Kal Arath Live Play Session 1

Transcript

A quick lore primer

All right, making a character in Kal Arath is super easy. Quick lore primer: this is heavily based on Conan the Cimmerian — that sword-and-sandal vibe. I actually just finished listening to the complete Tales of Conan when I was building that playhouse, so I’m primed, I’m ready to go. Fresh in my mind, really excited to jump into this universe.

Meet Garen Vosque

Our character is Garen Vosque. It’s a name I’ve wanted to play around with for a while.

He’s a soldier. The battle he was in is over and he’s been decommissioned from the army — he’s kind of out on his own. He’s young, mid-20s, but at this point he’s a grizzled veteran of several wars and he’s trying to figure out what his next step is.

I’m keeping it vague. I have a loose idea of who he is and what he’s done. I don’t need to think up some elaborate backstory because we’re determining who he is. He’s 24, 25. He doesn’t know who he is. You don’t figure that out for a long time anyway.

Stats

Character creation is super easy. Five stats, four points to distribute. No stat can be higher than +2 at start, but you can drop a stat to –1 to get an extra point elsewhere.

I’m envisioning a sword and a bow. I’ve got four points. We’re going to make presence the dump stat — used for reaction checks, charisma, lying, intimidation. Maybe he’s not very sociable. We put that at 0.

Perception drops to –1 — maybe he’s not very perceptive. He survived the war because he’s tough and good with a bow, not because he notices traps. That –1 gives us an extra point to put in toughness.

Strength and agility get the rest. Character’s made.

Skill and HP

For skills you pick one from the base book — warrior, rogue, mystic, explorer. I’m going warrior: plus one to his long sword attacks.

You also get one Fate point at character creation. Fate points let you reroll any one of your own dice rolls.

HP is a d6 plus your toughness — the only time toughness gets added to an HP roll. If you wanted to min-max you could start with a toughness of 2 and just take max HP — 8 — without rolling. We’re not going to cheese it. Let’s roll.

Oh, that’s terrible. At least we get +1 from toughness. His HP is only 2.

Maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe he’s been wandering — Kal Arath is set in a valley between mountains, kind of a desert. Maybe he got separated from his main force, or they just left him with a bag of gold and said “See you around, dude.” Gold doesn’t do you much good stuck in the desert. He’s only at 2 HP right now because he’s been out in the desert and he’s weak for the current situation.

That’s our character.

Equipment

PCs can carry strength + 8 items. We get 10 slots. More than that and physical rolls are at disadvantage — and in Kal Arath, disadvantage is roll three dice and drop the highest. Advantage is roll three, drop the lowest. At twice your capacity you can’t move at all.

For starting gear, we roll d6 × 10. I rolled a six. 600 silver. Like I said — they threw a bag of gold at him and left him in the desert.

Kal Arath is a cool system — it doesn’t give you exact prices, just item types and a flat d6 or d6 × 10 or d6 × 100 in silver, and you barter and trade depending on where you are.

Rolling for everything according to the chart: he has a long sword (200), a long bow (50), a dagger (10), medium armor (100), a shield (50), six days of rations, a tent (20), and 52 silver remaining.

The long sword on a critical dodge lets him immediately make a counterattack. The long bow can be aimed for up to three rounds — each round spent gives +1 to attack and damage. The dagger can be thrown, used when grappling, or used on a prone enemy.

Rolling the hook

There are prompts you can roll on to jump right into an adventure. I wasn’t sure if I was going to use them, but I rolled and I’m going with it:

You desire to find a battle barge carcass and restore it to glory, making a name for yourself as a warlord and conqueror of settlements across Kal Arath.

That works. All he knows is war. And he thinks he’s going to find a battle barge carcass — which… I need to find out what a battle barge carcass is.

Okay — just like it sounds. A battle barge is a land boat. A boat on wheels or some other movement mechanism that goes across the grass and stone of Kal Arath. That’s awesome. That’s what we’re going for.

Drawing the map

You can see from my many erase lines that drawing hexes is actually a little harder than I thought on this grid. I’m going to not worry about the grid. Disregard the grid.

Drawing the equilateral part to make them look like even hexes is what makes it hard. It’s not perfect, a little wonky — a little taller than they are long. That’s okay. Now it’s easy: just go one, two, three, four, five, six, draw a straight line down from the middle.

It took everything in me to not erase this and redraw it and get a protractor. I know I could get a protractor, draw circles, form triangles, make a perfect grid. And I would have spent an hour making a grid and spent no time at all actually doing the creative exercise — rolling the dice, playing the game. I would have spent all my time trying to make something perfect that doesn’t need to be perfect.

The whole point of me doing this is accepting that things don’t have to be perfect. They just have to be good enough to have fun. And I’m hoping that by releasing whatever in me demands to be perfect, I will become good enough. Because solo role-playing is a lot more than just rolling dice and having fun. It’s a quest for personal development, whether you’re aware of it or not. I’ve got to stop caring so much about things I shouldn’t care about.

The watercolor disaster

This pen has waterproof ink in it — or it did. I refilled it, so I don’t know if it actually has waterproof ink anymore. We’re going to find out together.

We’re starting in this hex. Got room to go this way. We know we want to head this direction because we’re coming out of the desert.

Oh. Very much not waterproof. Immediately not waterproof. Apparently a red maroon ink. Our desert’s red now, guys.

That’s okay. This is part of the process. Now I’ve got red ink in my brush — I’ll wipe it on my pants, give the tip a squeeze. I’ll grab some ochre. Yellow, red, sand — we’re in the desert. It works.

I can come in super loosey-goosey. It’s a desert, man. We just need to know that it’s desert. These hexes start becoming forest or plains. I need to go back and put the waterproof ink back in the pen, but it’s okay that it’s tinted red. Looks kind of cool.

Each square represents 20 miles. Because Garen is a soldier, he has a vague sense of direction. He knows over there is a forest, but I’m not going to color anything past that. We know we’re coming out of the desert and heading up into grasslands and plains.

I can put some yellow over here, clean the brush out, grab some green, come over here. Got to get a lot of yellow to make a lime foresty green. We don’t actually know what’s in there — we just have an idea. Keeping it vague and hazy. Everything has a red haze now from the maroon ink, because right at the moment of truth I forgot that I’d switched ink in the pen. That’s a lesson about why you shouldn’t do that.

By the nature of the paper and putting all this wet on it, it doesn’t bleed through — but it is rippled and wet. By the time we’re done, this is going to be a weathered and aged book, and that book of our notes and explorations will be an artifact in and of itself.

Day 1 — the travel turn

Here we go. We’re in this hex, about 40 miles from the grasslands. If we’re going to find the wreckage of a battle barge we can repair, it’s going to be over there.

There’s a set turn order in Kal Arath. Weather first.

Weather. Rolled a four — unexpected chill. A sudden drop in temperature brings unseasonal harsh frost. Minus one to foraging. As we come out of the desert, there’s a chill coming. Maybe it’s winter.

Lost? After weather, prior to foraging, we roll d6 to see if we’re lost. 1 or 2 means you don’t leave the current hex. I rolled a five. We’re good.

Foraging. If you need food, water, or other resources, you roll to find them. Weather affects this — the frost puts us at –1. He’s been stretching his rations. Let’s see. A six on the die, –1 from weather — a five. The land is generous to you today and you find a variety of food. We gained five rations. We’re full on rations.

You only get to try for herbs on a natural 6, so with our –1 we’re not finding any herbs in the frozen waste.

Point of interest. Roll d6 first — 1–4 is nothing. I rolled a three. Nothing here. We’re just traveling through. The last bit of desert before the forest. Makes sense.

Encounter. Roll again, looking for 5–6. I rolled a one. No encounter. A boring day.

We spend the whole day traveling through this hex, heading toward the forest. End of day.

Nighttime encounter. Looking for a 1–2. I rolled a five. Safe through the night.

End of day one. I don’t think we did anything that warrants a level-up. Time to mark where we are and move on.

Day 2

Day two. Run the whole turn again.

Weather: a three. Light rain. Showers help the flowers bloom but make the ground muddy. Nothing too crazy. We’re not going to forage today — Garen sees the forest and wants to get there.

Point of interest: nothing. Encounter: nothing. I keep rolling threes. We’re apparently not meant to encounter anyone.

We’re moving. One hex away from being in the forest proper.

Nighttime encounter: a one. Now we’re rolling the encounter table.

The giant praying mantis

It’s a Ukariad — a giant praying mantis. Uh oh.

Garen is sleeping. His fire’s out. A giant praying mantis has stumbled upon his camp. We don’t know if he’s friend or foe.

I’ll use the Oracle to figure out the mantis’s disposition. Friendly or hostile? I rolled a five — a flat yes. Friendly mantis. But Garen might not necessarily know that.

There’s also a reaction check — a 2d6 roll. I rolled a seven. Neutral. So he stumbled on us; he wasn’t hunting. Kind of neutral to Garen.

This is where the storytelling and the Oracle come in. Garen was asleep in the middle of the night, his fire’s out, a giant praying mantis has wandered into his camp — friendly but with neutral reaction.

Reading the vibes

We roll on the Oracle table to feel out the situation. Two dice, one to three times. We’re trying to ascertain the praying mantis’s temperament and what it’s doing there. Is Garen going to pretend he’s still asleep and hide? Has the mantis noticed him yet? What is the mantis doing?

I rolled double-twos, then rolled three times to get more.

• Courage. Okay — Garen is going to stand up and face down the mantis.
• Negotiation / temptation. The mantis is going to tempt him with some kind of offer.

When you’re playing solo, you don’t have to have a conversation with yourself. I mean, you can — you can pretend to be a giant praying mantis. What does a giant praying mantis sound like? I don’t know. But the mantis is going to be like, “Hey, I’ve been looking for somebody to help me do something, because I just have simple praying mantis hands. But you’re a human — you could do something.”

What the mantis has

There’s another Oracle table for insight into people, places, and things. Let’s see if Garen can get a feel for the situation.

I rolled a 54 — profane. This mantis is profane. He’s going to try to tempt us. What is he going to tempt us with?

I rolled again: 41 or 14? 41 is gleaming. 14 is shining. They’re basically the same. A temptation, a negotiation. Maybe the mantis is holding out a shining gem to Garen.

A shining gem? Does that really make sense? Is it a magical profane gem? Does it make sense that a giant praying mantis could even hold a gem?

One more roll: 64 — war-torn.

A gleaming war-torn object. He has to be holding a key piece of a battle barge. Maybe there’s a piece of a wrecked battle barge stuck around the mantis — and he doesn’t speak the same language as Garen, but he’s presenting himself and pleading with his eyes and his skittering: please help me get this off me.

Reading the situation

Garen’s not sure what it is at first. But the sun is starting to rise and he can see more clearly now. He sees that the mantis has an obvious piece of a battle barge wedged around him or stuck to him. Maybe a battle barge wreckage piece is protruding from him.

He has to decide: is he going to risk helping this guy? Can he help him? The mantis is neutral toward him. I think he’s going to help.

Is Garen able to figure this out? I’d call this an intelligence task. I’ll be honest — I haven’t locked in when I use flat yes/no dice versus stat checks for smart stuff. That’s a me thing to figure out.

Intelligence check. We’re at –1 intelligence. Looking for an eight. Even with –1 he makes it. He says, “Hey, you’re kind of stuck. I’m going to help you.” He puts his hands up, slowly moves toward the mantis, and works the battle barge piece off him.

Now Garen has this piece. The specific piece doesn’t really matter — just a broken chunk of a battle barge.

Can the mantis point the way

Garen tries to get the mantis to communicate. “Hey, I just helped you. Can you tell me where your battle barge is? What happened?”

The mantis can’t speak English. He’s profane — not necessarily a good guy. Just because he doesn’t want to eat Garen right now doesn’t mean he’s got the best motives.

In my head I’m imagining: maybe the battle barge crashed into the mantis’s colony, or drove through it, causing chaos. Is he going to send Garen at the crew that invaded his colony?

The mantis turns and points with his mantis arm in the direction of the battle barge. He looks at the broken piece, then points off in that direction.

That direction is falling off the table. So the battle barge has to be pretty close. Maybe the colony is in this hex.

Is he being honest? I rolled a five. A flat yes. So the battle barge wreckage is here. We know there’s a mantis colony there, and we know there’s at least parts of a battle barge.

The setup for next time

Garen backs away from the mantis. “I’ll go with you — come on, show me where the battle barge is.” The mantis looks at him. “No. I’m good.” And sets off.

Does he go with him? Flat yes. So the mantis is taking him back.

Maybe Garen gets his battle barge already. Maybe he’s being led into some crazy adventure.

That feels like a session. I’m going to call it here and get back to work.

Thanks for hanging out with me being a silly goofball. This is what Kal Arath is. This is what’s awesome. This is what not being perfect is. Just jumping into the story and a narrative. I told myself a cool story that I had no idea was going to exist before I sat down to tell it. Now I have enough information to write a little short story about it.

Maybe I’ll make Garen. Maybe I’ll sculpt his praying mantis buddy. Maybe they’re going to be homies and go on a soldier-praying-mantis buddy cop adventure. We’ll find out next time — on the next episode of Kal Arath Z.