THE PRIEST-KINGS HAVE A TASK FOR YOU

This is seldom good news.

The Priest-Kings are distant, unknowable and possessed of both immense power and their own peculiar designs. When their purposes require the involvement of ordinary Goreans, questions are unlikely to be answered, explanations are unlikely to be forthcoming and refusal may not be a practical option.

This time, their purpose leads towards the Voltai Mountains.

What begins as a quest of considerable importance soon becomes entangled in a complicated kidnapping plot, an out-of-practice conjurer and a city famous for the deadliness of its tarns.

The situation is serious.

It may not remain dignified.

Gorean Adventures 07: In a Tarn’s Eye is an adventure for Tales of Gor: Gorean Roleplaying, carrying the player characters into the Voltai Mountains on a mission connected to the mysterious Priest-Kings.

The characters will require courage, ingenuity and an unusual tolerance for plans assembled from unreliable people and increasingly improbable circumstances.

They may also need to fly.

INTO THE VOLTAI MOUNTAINS

The Voltai Mountains rise above the lands of Gor, offering difficult terrain, isolated communities and dangers far removed from the familiar streets and intrigues of the great cities.

The characters are drawn there on a quest of importance to the Priest-Kings—but dealing with powers of such scale rarely means receiving a simple set of instructions and a generous travelling allowance.

The Priest-Kings have their own purposes.

The characters have been allowed to understand enough to play their part.

Whether that part includes knowing what is really happening remains to be seen.

The adventure features:

• A quest connected to the distant and mysterious Priest-Kings

• A journey into the Voltai Mountains

• A complicated kidnapping plot

• The necessary assistance of an out-of-practice conjurer

• A city notorious for its deadly tarns

• Danger in the skies above Gor

• Additional rules for aerial combat

• A situation in which peril may descend into farce

A COMPLICATED KIDNAPPING

Kidnapping should be straightforward.

Someone has been taken. Someone else wants them recovered. The characters locate the abductors, apply an appropriate degree of persuasion and return with the missing person.

Unfortunately, a plan involving Gorean politics, mountainous terrain and the purposes of the Priest-Kings was never likely to remain straightforward for long.

The characters must negotiate a plot with several moving parts, uncertain assistance and ample opportunity for misunderstanding. Each solution may reveal another problem, while every new participant brings their own abilities, motives and capacity to make the situation worse.

Success will require more than strength of arms.

The characters must gather information, judge whom they can trust and work out how the various parts of the scheme are supposed to fit together—preferably before somebody important falls from a great height.

THE CONJURER

A specialist is required.

Unfortunately, the available specialist is somewhat out of practice.

The conjurer possesses skills essential to the plan, but possessing a talent and being ready to use it under pressure are not necessarily the same thing. The characters may need to protect, persuade, encourage or simply endure their reluctant associate as the kidnapping plot gathers momentum.

A rusty professional is still a professional.

Usually.

The conjurer adds another unpredictable element to an already complicated undertaking. Treated properly, they may prove invaluable. Mishandled, rushed or placed under too much pressure, they may transform a dangerous situation into something considerably more memorable.

The heroes of Gor are accustomed to facing warriors, beasts and the hazards of the wilderness.

Managing a nervous conjurer may prove the greater challenge.

THE CITY OF DEADLY TARNS

The adventure leads to a city known for its dangerous tarns.

These enormous predatory birds are among the most impressive creatures of Gor, capable of carrying riders across great distances and turning the skies into another field of battle. In the right hands, a tarn is a swift mount, a symbol of status and a powerful military asset.

In the wrong hands, it is an airborne carnivore with claws, momentum and opinions.

The characters may find themselves fleeing through or above a city where the local tarns are notorious even by Gorean standards. Escape will require nerve, skill and an acceptance that the ground is no longer the only direction from which death may arrive.

Running away is normally simple.

Running away while airborne is an advanced technique.

AERIAL COMBAT

In a Tarn’s Eye includes additional rules for aerial combat, expanding the possibilities for battles fought upon tarnback and in the skies above Gor.

Aerial encounters introduce movement, altitude and the constant possibility of falling into situations that would otherwise be resolved with a conventional sword fight.

Use the additional rules to create:

• Chases between tarn riders

• Battles above cities, mountains and wilderness

• Attacks upon airborne travellers

• Desperate escapes from superior pursuers

• Encounters with hostile or uncontrolled tarns

• Military engagements involving Gorean aerial cavalry

• Further adventures built around flight and aerial danger

These rules can be used during the adventure and carried forwards into an ongoing campaign, giving Games Masters another arena in which to endanger their players.

The skies are no safer than the ground.

They merely provide farther to fall.

PERIL DESCENDS INTO FARCE

Not every dangerous adventure must maintain an expression of unwavering seriousness.

In a Tarn’s Eye combines real peril with the potential for events to collapse into farce. The characters are dealing with forces far beyond themselves, but the practical execution of the plan depends upon very fallible people attempting something exceptionally complicated.

Plans go wrong.

People misunderstand one another.

Specialists prove less reliable than advertised.

Tarns refuse to respect dramatic timing.

The Games Master can emphasise the danger, the absurdity or the collision between the two. Failure need not end the adventure when it can instead create a new complication, an unexpected chase or a desperate attempt to salvage the remains of a once perfectly reasonable plan.

The characters may save the day.

They may even look competent while doing so.

FOR TALES OF GOR

Gorean Adventures 07: In a Tarn’s Eye is designed for use with Tales of Gor: Gorean Roleplaying.

Use it as a standalone adventure, an episode within an existing campaign or the beginning of further journeys into the Voltai Mountains and the dangerous skies of Gor.

Additional adventures and setting material can be found in the Gor collection.

The Priest-Kings have set events in motion.

The conjurer is trying to remember how this works.

The tarns are becoming restless.

And the plan was complicated even before the characters became involved.