Anarea                                                                                         Lastra IX 2504

The Road less Travelled By…

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Players

The month of Lastra 2504 has finished in Mainstream Anarea. Many plots were hatched and despatched, many opportunities were taken, and some chances passed unnoticed. This is an invitation for players to explore one such opportunity which may have passed by, or maybe it did not….

You are invited to participate in a one-off entitled “The Road Less Travelled By”.

The action is initially set in the Jungle in the vicinity of Port Daruo. The scenario commences with a Mabula Grand Palaver hosted by the wealthy self-styled King of The Daruo, an entrepreneurial pragmatist with strong family ties to several nearby tribal groups, in his well-guarded compound inside Port Daruo. The Grand Palaver has been called at the request of a remarkable representation by the Chieftains of half dozen or so tribal villages in the nearby Jungle.

The Grand Palaver is attended by the pleading Chieftains, by representatives of local Deities of many Alignments, and by the very wealthiest of the local merchants, plus invited agents of Imperial, Kuntacian, Southern, and even Northern vested interests. Some individual Adventurers also manage to get themselves invited. The Grand Palaver is really very impressive. Security is significant. Something is definitely up.

Character design

1. You should roll up 3 characters each. At least one should be local in origin and cultural background. You should submit the 3 characters for approval to Andy Magnay (jungol.drums@aldaron.plus.com) accompanied by a short justification for each and for all three together to be included in an active mission.
2. The sum total SL of all three characters should be 30.
3. Each character should be of a total level of a minimum of L7, with a minimum of FtL1, and have at least one speciality of between a minimum of L5 and a maximum of L11.  All characters should be designed with team play in mind.  It would seem inadvisable to design a character that the DM (being of limited imagination) is unlikely to be able to accommodate, e.g. a L11 ChaosMaster for instance. However, playable ingenious ideas are encouraged.
4. Any Beastmasters are permitted a maximum of two personal Beasts of the appropriate (single) animal order, up to total AL = DrL and Max AL = DrL*0.666, subject to DM's approval and character justification.
5. Note that there are some significant changes to character design and encumbrance rules for the purpose of this one-off. To roll up the characters, employ the specially modified Randomchar-v5Jungol.xls spreadsheet, linked with Chmod-v5Jungol.xls resource spreadsheet. You will still require to manually note the encumbrance of metallic armour if you choose any.
6. Any metallic armour, or any weapon not marked as providing a bonus of +0 or more (as specified in the file Chmod-v5Jungol.xls under [SMs] (Species Modifier)) for your chosen character, incurs double weight encumbrance in the jungle environment, with consequent effects for encumbrance as defined in Cloak & Dagger. Also note that full plate armour will not be permitted to be worn whilst a passenger in canoe unless an outrigger canoe is used.
7. Victory points will be awarded for the following:

a)      Team play and in-character play.

b)      Achievement of key victory goals (some may not initially be known to the players).

c)     Karma achieved in other ways, such as acts of heroism, breaking worthwhile new ground e.g. in the domains of knowledge, behaviour, experience, wealth, etc.;  though any successes in this category could hypothetically of course be in conflict with a) and b) above, and could conceivably result in a net negative balance of victory points.

Additional Resources

• Jungle Introduction for Adventurers and Traders
• Summary of Recent History
• The Cat Cults
• The Saurian Cults

Invitation

I am offering to host the one-off at The Hollies, Stoke on Trent. I anticipate a full weekend with reasonably early starts would be required for any reasonable chance of completing the run to players’ satisfaction.

Suggestions for available weekends before May would be welcomed from players.

Andy Magnay, 1 January 2006

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