Gustbran player and Third Eye Blue

[Sergi Diaz]

If you are a player in my campaign, stop reading now!

Having said that, I have a question to the rest of you :D.

I’m narrating the Sartar campaign these days. One of my players is a Gustbran redsmith and on the next session they’re going to visit Apple Lane.

One of the characters there is a Third Eye Blue smith and once he knowns what they can do I’m quite sure he’ll be very interested in him. Knowing the player I think he’ll try to learn something from him, but that’s supposed to be impossible, given their secretive sorcery users status. Of course, just saying no would be dull and boring, and this screams of adventure and roleplaying options, so I come here asking for advice on the situation and possible outcomes.

Something to keep in mind is that this player’s clan is allied with the dwarves, who are enemies of the Third Eye Blue people.

Thanks!

[Charles]

Someone, in game, could ask the hero whether they want to become an Emptied Soulless Sorcerer that is no longer an Orlanthi. That is the likely consequence of learning too much from Third Eye Blue. If the character breaks with the dwarves, that could be the first step to breaking with the clan. A character that has broken with their clan is quickly going to lose their Orlanthi magic unless they can find some other magical structure to support them.

[Joerg Baumgartner]

Too bad your character isn’t a worshipper of Orlanth – the young god who went and stole secrets from other deities to use for himself. Parts of the Sword Story (copies made, stolen, and retrieved) might work in addition to the Elementary Weapons myths, more so if you make the mythical connection between iron and separation/death.

Getting the 3EB cultist as a stand-in for Iron Mostali in some Vingkotling era combat myth also caters more to the fighter jocks than to the smith.

On the lowest mythical level, a contest of making the best tool for a task set by a third party, with the loser giving up some trade secret to the winner, might be way you might want to play this out. Now for the trick to make Dostopiku accept this challenge…

Unlike Charles, I don’t think that the secret learned necessarily will make the character sorcerous or apostate any more than an Elmali gaining a Sunspear from a Dara Happan via a quest challenge.

Being a crafter probably already gives the character a secondary association as in a crafters guild – basically a hero band sharing trade secrets. Most crafts are about what you do more than what you are, so there is a strong element of materialist magic already involved. Basically, hammering a piece of metal is a materialist process. It takes knowledge and experience to do it the right way, and if you maintain the correct procedure and conditions, you will receive the defined result. Sounds like sorcery to me.

If the character ever spent some time with one of the urban crafters, he is likely to have witnessed if not learned some trade magic. Some may be subsumed in Gustbran’s affinity, other parts won’t.

Stealing a minor secret or a work song probably is the crafter character’s equivalent of going on a cattle raid, meaning they do it all the time they think they can get away with it. I wouldn’t let obsessing with alien magic systems get in the way of this. You can still bite your player by applying the alien magic penalty to success rolls afterwards. Only if your player decides to “learn down” these penalties the character might slide the way Charles points out. If treated like a feat with inherent high difficulty like gained from questing or folk magic, nobody would complain.

Apart from fellow Gustbran (and possibly rare Humakt swordsmith) worshippers, no ordinary clan member is likely to notice, anyway. Smiths are bound to do alien things. That (and the fire hazard) is why they don’t work in the middle of the stead.

[Jeff Richard]

Unlikely friendships are always possible in stories! Perhaps your redsmith can impress poor lonely Piku. Perhaps he can even offer to apprentice himself to him. Perhaps Piku will set him a task – steal *something* from the dwarves so that Piku can make copies. Lots of chances for MGF goodness.

[Harald Smith]

Maybe Piku really wants to visit Jonstown and the Lhankor Mhy library, but too much work to do due to the season. By chance, your redsmith is in Apple Lane nosing around the smithy. Piku challenges him to see if he really has any skill. If the redsmith proves himself, Piku offers him a deal – he can teach him a special spell (perhaps an enchanting spell to make blades sharper or the like?) in exchange for the redsmith doing a week’s work for him (and always open to bargain up). The spell, naturally, will be more difficult to cast than Gustbran magic, and must be cast in a specific manner, but the clansfolk really like the specially enchanted tools/weapons/etc. [At least until a dwarf comes by and spots one of these enhanced tools.]

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