OSRIC Game Play Journal: To Save an Exile

Tonight’s short session involved more in-town interaction and preparation. I was getting very anxious to make a move out into the wilderlands, but as it turned out only managed to do so just at the end.

Nothing terribly exciting happened, but some good ground work was laid to be able to use the tent settlement as an ongoing place of rest and recuperation. The party bought the tent of the tailor's family that had put them up for the night and who'd adjusted the size of the dead paladin’s scale mail for the cleric. Turns out they were wanting to get out of town on the next caravan and perhaps because of the extra money they’d earned from the party decided to finally do so. In departing, the tailor also gave them a talisman of protection of some sort. It seemed to possibly be just a superstitious item to protect the tent and possessions left there, but it was unclear in trying to get more information from him about it, and could actually be a true magic item.

We learned that the owner of the general store (by comparing descriptions from our earlier sightings with the locals) left town with the Ranger we’d apparently slighted, presumably in his employment that we had ourselves turned down. They'd headed North.

The newest member of the group, an NPC named Ouze (alchemist or magic user of some sort) was valuable in helping the party obtain some information about the well known bandit chieftan whose camp lie to the North, as well as the general layout of the area and of the existence of ruins to the East of the settlement a ways. The dwarf fighter spent a few gold at the local house of ill repute and gleaned some information about a recent murder there they’d heard about on the street. He discovered that the murderer had been caught and was awaiting a public trial to occur the next day.

The next day, the party attended the public trial. Ouze mentioned that he knew the man, that his name was Opal, and that he was a traveling fighting man of some ability. For some reason, the town elders showed him mercy, perhaps because the full reason for the fight at the whorehouse or who in fact started it was somewhat in question. Instead of death, he was sent into exile with nothing but the few rags that he wore. As he was sent to the East, towards the ruins, the party decided that it would wait a while and then go that way also, hoping to find the man, save him from certain death by exposure, and thus have him in their service.