Solo Ep 1: Pyry and The Orc Queen

Last night was an amazing experience: the first time I’ve ever run an RPG solo… and it was a really fun time!

A part of my brain is accusing me of being “incredibly sad” and making various other cruel suggestions about what it means to play with yourself.

Those thoughts are understandable: we live in a deeply extrovert society and in a very social hobby.

I cannot deny, however, that the game was one of the most satisfying roleplaying experiences I’ve had to date.

This post shares the unedited text of the adventure report. I wrote it as I played, sketching out the action and trying to capture something of the game. Of course, it’s not going to be perfect prose because it wasn’t really intended for anyone except me.

I want to thank all the folk at the G+ Lone Wolf Roleplaying Community for encouraging me to take my first steps. I most especially want to thank Kenny Norris for publishing his booklet “Guide To Playing Alone” (even if it is too short) and creating his helpful website, Solo Roleplayer. Without these people, last night’s game would never have happened.

Neither would I have rediscovered my Game Mastering mojo without them. Game on!

Pyry Steps Out…

Pyry is called to the Temple and, after being given his first blade, is instructed on his Trial Quest. The Priestess tells him that he must travel north into the mountains and locate the newly established lair of an Orcish Queen. His mission is to infiltrate the lair, assassinate the Queen, and return with her personal sword as a trophy. Only then will he be fully accepted by the Bladed Brotherhood.

After two nights alone in the hills and then the mountains, Pyry draws closer to the cave entrance of the lair. While moving through the wooded hills, however, he happens upon an opening within which lie the slaughtered bodies of maybe a dozen humans. Moving closer, wary in case of Orcs, Pyry moves to investigate. Once he is sure there are no Orcs nearby, he slinks into the glade and begins to search for survivors; every single churl (judging from their miners clothing) is dead, throats slit and bodies looted for jewelry and coin. Pyry vows to avenge these poor souls: the mission has become personal.

Following the trail of the Orcs, Pyry nears the cave entrance – a fairly large opening in the rock side of a mountain, surrounded by low bushes and scrub. Hiding while he sizes up the scene, Pyry notices the large collection of boxes and barrels outside and marvels at the lack of any noticeable guard. He assumes the Orcs must feel very confident indeed.

At the Lair…

Pyry sneaks forward, across the clearing, and moves to the entrance way. Still no sign of Orcs. Carefully, on hands and knees, Pyry decides to crawl forward and see if he can detect any signs of a trap on the entrance way. Just as he feels comfortable with his clever move, his hand falls forward as a section of the apparently rock floor gives way: Pyry has found a pit… the hard way! Pyry begins to fall but, by some incredible feat of reaction, grabs the edge of the pit before he can fall into it’s maw – he dangles above the hole, panting for breath! As his arms strain, he tries to pull himself up… but his arms are numb from the shock. Muttering a prayer to the Goddess, Pyry summons his energy and finally hauls himself up out of the trap. Lying on the floor, panting for breath, Pyry feels the first flush of fear: has he bitten off more than he can chew?

Pushing forward, short sword in hand, Pyry follows the snaking tunnel in the dark. Cursing himself for not bringing a torch or lantern, and assuming that the Orcs would light their lair, Pyry cautiously follows the edge of the tunnel, one hand on the wall. Some few metres along in the dark is when the ground once again goes out from beneath him: another pit trap! This time Pyry is not so lucky, and he plummets down into the hole, landing heavily on his right arm and feeling it break even as the snapping of the bone reached his ears. Pyry cried out in pain and slumped onto the bottom of the pit, dazed.

As he sought to quickly bind his arm and stifle the pain with what little first aid skill he could muster, Pyry heard the Orc as it stumped along the passageway to investigate his cry. In the minutes that he had, Pyry muttered prayers once again to the Goddess, asking for her blessing on his efforts with his arm, and was pleasantly surprised to notice that the break appeared much more clean than he expected – with some quick binding of the break, Pyry felt the pain ease. As the Orc came closer, perhaps only a few metres away, Pyry rose to his feet and gathered up his sword; good job he was left-handed, he thought to himself.

Judging the pit to be about 7 metres deep, Pyry began to climb – no easy feat with a broken arm but made slightly simpler by the rough design of the hole. As he reached the halfway mark, Pyry could see the brightness of the Orc’s torch light flicker from above. At least that’s one small blessing, he thought, as he readied himself for a fight.

Battling the Guard

Sometimes miniatures help to visualise the scene.

With a leap, Pyry cleared the edge of the pit and came face-to-face with the ugly, if shorter than expected, bulk of the Orc. With spear in hand, and dropping the torch to the ground, the Orc moved confidently forward to level the tip of the weapon at Pyry’s chest – but not quite able to strike. Being faster than the beast, Pyry decided to try to slip inside the reach of the spear and deliver a deadly blow. Stepping with uncanny speed, Pyry was delighted to notice that the Orc clearly didn’t expect this manoeuvre, and the boy was quickly past the point of the blade.

With a swift movement, Pyry thrust the sword forward towards the Orc! Striking the chest of the creature, he sought to impale it and felt the tip bite into the now yelling Orc. Driving the blade deep, Pyry was only momentarily satisfied before realising that the blade had missed the creature’s vitals. With a grunt, the Orc pulled up his arms and tried to strike Pyry with the butt of the spear; catching his abdomen with the haft, the Orc nodded with satisfaction as Pyry cried out in pain – that was not anything like as bad as the tip would be, but nonetheless it hurt! Pyry tugged on his short sword, drawing it back out from the chest of the Orc, and grimaced as a spray of blood came with it. The Orc yelled in pain! Barely a heartbeat passed before the Orc reacted. Seeking to step back and level the spear ready to strike, the Orc began to move. Not to be caught out, Pyry reacted quickly and opted to strike at the retreating Orc… but the creature proved too quick, easily evading Pyry’s well-timed blade thrust by turning his body away. Before he knew it, Pyry was facing the now angry Orc at spear tip.

Swiftness on his feet was his only hope, Pyry thought. He dove forward, seeking to get past the point of the spear. The Orc reacted with uncanny alacrity, seeking to stab the boy before he could once more get inside the blade’s reach. Once more Pyry felt the blessing of the Goddess touch him and he evaded the spear and found himself inside the creature’s reach. Once more the Orc tried to bash at the boy, striking the haft towards Pyry’s face; ducking and raising his sword to parry, Pyry blunted the force of the attack and moved to make his own strike in return. Looking up in to the red eyes of the Orc, Pyry struck – pressing his advantage, forcing the Orc to defend himself, the boy felt the sword bite into its abdomen!

Pyry struck again, the Orc desperate to parry the blow with his spear shaft. With flick of the wrist, Pyry sent the blade past the Orc’s parry and sent it straight to the beast’s heart. Pressing hard, Pyry felt the blade bite deep and open a second wound on its breast. With a huff of breath and pain, the Orc collapsed under Pyry’s weight and fell to the ground, unconscious from the pain. Taking a breath as he watched the Orc fall, Pyry then stepped forward and slit the creature’s throat, watching the blood ooze onto the floor. Sheathing the sword, Pyry moved over and picked up the dropped torch. Now, at least, he could see in the darkness.

Pushing Onward

Pyry decided to pause and treat his wounds with more care. Unwrapping the bindings on his arm, Pyry applied the herbs and bandages that the Priestess had given him before he left. With a splint in place and after some careful examination, Pyry could feel that the arm was fractured, not broken. He followed this with some water on the abdomen wound, which proved quite superficial and easy to cover. It was an effort, but with some care he managed to carry the torch with the injured right arm, and re-drew his blade before moving on down the tunnel.

Moving slowly and carefully, Pyry rounded the snaking passageway and could see ahead the glow of a lantern standing on a table in the middle of a small cave. This was clearly the station of the Orc guard he’d encountered earlier and Pyry was relieved that the guard appeared to have been alone. Scanning the scene, Pyry noted that apart from the half-eaten remains of a meal and the lantern, the chamber was empty except for a small wooden chest under the table. A quick inspection of the chest revealed that it was locked; deciding that speed and stealth were more important than loot, Pyry decided to move on.

Creeping a short distance further, Pyry found the tunnel opened out into a large cave with several sleeping cots made of straw lining the outer walls. Two tunnels could be seen leading out, one to the south west and another to the east. Aside from copious stacks of wooden boxes (one of which appeared to contain potatoes) and a couple of water barrels, the chamber seemed uninhabited. Once again on guard against tricks, Pyry padded forward carefully and noticed the tripwire well before he caught it with his boot. Following the line of the wire, Pyry noted that the trip would have rung a rather large bell mounted up in the vaulted roof of the cave: no doubt this would have been a loud and effective alarm.

Stepping over the wire, Pyry moved to inspect the boxes. Where had they come from? They were unmarked containers, seeming to contain assorted foodstuffs and supplies. Aside from being of clearly mannish construction, however, there was no trader’s mark on them. If they had been looted from nearby villages, then there was little evidence of the goods having traveled far. Mystery aside, Pyry decided to move on.

Noting that the south-western tunnel seemed to show more signs of footfall, Pyry decided to move east first. The tunnel opened out onto another sleeping area. Pyry felt his heart quicken as he took in the scale of the Orc horde he was trying to bypass: perhaps a dozen cots in the previous cave and another dozen here was enough to make his blood run cold. Rats scattered away from the half-eaten meals as Pyry walked deeper into the cave. None of the creatures seemed aggressive, so he decided to quickly scout the chamber and then withdraw – there were no obvious exits here. Swords and spears were stacked neatly along one side of the cave and Pyry felt the temptation to grab one of the spears; sheathing his short sword, the boy hefted a solid-looking spear, hoping it’d give him an advantage should he run into more Orcs.

Backtracking to the first sleeping room, Pyry stopped short as he saw the stunning beauty of the Orc Queen entering from the other tunnel. She was uncannily tall and unexpectedly attractive, firm muscle standing out from her lithe form. Only her Orcish face and red eyes betrayed her inhuman qualities.

Encountering the Queen

She spoke, her voice lilting and not at all harsh.
“Who are you, boy?”

Pyry felt speechless and awestruck by her visage. He hesitated. It was almost his undoing.

The Queen shrieked and, drawing a sword from her belt, charged towards Pyry. Quick to recover, however, the boy’s reactions were minutely faster. Before the Queen could close to strike, Pyry thrust the newly acquired spear in her direction. The tip whistled past the Queen’s hurried parry and struck her square in the chest; the spear impaled the creature and, as it ran through her body, Pyry chose to let go of the haft. Blood spurted from the Queen’s mouth and from around the wound, but she did not cry out. With the spear stuck in her, the Queen tried to slash out with her sword, swinging wildly and missing Pyry. Drawing his short sword, Pyry stepped forward and stabbed again towards the Queen. Striking her again in the chest, Pyry watched with grim delight as she first seemed distracted by the pain, and then slumped forward, breaking the haft of the impaled spear against the cave floor as she fell. Standing over the now unconscious Queen, Pyry slit her throat. Then he picked up her ornately decorated short sword, wiping it clean of the blood pooled around it from the Queen’s pumping wounds.

For a moment, all was still and quiet. Only Pyry’s heart beat could be heard. And then, realising that he needed to escape, Pyry ran. As he cleared the other side of the room, Pyry had forgotten the tripwire until too late. Despite trying to leap, he merely stumbled and heard the clang of the bell echo around the cave and down the tunnel behind him as he ran.

A Desperate Escape!

Running down the snaking tunnel, Pyry saw the open pit in front of him as he leaped over the bloody Orc corpse on the ground. Pounding down towards the hole, he jumped and with a whoosh of air running past his sweat streaked face, made it to the other side. As he paused to catch his breath, Pyry could hear the sounds and shouts of the pursuing Orcs behind him. He turned back towards the exit and ran. Once again the pit was open before him, and this time Pyry not only cleared the hole with a single bound but also landed with positive momentum carrying him well out into the daylight.

Pyry ran. Down into the scrubby bushes below the cave entrance, down towards the tree line further on. The Orcs were in pursuit but, for now, they would have to search and that gave the boy hope that he could escape…