While Zag and Beetle describe the challenge ahead of them, Vazo'yn casts his intent gaze over the designated patches in the rice field. He is no farmer, but perhaps he had been in a former life. He quietly hopes such a memories comes to the fore.
He turns to Berk with a small smile, raising his eyebrows questioningly. "Join me in our harvest endeavour?" he asks.
"Of course!" Berk says cheerily to Vazo'yn, "while the tortoises were new, I actually have some experience with gardening! Would you like to cut or collect?"
Riven pauses atop Doc’s massive shell. With a quiet sigh, he kneels and begins unfastening his boots. He peels them off first, then neatly rolls his stockings down, tucking inside his boots where they will hopefully keep dry. Barefoot, he tests the texture of the tortoise’s shell with his toes, feeling the faint warmth of sun-baked scales beneath him.
Only then does he slide down from Doc’s side, landing in the shallow, silty water with barely a ripple. The cool mud squelches between his toes, but he doesn’t flinch, it’s just another kind of terrain.
Doc watches him with that same ancient, slow-moving thoughtfulness, releasing a low hrrrmph, as if quietly approving of Riven’s sense to meet the land on its terms.
“You’ve got sense,” Riven murmurs softly, resting one hand against Doc’s scaled flank for a brief farewell.
Riven catches the tossed medal without even glancing, fingers closing around the warm, worn curve of shell. He gives it the barest glance, then tucks it into his belt.
By the time Zag is explaining the rice harvesting challenge, Riven is already rolling up his sleeves, eyes scanning the paddies, mapping lines of movement, measuring the task like a scout studying a battlefield.
When he spots Randa lingering without a partner, he wades through the muck toward her, quiet and sure.
“You need a cutter?”he asks.
He selects a sickle from the offered box with that same smooth precision, testing the balance, tracing a thumb along its spine.
“Let’s get it done,” he adds, eyes narrowing slightly as he studies the paddy rows ahead. “I don’t lose track of my blade. You don’t lose track of the bundles.”
Then he shifts his footing in the muck, bare feet anchoring, ready for the call to begin.
As Riven and Randa partner up, two more partners wander over. A pair of drow siblings squabbling as they approach, going as far as taking not-entirely-playful shots at each other in their broad-brimmed straw hats, and a pair of orcs, a monolithic mother and youthful son. The son looks at the ground with downcast eyes as the mother bellows at Beetle and Zag, "Room for one more group? Caught my son stealing an apple pie from one of the bakers. We are going to work in penance." The son looks up at her and sheepishly says "You didn't do nothing wrong, ma. I don't want you to have to work for me."
He is immediately cowed by her firm, unyielding stare. "No, I did do wrong if you're stealing when we don't need to. I failed to teach you right and wrong. So we both will work and gods help you if you don't put your back into it." She takes her coat off and hangs it on the peg sticking out from the supporting beam of one of the docks. Her impressively wide back would have turned the muscle-bound drow from earlier green with envy. She stretches her arms and flares the wings of her back before grabbing a sickle and testing a swing with it.
Beetle smiles and Zag grumbles a bit more about how there still aren't as many participants as the other games before he hops up on his workstation with two blocks of wood in his hands. Irvan acknowledges Ylis when she calls out to him with an awkward nod and wave before he leans back on his hands to observe the group from a distance. His feet dangle from the edge of the dock and his messy hair make his expression difficult to read from this distance.
Teams:
Joy (cutter) and Ylis (gatherer)
Berk (cutter) and Vazo'yn (gatherer)
Riven (cutter) and Randa (gatherer)
Drow siblings
Orc mother and son
Zag prepares his wooden blocks. "Okay! Ready, set, GO!" and then claps the blocks together hard, cracking the air like the sound of thunder.
DM: This challenge is not an easy one to do with PBP, so I am mostly keeping it the same, with a small change. I will need the Cuttersto make a single Athletics Check, DC 11. Success or failure influences time spent only. After this, the Gathererswill make four Sleight of Hand Checks, DC 11. A failure here, will influence time AND the first three of those Checks will cause their partner to have to roll their corresponding Athletics Check to be rolled at Disadvantage, as their clumsiness causes the Cutter to slow to avoid slicing them open while they work. If no one fails, there should be a total of four Athletics and four Sleight of Hand checks. I will count these up with successes counted as 1 point and failures as 0 points. Whomever has the most points at the end is the fastest team. I'll break ties by comparing how well you beat the DC.
To summarize: Cuttersmake oneroll, Gatherersmake four, then the Cutterswill make their last three, rolling with disadvantage whenever the gatherer fails their Check.
As soon as the crack of Zag’s blocks echoes across the paddy, Joy’s expression sharpens from warm attentiveness to radiant focus. She draws a breath, calm and centering, and steps forward with purpose. Her grip on the sickle is sure, but not tense. In a fluid motion, she sweeps the sickle through the first cluster of stalks. Her movement is clean, practiced, and strong.
“No worries, I’ve got this bit,” Joy says gently, her tone warm and reassuring, never scolding. Her blade flashes through another cluster of stalks with smooth precision. “You’re doing great. Just breathe and catch back up—I’ll keep the rhythm steady.” Even as she moves with focused efficiency, there’s a subtle adjustment to her pace—still fast, still sharp, but now just slow enough to let Ylis recover her footing. Joy’s eyes flicker to her friend for a heartbeat, soft with trust.
As the sharp crack of Zag’s wooden blocks echoes across the paddies, Riven is already moving.
The sickle flashes out in a smooth, arcing motion, close to the ground, just above the muck, slicing through the bundled stalks of rice, favoring speed over brute strength.
One row at a time, a rhythm begins: step, sweep, draw; step, sweep, draw.
Athletics check [Heroic Inspiration] (15,19)-1=18
But soon the flaw shows itself.
The sickle’s edge doesn’t always cut cleanly. Some stalks bend rather than sever, forcing Randa to give sharp tugs to free them. The next bundle, half attached, half loose, pulls awkwardly through her arms, scattering grains and snapping stems.
Riven adjusts, angles the blade differently, draws it back slower, more controlled, but it only seems to make things worse, hesitations creeping into his cuts, bunches uneven and tangled. The smooth flow of teamwork starts to falter, and frustration, his eyes.
Another pull. Another bundle half-tearing free. Randa loses her grip as she yanks harder, the stalks slipping through her fingers, sending a spray of muddy water up over both of them.
Riven stops.
He plants the butt of the sickle gently into the soft mud, gaze narrowing, not with anger at her, but at himself. The rhythm is broken, and with it comes clarity.
“This isn’t on you,” he says quietly, steady, the frustration bleeding out of his tone. His sharp features soften just slightly. “You’re doing well. It’s me that’s slowing us.”
There’s a flicker of a grin, “Apparently I’m better with steel in combat than steel in harvest.”
He glances toward the drow siblings squabbling even as they hack wildly, and then looks back to Randa.
Vazo'yn takes up a position in their field close enough to Berk to collect their harvest quickly. At first he is standing very close, but realises just in time that he might be cramping Berk's cutting swing, so takes a small step backwards to give the man ample room.
"By working together we will see our task done," he says encouragingly while trying to ignore the water seeping through his boots to dampen his feet. It will take more than that to dampen his determination.
As the sharp crack of Zag’s wooden blocks echoes across the paddies, Riven is already moving.
The sickle flashes out in a smooth, arcing motion, close to the ground, just above the muck, slicing through the bundled stalks of rice, favoring speed over brute strength.
One row at a time, a rhythm begins: step, sweep, draw; step, sweep, draw.
Athletics check [Heroic Inspiration] (15,19)-1=18
But soon the flaw shows itself.
The sickle’s edge doesn’t always cut cleanly. Some stalks bend rather than sever, forcing Randa to give sharp tugs to free them. The next bundle, half attached, half loose, pulls awkwardly through her arms, scattering grains and snapping stems.
Riven adjusts, angles the blade differently, draws it back slower, more controlled, but it only seems to make things worse, hesitations creeping into his cuts, bunches uneven and tangled. The smooth flow of teamwork starts to falter, and frustration, his eyes.
Another pull. Another bundle half-tearing free. Randa loses her grip as she yanks harder, the stalks slipping through her fingers, sending a spray of muddy water up over both of them.
Riven stops.
He plants the butt of the sickle gently into the soft mud, gaze narrowing, not with anger at her, but at himself. The rhythm is broken, and with it comes clarity.
“This isn’t on you,” he says quietly, steady, the frustration bleeding out of his tone. His sharp features soften just slightly. “You’re doing well. It’s me that’s slowing us.”
There’s a flicker of a grin, “Apparently I’m better with steel in combat than steel in harvest.”
He glances toward the drow siblings squabbling even as they hack wildly, and then looks back to Randa.
Ylis looks up with her mud smeared face, and laughs at herself and her friends. Everybody looks so ridiculous with their serious faces and mud all over.
She has to admit farming is a skill and profession that deserves respect.
"Welcome to the club Berk!" and flicks a ball of mud at him.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
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While Zag and Beetle describe the challenge ahead of them, Vazo'yn casts his intent gaze over the designated patches in the rice field. He is no farmer, but perhaps he had been in a former life. He quietly hopes such a memories comes to the fore.
He turns to Berk with a small smile, raising his eyebrows questioningly. "Join me in our harvest endeavour?" he asks.
"Of course!" Berk says cheerily to Vazo'yn, "while the tortoises were new, I actually have some experience with gardening! Would you like to cut or collect?"
"Ah," Vazo'yn says with some delight at hearing Berk is an experienced harvester.
"As you are the expert, I will take your lead. What would you prefer to do?"
"I will cut then!"
Sans partner Randa looks around for anyone else interested in being her gatherer....
Riven pauses atop Doc’s massive shell. With a quiet sigh, he kneels and begins unfastening his boots. He peels them off first, then neatly rolls his stockings down, tucking inside his boots where they will hopefully keep dry. Barefoot, he tests the texture of the tortoise’s shell with his toes, feeling the faint warmth of sun-baked scales beneath him.
Only then does he slide down from Doc’s side, landing in the shallow, silty water with barely a ripple. The cool mud squelches between his toes, but he doesn’t flinch, it’s just another kind of terrain.
Doc watches him with that same ancient, slow-moving thoughtfulness, releasing a low hrrrmph, as if quietly approving of Riven’s sense to meet the land on its terms.
“You’ve got sense,” Riven murmurs softly, resting one hand against Doc’s scaled flank for a brief farewell.
Riven catches the tossed medal without even glancing, fingers closing around the warm, worn curve of shell. He gives it the barest glance, then tucks it into his belt.
By the time Zag is explaining the rice harvesting challenge, Riven is already rolling up his sleeves, eyes scanning the paddies, mapping lines of movement, measuring the task like a scout studying a battlefield.
When he spots Randa lingering without a partner, he wades through the muck toward her, quiet and sure.
“You need a cutter?” he asks.
He selects a sickle from the offered box with that same smooth precision, testing the balance, tracing a thumb along its spine.
“Let’s get it done,” he adds, eyes narrowing slightly as he studies the paddy rows ahead. “I don’t lose track of my blade. You don’t lose track of the bundles.”
Then he shifts his footing in the muck, bare feet anchoring, ready for the call to begin.
As Riven and Randa partner up, two more partners wander over. A pair of drow siblings squabbling as they approach, going as far as taking not-entirely-playful shots at each other in their broad-brimmed straw hats, and a pair of orcs, a monolithic mother and youthful son. The son looks at the ground with downcast eyes as the mother bellows at Beetle and Zag, "Room for one more group? Caught my son stealing an apple pie from one of the bakers. We are going to work in penance." The son looks up at her and sheepishly says "You didn't do nothing wrong, ma. I don't want you to have to work for me."
He is immediately cowed by her firm, unyielding stare. "No, I did do wrong if you're stealing when we don't need to. I failed to teach you right and wrong. So we both will work and gods help you if you don't put your back into it." She takes her coat off and hangs it on the peg sticking out from the supporting beam of one of the docks. Her impressively wide back would have turned the muscle-bound drow from earlier green with envy. She stretches her arms and flares the wings of her back before grabbing a sickle and testing a swing with it.
Beetle smiles and Zag grumbles a bit more about how there still aren't as many participants as the other games before he hops up on his workstation with two blocks of wood in his hands. Irvan acknowledges Ylis when she calls out to him with an awkward nod and wave before he leans back on his hands to observe the group from a distance. His feet dangle from the edge of the dock and his messy hair make his expression difficult to read from this distance.
Teams:
Zag prepares his wooden blocks. "Okay! Ready, set, GO!" and then claps the blocks together hard, cracking the air like the sound of thunder.
DM: This challenge is not an easy one to do with PBP, so I am mostly keeping it the same, with a small change. I will need the Cutters to make a single Athletics Check, DC 11. Success or failure influences time spent only. After this, the Gatherers will make four Sleight of Hand Checks, DC 11. A failure here, will influence time AND the first three of those Checks will cause their partner to have to roll their corresponding Athletics Check to be rolled at Disadvantage, as their clumsiness causes the Cutter to slow to avoid slicing them open while they work. If no one fails, there should be a total of four Athletics and four Sleight of Hand checks. I will count these up with successes counted as 1 point and failures as 0 points. Whomever has the most points at the end is the fastest team. I'll break ties by comparing how well you beat the DC.
To summarize: Cutters make one roll, Gatherers make four, then the Cutters will make their last three, rolling with disadvantage whenever the gatherer fails their Check.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
As soon as the crack of Zag’s blocks echoes across the paddy, Joy’s expression sharpens from warm attentiveness to radiant focus. She draws a breath, calm and centering, and steps forward with purpose. Her grip on the sickle is sure, but not tense. In a fluid motion, she sweeps the sickle through the first cluster of stalks. Her movement is clean, practiced, and strong.
Athletics: 17
Up to her thighs in muck and water, Ylis does her best to keep up and gather the cuttings. She is glad that she doesn't have to do this for a living.
Sleight of Hand 20
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
DM: Gatherers make your 4 checks all at once or we will be doing this one challenge for weeks lol.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
EXTENDED SIGNATURE!
Doctor/Published Scholar/Science and Healthcare Advocate/Critter/Trekkie/Gandalf with a Glock
Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
Check out my life-changing
Ylis
Gather 2 21
Gather 3 6
Gather 4 11
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Inspiration roll 21
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Randa Gather Rolls-
9
8
5
4
“No worries, I’ve got this bit,” Joy says gently, her tone warm and reassuring, never scolding. Her blade flashes through another cluster of stalks with smooth precision. “You’re doing great. Just breathe and catch back up—I’ll keep the rhythm steady.” Even as she moves with focused efficiency, there’s a subtle adjustment to her pace—still fast, still sharp, but now just slow enough to let Ylis recover her footing. Joy’s eyes flicker to her friend for a heartbeat, soft with trust.
Athletics 2: 18
Athletics 3 w disadvantage: 9
Athletics 4: 18
As the sharp crack of Zag’s wooden blocks echoes across the paddies, Riven is already moving.
The sickle flashes out in a smooth, arcing motion, close to the ground, just above the muck, slicing through the bundled stalks of rice, favoring speed over brute strength.
One row at a time, a rhythm begins: step, sweep, draw; step, sweep, draw.
Athletics check [Heroic Inspiration] (15,19)-1=18
But soon the flaw shows itself.
The sickle’s edge doesn’t always cut cleanly. Some stalks bend rather than sever, forcing Randa to give sharp tugs to free them. The next bundle, half attached, half loose, pulls awkwardly through her arms, scattering grains and snapping stems.
Riven adjusts, angles the blade differently, draws it back slower, more controlled, but it only seems to make things worse, hesitations creeping into his cuts, bunches uneven and tangled. The smooth flow of teamwork starts to falter, and frustration, his eyes.
Another pull. Another bundle half-tearing free. Randa loses her grip as she yanks harder, the stalks slipping through her fingers, sending a spray of muddy water up over both of them.
Riven stops.
He plants the butt of the sickle gently into the soft mud, gaze narrowing, not with anger at her, but at himself. The rhythm is broken, and with it comes clarity.
“This isn’t on you,” he says quietly, steady, the frustration bleeding out of his tone. His sharp features soften just slightly. “You’re doing well. It’s me that’s slowing us.”
There’s a flicker of a grin, “Apparently I’m better with steel in combat than steel in harvest.”
He glances toward the drow siblings squabbling even as they hack wildly, and then looks back to Randa.
“We’ll find our pace. Together.”
Athletics check #2 [Disadvantage]=(1,16)-1=0
Athletics check #2 [Disadvantage]= (11,9)-1=8
Athletics check #2 [Disadvantage]= 4-1=3
Vazo'yn takes up a position in their field close enough to Berk to collect their harvest quickly. At first he is standing very close, but realises just in time that he might be cramping Berk's cutting swing, so takes a small step backwards to give the man ample room.
"By working together we will see our task done," he says encouragingly while trying to ignore the water seeping through his boots to dampen his feet. It will take more than that to dampen his determination.
Check 1: 18 (used Heroic Inspiration to reroll the Nat 1!)
Check 2: 13
Check 3: 22 (Nat 20)
Check 4: 12
Randa caught Rivens eyes as he grinned, " Oh.....some of it is certainly on me.", she chuckled.
" We mighty warriors just got our butts kicked by a water plant......time to turn in our weapons and become seamstresses....."
" Maybe cooks.......if we ever manage to actually harvest any of this we can try and make congee...."
Berk's summons his mage hand to help him get the perfect cut: Athletics: 8
But the hand gets in the way, messing with his work.
However, he sees how well Vazo'yn is gathering the cuts, so he dismisses his mage hand, and doubles down with his focus on cutting:
Athletics: 8
Athletics: 15
Athletics: 7
"Hmm, perhaps these shears need to be sharpened" Berk says.
Ylis looks up with her mud smeared face, and laughs at herself and her friends. Everybody looks so ridiculous with their serious faces and mud all over.
She has to admit farming is a skill and profession that deserves respect.
"Welcome to the club Berk!" and flicks a ball of mud at him.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale