After his visit with the King of the Foam and some days after time in the camp near the Oak Circle, Thom wakes up one morning with a chipper disposition.
"I'm off to town," he says to anyone that my or may not be listening.
Before he leaves the camp, Thom casts a few spells. He layers on first an Aura of Ennobled Presence, adding to it a robust layer of Doublet of Impenetrable Silk, after which he takes a moment to consider. Then another spell flows from his six fingers and voice and suddenly the face of Thom Myddleton is gone, replaced by the face of a dark-haired, bearded Englishman.
His preparations done, Thom takes a walk over to the town nearest the Oak Circle to see who might meet in the town.
The closest you get to a town within a day is Middleham some miles downriver. Upriver is sheep and woods, and other directions is more woods.
Middleham is not really a town, but the motte-and-bailey castle houses a church and a three or four craftsmen, which is a good step up from villages like Aysgarth.
As described at previous visits, the village is a constellation of three hamlets, two maybe two hundred paces apart on this side of the river, and a third, about midway between them on the far side. The reeve's house is the largest one, on the far side, and it could look like a small church too. There seems also to be a bakery and a smithy midway between the hamlets on the near side.
The peasants keep an assortment of animals and crops, with no big herds of anything in sight.
People are busy will all the usual chores. Tending the hens. Mending tools. Thatching a roof.
The only noteworthy feature, Thom can manage a Second Sight roll of 8+, can't he? ... is the two tiny sprites nibbling on a loaf of bread left in a window to cool. They aren't visible to the first sight.
Thom watches the tiny sprites nibbling on bread left in the window. [Second Sight: 8].
Over the course of the day, Thom will continue his surveillance, always tucking himself behind something rather than just being invisible in plain sight on the outside chance that someone here has the second sight themselves.
He works his way over to the area around the smithy to see what he can see. He's also keeping an eye open for the kinds of crops, herbs, and animals to see if he notices anything that might be missing from their little village, something he might remember from other places he's visited.
Thom is also looking for any indications of relationships that might be happening, either open ones, or the private little relationships among people that aren't always obvious. He's not seeking to exploit them, just understand this little neighboring village.
The villagers live the average peasant life, which is, of course, an alien concept to Thomas. The smithy and bakery lie unused, tidy, and clean. The activity is in the three hamlets.
Black smoke rises from beyond the upper hamlet. It proves to come from charcoal burning. A teenager is dozing under a tree nearby.
There really is nothing more to see with unobtrusive approaches.
There aren't any RAW rules to say how much, is there?
Roll Forest Lore + Perception stress, please.
At 18+ you find 1p source, 2p @21, 3p @24, 4p @30.
At less than 18, you find total/3 pawns rounded up (one off).
(Before you get you hopes up. expected yield is lower at repeated use in the same area, but we cross that bridge when we get there.)
I rolled a 0 for a total of 7. I'm unsure whether it's pertinent to roll for a possible botch.
For context on the use of Forest Lore, I think it's useful to read Guardians of the forest - Rhine Tribunal, because HoH:MC both expands that ability a bit and skips its context. P 30-32 explains how forest spirits work. On p. 32 specifically, there is this bit: "Produce Vis (1 point per pawn): All forests inhabited by a spirit produce a yearly harvest of vis, of a number of pawns up to the Might score. This vis usually comes in a variety of different sources; vegetative (such as bark, fruit, seeds, mushrooms, or leaves), animal (such as hides, bone, teeth, or feces), or is found in the forest’s earth or water. Most magi are usually only able to discover or harvest a small fraction of the available vis, if any at all."
I see this as the explanation behind the Forest Lore : you're not necessarily scavenging for a vis source that could otherwise be found but tapping random vis that would otherwise be lost / be taken by faeries and magic animals, and which varies from season to season, and which the forest spirit leads you to through signs here and there. In my home game, I tend to give out a flat pawn each season where the magi has access to the forest, of a technique or form which is random but weighted towards Herbam, Animal, Creo, Terram, Aquam and other types which make sense for the given forest spirit, with a very slim chance of finding a renewable source. I don't require a skill check but how you do it is up to you.
You should roll for a botch. A typical botch result may be insulting the forest spirit or poking a badger of virtue on the nose. Not that we are anticipating a particular result; the scope is a lot wider if I twist my brain.
What you say is not far off the reasoning behind the die roll. I like the random element for very occasional searches. If he returns often, it should probably approach the single pawn/season.
