The Metal Bard

  In chorus we sing of wine, sweet wine, Its power benign, and its flavor divine. -Bacchanalian, Francisco Martinez de la Rosa Some adventurers do it for the excitement, the glory, the treasure. In a profession where every day may be your last, life is lived to the fullest. So, when adventurers return carrying their fallen companions and bags of treasure, there is nothing left to do but to live your best life by carousing! Why did I make this? I needed a carousing table for the hexcrawl I’m running. The game is an amalgamation of mechanics, tables, and procedures that I’ve found interesting plus the weird ideas I’ve dreamt up. As such, there were carousing results that I wanted to have, such as MCC mutations. I also wanted to tie a better probability of getting something good with spending more. You may notice that lower results have more detrimental results than higher results. It was hard to find this, so I put one together. Note: In some instances I'm using third-party tables ...

You’ve hiked a rocky terrain for hours looking for a safe way down into a valley. A series of stacked boulders now provide that opportunity. You may carefully leap down the boulders, being absolutely precise for a slip could mean a terrible injury. Alternatively, you may continue searching for another descent, but night is approaching, and another day to get into the valley would cost you valuable time and resources. When I think of wilderness exploration, I am reminded of my hiking and camping trips. I like going light with only the necessary items, meaning that I must ration my viands and use my tools carefully. I have also often taken these trips alone meaning that I must balance exploration and risk (climbing over boulders, going into caves, etc.). While I lean on the side of safety, I have always been intrigued by dramatic stories of exploration like Against the Ice, and Kon-Tiki, among others. Of course, I would avoid such life-threatening positions as sailing across the Paci...

  Introduction In the game I'm running, there are 100 keyed hexes ( link to map ). We are over 20 sessions in, and the party has explored less than a third (even less if we factor in secrets). This meant that finding specific things in the island would be rather difficult. I wanted to make sure there were alternative ways to overcome such a challenge. Which there are, such as the oracle (future post). And the party is resourceful; I'm sure they could send a hireling out to explore or gather information, but what if there was also a scout that could be hired specifically for this? This scout could fulfill a few goals: i) gives the players a useful way to spend their treasure; ii) saves the party time by performing concurrent tasks; and iii) provides adventuring hooks. Below is the NPC that I created for this. He is, in fact, the one that helped the party find the manticore  they were looking for. Mortimer (Scout) Location: Redwood Village [0910] - he may occasionally be foun...