What follows is a session of a B/X hexcrawl I'm running with friends.
Session 6
Cast:
Kishar the Hollow Agate - Magic-User 2 (Seer)
Marko - Thief 3 (Robber)
Guardsman Vanon - Fighter 2 (Warrior)
Retainers:
Croaker - Grasshopper-man Ranger 2
Sunflower - Grasshopper-man Ranger 2
Book of The Dead:
Shaggy - Fighter 1
The party counted its wealth and prestige. Upon the new day they measured their food stocks and found that they could travel either as the crow flies back to the tor village, or head due Northwest to scope out a few agricultural villages that nestled past the grass and scrublands.
As well they discussed with the grasshopper clan a proposal of trade: an envoy band of five heads northwest and offers the fallen Ilem's cloak pin and name-drops Kishar and Vanon as an overture of friendship. The Tor will set up a market day in the coming two weeks for any interested clans; food for coin, or goods for food, or goods for coin.
Silver given as a gift will be melted down and re-struck under the Circle's auspices and used as a currency for the clans and villages of the grasslands (all backed by treasure gold). The schemes of a Circle extending control over the whole grassland emerge.
The larger group heads north for a day before splitting off. Elephants are seen but not hunted, and Croaker and Sunflower are officially brought in as emissaries of the clan to meet with the as-yet unmet farming villages. (Worst comes to worst and the grasshopper-men are killed by the Circle or farmers, Kishar can immediately pivot to courting the western clans as allies and turning against the southern clan. There is no losing in her mind.)
In the dark the party sees fires on the horizon: come day they see these are watchfires of a walled compound atop a hill and the village surrounding it. The peasants in the fields appear scattered and the Main Street appears empty at a distance; Vanon feels that something is on edge and it would be better for the party to pass on. They do so, leaving by the eastern road towards a richer dale past the grasslands.
Southeast is another village, unwalled and more prosperous-looking than the first. Going into town and declaring themselves emissaries of The Tor (the new agreed upon name for their home village) come to spread an alliance and peace. They are rode up on by spearmen on half-wild plains ponies, who are polite but request the party relinquish all their weapons if they are to ask for hospitality. The party is uncomfortable with being left in the hands of strangers without arms, Marko contemplates hiding a knife in his sleeve; but an accord is reached where business is done out in the open. The armed party (who are subject to light talk suspecting them of bandits) stand aside.
Business involves sitting on low rush benches in front of a fire (despite it being daytime and outside) with a tall, tanned, blonde swordsman named Zurosu. He leads the whole place from an unassuming building. Kishar relays the story of the Sorcerer's overthrow, the Circle's coming to the plains with its utopian ideology—Zurosu with his gentle smile doesn't believe a word of it. He calls it a good legend to tell on rainy days to the children. Who doesn't love a story where a tyrant is taken down by those he oppresses?
Kishar is getting sick of his shit. There is back and forth about bringing the village to market day on The Tor. Zurosu wants proof of safety on the road and proof of coin and proof of the market; Kishar retorts that there are no roads, no coin to back the market, and no market to be backed by coin yet. She cannot prove a negative.
Zurosu values his village and the people in it, he is averse to sending them off to die as bandits and things in the night have been troubling his village. Not to mention the mercenaries to the west (tipped off by the party's martial appearance); now that's it's been mentioned the party wants to know more about that whole situation.
It happens that two families have come to conflict, one has hired mercenaries from the west and the situation has deteriorated from there. Zurosu doesn't really care which side wins (he has cousins in both families) and as long as the sides fight each other and not him he is content; settling the problem would make him much more willing to send people to market, however. He offers sanctuary under the auspice of the Brazen Skull for the night, warns against being in the village at night without hospitality.
The party doesn't take the offer and heads west into night. At the other village they yell up at the compound to let the ten observing figures know they are not bandits and ask for sanctuary—and receive several "fuck offs" in response.
An old grandmother in a house not too far off, alarmed, tells them to hustle in. She and her family all wear pale blue cloth pinned to the breast for some reason, and are very afraid of the mercenaries in the compound ("they'll kill you as soon as look at you"). What the party has heard is true: the two families of Ahnum and Lasca and their allies have become viciously divided. A poisoning led to escalation, led to hiring a band of mercenaries, until the night has become full of knifings and kidnappings. The mercenaries have laid siege to the Lasca compound and seized it, no one has seen the family in near three weeks.
Blue cloths indicate allegiance to Ahnum, red to Lasca. Kishar thinks this is absolutely stupid and tells the family so. Despite protestations the magic-user breaks down every argument: by letting the feud of two families spread to the whole village and letting social pressure make people pick a side, they have doomed themselves to a failed community. One grudge leads to another, and both sides build up hate like debt. Worse is the cowardice: if the people on the Ahnum side had taken action and burned the compound to the ground earlier, they would not have to cower in their homes every night like prisoners under the mercenary crossbows. These people have made a prison of their own lives and effectively lost the conflict.
The family however, are stubborn and set in their grudges. Kishar scopes out a strong and none-too-bright adult son, and charms him into her point of view. He gets fired up about having made allegiance with a family who consider themselves betters for no reason, who offer nothing and demand conflict on behalf on an old grudge. A young child of the family is also charmed to fully sell the mindset to the grandmother (Kishar doesn't really like kids though).
The son thinks he can rouse a few like minded men (only about ten according to our wizard, more would set off suspicion of the mercenaries) for a raid on the compound. An offering of coffee beans to the grandmother as both gratitude (and a way to implicate her guilt if the plan fails) is made. If there is courage in the family it needs more coaxing.
The party talks over a few plans: burning the hill on which the compound stands (the family will not have it), waiting for the mercenaries to come out and get food (the compound has food stocks and the band has not left since the siege three weeks ago), set a trap outside the walls to get the mercenaries outside and steal their gear (might bring out too big a force).
Finally they settle on an idea first mentioned to Zurosu: why not get two marriageable members of both families, fake a love between them, and use that a pretext for a raid so the community doesn't fall into chaos when the compound is taken? It's a long shot but is crazy enough to just work. An intact community means more partners for The Tor overall.
They learn a little about who's who in the two involved families: Dedale Ahnum is the current patriarch and collected power by having visions in his dreams. Ninki Ahnum is the oldest person in the village, moves behind the scenes. Karoshi Ahnum is next in line for succession and is brash, boorish, and champing for a fight against the families. The young Enuran Ahnum (the marriage target in question) is extremely shy to the point of not leaving his room.
On the other side, in a village full of assholes and weirdos Na Sunna Lasca seemed pretty normal; she even prophesied hiring mercenaries would end badly.
All this considered, the party thinks of setting up false correspondence between the two to make them seem like the dashing hero and the damsel in peril, both linked in love despite the familial feud. A classic story, and a good pretense for the actual goal of looting an entire platoon's worth of swords, armor, and harness. Considering the physical difficulty of this (an arrow would be seen by a soldier first for example), they elect to just convince young Enuran to show up for the raid and keep himself safe during it. More difficult would be keeping Na Sunna alive if she still is.
One third of the scheme complete, the party sets off to meet the Ahnum family. Even under daylight (purportedly the safest time where people aren't stabbing each other to death), the whole village is divided down the main road. Enemy families wear different pinned rags and do not mingle.
More and more Kishar thinks these are worthless idiot people, and not worth showing an object lesson in self-governance as the Circle teaches.
At Ahnum House on the western side of the settlement, a brusque man interrupts their calls to Enuran. He wants to know which side the party is on—they are not on either side because they aren't fucking idiots. Tensions escalate, insults are thrown, it is insisted that the young master doesn't want to see anybody even though he is actively walking down the stairs while the argument goes on. The brusque man storms off. Enuran is long-haired, pallid, silent, and serious. He falls to Charm Person like any other and leaves the house's shadows on a walk, flanked by the party.
They talk a little, Kishar pretending to compliment him and hide the mind-control. By then the patriarch has been brought back down the road and the party lays out the plan to marry the two families, resolve the deep conflict, and also get rid of the mercenary threat.
Much the same arguments are floated; the party are outsiders and don't know what it's like, Dedale would be fine with the marriage if it weren't to a scion of "those bastards," the tension runs too deep, they're waiting for the mercenaries to starve before retaliating (what?), etc etc etc. Cowardice, hopelessness, and indecision runs deep; all sides are too reluctant to make the first move or take responsibility. Dedale claims this is a kind of "balance" that was fine before the party walked in.
Kishar calls bullshit on it all.
The son's magically-induced assent is used to leverage the generational gap; see what mess tradition and history have gotten everyone into. It is for the new generation unmarred by grudges to stake their claim.
The patriarch gives up in a huff and assents to the raid and marriage, saying the party will get themselves killed, and the whole village killed. But go ahead I guess. He looks strangely at his son and asks what the boy has gotten himself into before leaving. Enuran is still serious when asking what he can do for the raid (just bring himself and show courage, per Kishar and Vanon.)
Two thirds of the plot down. Next is a chandler of the village, left without work due to the feud and not taking a side. He expresses fear that if the Lasca family have been killed, then anyone on their side in the raid might fall on each other—or worse, defect to the Ahnum side. Worries are soothed that both families working together would heal the gap and give no cause for fighting. Even so, the chandler gets instructions to bring his followers a little later than the first group (just in case he goes to the mercenaries first).
Social preparations complete. The party, their retainers, and a growing sense of tension wait at a storage cave on the compound's hill. Darkness falls. Watchlights are lit.
Kishar expresses that these people are worthless, and it would be better if Zurosu took over. On the other hand, a young leader (with the older family suffering from "accidents" to clear the way) with members of the Circle to adjudicate and advise silently keeps Zurosu from raising a blade to The Tor. Vanon observes that the clan-based societies of the grasslands are just so: always clearly fracturing, always in conflict. There must be another way.
Utopia awaits for all who embrace the Circle.
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