Roll, Ponder, and Play - Dramatized Solo Roleplay

Previously:

In our previous episode, the next day, Scratch is once more nowhere to be seen. Eilwen tries to hunt for food but breaks her bow. She and Aron continue their journey through the mountain pass, but both Aron and Eilwen to are nearly slain as they encounter the fierce dangers of the wilderness. First, they face a fearsome storm with lightning strikes that send their mounts in an uncontrollable frenzy of fear.

Eilwen is thrown from her horse and wounded when her gelding races uncontrolled to leap over a fallen tree, earning her head and thigh wounds when it doesn’t clear the tree and they instead smash into it. The horse is mortally wounded, gored by a thick branch and one foreleg a ruined mess from a compound fracture. Eilwen puts her mount out of his misery. 

Eilwen then finds Aron tangled in his horse’s reins, unconscious. He had been dragged across rough terrain, earning scrapes and gashes. The twins are wounded, but neither seriously at this point. But then their luck takes a turn for the worse. In this dismal state, they face their next threat, a huge boar, larger than usual, has been driven into a maddened rage from the lighting and the smell of blood, and it attacks the pair.

EIlwen fights it alone, desperately trying to keep it off Aron. After some time, Aron eventually regains consciousness and joins her in the fight and together they slay the boar, but in the process, Aron is gored and tossed into the air, falling motionless upon the sodden meadowed earth.

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Attributions:

- 'The Long Dark' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Emergent' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'The Weight of Air - Katabasis I' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- Various tracks by Tabletop Audio ( https://tabletopaudio.com) - released under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. Minor modifications (fading/splitting) made to support this podcast format with written permission from the creator.

- Jaques - Andreas-Woll-Music (Pixabay.com)

- Sound Effects from Pixabay (Pixabay.com).

Previously:

In our previous episode, Eilwen and Aron leave Highcrag. Scratch is nowhere to be seen, and they travel across the grassy plains northwest of Highcrag and into a mountain pass on the trail of Delos, the Iron priest. At night, as they are resting their mounts and setting up camp, Scratch lands abruptly in their midst, scaring away one of their horses with a pack laden with rations and supplies. They argue about Scratch. After Aron and Scratch have had a chance to calm, under starlight, overlooking the shimmering distant waves of grasses, Aron and Eilwen share a memory from their childhood.

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Ways to Show Support:

Attributions:

- 'The Long Dark' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Emergent' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Goliath' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Juggernaut' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Simulacra' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- Various tracks by Tabletop Audio ( https://tabletopaudio.com) - released under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. Minor modifications (fading/splitting) made to support this podcast format with written permission from the creator.

- Jaques - Andreas-Woll-Music (Pixabay.com)

- Sound Effects from Pixabay (Pixabay.com).

- Sound Effects from Zapsplat (Zapsplat.com).

Previously:

In our previous episode. Eilwen, Aron, and the young wyvern, Scratch, arrive in a huge grassy meadowed steppe, shaped into a large shallow bowl, and there above the waves of grasses, they catch their first glimpses of Highcrag. The settlement is built atop a large and flat outcropping of rock which juts out to the east from one of the mountains that rises above it, keeping Highcrag in perpetual shadow every afternoon. Scratch remains atop a hill at the bowl’s lip, practicing his newfound skill of flight in the eastward wind that ripples across the sea of grass, while Aron and Eilwen atop their new mounts ride to the top of several switchbacks and across a narrow saddle to make entrance into the settlement proper. They find that the heavy wooden gate is destroyed--and from the pattern of the littered stone and debris, they determine that an unknown assailant had burst it asunder--from the inside. They investigate the settlement but find it abandoned. Delos, the Iron Priest, is not there. Also, they find no bodies, living or dead in Highgrag. However, near the settlement’s center they see more signs of damage done to the homes, similar to what happened near the gate. In one of these two story buildings, they find a room with a broken table and shattered chairs and a pile of scattered parchments and clear signs of struggle and bloodletting.

While Eilwen searches the parchments, Aron leaves to investigate the rest of the building. He finds a strange device made of a flat iron disk with a hole in its center surrounded by a graceful script and brings it back to Eilwen, but neither he nor Eilwen can decipher the meaning, but they do  determine that it bears remarkable similarities to the script and artistry they saw in the subterranean mountain bastion of elven make that had fallen to shadow and ruin--in Grimstone.

Eilwen shares with Aron what she has learned from her study of the parchments--that they are in fact the scattered ravings of Delos himself, the very person they seek. Therein, Delos reveals that he had an encounter with a sacred iron pillar, and that he now serves some higher power or entity, though he gives neither name nor description. But he does reveal that one goal of his servitude is to bring back a cherished loved one who has passed beyond the veil of mortal existence, and he states that if he is successful, it would usher in a golden age where death itself becomes meaningless. Aron thinks him mad and surmises that the being of power he serves could be one of the Heralds of Night, though how one of those could have come across the great expanse of waters to these shores is unknown to him. 

Eilwen keeps her own counsel on that score, having seen in vision, through the sapphire-studded amulet, much about the Herald, Nar Shiv, that she has not told her brother or Seith. They decide that the only way to know more is to find Delos, and the one clue they have is his mention of the iron pillar. Eilwen searches some more and finds a crude map of the surrounding mountains and vales and a clear indication of the location of the iron pillar a short journey away to the north west. And what is more, above the pillar in Delos’s hand is drawn the skaed rune. The very one Eilwen uses to call the shadows to her.

Ways to Show Support:

Attributions:

- 'The Long Dark' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Emergent' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Meanwhile' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- Various tracks by Tabletop Audio ( https://tabletopaudio.com) - released under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. Minor modifications (fading/splitting) made to support this podcast format with written permission from the creator.

- Jaques - Andreas-Woll-Music (Pixabay.com)

- Sound Effects from Pixabay (Pixabay.com).

Previously:

In our previous episode Eilwen and Aron split the party. Leaving Seith with Valeri and her children with a few supplies, hidden in the countryside around Longfalls, the twins make their way towards Highcrag, a day’s journey by foot to the west, to confront Delos, the Iron Priest. En route, around mid day, at a road function that splits off to the north, they are ambushed by warriors dressed in mottled greens and browns bearing bows, spears, and daggers, who had come from that northern road. After they defeat the warriors, Aron interrogates the sole survivor. They find that these warriors were advance scouts for Uzak’s warband who is heading south towards this region. But they learn little more when their captor bleeds out. Eilwen mercy kills him, and she and Aron take their three mounts and any supplies they were carrying and continue west towards Highcrag.

Websites:

Ways to Show Support:

Attributions:

- 'The Long Dark' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Emergent' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Escape Velocity' by Scott Buckly (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Simulacra' by Scott Buckly (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- Various tracks by Tabletop Audio ( https://tabletopaudio.com) - released under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. Minor modifications (fading/splitting) made to support this podcast format with written permission from the creator.

- Ominous Soundscape - TrenoX8 (Pixabay.com)

- Jaques - Andreas-Woll-Music (Pixabay.com)

- Sound Effects from Pixabay (Pixabay.com).

Previously:

In our previous episode, near nightfall, Eilwen and her companions engage in hand to hand combat against the four warrior priests who seek their death for blaspheming “Delos the High One”. The companions slay the warrior priests but a few moments after they fall, tar-like shadow creatures rises from the fallen forms and infect others in the settlement. The companions flee Longfalls to the west. Finding a modicom of safety brought by distance and height, they watch the settlement struggle against the spreading darkness and they see several buildings in the settlement burst into flame. As Seith tries to calm the fears of Valeri’s children by telling a tale of Gadwyn Moonhunter, Aron confronts Eilwen about her actions at Longfalls and initially believes that Eilwen’s is the cause of unleashing the shadowy darkness upon Longfalls.

He is distrustful about her use of shadow magic. Eilwen convinces him that the shadowy darkness that is spreading is not from her and must be stopped and they make plans to leave Valeri and her children with Seith here hidden outside of Longfalls, while she and Aron go on ahead to deal with Delos, the Iron priest blamed for the spreading darkness at Highcrag.

Websites:

Ways to Show Support:

Attributions:

- 'The Long Dark' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Emergent' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Escape Velocity' by Scott Buckly (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Simulacra' by Scott Buckly (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- Various tracks by Tabletop Audio ( https://tabletopaudio.com) - released under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. Minor modifications (fading/splitting) made to support this podcast format with written permission from the creator.

- Jaques - Andreas-Woll-Music (Pixabay.com)

- Sound Effects from Pixabay (Pixabay.com).

Previously:

In our previous episode, Eilwen and her companions finish their final leg of travel and arrive at the settlement of Longfalls. They witness a beautiful sunset backdropping twin waterfalls, the namesake of the settlement itself. The falls cascade off of a grassy plateau where, fed by cold mountain streams far to the north, they feed the green valley and that spreads out below them, wherein lies the settlement of Longfalls. Scratch and Aron nearly get into a fight as an unnatural and a nameless something seems to put everyone on edge. As they entered Longfalls, the townsfolk are suspicious of and even hostile towards the companions. The settlement is bursting at the seams with refugees from Highcrag, who had fled the settlement to the west. While Eilwen seeks lodging in a stable, they are attacked by the stableman and in the ruckus that ensues, a pack of hungry children steal some of their supplies and then disappear down the side streets. Eilwen helps one refugee family and manages to get some answers--an iron priest named Delos, the man claims, had visited an Iron pillar near Highcrag and he claims that that is the source of their ills and the fountain of the darkness at Highcrag. EIlwen in a showy display stands atop a wagon and with sword aloft vows to deal with Delos. But even as her vow leaves her lips, acolytes of the accursed priest, led by a hulking man in a gray robe with strange gray streamers sewn into their clothes step forth to confront them. The man gives no name but bears a massive war hammer in his thick arms and accuses Eilwen of blasphemy for speaking such against “Delos the High One” and says her words are worthy of death.

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Ways to Show Support:

Check out soloroleplayersnetwork.com for other great shows!

Attributions:

- 'The Long Dark' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Emergent' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Escape Velocity' by Scott Buckly (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- Various tracks by Tabletop Audio ( https://tabletopaudio.com) - released under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. Minor modifications (fading/splitting) made to support this podcast format with written permission from the creator.

- Jaques - Andreas-Woll-Music (Pixabay.com)

- Sound Effects from Pixabay (Pixabay.com).

Previously:

In our previous episode, Eilwen and Valeri continue their talk around the campfire. With only Eilwen and the silent forest trees for spectators, Valeri opens up about her purpose in coming to these lands. She seeks an ancient treasure to buy the freedom of her husband, Edyard, and her eldest son, Gethyd, who are both thralls  to Yormid, leader of Redhall circle, working in his mines,  seeking for black iron. In starlight and firelight, Valeri shares an old treasure map her husband had found months ago. In the starlight, along one edge of the vellum sheet, Eilwen picks out some blocky runes she can read and manages to memorize the characters before Valeri puts the sheet  away. The map also features the Greenhome. The ruined palace of queens that Valeri had just left, a region no doubt now crawling with the varou that have ever dogged their heels these last several days. It is there that Valeri seeks to find her liberating treasure. Eilwen, bearing the only treasure she had found in those ruins, the amulet of queens upon her breast, attempts to convince Valeri that it’s too dangerous, that it would be suicide to attempt entering those lands. When Valeri is near sinking into despair, having lost one son to death, and another son and her very husband nearly lost to permanent slavery, Eilwen offers to help Valeri free her family. Valeri is grateful for her aid and tells Eilwen she is not like Arwed, her mother. When the others are asleep, Eilwen ponders the runes she memorized by the fire and finds out they are in verse form and contain a clue that urges her to seek the lost crown in a low region upon the earth in some brackish swamp or fen. Eilwen also ponders about Valeri’s affirmation that Eilwen is not like Eilwen’s mother and wonders if need had turned mother from innocence into the cruel woman Valeri had known. Eilwen also justifies her use of the shadow magic and decides she is queen--queen of the living and queen of the shadows and what harm is there for a queen to use the tools she has been given to regain and protect her kingdom?

Websites:

Ways to Show Support:

Attributions:

- 'The Long Dark' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Emergent' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- Various tracks by Tabletop Audio ( https://tabletopaudio.com) - released under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. Minor modifications (fading/splitting) made to support this podcast format with written permission from the creator.

- Jaques - Andreas-Woll-Music (Pixabay.com)

- Sound Effects from Pixabay (Pixabay.com).

Check out soloroleplayersnetwork.com for other great shows!

Previously:

In our previous episode, Eilwen discovers Valeri watching her by the fire. As they engage in conversation, she finds that Valeri had, long ago, actually met her mother, Arwed, a lovely blond woman whom Valeri referred to as ‘The Witch’. This was many years ago at the circle of Redhall when Valeri was but a young girl and when Arwed was a beautiful woman in her prime. 

Valeri tells Eilwen that The Witch had been unkind and cruel and refused to help Valeri’s ailing mother. Instead, The Witch had the villagers scouring the hills searching of black iron. Valeri relates that when her mother died, she went to The Witch’s home to bring about some act of vengeance, but as she hid outside the witch’s cottage in the woods, she instead witnessed a what she believed to be some dark ritual which filled her with terror. She saw The Witch pour what Valeri terms were the ‘shades of the dead’ into a miniature raven formed from the molten black-iron. The blond witch subsequently used the device to summon a cloud of ravens and disappear amidst the flapping of wings. Valeri recognizes the witch’s features in Eilwen’s face and learns of the familial connection between mother and daughter. Eliwen tries to defend her mother, as much as she’s comfortable doing,  and shares some good memories of her mother and also admits to learning some shadow magic from her mother as well. 

Valeri admits she never Eilwen’s mother well, that The Witch was there in Redhall only a few weeks. but that she counted it a good day when the witch finally left Redhall for good. Eilwen mourns that her mother kept too many secrets, which prompts Valeri into sharing a secret of her own, as she opens the leather tube that she had previously been so protective about.

Websites:

Ways to Show Support:

Attributions:

- 'The Long Dark' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Emergent' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- Various tracks by Tabletop Audio ( https://tabletopaudio.com) - released under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. Minor modifications (fading/splitting) made to support this podcast format with written permission from the creator.

- Jaques - Andreas-Woll-Music (Pixabay.com)

- Sound Effects from Pixabay (Pixabay.com).

Previously:

In our previous episode, the companions awaken and continue their travels from the iron pillar, following the river south through the tempest hills. About midday, the road takes them to a rotten wooden bridge that spans a large and deep ravine through which the heedless river courses with rapidity. A covered wagon perches precariously near a ragged hole where a tangle of horses and reins and tackle have fallen through the bridge, and, spiraling in mid air above the ravine, threaten to drag the wagon and its occupants down to certain destruction. A boy, named Fen,  leans forward and tries to reach the saddlebags at his mother’s urging. Before Eilwen can do anything, the lad slips and falls, and plunges into the depths. Eilwen leaps into action and saves the rest of the family: three girls from the back of the wagon, Valeri, their mother, and she also rescues the saddlebags, cutting them free, just as the entire wagon collapses through the rotting bridge and smashes onto the rocks near Fen’s body far below . Eilwen confronts Valeri over sending Fen recover the contents of the saddlebags and wonders what could be of such great value to risk the cost of a beloved child’s life. Valeri remains tight-lipped when Eilwen opens the saddlebags and holds a small tube made of hardened leather. But Eilwen doesn’t open the leather tube, and sensing the mother’s trauma and heartache and the need for allies of her own, she returns the mysterious item with no strings attached. Eilwen and Aron with Seith’s then help descend into the ravine to recover Fen’s ruined body. They return the body to Valeri who, upon recovering her young boy’s frail corpse, falls to her knees and weeps into Eilwen’s arms.

As we begin this episode, Eilwen's stats are Edge 2, Heart 1, Iron 1, Shadow 3, Wits 2

Ways to Show Support:

Websites:

Attributions:

- 'The Long Dark' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Emergent' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- Various tracks by Tabletop Audio ( https://tabletopaudio.com) - released under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. Minor modifications (fading/splitting) made to support this podcast format with written permission from the creator.

- Deeply Emotional Orchestral Violin - L'Unico Che Amo (Pixabay.com)

- Jaques - Andreas-Woll-Music (Pixabay.com)

- Sound Effects from Pixabay (Pixabay.com).

Previously:

In our previous episode, as the companions make camp around the peaceful iron pillar infused with golden mystical ight, Eilwen, during her watch activates her magic and calls the shadows to try to unlock the secrets of the pillar. One of the two-dimensional beings made of shadow stuff tries to lead her astray through a shadowy twisting door. But she resists and binds the shadows to her will. She then uses the sapphire amulet to interact with the iron pillar. She sees a vision of the past. Her mother, Arwed, a beautiful young woman, with blue eyes and blond hair, with the sunset for a backdrop is only a few years older than Eilwen, and stands at the pillar as she is engaged by three trained warriors in dark leather armor and gray cloaks who bear the heraldry of three arrow shafts on a black field upon their brooches. They demand that Arwed give them the crown.  She says nothing. Merely gives a grim smile. They attack her with bows and arrows and Arwed defends herself by drawing power from the iron pillar in the form of an energy shield that consumes their projectiles upon contact. The men try to flee, but Arwed uses the shadow magic to drown them in the dark pitch-like pools that surround and overcome the terrified men as they flee. The shadows take their lives without mercy, without remorse, and without leaving any wounds. After the battle, Eilwen feels sickened and disturbed to see that her mother stands over the bodies with a self-satisfied smile as she strips off everything of value. Eilwen returns to the present and yields her watch to Aron as she slips into a disturbed sleep.

Promotions:

I invite you to check out The Alchemists’ Monster a Dragonbane Foundry VTT module written by one of our fans, available at fullboongames.itch.io. I had a chance to playtest it earlier this year, and I enjoyed it. It's well written and the VTT module is visually pleasing as well!

Websites:

Ways to Show Support:

Attributions:

- 'The Long Dark' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

- 'Emergent' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY 4.0.

-'Ice Cream' by Scott Buckley (www.scottbuckley.com.au) released under CC-BY-4.0.

- Various tracks by Tabletop Audio ( https://tabletopaudio.com) - released under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. Minor modifications (fading/splitting) made to support this podcast format with written permission from the creator.

- Deeply Emotional Orchestral Violin - L'Unico Che Amo (Pixabay.com)

- Sound Effects from Pixabay (Pixabay.com).