Building Bhakashal - Session Report

Image by Sarah Dahlinger

My Friday group was given a job by their patron, Quin Faal the Iolite.

A powerful warrior, Romak the Redeemer, who wielded an artifact known as The Sword of Yrgon, was harassing border towns in the realm. What they don’t know is Romak and his men are behaving like bandits on a tear to hide their real goal, getting to the location of three fallen solars, and to use a special necromantic spell to bring them back to life, corrupted and under their control

Quin Fall’s agents thought it was just bandits, but Faal himself became curious and cast divination magic that revealed that Romak and The Sword of Yrgon were with the group. He doesn’t know why they are there, but their presence is enough to merit interest. Quin Faal wants the party to find Romak, see what he’s up to, and either slay him or get the sword from him. Barring that, find out why he is there and what he is doing. If needed they can bring back his dead body for a Speak with Dead. 

Any defeat of Romak will lead to his troops losing confidence and likely dispersing. And Quin Faal wants to see the sword. So last session they set out to find Romak the Redeemer. 

It was a 2 day journey to get to his last sighted location. Once there, the party attempted to pick up the trail but several days of rain (I rolled for those) had wiped out the majority of tracks, so the slayer’s (Bhakashal class: ranger/assassin) attempt to track failed. The party priest used Speak with Plants to ask about the bandits and discovered which way they went. The party then went in that direction and tried tracking again. The second roll proved fruitful and the chase was on.

Bhakashal has pursuit rules, the party was small and faster than the large group of bandits, so after some quick calculations I determined that they would catch up after a day’s travel if they rode at full speed resting when needed to avoid exhausting the mounts. So they rode. On the night of that 24 hours of travel, when they were bunked down, I rolled a random encounter. That produced a coatl! The party spider (thief) was on watch, he was throwing knives into a log for practice while watching the marshes. It was a clear night with a half moon, on the vast open marshes you can see for a long way, even at night. I rolled for surprise, neither party was surprised. 

So I rolled to see how far away the coatl was when the two groups spotted each other. The creature was visible at around a half mile. The spider woke up the party and the warriors put on their armor while the coatl approached. Once close enough I described the creature as a flying 12 foot snake with feathered wings. In this case none of them knew what it was, so there were a lot of questions, I only answered the descriptive questions. Eventually it was hovering around 200 feet away, and the group decided to stand down.

The party all heard a voice in their heads, the coatl asked why they were there. The players argued about how to answer, some felt they should be honest, others felt that the creature could be in league with Romak. One pointed out that if it could speak to their minds it could probably read them, so they responded honestly that they were there to find and slay/capture a bandit leader with a powerful magic sword. 

The coatl responded, saying that many adventurers raided ruins and temples in this land, they weren’t here for that? They stuck to their story, and I rolled an encounter reaction roll. I gave them a positive modifier for being honest (they were right, it could read their minds) and it came up very high so I had to interpret that at the table. I decided that the coatl did not like Romak and his sword wreaking havoc on local villages, so he told the party where Romak and his men were camped. The party priest then asked the coatl if it was “a god or a god servant”. I decided to have fun with that, and the coatl told them that it was a “lesser god”, and that the marshes were its domain. It then asked the party what gods they worshiped. At this point they were a bit concerned, but all decided to tell the truth again.

A few more exchanges and the coatl decided to leave, flying off into the night. The players love encounters like this with powerful beings that aren’t necessarily fights, it gives them a chance for role-play and to explore the lore of the game world. Based on the information the coatl gave them, they had a reduced chance of being surprised by Romak’s group and an increased chance of surprising the bandits. They pulled up stakes and left to intercept Romak.

When they reached the area of the encampment, Romak and his men were still sleeping (it was 5 am at this point) and there were sentries awake. We rolled for surprise (perhaps one of those sentries spotted the party first and maneuvered to surprise them). The party gained surprise with the bonus given from the coatl’s knowledge, and they cooked up a plan. They decided to present themselves as a group of sell-swords looking for employment, they were traveling to the city and saw Romak’s camp. They judged from a distance that they were large enough to be a group of soldiers or a caravan, either way there was work to be had. The party bard was going to regale them with tales of the “the Company of the Silver Boar” if needed.

So they went in mounted but with no weapons in hand. As it happens, the party magic-user had died in the last adventure, they hadn’t replaced him yet, and the party priest wore armor, so they presented as a group of warriors / mercenaries. 

They were spotted and 10 riders with a sergeant came out to meet them. They were challenged, and told their story, that they were looking for employ. I rolled to see if the sergeant bought it, and the roll result was indifferent, so he asked the party to send one member forward to fight with one of his men, if they could hold their own, he would take them to the commander to see if he would take them in. If not, they would be told to leave (actually, he planned on having them hunted down so they wouldn’t report back on them). 

The party fighter came forward with his glaive and one of the guards came forward with a bastard sword. Now, in Bhakshal you can shift your damage down if you want, so you can subdue without slaying. The player decided he didn’t want to play it that way, and opted for regular damage. Initiative was rolled, the PC won and swung his glaive and missed, the bandit ducked underneath and stabbed out at the PC, missing him. Initiative was rolled again, the PC won. He rolled a hit, and did 4 hp damage, the bandit had 3 hp, and was slain. “The bandit stabs at you and misses, you bring your glaive back in an arc and slice his neck open, his body collapsing like a puppet with cut strings”

Now, I had to determine the reaction of the bandits. On the one hand, one of their brethren was dead, on the other, he may not have been well liked, and they might want ruthless mercenaries to join them. The PC looked like a badass after all. There is also the context of the setting, Bhakashal has a martial culture, dying in combat is considered honorable, and martial prowess is respected. The PC is a 7th level mercenary (fighter), a 7th level fighter is BADASS. So this would have come across. Ultimately I don’t make those decisions, the dice do. So I decided on modifiers, including the PCs charisma, a bonus for a quick, skillful slay, and a modifier for the bandit’s popularity in the camp (diced for). The roll came up just positive. 

The bandit sergeant orders the body of the slain bandit taken into the camp and put on the fire, and since the result was low positive, he asks the party to come with him. They were escorted to see Romak, who emerged from a tent with three bodyguards

He asked the party why they were there, and they told him they were sell-swords traveling to a nearby town looking for work when they saw Romak’s camp and decided to see if there was work available. It was a plausible story. Romak was suspicious though. Romak is intelligent, and he was there in the marshes under false pretenses, so he would be suspicious of any group just showing up at this point. He was also a powerful warrior and leader, so he asked them point blank.

“Are you from one of the villages we destroyed, or were you hired by one to infiltrate my camp and then I find an assassin in my tent one night?” The party fighter, who had slain the bandit just before, responded, “We were hired to slay you, but when we saw the size of your camp we decided to throw in with you instead, the reward would be greater, and we owe the local villages no loyalty.” I thought that was a pretty good on the spot pivot, so I rolled for encounter reaction.  

With the PCs CHA modifier and the plausibility of the story the result was a solid positive, so Romak took them on, he added four of his bandits to their group to form a unit, and since the party was on fast mounts, they were to be a strike team. Romak made it clear that they would follow his orders when in combat, and to do otherwise was to court death. After the break we get back and they will have to decide when to turn on Romak. The bandits are heading to a coastal village for a raid. The party will have to decide if they want to go through with the raid before betraying Romak, and how exactly they are going to take him out, given that he has three personal bodyguards and a sentient artifact as a sword. 

If they wait too long they may experience the necromantic revival of the three solars that Romak is searching for. They haven’t met the high level priest in the camp that will be doing that revival either. Much fun in the new year!