SoT Book 6 Chapter 2 - The Endless Table!

SoT Masterpost

Hey folks!

From Tiny Fables by Josiah Moore

I'm really excited for this one. I love a good area crawl. This chapter is decent as written, but I think there's a lot that we can do to help organize it better and flesh certain aspects out.

So, in each section I'm going to start with what the book already includes (so I don't have to find those details in the middle of a 10 paragraph section), and then below that I'll add in some new changes of my own to help streamline things.

Let's jump in!

How The Table Works

The chapter starts with a long paragraph containing most of this info, but it's a bit hard to reference quickly, so I've collected the key points here.

• Time. "Days" pass quickly - "each hour... is only a minute or so in the wide world," so each "Day" is about a 1/2 hour in the real world.
• The expectation is that the PCs can engage in downtime activities while here.
• Distance. The "Table" 2 "miles" long, 1 "mile" wide. You cannot go more than 100 feet beyond this (there's air on one side, wall on one, and more table on the other two, but it's not part of the "Table").
• Horizon. The open doorway/windows of the Protea Pavilion, with light streaming through (the light doesn't change very much - it takes a few "days" to notice it change at all).
• Landmarks. The Potted Plant (C) is closest, implying that the PCs are somewhere around the Ink Jar. They can see all the other landmarks shown on the map.

Addition: Time Limit

I'm going to tentatively set a total limit of 12 days (6 real-world hours, or when Dusk Falls), after which the Egg will hatch early, the PCs will be thrust out of the Table, and Chapter 3 will be WAY harder. There are only 5 adventure locations, which is 2.5 days, so that gives the PCs 9.5 days to ask questions, do research, do downtime/crafting/transferring runes from Chapter 1, and make mistakes / fail and come back.

I personally think that's enough time, but if you want to be more generous, feel free to increase the time until dusk and therefore add 2 extra days in the table per additional hour until dusk. You might also decide that Hlakana can transfer runes for them so they don't have to spend all their time on downtime - maybe only after the party returns the Whiskers?

In game, this will be shown by 1. scarier Encounters (see "Wandering Encounters") and 2. the egg changing in some way. Maybe its shadow grows? Its aura of menace increases? It starts to subtly show cracks? I'll probably fudge this live.

Addition: Tracking Time

We are going to divide each "Day" into 3 Phases: Morning, Afternoon, and Night (Stolen from Mythic Bastionland). Note that the light doesn't actually change, but the PCs must sleep every 3rd Phase or become Fatigued.

Every Phase, roll for a Random Encounter (see below).

Travel Time. Each phase, PCs can spend substantial time at one location. Ignore the actual travel times, outside of the Ash Desert (use the times listed). You might decide that the PCs can more briefly interact with a couple of places.

For example, they might spend the morning going to the Drum, help build the viewing platform, and then go talk to the shadows, dance with them, and retrieve Koride's shadow. They might spend the afternoon doing a couple things, updating Hlakana on their progress, going to talk to the Beetle Merchants again and buying some things, and then briefly looking at the Gourd Fortress before returning to camp.

Other Table Landmarks

The book only details a subset of the total items available - this is very fair! Presumably, there's not much going on with the other items. However, I can imagine curious PCs wanting to interact with them - I recommend following their lead here for the most part, but here are a few ideas:

• The Inkwell can be used to scribe scrolls, or possibly transfer magical runes.
• The Skull would probably be a great place to hide! Or for the Ants to set up an ambush...
• The Potion is likely some kind of acid excreted from the Egg, and could be used as a hazard to trap attackers (or to trap the PCs...) or for research.
• The Various Papers might contain clues or other information about what's going on - remember, these were likely Koride's research into the Egg! - but doing so will take time (likely 1 Phase per Check), as they are effectively like a half mile wide. See "Research" below for more.

Goals & Factions

In order to really bring things to life, this section brings together both the goals that PCs might pursue as well as the goals of the other factions.

Party Objectives

The players have two main goals. The sub-bullets list clues to help them find them!

• Restore Koride's Shadow. The pieces are in D2 (her Emotional Core), E4 (her sense of Ambition), F4 (her erratic Curiosity), and G2 (her sense of Self-Importance).
• Hlakana (C1) tells the PCs that the shadow is in four pieces (to D2), each carried off by someone different: the shadow dancers, some beetle merchants (to E1, then E4), some ant soldiers (to F4), and a two-headed dragon (to G2).
• The Merchants (E1/*) know their shard was taken to E4 by the Cinder King, and know about the Linnorm in G2. They might also know that the Ants have multiple Shadows in E4.
• Adanyini (*) knows about the one in D2 and G2, having seen them come by first and then fled, terrified of the two-headed dragon.
• The Ant Queen (F4) knows the same information as Hlakana (her ants were the last to arrive but could see everything).
• Ant Soldiers (*) easily reveal that they have multiple shadows, even though they're not supposed to.
• Leave the Endless Table. All they have to do is touch the Vesicant Egg, which will crack it, unleashing the evil within before it is ready (and therefore while it's weak)!
• Hlakana (C1) and Tatterthread (G1) both know how this works.
• The Linnorm (G2) will gleefully boast that the PCs cannot even approach the egg without some profound twist of fate.
• PCs can do research by studying the books/scrolls around (see "Research" below).

There are also a number of supplementary goals that might help with the above:

• Retrieve Issa's Whiskers from Adanyini ("The Cat and the Clock") in return for a powerful treasure, and as a bargaining chip for Hlakana's help.
• Defeat Tatterthread (G1) on Hlakana's behalf, in exchange for her help with the Shadows.
• Defeat Uncle Cinder (E4) on the Beetle Merchant's behalf, as well as to get the shadow shred that he has.

Factions

There are several Factions, each with unique desires. This section is a mix of collecting info and adding some thoughts of my own.

• The Red Queen (F4) leads the ants that serves as the PCs main antagonists.
• She wants to collect the Shadows to impress (and hopefully wed) the King of Biting Ants).
• She is being influenced by with Tatterthread (G1).
• The PCs may be able to talk to her peacefully, but convincing her to give up the shadows peacefully would require learning about Tatterthread, revealing her duplicitous nature, and then successfully convincing her of a better option than pursuing the King of Biting Ants. (If they reveal Tatterthread's Duplicity, I'd let them Negotiate with starting Interest 1, Patience 3, standard DC 39.)
• The Calamity Beetles that work for her are just mercenaries. They are friendly towards the Beetle Merchants, and might be convinced to switch sides if informed of the how rude the Ants were to them, or that the PCs saved the Beetles from Uncle Cinder.
• Hlakana the Witch (C1) will trade her help in finding and reparing the PC's allies' shadows for Issa's Whiskers (see "The Cat and the Clock") and the PCs aid in defeating "Tatterthread."
• She is largely an ally and quest giver.
• She can show up to save the party if they really need, as long as they've been nice to her and are doing what she wants.
• Uncle Cinder (E4) is an elemental who has been terrorizing the Beetle Merchants from within the Ash Desert.
• He is being influenced by Koride's Ambition.
• He wants to destroy or subjugate the Beetle Merchants once and for all, and eventually expand to control the entire Table! (Inevitably putting him in conflict with the Red Queen.)
• What is his plan to conquer the beetles if the PCs don't help him by emptying the Watering Hole? It probably comes to fruition around Day 9.
• The Beetle Merchants (E1) have caravans to other dimensions, basically. 
• They just want to live and trade in peace.
• They can sell items up to Level 16.
• If you want, you can let the PCs potentially find a way out by slipping through dimensions with them, allowing them to warn the Magaambya of the impending threat before releasing it! Note that doing so will use up time much faster (since again, 1 "day" here = 1/2 hour in the real world).
• Tatterthread (G1) is Hlakana's dark reflection, the shadow she wove to evade the Vesicant Egg's control.
• She wants to prove herself the Archfey Magdh, and to undermine Hlakana (both to ensure that Tatterthread can replace her, and out of spite for her compassion).
• She is pulling the strings behind a lot of the chaos here, including setting Uncle Cinder after the Shadow, telling the Red Queen about the King of Biting Ants and convincing her to try to impress him, and setting the Clock after Adanyini.
• She will have more plots over the course of the 12 days. The details will likely vary based on the PCs actions, but here are some ideas:
• If the PCs don't trust Hlakana, she stokes that, and tries to win them to her side. If they do trust Hlakana, she writes them off and likely targets them.
• She might try to undermine the PCs relationships with others (say, the Beetle Merchants) by spreading lies and rumors about them.
• She might tip the Ants off that the PCs are working with "The Witch" and set them against the party.
• If the PCs avoid the desert for long enough, she might pull Uncle Cinder out of it, convincing him to attack Hlakana's hut (with potential fey reinforcements) to steal any shadow shreds the PCs have gathered.

Research

The PCs can spend 1 Phase per Check to Research various topics by trying to read through the massive papers and texts scattered across the table. (I would similarly let each Academic Research for the purposes of Branch Levels take 1 Phase per Check instead of 1 Day.)

I let them also increase their Branch Levels while doing this research, comparing their one Check to both DCs.

Base DC 32 + # Days for looking through papers (as the origami ants are made from these papers, making them harder to parse), or DC 35 for examining the Egg, Acid Vial, or similar. Pick Skills based on what they're doing, and adjust the DC down for good tactics or up for ones that are a stretch.

• 2 RP: The egg is in the middle of some kind of process, during which no one can get near it. (If the PCs try to approach it before learning this, they skip this result and get the next one instead.)
• 4 RP: The egg will hatch something overpoweringly evil, the King of Biting Ants' final weapon.
• 6 RP: Disrupting it early is the only chance of defeating it. Doing so requires a powerful twist of fate, which will also undo this whole magical setting. (If they already have Hlakana's golden beads, they know that this will suffice).
• 8 RP: Time works strangely here - the Egg will hatch at Dusk, which is 6 hours after the PCs entered the Table, which equates to 12 "days" within the Table.

Seeing the Egg. If the PCs interact with the egg and learn that they cannot approach it, they move up to 2 RP if they had fewer, or gain +1 RP if they already had 2+ RP (in addition to any from Research Checks).

Hlakana can also tell the PCs 2-6.

If the PCs specifically try to research how Time works, they can find the info listed under 8 RP with 3 RP looking into that question specifically.

Other Downtime Activities

Since this is the last chance the party will get for Downtime, I'd encourage you to be generous! The biggest thing I'm thinking of is reducing the time it takes to Retrain to 3 days rather than 1 week.

Wandering Encounters

The Cat and the Clock

The one listed wandering encounter is one with the kitten Adanyini, who stole the lioness Issa's whiskers (C1) and became a Slana, and the clock she was bothering before all this came to life and is attacking her!

• PCs can learn the Freedom or Atone ritual in E1 if they don't know them (to remove the Whiskers).
• The PCs can return the Whiskers to Issa (C1) for Hlakana the Norn's aid.

If the PCs actively seek out Adanyini, roll 1d20 each Phase they search. 1-5: Nothing. 6-10: They find The Clock. 11-15: They find The Clock chasing Adanyini. 16-20: They find Adanyini. If you want to let PCs make a Check to find them more effectively you can, in which case either give the Flat Check above Advantage (2d20 take the higher) or add 5 to the roll on a Success. If they split up and go in different directions, they each get to roll!

Random Encounter Table

Let's take that encounter, the Ant Patrols mentioned in a sidebar, and add some more to get a Random Encounter Table! Note: this applies for everywhere other than the Ash Desert, which has its own table.

Each Phase, roll 1d20 + # Days. So if it's Day 1, 1d20+1. If the PCs are resting or otherwise particularly quiet, roll with Disadvantage (2d20 take the lower). All encounters can repeat, though results 6-11 count as "No Encounter" if "The Cat and the Clock" has been resolved.

Only the Ants will try to disrupt the PCs if they sleep at Hlakanas.

• 5 or less. No Encounter.
• 6-7. The Clock (p28-29).
• 8-9. The Clock chasing Adanyini (p28-29).
• 10-11. Adanyini (p28-29).
• 12-13. Tatterthread, sneaking about to gather information. If the PCs attack her, she will escape and come back with her Ankou allies the next time this is rolled (G1).
• 14-15. Wandering Beetle Merchants. They have a limited stock, and can only sell Level 0 items or Crafting Materials of any level. If the PCs want more, they point them to the Merchant Camp (E1).
• 16-18. Signs of Ant Business (Roads of Rice, Origami Ants in defensive positions, or poorly made guard towers).
• 19-20. A line of 12 Red Ant Minions doing a Task.* Trivial 19.
• 21-22. A squad of Ants (1 Commander, 4 Red Guard Ants) doing a Task.* Low 19. 
• 23-24. 4 Red Guard Ants supervising 12 Minions doing a Task.* The Red Guard Ants don't know what they are doing, so progress is stalling... and they're not happy about it!  Moderate 19.
• 25 or more. Two squads (2 Commanders, 8 Red Guard Ants) come looking for the PCs, trying to capture them and bring them to the Red Queen! Unfortunately, the Commanders don't get along and bicker constantly, giving contradictory orders - can the PCs exploit this? Severe 19.

Adjusting for Group Size. For larger groups, add either 2 Red Guard Ants or 6 Red Ant Minions for each additional player. For Severe encounters, instead add 1.5x that many (3 Guards or 10 Minions). For smaller groups, do the opposite.

Natural 20s. If you want a bit more chaos, if you ever roll a Natural 20, roll again and combine the encounters! If you roll another Ant encounter, they have different orders, and neither are very smart or good at quickly adjusting, so they're likely to comedically get in each others way rather than coordinating.

Red Ant Tasks

Instead of giving encounters a defined task, I've left that vague so that GMs can pick something appropriate to the context at hand. That being said, I've also numbred them so you can roll 1d6 if you prefer to randomize their Task! Add 2 if there is no commander present, treating a 6+ as a 6.

1. Arrest any intruders!
2. Threaten or cajole intruders for information. Likely about the Shadow Shreds.
3. Bring some less rotting food back to the Gourd Fortress (F).
4. Construct a watch post or guard tower. They're not good at construction.
5. Create origami ants out of the massive books & pages.
6. Lay roads using grains of rice to connect landmarks to the Gourd Fortress (F).

There's also a sidebar that mentions Ant Patrols of 1 Commander + 4 Red Guard Ants, but we can do even better than that!

Ash Desert Encounters - On Foot

If traveling on foot, the Ash Desert has a smaller list of encounters than the rest of the Table. Roll 1d6 every Phase.

• 1. A squad of Ants (1 Commander, 4 Red Guard Ants) searching for Uncle Cinder, with a 3-in-6 chance of having 6 Minions along as grunts. Low-Moderate 19.
• 2. 12 Fire Mote Minions (see "The Cinder King" below). Trivial 19. The second time this is rolled, use 4 Marmorras instead. The third time, use 2 Marmorras and 12 Fire Mote Minions, bringing the encounter to Low 19.
• 3-4. Heat Wave. DC 42 Fortitude saves or become Fatigued. On a Critical Failure, also increase your Enfeebled condition by 1.
• 5-6. Fiery Rain. Since otherwise HP doesn't matter, a PC is Drained 1 on a Failure, or Drained 2 on a Critical Failure as the burning rain causes lasting injuries. If you are already Drained, increase your Drained condition by this amount.

Ash Desert Encounters - On a Sandsailer

If the PCs are flying through the desert, they are moving too quickly to be caught by ants or overwhelmed by heat. However, they will have to face the Fiery Rain every hour.

Instead of rolling a Reflex save for the sandsailer, one PC makes a Piloting Check against DC 42. Another PC can aid as normal. On a Failure, the vehicle is Broken and must be repaired or else fly at half speed. On a Critical Failure, or if the Fiery Rains fall while it is still Broken, the sandsailer is Destroyed.

It's up to you if you want to make PCs track hit points, have them be Drained as above, or just ignore damage to them. I personally recommend ignoring it to reduce rolls, but you could do Drain if you want some rolling and risk to them (there are plenty of ways to counter it at this level), but up to you! If you do have them track hit points, I would disallow Treating Wounds or Refocusing while flying due to the speed. Tracking Hit Points is likely to lead them to spending more time, or else spell slots and potions. It will also be a ton more rolling. Making them Drained will instead lead to them spending other resources that can remove that condition, and will likely leave them injured when they arrive.

Tracking Time. The PCs must spend 8 hours actually flying. Track other activities like healing or repairing in 10-minute chunks. For every 4 hours they spend cumulatively doing things other than flying, roll for On Foot Encounters on the table above (only roll once overnight). Remember, PCs can only be active for 16 hours a day before becoming Fatigued.

Quick Repair. A PC with Quick Repair rolls to repair as normal (DC 35), but on a Success they effectively don't have to track time spent. On a Failure, they repair the sailer but it counts as taking 10 minutes. If the PC is also a Master or Legendary with Crafting, they don't need to roll and simply succeed without spending any time, meaning that only a Critical Failure on the Piloting Check actually matters.

The Return Journey. The PCs can put out the Incense stick above the tower, removing the need for checks on the return journey!

Changing Encounters

There are a few things that I kind of want to change. The first because it feels thematically odd, the rest because I want to further test my Minion rules!

The Dancing Regent

It feels both a bit odd and quite sad to me that there is no way to avoid combat with Indulgence in D3. I think it's fine to have this be the default, but I'd give PCs a chance to intervene and follow their lead as to ways of resolving this peacefully. I'm going to do my best at a mini psycho-analysis of her here to help inform how Indulgence might react and what tactics might work!

Basically, I think Indulgence was captivated by this creature that was quite similar to them physically, but that clearly needed emotional support (I've decided that this shred is Koride's emotional core / sense of self). Indulgence loved the feeling of the Shadow being dependent on her, and being able to provide both a welcome distraction / sense of joy (in the dance) as well as a beautiful physical gift in the form of Indulgence's Wrap. However, she can see that Koride's shadow is still melancholy, overcome by her failures and hubris, and is working hard to hide her feelings of inadequacy at not being able to help the shadow more effectively. No wonder she lashes out when the PCs basically offer to do the same job but better!

A good tactic here is likely one that validates Indulgence's work and care so far, respects the dance and its power, and tries to keep Indulgence involved in the shadow's emotional recovery (either by having it return to dance with Indulgence every so often or having Indulgence join them in the hut every so often).

My party basically tricked Indulgence, by convincing her to let Koride join the dance and then sneaking her out with distractions and illusion magic!

The Cinder King: Combat

I have 5 players, so I'm adding in 6 Fire Mote Minions! You could also just do this anyway and make the fight closer to Severe if your group likes a challenge.

These have the stats of Marmorras, but +2 AC, 44 HP (Mook), their Flame Jet deals 10 damage (Group Attack), and they cannot cast spells solo, 3+ of them have to Group Cast. I removed all their spells other than Ignition and Fireball, removed "Igniting Assault," and removed "Fascination of Flame."

To help keep them alive, I gave them Burning Shield: "The first time this creature would be destroyed by damage less than its Max HP (such as on a Successful Strike or a Failed Save), it instead survives. This ability does not function against Cold Damage." This pairs with their revised "Absorb Flame" which just recharges their Burning Shield. Sorry for not making a stat block, I already did in Foundry and don't wannna do it again haha.

We're gonna see how this goes! Burning Shield is definitely weaker than Endless Swarm, but they can also stay at range better and Group Cast Spells which is neat. Again, this is mostly to test my Minion rules, you could either just use Marmoras or not do this.

The Cinder King: Negotiation!

My players got creative and made friends with Uncle Cinder! I ruled that they needed a Cleanse Affliction to get rid of the Shadow's influence on Uncle Cinder, and a Dispel Magic to get it to pull away from him completely (I probably would've allowed some sort of social check to calm him down to replace one of those, but probably not both).

I also decided in the moment that, before the shadow, Uncle Cinder wasn't trying to attack people... he was just trying to play!! But the Beetles got scared, he tried to chase them and accidentally set things on fire, and then the Shadow reached out to him and was like "I'll play with you..." before stoking his ambition to megalomaniacal levels.

I think this ended up really cute, and very in-keeping with the Fable vibe of this section! 10/10, would recommend.

Swarming Ants

You likely noticed that I put several Red Ant Minions in the random encounters above! In part this is to test my Minion rules, but I also think it fits thematically - if you're fighting an Ant Swarm, there should be, ya know, swarms of foes! I think you could use Swarms or Troops instead, but I prefer having tons of Minions because they bring the feeling of being surrounded.

If you want to introduce them in set encounters as well, you can replace 1 Red Guard Ant with 3 Red Ant Minions, or 1 Red Commander Ant with 6 Red Ant Minions. I'm doing this at Hlakana's house (because I like keeping Commanders solo), but probably leaving most of the rest alone.

The most important place to do this in my opinion is in Area F4 - the Queen's Fortress! For my party of 5, I replaced 3 of the Red Guard Ants with 12 Red Ant Minions. In addition, I plan to trigger "Endless Swarm" every round (other than #1), rather than just on rounds 2 and 3, meaning that every round after the 1st 6 more Ant Minions will join the fray to protect their queen! If you have a party of 4, I'd start with 6 Minions instead, and add somewhere between 3 and 6 every round (maybe even randomize it, 1d4+2).

You could honestly keep all the normal Red Guard Ants if you wanted and just add more Minions every round - it does feel nice that the Queen has a good number of defenders! - but the map is just so small that I was already wanting to cut down on the number of Size Large Ants already in the room, and would much rather expand the encounter area to be more dynamic than pack all those bodies in a small room. This also gives a chance for the Terotricus to get involved if the PCs didn't fight it already, though it will likely act as a hazard, mostly staying out of things and maybe even eating a random Minion that strays to near now and again.

... I think we did it? Long post, but worth it I think, I'm really excited to see how this plays out. I'll see you in a few weeks for the finale!! See you then!