Crystal Cave Adventure (OOC)

not necessarily. Either Albert gets saved and I'll add a narrative for that, or "walks into the light" and dies.

I'm fine either way :)
If a future roll causes Albert to die. So be it.

I just wanted to add some flavor to the story instead of waiting for a week or more ;)

So, we’ve established that Deoring has been motivated to try to impress the Captain. He’s intimidated by her but respects her leadership and authority. He feels like he keeps messing up and falling short of her expectations. I’d like him to try to get her to safety, especially because as they walk they’ll see Roald getting Asha into the woods.

He will, however, feel pulled to go to Albert’s aid instead, when they get close enough to see that he is knocked out and vulnerable to the gargoyles. Albert is the one, after all, who helped him during the fight with the giant centipede and showed him the light of Raynor. It may depend on how well the Captain can walk on her own and if the gargoyles attack them.

And Deoring may also feel compelled to aid Roald, if need be. There’s a lot of us who need to get to the safety of the woods.

We can assume things are happening simultaneously, and that around the time you get there, Roald will be safe enough, staring down the gargoyles. Your gargoyle will join the other two glaring angrily at your group.
What might impress her the most could be if you get her to safety and then brave the gargoyles and go back for Albert. Albert is lying fairly close to the 'safe zone', but the gargoyles are standing imposingly between it and him.

If you intimidate them and stride in like you own the place, that will impress her.

If you 'show leadership potential' and organise your companion to help (don't tell him I said anything, but Albert is not exactly 'light':), that might impress her.

All that, in whatever bits you use or don't use, sounds like +CHA, since your aim is to impress?
Let's say she could walk, but would prefer not to till her leg is seen to.
They seem to lose interest in you guys as soon as 'Asha' is out of their reach. But your roll might decide what they do if you try to go back in. It is possible they have forgotten about Albert and that may change when you draw attention to him, but they didn't seem to care about him. Not that you can be all that sure what happened from where you were, so it will take some guts to face them.

Well Deoring is a try-hard, but maybe not quite leadership material. At least, not yet. If he gets lucky enough to grow up a little, maybe. And I'm still holding out hope that he and Roald can somehow save Albert.

I am loath to make Albert pay for Deoring's miss --not in this case, though I am often a fan of 'making others pay'-- so we shall keep this consequence 'social', and maybe tick the clock on her leaving the group.

9
I'm happy with that. Let's find out if they all come after me.

Maybe a low +CHA roll will lure them towards me :-D

Is that a racial slur? :)

If it helps the plan: Yes!

Did someone say we’re DOOOOMED?

A mainly narrative dooming, this time. Feel free to play it up as much or as little as you want in to coming weeks.

If this is a new thing, then it might be a sign that you are getting older, but if you want it could also be an old or existing injury.

With these things it is really hard tell exactly where the pain originates from, so feel free to make it any part of your body.

• Where are you planning on taking your injured patient?

The town your PCs started from is more than a days ride away, and you don't have any horses. There was talk of a village, is that a known place that you can relatively reliably make you way to, or do you need to go searching (i.e. do we play out the search or jump you to there)?

If a village: What trouble are they facing that you need to fix for them? You are welcome to look at something like the Ironsworn Settlement Trouble Oracle or any other to give you inspiration, or just say the first things that come to your minds. I will work these ideas into the reality.

This is an out of character thing. Don't worry, here, about what your characters know or expect. It is about what we (the players) want to do next.

My idea was to go to the bandit camp where Albert joined the group. There might be medical supplies there.

Very unlikely. More likely to be bandits there. We can do that if you want, though.

But then what? None of you are 'healers', so do you hope the bandits will help? Wherever you go, there will be a problem you need to solve in order for them to be able to help. You will need to do that first before you can just come back here --price for bad rolls, and all. What that next quest is is open to player input.

But, and this is a secret, if you can get Ahsa sufficient treatment, once you have dealt with the 'payment quest', and on top of whatever reward that gives, there will also be a surprise reward equivalent to 1 Level (1000 silver), and some information to help with the temple.

Oh, I see. I thought it was abandoned last time we were there.
Hmm, injured as we all are, it'll be tough to travel a long distance. Maybe somebody knows a druid in the area?

Hope you don't mind me throwing in some of Albert's mind's fabrications (or are they? ;) ). I thought it would be fun to add :)
Feel free to add to them if you feel like it.

Pretty much abandoned and empty, so you are unlikely to find anything much there. But we can reinvigorate that location if you want (we don't know why the bandits did not return).
It will be a hard journey. But we can arrange for you to end up wherever we --the players-- decide we want to be. A village is quite feasible close enough to make arrangements (you all could make stretchers, or go fetch villagers to bring help (if so, think about whether you want to let the temple be known to them)).

We should decide what the next chapter will be, then we will just make it happen.
Could be. The characters don't need to 'know' about whatever we seek, they can 'discover' it 'by chance'.
They were excellent. I did not respond since I don't want to make them canon, but...
They could well be more than fabrications. Just because they are happening inside Albert's head does not mean they are not real.

I really don’t know where to take Asha or who might be able to help Albert. I didn’t join the game and story until the characters were already in the temple. I skimmed through some of the previous posts when I joined but don’t have a good mental picture of the places outside of the temple or the people to be found there.

I’m going to have to follow Airshark’s and The Generator’s leads on this.

None of us know anything more about the world. We can just make something up and turn that real.

If no one has any ideas I can just create a village close enough for you to get to after a rest.

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What sort of problem are they having that the PCs need to solve for them? In other words, what do the players feel like facing next?

Maybe something boring and simple like the displaced bandits? Maybe something complex and consequential like --I don't know-- a rogue wizard, doing experiments? Just as two examples.

Whatever it is, you can also say how much time you want to spend on it (roughly; like: "quick", "epic", "whatever", "we'll see"). You can --possibly, if you want-- get back here to the temple afterwards, or find you need to spend more time (leveling up and researching) and leave it for much later. It is up to the players, the world will shape itself around what we feel like.