Bare-headed in this case means living on the surface.
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So, is it just Sasha in the trees or are all the newcomers supposed to be around there somewhere?
I believe Thwip, Ranar, and Sasha are sitting in the shade and having second breakfast.
All you need is a little pipeweed and a halfling or two and youâd have a right old fellowship going.
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Yup.
Hayu should arrive shortly; I havenât worked out how Iâll introduce Eoin yet.
The dwarves will be their stunt doubles.
One of the better mechanics in It Came From the Late, Late, Late Show: as it was an RPG simulation of bad movies, whenever your character was about to be stomped by Godzilla or whatever you could call in your stunt double to take the damage for you. 
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A Thwip note for new⌠and maybe old⌠players:
Stuff between the double dashes is his inner monologue. --My arm really hurts and this tea is making me want to pee.â
Anglish is the one with the missing letters and e and i switiching, âTis is Kinny. Heâs mi ken. Kin?â
Arabic is the stuff that looks like someone trying to do a German accent but keeps slipping into French. âZiz iz zee best part off und story.â
Goblin is a mishmash of pidgen English with some Korean and Japanese tossed in. âMi penga issda. Mi applega issda. Ugn. Applepengayo.â
Strong Accent is one of his quirks. And Iâve gotten a better handle at writing them since weâve started but I still forget what I did previously for his language quirks so apologies if it gets confusing.
PS These are entirely based on my real world inability to do a half decent accent when I play an RPG.
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Tredroy is a city on the Cardiel/al-Haz/al-Wazif border, jointly ruled by all three nations (Tres Droits, three laws). Itâs where the campaign began.
Youâre currently about halfway between Tredroy and Hadaton, just north of the river.
It was really hard to not use Darwinâs terminology here.
To clarify for the dwarves:
Youâre seated on the western edge of a small grove (about 30m across) of trees. Thwip is indicating hoofbeats approaching from the east; youâd need to move through or around the grove to clearly see what they are.
Wotcha all doing?
Sasha is moving to a comfortable position and preparing to cast Terror with the expectation that heâll panic the horses, if that fails heâll then cast Blackout at the edge of the copse because charging into trees when you suddenly canât see will cause them far more problems than it will him.
Keep in mind that the functional range of most of your spells is only a few yards; you get -1 to skill per yard of distance. A staff can reduce this penalty by two, but Sasha doesnât have one. Even with the staff, most spells are short-ranged; you need effective skill of 11 or better to have less than a 50% chance of a fizzle.
Fireballs donât have this problem, because youâre casting at zero range to create the fireball, then tossing it at the target. They get the same range modifiers as an archer would.
Terror is an area spell, so the listed fatigue cost is for a one-hex area of effect. For double cost, you get that hex plus all the surrounding hexes; a 3 yard diameter sphere, in real terms, as a âhexâ is one yard across. Triple cost gets another ring of hexes for a 5 yard diameter, etc.
Unless theyâre standing stirrup-to-stirrup, getting all three horses will take a fairly large area.
While Iâm at it, to clarify how fireballs work:
On the first turn, you declare that youâre casting Fireball. Roll under skill and you immediately have a fireball in hand, of up to 3d6 damage potential.
Next turn, you either aim (same as you could with a bow), throw the fireball (same range modifiers as a bow), or enlarge the fireball by up to 3d again. You can only enlarge twice, so your maximum blast is 9d.
You can hold a Fireball ready in hand for as long as you like, but if you get hit thereâs a chance youâll drop it on yourself.
Okay, questions then
- how long until they reach us/the running person?
- are they converging on him, or are they going on each flank with the central rider running him down, or are they too far away to tell yet?
- If fear costs 1 point and I have it at 15 does that mean that I can cast it for free as long as itâs in a 1 hex area?
- whatâs the casting time for a spell?
- Shape Earth has a duration of 1 minute and has a move of 2. Can I use this to create pits in front of me to cause the horses to stumble? Can I do this quick enough to be useful at the last minute to take them by surprise?
The person is sprinting at 5yds/second; the horses are galloping at 10yds/second (the horsemen are not small men, and theyâre armoured; their horses are slowed by their burden. Unencumbered, theyâd be doing 18yds/second).
The runner will be on you in about fifteen seconds, the horsemen will get here at about the same time. Maybe a bit before, maybe a bit after.
Itâs a stern chase; all three horsemen are fairly close together.
Yup.
You can also get a fairly huge area for not much cost. The discount comes at the end, though; an eight-hex radius would cost 7 fatigue etc.
BTW: Terror wasnât quite the spell you wanted. Fear makes the target nervous, Panic makes them run away, Terror gives them lasting psychological damage.
Use Fear to aid intimidation, Panic to make enemies go away, and save Terror for interrogation or revenge.
Also consider that these Mind Control spells are mostly Resisted. You roll vs skill, the target rolls vs Will, and you have to succeed by more than they do for the spell to succeed. Long-range casting makes that harder to achieve.
BTW, once you get around to it, you could probably have Sashaâs prodd enchanted as a wand, for -1 to spellcasting range penalties. And range penalties for area spells are measured to the nearest edge of the area; if you cast a big spell, the centre of it can be quite some distance away.
Usually one second, but variable; itâs listed on your character sheet. The numbers in the âtimeâ column of your spell list are casting time above, duration below.
You can always get a +1 to skill by doubling casting time and using a big, conspicuous ritual. The cost discount is based on base skill, though; this wonât let you cast skill-14 spells at discounted cost.
If you were to make a pit underneath or in front of a slow-moving horse, it would have time to avoid the pit. Directly in front of a fast-moving horse and it canât avoid hitting it, although theyâd have a chance to jump over it. A barricade might be better than a pit; higher jump required.
Again, though, range is limited. By the time they get to within a few yards of the woods, theyâll likely have slowed to a trot.
Could he make a couple of channels say a foot wide and deep and 3 or 4 inches below the surface? Firm enough that a man could run across it but a horse (especially a heavily loaded one) would go through?
He wants to even the odds by taking out the horses as effective either by forcing the horses to stumble, possibly break a leg, hopefully throw a rider.
Making an underground cavity that lasts as long as the spell persists before immediately collapsing can be easily done on the fly. Doing one with lasting structural stability, especially finely calibrated pit-trap stability, would require a bit of time and a skill penalty, with the penalty reduced by skills like Traps or Engineering (mining).
Basically, the Shape Earth spell is designed to be a useful construction spell, which can be used for trap-building in some circumstances. But it doesnât let you casually entomb enemies at will; there are more expensive spells for that.
So, for the horse-trap, you could create an underground cavity, then have it collapse as you cancel the spell in order to make a sudden pit. Youâll have the same range issues as mentioned upthread, though; the pit needs to be within a few yards of the caster, and the horses are unlikely to enter the woods at a full gallop.
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BTW, a thought. If youâre planning on having the horse actually fall in the pit rather than just being deterred by it: horse fallen in pit = horse with broken legs = dead horse.
If youâre doing that anyway, why not just shoot or fireball the thing? Itâd be simpler.
OTOH, if youâre hoping for a peaceful resolution, killing their horses may not be the best way to start.
Waiting on input from Thwip and Ranar before moving on. Could I get a vague outline of your intentions? Talk, fight, threaten, all of the above?
Ranar is taking the âShoot first, axe and questions laterâ approach.
Using his shield as a pavise/brace, heâll take careful aim at one of the riders (if one looks like an apparent leader, heâll target that one, otherwise, the closest that he has a clear shot at). Fire once, then reload, aim, and fire again. After the second shot, heâll sling his crossbow, draw axe and pick up his shield, and prepare for whatever comes next.