Branching Adventure
If you have created a character using the
Character Creation guidelines and want to get a feel for them you can use them while navigating this interactive story. Keep track of your stats, things you find and collect, and you can chose how much combat you are interested in. You can chose to narratively progress and just assume victory, you can run the combats for yourself (stats for monsters will be provided), or you can ask your DM to run those parts of this adventure.
Winter has been long. Not longer than winter usually is mind you, but at the end its always been long. That's part of what makes it winter. The nights are long, but have started getting shorter. Today, you are in
Provenance in the very heart of the
Tense River Basin . And the place is abuzz with excitement. Things are still cold, there is ice on the ground in some places. But there is a hope in the way people walk today. Furtive glances upriver hoping to see something. But it isn't there yet. Everyone in Provenance knows that today is the day, today is
Logger's Day in Provenance .
Provenance has a healthy trade relationship with its upriver companion city, Thisplacia. But during the winter the rivers become impassible with ice, and the trade of goods is forced to stop. Everyone has enough to make it through winter, or so they hope. And as winter drags on, you make due with less over a longer time to make it last. Everyone is making it last by now in Provenance. But when the logs come down the river, that means they've broken through the ice, the path is clear again and trade has reopened for the season. The logs always come laden with goods and gifts from Thisplacia. Delights and desserts that wouldn't ever survive the trip in summer, but do just fine along the river at the tail end of winter.
In anticipation, scouts who patrol further up river send reports as the first logs come into view. Its hard to miss them really, for they are lead by a herd of Hipposheep. Immense creatures, lumbering on land but gracefully dangerous in the water. As they stamp ahead they break up the ice and cut a path for the river once more. Opening it up so it may flow freely. It is an important part of the ecology here, but of course people have found a way to use it to their advantage, and turn it into a holiday!
The city of Provenance is alive with activity. You find yourself walking through the central plaza, to one side of you the broad battlements and the towering spires of the
The Council of Seven Seats . It is there that the wizards who are tasked with administrating power in the Pinion Dominion meet to discuss important matters, such as what they should have for lunch and when to schedule the neighborhood shrimp roasts. Of course they also see to the defense of the Pinions against nefarious forces such as
The Fortch Horde that lurks in Twistenwud.
The ground is cobblestone, and the river flows lazily just to the south of you. As you walk into this part of town you spy a nice little central garden. Surrounding it are some small local shops and fishmongers. But two places stick out to you.
Mopo’Boys and Mo’ still has a streaming sign hanging off one side that reads 'Jambalayafest', however the material is clearly worn and it has probably hung there for more than a few years. Perhaps the Jambalayafest never ends? The sound of a live band playing horns and keeping up an excited jazzy beat drifts out from the front door. The Creaking Thigh lies to the opposite side of the garden to the south. The place is marked by a huge wooden cut out of a woman's leg that slowly raises and lowers pulled by a mill that runs all the way back to the river.
Would you like to:
Go to Mopo’Boys and Mo’
Enter The Creaking Thigh
