BETA SECTION: THE KURABANDA

This part of the module concerns the party's meeting and adventures with the Kurabanda, a tree-dwelling race living in the bachanda forests of Volturnus.

BETA SUBSECTION 1: THE SHARD GRASS PLAINS

The journey to the Kurabanda village will be made in three stages. The Ul-Mor will escort the party from The Place of True Warriors to the fertile area (oasis) on the south side of the Burning Lands. The party will be guided through the caverns beneath the Burning Lands, as well as through the Burning Lands, but they will have no encounters on this part of the journey, which will take 12 days.

The Ul-Mor will escort the party in the second stage of the journey from the oasis to the edge of the shard grass plains. The route goes seven hexes southeast from the oasis, then straight east for six hexes, then northeast for four hexes to the edge of the shard grass plains. This part of the journey will take eight and one-half days. During this part of the journey, normal random encounter checks should be made.

The third stage of the journey requires crossing the shard grass plains in the directions indicated by the Ul-Mor. The Ul-Mor will not accompany the party on this part of the journey, and the party will have to choose its own direction across the plain.

BETA SUBSECTION 2: RANDOM ENCOUNTERS

During the journey from the oasis to the shard grass plain, roll once each day and once each night for a random encounter. An encounter is indicated by a roll of 1 on 1d10. When an encounter is indicated, use the Random Encounter Table for the desert included in the module CRASH ON VOLTURNUS to determine the exact type of encounter.

BETA SUBSECTION 3: PLANNED ENCOUNTERS

The following are the planned encounters for the shard grass plains. Should your player characters take a completely different route or do something completely unexpected, use your own judgment to handle the situations that arise.

1.) INTO THE SHARD GRASS

Athru and his Ul-Mor have led you to the edge of a great plain covered with a strange-looking grass. Athru now tells you that he and his followers are needed elsewhere. He says that the Kurabanda can be found by travelling across the plain in an east-northeast direction. He wishes you luck and bids you farewell.

Player characters who question Athru about the Kurabanda will learn that the Kurabanda are an apparently intelligent race whom the Ul-Mor dislike. The Ul-Mor say that the Kurabanda are frivolous, wasteful, arrogant and ugly.

The shard grass grows to a height of 1-1.5 meters and has a glass-like sheath sround the main stalk. This sheath is razor sharp, and characters who attempt to walk through the shard grass will automatically take 1d10 points of damage for every day's travel (eight hours, or fraction thereof) that they spend

in it. The referee may decide that the characters take less damage if they carefully clear a trail or take precautions against getting cut. Characters who fall into or on the shard grass will take 1d10 points of damage immediately. Characters wearing skein suits will take half damage.

The shard grass is extremely dense. Movement through it even if party members use knives or improvised machetes to cut a path, is at the rate of one-half hex per day.

2.) A ROLLER PATH

Eventually the party will find a roller path in the shard grass. When they do, use the following encounter and begin by reading this description:

As you push aside and work through the next strands of the shard grass, you see a clearing before you. The shard grass has been completely flattened, as if by a huge weight. There are broken shards all over the ground, and a few stalks as well. This clearing is about 6 meters wide, and extends in two directions like a corridor through the shard grass.

Movement along a roller path is at the rate of three hexes per day. No damage is suffered for moving along such paths. Note that the map shows the general location of existing roller paths; the paths themselves are not perfectly straight; they in fact are several little paths that wander through the grass in the general direction shown on the map.

If the party travels along any roller path for more than half a day, they will encounter a small herd of 15 rollers (MV Fast; IM/RS 4/38; STA 300; ATT 80; DM 8d10; SA See below; SD See below). If a party member comes within 20 meters, the rollers will panic and stampede toward the party. Any character hit by a roller must make a Reaction Speed check. Success means that the character has avoided the attack; failure means that the character suffers normal damage.

If the party attempts to follow the rollers from a distance, they will move through the shard grass in random directions at a rate of one hex per day.

SA: Can expel shards as ranged weapon to defend hind- quarters (ATT 60; DM 1d10; Range 5/10/15/20/30)

SD: Immune to needlers; half damage from projectile weapons)

3.) A SPITTER HERD

One day after first encountering the rollers, the party will encounter a herd of 50 spitters (MV Medium; IM/RS 7/65; STA 120; ATT 20; DM 1d10; SA See below; SD None). The spitters are grazing in a large clearing. The ground of the clearing is covered with the acid used by spitters to dissolve the shards on shard grass. The spitters will graze peacefully and not attack unless one or more of the party comes within 10 meters or makes any loud or frightening noise. If the spitters attack, 10 will fight while the remainder attempt to run away through the shard grass.

SA: Spits acid (ATT 80; DM 2d10; Range 2/5/10/15/20)

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