The PCs have been in Ponikla about a month. They’ve recovered from the wounds they were carrying when they arrived, they’ve tended to their gear, and they’ve decided that this is, at least for the foreseeable future, home.
As this is a West Marches game, the world map is unexplored outside their home hex. They know they’re on the south bank of the Pilica, but little else [there are, in fact, reasons they can’t just look at a topographical or highway map and go from there]. So the first order of business is reconnaissance.
They launch their first recon mission the morning after the village’s summer solstice celebrations. Magda, Ellis, Red, Leks, and Minka set out on foot to explore to the southeast. The terrain here is gentle, mostly forested with occasional cleared patches where small family farms were hacked out of the woods. They’re abandoned now, mostly in ruins.
Late in the morning, they come upon something different: new ruins. It’s another small cottage, this one with a now-empty sheep pen next to its sprawling vegetable garden. The fire that claimed it must have been recent – the smell of smoke still hangs in the air. The PCs recover a few items (hand tools, a spinning wheel, some spun and hand-dyed yarn) from the ruins. Leks finds tracks where three people and about a dozen sheep headed south. Figuring those folks can’t have gotten too far, the team follows them.
The tracks lead them through an otherwise-trackless forest to a ruined village. This place appears to have been the scene of some heavy fighting a couple of years ago, with most of its buildings burned or toppled. But at the western side of this forest clearing is a light industrial structure, apparently intact, with a small flock of sheep grazing amidst a plum orchard.
Meeting the Neighbors
The PCs approach cautiously, with Magda and Ellis on point and trying to appear non-threatening. They’re met by a very cautious one-armed man in his twenties who’s carrying a submachine gun. He’s wearing local civilian attire but his Polish, Ellis notes, has a distinct Russian accent. He’s being backed up by a woman about his age with a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun. They’re initially suspicious but quickly warm to the power of Ellis’ persuasive tongue.
The squatters are Miroslav and Kaja (and Kaja’s mother, Marika). They’re rather nonspecific about their prewar history – especially Miroslav – but they’ve been staying out of the way of, well, everyone in the family cottage. That is, until Marika’s cat triggered a cooking accident that burned the place down. They knew the village was here, so they salvaged their remaining belongings and brought the flock here for shelter. Miroslav wants to rebuild eventually, but this is “home” for now.
(Miroslav and Kaja also mention that they heard what sounded like a windstorm the previous night. There was a great howling noise and rush of air north of their location. This croggles the PCs a bit because the weather has been clear to partly cloudy – certainly no storms in Ponikla, less than 10km away…)
The PCs confer. The trio apparently has some skill if they’re surviving out here on their own, and the sheep would be a welcome addition to Ponikla’s herds. Recruitment is easy enough. The NPCs gather their things and prepare to return to Ponikla with the PCs.
While Ellis and Doc are making the recruiting pitch, Minka and Magda check out the building in which the NPCs are sheltering. It’s a small cannery! Judging from the boxes of pre-printed labels, this village’s main business was plum preserves. The machinery looks like it’s still usable if someone could restore power, and there’s a good stock of empty jars. It would be a bit of a commute but when harvest season comes, Ponikla could use this place…
Starter Gunfight
The PCs, now with NPCs and sheep in tow, retrace their steps. They’re a bit croggled when they cross a dirt road that none of them remember from their trip into the village. About a hundred meters away, they spot two vehicles: a burned-out BTR-60 sitting beside the road and an intact UAZ-469 parked in the middle of the road with its doors open.
There’s a small metallic click from behind the party, like the sound of a weapon coming off safe. Miroslav has, unasked, moved Kaja and Marika into cover and taken a position to cover the party’s back-trail. Ellis and Leks exchange a look – clearly, Miroslav has seen some shit, and there may be future questions about just where he went to school. But for now, there’s a more immediate issue. Leaving the NPCs and the sheep, the party moves up to investigate.
There’s a large dent in the UAZ-469’s front bumper and hood. Its doors are open and there are several large puddles and sprays of blood in the dirt and grass around it. Ellis reconstructs the scene: the vehicle hit something organic, the crew got out, and something tore their shit up. A few expended casings indicate that someone got off a burst from an AKM but there are no bodies. The vehicle does contain a few useful items; nothing earthshattering. It’s out of fuel, apparently having been left idling in place until it ran dry.
While the PCs are checking out the scene, they come under attack from a half-dozen armed men. There’s a brief (introductory) firefight in which the PCs drop three of the attackers and drive off the remaining three. Available intelligence is limited, but Ellis does note that all of the fallen are in piecemeal Soviet uniforms with the insignia of the 124th Motor Rifle Division. The PCs recover the usable personal gear and weapons (two SKSes and an AKM) and return to Ponikla.
This was an intro session with some exploration, a bit of NPC interaction, and some combat. I also threw in an initial indication that the world has gotten a little bit strange…