decided that one of them was a follower of Cordelia's cult of witchy supporters, and he bore a distinctive facial tattoo to show it! 

Watching the fight from a nearby alleyway, the heroic pair wavered. "How can we pull this man from such a fray?" Finnian asked Isaac, hopelessness in his voice. 

"Let me try something..." responded the Magus as he began to focus his power. 

In Grimme Perils, Magi start with four spells they know by rote. They can also modify how one of these spells work, or focus their power in a new way by increasing the Target Number (TN). In this case, Isaac altered his Levitation spell to be able to pluck the tattooed barbarian from the melee and deposit him in the alleyway with them. I also spent a Luck point to increase my chances of success, and I just barely made it with a total of a 9 vs. a 9+ TN. 

 After getting the barbarian into the alleyway, Isaac and Finnian subdued him with some difficulty. Just then, his fellows finished off the City Guardsmen and came rushing to his aid. 

Isaac & Finnian subdue the Barbarian.

The barbarian's fearsome female compatriot rushed to his aid, but Isaac tried a gambit to take advantage of her superstitious nature, casting his Light spell and trying to overawe her with his "magical might." 

So Isaac did get his Light spell to work, but doing so used up another of his precious Spell Components. Just as with other Consumable items in GP, they have a Supply Rating (SR) of 3. If you declare you're using them on a spell check, you gain an extra +1 to your roll. If your result is even, your SR remains the same, but if it's odd, it goes down by 1. When it reaches zero, you're out of Spell Components. 

 While it did give her pause, Isaac knew her fellows were mere feet away, and a simple Light spell could not overwhelm or frighten all of them. They had to get the tattooed Stonebrood clansmen somewhere quiet to question him. 

Since the Stonebrood were rioting all around the city, I asked Mythic if another City Guard patrol would come by. I rated it as likely due to the whistles and alarms that the first patrol had likely been sounding prior to their defeat. I rolled a Yes, and so Isaac and Finnian were saved at the last minute by a new cadre of City Guard. 

 

City Guard pursue the Barbarians off the board.

As Isaac distracted a couple of the lingering guardsmen, Finnian dragged their barbarian prisoner into an abandoned bakery to question him. With the Guardsmen gone, Isaac soon followed. They roused the man and he proved unwilling to say much more than that his name was Rothgar and that he was indeed a disciple of Cordelia. He flatly refused to make an introduction or help them. 

At this point Isaac and Finnian had both failed checks to convince or intimidate Rothgar into helping them. I decided to ask Mythic for help, and rolled or Meaning. I got the word "obstacle" on the Action column, and decided I needed a Description as well, so I rolled and got "clean". This spurred me into thinking about what Rothgar wants. What was valuable to him? What could Isaac give him to gain his help? Then it hit me. Not "clean," but rather "cleanse" "obstacle." 

 Threats and cajoling were not working, so Isaac took a different track. He asked Rothgar what a Magus like himself, and a fighting man like Finnian, could do for Rothgar in exchange for his help with Cordelia. The brawny Barbarian, bound and at the mercy of these two strangers, furrowed his brow and thought, then blurted out: 

"Some 20 leagues from this city lies a dark temple hidden among the trees of the Old Forest. It is a place of great evil. My own clansmen will not enter that place, but I have felt a call to go there and put its evil to the sword. Help me cleanse that place of its evil power, and I will help you parley with the Lady Cordelia. Swear a blood bond to me for this task, and I am your brother forever more." 

That's the simple genius of Mythic. Those two Meaning words got me over my block and into next session's adventure. Isaac, Finnian, and Rothgar will brave the as yet unnamed temple of evil, and should they survive, Rothgar will remain their ally, and get them access to the witch Cordelia. 

With the Session over, I marked off a second Adventure for Isaac. Grimme Perils features a simple and easy character progression system. Every two completed Adventures earns you a bump up in power. The default rules make it a random check, but you can also select the area you improve in. I rolled  1D6 and got a 4--a Stat increase! I chose to increase his INT from +1 to +2. He'll be a better spell caster now! 

GP's PC progression in a nutshell. 

 With that, the three adventurers headed back to the Chantry to rest and ready themselves for the journey to the evil temple. 

Be sure to check back in a week or so for the next installment in this evolving solo / Co-op RPG journey! 

 Thanks for reading!

--Scott