Turn 3 Results
New
Magoose
SV's Questing Fanatic
- Location
- California USA
- Pronouns
- He
Turn 3 Results:
-[X]Assist Father: He is preparing for his own war. Preparing for one last fight that might come his own way. Rolled:D20 => 20
The Henry Repeating Rifle used a special type of ammunition that should be impossible to make for you or your father. The .44 Henry rimfire, on paper, or rather according to the many many notes of it from both marketing and from what your father could glean, could only be manufactured by the Americans thanks to special factories and tools that were across an ocean.
Your father and you, did not believe in such things, and thanks to having a few bullets on hand, how your father got them, you did not know, you managed to reverse engineer the ammunition.
That was simple. The measurement of powder, the bullet shape so that it conformed tothe rifle… even how to get the rim and the powder to fire… that was the easy part.
It began with dissection.
You cracked open the first bullet with careful hands, spilling its secrets onto the workbench. Powder composition, bullet weight, casing thickness.
The greatest challenge was the rimfire casing itself. The Americans had access to brass—thin, flexible, yet strong—rolled and stamped in precise machinery that did not exist here.
Your father, ever resourceful, ran his fingers over the thin metal, eyes narrowing. "Copper," he muttered. "We can work with that."
From old scrap, melted-down coins, and repurposed fittings, you began forging your own thin-walled copper casings. The process was crude:
It took days of trial and error—filing, annealing, testing, reforging—until at last, the casings began to resemble those in the American cartridges.
The next problem was ignition.
Rimfire ammunition relied on a strike-sensitive compound packed into the base of the cartridge's rim. The Americans had specialized chemicals that were all the rage in their marketing books—mercuric fulminate, potassium chlorate—but those were unknown and you didn't even know what those even were.
Your father turned instead to old alchemy that had been taught to him by his father. And his father before that.
Sulfur, charcoal, saltpeter—common ingredients, refined and experimented upon. Through trial and instinct, he managed a volatile mix that, when packed into the rim and struck sharply, sparked into flame.
It was not as reliable as factory-made primers. Some cases refused to fire. Some exploded outright. But through refinement, you found a balance—just enough pressure, just enough powder.
The lead itself was easy to source, but shaping it was another matter. The bullets had to be precisely molded, balanced for weight and aerodynamics.
Gunpowder was something you already knew how to make, but precision mattered now.
Too little, and the bullet would misfire or fail to cycle the rifle. Too much, and the barrel could rupture, killing the shooter.
You measured grain by grain, testing each charge against an iron plate, watching the spread of the burn, adjusting until you found the balance of power and safety.
And then, finally…
You packed each casing with powder, seated each bullet carefully, crimped the edges shut with crude but effective tools. The first batch was rough, imperfect, but when you placed the rounds in the Henry Repeating Rifle and stepped into the woods…
You pulled the lever. A round cycled into the chamber.
Click. BOOM.
The rifle bucked. The bullet slammed into the trunk of a distant tree, burying itself deep into the wood.
Success.
The next shot fired just as smoothly. And then another. And another.
It was crude. It was inefficient.
But it worked.
And now, there was no turning back.
You had your answer.
The rifle worked.
You turned to your father, watching him as he carefully inspected the weapon, his fingers tracing the iron and wood with an expression you could not fully place. And then, slowly, he smiled.
"This is not a weapon of a warrior who has trained all his life," he said, voice heavy with meaning. "This is the weapon of a man who will fight to survive against all odds. And if given the tools, the right mindset… he will."
The air between you felt final.
There was no turning back now.
In your mind, you believed one thing. In a few days… one or both of you… or all of you… would be dead.
Or you would be starting something new.
Reward:
-[X]The Sisters You Love: Miriko and Makoto are both too young to really travel, but you want to show them some of the wonderful places. Rolled:D20 => 8
It was a wonder that they could understand you at all.
The two of them—small, fragile, yet fiercely determined—crawled and toddled toward you, their wide eyes filled with unspoken questions. They knew something was wrong. They could feel it, even if they lacked the words to ask what it was.
But that was the problem.
You didn't want them to be the only thing anchoring you to the present, the only distraction keeping the weight of impending dread at bay. You wanted—needed—to believe that the fear was just in your mind. That, for a moment, you could step away from the storm on the horizon.
That, of course, was impossible.
Still, you gathered them close. You carried them in your arms, their tiny fingers curling into your clothes, or else you led them by the hand, guiding their unsteady steps down to the lake's edge.
Here, the world felt different. The water rippled gently beneath the golden light of the setting sun. Fishermen cast their nets from narrow boats, their voices rising in laughter over the lapping waves. The air smelled of damp wood and fresh fish, of reeds swaying in the breeze.
For just a moment, you let yourself breathe.
You wanted them to see the world as you saw it—not as something cruel and indifferent, not as something destined for ruin, but as something vast and filled with infinite possibilities.
You wanted them to believe in that world.
Even if, in the depths of your heart, you knew that same world would soon be crushed beneath forces far beyond their control.
Reward: You have one last moment of peace, before it all falls apart. And you receive inspiration.
+2 to one random roll in the adventure.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-[X]Spend Time with Mother: She looked like she was ready. For what you do not know. Rolled:D20 => 6
A Death Poem—that was what your mother was writing. A final reflection. A quiet farewell.
She was ready to die.
Everything else—this house, the daily routines, the endless cycle of work—was secondary to her now. She still mended clothes, swept the floors, prepared meals, but these acts were no longer about living. They were obligations, motions she carried out because she must, not because she believed they would lead her anywhere beyond this moment.
She knew what kind of fight was coming. She understood, with absolute certainty, what it would bring.
And yet, she had not given up hope.
She still believed—you and your siblings would survive. Perhaps not unscathed, not unchanged, but you would go on. That was the hope she held onto, the faith that guided her hands as she worked beside you, as she prepared you, as she quietly ensured that when the day came, you would not be helpless.
But the truth was undeniable.
She had long given up on seeing the future she once dreamed of.
Her place was not there, in that distant tomorrow. She would never see what became of you. Never know if you found peace, if you endured, if you remembered her words and carried them forward.
That was her burden to bear.
And yours… was knowing that one day, you would read the words she left behind.
One day, you would stand among the echoes of her life and realize she had spent her last moments not mourning her fate, but ensuring you had the strength to carry on.
Reward: A people grow wise when a man plants a seed for a tree he will never see…
But in this case, it is not a man.
It is a mother, preparing her children for the inevitable tragedy—one she will not be there to witness.
All that will be left is each other.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-[X]Attempt to Forge a Preexisting Weapon: You want to attempt to make a weapon that you have never designed before.
--[X] Needle Rifle Rolled:D20 => 5
Recoil:D20 - 4 => -3
Accuracy:D20 - 4 => -3
Reliability:D20 - 4 => 9
The Needle Rifle—an advanced weapon in theory, yet a brutal reality check in practice.
You had approached this endeavor with the same energy, the same determination, that had driven you and your father when crafting the Henry rifle's ammunition. But this was different—you weren't just making bullets. You were trying to remake an entire firearm from scratch, with tools that were barely serviceable and materials that were little more than scrap.
And you had failed.
It started with the metal. The barrel, the heart of the rifle, had been the first major obstacle. You had scavenged what you could—iron and steel taken from broken tools, rusted farming equipment, and anything else that could be reforged. But this wasn't factory-made steel; it was impure, brittle, and uneven. Even after repeated forging, folding, and hammering, it warped in unpredictable ways. You could feel the imperfections when running your fingers down the barrel, no matter how much you tried to sand them down.
Then there was the rifling.
You had tried. You had tried so damn hard. You made crude rifling tools yourself—hand-cut spirals in rods of iron, makeshift guides to scrape grooves into the barrel's interior. But it was painstakingly slow, and worse, it was inconsistent. The grooves were shallow, uneven, twisting in ways that caused the bullet to tumble instead of spin. Without proper rifling, the rifle couldn't shoot straight. You had fired it at a plank of wood just ten paces away, and the bullet still missed.
It only got worse from there.
The wood for the stock was salvaged from discarded planks—splintered, weak, and unevenly dried. No matter how much you sanded it down, it never felt right. It cracked too easily, absorbed moisture unpredictably, and worst of all, it couldn't handle the force of firing. The recoil rattled the entire weapon like a brittle skeleton, and after just a few shots, the stock developed deep fractures.
The firing mechanism—the most complex part of the entire rifle—was another nightmare. You had studied the diagrams, tried to reverse-engineer the system piece by piece, but every attempt only led to more frustration. The needle mechanism itself was fragile, the ignition was unreliable. More often than not, it simply failed to fire.
And then, the final insult.
When you did manage to get it to fire, the result was almost comical. The bullet tumbled wildly, the force kicked back with such violence that your arms ached, and the shot itself was so unpredictable that it might as well have been a smooth bore musket rather than a rifle.
You had failed.
Not because you weren't skilled. Not because you hadn't tried hard enough.
But because you simply didn't have what you needed.
You sat there, staring at the crude, misshapen firearm in your hands, and felt the weight of exhaustion settle over you. It wasn't just the lack of materials, the poor tools, or the crude workshop you had built from whatever scraps you could find.
It was the worry.
The creeping, suffocating dread that gnawed at the edges of your mind. You were spending time on this—time you didn't have. The world was changing. Something was coming. Every failure, every wasted day, every setback only reminded you that you were running out of time.
And yet… there was one thing.
One small victory in the wreckage of your failure.
The bolt system.
The mechanism that allowed the shooter to chamber a round, send the bolt forward, and fire with a simple squeeze of the trigger. That part? That part worked.
It wasn't much.
But it was something.
Reward: Partial Success – Prototype Bolt Action Mechanism Unlocked
Though the attempt to recreate the Needle Rifle was a failure, you have gained valuable knowledge. The bolt system is functional, and with refinement, better tools, and higher-quality materials, you may yet turn this defeat into an advantage.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-[X]Analyze Foreign Firearms: Examine weapons brought by the Black Ships or acquired through other means. Learn the secrets of their design, mechanics, and improvements, possibly integrating new techniques into your own creations. (DC is 15) Rolled:D20 => 3
You couldn't do that. For it seems that the danger that father spoke of, had finally come to your doorstep.
It seems that the Emperor, and the Shogun… have heard about you and your father's success.
And now, they came.
Came to kill you, to save you… you did not know.
Failure.
------------------------------
Adventure 1 Begins: Death has Come.
-[X]Assist Father: He is preparing for his own war. Preparing for one last fight that might come his own way. Rolled:D20 => 20
The Henry Repeating Rifle used a special type of ammunition that should be impossible to make for you or your father. The .44 Henry rimfire, on paper, or rather according to the many many notes of it from both marketing and from what your father could glean, could only be manufactured by the Americans thanks to special factories and tools that were across an ocean.
Your father and you, did not believe in such things, and thanks to having a few bullets on hand, how your father got them, you did not know, you managed to reverse engineer the ammunition.
That was simple. The measurement of powder, the bullet shape so that it conformed tothe rifle… even how to get the rim and the powder to fire… that was the easy part.
It began with dissection.
You cracked open the first bullet with careful hands, spilling its secrets onto the workbench. Powder composition, bullet weight, casing thickness.
The greatest challenge was the rimfire casing itself. The Americans had access to brass—thin, flexible, yet strong—rolled and stamped in precise machinery that did not exist here.
Your father, ever resourceful, ran his fingers over the thin metal, eyes narrowing. "Copper," he muttered. "We can work with that."
From old scrap, melted-down coins, and repurposed fittings, you began forging your own thin-walled copper casings. The process was crude:
- Flatten the metal.
- Cut it into circles.
- Press and hammer it into shape over steel rods.
- File the edges to ensure they do not jam.
It took days of trial and error—filing, annealing, testing, reforging—until at last, the casings began to resemble those in the American cartridges.
The next problem was ignition.
Rimfire ammunition relied on a strike-sensitive compound packed into the base of the cartridge's rim. The Americans had specialized chemicals that were all the rage in their marketing books—mercuric fulminate, potassium chlorate—but those were unknown and you didn't even know what those even were.
Your father turned instead to old alchemy that had been taught to him by his father. And his father before that.
Sulfur, charcoal, saltpeter—common ingredients, refined and experimented upon. Through trial and instinct, he managed a volatile mix that, when packed into the rim and struck sharply, sparked into flame.
It was not as reliable as factory-made primers. Some cases refused to fire. Some exploded outright. But through refinement, you found a balance—just enough pressure, just enough powder.
The lead itself was easy to source, but shaping it was another matter. The bullets had to be precisely molded, balanced for weight and aerodynamics.
- A clay mold was carved from a split wooden block.
- Molten lead was poured in, cooling into rough slugs.
- Each bullet was hand-filed and polished.
Gunpowder was something you already knew how to make, but precision mattered now.
Too little, and the bullet would misfire or fail to cycle the rifle. Too much, and the barrel could rupture, killing the shooter.
You measured grain by grain, testing each charge against an iron plate, watching the spread of the burn, adjusting until you found the balance of power and safety.
And then, finally…
You packed each casing with powder, seated each bullet carefully, crimped the edges shut with crude but effective tools. The first batch was rough, imperfect, but when you placed the rounds in the Henry Repeating Rifle and stepped into the woods…
You pulled the lever. A round cycled into the chamber.
Click. BOOM.
The rifle bucked. The bullet slammed into the trunk of a distant tree, burying itself deep into the wood.
Success.
The next shot fired just as smoothly. And then another. And another.
It was crude. It was inefficient.
But it worked.
And now, there was no turning back.
You had your answer.
The rifle worked.
You turned to your father, watching him as he carefully inspected the weapon, his fingers tracing the iron and wood with an expression you could not fully place. And then, slowly, he smiled.
"This is not a weapon of a warrior who has trained all his life," he said, voice heavy with meaning. "This is the weapon of a man who will fight to survive against all odds. And if given the tools, the right mindset… he will."
The air between you felt final.
There was no turning back now.
In your mind, you believed one thing. In a few days… one or both of you… or all of you… would be dead.
Or you would be starting something new.
Reward:
- 100 rounds of .44 Henry Rimfire ammunition crafted.
- Father will now have the means to make his final stand.
- You now face a choice: Take the rifle with you, or leave it behind.
- Firearm's Tale unlocked in the adventure.
-[X]The Sisters You Love: Miriko and Makoto are both too young to really travel, but you want to show them some of the wonderful places. Rolled:D20 => 8
It was a wonder that they could understand you at all.
The two of them—small, fragile, yet fiercely determined—crawled and toddled toward you, their wide eyes filled with unspoken questions. They knew something was wrong. They could feel it, even if they lacked the words to ask what it was.
But that was the problem.
You didn't want them to be the only thing anchoring you to the present, the only distraction keeping the weight of impending dread at bay. You wanted—needed—to believe that the fear was just in your mind. That, for a moment, you could step away from the storm on the horizon.
That, of course, was impossible.
Still, you gathered them close. You carried them in your arms, their tiny fingers curling into your clothes, or else you led them by the hand, guiding their unsteady steps down to the lake's edge.
Here, the world felt different. The water rippled gently beneath the golden light of the setting sun. Fishermen cast their nets from narrow boats, their voices rising in laughter over the lapping waves. The air smelled of damp wood and fresh fish, of reeds swaying in the breeze.
For just a moment, you let yourself breathe.
You wanted them to see the world as you saw it—not as something cruel and indifferent, not as something destined for ruin, but as something vast and filled with infinite possibilities.
You wanted them to believe in that world.
Even if, in the depths of your heart, you knew that same world would soon be crushed beneath forces far beyond their control.
Reward: You have one last moment of peace, before it all falls apart. And you receive inspiration.
+2 to one random roll in the adventure.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-[X]Spend Time with Mother: She looked like she was ready. For what you do not know. Rolled:D20 => 6
A Death Poem—that was what your mother was writing. A final reflection. A quiet farewell.
She was ready to die.
Everything else—this house, the daily routines, the endless cycle of work—was secondary to her now. She still mended clothes, swept the floors, prepared meals, but these acts were no longer about living. They were obligations, motions she carried out because she must, not because she believed they would lead her anywhere beyond this moment.
She knew what kind of fight was coming. She understood, with absolute certainty, what it would bring.
And yet, she had not given up hope.
She still believed—you and your siblings would survive. Perhaps not unscathed, not unchanged, but you would go on. That was the hope she held onto, the faith that guided her hands as she worked beside you, as she prepared you, as she quietly ensured that when the day came, you would not be helpless.
But the truth was undeniable.
She had long given up on seeing the future she once dreamed of.
Her place was not there, in that distant tomorrow. She would never see what became of you. Never know if you found peace, if you endured, if you remembered her words and carried them forward.
That was her burden to bear.
And yours… was knowing that one day, you would read the words she left behind.
One day, you would stand among the echoes of her life and realize she had spent her last moments not mourning her fate, but ensuring you had the strength to carry on.
Reward: A people grow wise when a man plants a seed for a tree he will never see…
But in this case, it is not a man.
It is a mother, preparing her children for the inevitable tragedy—one she will not be there to witness.
All that will be left is each other.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-[X]Attempt to Forge a Preexisting Weapon: You want to attempt to make a weapon that you have never designed before.
--[X] Needle Rifle Rolled:D20 => 5
Recoil:D20 - 4 => -3
Accuracy:D20 - 4 => -3
Reliability:D20 - 4 => 9
The Needle Rifle—an advanced weapon in theory, yet a brutal reality check in practice.
You had approached this endeavor with the same energy, the same determination, that had driven you and your father when crafting the Henry rifle's ammunition. But this was different—you weren't just making bullets. You were trying to remake an entire firearm from scratch, with tools that were barely serviceable and materials that were little more than scrap.
And you had failed.
It started with the metal. The barrel, the heart of the rifle, had been the first major obstacle. You had scavenged what you could—iron and steel taken from broken tools, rusted farming equipment, and anything else that could be reforged. But this wasn't factory-made steel; it was impure, brittle, and uneven. Even after repeated forging, folding, and hammering, it warped in unpredictable ways. You could feel the imperfections when running your fingers down the barrel, no matter how much you tried to sand them down.
Then there was the rifling.
You had tried. You had tried so damn hard. You made crude rifling tools yourself—hand-cut spirals in rods of iron, makeshift guides to scrape grooves into the barrel's interior. But it was painstakingly slow, and worse, it was inconsistent. The grooves were shallow, uneven, twisting in ways that caused the bullet to tumble instead of spin. Without proper rifling, the rifle couldn't shoot straight. You had fired it at a plank of wood just ten paces away, and the bullet still missed.
It only got worse from there.
The wood for the stock was salvaged from discarded planks—splintered, weak, and unevenly dried. No matter how much you sanded it down, it never felt right. It cracked too easily, absorbed moisture unpredictably, and worst of all, it couldn't handle the force of firing. The recoil rattled the entire weapon like a brittle skeleton, and after just a few shots, the stock developed deep fractures.
The firing mechanism—the most complex part of the entire rifle—was another nightmare. You had studied the diagrams, tried to reverse-engineer the system piece by piece, but every attempt only led to more frustration. The needle mechanism itself was fragile, the ignition was unreliable. More often than not, it simply failed to fire.
And then, the final insult.
When you did manage to get it to fire, the result was almost comical. The bullet tumbled wildly, the force kicked back with such violence that your arms ached, and the shot itself was so unpredictable that it might as well have been a smooth bore musket rather than a rifle.
You had failed.
Not because you weren't skilled. Not because you hadn't tried hard enough.
But because you simply didn't have what you needed.
You sat there, staring at the crude, misshapen firearm in your hands, and felt the weight of exhaustion settle over you. It wasn't just the lack of materials, the poor tools, or the crude workshop you had built from whatever scraps you could find.
It was the worry.
The creeping, suffocating dread that gnawed at the edges of your mind. You were spending time on this—time you didn't have. The world was changing. Something was coming. Every failure, every wasted day, every setback only reminded you that you were running out of time.
And yet… there was one thing.
One small victory in the wreckage of your failure.
The bolt system.
The mechanism that allowed the shooter to chamber a round, send the bolt forward, and fire with a simple squeeze of the trigger. That part? That part worked.
It wasn't much.
But it was something.
Reward: Partial Success – Prototype Bolt Action Mechanism Unlocked
Though the attempt to recreate the Needle Rifle was a failure, you have gained valuable knowledge. The bolt system is functional, and with refinement, better tools, and higher-quality materials, you may yet turn this defeat into an advantage.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-[X]Analyze Foreign Firearms: Examine weapons brought by the Black Ships or acquired through other means. Learn the secrets of their design, mechanics, and improvements, possibly integrating new techniques into your own creations. (DC is 15) Rolled:D20 => 3
You couldn't do that. For it seems that the danger that father spoke of, had finally come to your doorstep.
It seems that the Emperor, and the Shogun… have heard about you and your father's success.
And now, they came.
Came to kill you, to save you… you did not know.
Failure.
------------------------------
Adventure 1 Begins: Death has Come.
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