The Bloody Hands episode 1: A Fragile Merger

To see the set-up of this campaign: "The Blood Hands part 0: Campaign Background and Thoughts." I also include some Players Notes and a Vibe Check down below to discuss how some of these details were generated, my thoughts, and so forth. If I can figure out a logical way to attach it, I'll include my raw notes to give a sense of that. 

Scene: Night-time Arrival

YARLKIN is a medium-sized mining town a few miles east of Hub. It is known as a generally hardworking, friendly place, and one looking forward to the Merger about to happen: Yarlkin's resonant Bubble is about to merge with those of Hub. Folks are excited and pre-celebrating, but a few odd activities have started to mar the festivities. What's more, the sign of the Bloody Hand has shown up on the Mill that processes the ore. 

Our team arrives at night to investigate the mill without being spotted and hear a scream. Prenty recognizes it and shouts "I know that voice!." Jalmar dashes forward and finds a man struggling to get out of the mill's gears before being crushed. Unfortunately, Jalmar is unable to get him out in time and the man, Michael ALVARDO, is swept under. Once they eventually pull him free, Michael, recognizing Prenty, points towards an old tavern, long closed, also along the river and then dies. 

The team rushes to the tavern but the door has been barred with debris. Prenty eventually pushes his way in but whoever it was that pushed Michael into the gears has escaped. Arden, though, senses a clue and searches and finds a BOOK with a number of names and places written down. He pockets it to take back to Hub for analysis. 

They have a more immediate problem, though: they need a place to stay and realized they will be short of funds [Doug's note: I never really worked out how they were short of funds while on an official mission, but let's say Jalmar lost his coin purse trying to save Michael.]

Scene: Personal Connections

The reason that Arden was trying to sneak around being most undetected is because his older bother, JOSEF ULET, still lives in town. Josef resents Arden for the fact the younger brother has risen in ranks while Josef, who spends his life working as a blacksmith to arm the Guardians, is rarely recognized for his hard work. 

Arden convinced Josef to let the team stay but finds his whole family a bit cold to him. 

While Arden and Jalmar have an awkward time trying to make friends with the extended Ulets, Prenty goes and finds Michael's family. The Alvardos lived next door to the Duffnots back in Hub and were there when the Prenty's wife and children disappeared in the middle of the day. Mrs. Alvardo does remember a clue that the Hub guards failed to act upon: a strange wet stain was left at the scene. It dried up by the time Prenty had returned from the Outside.

Scene: A Walk in the Park

Arden leads the team to the riverside park, where Yarlkin's Resonance Tower is located. He feels it is the likely spot for an attack. The tower seems fine but he sense that something is about to change. Prenty discussed the clue about the wet stain and Arden thinks of the number of Bloody Hand incidents near or at a body of water. He finds a drainage grate near the tower and has Prenty lift it up so they can explore. 

They quickly find the drainage pipes are actually a network of tunnels that date back to the Before: the time before the Fall of Khelia. The folk of Yarlkin seem unaware they are on top of this ancient ruin. 

Exploring the ruin, the team eventually comes across a door which is locked in a word puzzle in HORDULAN, an ancient language of black magic. "It is ancient Hordulan, a language of old dark wizardry, now banned. Be careful, it hides it's true nature from us." With that Arden moves the symbols and words around until what appears to be a complex puzzle is just the Hordulan phrase for "This is a door". Upon which they can open it.

Scene: Into the Decay

The team enters deeper into the tunnels now cut off from the Resonance. The area is damp, moldy, and rotted. The stones themselves show cracks and warping as The Dark builds up within them. Human footprints track mud and sludge and are easily followed. 

Eventually, they find a group of bandits who are the culprits for the various troubles Yarlkin is facing. The team gets in a fight with Prenty doing most of the bashing while Arden shouts out commands and directions. They subdue the bandits and tie them up, though one nearly escapes. They manage to bring them along and hand over the bandits to the guards. Though the Bloody Hand is involved, this is something of an outsource and unfortunately Arden will get little praise for this more mundane bust. 

He interrogates one of the bandits and learns that they were hired to camp out and told where to go. The bandits seem very willing to sell out their masters for any chance of freedom. However, one of them did kill Michael, seemingly for no reason besides spite, and so the guards are going to punish them for that. 

Going back down into the tunnels, the team go back into the decayed section and start looking around, dodging traps left behind by people of far more skill than the bandits seem to possess. "This was not the work of the bandits, it was their masters. We should push through."

Eventually find a large complex of old caves where a great forest of mushrooms and entire underground ecosystem is growing. Jalmar is enthralled, because the mushrooms are eating away at the decay, turning the stone back to healthy. It backs up his theory that the Wild is a force of Resonance, not one beholden to the Dark. 

While he is exploring and delighting at this proof, a strange cloaked hulking figure is spotted running away. Jalmar gives chase but is unable to catch him, and the team follows in that general direction. 

Scene: The Weird Altar

They enter into a large chamber with a strange, weird old altar in the center next to a deep, dark pool of fetid water. As they approach the eldritch place, an inhuman, gurgling cry is followed by the figure from early trying to ram a trident into Prenty's side. Prenty manages to avoid injury at which point the figure screeches and then dives into the pool, disappearing beneath its surface.

The only sign it was ever there is a pool of strange red ichor. Arden can tell it is not the exactly same material as used to make the bloody hand prints but it is related. Maybe a part of the formula. 

Closing Scene: Josef

Arden goes back to his family home and decides to make peace with his brother. He brings gifts and is openly praising his brother's work to the other Guardians come to help clean up the mess. Josef, in kind, also decides peace is best and openly welcomes his brother to come by any time. What's more, Josef's wife and children also reach out and welcome Arden in. [Note: this was pitched as a hard, personal challenge and Arden just nailed it with two successes]. 

The Ulets, along with Jalmar and Prenty, join the town in watching the merge happen as Yarlkin's Bubble touches and joins. A small opening at first but soon to be large enough to allow freely protected transit to Hub. 

End Result and New Truths

Very successful. Learned some clues. Arden got a double King, one good and one bad. This I interpret as some forward momentum for finding the clues but negative momentum because ultimately he ended up bringing the bandits to justice instead of trapping any members Both Jalmar and Prenty also have some positive movement on their respective threads (though the death of the family friend was unexpected). 

New Truths include:

• Yarlkin is a mining town to the east of Hub, now joined into the collection of Hub's resonant Bubbles.
• The Bloody Hands at least sometimes, maybe always, hire surrogates to do their actual work.
• Their trademark symbol is derived from an ichor that actually seems to come from them. 
• They are either water based or able to manipulate water. 
• Josef Ulet, Arden's once estranged brother, has made peace with him. 
• The Alvardos were old family friends to the Duffnots before the disappearance.
• The Dark eats at the world around it, changing the structure and quality of materials.
• The Wild can burn off and cure The Dark given time.

Vibe Check In and System Notes

Since this entire episode was something of an experiment, I am glad it went so well. I used the "twist icons" to generate a few plot points: the scream and the lack of money. I also used some prompts - the pool of ichor (which was "pool of vomit" but I generalized) and "dark stains" were separate prompts that helped to give some focus, the fact that both fit a "watery villain" theme was a nice bonus. Josef grew out of me knowing I wanted a small town and a general crime sandbox and so I rolled for complication and got "personal grudge". Several elements, such as Prenty knowing Michael, was because I drew a "progress plot card" and made sense of the small, few data points I had. The idea that Resonant Towers are installed around city/town parks to feed their energy makes sense and was because I rolled a location to investigate and it said "recreation area". 

The rolls I made for Prenty and Arden went really well, scoring 6s like bosses when it mattered. Unfortunately, the rolls for Jalmar fumbled pretty badly about 2/3s of the time. Poor guy. Since Arden is meant to be a genius detective (with the magical ability to actually see the truth) but also prone to bucking protocol, I think the double kings was a nice coincidence: he is on the right trail but chose to do the action that protects the people instead of what furthers his broader case. It gives him a focus that is nice to play. 

The idea of visiting Josef at the end after the episode was wrapping up was just a nod to the genre, the little pre-credit, finale scenes that turn the tables more about the personal and emotional growth. I would have played it out good or bad but it was nice that it was not only good but a double success Hard roll. I love when RNG just paints that little picture like that. It is why I like playing Solo RPGs. 

Since Jalmar had such a rough time, the next episode will focus on him so I can learn more about why he is part of this.

One mistake I did make was I ended up pulling too many hearts cards and should have probably ended it with the take down of the bandits. I simply miscounted and did not realize until the end. I am glad that I stretched it out by accident because that gave me time to think up the visit with Josef which sets a tone. 

That being said, I am greatly enjoying using Tricube + Tricube Solo. The prompts, icons, and workflow has been a delight. 

Actual Notes

Here are the actual notes for Episode 01 --> A Fragile Merger (copied and pasted from Google Keep) that I kept while playing. It will show some of card draws, very quick write ups of prompts, that kind of thing. Note that some of the stuff written here was off-the-cuff typing and I have done no editing of it so a few words changed (pitchfork becomes trident) and other bits are very basic stream of consciousness.