Kal Arath Episode 2

Transcript

Picking up where we left off

Taking a break from painting NMM on this dude to play some Kal Arath. I don’t have time for a full session, but that’s what makes Kal Arath awesome. I did a half session on the first video — I’ll do another half now. Together they’ll get us a level.

Quick correction from last time: I learned praying mantises don’t live in colonies. They’re solitary. So there wasn’t a colony. Maybe a battle barge crashed into him — he was injured. Garen Vosque rolled a neutral reaction and helped him out.

Why I’m using the Prima Materia dice

I want to go a little more in depth as these two head back toward the crash site. That’s where these little beauties come into play.

Man Alone wrote and conceived Prima Materia. Dice Nest made these amazing dice. I want to do a full review, but I want to use them more first. I’ve read the book cover to cover three times now and I’m still finding more.

I’m not using these because of a deficiency in Kal Arath. Kal Arath has great tables. The power in these dice is interpretation — they keep you in the story. You’re not flipping to a table lookup, you’re reading a cast: this die is closer than that one, so you read them in this order. If the positions had been different, you’d read them differently. That changes everything.

Plus, it’s just fun rolling dice. It’s not so fun looking at tables.

The mantis’s motives

Let’s think about the praying mantis’s motives toward Garen. Because this die is closer, we interpret them in this order.

The swirly one is Fortune — but it’s on the Knox die, the shadow principle. Hard to distinguish if you’re not familiar with Jungian psychology. (I have a degree in psychology — Jung is the reason I have it. Then I went to school and realized they don’t teach you the cool stuff about Jung. Just the boring stuff.) Fitting that I’m going on a Jung ramble with a Man Alone product.

The result symbolizes: gamble, risk, chance, loss, misfortune, uncertainty. Our little guy was hurt. He saw the campfire and wandered over hoping for help. He took the gamble.

Next is the Sizzy die — the coming together of two parts. This tells us how they relate. The symbol is within, and the other is self. So: uncertainty and gamble within himself. He had a desire, made a choice to seek out help. “I’m going to die if this post stays in me. I need someone to pull it out so I can shed this leg, molt, and go.”

Are they friends?

Now that Garen has healed him, what’s their relationship as they walk to the crash site? Are they going to be homies?

Roll. Fortune above Mind. Cooler than a table — in the Kal Arath rules I could have just rolled a d6 for “are they homies?” and gotten a no but. Not very fun. We want to be homies.

Fortune is on the soul (white) die: luck, timing, treasure, prophecy, a wish, a favor, a reward, coincidence. Above means conquering over. So good fortune and reward are over Mind, which is on the black die — doubt, anxiety, obsession, fear.

When you call upon the Greeks, alchemy, intention, when you pray to Carl Jung — you get synchronicities. This is what happens.

So these two who could very much have been in combat are vibing. Walking back to the crash site as allies. Garen has ulterior motives — he wants to refurbish his own battle barge, and he pocketed the control gem he pulled out of the mantis. But it seems like he’s made an actual true friendship. Now we can approach the relationship with way more nuance than just yes/no.

Hex travel

Back to the rule book. Just to be clear — Kal Arath is fully self-contained. The story-question and turning-point tables are some of the best I’ve seen. I’m using the dice because I think they’re neat, not because Kal Arath needs them.

We’re moving north toward the crash site.

Weather: rolled a six. Of course I finally roll high when high is bad. Thunder rolls in as a major storm breaks. High winds and heavy rains. No travel today. Begin the next day in the same hex. Foraging is impossible. Minus two on getting lost.

So as soon as they set out, it starts storming. Now they’re bunkered in together. Good thing they’re getting along.

Lost? Rolled a five. We’re not lost. We can’t forage, so we’ll share rations.

Point of interest: rolled a five, then a 51 — a giant skull and bones.

A desecrated shrine

After rolling, we have our character and his new pet giant praying mantis hunkered down in a cave during a storm, where they find a giant’s skull.

Garen investigates. Intelligence check to identify it — rolled a 9, minus 1 for stat, hits an 8. He recognizes it as a giant skull.

Insight table — I count the black die first if it’s black, otherwise leftmost. Result: a sacred ruined giant skull. Maybe runes on it. It’s becoming clear this was a religious site. People were praying to the skull, and something damaged it.

When you’re playing solo, it’s all theater of the mind and story prompts. You’re almost writing a story with extra steps — pulling it out of tables, dice, and your imagination.

So now Garen and his friend run inside this cave during a thunderstorm and realize they just walked onto a cult’s holy ground. The big icon — a giant skull on a pedestal — has been damaged. Now they really don’t want to be here when the cult comes back.

Peek before the cult arrives

I’m going to use the Knox die for a quick peek — a single-die pull for insight into the cult.

Result: connection, entanglement, obligation, dependence, exposure, leverage, conflict, expectation. So they’re going to get caught in an entanglement with this cult. Period.

Garen looks through the skull. “Hey, maybe we should get out of here.” Has the storm let up enough to leave? No. And in Kal Arath, when you fail a roll you don’t just fail — something worse happens.

When they try to leave, they see the cult walking toward the cave.

Drawing the cave

Two cultists. They have shields and clubs/spears.

I’m going to draw this cave fast and dirty, then go back and spruce it up. I got this method from Runehammer — draw your line, then a second line that follows but overlaps wonky. Then go back and connect everywhere they overlap.

Without really knowing how to draw, you can get a cool cave outline that doesn’t look half bad. Two baddies — this guy’s the leader (4 HP), this guy’s the 2 HP one, the leader’s sending him in first. Then Garen and the mantis in back, with the giant skull as our treasure objective.

Lightweight kit shines here. Not super tactical, but there’s positioning and initiative.

Combat

Initiative: d6 plus agility. Garen has agility 2, rolled a seven. On a 4+ we go first — sidewise initiative, so the whole posse goes first.

The mantis is insane in close combat. He has a combat leap — jumps into combat then attacks with his claw. d6 looking for an 8. Miss. If that had hit, the bite attack would have been free. But I still get a second attack — bite attack, hits.

d6 damage minus 1 for the shield. Still kills the 2 HP cultist outright.

Garen moves half his distance to close on the leader.

Now the leader has to face a morale check for watching his partner die. 2d6, needs higher than 8. He passes. He’s mad. Spear attack — looking for an 8. Misses.

Mantis attacks again — claw and bite. Both miss. I’m just rolling, but you can narrate this in your head: the mantis leaps across the cave, strikes down the first cultist, gets parried by the leader’s spear. His leg’s still injured from the battle barge — that’s why his lunge missed and only the bite landed.

Garen swings his long sword, plus 1 from the warrior skill. 2d6+3 looking for an 8. Miss. Our hero is not heroing.

Cultist swings at Garen. Dodge roll — 2d6+agility. Rolled an 8+2 = 10. Just dodges. (I love the player-facing rolls in Kal Arath. Same as Crown and Skull.)

Garen swings, misses. Mantis rolls an 8, hits with his claw. d6 damage — rolled a six. Five damage after the shield. Dead.

Wrapping the session

Two dead cultists and a religious demon skull. Time for bed.

We rest up and share rations — down two on the character sheet. Next time we’ll loot the bodies and roll for a nighttime encounter.

Thanks for making it this far. This is the most I’ve spoken in probably 30 days. The stuff the doctor gave me is working. Still not quite my normal voice yet, but thanks for being here. See you tomorrow.