Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Published at: 2022-10-07

My player's character is a khajiit merchantSecretly a thief tho.
Khajiits gonna khajiit lol. and he is currently tasked to release a pack of mountain lions held captive by a goblin tribe. The PC infiltrated the goblin cave alone, caused quite a ruckus and eventually decided to hide in the shadows just to jump on a goblin warlordThey strong.
They tanky.
They not like weakling goblins.…aaaand Savage Worlds being Savage Worlds, they ran out of luck and the warlord beat them so much that the whole world went blank and the session ended.

Now the PC is a captive too. 😱

My usual rule of thumb regarding tough situations is: If I can manage to quickly come up with at least 3 ways to try tackling it, I can rest assured that my players can also come up with their own ways to solve it. And ofc those solutions are most likely even better than what I can ever come up with. Thankfully, I can already think of 3+ possible options, one being the involvement of a Daedric Prince that was already subtly hinted last session.

I was curious if I could develop this idea a bit further and enrich it using the tools that I am already familiar with when playing solo RPGs.

The following facts were already established in-game:
• The PC is unknowingly under the influence of the Daedric Prince Molag Bal.
• The PC looted 4 rings from a (daedra worshipper's) dead body and felt the rings calling out to them.
  • I was planning on introducing additional daedric intrigue.
  • Most likely Mehrunes Dagon.
  • The true nature of the rings were not revealed to the PC.

Given these facts above, I'm curious to see where the twist is, so I pulled 3 cards from the The Adventurer's Tarot Deck.

The Adventurer's Tarot comes with a booklet that elaborates on each card, but I just went with my own interpretations.

The IV of Celestials confirmed the Daedra involvement for me, but the reversal suggested that it is going to be a different Daedric Prince.

After a bit of pondering, the other two cards screamed lycanthropy to me, leading to Hircine, the Lord of the Hunt. I'm fine with this change, so from now on, those rings are related to Hircine, not Mehrunes Dagon. 😄

Ok, keep it coming!

I'm not familiar with this deck, the booklet said:

When you see the 4 of Diamonds, plan on the unplanned.

Hmmm, alrighty. This is a reminder for me to feel free to think outside the box and let go of any limitations I may impose on the situation.

The Ship and Stork mean travel and movement. Add the previous 4 of Diamonds to that: I guess I don't have to think within the physical boundaries of the cave itself. Should PC accept the Gift of Hircine and should they act too carelessly, the rage of their first transformation may get the better of them and they may wake in an unknown area in the morning. In a far away tower maybe?

Based on that, I could include some skill checksMost likely Savage Worlds
Spirit rolls to see if the PC can retain control of themselves or eventually give in to the curse sometime after the transformation.

Whenever I think of Hircine's realm, I am always reminded of Greg Keyes' description in his book, the "The Infernal City". The image of a forest opening to a vastly infinite grassland, soaked in the blood-red light of the setting sun.

Ahhh… #CHEFSKISS 👌

Since the PC is already unconscious, opening with a dream sequence in Hircine's domain could be a nice beginning for next session. But since this is not a railroad, just an opportunity, the PC can choose to partake in the hunt and serve Hircine in return for the powerand curse of lycanthropy…oooooor they can simply say nope at any time, wake from their feverish dream and make it out of the cave another way.

Turns out I am much slower at writing blogposts than playing my sessions, so by the time I finished editing this post, the session has already concluded. In the end the PC did not accept Hircine's offer, instead turned the whole cave upside-down by himself with 3 Wounds and 1 level of Fatigue, nearly dying a few times hahha! 😄

#JUSTSAVAGEWORLDSTHINGS

This whole prep shebang only took me like 15 minutesWriting this post
took hours in comparison.
🤣. Drawing a few cards and making sense of them was fun and it was a good opportunity to excercise my association and creative muscles. So I'm happy regardless.

Cheers! 🙌

Published at: 2022-10-07