A Foray into Five Leagues

• Track – Try to find your enemies. Success means that when finishing an Encounter, this greatly improves our odds of reducing the regions Threat level.
  [However, we fail to find any signs of trouble in the village itself. Bugger.]
• Forage for herbs – Avina went out and this time sadly she came back empty-handed.
  [Double-bugger!]
• Fishing – We pin our hopes on Ulrik and send him (and his new fishing gear) out fishing.
  [The spot he ends up in isn’t great, but it’ll do (he’ll have a chance to catch two fish today).]  Fish #1 is Cunning (5) and Strength (3) – clearly a smart one, maybes too smart for poor Ulrik? Or not – he gets it to bite on his first cast! Now to get it on to dry land. Ulrik is just as Tough as the fish is Strong so it’s an even battle, but Ulrik is too hasty in his efforts and the fish gets off the hook. Luckily, he doesn’t break his brand-new fishing pole and the fish seems to be hanging around so he may get a second chance. Or it may just be taunting him as it takes a while longer, but on his 7th re-cast, he gets another strike! This time. Maybe. Nope! The fish does it again, shucking his hook as he struggles to land it. With a disdainful flick of its tail, the fish escapes, living for another day. Still, at least none of his gear is damaged so Ulrik looks around for another potential target, this time locating Fish #2. This one isn’t as smart as the last one, Cunning (4) and Strength (6), but it’s a bit of a beast! Once again, Ulrik gets it to bite first time but as soon as it does, he knows he’s hooked a whopper. He gets off to a good start and manages to drop its Strength to 4, but there’s still plenty of fight left in it and it manages to snap his fishing pole. Damnit! Just to rub salt in, he watches as it swims lazy circles in the water just out of reach from him. Shaking his fist at the smug, scaly villain, he packs up what’s left of his gear and is just about to depart when he is hailed by a lone Monk who approaches him. It would appear that the Monk, Brother Cassitus, had the same idea as Ulrik and has hopes of catching a free lunch. Ulrik shares his tales of woe, showing what’s left of his new fishing gear (the boss isn’t going to be happy), but after a few moments of commiserations and chit-chat, he wishes the brother well and heads on back to Oak Wall. [Ulrik does, however, gain another Activity Point and is halfway to improving his woeful fishing skills.]

Where are we going? Adventuring locally.
[Since we appear to be having nothing but bad luck now, we double down and decide to head back out locally to see if the gods do truly hate us.]

Sell Unwanted Gear: Nothing to sell.
[Chance would be a fine thing. I wonder how much Ulrik’s worth?]

Trade: Spend gold to buy items.
[We can’t afford anything and Ulrik is NOT getting any more good gear until he can prove he can look after it!]

Outfit for adventure: Pack up our backpacks with our spare gear. Armour and main weapons don’t count.

Recruit some villagers: None needed. Full ranks.
[Although if I find out one of them can fish, Ulrik may get the boot…]

Go adventuring: Off we go!

On our travels we have a Combat Encounter – this means someone (or something) wants to pick a fight. This is always resolved using miniatures on the table and in many ways, it comprises the primary type of gameplay in Five Leagues.

We need to know exactly who or what we are facing off against, so we roll 1D6. On a 1-2 we will face the second-highest Threat. On a 3-6 we will face the highest valued Threat.

It’s a 6.
[Of course it is! My suspicions were correct. The gods do truly have it in for us.]

Around Oak Wall, the highest threat comes in the form of Dark Secrets, and in this particular case, we’ve been attacked by a group of the Corrupt (aka chaos mutants, represented on my tabletop as Chaos Beastmen). This is where the main rules of Five Leagues kick in and so I’ll reserve it for another post since it may be longer, and will definitely involve some form of a battle report with pictures.

[To be continued.]