#RPGaDay2024 Day 19 – Hologram

Day 19 of #RPGaDay2024. Let’s start another week. I continue posting about the alternative prompt challenge list by Skala Wyzwania. For more information on RPG a Day, see David Chapman’s Autocratik blog post for 2024.

The RPG challenge theme for today is Hologram. Rolling a 1d10 for the quest. The result is 8: Present an idea for a random encounter.

A female’s cry for help calls your attention. Away from the trail, she desperately shouts for help. You can also hear the barking of dogs. When you see her, you will find she is caught in a hunter’s pit trap. Two dogs circle the trap, barking and whimpering. She asks for help but cannot climb out, so she offers a pouch of coins as her only possession. If rescued, she tells the adventurers the dogs are hers and that she is afraid to continue her travels alone. Will you help her?

Whether as described above or in other circumstances, you run into a beautiful blond woman accompanied by two dogs out in the wild. The woman’s clothes are dirty and look ill-suited for overland travel, and her two dogs are large, vicious-looking mongrels. She says she is looking for her lost child and asks to travel with the party to camp somewhere safe away from the dangers of the Darkness.

She shares that her daughter is lost, and she is searching for her. Her husband, the girl’s father, is a wizard, and he has disappeared. Her child ran from the tower where they lived. She lacks magical powers but fears that the child somehow blames herself for the mishap or might be under the effect of a spell, and she needs to find her.

When she has gained a measure of confidence from the group, she will pull out a device that she explains holds an image of the child. She will ask if she can show it to them. If allowed, she will activate the device, and it glows. You can see a wounded and afraid young woman in a cone of blue light emanating from it.

If the adventurers stare into the image, the device will cast a Geas upon them. The spell will compel them to find the child and bring her to the woman’s tower. They instinctively know the tower’s location. If the group is ensorcelled, the woman will leave them to their quest and wander away into the night.

If some or all adventurers resist the Geas (see the OSE and D&D 5e descriptions in the links) and her rouse is revealed, she will fight them. She and her dogs are all Fleashmasters (described on Day 15 of RPGaDay 2024, Genetics) and will fight to try to defeat the group. Still, the Fleshmaster that has taken the form of a woman will not fight to the death and try to escape by all means necessary, as to return and report to its Aye Eye master (see day 17).

This post follows up on the previous encounter with the same creature but with a twist. I hope you like it. I still haven’t come up with a name for this world I’m creating with these posts. Do you have any suggestions?

It is never too late to join #RPGaDay2024. If you find a topic interesting, write about it, comment on it, or talk about it on your socials. The goal is to celebrate all the wonderful things tabletop role-playing games bring to our lives and the positive elements of the community. Don’t forget to tag your contribution with the hashtag and share it with us here, on social media, and in the #RPGaDay 2024 Facebook Group.