Starforged - Mina the lore keeper: Session 5, Forsaking vows and making new ones

 

We have a few things to deal with here before we pick up the narrative again. This may end up being a mechanical post rather than narrative, but it's all part of play.

First of all, the vow Find out what they are working on in the secret archaeological settlement known as Forlorn needs to be Forsaken. I'm giving up and leaving Veiled Keepers space, and that has consequences.

Of the suggested costs in the Move description there are three that stand out to me as possibles:

• You are demoralized or dispirited: Endure Stress.
• You must abandon a path or resource: Discard an asset.
• Your reputation suffers: Envision how this failure marks you.

This was an unlucky start to a new game, and it turned into a very static scene that was a bit of a grind by the end, so I don't want to go discarding assets and making my character less dynamic. But maybe I could lose the benefits of an asset until I make amends.

And losing a bit of spirit doesn't seem quite enough.

On the other hand, losing access to Veiled Keepers space and being branded a Spy if I return sounds like reputational damage to me, and seems like a narratively satisfying cost for that failed adventure. So I think this is what we'll go with.

Second thing, we need to get to know Eveline a little better since she's going to be travelling with us. Below is what I rolled when I first arrived on Larissa and was envisioning an NPC for my first interaction:

Name: Eveline Durant

Role: Guard

Goal: Defend a place

First look: Grim, Shifty

Revealed Aspect: Loving, Violent

We're going to roll and re-roll a couple of attributes:

Disposition: Indifferent

Goal: Escape a captor

Revealed Aspect: +Stingy

Callsign: Dash

Sometimes the Oracles are spookily on point. So Eveline's goals have changed to reflect her new reality, and I'm going to read her indifference as a combination of withdrawal and total apathy as it sinks in that she's lost what little she had and has nothing in this universe to ground her again.

Thirdly and finally, we need a new sector and a new vow. The obvious vow is to find and retrieve a Precursor relic, and from our starting point that sounds like a Formidable task.

Swear an Iron Vow + Heart: Find and retrieve a precursor relic (Formidable)

[Strong Hit with a match: 4 + 3 + 0 = 7 vs 6 | 6]

+2 Momentum

That match is interesting,let's roll some Oracles and seed some ideas:

Story Clue: Connects to a known rumor or scandal

Action: Surrender / Theme: Life

We'll bear this in mind when we start gathering information, but with a strong hit making it clear what we must do next, I think we probably learn of a rumour of some fellow lore hunter, maybe an old friend/rival, who was trying to break in somewhere in faction space and was found dead in suspicious circumstances.

I think the benefit of this match will be that, because this happened in the lore hunting community, we're starting with a slate of known contacts who can probably be persuaded to give us more information.

I'll represent this as starting out with a mark of progress in the Vow tracker.

[Mark Progress: Find and retrieve a precursor relic :1 boxes]

All that's left is to roll up a new sector and envision the new vow. Next post we'll jump right into the narrative.