This post is a follow-up post to yesterday’s Skyraiders of the Floating Realms (which will be known as Skyraiders from now on to save my typing fingers :D) which explains how the adventuring format works. This is light of the first adventure stretch goal, The Edge of the World, being funded.
Adventure format in Skyraiders
Player’s Introduction
What the character’s know at the beginning of the adventure and what the Referee should quickly impart.
Referee’s information
This section gives the backstory of the adventure and explains what is going on.
The Adventure
This section is the meat of the write-up. It includes:
The Start
The first encounter where the adventure kicks off. In the Edge of the World, this is a dramatic realisation that the sky realm where the characters have peacefully been living for a couple of months has a magical affliction called the Stone Plague, which turns stone to dust very quickly. Since this is happening at a rapid pace, they better get off the island somehow.
Events
This section has a d100 table, of Events, which the Referee rolls on, crossing off events which are one time only. I realised that I tend to do journey type adventures, not dungeon crawls*, but had become somewhat jaded about the write-up and assumption that they are a series of linked events. So I decided to jazz it up by adding a random element to the order that events in the middle take place.
Here’s the one from Edge of the World
D100 Event
01-20 Ambushed by Zarks!
21-30 A Stone Giant Blocks the Way
31-50 An offer by the Twisted Sisters
60-75 Here Comes the Hard Rain
76-86 This Boat is for Ducks Only
86-90 I’m the King!!
91-00 The Sky Realm is Falling and I want my Mommy.
After the table, I then describe the encounters themselves.
And here’s This Boat is for Ducks only
This Boat is for Ducks Only
As a rule, most sky boats will not accept Ducks, believing old wives tales that they are responsible for the current state of the world and are therefore very very bad luck. The characters come across a sign that says “DUCKS!!! Get of this rock here, 2 gold pounds courtesy fee”. Next to it is a rather rough-looking sky sailor who is helping a duck family (mum and dad + three ducklings) into a small flying boat, more a dingy about three metres long. In the boat is another sky sailor and all the duck’s possessions in travel cases. This pair of Sky Pirates, Ulfy (on the ground) and Rulfy (in the sky boat), have hit upon the idea that they can pick up the ducks such as these, pretend to give them free passage off Askor, and instead chuck them off the boat when they are in the sky. Will the characters work out what they are up to and help the ducks?
Sky Pirates HP 12 AV 1d4 (Leather), Damage 1d8, Fight (Cutlass, Crossbow) 45%, Magic 35%, Movement 45%, Senses 55%, Social 35%.
See the creature stats for the Sky Pirates? That’s the new concise stat-block I’m using for Sky Raiders. I had a great realisation a couple of months ago. That the typical D100 stat-block, as you see in OpenQuest for example, is a significant barrier to writing adventures. Because its a big clunky thing where you are effectively rolling up a cut-down or full version of a player character. It’s also challenging to format during layout, and there’s a lot of information that doesn’t get used. So I came up with this format, along with monster creation guidelines that support it, so creating useable creatures isn’t a royal pain in the ass. Its fully explained in Skyraiders Zero Edition.
The events also it’s not an exhaustive list, the Referee can add stuff based upon what the players are doing, or from their inspiration. Also, you don’t have to use all the event’s, and I reckon a good four-hour session by having the Start and End (see below) events, plus three events from the events. Also if you think rolling for event’s is a load of nonsense you can treat it as a linear list, with events turning up in order. But I think there’s a lot of reusability in rolling randomly, and also the order of events can make a big difference of how the adventure plays out.
Note * Although I intend to address how Skyraiders does dungeoneering since Sky Valuts – adventure locations of underground chambers filled with loot are a big part of the setting 🙂
The End
This is the ending of the adventure, and describes the climax with any villains, major and minor, that the characters must overcome to conclude. Because the route that they came here is random, that is a consideration. In the Edge of the World, the fact that they may have previously met Boris the Bad Un, the King of the Sky Realm, or the Twisted Sisters, villainous Sorceresses of the adventure, and they may still be at large is factored into the ending.
Aftermath
For ongoing adventure series, this final section details any rewards and penalties that carry forward, and any adventure opportunities that arise because of the situation.
Sorcerer Under Mountain 