The Bloody Hands REBIRTH: The Stone Crack'd, Part 9 - Traversing Wyrmfathom. [Tricube Tales] [Gamemaster Apprentice Deck]
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| Image (c) Dean Spencer. |
- "Previously..." and Campaign/Arc Summary
- The Stone Crack'd 9 — Traversing Wyrmfathom.
- Doug's Commentary
- Mechanical and Story Notes
- Credits
Previously, on The Bloody Hands REBIRTH: The Stone Crack'd
Meeting a man named Felix Osterling, the group is drawn into an entity called The Swirl. A gateway to other worlds. Helping Felix find his brother Clint, the group enter into a strange place called Wyrmfathom which appears to be a large structure full of ever shifting rooms lit by dim blue lights. Here, among other things, they met Lidia Toma, a half-elf fighter who has now joined the group.
About The Bloody Hands Rebirth: The Stone Crack'd
The once great Khelia Empire has crumbled due to a long war between mages. Now, after five generations, the world is starting to rebuild. Arden Ulet leads his team - beast-master Jalmar Dax; Probationary Guardian and explosives expert Natalia Wilson; and the Scholar Izzia Kor - on an expedition across The Shallows, a vast plains long abandoned by the Arcane Order. Their goal is to find a magic site of potential once great power to help Arden to understand the lost ways of magic that the Arcane Order are working to stamp. Along the way, they encounter places of great power, ruined villages, long-term feuds, and other strange things.
Content Warning: Mostly fantasy violence with occasional dives into harder horror [including body horror and cannibalism]. Mild and infrequent substance use, often with a fantasy twist. This is a world where a lot of people suffered and died for many years even as it tries to rebuild itself.
This post is in the standard Doug Alone post style. See Anatomy of a Post for more details. The Image Oracles described in the post (gamemaster phases and mechanic notes, especially) are from the Guardians of the Shadow Realm one-sheet. They can be seen on the Tricube Image Oracles page.
Attribution for the tools and materials used—including the splash art—can be found in the Credits below along with some details.
The Stone Crack'd 9 — Traversing Wyrmfathom.
Setting the Scene. Deeper Still
Deeper and deeper they go...
A couple of rules check-ins first. (1) I am pulling the cards from On the Other Side by random script. This means old cards can resurface, technically, even if the chance is somewhat slight. With that being said, if one does show back up, I'll play it by ear. It might be they have returned to a previous point or a similar room.
(2) Let's pull a card to find out the relative strength of the creatures in the dungeon (including Lidia) versus the average human from Khelia → [c69] 9. Essentially the creatures of the dungeon are the same strength as Guardians and Agents, then. Lidia is the equivalent to a sigil'd fighter. Good to know.
Now let's make some more rooms.
Room Seven: [otos4] Tomb — with some rules about what happens if you disturb any of the 12 bodies. Let's try and not do that.
Room Eight: [otos41] Armory — with a sword that gives you the strength of a stone giant. Looks like Lidia is getting a weapon. And this is likely a good place for everyone to take a rest.
Solving Wyrmfathom (d20): ☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐
Deeper Still
The next room is a narrow tomb with a number of stone tables, each set within an alcove and lit by a sconce. On each table is a corpse wrapped in cloth. Based on the height and slight frame of the body, and the larger-than-expected heads, these are likely the same race of people as glanced outside. The walls are damp and harder stone than some other places. Despite not moving up or down any obvious stairs or ramps, this place feels like it must be much further down than the previous room which already felt lower down than the previous rooms. Their breath shows up as fog in the chilly air. [1]
"Lidia," Izzia prompts, "Why are these twelve people laid out like such? Do you know?"
She looks at them and explains in her lilting voice, "Twal keen mahj ov aht pel..." Izzia nods and follows along, ok. "She says they are twelve mages kings...queens...maybe just mages serving royalty, that sort. Protected the region from an attack some years ago." [2]
After finishing her story, she seems to give some thought to what it might mean to have twelve royal mages and starts to grab from one of the blue wrappings before Arden grabs her hand. "Let's not disturb the dead of powerful mages, ok? I speak from experience."
Lidia laughs at his face but lets her hand be pulled back. Arden can be pretty convincing to most people, even more established combatants.
Now assured that she won't release some major curse on them all, Arden travels to the other end of the tomb. Another place with a single pair of doors. In and out. Can he figure out the maze enough to think like a person from Wyrmfathom? Perhaps, but more and more the inkling of sense seems to build. [3]
Passing through the door they find themselves in a room that feels much suddenly much less underground. An armory. Gear, armor, and weapons are all around. Arden is surprised to see that it is all decent quality. [4]
Lidia glances at Arden like waiting for his call and he gives a shrug. She runs around and starts grabbing up armor and clothing and after a minute has some that will come very close to fitting her. Without any show of modesty, she strips off her torn and beaten rags and starts pulling on the new gear. The other four give her a bit of privacy, as best as you can while an energetic half-nude half-elf continues to talk to you while dressing. Izzia takes it the hardest and blushes hard.
Done, Lidia runs up to Natalia and pokes her on the shoulder. "Sa! Sa! Ne bat, ah?" Lidia does a pose showing herself more in full fighting form with her quite curvy body better protected. Natalia gives her a smile and nods. Lidia seems happy with this. Then even happier when she runs over and picks up a sword. "Ahs. Mond clef!" Lidia tosses Arden's sword back to him and straps this new weapon to her belt.
Arden notes there are three doors here, two besides the one they entered, and the room feels a bit snug and secure. This place will make a good place to rest. The exhaustion of traversing this place is readily felt. He announces the group will stop and eat and take a rest. At this, Jalmar finally lets it be shown how tired he feels. As the beast master sits down and starts feeding Ruk and Kif, the rest also take seats around the floor. Arden pulls out a camp stove and starts to prepare some food.
Lidia sits cross-legged near Natalia and once again pokes the probationary Guardian on the shoulder. Points to Natalia's pack and says, "Plats foolt?" Once Natalia grabs more of the jerky and hands it over, the half-elf nods and says, "Tak!" again. Chews thoughtfully. Within half an hour, she has her head in Natalia's lap and is snoring softly. Natalia leans back and also falls asleep. Izzia has crashed into a fitful rest over his notes. Jalmar and Arden remain awake.
"It's like when we go from room to room, it takes only a half second to step through the door but takes us as long as it would to walk around this massive place to find the new place."
Arden nods, "I can feel that, too. Like we've been here for only a couple of hours but it feels like we spent a whole day going up and down stairs, backtracking for hours and miles. Explains why our bodies always feel stretched and woozy. Food and water are going to be hard to keep up with if we are here much longer."
"Are you figuring it out?"
"I think so, steadily but slowly. Hopefully after some rest we can find Clint and between our combined effort find our way back out. Assuming..."
"Assuming Clint is still alive and not a starved corpse wrapped tighter than those corpses back there."
Arden looks from door to door and then decides the best route would be back through the door they had entered from. He takes first watch and let's Jalmar rest. [5]
Setting the Scene. Crossing the River
The search continues.
Lidia will be healed back up to full Resolve. For now I'll upgrade her to a main character so she gets three Karma as well.
Room Nine: [otos84] Gallows — 7 nooses hang from the rafters of a large room. The place reeks of death. One noose has a skeleton in heavy plate.
Room Ten: [otos85] Underground River — oooooo. A large chamber with a river flowing through it. To get across the group must ask a water-spirit for guidance. A 4:6 chance spirit will give bad advice. To make it more Tricube, we might say Hard Crafty but we'll see.
Solving Wyrmfathom (d20): ☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☐☐☐☐☐☐☐
Crossing the River
"Such a deeply unpleasant place," remarks Jalmar.
After the relative peace of the rest in the armory, the very next room is a large hall. Maybe a banquet hall. Built on a scale for party and revelry, but the room feels deeply old. Old cobwebs. Old dust. Old rope hanging from the old rafters. A makeshift gallows. Most of the dead have long sense collapsed after years of being in this musty room full of the scent of old decay. Only a single body hangs. Though not much body is left. Bones and tendon. The rope has caught in a suit of very solid plate mail and the body continues to dangle. Swaying back and forth like there is a wind.
In fact, that is something like a wind. Very faint. Not enough to clean the stale air just enough to be felt if you stop. At the far end of the hall, the room narrows into a pillared hall, bricks warped. Strange, for this place so very blue, the door at the other end is open and the light coming from it is yellow hued. A sound not unlike laughter but also quite unlike laughter sometimes drifts through.
Arden notes that it is not the only exit from this place, there are a few, but still. It would seem foolish to not try. He gestures towards the others and they head for it, ignoring the various bodies. Once again, the decision is to let the dead rest. [6]
Walking through the door, the sound of faint and distance laughter is replaced with the sound of a rapidly flowing river bouncing off of cavernous walls. The immense house-castle motif is now a large natural chamber divided in half by a river of decent size. Large enough that simply leaping over it will be tricky. Some ropes from an old ferry cross but the raft itself has gone.
"Did anyone pack a boat?," asks Natalia while Lidia points at the river and laughs. "Tep wask flist muck!"
While the group is staring at the water and contemplating solutions, possibly including backtracking, a strange water creature which looks something like a dog-headed human made of glistening blue water pulls itself on shore.
"Whada crix, par travails?!," it asks.
"Izzia?"
"It is asking is if we want to know how to cross."
Arden looks at the water sprite and nods. "Plat."
The creature points at the ropes and suggests that they can be used to cross.
Arden gives it thought and asks Jalmar to test the line. Jalmar would be the heaviest of the group, and definitely the most agile. Jalmar grabs the rope and makes it around half way before the rope snaps, dunking him into the water. He grabs hold of Kif while Ruk flies up and drags himself and his beast companion to the other side. Setting the monkey-dog down, he pulls out his bow and notches and arrow and aims at the it the water sprite. The creature had been laughing but suddenly looks more serious. It dives into the water and disappears. [7]
Lidia makes some rude sounding comments at the creature's fleeing back, but then begins looking around. She points out jutting handles in the rocks that can be used to cross. She leaps up and grabs one and then starts moving across while swinging from her arms. Natalia leaps up and follows. Izzia looks unsure so Arden has the scholar hold on to him and starts working his way across. After a moment, all three are on the other side and moving to a door. It is at this time that Arden realizes they could have just walked back through the door they entered based on the rules of this place. [8]
"Oh, well."
Setting the Scene. The Lure of Treasure
Arden and company come to the end of their search.
I think, at this point, we've seen a good enough sample across the types of rooms with this next batch building up to the end. I'll generate three more rooms and the third one will have a combat.
Room Eleven: [otos55] Scriptorium — a cramped, round chamber full of writing utensils. A female Barbarian trying to learn how to write.
Room Twelve: [otos76] Treasury — among the many gold coins and more regular treasures are 5 silver bracelets that if worn allow for telepathic communication between other wearers.
Room Thirteen: [otos27] Strong Room — a heavily guarded room (with golems). Past them is a smaller, even more heavily guarded room. Inside is a large quantity of rare cloths and silks (in various shades of blue).
Solving Wyrmfathom (d20): ☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☑☐☐☐☐☒
The Lure of Treasure
After the vastness, and sound, of the previous area this next room is nearly the strangest. It is a cramped space, the size of a mid-sized store room. Much of the space is taken up with shelves filled full of scrolls and sheets of blank paper, books, and stacks of filled out foolscap. Inkwells, entire barrels of ink, and numerous pens are shoved to one side of a desk that is otherwise sagging under the weight of its occupant. Said occupant being a rather large woman in furs who is deep in concentration trying to write out a few letters in the Wyrmfathom script. As she realizes that five people have stopped, well within each other's personal bubble, to stare she turns and shouts a guttural variation of Lidia's own language. "PID ACK! SCRITTLE MAW MAST!" [9]
Her and Lidia exchange a few words of a heated argument before Izzia steps in and starts talking in his own stilted version of the realm's language. The large woman first scoffs, then starts nodding, and eventually sits back down and begins writing. When done, she claps Izzia on the back and walks back through the door they just entered. [10]
Arden looks at Izzia and waits for an explanation. "She was writing to her mom. I helped her get the sentiment, right."
Arden has no real response to this so just walks over to a very narrow door between two shelves of paper and walks through. [11]
On the other side of this door they find a room filled to the brim with treasure. Lidia whistles and starts gathering up some and shoving it into Natalia's pack.
Of all the pieces, Arden is most drawn to a box containing five silver bracelets. He picks one up. After a moment, he puts it on. Nothing happens. Still, he feels drawn to it and the symbols carved on it. He places those in his backpack and will explore them more later. For now, he gestures for the team to push on and he walks to a door that seems to be made of metal. Pushes it open... [12]
...and walks into a heavily fortified cubic chamber with a small cube in its center, like a smaller even more heavily fortified yolk of an egg. A large elaborate lock is on the door of this inner cube. Five hard stone golems also surround it. As Arden and his team step into the space, one of the golems points back to the door and lets out a growl, indicating the group should re-enter immediately. In response, Arden pulls out his sigil'd sword. As the silver light traces up its arm and reaches the hilt, it continues to trace out the path on the blade itself. He hears Lidia let out an appreciative gasp behind him. He also hears Jalmar pull out his bow and Natalia clap her hands together. Lidia steps up to stand beside Arden. Izzia cowers back against the wall close to the door but has the sense to not re-enter it.
Arden charges a heart beat before the golem can initiate the attack. He runs and leaps while bringing his sword down, striking the golem in the back. Multiple sigil'd arrows fly past Arden as Jalmar strikes the golem coming from behind the central cube and the golem's life force drains as it crumbles. Natalia turns her fist into a fireball to take out a golem on the left while at her side Lidia brings her new sword down to smash an arm. Izzia lets out a cry as a piece of exploding rock flies over and hits in the chest, knocking the scholar down. [13]
Arden spins rapidly and takes out the golem he is fighting at the knees, dropping it to the ground and smashing it. This leaves just the one-armed golem and a fifth charging at Natalia. "RUK! KIF!," Jalmar shouts and sends his beast companions into the fray. The fast moving raven-hawk and monkey-dog fly and run and completely disorient the last two golems as Jalmar sends a volley of more glowing arrows into stone heads and chests. The final two collapse. [14]
Lidia looks around at the two older men and starts clapping. Much like Natalia, she is flat out impressed at how coordinated the two old soldiers can be as they work together in tandem. She is also impressed with Natalia's glowing sigils and gentle traces the lines on her new friend's arms.
Arden stares at the center cube and his mind has finally worked out the math his vision self has been trying to solve. "Natalia, blow the lock. Try not to injure anyone inside."
Natalia walks up, channels a precision blast into just two fingers, and aims directly into the heavy lock on the door. It falls through and the door swings over. [15]
Inside, they see the bodies of four people. One of which Arden recognizes as Clint from his previous vision. They are surrounded by another trove of treasure, including massive piles of high-quality, elaborate blue silk like the type used to wrap the bodies back home. They seem to have fallen in a trap trying to gather the treasure and being locked in by the golems. With the strange time elongation of this place, they might have died of dehydration or starvation thinking only a couple of hours had passed instead of nearly two weeks. [16]
"Leave the treasure. Gather the bodies. Let's get them home."
Using the solution to the math of this structure, Arden knows exactly how to do that.
Setting the Scene. Taking Their Chances
Arden and group reconvene and rest up while various forms of love are expressed.
First, does Lidia chose to stay with Natalia (and the rest) and join them in Khelia? (Good) → Yes. Welcome to the team, half-elf.
What will Felix due to mourn his brother? [c82] Isolate [c69] Fallen [c1] Journey. He will destroy the scaffolding to the swirl and leave a contingent of guards to make sure no one else enters it.
Taking Their Chances
Lidia has borrowed some of Sharilyn's clothing and looks very much at home despite being in a whole new realm of existence. Currently the half-elf is playing poker with a few of the Oster guards and retainers. Despite not really knowing the game — and communication across the two languages being fairly low — she has picked up substantial winnings. This is partially explained by the distraction she causes every time she bends forward to place a bet or draw cards. As for Talia, the young guardswoman's concentration has been utterly shattered just staring at Lidia's ears. At some point, Lidia has commandeered a pipe from one of her older victims and is now sitting back puffing contently like a spoiled pet while the others throw more money into the center of the table.
"She's rotten to the core," Natalia says to Arden as the two enjoy tea and the last golden burst of sunset. "And she snores. And she steals my food. And my clothes. And sprawls about and tosses and turns. And I can only understand less than a quarter of the words that comes out of her beautiful face. It's like having an overly excited wild cat-bird as a bedmate."
"Ah!," exclaims Arden and then runs off to his tent. He comes back with a pair of silver gauntlets. He gives one to Natalia and tells her to put it on and then walks over and says something to Lidia and hands her the other. She also puts it on. After a moment of confusion between both of them, the two young women realize the new voice in their head is each other. And, thanks to the magic of the bracelet, the language barrier is gone. Lidia drops the pipe, her cards, and her winnings and sprints toward Natalia. The two collide hard enough that they both fall over the low wall Natalia was sitting on and the two roll down the hill. There will likely be bruises from the tumble but for the moment there is mostly laughter.
Arden gives them privacy and goes back to drinking his tea. The aftermath of Wyrmfathom has been broadly a time for togetherness. Felix mourned his brother the first afternoon but that night declared he was taking Sharilyn back to Oster, declaring her the future Lady Osterling, and the two were going to have joyous babies and parties. Sharilyn looked like she wanted to protest the being roped into high society life but otherwise heartily accepted. The next morning, Felix and Sharilyn, along with half the retainers, set off to return Clint and his party to their childhood home. Felix would be noted as the new heir presumptive and begin discussing taking on the eventual title of Lord Osterling.
Arden and his group were asked to stay for three days and to help protect the swirl, now dubbed Oster Gate. The scaffolding has been ripped out and a guard tower will be built to shield it. The Guards of the Gate is to be a new position of importance. Talia and Dylan are to be the first leaders of this group, and oversee the training of others.
Dylan is currently off with Jalmar on an all day hunting trip mostly meant to give them. The two men hit it off the first night back from Wyrmfathom and know their time together is very brief. Jalmar will follow Arden through on this quest. Dylan's career has just started. Still, a couple of days is better than nothing.
Even Izzia has formed a fun unusual relationship with the older camp cook. One where the young scholar gets fed lots of honeycake and sweet tea while he tells her stories of his travels.
Arden, if anything, feels just a bit alone.
"You have me, Stormcrow," says the old man voice in the back of Arden's head, "Also, who is Kate?"
"Ah, old man, it has been a day or two! I had started to miss you!"
As always, a storm threatens the horizon but for at least one more night there is plenty of time for tea, laughter, and love.
DOUG'S COMMENTARY
January 23, 2025
Played on January 22-23, 2025
The ending shifted from strange, other-realm horror to queer snuggles really fast and I am ok with that. Since the last post, there have been some things going down and there a lot of American queer folk — especially but not just trans folk — who are in deep anxiety. I try to not swing too real world in this blog but I decided everyone in my imaginary place gets love and affection. It's going to be a rough time coming up and there's no good, easy way to make anything better. Still, I will be as hopeful as I can.
The solution of Wyrmfathom was quick enough that it makes the post a bit on the shorter side but that's ok. The next couple of sessions will deal with some pretty big battles quite possible and there will be a mood shift. I have really enjoyed the real surreal fantasy elements following the hillbilly cannibal horror of the previous segment. Now is time for something a bit more The Bloody Hands core: Arden and his squad fighting despite being out numbered and away from home.
A few notes got cut at the end. Lidia had a scene where she wanted to come along but communication made it tricky. I just decided it was good enough to say, "Natalia and Lidia found a way to express their feelings," and leave it at that. In the way that humans in Wyrmfathom age faster than they realize — and suffer hunger and thirst faster than their body can make clear — Lidia was to be theorized to have a much longer than normal lifespan in Khelia. There were also some details about her having a whole new color palette to contend with. Some of that was dealt with and discussed in the two days of time skip.
There were also a couple of examples of given about what "taking their chances" meant — Lidia taking the chance of coming through into a new world, Natalia taking the chance of opening that jail cell, Felix taking the chance to become the leader he has been, etc — but I cut all that out since I think it is obvious enough.
A fascinating aspect of this arc is that potential companions and helpers keep dying off or refusing. Leonardo Miller stuck with his stubborn prejudice. Fern died. Danna and Wren both stayed in Tyv/Jorn. Now Clint has died. Lidia — much more the trope of the bubbly, busty comedic relief sex symbol from anime than the kind of gritty fantasy drama type — is the rare exception. I'm glad she made it and I glad the oracles agreed that she can join up. She'll like harden up a bit over the remainder of the campaign.
MECHANICAL AND STORY NOTES
- Are these corpses human? (Even) → [c34] No.
- Gave Lidia a Hard Crafty and she got double 6's so clearly has the story. For the 'story' just snagged the three symbols off [c14] — wand, crown, shield.
- Standard Crafty. One success.
- Is it of good quality? (Even) → [c109] Yes.
- Easy Crafty with the rest. 2 more successes.
- Standard Crafty. Yet another 2 successes.
- Hard Crafty. Arden finally gets a miss. The creature gets 2 out of 6 and so lies. Jalmar makes a Standard Agile roll to make it across despite the trick (and to save Kif because I'm not a bastard).
- Standard Crafty for the native. She gets a 6 and so spots a solution. Standard Brawny + Agile with 2 effort. Since this is a 'normal' task, will shift it to easy for Lidia and the Guardians. Arden will have it bumped back up to Standard since he is carrying Izzia. It takes a couple of rounds but each make it.
- How angry is she at the intrusion? → [c119] 8. Quite.
- Standard Crafty for Izzia to help. He gets 1 success. He does an ok job.
- Easy Crafty. Arden will spend one point of Karma versus his vision abilities and upgrade this to three successes. He is ready to be done.
- Easy Crafty. Arden gets two more successes which complete feels the chart. 18 on the d20 where only a 20 would fail to find Clint. They arrive.
- 2 effort per golem so 10 total. Standard Agile. The trick will be to stay ahead of their heavy blows. Arden gets a success. Jalmar gets two. Natalia gets two. Lidia gets one. In Izzia's case, he is trying to avoid getting hit but is too slow and gets caught a glancing blow for one Resolve.
- Arden gets one. Jalmar will spent a point of Karma by sending his beast friends and gets three. This ends it.
- Hard Crafty. She gets one success.
- Is Clint and his team still alive? (Good) → [c2] No. Tried to give it the benefit of some good rolls by the PCs but it makes sense.
CREDITS
The absolute core of The Bloody Hands REBIRTH: The Stone Crack'd remains Richard Woolcock's Tricube Tales one-sheet: Guardians of the Shadow Frontier. The in-game terms "Khelia," "Guardians," and "Arcane Order" are all derived from the initial one-sheet. Most have changed greatly since their introduction and several related phrases are creations by myself.
The Bloody Hands, as a whole, is a series of exploration with one of the things explored being various solo framework. It started using Tricubes Solo (also by Richard Woolcock), switched to Mythic (by Tana Pigeon), and at this stage is using Gamemaster Apprentice Decks (by Nathan Rockwood). Elements from both previous solo frameworks remain in the series.
Other sources used include:
- Zach Best's Universal NPC Emulator.
- Cesar Capacle's Random Realities
- Kevin Crawford's {Worlds | Ashes} Without Number as well as Scarlet Heroes
- Matt (& Erin) Davis's Great Book of Random Tables, Book of Random Tables: Dungeon, and Great Book of Random Tables: Quests [with potentially some others, but especially those three]
- Madeline Hale's Table Fables 1 and Table Fables 2
- Ben Milton's Knave
- Raging Swan Press: Various tools from the GM Miscellany series.
- Philip Reed's On the Other Side decks (both one and two).
ART CREDIT AND EXPLANATION
The image at the top of this post is © Dean Spencer. Used with permission. All rights reserved.
I've gotten in the habit of picking up stock art that just looks like it might be interesting and later seeing where it could fit. I had the above one set aside as a likely good candidate for something in this campaign or The Bleak + The Pearl. Once Wyrmfathom started bubbling up as a strange blue space that is large an interior, it made a lot of sense to go with it.
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