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High above the city of Knokvere, deep in the mountains of Vestonar, nestled into the ridges and peaks, is Tholgrim Monastery. The monastery is carved into the mountain, but the observation decks, where the astronomers chart the motion of the stars, rise above the monastery at the top of tall granite towers. There, Margaret the initiate watches as a seventh star moves out of place. It joins its six sisters in a line, just like her goddess Sehanine said it would. She said there would be a message for her, and this must be it. But... what does it mean?
Where we start
150 years after the end of Season 2, we find a much changed world. Malios has risen to be dominant economically, Vestonar is the dominant labor culture, and Siqram dominates academics.
The mountains of Vestonar were originally settled by dwarves. They built cities and roads through the rock, etching their homes and stories directly into the stone. There are seven major cities, one of them is the capital Hrudel, and Tholgrim Monastery, the childhood home of the Season 2 hero Halgrym.
Our four heroes aren't really heroes yet, but they'll get there.
Four nobodies
Kuro
Four foot one and four hundred and fifty pounds, Kuro is a nervous archivist working in Tholgrim Monastery. She wakes early and heads to the archive room. Her coworker, Marevek, is already there. He annoys her; he can't seem to remember how to wrap records for safe shipping through the mountain passes. She makes tea for herself and her boss, Head Archivist Beldrin.
Beldrin is early this morning, which never happens. He wants to talk with Kuro. He'll be retiring soon and needs to find a replacement. At four hundred and eighty seven, he's done as much archiving as he cares to. He'd like to nominate Kuro for the position - that has been her dream for some time. But the decision isn't up to Beldrin alone; he needs to get approval from the Priors. And the Priors know that Kuro is lacking experience external to the monastery. They want proof that she can handle the role.
He proposes she go on a lightweight mission. Some old records need retrieving from the Wardkeepers of Durdrak. Old research that needs to be relocated to Tholgrim. An easy mission. Go and fetch the package, and bring it back. This will give her the experience needed to convince the Priors.
Margaret
Margaret is frequently one of the first to rise in the monastery. And every morning, she is stoked. She grabs her mop and her bucket and cheerfully heads out to do her morning chores. On year seven of a two-year initiation to the monastery, Margaret is on top of the world. On this particular morning, she's gotta run an errand for her best friend, the goddess Sehanine. Sehanine has asked her to go look at the stars every day for seven days. Today is day seven.
She heads toward the stairwell of the observation decks. At the foot of the stairs is Ilvra, one of the members of the College of Forms. These women are warrior monks and protectors of the college. She has a shaved head and a close-cropped white beard. What's visible of her skin is covered in geometric tattoos - each representative of one of the many forms she has learned. She has been here every morning blocking Margaret's way; initiates are not allowed on the observation decks. Every morning Margaret bribes her with cram and her reason for being there "Sehanine told me to come!". Every morning Ilvra steps aside: "Who am I to stand in the way of a god? If one is talking to you, you need to prove it." At the top of the observation deck (and with some help from a new friend, Veranthia of Solwynd) she realizes seven of the stars are out of place... they form a line pointing to the city of Durdrak. She rushes off to tell Prior Nokvir what she's discovered!
The Prior is not impressed. "You aren't supposed to be up there! The gods don't speak to us Margaret! This is an institution of learning - we hypothesize, record data, and make conclusions! We don't sneak around lying about gods talking to us!" The Prior calls in Ilvra and Veranthia to corroborate Margaret's story, which they do, much to his chagrin. The stars may have been real, but the sneaking and lying wasn't: "if you wish to stay in this institution and not be removed for lack of ability to follow instructions, this is your last warning!" Ilvra bristles. "Prior, didn't you say this is an institution of science? Of hypothesizing? Margaret here has a theory. And that theory has garnered evidence. Shouldn't she be allowed to continue her research?" And turning to Margaret "I'm taking Kuro to Durdrak, right where your stars pointed. Care to do some fieldwork?"
M'lek
Standing in line at a dwarven guild hall as the only orc there is weird. Dwarves love their lines. They love their procedures. And their forms. And stamps. Good thing M'lek finally has all his sorted out. Pretty soon he'll be able to get guild-sponsored shipwright work, start making some money, and dig himself out of the hole he fell into. Just one more stamp and he's good to go. It's finally his turn and the clerk yells out "Next!". Turns out, M'lek does not have the right forms. "This is not a clan sponsor stamp," the clerk tells him. "But, I got it from the skewer vendor on level seven. He said it was legit!" "The skewer vendor does not sell clan stamps." "oh"
M'lek left the guildhall dejected. With the last few coins in his pocket, he decided to go get some food. Not paying attention, he bumps into someone, and then feels a giant hand clamp down on his shoulder. A seven foot tall orc is looking at him. "Hey M'lek, good to see you". His stomach drops. This is the guy that kicked in his front door a couple of days ago. This is the guy whose bag he stole. Well. Found. And took. Is that actually stealing? Hard to say. I guess this guy thinks so. "Where's our money, M'lek? You owe us a thousand gold." "Shit guys, I don't have it on me. Want to go get some meatballs though?" The charm doesn't work. The orc's friend steals his lunch money, "meatballs sound good. Thanks" and leaves M'lek there hungry. As M'lek walks away, he doesn't notice that he's dropped his stack of paperwork.
Back at home, M'lek's landlady Mira and her friend Alina are having lunch. Alina works with a group known as The Voiceless. The Voiceless are advocates for non-dwarves living in Vestonar, and lobby to change the laws to make it easier for non-dwarves to find work. Alina happens to know of a job broker that helps shipwrights find work without a guild stamp. It doesn't pay as well, and it's not sponsored, but it's not illegal. The broker's name is Tessyn and she operates on level six.
Piotyr
In order to get ahead in life, you have to take risks. And the best way to make sure you win at least once, is to take every risk you come across. And oh boy, is this a good one. Piotyr (pronounced Peter) is a medium build, pot bellied man wearing an old captain's jacket. He's looking in the window of Smiling Skyship Loans at the picture of the Quicksilver. A skyship for sale. Zero down. Could you imagine that? Captain Piotyr of the Quicksilver. That's how trading magnates start out. Of course he heads in. Of course he signs the paperwork without looking at it. Of course he doesn't notice that as the ink dries, it glows, and that the contract is magically binding. Piotyr is a man of action. He takes his destiny into his own hands. Aldrik, the businessman on the other side of the desk, smiles warmly and informs Piotyr that his new skyship is moored on docking level seven, berth C11. Piotyr informs Aldrik that he's renaming the ship: The Quick Gold "It's one up from silver!" On his way out of the shop he sees a halfling looking at the posters of ships, working up the courage to go in and buy one. He laughs to himself, "sucker", and heads to his new winnings.
At the berth, Piotyr finds a predictable but unfortunate scene: Quick Gold is dilapidated, won't fly, and has just been booted by the local dock authority. The lift stone that powers the ship is cracked, and the interior is covered in black mold. Gurney, the dock authority, is sympathetic, but won't budge. Dwarven bureaucracy in action. But hope is not lost! Gurney lets Piotyr know that if he can find a work contract, the dock authority will put a lien on it and release his ship. All he needs to do is find someone desperate enough to hire him. Gurney happens to know of a job broker on level six that does just that: Tessyn.
The party is formed
Back at Tholgrim, Ilvra, Kuro, and Margaret head out. Their plan is simple: fly under the radar. Before leaving Tholgrim, they post a job with a job broker in Tholvald to find them a skyship willing to transport them. They'll travel by foot from Tholgrim Monastery to Tholvald. From there they'll hire a sky-ship to take them to Durdrak. They'll pick up the research, and fly back to Knokvere - then get to Tholgrim on foot.
Back in Tholvald, both M'lek and Piotyr independently head to see Tessyn. It's pretty clear when they get to her that they're a match made in heaven. M'lek can fix Piotyr's ship, Tessyn can match them with a new job: some scholars from Tholgrim Monastery need to be ferried to Durdrak to pick up some research, and then on to Tholgrim. M'lek and Piotyr head off to get the ship ready to fly, and to show their new job contract to the dock authority.
Ilvra, Kuro, and Margaret have an uneventful trip to Tholvald. On their arrival, they head to see Tessyn to check on the status of the job they posted. Tessyn lets them know it's been matched to the captain of the Quick Gold, docked on level seven. They head there straight away and meet Captain Piotyr and M'lek. After some quick introductions, and a lot of concern over the state of the ship, they get ready to set sail.
And that's where we ended session 1!
How Draw Steel rolled
This was an interesting session for playing in a new system, especially one so focused on heroic, tactical combat. We did not "draw steel" in this session - it was all social situations. But we did get to put a number of Draw Steel systems into a stress test! We rolled plenty of tests, got to use the skill system, ran our first downtime project(s).
Tests, characteristics and skills
Draw Steel uses a 2d10 roll for tests, and instead of reading the result and using that, the result is translated to a tier. <12 is a Tier 1, 12-16 is a Tier 2, and 17+ is a Tier 3, with a natural 19 or 20 being a critical roll. This is pretty nice; it turns a flat even 5% chance of any outcome into the outcome probability clustering around 11. This means that most likely a test you're not able to add any bonuses to will be a Tier 1 result. But that's where characteristics and skills come into play. Most tests are assigned a characteristic: Agility, Might, Reason, Intuition or Presence. Every character has a -5 to +5 bonus to their characteristics, with level 1 characters having a single +2 characteristic. So if a character is good at something, their results for those tests cluster in Tier 2. On top of that, if a character has a skill that is applicable for the test, they get to add a +2 to the roll for that test. And then there's edges/banes which are a little like advantage/disadvantage in D&D. An edge adds another +2 to a test, and a bane is a -2. A double-edge automatically promotes the result of a test to the next tier, and a double-bane automatically demotes the result. These cancel each other out.
So how did that all play out? It took a while to navigate the new vocabulary and to mentally disassociate skills from characteristics (they're deeply intertwined in D&D). But honestly, it ruled. It allowed me to say things like "You can use Intuition or Reason for this test, and if you have an applicable Lore skill, pitch me on it and then you can apply it." That means the players can take so much more control over the fiction of how their character is attempting something, and play to their strengths. Maybe they don't want to brute force something, they want to finesse it. Or maybe they're not gonna think it through, they want to use their gut reactions. The flexibility added complexity and mental overhead, but by the end of the session we rolled with it pretty well.
Respites and projects
Draw Steel has a robust project system, and to understand it you have to know about respites. A respite is an uninterrupted 24-hour period of rest. If characters have any victories, those convert to XP. Characters' stamina goes back to the max, and they get any spent recoveries back. We'll talk more about those mechanics when we get to our first combat.
But while in a respite, a player can make progress on one project. A project is some out-of-scene work a character is pursuing. It could be researching ancient lore, crafting armor, building a fake identity. A character makes progress by making a project roll. They roll 2d10, add a characteristic and any applicable skills, and get a result. This roll is not tiered. The result is the number of points they earned towards their project. Projects are complete when the number of points earned toward the project is the same or greater than the project goal.
So, for example: the Quick Gold lift stone was cracked and inoperable. M'lek is a shipwright and asked if he could fix it. I told him sure, that's a 25-point Reason project. He knew that he had a couple of days in Tholvald before Ilvra, Kuro, and Margaret arrived, so he started working on it. Piotyr helped - more than one player can contribute to the same goal. It took them two respites (one roll per day) to accumulate enough points to have the required 25 points. When they did, the project was complete. It's a really useful and unique way to allow players to make progress on long term goals.
Where we are now
So, we left off with the players just about to embark on their way to Durdrak. We got to thoroughly stress test the social side of the game, the players started to settle into their characters, and the party all came together with the same goal.
Next week we'll see how the research handoff goes and track their progress back home, and we'll dig into more of the conversion and mechanics!
