B.T.V. -- Session 01 Epilogue: Acks in the Woods
The Adventures of
Five, or Six, Friends
Chapter One
Acks in the Woods
The six sons of the six families of the Noble Houses of Ensaruine had, as they did each month, gathered in a welcoming spot somewhere in the woods near their homes for a game of Acks. Molov, the Dzur, had brought his drinks chest, Lanric the Tiassa a table that cleverly folded to a size a single man could carry, Elduin the Chreotha six folding chairs he brought on a small wagon, Castien the Iorich lanterns to illuminate the scene, Ganamede the Lyorn smoked fish, buttered rolls and other snacks, and finally Ilimyar, the Hawk or Phoenix depending on interpretation, several sealed decks of cards for the game.
Each player had a small pile of vachs, purses of coins used for betting in the game which doubled at times as weights in case of a stiff breeze, though that was uncommon with thick trees all about them.
They were lifelong friends, born within 20 years or so of each other, and encouraged by their families to spend time together as children. Such methods were how the bucolic nature of Ensaruine was maintained. It had been Ilimyar’s ancestors who had first found the future site of the community and claimed it for their House. Since then, they had carefully chosen other houses to invite to settle the area as well, to contribute to the well-being of all the Houses represented there, including the Teckla who worked the fields and sewed and reaped the crops. As a game, several years ago the six had jokingly suggested what one word would best describe each of them.
They had settled on “languid” for Lanric, “wary” for Molov, “prepared” for Elduin, “obscure” for Ganamede, “nosy” for Castien and “lucky” for Ilimyar.
Lanric, a Tiassa, was a sensualist, always in pursuit of new pleasures, ever ready to make a suggestive remark. His family was the wealthiest of any in Ensaruine, since Orbfall had all but destroyed the manor house occupied by the Aloro Hawks along with its inventory of decanted items.
Elduin was the most high-strung of the group. He started at shadows and took no shame from putting his nervousness or even fear on display. But he was also a planner, and always seemed to have whatever was needed to deal with any small crisis likely to be encountered in idyllic Ensaruine. No one discussed his unfortunate facial hair, which he refused to acknowledge, but the others had agreed it must be a Chreothan trait, rather than an Eastern influence.
Castien, naturally enough for an Iorich, was inquisitive in nature, frequently eavesdropping on his father and uncle as they discussed events in the town so he always knew what was going on. He had eyes that in some lights could appear almost golden, like Ilimyar’s, but really were tawnier in hue.
Molov was the professional warrior of all of them. His family had been the last invited to settle in Ensaruine, selected to safeguard its riches, but already the most numerous. He alone wore the traditional Draegeran paldron on one shoulder. For a Dzur, he had a sense of caution, unusual for his house.
Finally, there was Ilimyar, the informal leader of the group. He never tried to exert his authority, even before his family lost much of its wealth in the Orbfall, but the others tended to look to him for approval of plans and proposals, for he was the rarest of the rare, a Draegeran born as a Phoenix flew overhead, making him a member of that House, not the Hawk. He was also perhaps the boldest of the group, by consensus through a lack of good judgement more than courage. He was also, as his one-word description implied, lucky, and he enjoyed regular success at the acks table.
That night, they were playing acks in the woods south of the Lyorn Manor, on the east side of what was commonly called the Ensaruine River, but which in truth was the Hawk River, though Ilimyar’s family chose to downplay that to maintain communal harmony. Nearby, on the edge of the woods, was a field of 'midnight stones', the hardy tuber that were transparent except for their stalks and, when cooked, turned a bright yellow. The temperature was reasonable, the song of the night insects pleasingly muted, and the drinks had been flowing freely, though mostly into Molov, as the others teased.
Ilimyar was showing off a golden arm 'brand' he had received earlier in the week, from a Tiefling with horns curving back from her forehead over the top of her bald head. She had been part of a travelling caravan. He had traded some of his blood and a sample of his hair for the work, which purportedly had some mystical property, at least according to the inksmith. He had not revealed the price he had paid to the others, fearing they would find him foolish, and acknowledging they might well be correct.
“Something about you, Phoenix, makes me want to help you,” she had told him. The actual creation of the metkain had somehow taken place without him realizing, so quickly was it done. Then she told him her name, Manuride Bix.
“The wagons, they will take me back to Targos,” she informed him before she left, seemingly inviting him to visit her there someday.
Ilimyar had gotten the metkain brand to mark his 210th birthday, which locally meant he had achieved his majority. He was the youngest of the six friends, and the last to do so.
Lanric confesses, “I don’t like those Tieflings. They have too many associations.”
“I don’t know, Lanric,” Ilimyar replies. “You have some very peculiar associations yourself.”
"At least", Lanric replies, "Ilimyar had not fallen prey to a Luren, a 'woman of the trees'", who had seduced the Tiassa over two nights. “I was helpless,” though his tone suggested he didn’t mind that.
They play a few more hands, and then Molov offers, “I was in the Nascenverik last night.”
The others frown. The Nascenverik is sacred ground, on the northern half of an island that sits in the middle of the river, connected to the west and east side by ackses, or bridges.
“It’s just trees and grass.” Lanric proclaims.
“And water.” Molov retorts. “How long does it take you to decide you’re screwed?”
Lanric, with 14 points in cards on the table, played a one, two short of the winning number of 17.
“I’ve got nothing,” Ganamede, next in turn, confesses.
“That’s too good for me,” observes Castien, himself stymied.
Elduin, meanwhile, is tapping a card he had only moments before purchased after Ilimyar offered it for auction. The Chreotha had had to match the vaches in the pot to do so, and had purchased a three. Unfortunately, Lanric’s play has foiled what could have been a sure win for Elduin, though he shows no bitterness at that.
Molov plays a two for a win, and the pot is claimed. The deal now falls to Ilimyar, who has been practising and adroitly shuffles the deck.
“Have you been practising?” Elduin inquires.
“Perhaps the Tiefling gave him new-found energy,” Lanric suggests.
When the cards are dealt, Ilimyar finds himself with a 17, an automatic winner, and a five. Everyone then puts one vach into the pot.
Molov, with a nine and a 16, passes. Then Ganamede tosses in the 20, a “blank” card,” and everyone has to put money into the pot again.
Castien plays the 19, 'The Breakers', and everyone repeats enriching the reward in the middle of the table.
“I think this is enough, unless we get cutthroat?” Elduin remarks.
Ilimyar, at Molov’s request, fetches him a brandy, and freshens the drinks in front of the others.
“Are you going to play a card or not?” Molov demands of Lanric, who, with a two and six, puts in the latter.
Elduin puts in a five for a total of 11.
“Well, this is awkward,” Ilimyar observes.
“What do you mean, Ilimyar?” Molov asks suspiciously. The Phoenix replies by tossing the 17 into the centre. “I thought I was going to beat you. Damn you and your unreadable niceness.”
Molov, at the prodding of the others, tells a story about why he had gone to the Nascenverik. The Dzur had followed an odd traveller there, and saw him perform an unusual rite there.
“The trees. They didn’t just glow for him. The trees, they bent to him, like servants. To be honest, I was….”
“You were afraid, Molov?” Lanric asks.
“The trees took a knee to this one.”
“And then?”
“He turned, only enough to see his face. It was unmarked.”
Elduin notes, “You said his skin was blue?”
“Only after he drank from the river. I assume he is of the Fey.”
“You should not go on your own,” Ganamede gently scolds Molov.
“I was following someone,” the Dzur defends himself. The Fey had journeyed to the most northern point on the island, and there had taken off his shirt.
“So it was just you and this man at the tip of Nascenverik?” Lanric asks, as always making that sound more than faintly scandalous.
Molov continues that the Fey performed a series of ritualistic ablutions.
“It’s all rather untoward,” Elduin judged.
“Deal the cards, would you?” Lanric demands.
“Do you want to hear what happened or not?” Molov replies. He had seen a series of markings on the Fey’s back. “This one, he drank of the river.”
That struck the others as meaningful. The river had a purple haze to it, and drinking straight from it was considered dangerous.
“Who does such a thing?” Ilimyar asks.
“Did he not perform a rite of purification?” Elduin inquires incredulously.
“I saw no rite of purification.”
“Can he be so foolish?”
Molov claims that, when the Fey drank, a golden glow around him took fire all over his body, or at least what the Dzur could see of it from the back. At a snide look from Lanric, Molov added, “He did not take off his pants.”
“I was looking forward to that part of the story,” Lanric confesses.
“It all sounds very foreign,” Ganamede condemns.
Molov takes a moment to declare, “Acks! I win again,” before continuing his story.
“The forest, it was alight, as if it welcomed this one. It was as though they welcomed him. I thought to take him from behind, to question him for the good of Ensaruine.”
Everyone glances at Lanric, but he shrugs off the line as too easy to make fun of.
“I was hoping, Ilimyar, it was you one of your jaunts,” Molov continues.
Ilimyar’s brother Hagen, a Wildswalker, had taken his younger sibling on occasional forays not far from Ensaruine. Ilimyar was known to sometimes make night-time jaunts of his own, usually rowing a bark canoe across the river from east to west, where he was on passable terms with several Teckla girls who much admired his golden hair and eyes.
Molov recounts he reported the incident to Count Vassar of the Iorich, and was willing to leave it at that.
However, Ilimyar has another idea, and announces he will go to Nascenverik to have a look. Molov is wary of doing so, but agrees to accompany him, while the others decide to go on their own ways.
Ilimyar and Molov hike to the small beach where the former keeps his canoe, and then paddle toward the island in the middle of the river in the dark. About halfway across, though, they are stopped by some invisible force that holds them not only back, but in place on the fast-flowing water. Attempting to manoeuvre around this obstacle they fall into the river, and while Molov pursues the canoe and, more importantly, his drinks chest, Ilimyar dives under the surface and swims below the wall of force, surfacing just a few feet from a rocky rise, which he clambers up. He wanders about, finds the door to a hidden tomb, is joined again by Molov, enters and descends into the ground.
There they find a statue that comes to life, Ilimyar offers himself as a sacrifice to keep it from attacking them, is visited by a vision of an ancient Veer who swears him to a life as a demon hunter, warning him the curtains separating Diaborough from the planes of the Fey are dangerously thin. In return, Ilimyar receives armour, a tall bow and an empty quiver that could hold at most five arrows.
They find another chamber, with 14 sets of mighty swords and shield upon the walls and six crypts on the floor.
Ilimyar convinces a reluctant Molov to take up one of the swords and a shield.
Then, departing the tomb, they both realize they must leave their homes to embark on their new quests, and do so secretly, so their families can’t stop them.
As they do so, they steal a jug of pickles from a farm to nourish themselves, then come upon a young woman with a stuck cart filled with fine old bottles of wine. Ilimyar, in a surprising moment of clarity, tells Molov that this is a trap, and when they look back, the cart and woman are gone. They follow the tracks of the cart’s wheel’s to a cottage, where they discover their friends Castien and Lanric trapped outdoors in an iron cage, who admit they were confined by the woman and her father after Lanric made some suggestive remarks taken as disrespectful.
The woman emerges and they converse, and she invites them all to breakfast. When she returns to the cottage, Ilimyar and Molov free their friends, and then are joined by Elduin, who has been either watching or cowering nearby, as they make good their escape.
Transcribed by R.Perry
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ACKS, is the Draegeran word for a crossing, a bridge or a way of overcoming a problem. The nature of this card game is one in which there will be a feeling that one might have won if not for the interference of one of the other five players. The game is an intersection of the various players' plans to reach the target number '17'. Seventeen is a number steeped in Draegeran culture as its most important count. Many other systems: of measuring distance, time and dates all use the number prominently. There are seventeen Noble Houses of Draegerans. Because of this importance, Acks has become the most popular card game for larger numbers of people. In the capital, Adrilankhans play the game professionally. There are evenings in card-houses when audiences will pay to watch the best of Acks players compete.
Object of the game: To be the player who, by playing his card, creates cards on the table that total 17.
Players: Six PCs or PCs & NPCs totalling 6.
Starting Play
Two cards are dealt to each player. If cards are not available 2d20 can be substituted.
Roll d20 for each player starting with player left of dealer
This continues around the six players, re-rolling any duplicate numbers
All players wind up with two numbers after rolling two unique results ('cards') i.e. no players will have the same number
Play begins from the left of the dealer
A coin(s) must be placed in the ‘Sume’ (Soo-May) before play of a hand commences. The value of each player’s contribution is agreed to by them before play. Alternative versions call for the Sume to increase by a set amount at the end of each hand. Other local variants, call for the Sume to be added to for mistakes in dealing etc.
Card Values
Cards from ‘1’ through ‘16’ all have this value and see it added to whatever cards are already on the table
‘17’ Card – automatically wins the hand regardless of the total on the table
‘18’ Card – subtracts the value of the last card played
‘19’ Card – requires the Sume to be added to by the original amount for any player wishing to remain in the game
’20’ Card -- requires the count to be re-set to ‘0’
If the last playable card played is any card ‘18’ or higher, the hand is ‘Nulled’ and the Sume remains unclaimed and is added to for the next hand. Players that have dropped out for whatever reason, cannot re-join until the Sume that has been leftover has been claimed. In this case, the reduced number of remaining players are dealt only one card from a shuffled deck and the card closest to, but not exceeding 17 wins the Sume.
In some regions, over the last ten years the ’18, ‘19’ & ‘20’ cards have begun to be called ‘Noble cards’. These are called the Viscount, Marquis & Consort. This has sprung up without any organization. It appears to just be something that appeals to Diaboroughans to honour those unfortunates who were slain during the events of Orbfall.
It is considered bad form, if not bad luck, to play any set of hands that isn't a multiple of seventeen.
There are decks and there are decks. Some will have greater value, having been embellished with illuminated panels of mithrili, stellari, aurelix and powdered gems. Others have been encanted or decanted and have more elaborate illustrations. Some designs are said to be animated.
Sample Acks Deck
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