OOC:
So I just wanted to note here, hopefully you guys have all read the Journey rules and kind of have a feel and understanding about how these Events are often kind of forced upon the group, as written in the book.
It never feels great to me narrating the way into that.
So I apologize if this feels forced, but the purpose of the Journey sub system is kind of just to give vignettes of drama and mechanical consequences to life on the road without getting too "granular"or zoomed in, right?
And toward that end some "assumptions"/forcing is written into those Journey rules.
If you guys don't like how it feels or plays, we can explore approaching it differently.
That said, for this Journey, I do want to deviate slightly from the Journey rules as written. Or really just expand on them.
As written, many if not most of the Journey Events are kind of dramatized but then immediately resolved by 1 or 2 checks.
I want to 1. open them up to a more narrative style of play, and 2. expand them into a more
Skill Challenge-like approach (as per the House Rule) if/when the mechanics become needed, but in order to still observe the purpose and importance of Journey Roles, for Journey Skill Challenges, I will "weight" the checks of the "star role" as 3 Successes and/or 2 Failures.
Does that make sense?
I ran them "by the book" for our first Journey, but this time I want to introduce the expanded mechanics I think I briefly mentioned that I had for them very early on...
So, all that said:
Toward the end of your second day beyond Rondolph, the road has turned to mostly dirt, with some scant few cobbles poking through here and there, but most of them are either buried by sedimentation or eroded away.
And on the road on this day you meet a contingent of travelers. Even from far away it looks pretty evident that they are not armed or armored - they don't seem to be carrying much at all actually, and while there is some livestock to be seen among them, there are no mounts.
But there must be almost two dozen of them or more.
The road lays on an open and gently sloping stretch of land between the foothills of the Pinnath Gelin many miles to the north and the rocky coastline of the Bay of Belfalas a mile or two at most to the south.
There is no way to avoid being seen by them, nor even really to avoid an encounter with them, short of breaking from the road and galloping around them - which risks injury to horses.
And so because they appear to be no threat, perhaps it is that your two parties come upon and pass each other on the road.
As you draw closer to them, you can see they are a group of very bedraggled folk. Adults and children among them. Dirt and grime covering skin and clothes, tattered garments that you think may even have blood stains upon them, and indeed there are people walking on improvised cane or crutch and a couple of bodies being carried between twos on makeshift stretchers!
You all, looking as you do, upon horses, with kept arms and armaments, hale and healthy, even before you're amongst them and even before you can saying anything, they start clamoring upon you. Some falling to their knees begging, some staggering toward you pleading...
"
Fair knights of Gondor, please help us!"
"
Good sir, please! Stop!"
"
Madame, help! My children!"
And so on, it quickly becomes a commotion...
Most of them are wary of your horses, but it certainly looks like if you weren't mounted, some of them at least would be grasping at you physically - however non-violently.
OOC:
Sorry for the looong post between the ooc disclaimer, and the narrative.
