Runequest #160 - A Big Rubble Encounter Statted up!

So this weekend, the Brightwater Company will again adventure in the Big Rubble. I don’t know exactly what they will be doing. But I though that it would be kinda cool to roll up three things from “Runequest Thursday #156 - - 1d20 Things to find in The Big Rubble!” and throw them together to see what I could come up with. Maybe this will appear tomorrow night for our players, maybe not! But you can use it, or the rest of the 75 entries that Will Thrasher and I have come up with so far to enliven your Big Rubble sessions.

I rolled 1d100 three times, with the following results:

1. The lone remaining member of a Lunar patrol, wounded, mad, and raving about a trollish attack that captured the rest of his squad.

24. 1d6 monkey's caper and cavort as they run roughshod over an explorer's campsite. Somewhere nearby is either the corpse of the explorer, or an explorer facing grave peril.

60. An imposing dragonewt in armor of basalt, wielding a huge obsidian-bladed sword, stands in the middle of a nearby crossroads. He uses the only Tradetalk he knows to challenge any who come near to single combat.

Because I knew that they would be headed for Blind King's Hill, where I had a bunch of Orlanthi outlaws hiding out from the Lunars, I figured that this encounter would be somewhere on the southern edge of the Huntland. You can see the inset map with the spot marked in red.

(C) Chaosium

Here is how I put the three rolls together:

The remains of the campsite of a Lunar Patrol, cook-fire still smoldering; packs, bedrolls, even weapons and shields are still in place. Only one patrol member remains, trussed up like a ham-beetle and shrieking, several monkeys hissing and capering around him as they leap from pack to pack, chasing each other away from prizes. The simians look up in alarm as your party approaches, but then all peer to the east as a large and imposing dragonewt in armor of basalt, wielding a huge obsidian-bladed sword, strides into the campsite. In halting Tradetalk, the dragonewt growls a challenge to single combat.

The Lunar patrol survivor:

Graccus Severinus is the most junior of Third Patrol, only having arrived from his former station at Moonbroth last Stasis Week. He doesn’t know what happened to the rest of the squad, having woken at dawn to find them gone, and the monkeys chattering noisily around him. The dragonewt, who has not spoken to him, appeared as he was scrambling to his feet, stunned him with some sort of dragon magic, and tied him up. Graccus doesn’t know why. He offers a reward for his salvation at the first opportunity, and (in his current distress) is willing even to overlook any obvious Lightbringer or Orlanthi runes or markings displayed by any of his rescuers.

What happened to the rest of the patrol?

• If you add blood-spatter to your description of the campsite, it might have been the site of a nocturnal battle or ambush, with Graccus taken out early via Befuddle and not able to remember anything at present.
• They might have been Befuddled and driven off by other dragonewts, who left Graccus tied up as some sort of inexplicable dragonewt morals lesson.
• They might have been lured away by a pair of Jackobears, who missed or ignored Graccus.
• The rest of the patrol might have abandoned the new patrolman as some sort of initiation rite.

The Dragonewt:

“Never-Shirks” is the use-name of the Dragonewt currently issuing a challenge. Though he feels little reason to explain himself, he must protect this area from incursion by outsiders (which is to say, non-draconic types). Since he espouses a sense of honor, he refuses to ambush interlopers, instead deciding to challenge them to single combat, and forcing those he defeats to leave the way they came.

Why is Never-Shirks doing this? There are any number of reasons:

• He might have been ordered to do so, by the Priest of a party of Dragonewts that are currently excavating a nearby ruin.
• He might be attempting to re-enact some obscure Dragonewt ritual, in hopes of improving his reincarnation chances.
• He might have been corrupted by contact with non-draconics and now sees things in a manner not unlike human. So he is seeking to purge his mind of human thoughts as he purges the region of humanity.
• Perhaps he recently encountered a Humakti and was bested in a duel. The Humakti gaesed Never-Shirks to learn more of honor through challenging other worthies to single combat.

Regardless of the reason for his actions, Never-Shirks will surrender his prisoner to the one to vanquish him in single combat. Should Never-Shirks be victorious, he will withhold from a killing blow, bind (possibly even heal) the loser as he has Graccus, and offer either, or both, of them as the prize for his defeat. If he is confronted by those who attack en masse, or thieves or similar, he will fight with all his vigor and ferocity, possibly calling for the aid of a nearby group of Dragonewts.

For some reason only explicable to Dragonewt reasoning, Never-Shirks refuses to acknowledge the existence of the troupe of monkeys. It may be that the monkey are aware of this, and will occasionally crawl over him, pelt him with stones or worse, and such. No matter what, Never-Shirks appears to remain utterly unaware of their presence. Just as he seems unaware of, or at least unconcerned by, the screams of his captive.

If the party offers to ransom Graccus, Never-Shirks will assume they mean by dint of single combat, having no sense of any other value of the prisoner. He will allow the monkeys to loot or defile the camp, but will not tolerate this from others.

In the attachment you will find Never-Shirks, statted up and ready to challenge your heroes.

Items in the Camp:

In addition to six packs with extra sandals, rations and 1d4 Lunars worth of coin, there are six spears and Lunar crescentic peltastoi shields. The Decurion’s weapons, pack and gear are missing, as are the siccarii and sabres of the troopers. Much of what remains has been scattered about, and/or defiled by the monkeys.

If attacked, the monkeys race for cover, flinging insulted shrieks, stone, and their own feces at the ones who spoil their fun.