Rise of Korbal Part 1

Kal-Arath Solo Actual Play.

Korbal approaches the outskirts of the ruined city. He can see overgrown dilapidated building sounded by a crumbling outer wall. Beastmen can be heard hooting and howling. Korbal cautiously climbs over the broken outer wall and creeps over to the open door of a squat stone building. In the corner of the entranceway, a beastman, slightly resembling a Lion turns and growls.

Ruined city: 9 areas/events/etc. Using Kal-Arath dungeon crawling tables. 
Beastman d6 HP (6), claws d6, moral 6, Armour 0.

The beastman rushes towards him and Korbal’s spear tears into the creatures side. It’s distorted lion’s face twists as it howls in pain and as it tries to flee, Korbal impales it with his jagged spear. He doesn’t want this creature alerting others, and besides he would prefer to have a companion. Korbal crouches over the body and casts Decay is the Way of All Things. The corpse shifts, then shudders for a moment. It then opens pale dead eyes and turns them towards Korbal who says “Excellent, shall we move on? The good Lady Gorm waits for no one.” Korbal exits the building with the undead beastman in tow.

Further along in and around the ruins, they tramp over choking spores as they head into the next still standing building.

Choking spores: Failed TOU check, all check art dis until rest.

Korbal coughs and chokes, making it hard to do anything without having a coughing fit. He continues on, stopping before heading down an alley of sorts. He backtracks, trying to make his way to the center of the ruined city. One building catches his eye that has a partially blocked rubble doorway. Korbal gets the undead beastman to remove some of the stones until they can get inside. It looks like an old armory. Some rusted weapons line a rack along with ruined armour. He does find a wooden box, rare indeed, and finds mostly broken ceramic vials. One is intact with a skull symbol etched on it. This will fetch a pretty price or cause some mayhem. Korbal decides to hole up here for a while and rest, setting the beastman on watch outside. He awakens from his sleep by the sound of the beastman collapsing to the ground. To no one at all he says “Ah, my friends never stay for long. The thing about friends is that you can always make more.”

Soon, as Korbal continues his trek through the overgrown maze of buildings, he hears running behind him and turns in time to turn the swinging club aside. Korbal and the hulking bearlike beastman exchange blows. Korbal keeps it at bay with his spear long enough to end the clash with a spear thrust to the neck.

Korbal casts Decay is the Way of All Things, a gleam in his eye as the beastman rises. It picks up its club and turns to await instructions. “Ha Ha. Well friend, shall we?” and they continue on. They traverse an area that must have seen a battle. The wall here has been flattened along with all the buildings on this side of town. Perhaps a warlord’s battlebarge laid waste to this village long ago.

Korbal hears a shout. A strange looking man pops up from behind some rubble, and quickly runs over to Korbal. The man puts his hands up and stops at a growl from Korbal’s undead beastman, its bearlike snout sniffing the air. The man introduces himself as Tolan the Third, historian of the great warlord Buldaz. He asks if he can accompany Korbal as he treks through the city ruins. Tolan says he can offer some rations and show them where a great treasure is sure to lie at the center of town. There are many beastmen about and Tolan saw how Korbal tamed this one.

Korbal hesitates, then says “Well tame isn’t exactly the right word. Let’s just say we have become friends.”

Tolan smiles “One cannot have enough friends I always say.”

Korbal nods in agreement. “Maybe we can become good friends.”

“I daresay that would be fine indeed.” Tolan follows Korbal further into the ruins.

Tolan NPC Explorer. Dagger. 6 HP. 
1XP for the session.  

Notes:

For my new character, I wanted to get more into the Magic system of Kal-Arath. I could see potential with the character, Paimon, before his demise. I decided on a mystic using the Pact of Corruption and rolled Korbal up (See Malazan Book of the Fallen for the character inspiration). His background and pact with a Demon came when he was a child. The short version is that he was left with the dead corpses of his family when a cave in killed everyone else. He lived on water trickling into the the small space and ate insects. He started speaking with the corpses of his grandparents. A demon called Lady Gorm made a pact with him to set him free and he has been doing her “good works” ever since.

As Korbal has been interacting with the world of Kal-Arath, I have really started to take a shine to him.

Kal-Arath is by Castle Grief.