Fate of Exiles: Shoreline Tasks - The Necromancer's Bane

The Mud Flats and Fetid Pool are locations where the second quest offered in Lioneye's Fort will lead people; the former is infested with the living dead and a large number of aggressive flightless and armored birds. The latter is filled with nothing but the dead, save for a single living being – the Necromancer that Tarkleigh is concerned will come for the fort if not dealt with soon.

The Mud Flats is an area with a pair of Aspects; first and most importantly, it has Ancient Waygate, an Aspect that indicates the presence of the first activated waypoint device crafted by the people who lived in the now-lost Empire as a method of swift travel. The most obvious use of this is to allow people to travel quickly back to the fort if they need to do so, but it could be used for any number of clever tricks and boosts. The other is Sucking Mud, which will most often be compelled by the GM to make life harder for players as the soggy mess of the flats drags at anyone moving across the slick, soft surface.

Rhoas - the aggressive birds that live in the Mud Flats - have two stress boxes, Fight (+2), Notice (+1), and Object In Aggressive Motion as an Aspect. They're fond of charging targets, relying on their sharp beaks and armored skull and shoulders to let them run things over. They often come as a mob of three to five, fighting until at least half have been downed before fleeing.

The Drowned Dead will drag themselves out of the ground when they sense living creatures near; they have one stress box, Fight (+1) and Slow And Steady as an Aspect. They tend to exist in mob-like numbers and serve mainly to harass and slow down players save for the occasional lucky effort.

The Fetid Pool has Foul Fumes, Rushing Water, and Pervasive Gloom as Aspects, each one masking a different sense and making it hard for people to find things in what appears to be a large cavern chewed out of the rock by the waterfall that spills down the wall at the back. Numerous bones litter the floor - some truly dead, some merely waiting until someone comes close enough for them to be able to strike before revealing their animate status. The Necromancer itself - a figure wrapped in rags and twisted by the dark arts it practices until it barely resembles a human at all.

The Restless Dead have a single stress box, Fight (+1), Stealth (+1), and the Nothing But Air And Bones Aspect, as well as a stunt that grants them a +2 on Stealth as long as they're laying still on the ground. They'll lay harmlessly until someone enters the same zone as them, after which they'll move - often in a large swarm - to attack anyone unfortunate enough to be in reach of their jagged, broken fingertips. Killing them near the Necromancer is a somewhat futile task, given its primary strength, but they all collapse like abandoned puppets when it dies.

The Necromancer has three stress boxes and a mild consequence slot, Virtue (+3), Lore (+2), Notice (+2), Fight (+1), Acrobatics (+1), and Throw (+1). It has One Foot In The Grave, The Might Of The Damned, and Wracked By Cannibal Hunger as Aspects, as well as a stunt that allows a Virtue roll against a +4 Difficulty to return a single dead body in the same zone to a semblance of life, essentially creating another Restless Dead. Each shift it achieves above this allows it to bring another body to unlife.

The Necromancer isn't afraid to try to run, but it has positioned itself unwisely, with the only way out being the one the players enter through. As such, it isn't likely to escape - but if it does, it may return at a later date with more power and an army of the undead to try to conquer Lioneye's Fort. Regardless, taking it down means the small cache of gathered treasure is left to be found, which contains a few Virtue Gems (left to the GM to determine as suits the players) and a trio of strangely-shaped gylphs.

Defeating the Necromancer earns Tarkleigh's respect, and he can identify the glyphs as matching impressions in a small cleft in the cliffs that surround the Mud Flats - but he cautions that going there may be too dangerous, as a monster of a spitter-crab lives in the flooded passages of the area, and it's grabbed more than a few exiles in the past.

With this quest complete, Lioneye's Fort gains a new Aspect for players looking to improve their new home: The Seeds Of Hope Are Sown, representing how the other exiles are looking up to the example of the players and starting to feel that there might be a future for them in this place. It's a small change, but the effect will reverberate through the rest of the campaign conversion.

Fate of Exiles: Shoreline Tasks - The Medicine Chest

For exiles who reach Lioneye's Watch, there are more than enough tasks that need strong arms, quick wits, and nimble feet to achieve. This post will detail one of the options available to people looking for something to do other that gives Wraeclast a more complete, living feel.

Lioneye's Watch is a place in poor repair, with filth and sickness running rampant. Nessa has medical skills, but she can only do so much with what little the other exiles have managed to bring in - brackish water boiled over a smoky fire and handfuls of half-rotted plants that might or might not retain some medicinal value, plus whatever rags they can clean and dry out for bandages. Bestel has a solution, but he's in no shape to do it, and the only other exile who might stand a chance - Tarkleigh - has enough on his plate just keeping the place safe from nearby trouble. Bestel happily tells the party of the medicine chest that was in the ship he was on - he'll claim it was his ship, the Merry Gull, while the others will tell the group that he scooped the captain's hat off the corpse when it shipwrecked.

The medicine chest not only has supplies that would let Nessa treat the sick in the fort, it has tools to prepare more ingredients from raw materials; collecting it would make life in the ruined fort far safer. There's a catch, of course - two feral, cannibalistic Karui have amassed small tribes that control the shoreline between the fort and the wreck. Fire Fury is a Karui shaman corrupted by Wraeclast who controls the shoreline itself, his tribe consisting of people he's terrorized into serving and feeding him in exchange for him using his fiery magic to defend them from the wild beasts and living dead, while Hailrake is a castaway turned cannibal who has taken ownership of the wreck, fancying it a throne as his tribe of violent cannibals raid the fort and the other tribe in equal measure, relying on his command of cold and wind to keep retaliation at bay. As it happens, Hailrake has found the medicine chest, but lacking the education to recognize the value of it, he simply uses it as a footrest.

Many of the tribefolk under Fire Fury are little more than one-hit minions who might form up into mobs against players, but the majority can be talked or threatened into not interfering with the PCs. Fire Fury is a coward at heart, and more than willing to flee if a fight is going against him. He tends to be over-reliant on his two Virtue Gems - one of which can call down a rain of fire across an entire zone, the other letting him hurl blasts of fire at individuals. Defeating him will caused the rest of the tribe to scatter, with some showing up at the door to the fort, pretending to be freshly lost exiles in hopes of avoiding reprisal for their part in the raid on the fort. Fire Fury has Bonded By Fire, Soul-Eating Glutton, and Burning Up Inside as Aspects, and Virtue (+2), Notice (+1), and Acrobatics (+1) as skills.

The tribe under Hailrake is a tribe of unrepentant cannibals who view the murderous man as their kind, happily attacking anyone who tries to get close. Most are one-stress minions, easily taken out, but a few lieutenants might have two stress boxes, Fight (+2), and Notice (+1). Winning past them with diplomacy can be tricky, but doable for sufficiently clever players. Of course, Hailrake is a great deal harder to fool and quite willing to resort to violence to get a bite to eat. His Aspects are Cold King Of The Wreck, Cold-Blooded Beast, and Frozen Heart And Soul, while his skills are Virtue (+3), Notice (+2), Physique (+1), and Fight (+1), with Virtue Gems that let him produce a blast of icy spikes that attack everyone in the zone with him and a multi-target cone of biting wind and icy shards.. He has one mild consequence and two stress boxes, making it possible for him to become a recurrent foe if players don't take him down quickly enough. If pressed, he'll leap into the sea, using his cold and wind magic to create an icy raft that carries him away.

Returning the medicine chest to the fort produces a rise in spirits that soon sees the fort getting scrubbed clean of grime as best the exiles can manage, as Nessa turns the healthy to the task of preparing an area to treat the ill. She'll happily help any players recover from injuries suffered in the effort to claim the medicine chest, while Bestel starts composing a song in their honor.

Of course, the biggest 'reward' is that Tarkleigh seeing that they're capable will lead him to come to them with another urgent task, one too far out for him to deal with it while continuing to defend the fort - a necromancer has been sighted in the mud flats, raising the bones of dead beasts to fight for him.

That quest will be the next installment in the line of quest conversions, serving to lay the thread deeper into Wraeclast for players to follow.