Still air, intense heat, and sickening humidity permeate the swamp. No breeze nor waves break the stillness of the scene. It is afternoon.
Scouting Report
Norona and Sierra head out over the water, scouting ahead for any potential dangers. Thanks to some tricky flying, Sierra avoids causing any collateral damage with her fiery wings, and Norona easily speeds over the water with his hover bike.
As he moves out on the water, Norona is hit with a nauseating feeling of wrongness deep in his soul, where his connection with the swamp is strongest, but he pushes through.
The water remains unnaturally quiet, and neither Norona or Sierra see anything of note in the murky water itself. However, they do notice some etchings scratched into the trunks of certain trees accompanied by dinosaur teeth and bones affixed to the bark.
Both Sierra and Norona get an uneasy feeling about the crossing, their instincts screaming that something is wrong, and it seems likely to be tied to the odd markings.
Placement
For the crossing, I am assuming:
- Norona is out front ranging on his hovercycle.
- Sierra is airborne, more or less out front with Norona. Matthew, if you would prefer that Sierra be inside one of the vehicles for this part instead, please just put that in your post along with which vehicle she’s in.
- The Mountaineer is next in line. It is piloted by Conrad, with Toshiro and Kuikku along as passengers.
- The Mark IX Klattatech Mobile HQ brings up the rear. It is piloted by Deezy with Jameson and White Castle as passengers.
A Dramatic Crossing
Crossing this portion of the swamp will take hours, as the submerged landscape stretches on for miles ahead of you and the trees will prevent you from really opening up the engines of your vehicles.
This will be treated as a three-round dramatic task using the rules from SWADE (page 122). Thanks to Norona and Sierra’s excellent scouting, (1) the total number of success tokens you need to accumulate is reduced by one, and (2) the first round can be focused on racking up Driving/Boating/Piloting successes instead of other challenges. Good tactical thinking (in this case, choosing to scout ahead) yields benefits.
Over the course of 3 rounds, you will need to accumulate a total of 8 success tokens in Driving, Boating or (for the hover cycle) Piloting. Please note that Driving rolls will be made at -2 due to the amphibious nature of the task. Each success and raise yields 1 success token, while each critical failure (if any) subtracts 1 success token from your total.
Anyone not operating a vehicle may instead choose to support the operators using any appropriate skill they choose (Notice to spot marked trees, Survival to identify dangerous plants or difficult passages, Spellcasting to heighten an operator’s senses, Electronics to use vehicle sensors to scan for dangers, etc.) adding +1 to an operator’s roll for each success and raise (up to a maximum of +4). If you use an arcane skill to support in this fashion, just narrate your results, but do not deduct Power Points from your character sheet. If your character is supporting, please declare who you are intending to support when you make your post. A critical failure on a support roll does not cause an automatic failure, but does subtract 1 from Driving/Boating/Piloting roll being supported.
As a result of Toshiro’s preparations in making the Mountaineer run quieter, Conrad will get an automatic +1 to his Driving roll this round only, which does not count against the total +4 he may get from support rolls.
Action Cards:
You may post in any order, but if your Action Card is a Club, you have run into a complication, and your roll must be made at -2. Please narrate what your complication is (wheel snagged on underwater vines, an electronic sensor malfunctioning, etc.). Anyone rolling to support a character who drew clubs must make their support roll at -2, as well.
- Sierra: Already posted (per now deleted instructions). No complications.
- Norona: QH
- Toshiro: 3H
- Conrad/Jameson: 2C - Complication
- Kuikku: 10C - Complication
- Deezy: JD
- White Castle: 3C - Complication