Castle Grief's Hacksilver with Tarvannion [Actual Play #1]
System: Castle Grief’s Hacksilver (find it here: itch.io)
Setting: Castle Grief’s Tarvannion (find it here: itch.io)
Tools: Silver Nightingale’s Blank Hex Map (find it here: itch.io)
I wished to play fully analog on this one, but it wasn’t possible from where I was playing. This Actual Play was fully made into Google Drive, as it was my only tool at the moment.
The notation is pretty simple: italics are for the rules/rolls/thoughts as a player, the standard notation passages are the character thoughts and in-game stuff.
When I began solo TTRPGs, I was craving for AP with narrative + rules extraction, to better understand the way people play and to take a better grasp at the rules for a given system/setting. That’s why I do both here.
Here is the character I created.
–---CHARACTER SHEET–---
Odgar – Mercenary
HIT: 3
GRIT: 4
WIT: 5
WOUNDS
☐ BATTERED -1 hits [Permanent : ☐]
☐ BLOODED -1 all [Permanent : ☐]
☐ BROKEN Test GRIT
Hacksilver: 10
Weapon: Axe [TN 4]
Armor: Leathers [TN 5]
Shield: ☐ +1 to armor rolls
Stuff:
Rations: 7 days
Bedroll
Lantern: 4 hours of oil
–----------------–---
Rolled a quest using Tarvannion
Investigate a creature within a besieged village.
The village will be on hex E12.
DAY 1
(All terrain generation are made with Tarvannion)
Start on hex H03.
Each days grants a default of 9 hex points.
Terrain type: rolled 6 - Mountain
Weather: Calm (+1 hex point)
Hex points: 10
Roll a 5 : challenge/hazard - Shortcut (+3 hex points)
Hex points: 13
My journey started on a calm mountain peak.
As I was crossing by, I saw a shortcut to the south-west.
Hex points: 13-9 = 4
On hex G04.
Terrain type: rolled 3 - Same terrain
Roll a 5 : challenge/hazard - Lost (lose all Hex points)
Hex points: 0
The mountain range still continued on here.
I was not sure if I was going in the right direction, but nothing looks more like a mountain than another mountain.
I thought I needed to rest here, as the night would give me a clearer mind.
-1 ration
DAY 2
Still on hex G04.
Weather: Storm (-3 hex points)
Hex points: 9 - 3 = 6
I wouldn’t go far with this weather.
I couldn’t see enough in that storm to pass that peak, but I still walked a little to the south.
Roll a 4 : safe passage
I put my bedroll in a small cave, just enough to crawl myself in, ate a little and slept.
-1 ration
We will say that we crossed 6 hex points out of the 9 needed to fully get out of G04.
DAY 3
Still on hex G04.
Weather: Bright (+2 hex points)
Hex points: 9 + 2 = 11
I still need 3 hex points to get out of G04.
The storm passed and I crawled out of my hole.
I continued south, hoping to get out of those mountains.
Roll a 1 : POI - Natural Landmark - Caverns
I will use the Ruins tables and consider this cavern a small one, so it’s 5 areas.
As I can’t roll dice on a sheet here, I drew it as I went , area after area.
There was a cavern here, it looked way bigger than the previous tiny hole I used as a bedroom the night before.
I wondered what was inside.
Entrance - Simple Doorway
Encounter roll: 3 (nothing)
Next room: Lair/Boss - Powerful monster or Boss
According to Hacksilver’s rules, it will be:
Monster: TN 3 to attack, 5 wounds.
I love putting house centipedes in my game, so it will be a giant one (also known as scutigera).
It will use its jaw, consider as a heavy weapon [TN 3] and as a chitinous armor, I consider it as a leather one [TN 5]
 |
| I drew this Scutigera for my game GrimRogue, I had it on my Drive, so why not put it there ? 😀 |
A strange noise, like a swarm of insects hiding in the shadows.
I turned on my lantern and saw this giant monster, a centipede as big as 3 bulls!
WIT roll: 2 - Failure
Centipede turn.
As soon as I turned on the lantern, the beast crawled towards me, roaring like a wild boar and tried to grab me with its giant jaw.
Centipede attack roll: 2 - Failure
I quickly jumped on the floor and rolled out of the way.
As soon as I got up on my feet, I unleashed my axe.
Attack roll (HIT): 4 - Success
Damage roll (Axe is TN 4): 1 - Failure
The axe hit its chitinous body but didn’t go far enough to damage the monster.
It grunted at me and turned its whole enormous body towards me.
WIT roll: 3 - Failure
Centipede turn - Centipede attack roll: 5 - Success
Damage roll (Jaw is TN 3): 4 - Success
As Hacksilver’s rules says: “Heavy weapons ignore leather armor and no roll is allowed to shrug off a wound unless also carrying a shield”, Jaw is considered as a heavy weapon, and I have a shield
Armor roll (TN 5, shield gives +1 to the result but break on a 1): 6 - Success
The beast instantly grabbed me with its huge jaw and started chewing me like I was some dried meat. I put my shield right inside its mouth, and pushed myself away.
This creature was definitely too powerful for me, I needed to get out of this hell hole!
As there are no rules for fleeing in Hacksilver, we can test GRIT.
Success: escape, failure: the centipede attacks
GRIT roll: 4 - Success
I started to run directly to the entrance, left the cavern and ran as much as I could.
Hex points: 11-3 (the 3 that was needed to leave G04) = 8
New hex: G06.
Terrain type: 6 - Roll New - 3 - Hill
Roll a 1 - POI - Settlement - Village
As the rolls suggest, the village had a religious district surrounded by slums. It feels like the church prosper while the people don’t. I imagine it like the church people take advantage of the people here, and many of them are weak, inbred, or are mutilated by previous wars.
I’m usually very weak with the narrative parts in solo play, always asking things with dice, but this time, I was inspired and let the narrative flow.
I arrived at a small village. From afar, it looked like a poor one with only a religious building at the center, surrounded by slums.
There was someone at the entrance.
“What is this village?” I said.
“That’s Caerllan, the glorious shithole at the feet of the mountains!” He answered. The guy looked like a man mixed with some Goblinkind. What a hideous face.
“Do you have a place to sleep here?” I asked.
“One hacksilver and I’ll tell ya.” He said.
“Nevermind…” I left this weird fellow to enter further into Caerllan.
The place looked like it was abandoned by gods. There was trash everywhere, shit on the floor, and even some people were fighting in the mud.
I entered the safehouse. A small woman greeted me: “What the fuck do ya want ya freakin’ ugly bastard?”
“Hey there, do you have a place to stay?” I’m not the kind of guy afraid of a little squeaking person. You can bark as long as you don’t bite.
“I don’t have a fuckin’ place to stay for freakin ugly shithead like you, you fuckin lil…”
I stopped her in that nice monologue she spilt at me: “Go fuck yourself likewise.”
I stepped out of this place.
Outside, a crippled man with no legs looked at me and mumbled “Ah! The nice lady of the safehouse was kind enough again as I see?”
“Something like that.”
“Come, there’s tenements not far away, some are empty. You can stay there for the night as long as you pay some silver to Pryden.”
I followed the dude, who was “sitting” inside a box and used the stones on the ground to push himself forward. That was how we moved through the streets.
“Who’s Pryden?” I said.
“The tenements’ owner. He works for the church and owns the goddamn place.”
“The church looks bright enough to make this place a little better, right?”
“Oh yeah, they have the money. They took the little we have to make that church bigger and better.”
“Why don’t you riot and go take what is yours?”
“Well, they are heavily armed and guarded. Some people even think they are Rune-Wizards!”
“Heck, I would leave this place”
He stopped, looked back at me and said nothing.
“Excuse me…”
“We have arrived.”
The tenements looked more like ruins than proper apartments.
Everything looked close to crumbling and I was afraid the whole place would vanish if I only sneezed a little.
Inside, there was a little room with someone behind a desk. Her face was hidden in the shadows.
“Come here,” the voice said
I entered further and saw a woman.
“It’s three hacksilver a night.” She said, coldly.
“Sorry, I only have two.” I said, desperately looking at my almost empty purse.
“Don’t care.”
“Here it is.” The crippled man was behind me and took a hacksilver from his pocket.
“Thanks kindly…”
“You’re welcome. You are the first stranger that wasn’t that harsh to me. Have a good night.”
-2 hacksilver
I went into a room, filled with trash. The mattress was soiled with various bodily fluids.
I laid my bedroll overit , I certainly wouldn’t sleep on that stuff.
The night was… almost good.
This was a lot of fun playing Hacksilver with Tarvannion! Hope you’ll enjoy it! I will definitely continue this actual play, until Odgar the mercenary die :D
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