Fabula Ultima - The Romance of Ys - Session 10

24 Nov, 2025

The party return to Caer Ys to shop and resupply, but run into trouble when a bounty hunter show's-up, looking for Seren.

Episode 3, "Hunters X Horses: Showdown at the Stallion's Roost." Session 10

Cast

• Aurelia, she/her, Ex-Inventor Turned Spy
• Hemlocke, any, Loyal Servant Looking for Answers
• Mio, she/her, Headstrong Pugilist with a Heart of Gold
• Rhiannon the Blue, she/her, Academic Ghost Bride Looking for Answers¹
• Seren, she/her, Kindhearted Princess on the Run

Tree Talk

The session picks up with the party exploring the last part of the grove they discovered. A half-dozen trees grow up and through the remains of a castle or keep so ancient that only the barest bits of structure, including a dais, show under the forest overgrowth. The trees have face-like knots on their trunks, prompting Mio to attempt to converse with them. She succeeds, learning from the sleepy, slow-talking trees that they once, so long ago that they cannot fully remember, were people cursed by an enchantress. The party offered to uncurse them, and after some slow discussion, most of the trees declared they are "fine" with their current existence, though at least one seemed interested in being uncursed.

The party pick-up a jar of zenit buried under one of the trees over a hundred years ago, then leave for Caer Ys, the last stretch of that journey only briefly interrupted by the appearance of a sinkhole that Mio, Hemlocke, and Thistle were briefly caught in.

Return to Caer Ys

The party arrive back at Caer Ys in the evening, and immediately stop by Gay Abandonment to see if Gaynor, the proprietress, found an item to help with performing sending rituals. She provides Seren with an Uncustomary Clover, and the party pool their funds to purchase it. Rhiannon also looks at an estoc, Reach Exceeding, but doesn't have the funds to purchase it. The group also discusses visiting a library to research the fairy kingdom they plan to visit to see if that can clue them into a good gift.

The next stop after is a busy Leaky Johnson, the party arriving on a busy Saturday night. Mio steps-in to help Joan out and the party hang-out until the place closes and they can chat with Joan and Matty. Joan passes along gossip of Lod bandits attacking merchants to the south-east, and how that has the lesser kings of Cymru grumbling that Queen Gwenhwyfar can't protect them. Seren checks-in with Matty's progress learning to cast a heal spell, and with some additional pointers from the oracle Matty casts it successfully!

The party then have a rest scene, recovering for the first time since they battled they explored the sage's underhill tomb. Aurelia takes the time to source some IP, finding zenit as she does. Mio reflects on the news of Lod activity in the region. Seren tests her newly discovered telepathy on Thistle and discovers she can converse with the fairy hound. And Aurelia and Hemlocke make a magic collar for Thistle using the boar hides they collected last session; The collar allows Thistle to retract or deploy his armor at will, allowing him to remove the constraining protective gear when he isn't in a fight.

Manhunter Ilona

The evening is late when the party departs for Greenhome to finally catch some sleep. Just as they are about to enter, Hemlocke realizes she can't hear the mischeivous Hawthorne inside. The seneschal knocks and calls for his ward, but the only noise she picks-up through the door is the sound of a chair being moved aside, as if someone was getting-up from it. Worried, the group split-up and enter the house from three directions, converging on the first floor. There they find a Lod lizardwoman armed with a crossbow and her frost-coated boarling companion - It's Manhunter Ilona and Boarfrost!

Ilona wins initiative and conjures magic traps around the party to punish them for attacking, while Boarfrost attempts to run interference by taunting anyone who targets Ilona. Thanks to an an early study action from Rhiannon, though, they discover Ilona is weak to both Ice and Radiant damage, which the party capitalizes on. A lucky magic check from Seren also generates an opportunity, which she spends to have Ilona reveal her mission - she's been sent by Roric to capture Seren. The fight ends with none of the party surrendering, but Ilona spends an Ultima Point to allow her space to hop on Boarfrost and ride him out of the house, escaping to hunt another day.

The session ends with the party looking over the items Ilona left on the table - a maid costume, a couple niyonin ingredients, a pouch of zenit, and a rare romance novel. The group gains 8 XP, gaining a level in the process, and we skip Matty's Immram for time.

Referee Thoughts

I went into this session a bit less prepped than usual. This was a mix of me putting my prep time into updating Matty's Immram, making a conscious choice to prep smaller scenes, and just flat not feeling it as winter - and seasonal depression - rolled in and smothered me. I suspected I didn't need to, though, and for once I was able to accurately predict the pacing for the session. So, depression aside, a win all around!

I'm delighted by the party's reaction to the trees. They were a kind of tossed-off encounter, as I took my dungeon plans, cut one room, and changed another's hazard of people-grabbing plants to a chance to converse with enchanted trees. I also took the easy way out treasure-wise and stuck a jar of money in there, the treasure owed for last session. I expected the group to converse with them, but I honestly didn't anticipate they would discuss trying to uncurse the trees. Using the rulebook's guidance, we peg the difficulty level being 13, which is a pretty tough check. Knowing the Uncustomary Clover was waiting for them in Caer Ys, I nudged the group to return to the grove later.

I used the Leaky Johnson scenes to put a bow on Seren giving Matty some spellcasting exercises to practice and to seed an additional rumor related to Nova Sinfonia's plans. I previously used a cutscene to show Sir Roric, the knight in-charge of disrupting Cymru for Nova Sinfonia, using Lod sellswords to attack merchants, but it was a single bit of conversation that happened a few sessions back. Having an NPC the players like pass along the same rumors helped drive home this is a thing happening in the world that they can engage with, if they so choose.

Matty learning a healing spell adds an extra rule too our Immram minigame. During her trips, she can choose to spend 30 MP to heal 30 HP. This is costly as far as heal spells go, but makes it an easy choice in the context of the Immram's rules - essentially the party can choose to have Matty trade a single damaging instance of HP with an equivalent amount of MP. We're going to see how this feels in-play and tweak if it feels less than helpful or unfair.

The fight with Ilona and Boarfrost went great. I played with a couple different things with this conflict scene and they mostly worked. First, I sketched-out a trap spell for Ilona that I hoped would encourage players to use different actions by threatening to punish them with damage.²

The players opted to just tank the damage and status condition, but at least took a moment to weigh whether they should perform an objective to clear the trap instead. I think if the damage was a bit higher (maybe 20 or 25 instead of 15) or if Seren's planet oracle ability didn't let her readily cleanse a single status condition from the group it would have encouraged the party taking other actions.

The second thing I tried was changing the targeting die. Normally when I pick my targets I roll a die to see which player character or companion is attacked. With this fight, I tried to weigh that die such that Seren, as Ilona's contracted target, would get attacked more often. I gave her roughly a 3-in-8 chance to be attacked, and I probably should have increased that further because between Ilona spending actions deploying traps across the whole party and just dice rolls not going my way, Seren was only attacked by Ilona couple times. It was enough to put the princess into Crisis, though, so at least she felt threatened.

The session ended with an interesting question. I spent an Ultima Point to allow Ilona and Boarfrost to escape, and as I wrap-up narrating their flight Aurelia's player asks if she can spend a Fabula Point to edit the scene so they don't escape. In the moment, I ruled no, and reviewing the book I think I was right to do so. Two of the conditions for editing a scene are you can't contradict something established or usurp mechanical rules. In this instance, escape is a mechanic of Ultima Points and my spending a point establishes that it happens. I'm fine with this, and I think narratively the party are fine with Ilona escaping, but I think on another day, particularly one where we weren't up against a time-limit³, I might have allowed it.

#fabula ultima #rpg #the romance of ys #ttrpg