[Let's Play] The Legends of Skyfall: Monsters of the Marsh

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote to go up the North East channel.

[deaddmwalking]

Yep. Northeast. Surely they're not all dead ends.

[Beroli]

This channel runs fairly straight from North East to South West and is four miles long, taking two hours to navigate.

At the North Eastern end it emerges from the North Western corner of a lake.

You find this lake to be four miles long from West to East and two miles North to South.

A stream from the North runs into the North Eastern corner.

From the South Western corner another flows due South.

Another waterway leaves the North Western corner in a South Westerly direction (this is where you came from).

Investigating the lake itself takes an hour.

Go North?
Go South?
Go back?

Name: Andrew Bond
Sex: Male
Expertise: 13
Vitality: 20/20
Fortune: 12
Equipment: Sword, dagger, fifty feet of rope, some torches, flint, steel, tinderbox, 2 doses Potion of Healing (+8 Vitality), Ring of Fortune (double all Fortune gains), Centaur Leaves, Centaur Amulet.
Provisions: 5 days
Travel time so far: 9 days, 3.5 hours
Deaths: Captured as a slave and worked to death, stabbed with a poisoned dagger, drowned when a dam collapsed, captured as a slave and sacrificed

[deaddmwalking]

North first.

[JourneymanN00b]

I also vote north.

[Beroli]

This channel runs North-South for six miles. At the Northern end it originates where several small streams trickle from a stretch of peat bog.

It will take six hours to investigate this channel.

They can't all be dead ends, but lots of them can be!

With only one other way that isn't somewhere you've been, going south.

After two miles, this stream turns East and goes for another ten miles before forking, taking a total of six hours' travel. You stop to rest partway through that trip.

Go North?
Go South?
Go back?

Now, down to four days' worth of food, would also be a good time to vote on when/if you want to consume the leaves instead of food one of these times. As a reminder of the centaurs' description, when you consume the leaves, the next ten times you would have to eat or starve, you instead take only 1 damage and have no other consequences of not eating.

Name: Andrew Bond
Sex: Male
Expertise: 13
Vitality: 20/20
Fortune: 12
Equipment: Sword, dagger, fifty feet of rope, some torches, flint, steel, tinderbox, 2 doses Potion of Healing (+8 Vitality), Ring of Fortune (double all Fortune gains), Centaur Leaves, Centaur Amulet.
Provisions: 4 days
Travel time so far: 10 days, 1.5 hours
Deaths: Captured as a slave and worked to death, stabbed with a poisoned dagger, drowned when a dam collapsed, captured as a slave and sacrificed

[deaddmwalking]

Go North.

I'm for consuming the leaves the next time we need to eat. I'm okay with taking up to 10 damage as we figure out how to get more food. I expect that there will be opportunities to heal up, and when we get a bow we can start getting more food.

[Beroli]

This channel winds its way from the South Eastern corner of a lake for six miles due South, before bending South West for two more. It then turns South for a mile, South West for four more, and finally South for three miles, ending at a fork.

That is all backwards from the way you are seeing it; you are coming from the fork and arrive at the lake.

Navigating this channel takes you eight hours.

This rectangular lake is six miles long from North East to South West and three miles wide.

Two streams, one from the North West and the other from the North East join at the point where they flow into the Northern corner of the lake.

Another flows from the North East into the Eastern corner of the lake.

The North Eastern shore of the lake between these streams is one of the rare areas of firm ground in the Dunmarsh. Mainly meadow, there are one or two quite high outcrops of rock and an occasional stand of trees.

From the centre of the South Eastern shore of the lake, a stream flows out.

Two other streams leave the Southern corner of the lake. One flows West and the other South. You approached by the South one.

Investigating the lake will take three hours. Centaurs do not appeal to you for help here as you have already helped those centaurs.

Go North West from the Northern edge of the lake?
Go North East from the Northern edge of the lake?
Go North East from the Eastern edge of the lake?
Follow the stream South East?
Follow the stream West from the Southern edge?
Go back?

Also, if anyone disagrees with using the leaves at the end of this day, now would be the time to say so.

Name: Andrew Bond
Sex: Male
Expertise: 13
Vitality: 20/20
Fortune: 12
Equipment: Sword, dagger, fifty feet of rope, some torches, flint, steel, tinderbox, 2 doses Potion of Healing (+8 Vitality), Ring of Fortune (double all Fortune gains), Centaur Leaves, Centaur Amulet.
Provisions: 4 days
Travel time so far: 10 days, 12.5 hours
Deaths: Captured as a slave and worked to death, stabbed with a poisoned dagger, drowned when a dam collapsed, captured as a slave and sacrificed

[deaddmwalking]

So this is a place we've been before, but we have not taken any of the streams?

In this case, I vote for East.

This book suffers from a lack of descriptive language. That's something that I learned with dungeon description - starting everything with 'you enter a 20' by 20' chamber' gets boring, fast. Exactly tracking how long each segment is might be a clue for accurate mapping (which I'm not doing), but I'd rather 'you enter a lake surrounded by high cliffs' or 'you enter a lake with dank brown water, stained by tannins from the decaying vegetation' or 'the water of this lake is surprisingly clear - you can see the sandy bottom of the lakebed as if you were looking through a clear glass window'. They don't have to MEAN anything but it'd be easier to say 'let's go to the clear lake' than 'let's go to the 3x5 rectangle, not the 4x6 rectangle'.

[Beroli]

I do not believe you've been here before.

[deaddmwalking]

Oh, I thought you said the centaurs weren't going to ask for help because they already had. I didn't think it SHOULD be connected - that was off the other major river. Still, this being new is even better. In that case, Northwest would be my preference. Changing my vote.

[Beroli]

Ah, sorry about that! There are multiple places the centaurs can approach you and ask for help, and the encounter result you got ends with "Ignore all future references to this band of centaurs." You could have met them at this lake. But you didn't.

[JourneymanN00b]

I vote for northwest.

[Beroli]

After four miles, you come to the South side of a familiar-looking whirlpool.

Continue through the whirlpool?
Go back to somewhere you have been?
(You will not try to portage as you already know it doesn't work.)

Name: Andrew Bond
Sex: Male
Expertise: 13
Vitality: 20/20
Fortune: 12
Equipment: Sword, dagger, fifty feet of rope, some torches, flint, steel, tinderbox, 2 doses Potion of Healing (+8 Vitality), Ring of Fortune (double all Fortune gains), Centaur Leaves, Centaur Amulet.
Provisions: 5 days
Travel time so far: 9 days, 0.5 hours
Deaths: Captured as a slave and worked to death, stabbed with a poisoned dagger, drowned when a dam collapsed, captured as a slave and sacrificed

[deaddmwalking]

You know what, I'm feeling froggy. Half vote for trying the whirlpool. Maybe it goes to an undersea grotto filled with beautiful mer-people that will welcome us and ply us with great treasures.

[JourneymanN00b]

I also vote to try the whirlpool.

[Thaluikhain]

Yeah, give that a go.

[Beroli]

The whirlpool turns out to be an illusion. A very realistic one, which gives you a queasy feeling as you float safely over the spinning vortex, but an illusion nonetheless. You realize it must have been cast by a very powerful magic-user.

Gain 1 Fortune (doubled by your ring).

Unfortunately, that does not open up a new area to you as you have been to both the north and south sides of the whirlpool. Where will you go next?

Name: Andrew Bond
Sex: Male
Expertise: 13
Vitality: 20/20
Fortune: 14
Equipment: Sword, dagger, fifty feet of rope, some torches, flint, steel, tinderbox, 2 doses Potion of Healing (+8 Vitality), Ring of Fortune (double all Fortune gains), Centaur Leaves, Centaur Amulet.
Provisions: 5 days
Travel time so far: 9 days, 0.5 hours
Deaths: Captured as a slave and worked to death, stabbed with a poisoned dagger, drowned when a dam collapsed, captured as a slave and sacrificed

[deaddmwalking]

Okay, from the last lake we went Northwest. Let's try going Northeast from that lake. The one just above on the page where we didn't meet centaurs.

[Beroli]

The river passes several outcrops of rock before finally, after ten hours, rejoining the lake you just left at the Eastern edge.

Follow the stream South East?
Follow the stream West from the Southern edge?
Go somewhere you have been?

Name: Andrew Bond
Sex: Male
Expertise: 13
Vitality: 20/20
Fortune: 14
Equipment: Sword, dagger, fifty feet of rope, some torches, flint, steel, tinderbox, 2 doses Potion of Healing (+8 Vitality), Ring of Fortune (double all Fortune gains), Centaur Leaves, Centaur Amulet.
Provisions: 5 days
Travel time so far: 9 days, 10.5 hours
Deaths: Captured as a slave and worked to death, stabbed with a poisoned dagger, drowned when a dam collapsed, captured as a slave and sacrificed

[deaddmwalking]

If it is a new direction, west from the southern edge.

[Beroli]

This channel runs due West from the Southern corner of a lake, for six miles, then turns South for seven more. It then splits into a multitude of small streams and rivulets, none of them deep enough for a canoe, let alone a barge.

Investigating this waterway costs you thirteen hours before you get back to the lake. Partway through this trip you boil the leaves and eat them. And you take 1 damage from not eating otherwise.

You follow the stream South East, which leads you back to the Doone, by what you recognize as the fifth tributary.

Travel four hours in the direction of the confluence with the Sol and investigate the sixth tributary?
Travel four hours in the direction of Howard's Crossing and investigate the fourth tributary?
Travel four more hours and investigate the third tributary?
Travel four more hours and investigate the second tributary?
Travel four more hours and investigate the first tributary?
Travel four more hours to Howard's Crossing?
Go back to somewhere you have been?

Name: Andrew Bond
Sex: Male
Expertise: 13
Vitality: 19/20
Fortune: 14
Equipment: Sword, dagger, fifty feet of rope, some torches, flint, steel, tinderbox, 2 doses Potion of Healing (+8 Vitality), Ring of Fortune (double all Fortune gains), Centaur Amulet.
Provisions: 5 days, Centaur Leaves in effect until the end of day 19 (real food needs to be eaten when day becomes 20)
Travel time so far: 10 days, 9.5 hours
Deaths: Captured as a slave and worked to death, stabbed with a poisoned dagger, drowned when a dam collapsed, captured as a slave and sacrificed

[deaddmwalking]

6th Tributary.

[JourneymanN00b]

Sure, I vote to check out the sixth tributary.

[Beroli]

This channel is only two miles long, taking just an hour to navigate.

To the North it forks, and you may either turn West or continue North.

Go West?
Go North?
Go back?


Name: Andrew Bond
Sex: Male
Expertise: 13
Vitality: 19/20
Fortune: 14
Equipment: Sword, dagger, fifty feet of rope, some torches, flint, steel, tinderbox, 2 doses Potion of Healing (+8 Vitality), Ring of Fortune (double all Fortune gains), Centaur Amulet.
Provisions: 5 days, Centaur Leaves in effect until the end of day 19 (real food needs to be eaten when day becomes 20)
Travel time so far: 10 days, 10.5 hours
Deaths: Captured as a slave and worked to death, stabbed with a poisoned dagger, drowned when a dam collapsed, captured as a slave and sacrificed