THE RIVER OF CRADLES, CHAPTER TEN: THE BROTHER'S KEEPER

Chapter Ten:

THE BROTHER’S KEEPER

"I want my brother back," he told her. "I want him whole and in one piece and uninjured. And I want him now.” 

― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

CORE
A guide the party trusts leads them into a trap.  The guide is not a villain, but forced into this action by some hold the true enemy has over him.   

ELABORATION 

Orininus Prathvi Yuthaldrex—the freed Lunar slave who has been traveling with the player characters since their arrival in Prax—has told them of reports he heard (on his way to rescue them from the Old Sun Dome) of a band of escaped Lunar slaves encamped somewhere along the banks of the swollen, Sea Season Zola Fel.  The slaves are said to be men and boys from the salt mines of Vulture Country, who rose up in a bloody riot against their masters and are now raiding farms along the river.  From what Orin heard, the Lunars are coming down from Pavis to assist the Sun Domers in recapturing them.  As the players know, this will likely end in crucifixion. On the chance that Ashart Berothsson—and the two dozen other boys and men from their clan sent to the mines—are among these rebels, the player characters go to seek them out.

But Orininus is leading them into a trap.  After Ashaghara Bonewitch’s failed attempts to capture “Starbrow”s Children,” Lunar Intelligence chief Dagius Furius has put Gimgim the Masked One in charge.  Looking over Ashaghara’s reports, Gimgim decided Orininus was the weak link he could use to get them.  He has had Orin’s younger brother, Ythvan, brought to him and sent word to Orin that the boy would die unless Orin “played ball” and led Starbrow’s Children into his trap.  Orin was approached with all this right after being separated from the party when they were captured by agents of the Old Sun Dome.

Lunar troops are lying in wait along the Zola Fel looking for the slave bands, but Orin has instructions to lead the player characters directly to the Lunars, not them.  

MOTIVATIONS

The player characters are driven by their mission to rescue their enslaved kinsmen and reunite the clan.  Ashart and the two dozen other boys sent to the mines in Vulture County are a huge part of that.  Orin is driven by his Dara Happan upbringing; the Father is All, but the Eldest Son is his agent and emissary.  When the Father cannot be there to guide and protect the family, it is the sacred duty of the Eldest Son.  He must do whatever is necessary to protect his younger brother, even if this means betraying people he has come to care about.  

The slave band is lacking clear purpose and motivation.  These are all boys, some as young as eight and nine, and what exists right now is a sort of The Lord of the Flies situation.  After the uprising, the Praxian slaves promptly fled back to their tribes.  The Sartarites and Pavisites were left to fend for themselves.  Their lives are complicated by the slave brands burned on to each of their faces.  Even if they could manage to escape across Prax back to Sartar or Pavis, they are clearly marked as Lunar property, and under imperial law any who provide aid and comfort to them can be punished.  Going home doesn’t seem an option.  So right now they struggle just to survive…and for some, to inflict pain on others in retribution for the pain they feel.

Gimgim’s motivations are clear; while for the Bonewitch things have become personal (Beralor and Kalf escaped from her prison, they beat her at Pimper’s Block and all subsequent attempts to recapture them), Gimgim sees this as business.  Once the player characters entered Pavis they became his problem.  Once they allied with Garrath Sharpsword and helped thwart the Lunar capture of the Cradle, they became a serious problem.  He views himself as a problem solver.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

“Orin” (Orininus (or-i-NIGH-nus) Prathvi Yuthaldrex)

• Runes: Fire/Sky, Life, Truth
• Keywords: Dara Happan, Scribe, Ex-Slave
• Motivation: To rescue his younger brother, Ythvan 

Harrock Joransson

• Runes: Air, Motion (personality traits only; unawakened)
• Keywords: Heortling, Haraborn Clan, Farmer
• Motivation: To keep his band of escaped slaves together, to maintain leadership of them, to punish the world for what it has done to them

Ashart Berothsson

• Runes: Air, Motion, Beast
• Keywords: Heortling, Haraborn Clan, Hunter
• Motivation: To restrain Harrock’s worst impulses, to go home

Gimgim the Masked One

• Runes: Moon, Illusion, Chaos
• Keywords: Lunar, Spy Master, Black Fang 
• Motivation: To capture “Starbrow’s Children,” to deal with these escaped slaves

ACT ONE

According to Orin’s information, the escaped slaves have been raiding farms along the Zola Fel just south of Sun County’s borders.  The party must then make its way down the banks of the swollen river, which is experiencing its annual Sea Season inundation.  The flooding causes problems and make the journey challenging.  

Beginning: We start just hours after the conclusion of “Sundown.”  Orin has told the party about the raiding slave parties and the Lunars sent to hunt them, information if pressed he will claim to have heard from Old Venables.  The most recent raids have been about a day’s journey south, along the Zola Fel.

Second Thoughts:  There might be questions about how Orin knows all this.  If he hasn’t told them about meeting and killing Old Venables, he will now (see “Sundown”).  

The other issue is the river itself.  The normal trails running alongside it are currently under fast moving water, and the inundation has doubled and in some cases tripled its width as the waters spill out over the flood plain.  This becomes a problem moving south, as the swollen river runs right up against steep canyon walls.  The party will have to decide whether to wade through the rushing water along the base of the wall, or to try and scale the rocks to move along the cliff top.  Either choice should present the appropriate Moderate challenge, resolved in a Simple Contest.

Climax, Act One: Either scaling the walls, or navigating their base, the party comes across a pack of four hungry Cliff Toads.  These will attack from above, attempting to swallow the player characters whole.  This should be another Simple Contest at High Difficulty.  It might result in players falling (if scaling the cliffs), losing footing and being caught up in the river’s currents (if wading), or swallowed up wholly or partially by the Toads.

ACT TWO

Much depends on the Cliff Toads here.  If the party makes short work of the Toads, they can proceed downriver having lost little time.  This is actually good for Orin, who is supposed to have the party at the Lunar camp by sundown if he wishes to see his brother alive.  

If any of the player characters were injured, it slows progress down and Orin begins to get agitated, insisting they need to press on.  His emotional state worsens the later in the day it gets.

Obstacle: If the players are injured, the first obstacle should be attempting to heal them.  This will require finding a dry spot along the rushing waters to tend to wounds and injuries.  If they are uninjured, or the injuries are slight, Use the following instead;

• If they are wading through the water, they reach a massive pile-up of debris that will have to be climbed over.
• If they are along the cliff tops, the cliffs start to break up into a series of chasms that have to be jumped over or otherwise crossed.      

In either case use a High Difficulty and a Simple Contest (this could be lowered to Moderate depending on how the fight with the Cliff Toads went).

Encounter: The party will come across a group of river men.  Orin will attempt to speak to them alone, but if the party insists they can speak to them as well.  The men speak some Trade and the local Sun County dialect, and will explain that they have heard of a recent slave raid on farms just a few hours south of here down river.  The raid happened just last night.  Lunar troops have also been spotted in the area that morning.  The sense here is that the party needs to hurry and is running out of time if it wishes to reach the slaves before the Lunars do.

These, incidentally, are not just river men.  They are Lunar agents sent to meet with Orin and make sure the plan is going well.

Mid-Point (the Big Twist): This is where Orin’s duplicity is revealed.  Just how that happens depends on the needs of the story.

1. The player characters might be suspicious of the river men, and through magic or some other Ability discover they are Lunar agents.  This might lead to a fight and Orin’s confession.
2. If any of the player characters were injured by the Cliff Toads, and this has slowed the party down enough that he thinks he will miss the rendezvous, Orin’s agitation builds until finally he snaps in a fit of anxiety and despair.  He will confess the entire thing, and weep that he has failed his brother whom now the Lunars will surely kill.
3. Or…Orin might simply confess, torn by duty to his family and love for his new friends.  He might break down and explain that he cannot go through with it and beg them to help him.
4. Finally, Orin might keep to the plan, and continue leading them downriver…until the party encounters the escaped slaves first.  This will force Orin to break down and reveal what he was really doing.  

Obstacle: Soon after Orin “comes clean,” or as in Option #4 before he comes clean, the player characters will come across the escaped slaves.

This is a Lord of the Flies situation.  The escaped slaves are all ages 6 to 15, with none of them having yet been through adulthood initiation rites.  The Lunars use boys in the mines because they are smaller and can more easily navigated the cramped passages.  A surprise Scorpion Man attack in the tunnels through the mines into chaos, allowing many of the slaves to escape.  Those who were Praxian fled back to their tribes, but the Sartarite slaves fled towards the river.  They are all of them branded with a slave mark, and as it is illegal to help an escaped slave, they know trying to return to Sartar would be difficult and their presence there would put their own kinsmen in danger.  Thus they have been raiding farms for survival while they struggle to decide what to do.

The boys will attempt to ambush the party, thinking they are travelers they might rob or perhaps Lunar spies.  The Contest here will be persuading them otherwise.

Crisis: Assuming they convince the boys they are allies, they will be taken back to their current camp.  They are two and a half dozen boys in all.  Ashart Berothsson is here, and was formerly the leader of the band, but shortly after was defeated and replaced by an older boy, Harrock Joransson.  Under his leadership, the boys have not simply been raiding farms, but also killing the families they come across.

The crisis here then is twofold; they need to wrest control of the band from Harrock without violating kin strife (he and 90% of the boys are members of the player character’s own clan), and decide whether or not to help Orin despite his treachery.  This will mean, of course, raiding he Lunar encampment to rescue Ythvan.

Act Two Climax: If they refuse to help Orin, role-play the scene.  He will leave them, cursing them for this.  In his mind, his brother was taken because Gimgim wants to get to them, and thus his brother’s blood is on their hands.  

If they agree to help Orin, they will need to win control of the boys from Harrock and decide whether or not to use them in the raid.  They form a community of sorts, but to show their relative weakness, they have only 18s across the board (Morale, Wealth, Communication, War) and no Magic (they are not adults yet).  Still, they can provide some support in the raid.

ACT THREE 

This is marked by a battle with the Lunar patrol hunting the slave band.  

Act Three Climax:  If the party elects to go and rescue Orin’s brother, this scene can be staged as a raid in which they sneak in and smuggle him out, a straight up battle, or both if they are discovered mid-raid.  In any case run it as an Extended Contest.  If it is a raid, cumulative successes show getting closer to Ythvan, subduing his guards, and getting him out.

If they do not chose this option, Orin will abandon them in despair and go to the Lunar camp to plead for his brother’s life.  Gimgim will offer to spare the boy if Orin leads the Lunar patrol straight immediately the escaped slaves and player characters.  The Climax then becomes either a flight from the Lunar patrol, or a fight against them.  Again, these options should both be Extended Contests.

If this is a straight-up, head-to-head fight, the player characters face overwhelming odds.  The troops number a total of 30 men, half are Marble Phalanx infantry and the other half mounted Antelope Lancers.  Gimgim will not fight; if there is a battle, he seemingly vanishes into thin air.  Nearly Impossible (Base + 2mastery) is not an unreasonable, but Very High (Base + mastery) will give them more of a fighting chance.

Sneaking into the camp to smuggle Ythvan out will mean eluding the guards and magical wards around the gap, finding the boy, subduing his guards, and getting back out all without raising the alarm.  Depending on the needs of the story, this should be Very High or High difficulty if you feel the group needs a win.

Fleeing the Lunars should fall into either High or Very High.

Denouement: Orin—whether he stayed with the party or left—will be killed in the course of events here.  If the player characters go to rescue his brother, he will be alongside them, but at some point should fall to a Lunar guard or Antelope Lancer arrow.  This means the party now has “custody” of the eight-year-old Ythvan.

If they turned their backs on Orin and his plight, they need to lead the slave boys away from the Lunars and determine what to do with them.

AFTER PLAY REPORT

AFTER A MONTH and three sessions of revisiting classic Gloranthan episodes for the Greg Stafford memorial “We Are All Us” celebration, The Brother’s Keeper was a return to the core campaign and its characters.  The fairly simple plot allowed it to be a study in conflicting character motivations.

We picked up just hours after Sundown left off, with the player characters saying goodbye to many of those they rescued.  Jora elected to stay on with them.  Things went well enough until the Cliff Toads, which proved that for all its focus on dramatic pacing and the needs of the story HeroQuest is still RuneQuest’s sister; bad dice rolls almost got half of the party killed.  

The result was the they were forced to camp rather than press on, sending Orin into a frenzy that he would miss his rendezvous with the Lunars.  Beralor pulled him aside and Orin broke down and confessed everything.  This prompted Beralor to take pity on Orin, pledge that the group would help him rescue his brother…and not bother to tell anyone else initially what had been discussed!

The arrival of the escaped slaves put this on the back burner, briefly, and drew the party into a whole new set of issues.  First it reunited them with Ashart, a year older, taller and muscled from seasons of hard labor.  His boyish enthusiasm is gone.  He has been vying with Harrock for control of the band, disturbed by the older boy’s violence and rage.  Harrock for his part is not a bad sort; he is a 14-year-old boy who saw his father killed in battle, his clan destroyed, and just spent a year in a foreign land in the mines.  This trauma has made him violent.  He wants to punish the world for what happened to him.  Beralor picked up on this and took the boy under his wing, trying to remind him how to be an Orlanthi.

After the party was recovered from the cliff toads—in part thanks to healing potions the boys had stolen from one of the farms—Beralor came clean and after some inter party conflict (Kalf grows increasingly wary of Beralor’s “Tricksterish” side), they agreed to help Orin.  The plan was to sneak into the Lunar encampment, with the boys providing support in case anything went wrong.

It did go wrong, and the Lunars were alerted to intruders in their camp.  While Leika, Kalf, and Beralor and the boys distracted the guards, Kalliva and Orin went in and got Ythvan.  Shortly after rescuing the younger brother, Orin was badly wounded and bled to death fleeing the camp with them.  He begs Kalliva to take care of his brother with his last breath, the guilt of betraying his friends finally washing over him as he says “…he is better than I am” and dies.

The party escaped the Lunars and burned Orin’s body, Orlanthi-style.