Session 1

10th Day of Morrow in the Year of Priest’s Defiance (Free Year 1)

• Situation: d66: 65 = Survived a "Shipwreck."
• Starting Location: Blown off course from the High Road from the Silver Spring Oasis to Altaruk
  • Directional roll: South.
  • Distance roll: 2d6: 8 = Moved 7 and one hex off-road.
• Weather: Center Hex = Hot
  • Based on this Athasian 6-Dimensional Weather Chart
• Date:
  • Year: Free Year 1 (The Year of Priest’s Defiance)
  • Month: 1d15: 8 = Morrow (Mist in 4e)
  • Season: Sun Descending
  • Day: 1d30: 10

Morning

The caravan carrying Erenil and Cedran to Silver Spring Oasis is blown off course and to the south. The road connects Altaruk to Gulg. Amid an obsidian shardstorm, a band of silt runners attacked the caravan and killed nearly everyone and destroyed nearly everything (cribbing from Fury of the Wastewalker). The only two survivors were Erenil and Cedran, each of whom comes from a way of life totally foreign to the other. Together, they must first survive the remnants of the silt runner band, and next endure the harsh landscape of Athas.

When they wake up in the aftermath of the storm, Erenil has held on to the most crucial supplies out of her long experience surviving the desert. Maybe Cedran just got lucky, having held on to something from the ship to use as a sort of shield against the glass storm.

Journeying Tasks:

• Azhar: Keep Watch (Roll Scouting 3 + Wits 2, 5d6: 1, 4, 4, 4, 6 = Success.)
• Erenil: Forage to look for Water – Rocky Badland (+0) (Roll Survival 2 + Wits 3, 5d6: 3, 4, 5, 4, 3 = Failure... I decide to PUSH. 5d6: 2, 4, 2, 2, 6 = Success. Everyone may bump up their water die by 1.)
  • Erenil’s Water goes from d8 to d10, Cedran’s water goes from d6 to d8.
• Cedran: Forage to look for Food – Rocky Badlands (+0) (Roll Survival 2 + Wits 4, 6d6: 3, 1, 1, 3, 4, 4 = Failure...

Erenil sends Azhar to scout for predators, when she finds Cedran in the vicinity. Judging by his fine clothes and jewelry, is clear that Cedran will not survive without Erenil’s help, and she has to decide whether it’s worth keeping him alive or not when every drop of water counts. What value does he offer?

At first, it’s his supplies. Azhar, understandably, wants to “eat” Cedran. Erenil considers letting him, but the dwarf is surprisingly resilient (maybe not so surprisingly—he is stocky and brawny, like a typical dwarf).

But as they work together, it will become clear that Cedran’s head full of lore may prove useful to Erenil in her search for the tryvern. Cedran manages to impress her by recognizing her tattoos and companion as being from an extinct tribe of elves. Unbelievably, Cedran’s family did trading with the tribe before they disappeared.

Erenil tries not to think about the fact that they were massacred by a mysterious force. One day, she plans to seek revenge, but first she needs to find her daughter.

Maybe this dwarf will be useful after all.

Erenil sets about trying to find water, which at first seems hopeless, but when she shimmies down into a rocky crevasse from which she isn’t guaranteed to return, she finds enough of a trickle in the shadow to partially fill her waterskin’s and Cedran’s (success). Cedran looks around for sustenance but either misses it, or there is none to be found. Meanwhile, Azhar keeps watch for enemies (success).

New hex procedure: Draw a card: 5 of Spades = Random Encounter.

Rather than use a random encounter from Forbidden Lands, I’m riffing on the Fury of the Wastewalker module. Silt runners approach the debris of the caravan hoping for easy salvage. I’ll use the Typical Goblin profile but give them the blowguns, slings, and bone daggers of the silt runners.

A group of silt runners is approaching the PCs, hoping to outnumber and ambush them while they’re getting their bearings.

Azhar bristles at the chance to hunt. Azhar is an ideal hunter’s companion because he doesn’t eat the meat. One day, though, he will feast on Erenil’s dying breaths. She’s promised him this.

Read the prose version of this session in Chapter 1 of the Chronicle of the Crimson Sun: