It's Windsday Disorder week, Storm season (see https://kanka.io/en/campaign/39663/calendars/5242 for a bit more about calendars)

Today is the final clan moot of the year (a moot is a combination of holy day, council and market). Last night Angor "Red" Rudsson, a childhood friend of Harmast and Iskalla, came up with another brilliant idea. Now the three of you are old enough you can go a cattle raid yourselves! This will be great for a variety of reasons:

• We won't have to share the loot with some "great warrior" full of themselves;
• Sheep are easy to catch;
• The Greydogs won't bother standing and fighting for a bunch of sheep;
• Harmast will easily get permission from his old man;
• Everyone will think we are brilliant.

Last night over some beer this seemed perfectly logical although it's seeming rather less of a good idea in the cold light of day. Backing out in the face of Red's enthusiasm is not looking easy though. Also he may well be right, his schemes have mixed results but generally he at least comes out OK.

The clan moot opens with sacrifices to the gods of the burnt offal that the gods find so attractive. Then the format varies depending upon the season: in Storm season a moot tends to be a bit more insular with fewer outsiders as travel can often be difficult with the varied weather and so soon after the winter of Dark season. Usually opening with "petitions" to the chieftain and the ring, this might be indoors in the chieftain's hall if the weather is poor, or outside if particularly good.

After the opening ceremonies Red says to Harmast: “OK, I am going to get the crazy goose girl, you stay here and see if you can get a slot to see your father, don’t approach him without me, he’ll want to see all of us who are going on the raid”. He heads off. In his absence you can:

1. Watch your father and the clan ring ruling on various matters;
2. Circulate and speak with various family members, merchants and others;
3. Hide quietly in a corner and stay out of trouble.

Iskalla and Harmast Let me know.

Meanwhile Red tracks down Mica with Ulf hanging out nearby. Trying not to look too disconcerted by the flock of geese hanging around, and clumsily avoiding stepping on any of them he marches up and throwing his arm around Mica in a way that makes her want a serious bath he announces conspiratorially “how would you like to eat well for the rest of the season?” Against all common sense this is not an unwelcome question. Storm Season for Stickpickers is a time for belt tightening and when the geese noticeably start to look nervous. The possibility of extra food is VERY welcome. Ulf (hovering in the background) also edges closer to hear what is being said. Red elaborates on his plan to dine out this season on Greydog mutton. Although frankly terrifying as The Greydog’s have no lost love for the Orlmarth the fact that the chieftain’s son is apparently on board with this plan is reassuring. And Red is very convincing. At the very least you find yourself agreeing to attend the Ring and hear Harmast’s application to his father. Noticing Ulf nearby Red announces “and if you have any friends you’d like to bring along there will be PLENTY of sheep to go around”.

Mica and Ulf will both attend the Ring’s session to see what’s going on, as there’s no commitment at this stage is there?

If there's anything specific you'd like to do before heading over to see the Ring let me know.

In reply to dashing (msg # 1):

I'm happy to head on over to the ring, I'll ask Red how many sheep he thinks we'll each get.

In reply to Ulf Skommson (msg # 2):

"Oh 3, 4 maybe more if we get lucky".

As a sheep herder herself, Iskalla suppressed a smile at the 'easy to catch' part of Red's plan. Let him try, and then see if he could still say they were easy to catch.

* * *

A dutiful daughter, and full of pride at her recent initiation into Vinga, Iskalla went to watch and listen to her father at the council.

In reply to dashing (msg # 1):

Iskalla and Harmast slink into a corner and try not to draw attention to themselves. They watch a couple of legal cases: the lawspeaker of the clan, Orlgard Korlmarsson https://kanka.io/en/campaign/39663/characters/269243 leads calls for the Gods and particularly Lhankor Mhy, God of Truth, and Orlanth Rex, King of the Gods, guide the ring's judgements https://kanka.io/en/campaign/39663/notes/52613. Most are fairly boring including Gudalulf, a well off carl, trying to win an inheritance (he loses but shares a part), but Savan Thundermaker, the only fulltime priest of the clan and brother of Gordangar (the chiref), who, acting on behalf of a family, sue their ancestor to stop bothering them! Apparently a grandparent has been coming to dinner regularly. The case is won.

Red and Mica arrive with Ulf the stickpicker in tow, hmm, the raiding party is not looking large... Chief Gordangar then calls for other petitioners to approach the Ring, surprisingly there's not much and the Ring look ready to head off and enjoy the rest of the moot when Red shoves Harmast forward. Recovering as best he can from stumbling Harmast looks up at his father who smiles down at him "Harmast Gordangarson, approach and announce your petition". Everyone, looks expectant...

In reply to Iskalla Ruriksdottir (msg # 4):

Very good, although Red has a plan, paparently involving the "Goose girl" on  that score.

Probably me, but I think I've missed out on who her father is!

Father,  I would like to propose that my colleagues and I prove the honour of the clan and the skill of our people by adding to our flocks through and act of bravery and skill.

Will you give us your blessing to rescue some sheep from an a neighbouring flock and bring them home to improve the quality of our mighty sheep

In reply to Harmast Gordangarson (msg # 7):

OK, let's do some boring game mechanics to resolve this. This is mainly so you can see how resolution takes place, and so it's not entirely in my hands.

Here's the rules:

Simple contest

1 Frame the contest - what are you trying to do and what outcome are you looking for: pretty easy here get dad's blessing and maybe get some competent warriors to sign up to save your arse;
2 decide what attributes are relevant: this is your decision, but remember the following: specific trumps general (usually general will take a penalty of 6) AND the particular attribute chosen can affect the difficulty. So good choices here would be Orlmarth clan (it's general but obviously very relevant so won't get a penalty), beloved by Stickpickers (although don't expect mighty warriors to rush to be with you), Heortling even (although it's general) Kenstral bloodline (appeal to dad will likely be easier than  a general appeal to the clan), Mastery - there's nothing that magic doesn't make better (in this case you can use it directly but you may be better off using it to augment one of your other skills), Something I've not thought of. Pick an attribute
3 Decide difficulty (that's me) I'll generally try to give an indication before you choose your attribute. Basically appeals to the clan will be moderately hard, appeals to dad will be low difficulty and using something irrelevant will be high difficulty. Difficulty will usually be around 14
4 We roll against each other (you against your modified attribute), me against the difficulty and we compare results. We roll using D20s, a 1 is a crit, 20 is a fumble, less than or equal to target number is a success, anything else a failure. W rthen compare results to decide the outcome.

I'll put a bit more detail on Kanka.

Basically Harmast you can decide what attribute you'd like to use, and you can modify it with your Mastery magic if you like. If you do describe the magical effect (!) [slightly more helpfully this won’t be anything too earthshattering, just something like “Harmast starts to glow” or, “Harmast’s words sound like the call to battle in everyone’s ears” or some such]. It will give you a bonus.

In reply to dashing (msg # 8):

And: things I've forgotten already.

Everyone starts with 3 hero points:

HP are basically XP in this system and yes you get them just for showing up.

However, you don't just buy attributes with them, you can also use them to get a "bump" basically to improve your contest result by one level (failure to success, success to critical and so on). If yo udo want to but attributes then increasing keywords/runes cost 2HP per point of increase and everything else costs 1Hp per point of increase.

Also if at some point something cool happens and you want a new attribute or you want to "cement" an item or some such it will cost you an HP.

I've added HP to the characters in Kanka.

If anyone wants to spend some let me know.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:33, Sun 25 Oct 2020.

In reply to dashing (msg # 3):

In reply to dashing (msg # 1):

Hmm, so the idiot son is going Sheep Raiding is he?  The Geese don't think this will end well, but Ulf is stupid enough to tag along, and Ulf always needs looking out for.

Before she sidles onto the edges of the clan moot, Mica slips into the forest to consult the trees.

"Oh spirits of the Wildwood, speak to me in the rustling of the leaves.  Will this plan of IdiotSon's go well, or will I be forced to pull poor Ulf's fat out of the fire once again?  ... And should we do the Goose Dance before we go - just in case...? You know what I mean."

On her way back, Mica checks to make sure that the bow she 'liberated' a while back is still where she's hidden it.  She gets the feeling she might have need of it soon.

What can I say? The trees look at you ominously, the leaves keep failing to fall to the ground properly but instead blowing around unexpectedly, this is going to end badly.



For what it is worth the clan's chosen missile weapon are javelins, it's just what they happen to be comfortable with. It's also the preferred weapon of Vingan fighters - read into that whatever you will. By all means you can have acquired a bow from somewhere or other, it just adds to your general weirdness so far as the clan are concerned.

That works for me ;0)

I will appeal to the ormath clan but use my mastery to inspire the people around me with the confidence of someone who will lead them to victory?

Not appealling to Dad - dont trust him not to humiliate me in front of the people

In reply to Harmast Gordangarson (msg # 13):

OK, so you have Orlmarth clan 15 your mastery gives you +5 so target number is 20.

Facing moderate difficulty of 14. Roll away!

In reply to dashing (msg # 14):

Well that's a great start I rolled a 1 (see the die roller).

So critical versus success for a minor defeat. Harmast makes a poor start mumbling "want to go raiding" or something equally eloquent. Gordangor laughs and says that raiding is for warriors and those "Orlanth has smiled upon". Harmast suddenly shows a surprisingly turn of eloquence shouting out that the "poor and stickpickers deserve to eat too" and there's a surprising amount of support for this from around the moot. Backpedalling he asks who is going on the raid and, with a greater or lesser degree of reluctance, Iskalla, Ulf (trailing after), Red and Mica step forward. The chief comments on the mighty warriors to laughter from his thanes before pronouncing "you are denied the right to raid" but he does give you permission to "visit your grandmother" and similar pronouncements to the others. This is a fairly well known formula where a chief can be seen to deny a raid which he otherwise is permitting to go ahead.

This is all nerve wracking and disappointing but Red seems pretty happy with the outcome, as you escape from the moot he claps Harmast on the shoulders and “says well done, well done! Now we need to do the Girding of Finovan (This is a ritual which is fairly similar to a better known one called the Arming of Orlanth which is often performed before certain actions to gain the favour of the Gods https://kanka.io/en/campaign/39663/notes/51425). So, says Red, who has a horse?” and he look around expectantly.

If you check the Kanka wiki you can see the various items that are needed the tough items are likely to be the chain shirt and the horse. That said Harmast can get a horse; and he could probably steal a chain shirt from a family member if he was so minded?

In reply to dashing (msg # 16):

I could steal a horse, if that's any help. We're not going to sacrifice it are we?

In reply to Ulf Skommson (msg # 17):

Red looks hopeful.

Everyone else?

No nobody intends to sacrifice the horse, maybe ride it into the raid though.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:26, Fri 30 Oct 2020.

"We should do the Goose Dance," says Mica confidently.  "The Geese will show the way."

Privately, Mica makes a mental note to find out who amongst the Clan has a chain shirt, lives alone and has a taste for goose eggs.

In reply to Mica the Goose Dancer (msg # 20):

Angara Danovan https://kanka.io/en/campaign/39663/characters/285789 lives off by himself but musters withthe fyrd.

I think borrowing a horse for a short while for the glory of the clan would be a great idea Red.  You must bring it back though after we have finished

He claps you on the back and says "to be sure!"