Kingmaker session 2 – Wagons, A Trading Outpost and Banditos!

Kingmaker session 2 – Wagons, A Trading Outpost and Banditos!

Aeric’s Journal

We have been making our way south west along the road out of Restov. We are heading towards Oleg’s Trading Post which is the landmark for the territory that we are to explore, map and clear of unfriendly things.

My cousin Tomaz is somewhat unhappy with me, in that when I purchased supplies I didn’t see the point of purchasing any wine. Both Tomaz and Maladan claim that the water isn’t safe to drink. I think they are claiming that as an excuse to drink wine and other alcoholic beverages.

I must say that I’m quite impressed with Jonah’s woodcraft. He seems very much at home in the wild as it were. I do find his talk about Fredrick speaking and telling him things to be somewhat disturbing, but he seems able to function. Plus he is so darn cute that you can’t help but overlook a little bit of strangeness. Unfortunately while Maladan seems to be bonding well with Jonah, I’m thinking that Tomaz is only irritating the poor lad.

Anna seems fairly quiet. Perhaps the tragedy of losing her friend and mentor Desmond has inflicted considerable pain that Anna is not yet ready to open herself back up to the rest of the world.

On our journey the road has been getting progressively rougher. As we pass fewer and fewer farms and small settlements, it seems we are entering more wild and untamed lands. I’m not quite sure if we are actually in the Stolen Lands per se or if we are still inside the frontier borders of Brevoy and Rostland.

We did encounter a wagon traveling back to Restov. The lady and her two children are making haste away. Apparently the bandits have made off with her husband and she has had enough of ‘trying to make a go of it’ in the wilderness. As Anna and Maladan were busy talking with her, Tomaz and I realized the Jonah managed to scurry off into the bushes. I’m suspecting that Jonah has a very highly developed sense of personal survival. Which could prove troublesome later on, especially as he is supposed to be our guide. What are we going to do if our guide up and disappears on us in the middle of the wilderness?

We finally make it to Oleg’s Trading Post on the last day of the month. Tomaz is overjoyed, mainly because while my cousin is a big ideas kind of guy, he tends to forget some of the little things… like a bedroll. Tomaz is definitely looking forward to being able to sleep on a bed tonite.

The trading post seems to be of a fairly sturdy construction, although the catapults on the 4 towers have definitely seen better days. Svetlana seems to be quite a pleasant lady, and Oleg seems a bit on the gruff side. Although he does eventually warm up to us. Of course maybe the reason he warms up to us is that we have agreed to take on some bandits that have been plaguing the outpost. They come on the first of the month and take what Oleg has stored up. Which means that they will be here tomorrow at dawn. We look around the compound to figure out where we want to be when the bandits come in. Anna and Tomaz both want to try and convince the bandits to give up their own ways and either redeem themselves or join us. Maladan and myself are more of the ‘pull the weeds from the garden’ attitude, and Jonah comes across as bad men must be punished.

We setup early the next morning and the bandits arrive. 4 bandits with 6 horses. Apparently two of the horses are to be used as pack animals to bring back Oleg’s supplies. Anna and Tomaz greet them as they enter the outpost. Negotiations basically hit a stumbling block in that neither Anna or Tomaz can convince the bandits to lay down their weapons. The bandits claim to be here to do some trading, but Maladan and Jonah both detect that falsehood. Unfortunately it seems that as I was getting ready to make my move that the bandits picked up on it and reacted. They took up defensive positions and spooked the horses into us.

We eventually prevail over the bandits. I do feel somewhat sorry about shooting the badly injured bandit, it is possibly that we might have been able to take him prisoner, unfortunately he was the only one who was mounted and it looked like he was going to escape from the outpost. Failing to convince the bandits to redeem is one thing, but allowing them to leave and warn their friends about us would be an unacceptable tactical failure. Perhaps Erastil will forgive me, because Anna seemed quite put out with me and the others as none of the bandits could be saved or redeemed.

Oleg though was overjoyed with the results. After stripping the bandits of their gear he strung them up on the outside wall facing south as a deterrent to the other bandits. I’m not sure that was the wisest course of action, but this is his place technically he can do what he wants here. We did manage to capture one of the bandits’ horses, but the others fled. That may cause us some difficulty down the road if they manage to return to the bandits camp as it will alert them that something has changed at Oleg’s.

After the battle we notice there is a bulletin board with a number of rewards for slaying various creatures or performing a variety of deeds. With much discussion we finally choose to head south and investigate the rumors of kobolds and either defeat them, or make an alliance with them so that they stop raiding. We have also decided to explore as we go so the trip will take a bit longer than what we would normally anticipate travelling direct.