After refining a few tables and adding an encounter, I ran a new adventure with the Solo RPG. Again, it played for about 30 minutes, and conjured up a lot of exciting imagery for me.
Soldier of Fortune
Meet Jothi, son of a skilled artisan, but stolen away and raised by a soldier in the way of the spear. At the tavern, Jothi heard an old war story about the Grinning Shield of Arrow Eating and decided to go after it. But as he strode out of the bar, he ran afoul of a drunk guard and a vicious fight ensued. Jothi barely survived the opening scene!
Not feeling very tough, he then negotiated (poorly) to buy some dried rations, an old camel, and an even older guide name Voski.
As they left the city, they passed a hermit’s shack haunted by the ghosts of three cruel children that rose up and slaughtered the poor camel! Unable to fend them off with his spear, Jothi found a holy amulet in the shack and used it to subdue the ghosts one by one. Then he found a scrap of a breastplate and carried on.
Far out on a high grassy ridge, Jothi passed through two rows of statues, where he discovered a fire-breathing drake. The small dragon was amusing itself by destroying the statues. Jothi covered himself in dust and dirt and posed like a statue to wait in ambush. When the drake approached, Jothi rammed his spear down the creature’s throat, causing its fire glands to explode. He then took a claw as a trophy.
Arriving at a ruined tower, Jothi and Voski spotted a pair of armored skeletons guarding a drawbridge. Jothi rushed in and smashed one of them off the bridge into the rushing water below. But the other skeleton stabbed him the back. They smashed the remaining guard and limped into the ruins.
In a cluttered workroom full of weapons, they found a young duelist tinkering with his sword. Jothi fired a crossbow into the youth, pinning him to the wall. Then Jothi rushed in and finished off the fighter before he could call for help.
Then Jothi crept through a block of empty cells where he found more rusty old weapons. But as he entered a narrow passageway, four guards discovered him! A deadly battle broke out in the confined space, and Voski died cursing Jothi’s name. Two of the wounded guards fled, and Jothi ran the others through with his spear.
Injured and alone, Jothi returned to the empty cells only to find a huge white ape bursting through the wall to attack him! After a desperate exchange of blows that destroyed his armor, Jothi lured the wall-crawling ape into a cell and cast him down into a pit full of old broken spears.
Grievously wounded, Jothi staggered into a treasure vault. There he spotted the Grinning Shield, as well as the villain who owned it, an armless sorcerer with telekinetic powers! Jothi hurled his spear, scoring a shallow wound, but the sorcerer collapsed the doorway, trapping our hero. Jothi made a last desperate attack, but the sorcerer used his psychic power to yank the spear from Jothi’s hands and killed him with his own weapon…
Such is life!
Notes
This was a great run-through. It was fun and easy to play, the prompts and die rolls made for evocative scenes. I need to keep refining the tables for the encounters with a little more detail, and I need to keep balancing and tuning the Action table for combat. But overall, I think this game is working pretty well and should be done in the next couple of weeks.
Thoughts? Questions?
