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Soaring above the Vestonar mountains, the Quick Gold sails through the sky. Her sails are full, her wings extended, she moves with a steady grace belying her battered appearance. A sudden BOOM rocks the deck. M'lek rushes to the lift stone compartment; his heart catches in his throat. The stone is cracked in half and smoking. The Quick Gold is going down, hard. The question isn't how to save it - it's how to survive it.
Where we left off
In episode 01, Ilvra, Kuro, Margaret, M'lek and Piotyr converged in Tholvald on the deck of the Quick Gold. Piotyr, the captain, had been hired alongside his first mate M'lek to ferry the others to Durdrak to pick up a package, and to bring them all back to Tholgrim.
From Tholvald to Durdrak
"Captain," Kuro pipes up, "you said you just bought this ship? Have you christened it yet?"
"Umm, yep!"
Kuro smells the lie immediately. "Do you mind if I add my own christening, for my ancestors?"
"Of course!" the captain acquiesces.
Kuro slips a small glass bottle from her bag and taps it on the bow of the ship, but it doesn't break. On her second try she channels her null field into it to make sure the bottle shatters. As it does the air around her cools, then goes crisp. A light frost forms around her. Her focus is on channeling her energy, and she doesn't notice as her shadow peels away from her, and walks off the ship on its own, slipping away unseen.
As Quick Gold prepares to push off from level seven, berth C11 in Tholvald, Captain Piotyr McAnally quickly realizes he is out of his depth. It turns out he's never piloted or captained a sky-ship before. Kuro, ever vigilant, notices the indecision. She quietly writes a rune on her forearm to give the captain a small blessing. With that Piotyr finds his stride. M'lek turns on the lift stone, the ship shudders to life, the mooring lines are cast away, and Quick Gold takes flight.
With the ship clear of Tholvald, Piotyr settles into a more familiar position. He pulls out his charts and starts to plot his route to Durdrak. He chooses the low route, through the valleys. Settling into a strong headwind, the ship brings them on a smooth, uneventful trip to Durdrak.
They arrive late, close to 10 p.m. They moor the ship to the docking spire - the only sky ship there - and head to the main gate. The guard points them to The Tumbled Stone Inn, the only real inn built for non-dwarves.
The Tumbled Stone
The party makes their way to the inn. Durdrak is built straight down; a central shaft with levels that orbit it. Lift plates of various sizes move up and down the shaft, ferrying passengers and cargo. The Tumbled Stone is on level three, the residential level.
As they walk through the streets they see the homes built into the bedrock. Windowless and narrow, with low slung roofs and multiple stories. Front gardens with low gates and mushroom gardens. Not much light anywhere; dwarves can see in the dark.
The Tumbled Stone tells a different story entirely. Bright plaster facade, a dozen glass windows, and three doors, each a different size. Inside there are tables set for folk of all sizes.
"Welcome in, loves, come, come, have a sit!" Brundis, the proprietor yells from across the common room. She pulls up chairs to a human-sized table, including ones with a booster so the dwarves are at the right height.
The common room sits mostly empty; one high top has some folks wearing Siqrami scholars' robes, talking quietly over drinks. Another, shorter table has a halfling woman reading some papers while she eats.
The heroes order food - Siqrami curry and Malian skewers with dwarven ale - and after dinner split up to talk to the locals. Piotyr and M'lek chat with the scholars, asking why they're there.
"We're working with some tradespeople and vendors; getting samples of their wares. We might end up placing an order if we find the quality is high," the dragonborn, Mishan, lets them know.
"You know, we're a lot cheaper than the teleportation circles in Hrudel," the Captain pitches. They exchange business cards, hopefully earning the captain a new job opportunity.
Meanwhile, Margaret tries to make friends with the halfling woman, "I'm so sorry to be nosy. The stars told me to come here... did the stars tell you to come here?"
"No. My boss did," she responds.
"Oh! Tell me your story," Margaret presses.
"I'd rather not," she responds.
And on and on it goes. Margaret pries, the woman deflects. All Margaret gets out of her is that it's her first time in Durdrak and she's here for work. As the group gets ready for bed, Piotyr heads to have a quiet conversation with Brundis.
"I'd like a refund on my room please. My first mate and I will sleep on our ship," and he pockets some extra coins.
The handoff
The next morning, Halvrek Nokdrak comes calling. Halvrek is a senior member of the Wardkeepers. Dressed in gray leggings, a dark gray shirt, and a gray cloak, he walks them to the lift shaft. Along the way, he's greeted warmly by the folk of Durdrak as they pass. He has a solemn demeanor.
As they walk, he tells them, "Some four hundred fifty years ago, we found it. The Silence Below. The mountain opened up, and swallowed three forges. They fell... but they didn't make a sound.
"We went down there. We went to look. And an eerie silence enveloped us. When we spoke the words died on our lips. A kicked rock would skitter across the ground, but no noise.
"We stood in a chamber... some fifty feet tall, hundreds of feet long. Narrowing at one end to a point.
"Every surface covered in runes. Runes in a language we'd never seen or heard of. Scholars came to study them. What they found... alarmed them. And so, our parents' parents made the decision to seal the level entire. And the Nokdrak clan - my clan - has stood watch over the wards ever since."
The group takes the lifts down to the sixth level. The last level before The Silence Below. They enter the archival room of the wardkeepers. Two elder wardkeepers sit in silent vigil at the granite table in the room. A younger wardkeeper stands, and introduces herself, "I'm Skotha. I'm so happy y'all are here."
On the table is a satchel.
"In this satchel there are fifteen stone tablets. Together they contain the journals of a scholar who found something in The Silence. Their research has been locked away, and now, we are worried about its safety here."
Ilvra picks up the satchel. As the group turns to leave, Margaret looks up above the door. There she sees a sigil of the very constellation Sehanine pointed her to. The constellation of seven stars that the goddess re-arranged to point Margaret to Durdrak.
Halvrek walks with them back to the lift. "Safe travels back to Tholgrim," and he sends them off.
Catastrophe
Kuro, the budding leader, decides to head straight home, so they go straight to The Quick Gold. They make a quick departure, and start the flight back to Knokvere, where they'll dock and walk back to Tholgrim.
On the ship, Kuro takes the key to the satchel. The wax seal over the lock melts away, she unlocks the satchel, and takes out a tablet to read. As she does, the world freezes for a moment, then - BOOM. Chaos erupts. Smoke from the lift stone. The ship lurches, and drops. Kuro is thrown hard, slamming into the deck. Piotyr falls into the railing.
M'lek rushes to the lift compartment and makes a quick assessment.
"Captain! We're going down! This isn't salvageable!" He rushes to the helm to survey where they are, and starts to call out headings to the rest of the crew.
Piotyr steps up to take charge, using his leadership background to instill a sense of calm in the crew.
Kuro tries to look at control surfaces to help keep the ship afloat, but can't focus. Her panic starts to rise. Then she notices it, a loose cable flapping behind the ship.
"There's a cable attached to the wings! If someone could hold it, it may pull the nose up."
Margaret resorts to brute force. She jumps off the back of the ship, grabbing the cable, and pulls with all her might, keeping the nose pointed up.
Together, the crew manages to get the ship to crash land on the valley floor. It hurtles along the ground, finally coming to an abrupt halt against some trees and rocks.
Everyone is thrown to the ground, Ilvra hitting her head hard. Dust fills the air. As the ship finally stops moving, an unsteady quiet fills the valley.
How Draw Steel rolled
Montage Tests
The headline mechanic this session was the montage test for the crashing ship. Montage tests are not a new mechanic, they've just been reskinned for Draw Steel. Here's the basic idea: They are meant to encompass a difficult situation that has a risk of failure that is bigger than a single skill check, and probably involves more than one player. The players need to accumulate a certain number of successes before they get too many failures. If they do that, they succeed at the challenge and earn some victories. If they don't, then they fail.
The book provides guidance on how many successes and failures for easy, medium, and hard montages. For this particular montage, I chose easy. I wanted to test-drive the mechanic before really putting my players through it.
I thought it worked really well! Play proceeds in rounds, but there's no initiative. Players can go in any order, but each player can only go once per round. To take their turn, a player says what they want to do to help the situation. This is super open ended, and encourages players to put the fiction first.
In our setup, M'lek went first. M'lek's player said, "I want to use Nature to see where we are and whether or not there's a safe landing spot." So I told him, "that sounds like Reason, and go ahead and add Nature." The Director sets the difficulty per test. For M'lek's test, I set it at Medium, so he needs a tier two or greater.
He got a dirty 20, which is tier three, and earned one success. Throughout the montage, we only got a single failure, and it was Kuro's test. Kuro failed, but it was close, so I gave her a bonus - I let her know that she saw a cable flapping in the wind that controlled the wings. I awarded the group 1 Victory for the easy montage test.
One note: on the final test of the montage, Margaret got a critical. Instead of looking up whether or not montage tests have special effects for a critical, I just gave the party another success. I looked it up later - that was the wrong rule; montage tests don't give an extra success on a crit, just a guaranteed success, like any other test.
One more note: Failure with a bonus isn't one of the outcomes in MCDM's official grid of results, but this is something I did in D&D and enjoy doing in any TTRPG. I want to have my players fail forward, and on rolls that are so close to hitting the target, I will give the player something for it.
Assist a Test
Similar to D&D's Help Action, Draw Steel has the ability to help another player succeed on a test. Unlike D&D, which is just straight up advantage on the roll, an Assist in Draw Steel can backfire. Here's how it works:
Player A declares they want to assist Player B's test. They talk through the fiction of how their character can help. The Director rules whether or not the assist is valid. If it is, Player A makes an assist test roll. On a tier one, Player B has a bane on their test. On a tier two, Player B has an edge. On a tier three, Player B has a double edge. So, in Draw Steel, an assist can actually make things worse.
How'd it go for us? Well, as the players were approaching Durdrak, Ilvra lets the party know they'll need to secure lodging in Durdrak. Piotyr saw an angle to get some cash: he'll take Margaret's allowance for rooms, and try to secure cheaper lodging, pocketing the difference. Kuro's player, enjoying the ruse, decided to help. Kuro got a tier three, giving Piotyr a double edge on his roll to deceive Ilvra.
I like the way Draw Steel built this mechanic. It really makes players think about helping when the situation is close, ratcheting up the tension when a test is really important. This contrasts with D&D, which is just a really easy way to get advantage with no tension and no downside.
Where we are now
Our characters have just crash landed in a valley about two thirds of the way between Durdrak and Knokvere. They've been flung to the deck of the ship, and their belongings are scattered. The dust is still hanging in the air, and Kuro, Margaret, M'lek, and Piotyr will have to pick up the pieces in the next session.
