The Lost Lab of Yrkoon
Frostgrave+Mythic GME se00
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My fellow Inkmasters. Welcome to another installment of the Ink n Bones Podletter. Thank you thank you and thank you a million times for your support. The biggest help you could offer our small endeavor is to give us a Share on your social!
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Announcements
Our normal plugs out of the way. There are some announcements to be made. As we shift our scaffolding and format there will be some changes to the structure of our Podletter. What we create here will always be free to the public. However the release schedule will change. At the end of June we will be shifting to a biweekly schedule. Don’t worry though you can keep up with everything on a weekly basis by becoming a paid subscriber. There will be a slew of perks and benefits to come as well as a Founder level with exclusive Founder only perks!
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Setup
As is my want to do. I like to lay a foundation before we dive into the narrative showcasing the mechanics of the system. This time around the building of our characters will be done mechanically but fleshed out narratively. Hopefully splitting the difference a bit better between game mechanics and narrative drive. We will build out our warband and narratively bring them together through some vignettes and spotlights.
Warband
Let's get down to building. Using Frost grave as the backbone for our game.
The Wizard
We must first choose our wizard type and then our spells. Since we are starting at lvl-0 our stat-line will be a basic one. This may be tweaked given some narrative things later. We can think of our Wizard as our MC, but this is where we will start.
In terms of type we have the following options.
Chronomancer
Elementalist
Enchanter
Illusionist
Necromancer
Sigilist
Soothsayer
Summoner
Thaumaturge
Witch
I had an idea for this but I would like to add an element of random to the things we do here. As we are here to explore things other than ourselves. So instead I will roll a d10 to determine.
D10»7»Soothsayer
In Frostgrave each type has others it is aligned with and opposed to. As a Soothsayer we are looking at the following.
This affects the spells we have access to. As we can never have access to Witch spells. Which I think is a bit interesting as another name for a Soothsayer is seer which is also interchangeable with oracle or witch. But alas they operate very differently.
Spells
Our Soothsayer can take spells as follows.
3 from Soothsayer
1 from each Aligned school
2 from the 5 Neutral schools
Our Soothsayer spells are as follows.
From our Aligned schools
From our Neutral Schools
These should give a nice starting pointing for buffs and diving, plenty of utility to explore the world. Narratively we may use Mythic from time to time to use these spells in ways not meant for them or not outlined in the Rules of Frostgrave.
Equipment
We finally have to pick up our equipment from the general Arms and Armour normally but for narrative purposes I'll be adding firearms to the general store as well. We start with five slots and a free dagger.
We can’t carry a shield or armour as a wizard which we may come across an item to change this later.
We will fill our equipment with the following.
Free dagger
Staff
Pistols which follow the crossbow rules, with some tweaks. Load and fire on separate actions, effective range 10” with a -1 to shoot, however you can have more than one. So we will take two. This fills out three of our five item slots. This will conclude the setup of our wizard.
The Apprentice
The Apprentice is beautifully simple to build as they know what the wizard knows but a bit less knowledgeable. So all spells are the same and the stat-line varies only slightly.
As an apprentice you do start with four item slots. And can pick from the Arms and Armour.
We will mirror our wizard some what and pickup another firearm. But this time around we will pick the Blunderbuss.
Round it out with a Dagger
Filling three of our four item slots.
The Cohort
Starting our Seer has 400gc to setup their warband. As we have an apprentice we will start out with 300gc and have a 8 man limit to our party.
We will be using some homebrew rules for our starting band. As the goal is to get to know our party for a little bit here.
Our free units will go through the advancement tracks above. As they survive games we'll have polls to see what tracks they go down.
We will be starting with the following units.
2 Thugs- The Mute Brothers
1 Thief- Rasaalm
1 Apothecary- Eratha
1 Bard- Ja'meed
That is our cohort built for a total of 125gc. You may notice that all of them are named save our Thugs. Our Wizard and Apprentice have yet to be named but I think I'll let them introduce themselves in the stories to follow.
Yrkoon Soldarym
I stumbled across the floor of my masters home his lifeless body battered and crushed before me. His ethereal voice ringing in my ears.
“Hence forth you are Yrkoon the wizard.”
I can hear her footsteps behind me. The click of spurs against stone like a ticking clock to my demise.
Old fool, left me with some flowery title and vague memories. My head was throbbing from the vision, it like the dying voice of my master came and went like a fog at the edge of my mind. I shook my head trying to snap back to the present.
“You could always join me, you know?!” Merlind called out to me from the other room.
I wasn’t going to stick around to listen to her nonsense though. She hated my master, and with him dead that leaves me as his successor. Includes his allies and enemies I guess. I ran to the window my heart dropping into my ass as I locked eyes with one of her Cohort. A crossbow leveled in my direction. I ducked back with a curse.
Mad mage inside, her band of lackeys outside. Nowhere to go, I turn back to the bolted door, knowing I'll have to face her.
“Join you! I’ve been a lapdog for sometime think I'll pass.”
I say as I ready my spells. Luckily I've got the home advantage. The click of her spurs come to a stop at the other side.
“Lapdog? No, never that. My last apprentice expired during our last expedition into the canyons. Besides would you not rather the power of the Merlind name as yours one day?”
Her voice was cool and dripping with honey. I could only grimace at the sheer disdain.
“You know I could never have the name.”
“Ah, yes a shame. Seems I shall have to kill Yrkoon twice this day. Or…”
She paused silenced filled the air. I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck raise, as the door creaked and flung from it's hinges. I could barely roll to the side in time the door clipped my hip and sent me careening to the stone floor.
“Or you can give me what I came for.”
Before me stood the human mage Merlind, her dark almond skin glowed with arcane power as she looked down at me. She blocked the door but that was no matter. I gave her a small smile and touched the wall next to me and released my spell.
The wall crumbled leaving an opening large enough for me to roll through. I didn't stop when her arcane bolt hit me in the shoulder as I scrambled to my feet and ran for the lab.
I wasn't going to die here. The Lab had stock piles of herbs, potions and poisons alike. Out of breathe I stumble into the lab slamming down the arcane wards immediately. I'm not here for the potions. I make a wobbly bee-line to the room in the back. My vision fogging, I grab the grimoire and start looking for the teleportation spell.
The resounding echo of the wards shook me as I found it. Merlind was far more skilled and experience than I. The wards only held by my feeble will would need to come down to cast this spell. She’d be through either way. I turned to look over my shoulder seeing the damage for the first time. I had a hole clean through my left shoulder pouring blood. No wonder I felt faint.
I needed to do this now or there was no doing it. I’d need to hold those wards for as long as possible. I began the incantation each word that passes from my lips felt like rope slipping through my grip. I slumped into the middle of the circle as the wards dropped.
The last of the spell left my lips and the circle flared with arcane light. I was fading and the instant the spell activated I felt it.
I couldn’t feel my left arm when I woke face down in the sand. The pain was worse than any wyvern sting and radiated through every part of me. The spell must have been altered based on the masters death or… my lack of ability. That last thought made my stomach knot. This place wasn’t where I was trying to go.
The sands were cool and shades of black and grey. So I was still in the Ost but the rock formations meant I was somewhere south in the canyons. The thought brought back memories of Merlind. She’d get hers but I needed to get my bearings. I pulled myself from the ground and inspected my surroundings further.
My left arm was gone completely, a port amputation, cauterized and scarred with spellblight. Not like I needed it anyway, the master would say. As I take in the canyon walls, things start to become familiar as if from a dream.
I walked aimlessly until the the three moons greeted me. I stood before a smooth slab of canyon wall. Barely visible reflected in the moonlight runes knitted in the signature of my master.
I whisper
H”enceforth I am Yrkoon Soldarym.”
The words slip from my lips and echo like a whisper across the canyon. The stone slab giving way to a door. Inside a simple room modest in size. Furniture covered in cloth, beakers and flask to oneside with a bookshelf, a station for herbs and a separate door.
“That old fool.”
I can't help but say outloud. Even in death he had a place like this set aside. I step inside and immediately slump into the bed. I can inspect this Lost lab another time.
Next week
That's where we will end it today. Yrkoon Soldarym, our Wizard of the Ajom. We will meet our apprentice, next week.
This was a fun one to write up and I wanted to go over some of the mechanics of how this Narrative scene was built out.
In Frostgrave if your wizard dies your Apprentice gets promoted. That is what has happened in the case of our wizard. So we went to our Mythic GME to flesh out the backstory.
So here are the rolls we pulled up and how we interpreted them.
2d100»Ambush Information
Easy enough right ambushed for some information.
Was it a rival? 2d10+2»Yes!
Rivals motive. 2d100» discover lust
Did Merlind Kill Master Yrkoon? 2d10+6» Yes
Does Sol get away unscathed?2d10» no
Wound d20» Crushed arm
With the above this was the basic thought process I came to. Merlind killed master Yrkoon in an ambush. For information, her motive to discover lust- she wants the location of an artifact. Sol has the map of the location. Magically transferred to him upon his master's death. In his attempt to escape he loses an arm. Now this actually has impact mechanically which is why I wanted to go over it.
This changes our stat block before we ever get into our first delve. Which I think should make things interesting. Hope you enjoyed this weeks installment. The next few installments will follow the same format as we introduce our cohort.
As always thanks for being part of the Inkyard. Don’t hesitate to drop a comment and let me know how you feel about Yrkoon Soldarym.