Session Report: Wyrnach 1

Facing the Golden Boars (original Substack posted May 6)

Wyrnach’s task, given to him by his order, was to track down the Everwep. The acid tears of that crocodilian monstrosity were tainting the swampland and producing a toxic fog that drifting into the habitable lands to the east.

He knew that his success in this trial would determine his readiness for full initiation into the Order and his ascension from Apprentice to Journeyman. In preparation, he had determined that the Everwep could smell the approach of man and that he would have to find something native to the swamp to disguise his scent.

As Wyrnach bagan his journey towards the heart of the swamp he saw through the shrubbery what seemed to him to be a perfect oppurtunity: two golden boars, locked in some sort of battle. As he watched, unseen, he observed that one boars was much older, and that the elder’s hide showed the scars of many hard-won battles, including the remnants of hunting spears and arrows still stuck in its thick hide. Their battle was not unlike some human ritual, and Wyrnach ascertained that the older boar might have beeen trying to impose its will on the younger, possibly to assume its body and renew its youth.

Wyrnach identified that the younger’s hide would make a grade disquise for his scent as he continued his journey, so we decided to lay a trap: using rope from his pack, he created a large noose-like snare, which, after demanding the boars’ attention, he managed to catch the younger with. Overly headstronge, Wyrnach attempts to fight off the older boar but he is quickly gored. While Wyrnach played dead, the younger board got loose from the snare and killed the elder boar. Wyrnach quickly took his chance and jumped into a tree, out of reach from the younger boar. He fired several arrows at the enraged boar to no avail, and the younger board rammed the tree’s roots right out of the ground. Now face-to-face, Wyrnach drew his dagger, but he was no match for the boar.

Wyrnach wakes up some time later, weak from his gore wound. He has the corpes of the elder boar and a new found mission: kill the younger boar to regain his honor.

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This is a report of a solo session I did a while back that I have been thinking of writing about for a while. For some reason I have had a block from continuing Wyrnach’s story until I wrote this report (which is dumb— I should just play my game). This campaign is centered around monster hunting, with our titular hero being a Strider-like ranger working for a Dunedain-like order that once worked for the king’s of a long dead kingdom but is now focused on dealing with the gruesome monsters which terrorize the commonfolk of this fantasy, sub-Roman Britian inspired, land.

For this game I’m using a modified version of D&D 5E because it’s what I know (I know it well enough to run it without having to reference the book and how much I can houserule things without breaking the game). Wyrnach is a gestalt ranger/paladin with buffed HP in the style of the Hero class from BEOWULF: Age of Heroes, and plenty of plot armor. I’m not really interested in having to create new characters everytime I throw a silly-hard challenge at him, and I’m also not interest in running more than one character, so it’s a general rule that unless it’s significantly dramatic or I want to explore a different character in this world, when Wyrnach would otherwise die I am given him setbacks and scars and continuing on.

Resources used:

• A loose basis in D&D 5e

  • Inpsiriation from BEOWULF: Age of Heroes by Handiwork Games for solo hero rules

• Xanathar's Guide to Everything, by Wizard of the Coast for random encounter tables

• MONSTROUS by Cloud Curio for monster inspiration/flavor

• AGNOSTIC: ttrpg prep method by Kyle Latino (Map Crow) and Kenny Webb for flavor

• Black March #1 and Tarvannion by Castle Grief for flavor (including Wyrnach’s name!)

• Cairn by Yochai Gal for scars

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This is the first of possible many reports on my solo games. I think in the future I might also publish essays or just my thoughts on fantasy and roleplaying games and whatever else interests me.