It's the middle of Spring, and the snows have mostly melted away in the lowlands though there are signs that the cold still has a hold on some of the distant hills. Winter is now behind us, but in its place the unpredictable spring weather brings morning frosts and sudden storms.
Deshi is interrupted by an urgent summons to the home of the Village overseer. She didn't leave her shack this morning, and when someone went to check on her they found her still in bed, feverish and rambling. Something is very wrong.
I envisioned my own Inciting Incident as I wanted something that would be relevant for a Healer, so we're dealing with a mysterious sickness. You can roll yours on the Settlement Trouble or Major Plot Twist oracles if you prefer to let the dice gods have their fun.
First dice roll of the game. Let's create ourselves an overseer.
- Name: Shekhar
- Disposition: Suspicious
- Descriptor: Active
- Goal: Defend a place
A fitting set of attributes for a leader, but that suspicous disposition makes me wonder...
Deshi rushes over to Shekhar's home with a grab-bag of herbs and prepared medicines. He orders boiled water to be bought to the shack, crouches down by her bedside and starts to investigate. First glance suggests that this isn't an ordinary fever, and not an illness he has encountered before.
Gather Information: Miss. 'Your investigation unearths a dire threat or an unwelcome truth that undermines your quest.'
I don't know what that might be, so I'm going to roll on the Action / Theme oracles for a seed.
Action / Theme: Affect / Survival
I'm going to interpret this as a dire threat that might affect the survival of the whole villiage. This steers me away from the ideas I had (triggered by that 'suspicious' disposition) about this being a poisoning attempt by an enemy.
Apart from the fever Shekhar's skin is clammy and, while her forhead is burning up, her hands are freezing. Her eyes are focusing on a point somewhere up in the rafters of her home, and her rambling is agitated. The water arrives and Deshi crushes in some herbs that he knows will bring down a temperature and asks another of the villager's to hold the Overseer's head while he slowly pours the concoction into her mouth.
While they sit by her bedside and wait for the medicine to have an effect Deshi asks the others in the room if they know what she has been eating and drinking over the last few days. He hasn't seen any strangers pass through the village but asks if anyone has noticed anything unusual.
Diagnosis will need to be a process of elimination. If the village water was bad he'd expect others to have fallen ill, but maybe Shekhar is just the first. Disease would concievably affect one person but if it's not the food, and no strangers have passed through, where did it come from? At the back of his mind an unwelcome thought lurks. Every healer in the Ironlands holds a secret fear that the plague that drove humanity from the Old World is just biding its time and will one day return.
He keeps this forboding to himself, but advises the other villiagers to boil all water before drinking and make sure food is well cooked before consumption. If the water has gone bad it could be the end of the villiage, but at least they could outrun it. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
This fever hasn't moved. Deshi reaches into his satchel and lays his supplies out on a cloth next to him. He'll have to work through his remedies one by one.
Heal: Weak Hit. -1 Supply (-4)
The Herbalist path lets me add +2 to this roll and a good thing too. I'm using the degree of success to determine whether this has no effect, limited effect or allieviates the symptoms completely. The weak hit is the most interesting result in terms of narrative, so I'm not too sad.
I started the game with the vow 'Heal the Village Overseer' (dangerous) since this was my inciting incident, so I also mark progress on that quest track for finding a working medicine.
It takes all night and Deshi burns through a lot of his supply of the more unusual remedies, but he finally finds something that seems to sooth Shekhar and help her rest more easily. Unfortunately there is barely enough of it to keep her dosed for the next few days, and definitely not enough to treat anyone else that might fall sick.
Checking his labels he sees that the herb he needs is Moonwort. He casts his mind back to his teachings. Moonwort... an unusual plant of heathlands and unforested highlands. Usually used in a poultice to close wounds, but sometimes boiled in red wine to reduce vomiting and the expulsion of fluids (not that the Ironlands have ever seen Old World wine, but the berries of the Elder bush make a close enough approximation). He vaguely remembers gathering this years ago. Checking his notes he sees that yes, he gathered this from a patch on a heathland a few days travel from the villiage. It's the nearest high ground, and the best bet for getting more of the herb.
A quick stop to plug the excellent Herbalists Primer which I picked up from Dungeonland and completely fell in love with. An amazing resource for the role player who wants something based in real-world herb-lore from which to supplement their fantasy adventures. Painstakingly researched, beautifully illustrated and written with you,the role player, in mind. Very much my cup of tea.
Deshi heads back to his own shack and gets a few hours sleep as the sun rises. Then he prepares the rest of his stock of the herb and leaves dosing instructions with his apprentice. He also asks one of the village hunters to head to the coastal village of Brackwater, a day's journey to the west but mostly along well-trodden roads, with a small sample of the precious Moonwort to see if they have any supply. It's a long-shot, but Brackwater is a regular stop for the trading vessels that ply the Ragged Coast and there's a possibility that they'll have a chest of the stuff in a forgotten corner of a warehouse somewhere.
Finally he pulls on his travel cloak, checks his pockets to make sure there are enough stones for a decent volley from his sling, and takes his staff in hand. No one else has ever seen this herb in the ground, let alone harvested it. And the harvesting process is delicate. It has to be him.
He casts an eye up at the brooding skies and mutters a small prayer to Eir to have mercy on his friend and Overseer, and to protect him on the road as he goes in search of the cure. With a final backward glance he sets out for the distant heath.
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