Parting Gift
Cold open 15 · Trill leaves Toh’Angalo by water, and Toto gives them the blowgun before the Shield and Coin go north
At a Glance
- Who’s in it
- Trill, playing their past self. The DM voices Toto. Nonne, Haxami and Marellius watch.
- When
- Some weeks after The Blowgun. The cargo is delivered and the Order has been paid. Second and last on Trill’s road to Onda.
- Where
- The ore-barge landing below Toh’Angalo. Trill is leaving by water for the coast and Onda. The Order of the Shield and Coin, Toto with them, are leaving by road for a town to the north where the gnolls have risen.
- Session
- Session 6, the spare — at a rest, after One More Thing opens the night
- Runs
- Three to five minutes
- Boxes
- Two, numbered below
- Rolls
- One — texture (Insight)
- Reveals
- Where Trill’s blowgun came from, and how Trill and the Order parted
The opening
The opening line
You’re leaving.
Read-aloud 1 — the landing
Toh’Angalo hums behind you, nine levels of forges ringing down the walls of the great shaft, and down here the light is lamplight even at noon. At the landing, the barge that will carry you toward the coast is taking on ore, and the bargeman has told you twice that he does not wait. Across the yard the Shield and Coin are loading mules for the road north, where a town has sent word that the gnolls have come down out of the hills. Toto sees you before you see him. He is carrying something long wrapped in oilcloth, and trying very hard to look as if he is not.
What happens
Beat one — the goodbye
Let Trill and Toto talk for a moment. He is going north with the Order; Trill is going to Onda. Roll Insight as he works up to it, then read box 2.
Read-aloud 2 — the gift
He unwraps it across both hands like something that might spill. It is the cane you cut for him in the Juhasa, when he asked you for the straightest piece you could find and you wondered what for, and it is still green. He has worked brass into it, thin veins along the grain gripping each joint like roots, a flared mouthpiece at one end and a ring at the other with his mark scratched small into it, and somehow one leaf is still growing from the middle. He does not make a speech; he only says the darts are your problem.
That is the end of it. Stop on the gift. The item is Toto’s Blowgun.
What’s rolled
One, on the sheet in front of them. No roll decides whether Trill gets the blowgun. They do.
| Who & what | DC | Success carries | Failure carries |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trill — Insight beat one, before the box |
DC 12 | Trill sees what the goodbye costs him. If it carries: a Dream Inspiration die. | Trill takes it as easy, and only on the barge works out that it was not. If it carries: 1d4 damage on waking, and a mark that never goes away. |
What it reveals
Where the blowgun came from. Toto made it from the cane Trill cut in the Juhasa and gave it to them the day they parted.
How Trill left the Order. On good terms, by water, toward Onda, while the Order went north to the gnolls.
Still open
Decide before you run it — none of these are invented here
Toto’s mark. What it looks like.
The town to the north, and whether Trill ever hears how it went.
New facts this page adds. Toh’Angalo has an ore-barge landing on water that reaches the coast; canon does not say. The Order goes north to a gnoll uprising. Both are Fluid until played.