Across the wide steppe the black haired man fled, and his creditors followed.
The people have spoken, and they demanded that my initial foray into the Heart of the World – that massive and sprawling plains that surrounds and isolates the demon haunted city of Kar’Eld – take the form of that most popular for a reason hero, the humble fighter.
The game of Kal-Arath is designed for solo play, but robust enough to support your typical party style, and features a hearty fare of exploration. The rules are a simple 2d6 versus a target number of 8, with stat bonuses and advantage/disadvantage mechanics to round things out.
Our hero is a dim-witted by likable warrior with a single point (or +1 to checks) in Strength, Toughness, and Agility. He is charming, with 2 points in Persona, but confident beyond his ability to think his way out of problems. By taking a -1 in Intelligence, I got an extra point of bonus to really boost his charm. He is the classic jock, stepping into a cursed world and expecting everything to work out just fine. His problems are never of his own making, and after a long flight into the wilds, the plains are his oyster. Determined to be the lender and never the borrower again, he decides that controlling the trade routes through the area is the surest way to make that happen.
Of course, he isn’t quite sure where he is, or even which way trade routes run, but he never let a little thing like now knowing stop him before. Somewhere in the dull crevices of his mind, he recognizes that all you have to do to protect caravans from the small bands of bandits that plague the land is lead the biggest band of bandits. Instead of risking death by sacking every caravan once, he understands that threatening a good sacking might lead to merchants parting with some of their silver coin without a fight.
His exact plans are as certain as the rolls of the dice that will populate the land. What settlements lurk within the steppelands, and what creatures plague it, and even what politics drive conflict in the area will all arise as a result of his exploration. Eventually, with enough knowledge under our belt, we’ll be able to put together a better plan than, “Eh, we’ll figure it out.” For now, that’s enough of a long-term goal to justify the short-term goal of noodling around the map until adventure finds Thar-Alak and his choices become much more constrained.