Session 3 (August 14th, 2015)
Day 3 in New Sarnath (Predawn)
Successful delivery
The party returns to Drebin's place of business, carrying the still unconscious Javik. Inside they find a few people who weren't there before sitting in a corner talking quietly. Those people ignore the party, so the party does the same. No sight of Kira or Drebin though.
One of the bouncers leads the party into the storeroom behind the bar and the other takes the party's burden and walks down some stairs to the basement. Javik will surely have a pleasant rest of his life. The bouncer who remained knocks on the other door in the storeroom and a minute later Drebin comes out, buttoning his pants.
Presumably Kira was in the room with him. Braggor is not pleased by this development, but Drebin is pleased with the return of the traitor Javik and throws a pouch of gold to Thanus. The party has done well, so perhaps there is other business to discuss now.
Tense payments
Braggor interrupts Drebin at this point and says that business is not done and moves toward the door Drebin emerged from; Kira still owes a debt. Drebin intercepts him and tells him that the Hellfire Syndicate will get their money from her at a later time, a time that does not include waking her up in the middle of the night after a traumatic day.
About that... Braggor is unsympathetic and again moves toward the door and it is that this point that Drebin gives him a dangerous look and the one bouncer who had been idly watching the exchange gets a firm grasp of his greatclub. It can wait, Drebin insists.
Braggor is again unimpressed and politely tells Drebin to fuck himself as Braggor is getting what is owed to the party. Now. The bouncer stands up straight now, ready to start bashing heads. Drebin and Braggor stare each other down.
Eventually Drebin makes a decision. He pulls out another pouch and throws this one to Elmsworth; should cover what Kira owes them. Now Braggor can get the fuck out of his establishment and wait in the alley while he and the the rest of the party discuss business. Braggor got what he wanted in a roundabout way, so he agrees to the terms and walks out.
Back to business
With the Braggor gone, Drebin calms down and gets back to business. He explains that he may have some more work in the future if the party is interested, but in the mean time he can give them the name of a contact of his inside the barricade, a mid-level man named Marcus. If the party ever wants to make some extra money in a less than legal fashion, the contact can help them out.
That aside, Drebin already explained a bit about his information business. Drebin explains he knows of a way to the larger undercity of Doomed Sarnath, the the vast majority of it untouched. There is a lot of ground down there so the Hellfire Syndicate wouldn't be the only group he'd sold this particular entrance location to, but there is more than enough down there to go around.
Drebin is a business man of course so he can't give that information away for free, but as a thank you to the party for putting a quick end to this whole Javik affair he can definitely give it at a steeply discounted price. The party agrees and pays.
The party now has the location of their next dungeon crawl!
Business is concluded and Drebin tells the party they can stay in the front room for the rest of the night as it would definitely be safer than being outdoors at this time. He even lets Braggor come back inside. The party takes up his offer and finally rests after a rather grueling adventure day.
The party awakes sometime later and heads back to New Sarnath via the main gate they left from. They pay their taxes on the way in like good citizens and then they go their separate ways. Time for downtime!
During the next seven days
Thanus
Thanus spends some time selling off the loot and gives the University of Mt. Doyle their cut. The University is pleased by the large return of the first expedition. Beyond that, Thanus spends much of his time crafting.
Braggor
Braggor finally makes his introductions with a manager at the Miner's Guild and gets their blessing to open his forge (after paying several months guild dues in advance of course). He pays the start up costs for needed materials to get it up and running and in a couple weeks time he should be good to go.
He hires some of the squatters he threw out as laborers to get his shop up and running and some as guards too; he makes it clear that if anyone tries to steal from him he will break bones. They believe him.
"Elmsworth"
Evening Shadow Reflected On The Water temporarily sheds his Elmsworth identity and creates a new disguise, that of a scholar from the old Imperial capital of Nantes. Getting connected with the academic circles of New Sarnath could be useful in his mission.
He decides on passing himself off as a member of the University of Mt. Doyle as they are less likely to have the resources to actually investigate if he is who he says he is. He forges (poorly) a letter of introduction from the university's main branch and he heads in. The place looks much the same as when Thanus first arrived as that was only a few days before.
The opium addicted scholar sits at his window perch staring at nothing and both Thanus and Hadrian are away. Esrotw, now looking like a middle aged overweight scholar looks around for someone of importance to talk to, but seeing no one, settles for the addict.
The addict awakes from his reverie and approaches, smiling a rather dazed smile.
"Ah, a new scholar, one reflected in the evening shadows! We've been expecting another one. Do you have a letter?"
One bit there got Esrotw's attention, but he keeps his poker face. The man is clearly off his head on something and is just babbling some nonsense.
Seemingly unconcerned, the scholar takes the letter of introduction and reads it. As he does, Esrotw explains that he was pretty much sent here as a punishment as he got on the wrong side of a certain faculty head, but alas, he will make the best of it.
The addict takes him at his word and notes that the faculty head he mentioned must have been really mad, mad enough to misspell his own name even. Yay, single digit forgery checks! Luckily for Esrotw, the stoned scholar does not seem to draw the conclusion that all the obvious errors in the letter make it a forgery.
He finishes reading it and then hands it back to Esrotw; it's probably for the best if Hadrian doesn't see that letter, he explains. Hadrian tends to get bent out of shape about poor grammar and such. Anyway, welcome to the university, shadows on water (again that awfully specific babbling). Help yourself to a room.
Day 10 in New Sarnath
The party gets ready to go back to their adventuring business when they get a pleasant surprise. A letter and sizable quantity of gold are left at the University of Mt. Doyle, addressed to the Hellfire Syndicate; it is from Kira!
In her letter she explains she liquidated the assets for the Silverstriders, splitting it among herself and the families of the slain members. As promised, here is the party's cut for saving her life. After what had happened, Kira has decided to retire from the scavenging business but she has a house in town by the docks.
The party is free to stop by anytime if they need any information about the city or any of its scavenging crews. The party made a new ally!
End of session. Ding! Party is now level 5.
Thursday, August 27, 2015
3.2: A Change of Targets
Session 3 (August 14th, 2015)
Day 3 in New Sarnath (Midnight)
Making good first impressions
Braggor kicks open the door and without even waiting for the DM to describe what is on the other side he yells out a challenge, telling Drebin that the party is here for answers and he better have them or else.
Two large, very bored looking men with great clubs stop spinning them idly and turn to Braggor. They get up from the dusty bar stools. U wot m8?
Now realizing that the person he was addressing was not, in fact, in the room, Braggor politely asks to see Drebin, but the two large men just heard him blindly threaten their employer, so they feel the need to screen this call first.
Things seem tense, but the rest of the party interrupts Braggor and gives the ambush map to the bouncer and tells him that Drebin will definitely want to see that. Bouncer 1 walks around the bar and into a backroom while Bouncer 2 eyes the party, greatclub in hand. A few minutes later Bouncer 1 returns with a man wearing a once fine, but now beat up business suit. Clearly this must be Drebin.
Drebin pulls a couple of glasses from behind the dilapidated bar and pours drinks for himself and the party. He then asks who the hell they are and about the meaning of the map they showed him.
The other side of the story
The party starts to explain and as they do so they can see him putting the pieces together. He asks them if Kira put them up to this or if she just wanted him dead. The party tells him the truth. Drebin seems resigned, but definitely not surprised, as he begins to explain his side of the story.
He buys information about potential loot spots from explorers who find it safer to scout and sell their findings then try to clear places out themselves. Sometimes leads pan out, sometimes not, but he always vets his sellers and makes sure his buyers know if what they are buying is from a trusted source or not.
Drebin believes that one of his trusted sources has turned. He explains that he heard of a couple small scavenging groups disappearing lately after buying information from him, which is unusual but not unheard of.
It didn't occur to him that both groups that disappeared were using intel provided to Drebin by the same source. That source also sold him the lead the Silverstriders were following when they were ambushed. That same source also happened to inquire about the sell of that particular piece of information.
It appears that he and the Silverstriders were both screwed over by the same person, a slippery loner type by the name of Javik. The party finds Drebin's story believable and ask what happens now.
Drebin asks them to call Kira over to have a discussion and the party does; once she realizes that the party has "betrayed" her, she is quite violent, but Braggor holds the door shut as she tries to kick it down to do some killing herself and Drebin yells out his explanation.
Eventually she calms down and is willing to hear him out. She is let in, she hears the other side of the story, and now she is pissed again, but this time at Javik. He needs to die, both her and Drebin agree.
Would the party like to make some more gold? Of course they would.
Dead or alive, but preferably alive
Drebin knows that the man they are after is supposedly scouting a section of the ruins a few hours away and is using a well known scavenger rest spot as his temporary base. It is possible that he is still there and if that's the case they need to get the fucker now; if he learns that his partner is dead, he will flee.
He's a slippery sort and can take care of himself, so if he flees it is likely he still stay gone. The party will have to go tonight; bring back alive is possible. They will be well paid for their efforts and maybe once this unfortunate business is behind them, Drebin and the party can begin a fruitful business relationship.
The party agrees to the terms and Drebin gives them some supplies as a show of good faith. He also convinces Kira to stay with him while the party goes out to do their business; she is clearly having a rough night and needs some comforting from an old friend. Braggor doesn't like this turn of events as he himself had been trying to get into her pants, but he accepts it and the party heads out.
On the hunt
The party follows the directions given to them by Drebin and a couple hours later they come to an open, rubble strewn square. All of the builds in the immediate area are collapsed with only a single, broken two story tower left standing in the middle of the leveled ruins. The upper level of the tower is broken open on one side.
There is the faint glow of a small fire coming from the upper level of the tower, and given the full view of the surrounding mostly flat area the upper level must afford it is easy to understand why it would be a popular camp site.
The party debates their approach and decides that they should pretend to be scavengers looking for safe haven and see if their target is actually there. While they decide this Elmsworth slips off into the darkness toward the structure and is lost from sight. The party advances.
As they get near two silhouettes appear in the break of the open tower. One has a bow with an arrow knocked, but not drawn. A wary yet nonviolent voice calls out to the party and asks who they are and their business.
The Hellfire Syndicate makes its introduction and explains that they are a new crew looking for a place to camp. The men above relax and tell them to come on in, and a minute later the party hears something heavy being moved from door to the lower tower. The party is in!
Target acquired
A grizzled mercenary sort, though not necessarily an unfriendly one, meets them inside and leads the party to the upper floor. Here are the two men the party saw from below but also another man, a wiry distrustful looking sort of man with his hood up. This man sits slightly away from the fire and with his back against the wall, watching.
Introductions are made: The obviously suspicious looking man is indeed Javik, and the party keeps their poker face when they realize it. The other three men represent the entirety of the Iron Cobras, another small scavenging crew; the party learns that they are just here to camp and are just sharing the space with Javik. Good, thinks the party, maybe we won't have to kill them too.
Small talk is made and Braggor breaks out the purified wine he took from the sunken house's basement. The Iron Cobras are all for it, but Javik refuses; so much for the plan of getting the man too drunk to move and then tying him up. The Iron Cobras prove talkative, but Javik keeps to himself unless directly asked a question.
Time passes and now it's really getting late. Everyone gets ready to sleep; Thanus offers to take first watch. As the party made a great first impression on them (and also because maybe they aren't that bright), the Iron Cobras are cool with going to sleep and letting strangers stand over them.
Javik says nothing and just stays hunkered back in the shadows like he has been the whole night; it is impossible to tell if he is awake or asleep.
Assassin's creeding all over the place
While the rest of the party was doing all that, Elmsworth approached crept up on the tower unseen and scaled it in perfect silence. There is perhaps more to him than he lets on...
He pulls himself onto a ledge on the outside of the tower and from a window (really more like a hole in the wall). He watches the party make friends with the Iron Cobras and listens to the small talk, but mostly he watches Javik. After everyone but Thanus goes to sleep, he continues to watch Javik.
Specifically he watches Javik pretend to sleep for a couple hours after the first watch begins. and then he watches Javik go into a light, restless, but real sleep. Time for Elmsworth to make his play.
Elmsworth readies a noose attached to short length of rope. He slips into the tower, undetected by everyone, including Thanus.
He creeps up on Javik and stands over him, and then with one swift movement he gets the noose around his target's neck and begins to drag the man over to the break in the tower wall. Before Javik or anyone else fully wakes, Javik is dangling off the side of the tower, rapidly suffocating.
As Javik desperately pulls a dagger and begins to cut the rope around his throat, Braggor wakes with a start and gets between where Elmsworth is doing some extreme garroting and where the Iron Cobras jumping up, weapons drawn. Braggor says that he can explain all of this, and begins to do so. He tells the truth.
As he has already proven himself to be a pretty cool guy, the Iron Cobras are willing to listen even as Javik asphyxiates at the hands of an unknown assailant; as Braggor explains, the knife slips from Javik's hands and falls to the ground below. He is unconscious. Elmsworth drags him back up before he dies and hogties him; target captured!
The diplomacy with the Iron Cobras goes well, but they do figure that they are owed something for their part in collecting this bounty; the party gives them a token amount and tells them not to press their luck. The Cobras accept the terms.
As Javik is supposedly a slippery fuck, the party decides that it would be for the best to get him back to Drebin as soon as possible; who needs rest after all? They bid their new friends farewell and head off for another pleasant moonlit stroll through the city of Doomed Sarnath.
To be continued...
Day 3 in New Sarnath (Midnight)
Making good first impressions
Braggor kicks open the door and without even waiting for the DM to describe what is on the other side he yells out a challenge, telling Drebin that the party is here for answers and he better have them or else.
Two large, very bored looking men with great clubs stop spinning them idly and turn to Braggor. They get up from the dusty bar stools. U wot m8?
Now realizing that the person he was addressing was not, in fact, in the room, Braggor politely asks to see Drebin, but the two large men just heard him blindly threaten their employer, so they feel the need to screen this call first.
Things seem tense, but the rest of the party interrupts Braggor and gives the ambush map to the bouncer and tells him that Drebin will definitely want to see that. Bouncer 1 walks around the bar and into a backroom while Bouncer 2 eyes the party, greatclub in hand. A few minutes later Bouncer 1 returns with a man wearing a once fine, but now beat up business suit. Clearly this must be Drebin.
Drebin pulls a couple of glasses from behind the dilapidated bar and pours drinks for himself and the party. He then asks who the hell they are and about the meaning of the map they showed him.
The other side of the story
The party starts to explain and as they do so they can see him putting the pieces together. He asks them if Kira put them up to this or if she just wanted him dead. The party tells him the truth. Drebin seems resigned, but definitely not surprised, as he begins to explain his side of the story.
He buys information about potential loot spots from explorers who find it safer to scout and sell their findings then try to clear places out themselves. Sometimes leads pan out, sometimes not, but he always vets his sellers and makes sure his buyers know if what they are buying is from a trusted source or not.
Drebin believes that one of his trusted sources has turned. He explains that he heard of a couple small scavenging groups disappearing lately after buying information from him, which is unusual but not unheard of.
It didn't occur to him that both groups that disappeared were using intel provided to Drebin by the same source. That source also sold him the lead the Silverstriders were following when they were ambushed. That same source also happened to inquire about the sell of that particular piece of information.
It appears that he and the Silverstriders were both screwed over by the same person, a slippery loner type by the name of Javik. The party finds Drebin's story believable and ask what happens now.
Drebin asks them to call Kira over to have a discussion and the party does; once she realizes that the party has "betrayed" her, she is quite violent, but Braggor holds the door shut as she tries to kick it down to do some killing herself and Drebin yells out his explanation.
Eventually she calms down and is willing to hear him out. She is let in, she hears the other side of the story, and now she is pissed again, but this time at Javik. He needs to die, both her and Drebin agree.
Would the party like to make some more gold? Of course they would.
Dead or alive, but preferably alive
Drebin knows that the man they are after is supposedly scouting a section of the ruins a few hours away and is using a well known scavenger rest spot as his temporary base. It is possible that he is still there and if that's the case they need to get the fucker now; if he learns that his partner is dead, he will flee.
He's a slippery sort and can take care of himself, so if he flees it is likely he still stay gone. The party will have to go tonight; bring back alive is possible. They will be well paid for their efforts and maybe once this unfortunate business is behind them, Drebin and the party can begin a fruitful business relationship.
The party agrees to the terms and Drebin gives them some supplies as a show of good faith. He also convinces Kira to stay with him while the party goes out to do their business; she is clearly having a rough night and needs some comforting from an old friend. Braggor doesn't like this turn of events as he himself had been trying to get into her pants, but he accepts it and the party heads out.
On the hunt
The party follows the directions given to them by Drebin and a couple hours later they come to an open, rubble strewn square. All of the builds in the immediate area are collapsed with only a single, broken two story tower left standing in the middle of the leveled ruins. The upper level of the tower is broken open on one side.
There is the faint glow of a small fire coming from the upper level of the tower, and given the full view of the surrounding mostly flat area the upper level must afford it is easy to understand why it would be a popular camp site.
The party debates their approach and decides that they should pretend to be scavengers looking for safe haven and see if their target is actually there. While they decide this Elmsworth slips off into the darkness toward the structure and is lost from sight. The party advances.
As they get near two silhouettes appear in the break of the open tower. One has a bow with an arrow knocked, but not drawn. A wary yet nonviolent voice calls out to the party and asks who they are and their business.
The Hellfire Syndicate makes its introduction and explains that they are a new crew looking for a place to camp. The men above relax and tell them to come on in, and a minute later the party hears something heavy being moved from door to the lower tower. The party is in!
Target acquired
A grizzled mercenary sort, though not necessarily an unfriendly one, meets them inside and leads the party to the upper floor. Here are the two men the party saw from below but also another man, a wiry distrustful looking sort of man with his hood up. This man sits slightly away from the fire and with his back against the wall, watching.
Introductions are made: The obviously suspicious looking man is indeed Javik, and the party keeps their poker face when they realize it. The other three men represent the entirety of the Iron Cobras, another small scavenging crew; the party learns that they are just here to camp and are just sharing the space with Javik. Good, thinks the party, maybe we won't have to kill them too.
Small talk is made and Braggor breaks out the purified wine he took from the sunken house's basement. The Iron Cobras are all for it, but Javik refuses; so much for the plan of getting the man too drunk to move and then tying him up. The Iron Cobras prove talkative, but Javik keeps to himself unless directly asked a question.
Time passes and now it's really getting late. Everyone gets ready to sleep; Thanus offers to take first watch. As the party made a great first impression on them (and also because maybe they aren't that bright), the Iron Cobras are cool with going to sleep and letting strangers stand over them.
Javik says nothing and just stays hunkered back in the shadows like he has been the whole night; it is impossible to tell if he is awake or asleep.
Assassin's creeding all over the place
While the rest of the party was doing all that, Elmsworth approached crept up on the tower unseen and scaled it in perfect silence. There is perhaps more to him than he lets on...
He pulls himself onto a ledge on the outside of the tower and from a window (really more like a hole in the wall). He watches the party make friends with the Iron Cobras and listens to the small talk, but mostly he watches Javik. After everyone but Thanus goes to sleep, he continues to watch Javik.
Specifically he watches Javik pretend to sleep for a couple hours after the first watch begins. and then he watches Javik go into a light, restless, but real sleep. Time for Elmsworth to make his play.
Elmsworth readies a noose attached to short length of rope. He slips into the tower, undetected by everyone, including Thanus.
He creeps up on Javik and stands over him, and then with one swift movement he gets the noose around his target's neck and begins to drag the man over to the break in the tower wall. Before Javik or anyone else fully wakes, Javik is dangling off the side of the tower, rapidly suffocating.
As Javik desperately pulls a dagger and begins to cut the rope around his throat, Braggor wakes with a start and gets between where Elmsworth is doing some extreme garroting and where the Iron Cobras jumping up, weapons drawn. Braggor says that he can explain all of this, and begins to do so. He tells the truth.
As he has already proven himself to be a pretty cool guy, the Iron Cobras are willing to listen even as Javik asphyxiates at the hands of an unknown assailant; as Braggor explains, the knife slips from Javik's hands and falls to the ground below. He is unconscious. Elmsworth drags him back up before he dies and hogties him; target captured!
The diplomacy with the Iron Cobras goes well, but they do figure that they are owed something for their part in collecting this bounty; the party gives them a token amount and tells them not to press their luck. The Cobras accept the terms.
As Javik is supposedly a slippery fuck, the party decides that it would be for the best to get him back to Drebin as soon as possible; who needs rest after all? They bid their new friends farewell and head off for another pleasant moonlit stroll through the city of Doomed Sarnath.
To be continued...
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
3.1: Poorly conceived revenge plans
Session 3 (August 14th, 2015)
Day 2 in New Sarnath (Evening)
The end of a dungeon
The battle versus the custom "Daddy" allip, his little girl, and her doll doesn't prove to be much of a challenge to the party, especially once Daddy goes down and the little wax golem girl runs crying back to her bed and tries to hide under her blanket; Thanus's summoned eagles show her no mercy.
There isn't much more to loot beyond what Thanus had already stole and there are no more enemies except the mostly non-hostile crying mother fye in the next room: Dungeon cleared!
The party debates the merits of resting in this creepy shrine room, but the fact that it is a creepy shrine room plus the fact that there is the fye not far away makes the party decide to just leave; they figure they can make it back to town and rest there.
Before they go, Braggor examines the fireplace with the magical actual ever-burning blue fire; once he becomes certain he can't take it with him, he lights a torch off of the fire and is convinced that he now has magic fire of his very own. Note: It's just regular fire now.
Out of the sub-basement, back to the ghoul's lair, out into the sunken courtyard, and back up the rope to the canyon-esque shattered boulevard; time to head "home"!
Just trying to walk home in peace...
It is nearly dusk and the party makes their way back toward the city when they suddenly hear the sounds of combat from not far away! They decide to investigate!
At a a narrow four-way intersection of alleyways they see two people, both clearly battle hardened mercenaries but one a woman with a bow and the other a man with a sword. They are surrounded by many small earth elementals and at their feet are four dead mercenaries, clearly allies slain by the elemental onslaught. Things aren't looking good for the duo, but now reinforcements have arrived!
The party joins the fight against the elementals and they fall easily, but as they do they dissipate into nothingness: Thanus has seen that effect enough times to know they are killing summoned creatures, and as he thinks this more elementals appear and renew the battle. As those elementals fall, more and varying kinds take their place.
The man with the sword (a new player character in fact) seems to only be holding it for show as he punches and kicks summoned creatures to devastating effect, but not devastating enough to actually kill them; the women with the bow (NPC) is more than happy to cherry pick the wounded elementals though and she earns an impressive kill count; the party begins to think that they should try to recruit her after this fight is over, though the man will have to find other employment.
The battle proceeds and eventually Thanus is able to use Detect Magic to pinpoint where the summoning is coming from: Down one of alleys is an invisible caster, a master summoner! Thanus casts Web to cut off his escape and the party begins to move down the alley, slaying summoned hell hounds, and attacking blindly to find their invisible foe.
Long story short: His invisibility pops as he goes for an offensive spell, he gets grappled, he tries to surrender, things happen and he struggles, and he dies. Battle complete!
After battle exposition
The party makes the acquaintance of the two people they had just saved. The women is Kira, leader of the Silverstriders... the rest of the Silverstriders are the corpses laying around, so in retrospect she isn't really leader of anything any more.
The Silverstriders were out this way following a lead they had on a good spot for looting, but it was a dead-end. On the way back they were ambushed by swarms of summoned elementals under the control of that dead summoner guy over there.
The man introduces himself as Elmsworth, a humble sellsword who is new to the city. He and one of the dead men were recently hired to the scavenging crew and this was their first outing with them. It clearly didn't work out and now he is back to being unemployed. The party thinks they can solve that issue and offers him a job: Elmsworth has joined the party!
With all that out of that talking out of the way, Braggor goes to start looting the corpses of Kira's dearest and most trusted friends, but she rather firmly states that those men had families in the city so their stuff isn't for the party to loot; she will liquidate it, give the family what is theirs, and then after she will give the party a share for their efforts.
The party agrees to those terms and the corpses go into a Bag of Holding Kira produces; she lets the party loot the corpse of the new guy though as she doesn't really know anything about him.
She is also cool with the party taking what they want from the corpse of the ambusher, so the party does just that. Vlad recognizes an emblem on the man's armor; he had belonged to a Northern company, but that was clearly before he went south and turned to banditry.
On the corpse they find something rather interesting: A map showing the route the Silverstriders would be taking along with notes about when they would be likely to be passing and with how many people.
The Silverstriders were setup!
The note on the maps says 4 targets, but Elmsworth and the other new guy were added at the last minute and no one could have expected the party to randomly show up.
If it wasn't for those unknown factors then the ambush would have been a fairly simple and straight forward task for a skilled summoner. Unfortunately for him, it didn't work out as expected.
Revenge!
Kira is understandably pissed and she asks the party if they want to make some more gold; they of course do. She tells them to follow her then, because tonight they have a score to settle; she knows who set her up and he will pay!
As they walk, the party learns that Kira purchased the intel about loot spot from an information broker by the name of Drebin; he sold her the info, therefore he was the one responsible. And now they will kill him. She knows just where to find him too, but he moves around a lot beyond the barricade so if they are going to do it, it needs to be know.
Vlad realizes she is describing the underworld contact the bartender Lucky told him about, the one he was trying drunkenly find the night before, the one with the blue lantern. Small world.
Elmsworth is not so sure about Kira's assessment, especially her increasingly angry rantings against the man reveals hints of some past bitterness between them.
What Elmsworth knows: Drebin is a fairly successful independent information broker and routinely sells leads to scavenging crews (among other services) and he makes good money doing so. He also supposedly has a keen mind for business.
Selling out low level groups like the Silverstriders wouldn't be a good investment given the fairly low pay off compounded by the risk of what would happen if his clients learned he had been betraying them. A man like Drebin going "crooked" that way doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
No, Elmsworth thinks Kira may be incorrect in her assessment of the situation and as she rants and leads the way to Drebin's current place of business, he quietly explains so to the party. Instead of kicking down the door and trying to straight up murder the man, maybe they should confront him with the map they found and get his side of the story.
The party agrees. It is now nearly midnight as the party and Kira approach an alleyway marked with a glowing blue lantern (looks like Drebin is still here tonight and open for business). Kira is still ready to go in metaphorical guns blazing, but the party (lies) tells her that if she goes in then Drebin will immediately know that she found him out and things could get messy.
Why doesn't she stay out here and watch to make sure no on escapes while the party goes in and catches him by surprise? Kira is in a murderous rage, but she still understands tactics so she agrees; she gets her bow ready and covers the alleyway.
Now it is time for the party to do their part and figure out what the hell is going on here.
To be continued...
Day 2 in New Sarnath (Evening)
The end of a dungeon
The battle versus the custom "Daddy" allip, his little girl, and her doll doesn't prove to be much of a challenge to the party, especially once Daddy goes down and the little wax golem girl runs crying back to her bed and tries to hide under her blanket; Thanus's summoned eagles show her no mercy.
There isn't much more to loot beyond what Thanus had already stole and there are no more enemies except the mostly non-hostile crying mother fye in the next room: Dungeon cleared!
The party debates the merits of resting in this creepy shrine room, but the fact that it is a creepy shrine room plus the fact that there is the fye not far away makes the party decide to just leave; they figure they can make it back to town and rest there.
Before they go, Braggor examines the fireplace with the magical actual ever-burning blue fire; once he becomes certain he can't take it with him, he lights a torch off of the fire and is convinced that he now has magic fire of his very own. Note: It's just regular fire now.
Out of the sub-basement, back to the ghoul's lair, out into the sunken courtyard, and back up the rope to the canyon-esque shattered boulevard; time to head "home"!
Just trying to walk home in peace...
It is nearly dusk and the party makes their way back toward the city when they suddenly hear the sounds of combat from not far away! They decide to investigate!
At a a narrow four-way intersection of alleyways they see two people, both clearly battle hardened mercenaries but one a woman with a bow and the other a man with a sword. They are surrounded by many small earth elementals and at their feet are four dead mercenaries, clearly allies slain by the elemental onslaught. Things aren't looking good for the duo, but now reinforcements have arrived!
The party joins the fight against the elementals and they fall easily, but as they do they dissipate into nothingness: Thanus has seen that effect enough times to know they are killing summoned creatures, and as he thinks this more elementals appear and renew the battle. As those elementals fall, more and varying kinds take their place.
The man with the sword (a new player character in fact) seems to only be holding it for show as he punches and kicks summoned creatures to devastating effect, but not devastating enough to actually kill them; the women with the bow (NPC) is more than happy to cherry pick the wounded elementals though and she earns an impressive kill count; the party begins to think that they should try to recruit her after this fight is over, though the man will have to find other employment.
The battle proceeds and eventually Thanus is able to use Detect Magic to pinpoint where the summoning is coming from: Down one of alleys is an invisible caster, a master summoner! Thanus casts Web to cut off his escape and the party begins to move down the alley, slaying summoned hell hounds, and attacking blindly to find their invisible foe.
Long story short: His invisibility pops as he goes for an offensive spell, he gets grappled, he tries to surrender, things happen and he struggles, and he dies. Battle complete!
After battle exposition
The party makes the acquaintance of the two people they had just saved. The women is Kira, leader of the Silverstriders... the rest of the Silverstriders are the corpses laying around, so in retrospect she isn't really leader of anything any more.
The Silverstriders were out this way following a lead they had on a good spot for looting, but it was a dead-end. On the way back they were ambushed by swarms of summoned elementals under the control of that dead summoner guy over there.
The man introduces himself as Elmsworth, a humble sellsword who is new to the city. He and one of the dead men were recently hired to the scavenging crew and this was their first outing with them. It clearly didn't work out and now he is back to being unemployed. The party thinks they can solve that issue and offers him a job: Elmsworth has joined the party!
With all that out of that talking out of the way, Braggor goes to start looting the corpses of Kira's dearest and most trusted friends, but she rather firmly states that those men had families in the city so their stuff isn't for the party to loot; she will liquidate it, give the family what is theirs, and then after she will give the party a share for their efforts.
The party agrees to those terms and the corpses go into a Bag of Holding Kira produces; she lets the party loot the corpse of the new guy though as she doesn't really know anything about him.
She is also cool with the party taking what they want from the corpse of the ambusher, so the party does just that. Vlad recognizes an emblem on the man's armor; he had belonged to a Northern company, but that was clearly before he went south and turned to banditry.
On the corpse they find something rather interesting: A map showing the route the Silverstriders would be taking along with notes about when they would be likely to be passing and with how many people.
The Silverstriders were setup!
The note on the maps says 4 targets, but Elmsworth and the other new guy were added at the last minute and no one could have expected the party to randomly show up.
If it wasn't for those unknown factors then the ambush would have been a fairly simple and straight forward task for a skilled summoner. Unfortunately for him, it didn't work out as expected.
Revenge!
Kira is understandably pissed and she asks the party if they want to make some more gold; they of course do. She tells them to follow her then, because tonight they have a score to settle; she knows who set her up and he will pay!
As they walk, the party learns that Kira purchased the intel about loot spot from an information broker by the name of Drebin; he sold her the info, therefore he was the one responsible. And now they will kill him. She knows just where to find him too, but he moves around a lot beyond the barricade so if they are going to do it, it needs to be know.
Vlad realizes she is describing the underworld contact the bartender Lucky told him about, the one he was trying drunkenly find the night before, the one with the blue lantern. Small world.
Elmsworth is not so sure about Kira's assessment, especially her increasingly angry rantings against the man reveals hints of some past bitterness between them.
What Elmsworth knows: Drebin is a fairly successful independent information broker and routinely sells leads to scavenging crews (among other services) and he makes good money doing so. He also supposedly has a keen mind for business.
Selling out low level groups like the Silverstriders wouldn't be a good investment given the fairly low pay off compounded by the risk of what would happen if his clients learned he had been betraying them. A man like Drebin going "crooked" that way doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
No, Elmsworth thinks Kira may be incorrect in her assessment of the situation and as she rants and leads the way to Drebin's current place of business, he quietly explains so to the party. Instead of kicking down the door and trying to straight up murder the man, maybe they should confront him with the map they found and get his side of the story.
The party agrees. It is now nearly midnight as the party and Kira approach an alleyway marked with a glowing blue lantern (looks like Drebin is still here tonight and open for business). Kira is still ready to go in metaphorical guns blazing, but the party (lies) tells her that if she goes in then Drebin will immediately know that she found him out and things could get messy.
Why doesn't she stay out here and watch to make sure no on escapes while the party goes in and catches him by surprise? Kira is in a murderous rage, but she still understands tactics so she agrees; she gets her bow ready and covers the alleyway.
Now it is time for the party to do their part and figure out what the hell is going on here.
To be continued...
Thursday, August 13, 2015
2.4: The Lower Cellar (Abridged)
Session 2 (July 31st, 2015)
Day 2 in New Sarnath (Afternoon)
Because the DM is too lazy to go into the same level of detail as before
Party goes through the door and down a spiral stone staircase; finds an under cellar.
Dead ahead is a desk, some chests, and a heavy safe; the area has a couple Continual Flame spells on the walls. To the left is a passage ending with a crack in the wall and a lot of fugal growth on the floor and walls, clearly growing from the passage beyond; it's too little for party to squeeze though, but there is the wind blowing from it. To the right is a passage that turns. There is the almost inaudible sound of weeping in the room or it could just be the wind blowing from the passage.
Thanus and Vlad go behind the desk; behind it is a skeleton wearing a noble woman's dress and the skull is caved in. Vlad sees an expensive locket on the corpse; he opens it and there is a small portrait of a little girl. Thanus opens chests and finds lots of old business records, ledgers, shit like that. They turn to the safe and figure the numbers on the key are the combination.
Braggor goes right to the passage that turns out of sight to check it out; find it dead ends rather quickly, but there is a ghostly woman weeping there. It's a Fye; he antagonizes it and it screams and tries to possess him (fails) before floating through a wall.
The scream attracts the attention several fungal crawlers that had been dozing in the lush fungal growth at the end of the left passage; they enter the office area and wreck Thanus, but between summon monster spam and Vlad blasting they eventually go down and the surviving ones flee and go back down the passage.
The Fye floats back into the room during the fight and besides trying to randomly fear the first person who makes eye contact with her, she seems content to ignore what is happening. And then Braggor punches her again and this time he gets possessed for real; the fye screams and cries though him while bashing his head against the wall until he is unconscious before leaving his body and floating back to her corner.
Party helps Braggor and decides to leave her alone; safe gets opened and party finds more documents that don't matter anymore, but also 5,000 gold in platinum bars and a carved ivory charm; Vlad recognizes it as a "good luck charm," the kind affiliated with the Forgotten Pantheon. It makes everyone a little uneasy for some reason, but it's not magic says Detect Magic. Braggor and Thanus don't like that and think maybe its cursed, but Vlad takes it with no obvious ill effects.
Dark family secrets
Party goes left, finds a hidden door not far from the fungal passage, opens it to find a small hallway that curves around behind the office area they just looted. Another door there, locked, but they have the key. They hear a little girl's voice singing some nonsense song from beyond.
They open the door.
Room description:
Party talks to the "little girl" (who thinks she is a little girl and acts like one, but will have a violent reaction to anyone telling her she isn't one); Who are these strange men in my house; my daddy won't like it. Braggor is gruff and lies badly, so she doesn't like him and is suspicious. Vlad is nicer and she seems to trust him. Braggor steps back into the hall to let Vlad talk and Thanus goes too, but only so he can go invisible and then reenter to see about looting.
By going back and forth with the girl, Vlad learns:
Vlad offers her the ivory charm from the safe, she takes it reluctantly and is confused; it belongs to her Daddy, where did Vlad get it? Vlad lies and says he found it on the floor outside and she believes him... but then she cocks her head as if listening to a voice only she can hear and she looks strangely at the charm.
She then looks Vlad in the face and says he's lying, it was in her Daddy's safe. How did he get in her Daddy's safe! She gets worked up and this is clearly escalating toward a fight. She yells for her Daddy to save her. Thanus takes this distraction as meaning it is time to cut the portraits from their frames and does so.
The party is torn between fighting or just running off with the loot and locking her in. Before they can decide the sound of insane gibbering fills the room. Daddy heard his little girl's call and returned; it is an Allip, but this one is clearly recognizable as the man in the portrait. Most allips do not retain the visage they had in life, yet this one does. Unique enemy? That can't be good.
End of Session
Day 2 in New Sarnath (Afternoon)
Because the DM is too lazy to go into the same level of detail as before
Party goes through the door and down a spiral stone staircase; finds an under cellar.
Dead ahead is a desk, some chests, and a heavy safe; the area has a couple Continual Flame spells on the walls. To the left is a passage ending with a crack in the wall and a lot of fugal growth on the floor and walls, clearly growing from the passage beyond; it's too little for party to squeeze though, but there is the wind blowing from it. To the right is a passage that turns. There is the almost inaudible sound of weeping in the room or it could just be the wind blowing from the passage.
Thanus and Vlad go behind the desk; behind it is a skeleton wearing a noble woman's dress and the skull is caved in. Vlad sees an expensive locket on the corpse; he opens it and there is a small portrait of a little girl. Thanus opens chests and finds lots of old business records, ledgers, shit like that. They turn to the safe and figure the numbers on the key are the combination.
Braggor goes right to the passage that turns out of sight to check it out; find it dead ends rather quickly, but there is a ghostly woman weeping there. It's a Fye; he antagonizes it and it screams and tries to possess him (fails) before floating through a wall.
The scream attracts the attention several fungal crawlers that had been dozing in the lush fungal growth at the end of the left passage; they enter the office area and wreck Thanus, but between summon monster spam and Vlad blasting they eventually go down and the surviving ones flee and go back down the passage.
The Fye floats back into the room during the fight and besides trying to randomly fear the first person who makes eye contact with her, she seems content to ignore what is happening. And then Braggor punches her again and this time he gets possessed for real; the fye screams and cries though him while bashing his head against the wall until he is unconscious before leaving his body and floating back to her corner.
Party helps Braggor and decides to leave her alone; safe gets opened and party finds more documents that don't matter anymore, but also 5,000 gold in platinum bars and a carved ivory charm; Vlad recognizes it as a "good luck charm," the kind affiliated with the Forgotten Pantheon. It makes everyone a little uneasy for some reason, but it's not magic says Detect Magic. Braggor and Thanus don't like that and think maybe its cursed, but Vlad takes it with no obvious ill effects.
Dark family secrets
Party goes left, finds a hidden door not far from the fungal passage, opens it to find a small hallway that curves around behind the office area they just looted. Another door there, locked, but they have the key. They hear a little girl's voice singing some nonsense song from beyond.
They open the door.
Room description:
- Decent sized room, completely open.
- Some bedding off to one side, expensive sheets and blankets, lots of dolls on it.
- Past that an arm chair and small table with two bottle on it; one bottle is half full and contains a dose of a rather deadly poison. The other is wine.
- On the floor, leaning against the chair is a skeleton in noble's clothing; an empty goblet lays nearby. With the half full poison bottle on the table, it definitely looks like a suicide.
- Directly in front of him are three painting propped up against the wall; one is a large family portrait (man, woman, little girl - the same from the locket) and the other two are smaller portraits of the little girl (one as a 4 or 5 year old, the other as maybe 8 or 9). Next to them is a journal.
- Past that is a fireplace with a magical fire (smokeless, eternal). There are old burned pages around the fireplace, now illegible; clearly there was a book burning here at some point.
- Nearby is a shrine of some kind; there's a place on it for a large statue, but the statue is missing.
Party talks to the "little girl" (who thinks she is a little girl and acts like one, but will have a violent reaction to anyone telling her she isn't one); Who are these strange men in my house; my daddy won't like it. Braggor is gruff and lies badly, so she doesn't like him and is suspicious. Vlad is nicer and she seems to trust him. Braggor steps back into the hall to let Vlad talk and Thanus goes too, but only so he can go invisible and then reenter to see about looting.
By going back and forth with the girl, Vlad learns:
- "Daddy" wouldn't like her talking to strangers, but Vlad seems like a nice man; could he stay and play?
- She's lived in this room for a long time; Daddy said that she had to stay here where it was safe. Daddy doesn't talk to her a lot anymore though (looks at suicide skeleton).
- Has a negative reaction to the locket Vlad got off the dead noblewoman in the room; "Mommy" doesn't love her anymore and says she's not her daughter. Mommy wanted to hurt her, so Daddy had to hurt her.
- She can still hear Mommy outside sometimes and it scares her.
Vlad offers her the ivory charm from the safe, she takes it reluctantly and is confused; it belongs to her Daddy, where did Vlad get it? Vlad lies and says he found it on the floor outside and she believes him... but then she cocks her head as if listening to a voice only she can hear and she looks strangely at the charm.
She then looks Vlad in the face and says he's lying, it was in her Daddy's safe. How did he get in her Daddy's safe! She gets worked up and this is clearly escalating toward a fight. She yells for her Daddy to save her. Thanus takes this distraction as meaning it is time to cut the portraits from their frames and does so.
The party is torn between fighting or just running off with the loot and locking her in. Before they can decide the sound of insane gibbering fills the room. Daddy heard his little girl's call and returned; it is an Allip, but this one is clearly recognizable as the man in the portrait. Most allips do not retain the visage they had in life, yet this one does. Unique enemy? That can't be good.
End of Session
2.3: The Sunken House
Session 2 (July 31st, 2015)
Day 2 in New Sarnath (Afternoon)
Minor Architectural Miracles
The party makes their way through the ruined canyon of fallen streets and collapsed structures with difficulty, but eventually they notice something that might have made the trek worthwhile.
As they climb and get back to the high ground of the boulevard, they realize that the ground in front of them is in fact the roof of a building and that roof is of rather fine building materials and good craftsmanship; that means the building it is part of belonged to someone with money.
They make their way across the roof of the sunken building, looking for a way in. They notice a hole going down in the rubble a little ways away from the roof, and the party realizes that what they are currently standing on is a canopy of broken buildings and stonework; about 30 feet below is the still intact house and its walled courtyard.
Whether by miracle or pure luck, this building and its property was forced down by the shifting earth yet it was forced as one unit. Perhaps even more of a miracle (or lucky break for the party), the surrounding area did not collapse on the house, destroying it and burying it. Instead those surrounding buildings were held up by its roof, the property walls, and other unknown structural anomalies in around the boulevard.
The specifics don't particularly matter to the party though (beyond Braggor assuring himself that the whole thing isn't likely to collapse inward at any moment). That's some long dead rich guy's house down there. Let's loot it!
The party secures a rope and descends; Braggor leaves the the shopkeeper's skull behind on the empty chest he'd been carrying around. You always need someone to keep lookout after all.
The sunken courtyard is empty besides some ruined decorative stonework, so the party looks for ways into the house and finds two: A heavy wooden door into the house itself and a chained and padlocked cellar entry. The party decides cellar first.
The Cellar
The padlock is completely rusted through; it can't be picked by it should be fairly easy to break. After Braggor fails miserably at doing so, Vlad shoots the lock off and the shot is nearly deafening in the almost completely stone encased courtyard.
The sound of the shot, so loud in the unnatural stillness of the Doomed city, would definitely let anyone nearby know that they are not alone. They decide to keep future gunshots to a minimum lest it attract unwanted attention.
The party pulls open the dual cellar doors and the smell of feint decomposition follows. The air is musty. No one must have been here for a long time. That means unlooted, thinks the party, and they go down the stone steps.
They find themselves in the southwestern corner of large rectangular stone basement. Directly in front of them are two large kegs on stands and beyond that they see the bottom of steps heading up into the house proper.
Ahead and to the right they see a sturdy looking door and a large stack of crates and barrels in the corner next to it. There is a stone wall partitioning off the area directly to their right, so they would need to approach that door and the crates in order to see what else is in the room.
There is something rather troubling about the area; there are many broken and gnawed bones scattered about the basement. To Thanus's keen eye not all of them look like animal bones. Quite a few are humanoid, but all of the humanoid bones are those of limbs.
Some fingers, hands, feet, maybe parts of legs; no bones from a torso or any complete skeletons. It's like someone had just been cutting off random limbs from people and throwing them down here. Perhaps to feed something.
Braggor isn't all that troubled immediately approaches the kegs to see if they still have booze of some sort in them and he finds the first to be full and the second half full. He turns the spigot and gets a handful to try. Wine. More specifically wine that did not age well at all. Purify Food and Drink puts that right and he tries it again; ah, good stuff.
As he is messing with the casks, Braggor realizes that beady little eyes are watching him. A dire rat hides beneath the stand of the second cask, watching him with unnatural malice and perhaps intelligence. Braggor does his best to stealthily alert the party to its presence before kicking out the stand and trying to crush the little beast with the half filled cask.
It dashes out in time and leaps at Braggor! Initiative!
While this was happening, Thanus held back but Vlad went toward the door they saw to get a look behind the partition. Beyond the basement's diving wall he sees a few wooden stalls and even more bones. In the back corner he sees a full skeleton, though it is broken and gnawed. Around it he sees a the remains of a ripped maid's dress.
As he takes in the scene, a hunched humanoid figure leans out from the last stall and Vlad sees rotten flesh and a glowing red eye. He decides to shoot it, but he only grazes the head. The shot is deafening and echoes in the stone basement and a guttural scream of rage follows.
The figure in the stall emerges and charges Vlad; the hunched rotten figure wears a tattered maid's dress and reeks of death. It is a ghast. From its stall follow a few more dire rats and from the pile of broken crates and barrels by the door comes a rat swarm. The ghast moves through the swarm and it parts around her, welcoming her; clearly she is the one controlling the rats.
The battle doesn't take long and is mostly uneventful. The rats prove to be more of a nuisance than active threat and the Ghast herself fails to paralyze anyone. Soon she is killed (for real this time) and the surviving rats scatter, no longer extensions of a malevolent intelligence but simply mindless vermin once more.
A rather fucked up way to die
The party examines the rest of the basement and it soon becomes clear what had been happened here. The entry they came through had been padlocked from the outside. The heavy wooden door by the crates bears deep scratches, as if someone was desperate to get through, yet it is both incredibly sturdy and locked.
The door at the top of the stairs leading into the house likewise bears scratches, as if by ragged fingernails, but while the door itself is broken in places, clearly something heavy collapsed against it on the other side as to make it impassable.
Behind the crate pile, which the party realizes was a rat's nest, the basement wall is cracked, yet the crack too small for anything in the basement to use except for the rats.
The ghast must have once been a maid of the house and trapped in the basement with the other skeleton they saw, the one laying in the ragged remains of a maid's uniform. With no way out and nothing to eat but each other, clearly the future ghast made a certain decision. In the back corner stall where Vlad had seen it originally, the party finds a mithril switchblade.
From there it seems that in undeath the maid gained an affinity for rats and the vermin had been bringing her all the food that they could fit through the small hole behind their nest.
Back to looting!
The party examines the sturdy door and realize it is rather heavily reinforced and has a damn good lock; before trying to kick it down or shooting anymore locks, they decide to search the upper house. Maybe there will be a key? They exit the basement the way they came and use the other door in the courtyard.
The inside of the house is mostly intact, but several large decorative pillars have collapsed, one of them against the basement door. There are a large number of rats in the house, but they scatter before the party; they get the feeling that there would have been a lot more combat up here if they hadn't gone to the basement first.
It takes some time, but the party finds everything that remains of value and hasn't been ruined by time and rats; silverware sets, a couple tapestries that need minor repairs, a couple exquisitely made dresses that are about 150 or so years out of fashion, a bottle of Elven absinthe, etc. They also find a key with a series of numbers carved into it stashed in a hidden compartment in the nightstand.
It's pretty clear what door it unlocks, so back to the basement the party goes.
To be continued...
Day 2 in New Sarnath (Afternoon)
Minor Architectural Miracles
The party makes their way through the ruined canyon of fallen streets and collapsed structures with difficulty, but eventually they notice something that might have made the trek worthwhile.
As they climb and get back to the high ground of the boulevard, they realize that the ground in front of them is in fact the roof of a building and that roof is of rather fine building materials and good craftsmanship; that means the building it is part of belonged to someone with money.
They make their way across the roof of the sunken building, looking for a way in. They notice a hole going down in the rubble a little ways away from the roof, and the party realizes that what they are currently standing on is a canopy of broken buildings and stonework; about 30 feet below is the still intact house and its walled courtyard.
Whether by miracle or pure luck, this building and its property was forced down by the shifting earth yet it was forced as one unit. Perhaps even more of a miracle (or lucky break for the party), the surrounding area did not collapse on the house, destroying it and burying it. Instead those surrounding buildings were held up by its roof, the property walls, and other unknown structural anomalies in around the boulevard.
The specifics don't particularly matter to the party though (beyond Braggor assuring himself that the whole thing isn't likely to collapse inward at any moment). That's some long dead rich guy's house down there. Let's loot it!
The party secures a rope and descends; Braggor leaves the the shopkeeper's skull behind on the empty chest he'd been carrying around. You always need someone to keep lookout after all.
The sunken courtyard is empty besides some ruined decorative stonework, so the party looks for ways into the house and finds two: A heavy wooden door into the house itself and a chained and padlocked cellar entry. The party decides cellar first.
The Cellar
The padlock is completely rusted through; it can't be picked by it should be fairly easy to break. After Braggor fails miserably at doing so, Vlad shoots the lock off and the shot is nearly deafening in the almost completely stone encased courtyard.
The sound of the shot, so loud in the unnatural stillness of the Doomed city, would definitely let anyone nearby know that they are not alone. They decide to keep future gunshots to a minimum lest it attract unwanted attention.
The party pulls open the dual cellar doors and the smell of feint decomposition follows. The air is musty. No one must have been here for a long time. That means unlooted, thinks the party, and they go down the stone steps.
They find themselves in the southwestern corner of large rectangular stone basement. Directly in front of them are two large kegs on stands and beyond that they see the bottom of steps heading up into the house proper.
Ahead and to the right they see a sturdy looking door and a large stack of crates and barrels in the corner next to it. There is a stone wall partitioning off the area directly to their right, so they would need to approach that door and the crates in order to see what else is in the room.
There is something rather troubling about the area; there are many broken and gnawed bones scattered about the basement. To Thanus's keen eye not all of them look like animal bones. Quite a few are humanoid, but all of the humanoid bones are those of limbs.
Some fingers, hands, feet, maybe parts of legs; no bones from a torso or any complete skeletons. It's like someone had just been cutting off random limbs from people and throwing them down here. Perhaps to feed something.
Braggor isn't all that troubled immediately approaches the kegs to see if they still have booze of some sort in them and he finds the first to be full and the second half full. He turns the spigot and gets a handful to try. Wine. More specifically wine that did not age well at all. Purify Food and Drink puts that right and he tries it again; ah, good stuff.
As he is messing with the casks, Braggor realizes that beady little eyes are watching him. A dire rat hides beneath the stand of the second cask, watching him with unnatural malice and perhaps intelligence. Braggor does his best to stealthily alert the party to its presence before kicking out the stand and trying to crush the little beast with the half filled cask.
It dashes out in time and leaps at Braggor! Initiative!
While this was happening, Thanus held back but Vlad went toward the door they saw to get a look behind the partition. Beyond the basement's diving wall he sees a few wooden stalls and even more bones. In the back corner he sees a full skeleton, though it is broken and gnawed. Around it he sees a the remains of a ripped maid's dress.
As he takes in the scene, a hunched humanoid figure leans out from the last stall and Vlad sees rotten flesh and a glowing red eye. He decides to shoot it, but he only grazes the head. The shot is deafening and echoes in the stone basement and a guttural scream of rage follows.
The figure in the stall emerges and charges Vlad; the hunched rotten figure wears a tattered maid's dress and reeks of death. It is a ghast. From its stall follow a few more dire rats and from the pile of broken crates and barrels by the door comes a rat swarm. The ghast moves through the swarm and it parts around her, welcoming her; clearly she is the one controlling the rats.
The battle doesn't take long and is mostly uneventful. The rats prove to be more of a nuisance than active threat and the Ghast herself fails to paralyze anyone. Soon she is killed (for real this time) and the surviving rats scatter, no longer extensions of a malevolent intelligence but simply mindless vermin once more.
A rather fucked up way to die
The party examines the rest of the basement and it soon becomes clear what had been happened here. The entry they came through had been padlocked from the outside. The heavy wooden door by the crates bears deep scratches, as if someone was desperate to get through, yet it is both incredibly sturdy and locked.
The door at the top of the stairs leading into the house likewise bears scratches, as if by ragged fingernails, but while the door itself is broken in places, clearly something heavy collapsed against it on the other side as to make it impassable.
Behind the crate pile, which the party realizes was a rat's nest, the basement wall is cracked, yet the crack too small for anything in the basement to use except for the rats.
The ghast must have once been a maid of the house and trapped in the basement with the other skeleton they saw, the one laying in the ragged remains of a maid's uniform. With no way out and nothing to eat but each other, clearly the future ghast made a certain decision. In the back corner stall where Vlad had seen it originally, the party finds a mithril switchblade.
From there it seems that in undeath the maid gained an affinity for rats and the vermin had been bringing her all the food that they could fit through the small hole behind their nest.
Back to looting!
The party examines the sturdy door and realize it is rather heavily reinforced and has a damn good lock; before trying to kick it down or shooting anymore locks, they decide to search the upper house. Maybe there will be a key? They exit the basement the way they came and use the other door in the courtyard.
The inside of the house is mostly intact, but several large decorative pillars have collapsed, one of them against the basement door. There are a large number of rats in the house, but they scatter before the party; they get the feeling that there would have been a lot more combat up here if they hadn't gone to the basement first.
It takes some time, but the party finds everything that remains of value and hasn't been ruined by time and rats; silverware sets, a couple tapestries that need minor repairs, a couple exquisitely made dresses that are about 150 or so years out of fashion, a bottle of Elven absinthe, etc. They also find a key with a series of numbers carved into it stashed in a hidden compartment in the nightstand.
It's pretty clear what door it unlocks, so back to the basement the party goes.
To be continued...
Monday, August 10, 2015
2.2: "We're the Hellfire Syndicate"
Session 2 (July 31st, 2015)
Day 2 in New Sarnath (Morning)
Filling Out the Proper Paperwork
The next morning (morning being a bit of a misnomer as scholar's aren't much for rising with the sun) Thanus is presented with a letter of credit to cover the start up costs of the party's joint scavenging operation with the University of Mt. Doyle. With that done, Thanus bids farewell to Hadrian and the apparently-still-high-on-opiates scholar whose introduction he hasn't yet made.
Thanus heads to the main gate of the western barricade and is on time to witness the last few later rising scavenging crews heading off into the Doomed city beyond. As they go soldiers wearing the livery of New Sarnath wave them through without checking paperwork as these groups apparently come though this way enough to be known on sight.
After the last group heads out, Thanus approaches one of the guards and inquires where one could get a scavenging license and, surprisingly, is directed to the nearby office of a guard captain with no bribes necessary. Either Thanus has found the one non-corrupt guard in the city or perhaps the actual city guard is at least slightly less corrupt overall than their House Amathy counterparts.
In a nearby building Thanus approaches a young captain of the guard who is busy filling out paperwork and says he has come to give the man more paperwork to process as he needs to fill out the proper forms for a lower city scavenging license.
The young man behind the desk introduces himself as Captain Destius Caepio and says it would be his pleasure to assist any upstanding citizen of New Sarnath, especially a scholar, he adds as he looks over the letter of credit from the university.
Thanus hands the finished paperwork to the young Captain Capeio who then notes that he forgot to fill in the group's name; they don't need one of course, the captain says, but it is quite difficult to build a proper reputation without one.
And so Thanus is put on the spot. After some meta-gaming influence he decides on the first vaguely badass thing that comes to mind: "We're the Hellfire Syndicate," says the rather meek looking scholar, and the captain smirks slightly as he fills in the name. Capeio also can't help but ask if Thanus has gotten inked yet to make it official; isn't that what badass outlaw types do?
With that out of his system, the captain gets back to business and gives Thanus the party's shiny new license. Before Thanus goes he also explains some general laws that official scavengers must follow.
Upon returning to the city every scavenging crew must report their findings to a tax officer of New Sarnath who will appraise their loot and take the city's cut. Such officers have an office near every main gate of the barricade. Some are more reputable than others, adds the captain disdainfully, and he suggests the party return through the main western gate, his domain, as he knows under his watch laws are laws and not mere suggestions.
Thanus acknowledges the captain's words of wisdom and begins to leave when the young man gives him last piece of advice:
"As much as I would personally like to protect each and every upstanding citizen of our fair city, once you are outside of the barricade the city guard cannot help you. That is where our jurisdiction ends. If you venture forth, stay on your guard, citizen."
Conversations of Dubious Legality
Back at the Healthy Page Braggor and Vlad are doing some day drinking in the mostly empty bar and talking business. Vlad has considered his options and is wants to join in on Braggor's new scavenging endeavors.
Vlad has joined the party!
As they make small talk and continue drinking, Thanus finally arrives with the completed paperwork and it seems the party is ready to get down to business. Before that though, Braggor has some business of another kind in mind; he asks Thanus if he could possibly forge some documents. More specifically some real estate documents. Braggor would have asked Jake, but it seems his good for nothing squire has run off.
Anyway, Braggor continues, a suitable location for his forge has been located and the place is filled with squatters; if he came in with a deed and threw them out, who would be able to dispute him? It seemed like the whole neighborhood he was looking at was pretty much unclaimed after all.
Thanus isn't sure about the wisdom of such a plan, but he figures he could probably make such a forgery if he had a real one to work off of. Perhaps they should talk about this and any other illegal matters that may come up in a more private setting.
Braggor doesn't see the issue as Lucky (who had been pointedly not paying attention to the indiscreet conversation) surely knows it is best for business to not get involved in his customer's affairs. Thanus still seems skeptical.
"Don't worry man! I won't tell no one either!" shouts the only other man in the bar, a rather cheery sort of career alcoholic. The shout comes from across the room as he is sitting in the opposite corner of the room; perhaps the party was talking rather loudly.
"See? No one is going to say nothing," says Braggor, but he lets the old conversation die for the moment. Onto scavenging plans!
As they don't really have a plan beyond getting their asses outside the barricade to start looking around randomly, the planning session is rather short. They do decide that Braggor should stand in front so that Thanus can cower behind him if necessary. From across the room the alcoholic concurs.
Braggor asks the alcoholic if wants to join up too as they could always use another body up front, but the man says he's had enough of that sort of thing for a lifetime and wishes them luck. The party decides to head to the western gate and beyond. Into the ruins!
The First Foray into "Archaeology"
Thanus presents the proper paperwork to the same guard who had originally given him instructions to the captain, and the party is let through, again with no bribe necessary.
The areas directly beyond the barricade are fairly secure and it is there those too poor to live within the walls make their way with little oversight from the actual city beyond the occasional harassment from armed men; out here is it's own little society with its own rules.
The party sees small collections of shanties and roughly repaired buildings as well as the destitute, including some Northern refugees, about their daily toils, but the party doesn't care about that and quickly leaves those "neighborhoods" behind.
The further west they go the less signs of habitation they find, yet most buildings have signs that they have been looted. The party notices relatively freshly symbols carved over doorways and broken walls; marks from previous scavenging crews.
The Doom of Sarnath left many roads difficult, if not impassible, so the few that remained mostly intact have become the main thoroughfares through of the city regardless of how small or unimportant they were before the Doom. The party follows one of those thoroughfares.
As they go they keep their eyes open for buildings that have been overlooked by previous looters and finally they find one; a two story building with the downstairs completely blocked by rubble, but with a mostly intact second story with no obvious way up, at least from the inside.
They party figures it out and finds a room. It has clearly been touched by the elements due to most of the roof being missing, but it has not been touched by looters until now. Much in the room is destroyed and worthless, but the party finds a still secured chest with a potion and a small amount of gold inside. Success!
Thanus takes the potion to identify later and Braggor takes the chest in case they end up needing it. Back to the road and onward! Further on the party finds another rather easy to overlook spot and discovers the doorway to a small store, apparently also untouched since the Doom.
The buildings directly next to it are utterly destroyed and have collapsed onto the building, giving it the look of complete collapse itself. Instead the roof has somehow held and the store is now cocooned by rubble, yet the door is can clearly be seen from the road if looked at from the proper angle.
Making sure that the whole thing won't collapse on their heads as they enter, Vlad cautiously picks the lock and the party finds themselves in a general store. A single skeleton leans against a shelf, its leg clearly broken; perhaps the shopkeeper.
The party checks the store and finds most of the goods worthless, but they find some gold in the till as well as the shop key which Braggor takes along with the shopkeeper's skull. He seems to enjoy talking to it and using it as "the lookout."
Behind the counter the party finds a trapdoor leading to a small bedroom and they relieve the shopkeeper of a few more personal possessions that might still have value. Thanus finds the man's journal and skims it to see if there are any plot hooks in it, but finds none. He keeps it for later just in case.
With all the valuables safely looted, the party walks back up the stairs, but as they are about to reappear from behind the counter they hear something from outside the store:
"Hey, has there always been an open door right there?"
New Friends?
The party takes cover behind the counter, ready to fight if necessary. They hear a second voice say they have more important things to do right now, but the first voice insists they check it out as it will only take a minute. The party hears footsteps close by the door now.
Braggor, sensing that things might escalate rather quickly if the not necessarily hostile newcomers are surprised, yells out that the building is occupied. A new voice calls for "David," presumably the first voice, to back off, but instead he calls out that he's coming in with his hands up and he means no harm.
A lightly armed and armored human maybe in his 20s enters, smiling, with his hands up. From outside an alarmed voice is telling him to get the fuck out of the building; clearly one less trusting than the man before the party.
David makes some rather awkward small talk with the party (awkward on their end and awkward because of the hushed, yet alarmed, shouts from outside, but he seems rather at ease). He says he's part of scavenging crew, The Greed Elementals. He asks who exactly the party is and what they are doing out here; he knows most of the crews working out this way yet he has never seen the party.
The party explains they are new, and that they are called the Hellfire Syndicate. David totally seems impressed by the awesome name. He invites the party outside to talk with the rest of his group, but mentions that maybe he should walk out first. As there is no other way out of the building, the party agrees.
Outside are five more adventuring types, two men, two women, and a teenage male attempting to look the part of a wizard but failing due to his robes clearly being hand-me-downs and his lack of an awesome beard. One of the men, heavily armored with a greatclub (maybe their "leader"), steps forwards and tells the party that this is Greed Elemental territory and the the party should stay the fuck out.
David looks at the party apologetically and the others in the group just kind of roll their eyes at that pronouncement, yet they remain quiet. With their party member returned unhurt and apparently on friendly terms with the the PC party, they seem content to move on.
Braggor takes note that this seems to mostly be bluster and stands his ground for the Hellfire Syndicate: "Out here belongs to no one and there's plenty of it to go around, so chill out, broski." Paraphrased of course.
The leader doesn't press the point but tells the party to stay out of the Greed Elemental's way. He gestures his group to move on and they do. As they are leaving there is a hushed conversation and the leader gestures to a side road.
A sense motive check gives the party the impression they aren't trying to double around to ambush them so much as they are trying to make sure they aren't going to be followed. The party wonders at that; perhaps they are going some place deliberately, someplace worthwhile. It could be a lead on a good haul, but it could also mean violence.
The party decides that they will make enemies soon enough and there is no need to rush it, plus they would be outnumbered; they let the Greed Elementals go on their way.
No Resistance, No Loot
Onward the party goes, eyes peeled for more loot, but they are finding nothing worthwhile. It seems that though they are getting deeper and deeper into the city, they are following one of the paths of least resistance, one of the intact roads. Perhaps that is their problem.
They decide that if they want to find something worth finding they will need to stop doing things the comfortable way and get their hands dirty. That means it is time to leave the main road and explore the collapsed, sunken, and often impassible side roads and old main roads of the lower city.
They follow a rubble filled alleyway into several more such alleyways and eventually they find themselves on what have once been a broad boulevard, but now it has been ripped apart by the earth's upheavals.
The ground is split and some parts of the road have been forced upward and downward, creating cliffs and ledges of varying heights that one would need to constantly scale to make any sort of progress. It is now less a road and more a rugged canyon filled with ruins in various states of collapse.
Yet those ruins seem untouched. Perhaps there is something worth finding in a place like this.
To be continued...
Day 2 in New Sarnath (Morning)
Filling Out the Proper Paperwork
The next morning (morning being a bit of a misnomer as scholar's aren't much for rising with the sun) Thanus is presented with a letter of credit to cover the start up costs of the party's joint scavenging operation with the University of Mt. Doyle. With that done, Thanus bids farewell to Hadrian and the apparently-still-high-on-opiates scholar whose introduction he hasn't yet made.
Thanus heads to the main gate of the western barricade and is on time to witness the last few later rising scavenging crews heading off into the Doomed city beyond. As they go soldiers wearing the livery of New Sarnath wave them through without checking paperwork as these groups apparently come though this way enough to be known on sight.
After the last group heads out, Thanus approaches one of the guards and inquires where one could get a scavenging license and, surprisingly, is directed to the nearby office of a guard captain with no bribes necessary. Either Thanus has found the one non-corrupt guard in the city or perhaps the actual city guard is at least slightly less corrupt overall than their House Amathy counterparts.
In a nearby building Thanus approaches a young captain of the guard who is busy filling out paperwork and says he has come to give the man more paperwork to process as he needs to fill out the proper forms for a lower city scavenging license.
The young man behind the desk introduces himself as Captain Destius Caepio and says it would be his pleasure to assist any upstanding citizen of New Sarnath, especially a scholar, he adds as he looks over the letter of credit from the university.
Thanus hands the finished paperwork to the young Captain Capeio who then notes that he forgot to fill in the group's name; they don't need one of course, the captain says, but it is quite difficult to build a proper reputation without one.
And so Thanus is put on the spot. After some meta-gaming influence he decides on the first vaguely badass thing that comes to mind: "We're the Hellfire Syndicate," says the rather meek looking scholar, and the captain smirks slightly as he fills in the name. Capeio also can't help but ask if Thanus has gotten inked yet to make it official; isn't that what badass outlaw types do?
With that out of his system, the captain gets back to business and gives Thanus the party's shiny new license. Before Thanus goes he also explains some general laws that official scavengers must follow.
Upon returning to the city every scavenging crew must report their findings to a tax officer of New Sarnath who will appraise their loot and take the city's cut. Such officers have an office near every main gate of the barricade. Some are more reputable than others, adds the captain disdainfully, and he suggests the party return through the main western gate, his domain, as he knows under his watch laws are laws and not mere suggestions.
Thanus acknowledges the captain's words of wisdom and begins to leave when the young man gives him last piece of advice:
"As much as I would personally like to protect each and every upstanding citizen of our fair city, once you are outside of the barricade the city guard cannot help you. That is where our jurisdiction ends. If you venture forth, stay on your guard, citizen."
Conversations of Dubious Legality
Back at the Healthy Page Braggor and Vlad are doing some day drinking in the mostly empty bar and talking business. Vlad has considered his options and is wants to join in on Braggor's new scavenging endeavors.
Vlad has joined the party!
As they make small talk and continue drinking, Thanus finally arrives with the completed paperwork and it seems the party is ready to get down to business. Before that though, Braggor has some business of another kind in mind; he asks Thanus if he could possibly forge some documents. More specifically some real estate documents. Braggor would have asked Jake, but it seems his good for nothing squire has run off.
Anyway, Braggor continues, a suitable location for his forge has been located and the place is filled with squatters; if he came in with a deed and threw them out, who would be able to dispute him? It seemed like the whole neighborhood he was looking at was pretty much unclaimed after all.
Thanus isn't sure about the wisdom of such a plan, but he figures he could probably make such a forgery if he had a real one to work off of. Perhaps they should talk about this and any other illegal matters that may come up in a more private setting.
Braggor doesn't see the issue as Lucky (who had been pointedly not paying attention to the indiscreet conversation) surely knows it is best for business to not get involved in his customer's affairs. Thanus still seems skeptical.
"Don't worry man! I won't tell no one either!" shouts the only other man in the bar, a rather cheery sort of career alcoholic. The shout comes from across the room as he is sitting in the opposite corner of the room; perhaps the party was talking rather loudly.
"See? No one is going to say nothing," says Braggor, but he lets the old conversation die for the moment. Onto scavenging plans!
As they don't really have a plan beyond getting their asses outside the barricade to start looking around randomly, the planning session is rather short. They do decide that Braggor should stand in front so that Thanus can cower behind him if necessary. From across the room the alcoholic concurs.
Braggor asks the alcoholic if wants to join up too as they could always use another body up front, but the man says he's had enough of that sort of thing for a lifetime and wishes them luck. The party decides to head to the western gate and beyond. Into the ruins!
The First Foray into "Archaeology"
Thanus presents the proper paperwork to the same guard who had originally given him instructions to the captain, and the party is let through, again with no bribe necessary.
The areas directly beyond the barricade are fairly secure and it is there those too poor to live within the walls make their way with little oversight from the actual city beyond the occasional harassment from armed men; out here is it's own little society with its own rules.
The party sees small collections of shanties and roughly repaired buildings as well as the destitute, including some Northern refugees, about their daily toils, but the party doesn't care about that and quickly leaves those "neighborhoods" behind.
The further west they go the less signs of habitation they find, yet most buildings have signs that they have been looted. The party notices relatively freshly symbols carved over doorways and broken walls; marks from previous scavenging crews.
The Doom of Sarnath left many roads difficult, if not impassible, so the few that remained mostly intact have become the main thoroughfares through of the city regardless of how small or unimportant they were before the Doom. The party follows one of those thoroughfares.
As they go they keep their eyes open for buildings that have been overlooked by previous looters and finally they find one; a two story building with the downstairs completely blocked by rubble, but with a mostly intact second story with no obvious way up, at least from the inside.
They party figures it out and finds a room. It has clearly been touched by the elements due to most of the roof being missing, but it has not been touched by looters until now. Much in the room is destroyed and worthless, but the party finds a still secured chest with a potion and a small amount of gold inside. Success!
Thanus takes the potion to identify later and Braggor takes the chest in case they end up needing it. Back to the road and onward! Further on the party finds another rather easy to overlook spot and discovers the doorway to a small store, apparently also untouched since the Doom.
The buildings directly next to it are utterly destroyed and have collapsed onto the building, giving it the look of complete collapse itself. Instead the roof has somehow held and the store is now cocooned by rubble, yet the door is can clearly be seen from the road if looked at from the proper angle.
Making sure that the whole thing won't collapse on their heads as they enter, Vlad cautiously picks the lock and the party finds themselves in a general store. A single skeleton leans against a shelf, its leg clearly broken; perhaps the shopkeeper.
The party checks the store and finds most of the goods worthless, but they find some gold in the till as well as the shop key which Braggor takes along with the shopkeeper's skull. He seems to enjoy talking to it and using it as "the lookout."
Behind the counter the party finds a trapdoor leading to a small bedroom and they relieve the shopkeeper of a few more personal possessions that might still have value. Thanus finds the man's journal and skims it to see if there are any plot hooks in it, but finds none. He keeps it for later just in case.
With all the valuables safely looted, the party walks back up the stairs, but as they are about to reappear from behind the counter they hear something from outside the store:
"Hey, has there always been an open door right there?"
New Friends?
The party takes cover behind the counter, ready to fight if necessary. They hear a second voice say they have more important things to do right now, but the first voice insists they check it out as it will only take a minute. The party hears footsteps close by the door now.
Braggor, sensing that things might escalate rather quickly if the not necessarily hostile newcomers are surprised, yells out that the building is occupied. A new voice calls for "David," presumably the first voice, to back off, but instead he calls out that he's coming in with his hands up and he means no harm.
A lightly armed and armored human maybe in his 20s enters, smiling, with his hands up. From outside an alarmed voice is telling him to get the fuck out of the building; clearly one less trusting than the man before the party.
David makes some rather awkward small talk with the party (awkward on their end and awkward because of the hushed, yet alarmed, shouts from outside, but he seems rather at ease). He says he's part of scavenging crew, The Greed Elementals. He asks who exactly the party is and what they are doing out here; he knows most of the crews working out this way yet he has never seen the party.
The party explains they are new, and that they are called the Hellfire Syndicate. David totally seems impressed by the awesome name. He invites the party outside to talk with the rest of his group, but mentions that maybe he should walk out first. As there is no other way out of the building, the party agrees.
Outside are five more adventuring types, two men, two women, and a teenage male attempting to look the part of a wizard but failing due to his robes clearly being hand-me-downs and his lack of an awesome beard. One of the men, heavily armored with a greatclub (maybe their "leader"), steps forwards and tells the party that this is Greed Elemental territory and the the party should stay the fuck out.
David looks at the party apologetically and the others in the group just kind of roll their eyes at that pronouncement, yet they remain quiet. With their party member returned unhurt and apparently on friendly terms with the the PC party, they seem content to move on.
Braggor takes note that this seems to mostly be bluster and stands his ground for the Hellfire Syndicate: "Out here belongs to no one and there's plenty of it to go around, so chill out, broski." Paraphrased of course.
The leader doesn't press the point but tells the party to stay out of the Greed Elemental's way. He gestures his group to move on and they do. As they are leaving there is a hushed conversation and the leader gestures to a side road.
A sense motive check gives the party the impression they aren't trying to double around to ambush them so much as they are trying to make sure they aren't going to be followed. The party wonders at that; perhaps they are going some place deliberately, someplace worthwhile. It could be a lead on a good haul, but it could also mean violence.
The party decides that they will make enemies soon enough and there is no need to rush it, plus they would be outnumbered; they let the Greed Elementals go on their way.
No Resistance, No Loot
Onward the party goes, eyes peeled for more loot, but they are finding nothing worthwhile. It seems that though they are getting deeper and deeper into the city, they are following one of the paths of least resistance, one of the intact roads. Perhaps that is their problem.
They decide that if they want to find something worth finding they will need to stop doing things the comfortable way and get their hands dirty. That means it is time to leave the main road and explore the collapsed, sunken, and often impassible side roads and old main roads of the lower city.
They follow a rubble filled alleyway into several more such alleyways and eventually they find themselves on what have once been a broad boulevard, but now it has been ripped apart by the earth's upheavals.
The ground is split and some parts of the road have been forced upward and downward, creating cliffs and ledges of varying heights that one would need to constantly scale to make any sort of progress. It is now less a road and more a rugged canyon filled with ruins in various states of collapse.
Yet those ruins seem untouched. Perhaps there is something worth finding in a place like this.
To be continued...
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
2.1: Preliminary Planning
Session 2 (July 31st, 2015)
Day 1 in New Sarnath (Evening)
Thanus
During his pleasant if rather simple dinner with Hadrian, ranking scholar of the University of Mount Doyle's New Sarnath branch, and the university's help, Thanus brings the conversation around to expedition funding. He explains that his group plans on exploring the ruins of the lower city but are low on capital and permits can be expensive.
Would the university be interested in backing such an endeavor?
Hadrian thinks it over and is on board with the idea as the university has not had an active "archaeological" team in sometime, not since (his face darkening) those bastards at the Imperial University started waving their pocketbook around.
Such funding is certainly within Mt. Doyle's budget of course, he continues, and there is also a small budget to pay for the acquisition of historical relics.
The deal is this: 10 percent of all proceeds from each expedition will be tithed to the university (in addition to the 10 percent that must be paid to the city as taxes) and the university has first claim on buying any recovered items at their appraised value.
If things go well and continue to do so, then perhaps later they could discuss terms about the university paying the party's way into scavenging rights for the hill.
Thanus agrees and a toast is made: The University of Mt. Doyle's New Sarnath branch is back in the relic hunting game and let those bastards from the Imperial University try to stop it!
Braggor
After learning about the Miner's Guild Braggor decides to scout out some potential locations for his own forge before making any acquaintances there.
He wanders the ramshackle streets of lower New Sarnath, past recently erected buildings and the patched stone structures that had withstood the Doom, if barely. The past is in the past here and the buildings bustle with commerce and their owners thrive even if their poorer clientele do not.
Braggor continues on. As he continues south and west, closer to the barricade that divides the Doomed from the New, that feeling of prosperity and growth diminishes and here many buildings are still little more than decrepit stone and the new structures are shanties.
Here the working poor live, those that are forced to live in squalor yet still find a way to pay their taxes so they can have the privilege to live within the barricade. There are rather fewer businesses here Braggor notes, but the city is growing. Eventually this area will join the rest of the prosperous city; the barricade will be moved further west, and the poor with it.
This are could be a good long term investment, thinks Braggor, as he sees the mostly intact remains of a moderately sized two story house. Perhaps it had once been the home of a moderately successful merchant, but now it is the den of a group of squatters.
It certainly has a big enough down stairs area for a shop and display area, and the enclosed courtyard in back would be good for an actual forge. Braggor has found the location for his future business endeavors!
Vlad
Since his arrival in New Sarnath Vlad has been drinking. Heavily. His last bit of gold has gone to the owner of a dockside tavern called the Healthy Page as credit for food, shelter, and, of course, alcohol.
And so he sits and drinks and drinks and it is getting dark again. Another day successfully spent plotting his revenge and drowning coherent thought.
Around this time the bar is still fairly empty but the crowd is surely on its way. Now it is only Vlad and a few of the career alcoholics. Perhaps soon Vlad can count himself in their numbers.
Also around this time a dwarf walks in (Vlad thinks he recognizes him from in here yesterday) and talks to Lucky, the owner. Something about can't find his squire and if Lucky sees him he should tell him he's looking for him.
There seems to be a few slightly tense words between the two, but then the dwarf settles down and Lucky takes his money and pushes a bottle toward him before moving to the other end of the bar.
Vlad sees this, but really doesn't care. He is getting a brief moment of lucidity and he realizes that he can't go on the way he's going. It would dishonor the memory of his men, plus he also has no idea how much money he actually has left on credit in this joint.
He stumbles up to Lucky and inquires about work for a man of his caliber. The guns at his side clearly show what kind of work he means.
Lucky says he's glad Vlad is looking to get off his ass and do something besides act tough and then get his ass kicked while shitfaced drunk (he pours Vlad a drink as he says this as a show of good faith); he goes on to explain about the Free Companies taking on contractors, places needing guards, scavenging work outside the wall if you had a crew, and such things.
Vlad inquires about "other" work. Perhaps the less-than-legal kind. Lucky tells him that such talk isn't suitable for a respectable establishment like his (here he pours Vlad another drink to keep him calm), but maybe he knows of a place where men of a certain character met to discuss such matters.
Supposedly there is an establishment that sets up shop outside the barricade sometimes, though it's never in the same place each time. Supposedly the owner has some connections to certain people and the city guard would just love to know all about it.
Lucky doesn't know any more than that, but he does know the place is marked by a blue lantern. If you ever see one shining in the darkness beyond the barricade then you found the right place.
Figuring now is as good a time as any, he gets up with the intention of going beyond the barricade. Alone. At night. With no real idea where he is going. Vlad is drunk enough to consider this a good plan.
As he heads toward the door, the dwarf at the bar (seems he had been listening in) stops Vlad. He says his name is Braggor and that he is forming a scavenging crew.
As Vlad looks like he could be handy in a fight (if sober), he should consider joining (if not an idiot). They could use another man as one of theirs (Jake) seems to have run off. Be here in the morning if interested.
Vlad says he will think about it, and off into the night he goes. In his drunken state he never actually gets close to finding his way to the barricade, but he wanders the city and sees its inhabitants, at least those that also wander the darkened streets.
He sees some of the more disreputable folk about and the honest ones on their way home late, but the area seems to be fairly safe for a city after dark, especially around the docks. Very little obvious crime. Vlad is a little surprised by this, but as he rounds a corner, the reason becomes clear.
"Law and Order" in New Sarnath's Lower City
In an alley he sees a drunk on the ground getting savagely kicked by several laughing, joking men. The beating continues until the man on the ground stops moving.
They wear the bloody eagle, sigil of House Amathy, the Free Company contracted and legally empowered to supplement the New Sarnath city guard.
The ringleader spits on the body and tells not moving drunk that he was warned about being caught on this side of the barricade; if you are going to have the nerve to disobey your betters, at least be more discrete.
"I decided to let you off with a warning this time," the leader continues, "but one more infraction and into the mines you go. Have a safe and pleasant evening, citizen."
That gets some laughs from his soldiers. One of the men checks the "warned" man's pockets, finds nothing, and kicks him once more. With their first round of entertainment finished for the evening, the "guards" continue on their patrol.
Vlad watches the encounter impassively from the shadows and once the Amathy men leave, he approaches their victim. He himself doesn't really care about the man's fate, but he is broke. He does a more thorough check of the man for anything of value, but alas, nothing.
By now Vlad is sobering up and decides it would be best to return to the Healthy Page and get some sleep.
To be continued...
Day 1 in New Sarnath (Evening)
Thanus
During his pleasant if rather simple dinner with Hadrian, ranking scholar of the University of Mount Doyle's New Sarnath branch, and the university's help, Thanus brings the conversation around to expedition funding. He explains that his group plans on exploring the ruins of the lower city but are low on capital and permits can be expensive.
Would the university be interested in backing such an endeavor?
Hadrian thinks it over and is on board with the idea as the university has not had an active "archaeological" team in sometime, not since (his face darkening) those bastards at the Imperial University started waving their pocketbook around.
Such funding is certainly within Mt. Doyle's budget of course, he continues, and there is also a small budget to pay for the acquisition of historical relics.
The deal is this: 10 percent of all proceeds from each expedition will be tithed to the university (in addition to the 10 percent that must be paid to the city as taxes) and the university has first claim on buying any recovered items at their appraised value.
If things go well and continue to do so, then perhaps later they could discuss terms about the university paying the party's way into scavenging rights for the hill.
Thanus agrees and a toast is made: The University of Mt. Doyle's New Sarnath branch is back in the relic hunting game and let those bastards from the Imperial University try to stop it!
Braggor
After learning about the Miner's Guild Braggor decides to scout out some potential locations for his own forge before making any acquaintances there.
He wanders the ramshackle streets of lower New Sarnath, past recently erected buildings and the patched stone structures that had withstood the Doom, if barely. The past is in the past here and the buildings bustle with commerce and their owners thrive even if their poorer clientele do not.
Braggor continues on. As he continues south and west, closer to the barricade that divides the Doomed from the New, that feeling of prosperity and growth diminishes and here many buildings are still little more than decrepit stone and the new structures are shanties.
Here the working poor live, those that are forced to live in squalor yet still find a way to pay their taxes so they can have the privilege to live within the barricade. There are rather fewer businesses here Braggor notes, but the city is growing. Eventually this area will join the rest of the prosperous city; the barricade will be moved further west, and the poor with it.
This are could be a good long term investment, thinks Braggor, as he sees the mostly intact remains of a moderately sized two story house. Perhaps it had once been the home of a moderately successful merchant, but now it is the den of a group of squatters.
It certainly has a big enough down stairs area for a shop and display area, and the enclosed courtyard in back would be good for an actual forge. Braggor has found the location for his future business endeavors!
Vlad
Since his arrival in New Sarnath Vlad has been drinking. Heavily. His last bit of gold has gone to the owner of a dockside tavern called the Healthy Page as credit for food, shelter, and, of course, alcohol.
And so he sits and drinks and drinks and it is getting dark again. Another day successfully spent plotting his revenge and drowning coherent thought.
Around this time the bar is still fairly empty but the crowd is surely on its way. Now it is only Vlad and a few of the career alcoholics. Perhaps soon Vlad can count himself in their numbers.
Also around this time a dwarf walks in (Vlad thinks he recognizes him from in here yesterday) and talks to Lucky, the owner. Something about can't find his squire and if Lucky sees him he should tell him he's looking for him.
There seems to be a few slightly tense words between the two, but then the dwarf settles down and Lucky takes his money and pushes a bottle toward him before moving to the other end of the bar.
Vlad sees this, but really doesn't care. He is getting a brief moment of lucidity and he realizes that he can't go on the way he's going. It would dishonor the memory of his men, plus he also has no idea how much money he actually has left on credit in this joint.
He stumbles up to Lucky and inquires about work for a man of his caliber. The guns at his side clearly show what kind of work he means.
Lucky says he's glad Vlad is looking to get off his ass and do something besides act tough and then get his ass kicked while shitfaced drunk (he pours Vlad a drink as he says this as a show of good faith); he goes on to explain about the Free Companies taking on contractors, places needing guards, scavenging work outside the wall if you had a crew, and such things.
Vlad inquires about "other" work. Perhaps the less-than-legal kind. Lucky tells him that such talk isn't suitable for a respectable establishment like his (here he pours Vlad another drink to keep him calm), but maybe he knows of a place where men of a certain character met to discuss such matters.
Supposedly there is an establishment that sets up shop outside the barricade sometimes, though it's never in the same place each time. Supposedly the owner has some connections to certain people and the city guard would just love to know all about it.
Lucky doesn't know any more than that, but he does know the place is marked by a blue lantern. If you ever see one shining in the darkness beyond the barricade then you found the right place.
Figuring now is as good a time as any, he gets up with the intention of going beyond the barricade. Alone. At night. With no real idea where he is going. Vlad is drunk enough to consider this a good plan.
As he heads toward the door, the dwarf at the bar (seems he had been listening in) stops Vlad. He says his name is Braggor and that he is forming a scavenging crew.
As Vlad looks like he could be handy in a fight (if sober), he should consider joining (if not an idiot). They could use another man as one of theirs (Jake) seems to have run off. Be here in the morning if interested.
Vlad says he will think about it, and off into the night he goes. In his drunken state he never actually gets close to finding his way to the barricade, but he wanders the city and sees its inhabitants, at least those that also wander the darkened streets.
He sees some of the more disreputable folk about and the honest ones on their way home late, but the area seems to be fairly safe for a city after dark, especially around the docks. Very little obvious crime. Vlad is a little surprised by this, but as he rounds a corner, the reason becomes clear.
"Law and Order" in New Sarnath's Lower City
In an alley he sees a drunk on the ground getting savagely kicked by several laughing, joking men. The beating continues until the man on the ground stops moving.
They wear the bloody eagle, sigil of House Amathy, the Free Company contracted and legally empowered to supplement the New Sarnath city guard.
The ringleader spits on the body and tells not moving drunk that he was warned about being caught on this side of the barricade; if you are going to have the nerve to disobey your betters, at least be more discrete.
"I decided to let you off with a warning this time," the leader continues, "but one more infraction and into the mines you go. Have a safe and pleasant evening, citizen."
That gets some laughs from his soldiers. One of the men checks the "warned" man's pockets, finds nothing, and kicks him once more. With their first round of entertainment finished for the evening, the "guards" continue on their patrol.
Vlad watches the encounter impassively from the shadows and once the Amathy men leave, he approaches their victim. He himself doesn't really care about the man's fate, but he is broke. He does a more thorough check of the man for anything of value, but alas, nothing.
By now Vlad is sobering up and decides it would be best to return to the Healthy Page and get some sleep.
To be continued...
Sunday, July 12, 2015
1.4: New City, New Possibilities
Session 1 (July 3rd, 2015)
Braggor
Braggor begins asking around about where a skilled blacksmith could be of use, hoping to find a place to set some roots between adventures, and after some minor misadventures caused by extremely poor diplomacy rolls, he finds his way toward a small hole in the wall bar meant for the city's miners.
He learns that there is no official guild for his craft in the city, but good smiths are in high demand with the mining company, especially those that can work adamantine. Braggor never had the opportunity to try, but he feels up to that challenge. He buys the workmen another round and sets off to seek gainful employment.
Thanus
Thanus sells off some of the loot from last week's battle and splits it with Jake. From there he seeks out the branch New Sarnath branch of his university, the University of Mount Doyle.
He knows it is somewhere on the hill, but it proves challenging to find as there are no current maps to be had and much of the livable city is refurbished and amended portions of the old. It is without rhyme or reason.
Eventually after getting directions multiple times, he passes through an alleyway and finds himself outside the small courtyard of a what must have once been a moderately successful merchant's house, now in poor condition, and on the gate is a small, fairly crude sign marking the property as the University of Mount Doyle New Sarnath Branch.
A bored guard stands at the rusty gate and asks his business, barely stiffing a yawn. Thanus explains he is a scholar from the university's main branch here on business. The guard opens the gate and tells him to enter the door across the way and so Thanus does.
He enters into what was perhaps once the house's dining area. Inside are a few sparsely covered bookshelves, a table covered with papers, and a few desks. To the right is a window seat and a dazed looking man in scholar attire sits wide eyed, but staring at nothing as if he is in a trance. Behind one of the desks is another man, this one reading a large tome, and he looks up as Thanus enters.
At first the man looks puzzled that anyone would new would be here (clearly this branch does not get many visitors), but once Thanus explains who he is, the man is delighted, and so Thanus makes the acquaintanceship of Hadrian, the ranking scholar of the university's New Sarnath branch.
The title doesn't mean much as there were only two scholars in the branch before Thanus arrived (He has some dark mutterings about other university's poaching their members), he explains, but now things are looking up. The branch's enrollment just increased by 50 percent after all!
Thanus inquires about the other scholar and Hadrian explains that the man believes he can "expand his consciousness" and project his mind into the deepest reaches of the Doomed city, to "commune" with it, but he needs to ingest or smoke certain plants in order to do so. He says so quite pointedly and Thanus thinks that explains a lot.
Really, Hadrian goes on, he fears the the ready availability and low price point of such substances due to the proximity of the city to the Confederation of Growers means the poor fellow is beginning to have some sort of a problem, but still the drugged scholar insists his work is fruitful, so who is he, Hadrian, to interfere?
By then it is time for dinner. The outside guard and another along with the university's two servants, an elderly couple, join Hadrian and Thanus in the kitchen to eat. Almost apologetically Hadrian explains that since it as really only the the handful of them most times it didn't really make sense to segregate the staff from the scholars, especially as the other scholar tends to eat so rarely; if there was a scholar only table Hadrian would be eating alone most days.
Over dinner Thanus gets another interesting tidbit of gossip. It seems that there is currently talk of a joint venture between the three Free Company to send an expedition to the Abyssal Pillar. No one has set foot their since the Doom itself, so who knows what mysteries are to be uncovered there.
The plans are still in their infancy of course, explains Hadrian, due not only to the practical problems of getting so many people onto a mile high stone a mile off shore, but also due to the Company's fight for dominance. They clearly intend to divide the spoils before they even have them. Should be months before they are ready to go.
They are also looking for a number of proven and established freelance groups to supplement their own manpower.
"You were planning on performing practical research weren't you?" Hadrian asks, rather shy all of a sudden. "Wouldn't it be something if a representative from the university was part of that expedition?"
Jake
During the last week with the caravan Jake had secretly devoted time to deciphering the letter that the secret courier had died for. The contents of the letter were quite interesting to say the least, but not quite as interesting as whose words they were.
It seems to have been a letter from none other than Duke Vedam Dren, Lord of New Sarnath. It was not signed as such, but contextually it is the only person who makes sense. It is unclear who exactly the letter was meant for, as the given name was clearly a false name, but in the letter, the Duke reports troubling signs concerning potential conspiracy concerning the Confederation of Growers, House Amathy and "other entities."
He also reports fears that he has spies in his inner council. As the courier bearing the correspondence was ambushed in the middle of nowhere by a group told to go there specifically to wait for him, Jake is thinking the man may be on to something there.
And so after getting a room in the Healthy Page, he put on his noble attire and set out for the top of the hill, the Grand Square of Sarnath, and the city's seat of government.
Jake walks the grand square, a place meant for the nobles, the rich, and the powerful, and he blends right in. After listening to local gossip concerning the young noble ladies and their dashing young lords and other such trivialities, Jake heads for the Duke's hall, the finest building in the square even though it is still clearly being repaired, the once Low Fane of the Forgotten Pantheon.
Inside a grand entryway buzzing with finely dressed men and their attendants, Jake approaches a reception area and speaks to a secretary. He has urgent news for the Duke and he must speak with him now. The secretary is not impressed and explains the Duke is an incredibly busy man, but that Jake could maybe be squeezed in two weeks from now.
And so they argue, Jake insisting he must see him and the secretary firmly explaining it is not possible. As they go back and forth Jake pulls out the unsealed letter and shakes it at the woman behind the desk as he speaks.
For a while now as Jake had been speaking, a well dressed man not unlike the others had stopped to listen and at the sight of the broken seal his eyes widen ever so slightly and he approaches the desk. He explains to Jake that the Duke really is quite busy, but that should he leave his name and where he is staying, someone can get back with him as soon as possible to set up an appointment.
The man says this and Jake gets the message. "We will talk, but not here." Jake gives his information and leaves. As Jake leaves the man nods to him ever so slightly and though the man has a calm expression on his face, his eyes are cold and calculating.
Jake begins to wonder if he made the right play with the letter, and as he departs the city's lap of luxury and descends back to the poor part of town, he keeps his eyes open, alert for shadowy figures haunting his step.
He sees no one, but just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
End of Session
Braggor
Braggor begins asking around about where a skilled blacksmith could be of use, hoping to find a place to set some roots between adventures, and after some minor misadventures caused by extremely poor diplomacy rolls, he finds his way toward a small hole in the wall bar meant for the city's miners.
He learns that there is no official guild for his craft in the city, but good smiths are in high demand with the mining company, especially those that can work adamantine. Braggor never had the opportunity to try, but he feels up to that challenge. He buys the workmen another round and sets off to seek gainful employment.
Thanus
Thanus sells off some of the loot from last week's battle and splits it with Jake. From there he seeks out the branch New Sarnath branch of his university, the University of Mount Doyle.
He knows it is somewhere on the hill, but it proves challenging to find as there are no current maps to be had and much of the livable city is refurbished and amended portions of the old. It is without rhyme or reason.
Eventually after getting directions multiple times, he passes through an alleyway and finds himself outside the small courtyard of a what must have once been a moderately successful merchant's house, now in poor condition, and on the gate is a small, fairly crude sign marking the property as the University of Mount Doyle New Sarnath Branch.
A bored guard stands at the rusty gate and asks his business, barely stiffing a yawn. Thanus explains he is a scholar from the university's main branch here on business. The guard opens the gate and tells him to enter the door across the way and so Thanus does.
He enters into what was perhaps once the house's dining area. Inside are a few sparsely covered bookshelves, a table covered with papers, and a few desks. To the right is a window seat and a dazed looking man in scholar attire sits wide eyed, but staring at nothing as if he is in a trance. Behind one of the desks is another man, this one reading a large tome, and he looks up as Thanus enters.
At first the man looks puzzled that anyone would new would be here (clearly this branch does not get many visitors), but once Thanus explains who he is, the man is delighted, and so Thanus makes the acquaintanceship of Hadrian, the ranking scholar of the university's New Sarnath branch.
The title doesn't mean much as there were only two scholars in the branch before Thanus arrived (He has some dark mutterings about other university's poaching their members), he explains, but now things are looking up. The branch's enrollment just increased by 50 percent after all!
Thanus inquires about the other scholar and Hadrian explains that the man believes he can "expand his consciousness" and project his mind into the deepest reaches of the Doomed city, to "commune" with it, but he needs to ingest or smoke certain plants in order to do so. He says so quite pointedly and Thanus thinks that explains a lot.
Really, Hadrian goes on, he fears the the ready availability and low price point of such substances due to the proximity of the city to the Confederation of Growers means the poor fellow is beginning to have some sort of a problem, but still the drugged scholar insists his work is fruitful, so who is he, Hadrian, to interfere?
By then it is time for dinner. The outside guard and another along with the university's two servants, an elderly couple, join Hadrian and Thanus in the kitchen to eat. Almost apologetically Hadrian explains that since it as really only the the handful of them most times it didn't really make sense to segregate the staff from the scholars, especially as the other scholar tends to eat so rarely; if there was a scholar only table Hadrian would be eating alone most days.
Over dinner Thanus gets another interesting tidbit of gossip. It seems that there is currently talk of a joint venture between the three Free Company to send an expedition to the Abyssal Pillar. No one has set foot their since the Doom itself, so who knows what mysteries are to be uncovered there.
The plans are still in their infancy of course, explains Hadrian, due not only to the practical problems of getting so many people onto a mile high stone a mile off shore, but also due to the Company's fight for dominance. They clearly intend to divide the spoils before they even have them. Should be months before they are ready to go.
They are also looking for a number of proven and established freelance groups to supplement their own manpower.
"You were planning on performing practical research weren't you?" Hadrian asks, rather shy all of a sudden. "Wouldn't it be something if a representative from the university was part of that expedition?"
Jake
During the last week with the caravan Jake had secretly devoted time to deciphering the letter that the secret courier had died for. The contents of the letter were quite interesting to say the least, but not quite as interesting as whose words they were.
It seems to have been a letter from none other than Duke Vedam Dren, Lord of New Sarnath. It was not signed as such, but contextually it is the only person who makes sense. It is unclear who exactly the letter was meant for, as the given name was clearly a false name, but in the letter, the Duke reports troubling signs concerning potential conspiracy concerning the Confederation of Growers, House Amathy and "other entities."
He also reports fears that he has spies in his inner council. As the courier bearing the correspondence was ambushed in the middle of nowhere by a group told to go there specifically to wait for him, Jake is thinking the man may be on to something there.
And so after getting a room in the Healthy Page, he put on his noble attire and set out for the top of the hill, the Grand Square of Sarnath, and the city's seat of government.
Jake walks the grand square, a place meant for the nobles, the rich, and the powerful, and he blends right in. After listening to local gossip concerning the young noble ladies and their dashing young lords and other such trivialities, Jake heads for the Duke's hall, the finest building in the square even though it is still clearly being repaired, the once Low Fane of the Forgotten Pantheon.
Inside a grand entryway buzzing with finely dressed men and their attendants, Jake approaches a reception area and speaks to a secretary. He has urgent news for the Duke and he must speak with him now. The secretary is not impressed and explains the Duke is an incredibly busy man, but that Jake could maybe be squeezed in two weeks from now.
And so they argue, Jake insisting he must see him and the secretary firmly explaining it is not possible. As they go back and forth Jake pulls out the unsealed letter and shakes it at the woman behind the desk as he speaks.
For a while now as Jake had been speaking, a well dressed man not unlike the others had stopped to listen and at the sight of the broken seal his eyes widen ever so slightly and he approaches the desk. He explains to Jake that the Duke really is quite busy, but that should he leave his name and where he is staying, someone can get back with him as soon as possible to set up an appointment.
The man says this and Jake gets the message. "We will talk, but not here." Jake gives his information and leaves. As Jake leaves the man nods to him ever so slightly and though the man has a calm expression on his face, his eyes are cold and calculating.
Jake begins to wonder if he made the right play with the letter, and as he departs the city's lap of luxury and descends back to the poor part of town, he keeps his eyes open, alert for shadowy figures haunting his step.
He sees no one, but just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
End of Session
Saturday, July 11, 2015
1.3: Arriving in New Sarnath
Session 1 (July 3rd, 2015)
Besides stopping briefly to throw the dead disguised soldiers into the river ("It would be disrespectful to just leave them here and I'm not going to carry them back or dig a hole." - Jake), Thanus and Jake travel back toward the waiting caravan.
They find Vilius pacing and still cursing the gods and when he sees them he is quite upset. Gone too long, don't you know we have a schedule to keep, and is that a deer? You stopped to go hunting instead of getting your asses back here? And so on and on goes the tirade.
Jake eventually gets a word in edge wise and explains that they found the bridge intact but had to take care of some bandits. Vilius doesn't care about the details, but the fact that the party was securing safe passage for the caravan shuts him up.
Not long after Braggor returns from his southern scouting mission and reports that he also found a usable bridge and it is decided that since he didn't have to kill bandits that his way was obviously safer and so the caravan heads south.
Inside a wagon Jake gets the deer ready for consumption (Braggor is pleased by the gesture) and tells tales of the party's adventure to the other members of the caravan, all of whom are interested in details unlike the caravan master. Jake talks himself and Thanus up, but there is no mention of the dead soldiers.
The next week passes uneventfully and soon the old roads come to an end the king's road is the oly way forward. The last stage of the journey has begun. Other travelers again become a common sight, as do patrols and actual inns.
Finally after cresting a hill the party gets its first glimpse of their destination, the new crown jewel of the kingdom and a place of dark repute from the days of old. Once doomed, but now reborn, the city of New Sarnath awaits.
The king's road and its less traveled and maintained tributaries pass through woods and recently reclaimed farmlands heading north. The coast lays to the east and to the north; the city nestles that northeastern corner of the continent, occupying both a large plain and a hillside leading up to sheer seaside cliffs, and once, the massive Abyssal Pillar jutting out of the sea beyond.
The portions of great stone walls stand around the perimeter of the plain, but are now mostly broken and ruined, a victim of the Doom that Came to the city some 150 years ago. Beyond the walls lies two distinct cities: One of the living and one of the dead.
The most of the plain, about 80 percent of it starting from the western, in land edge, is covered by ruined, desolate building, stone and wooden structures in various forms of collapse. There is no sign of habitation in any, no sign of life, at least from this distance. Here the city may be called New, but the Doom still holds sway over all.
The most eastern 20 percent, the seaside of the plain, is the exact opposite. It is the growing city of New Sarnath and it contains the Bay of Sarnath, a newly revived trade hub for the region and it is bustling along with the land around it. At the base of the hill is the entrance to the fabled mines of Sarnath, recently reopened, supposedly some of the richest in the world for a variety of rare metals.
A similar divide of living and dead city can be seen on the city's massive hill. Clearly even after a decade the reclamation of Sarnath still has a long way to go. With so much devastation remaining it is hard to imagine it being finished in one lifetime, let alone several, but the king commands it and his subjects obey.
The caravan approaches the city and the road winds through some of the lower city's devastation before approaching a well manned wooden barricade separating the reclaimed from the ruined. The area is heavily patrolled and here and there are the wretched poor who can't afford to live within the safe zone.
It is the borderlands between the new city and the old, land where the dangers have mostly been purged, yet has not been officially opened for redevelopment.
The caravan approaches the wooden gates and sees men marked with the bloody eagle sigil of House Amathy, clearly acting in some sort of city guard capacity. The sellswords demand a toll to enter (i.e. a bribe) from the caravan leader, but Braggor intercedes on his behalf, putting the soldier at ease, and lets him get away with a much smaller bribe.
Inside the barricade is a place not unlike the poorer and dock areas of any other city. The caravan heads towards a warehouse near the docks and at this point Vilius explains to the party that their contract is officially complete. So yeah, bye.
The party is not sad to see him go and Braggor, Jake, and Thanus contemplate their next move as they are all now officially homeless and unemployed in a city they have never set foot in before today.
Day 1 in New Sarnath
They do the reasonable thing and head to the nearest dockside tavern, the Healthy Page. It is a rather ramshackle place, but it seems clean enough and the sounds of music and laughter come from within.
Once inside Jake immediately goes to the musician, a man playing a fiddle and tells him to play something dramatic and suspenseful, and being a go with the flow kinda guy, the musician does. And so Jake begins the epic tale of how his lord almost singlehandedly destroyed an army of brigands on the road to New Sarnath.
He rolls quite well on his perform and Braggor confirms the truth of Jake's words and strikes poses at the appropriate moments.
While most of the tavern watches the riveting drama unfolding for their entertainment, Thanus makes the acquaintance of the bored looking bartender and owner, a slender approach middle aged half-orc named Lucky.
Lucky is not a fan of entertainers and makes his opinion known and Thanus sympathizes as he had to put up with Jake far longer than Lucky. That earns Thanus a drink on the house, and so a friendship tentatively begins.
From Lucky Thanus learns there is money to be made in New Sarnath if you have the stomach and the skill for it. The Free Companies are always looking for independent groups to subcontract certain jobs to and nobles around here always need more muscle. Then there's the scavenging.
Most of the city remains unclaimed and crews can get scavenging licenses to dig through the ruins for treasure: 1,000 gold for the lower city where the lower class worked and lived and 10,000 for the hill, the domain of Doomed Sarnath's moderately rich and up and coming.
Of course, says Lucky, scavengers have already been through a lot of the surface buildings. Not to say you can't get lucky and get a good haul from them, but most of the untapped potential is under the ground, the famous and infamous Undercity of Doomed Sarnath. Dangerous though.
On the surface you might deal with some wild animals, outlaws, smugglers, crazies, or other crews, but down there... Lucky has heard strange stories about down there (not saying he believes even 10 percent of them as the scavengers tend to be braggarts like Thanus's entertainer friend), but still he suggests Thanus would live longer staying away.
If you do go down though, adds Lucky, remember that undercity is undercity regardless of if you enter if from the lower city or the hill. Might be you could start lower, go down, and find yourself in some rich man's basement on the hill. Just don't get caught there without a permit.
Thanus thanks Lucky for the information and as their conversation finishes, so does Jake's performance. From there the party decides to take some time apart and handle their own individual business for the time being.
To be continued...
Besides stopping briefly to throw the dead disguised soldiers into the river ("It would be disrespectful to just leave them here and I'm not going to carry them back or dig a hole." - Jake), Thanus and Jake travel back toward the waiting caravan.
They find Vilius pacing and still cursing the gods and when he sees them he is quite upset. Gone too long, don't you know we have a schedule to keep, and is that a deer? You stopped to go hunting instead of getting your asses back here? And so on and on goes the tirade.
Jake eventually gets a word in edge wise and explains that they found the bridge intact but had to take care of some bandits. Vilius doesn't care about the details, but the fact that the party was securing safe passage for the caravan shuts him up.
Not long after Braggor returns from his southern scouting mission and reports that he also found a usable bridge and it is decided that since he didn't have to kill bandits that his way was obviously safer and so the caravan heads south.
Inside a wagon Jake gets the deer ready for consumption (Braggor is pleased by the gesture) and tells tales of the party's adventure to the other members of the caravan, all of whom are interested in details unlike the caravan master. Jake talks himself and Thanus up, but there is no mention of the dead soldiers.
The next week passes uneventfully and soon the old roads come to an end the king's road is the oly way forward. The last stage of the journey has begun. Other travelers again become a common sight, as do patrols and actual inns.
Finally after cresting a hill the party gets its first glimpse of their destination, the new crown jewel of the kingdom and a place of dark repute from the days of old. Once doomed, but now reborn, the city of New Sarnath awaits.
The king's road and its less traveled and maintained tributaries pass through woods and recently reclaimed farmlands heading north. The coast lays to the east and to the north; the city nestles that northeastern corner of the continent, occupying both a large plain and a hillside leading up to sheer seaside cliffs, and once, the massive Abyssal Pillar jutting out of the sea beyond.
The portions of great stone walls stand around the perimeter of the plain, but are now mostly broken and ruined, a victim of the Doom that Came to the city some 150 years ago. Beyond the walls lies two distinct cities: One of the living and one of the dead.
The most of the plain, about 80 percent of it starting from the western, in land edge, is covered by ruined, desolate building, stone and wooden structures in various forms of collapse. There is no sign of habitation in any, no sign of life, at least from this distance. Here the city may be called New, but the Doom still holds sway over all.
The most eastern 20 percent, the seaside of the plain, is the exact opposite. It is the growing city of New Sarnath and it contains the Bay of Sarnath, a newly revived trade hub for the region and it is bustling along with the land around it. At the base of the hill is the entrance to the fabled mines of Sarnath, recently reopened, supposedly some of the richest in the world for a variety of rare metals.
A similar divide of living and dead city can be seen on the city's massive hill. Clearly even after a decade the reclamation of Sarnath still has a long way to go. With so much devastation remaining it is hard to imagine it being finished in one lifetime, let alone several, but the king commands it and his subjects obey.
The caravan approaches the city and the road winds through some of the lower city's devastation before approaching a well manned wooden barricade separating the reclaimed from the ruined. The area is heavily patrolled and here and there are the wretched poor who can't afford to live within the safe zone.
It is the borderlands between the new city and the old, land where the dangers have mostly been purged, yet has not been officially opened for redevelopment.
The caravan approaches the wooden gates and sees men marked with the bloody eagle sigil of House Amathy, clearly acting in some sort of city guard capacity. The sellswords demand a toll to enter (i.e. a bribe) from the caravan leader, but Braggor intercedes on his behalf, putting the soldier at ease, and lets him get away with a much smaller bribe.
Inside the barricade is a place not unlike the poorer and dock areas of any other city. The caravan heads towards a warehouse near the docks and at this point Vilius explains to the party that their contract is officially complete. So yeah, bye.
The party is not sad to see him go and Braggor, Jake, and Thanus contemplate their next move as they are all now officially homeless and unemployed in a city they have never set foot in before today.
Day 1 in New Sarnath
They do the reasonable thing and head to the nearest dockside tavern, the Healthy Page. It is a rather ramshackle place, but it seems clean enough and the sounds of music and laughter come from within.
Once inside Jake immediately goes to the musician, a man playing a fiddle and tells him to play something dramatic and suspenseful, and being a go with the flow kinda guy, the musician does. And so Jake begins the epic tale of how his lord almost singlehandedly destroyed an army of brigands on the road to New Sarnath.
He rolls quite well on his perform and Braggor confirms the truth of Jake's words and strikes poses at the appropriate moments.
While most of the tavern watches the riveting drama unfolding for their entertainment, Thanus makes the acquaintance of the bored looking bartender and owner, a slender approach middle aged half-orc named Lucky.
Lucky is not a fan of entertainers and makes his opinion known and Thanus sympathizes as he had to put up with Jake far longer than Lucky. That earns Thanus a drink on the house, and so a friendship tentatively begins.
From Lucky Thanus learns there is money to be made in New Sarnath if you have the stomach and the skill for it. The Free Companies are always looking for independent groups to subcontract certain jobs to and nobles around here always need more muscle. Then there's the scavenging.
Most of the city remains unclaimed and crews can get scavenging licenses to dig through the ruins for treasure: 1,000 gold for the lower city where the lower class worked and lived and 10,000 for the hill, the domain of Doomed Sarnath's moderately rich and up and coming.
Of course, says Lucky, scavengers have already been through a lot of the surface buildings. Not to say you can't get lucky and get a good haul from them, but most of the untapped potential is under the ground, the famous and infamous Undercity of Doomed Sarnath. Dangerous though.
On the surface you might deal with some wild animals, outlaws, smugglers, crazies, or other crews, but down there... Lucky has heard strange stories about down there (not saying he believes even 10 percent of them as the scavengers tend to be braggarts like Thanus's entertainer friend), but still he suggests Thanus would live longer staying away.
If you do go down though, adds Lucky, remember that undercity is undercity regardless of if you enter if from the lower city or the hill. Might be you could start lower, go down, and find yourself in some rich man's basement on the hill. Just don't get caught there without a permit.
Thanus thanks Lucky for the information and as their conversation finishes, so does Jake's performance. From there the party decides to take some time apart and handle their own individual business for the time being.
To be continued...
Friday, July 10, 2015
1.2: Outnumbered, but not Outmatched
Session 1 (July 3rd, 2015)
The Battle
As the farce perpetrated by Jake reaches its crescendo with an obviously murderous man and his heavily armed lackeys closing in on the heavily outnumbered party, Thanus remains still in body, yet his mind is racing.
All possible battle plans and outcomes (that one can concoct with limited access to 2nd level spells) are examined by his keen intellect until finally, miraculously, Thanus computes a scenario that does not end in being mutilated/murdered in the woods by a psychopath.
The ambushers advance upon Jake and according to Thanus's calculations, they are in range. The time is right. Now is the time for their enemies to pay for their close proximity to each other and their hubris.
Thanus breaks free from the false shackles and raises his casting fingers, all of which are perhaps turned sideways to better facilitate the upcoming kill shot(s).
Color Spray, motherfuckers.
Or so it should have happened. Unfortunately everyone was prepared for the beginning of combat, so no surprise round for Thanus who does poorly on initiative.
The hound is set on Thanus and the archers take aim at Jake and miss. Myrkel now stands close enough for Jake to see the evil in his eyes, so Jake decides he should do something about that. Blindness/deafness! Success.
The enemy leader screams and begins to slash wildly at the air in front of him as he stumbles forward toward where he last saw Jake, and then the tribal guide acts and the mystery of why the slaughtered horsemen didn't (or couldn't) escape the ambush becomes clear. Web!
Myrkel, Jake, Thanus, and the murderous hound, now inches from fulfilling its desire to rip out a throat, are caught and there goes the perfect Color Spray moment Thanus had prepared for.
The battle proceeds. Archers are mostly ineffective, yet even blind Myrkel is a threat. He takes a moment to steady himself and calm himself, and suddenly he seems more adept at blind fighting, much to Jake's chagrin, especially once he gets slashed down the torso for a large chunk of his health.
Jake tries to retaliate, but his rapier finds itself ineffective against the larger man's banded mail and before he can try again, he is Burning Disarmed by the enemy mage. And then that mage Burning Hands and now everyone in the Web is burning.
The fire turns out to be a mixed bag for both groups, as the fire hurts, yet it clears away the webbing for both sides. Myrkel seems pleased to be able to move freely again and he blindly pursues the now retreating Jake.
Finally able to cast, Thanus goes with his original plan: Color Spray, motherfuckers! And only the attack dog and one grunt fail.
Jake takes an arrow and another slash from the enemy's resident psychopath and begins to wonder when he will be seeing his life flash before his eyes, but again Thanus comes up with a cunning plan: What if we weren't outnumbered?
Summons, motherfucker! The party gains its own set of attack dogs that beset the archers and the mage, distracting them long enough to not immediately finish Jake off as he kites Myrkel into the trees and out of direct archer line of sight.
The dogs are vanquished quickly, but their purpose was served. The archers, now wielding melee weapons in order to kill the magical hounds, advance into the trees and cut off Jake's escape as Myrkel stumbles slowly through the underbrush toward his prey.
Now the enemy mage faces Thanus, but unfortunately for him, Thanus has learned the tactical value of superior numbers. Summon Eagles! The eagles rip into the enemy mage, forcing him to try to flee for his life, but unfortunately for him he manages to fail casting his escape spell and six second later he is ripped apart by vicious summoned avian predators.
In the trees, the enemy closes in on Jake as he gains his second wind and begins to ineffectively knife fight a longsword wielding grunt as his rapier is still lost somewhere in the clearing. All the while Myrkel approaches from the side.
With the mage gone, Thanus turns his attention toward the battle in the treeline and so follows Color Spray number two (motherfuckers!), and this one hits the mark. All three remaining grunts go down and the eagles start ripping into them with gusto as Jake finally begins to act out a battle plan, thus Inspiring their Courage.
And yet the implacable Myrkel still comes for Jake, whom takes it upon himself to not only continue to kite the blind killer, but use him to end the lives of the Color Sprayed.
Jake pushes the man he had been fighting into Myrkel as he advanced, and Myrkel cuts him down. Ahh, you got me, cries out check, making a bluff check. It might have worked if not for the fact that the noise was clearly coming from an area not at the killer's feet.
As Jake and Myrkel do their merry dance, the archer who had failed the original Color Spray comes back to battle readiness, but soon meets his end at the talons of bard buffed eagles.
It is clear that the rest of the battle is merely a technicality. Eagles slay the downed men as Jake keeps their leader busy and finally Jake casts Blindness/Deafness again on Myrkel, who fails again.
Now blind and deaf, Myrkel loses his cool entirely and wildly attacks around him. Trees splinter, a nearby corpse gets even more corpse-y, and eventually he collapses onto his knees and drops his blade.
He is helpless and forsaken. Myrkel knows it is over even before Jake slits his throat and ends his torment along with the CR 8 encounter.
The Aftermath
With the battle over, Thanus and Jake look over the loot. The grunts seem poorly equipped, most likely in their own kit, but the bows they use are all well made and similar enough to be from the same source. Perhaps provided along with the arrows for the job.
As the bodies are more closely examined, the duo notice various tattoos that would mark the dead men as low level freelancers from New Sarnath, which is something they already knew from their conversation with the now dead guard.
The dead mage has a wand of Entangle, perhaps further explaining the road massacre, along with a few scrolls and potions. Thanus consumes a pint of his blood as per Blood Transcription and gains some of his magical knowledge.
Myrkel had masterwork gear, a bastard sword, a heavy steel shield, and banded mail. Examining some of the items more closely, the mark of House Amathy can be found on the items, but the mark is defaced, scratched out. Perhaps an Amathy outcast turned freelancer?
As the gear comes off, the party sees Myrkel has severe burns over much of his body, but at the edges of the burns one can almost make out tattoos, one of which might also be a portion of the Amathy symbol, a stylized blood red eagle. If he is an Amathy outcast, he clearly didn't leave the Company on good terms.
The ambush leader also had a few magical trinkets: A +1 cestus with the unique ability to do Stunning Fist once per day, but with some minor repercussions to the user, and a ring that once per day allows the user to gain access to a combat feat he doesn't possess. That would explain his sudden blind fighting skill.
Lastly, a scroll case is found and Jake examines the contents. A letter with the New Sarnath seal, though subtlety different and now broken. The letter itself is coded, though looking at it briefly Jake is confident he could probably decipher it, though it would be time consuming. He decides to keep the existence of the letter a secret for the moment and takes it without Thanus knowing.
With looting done, the two start to head back the way they had come, though Jake insists on dragging back the dead deer that the ambush party had brought with them to their camp. He is sure that his "lord" Braggor will appreciate his squire's thoughtfulness in bringing home dinner.
To be continued...
The Battle
As the farce perpetrated by Jake reaches its crescendo with an obviously murderous man and his heavily armed lackeys closing in on the heavily outnumbered party, Thanus remains still in body, yet his mind is racing.
All possible battle plans and outcomes (that one can concoct with limited access to 2nd level spells) are examined by his keen intellect until finally, miraculously, Thanus computes a scenario that does not end in being mutilated/murdered in the woods by a psychopath.
The ambushers advance upon Jake and according to Thanus's calculations, they are in range. The time is right. Now is the time for their enemies to pay for their close proximity to each other and their hubris.
Thanus breaks free from the false shackles and raises his casting fingers, all of which are perhaps turned sideways to better facilitate the upcoming kill shot(s).
Color Spray, motherfuckers.
Or so it should have happened. Unfortunately everyone was prepared for the beginning of combat, so no surprise round for Thanus who does poorly on initiative.
The hound is set on Thanus and the archers take aim at Jake and miss. Myrkel now stands close enough for Jake to see the evil in his eyes, so Jake decides he should do something about that. Blindness/deafness! Success.
The enemy leader screams and begins to slash wildly at the air in front of him as he stumbles forward toward where he last saw Jake, and then the tribal guide acts and the mystery of why the slaughtered horsemen didn't (or couldn't) escape the ambush becomes clear. Web!
Myrkel, Jake, Thanus, and the murderous hound, now inches from fulfilling its desire to rip out a throat, are caught and there goes the perfect Color Spray moment Thanus had prepared for.
The battle proceeds. Archers are mostly ineffective, yet even blind Myrkel is a threat. He takes a moment to steady himself and calm himself, and suddenly he seems more adept at blind fighting, much to Jake's chagrin, especially once he gets slashed down the torso for a large chunk of his health.
Jake tries to retaliate, but his rapier finds itself ineffective against the larger man's banded mail and before he can try again, he is Burning Disarmed by the enemy mage. And then that mage Burning Hands and now everyone in the Web is burning.
The fire turns out to be a mixed bag for both groups, as the fire hurts, yet it clears away the webbing for both sides. Myrkel seems pleased to be able to move freely again and he blindly pursues the now retreating Jake.
Finally able to cast, Thanus goes with his original plan: Color Spray, motherfuckers! And only the attack dog and one grunt fail.
Jake takes an arrow and another slash from the enemy's resident psychopath and begins to wonder when he will be seeing his life flash before his eyes, but again Thanus comes up with a cunning plan: What if we weren't outnumbered?
Summons, motherfucker! The party gains its own set of attack dogs that beset the archers and the mage, distracting them long enough to not immediately finish Jake off as he kites Myrkel into the trees and out of direct archer line of sight.
The dogs are vanquished quickly, but their purpose was served. The archers, now wielding melee weapons in order to kill the magical hounds, advance into the trees and cut off Jake's escape as Myrkel stumbles slowly through the underbrush toward his prey.
Now the enemy mage faces Thanus, but unfortunately for him, Thanus has learned the tactical value of superior numbers. Summon Eagles! The eagles rip into the enemy mage, forcing him to try to flee for his life, but unfortunately for him he manages to fail casting his escape spell and six second later he is ripped apart by vicious summoned avian predators.
In the trees, the enemy closes in on Jake as he gains his second wind and begins to ineffectively knife fight a longsword wielding grunt as his rapier is still lost somewhere in the clearing. All the while Myrkel approaches from the side.
With the mage gone, Thanus turns his attention toward the battle in the treeline and so follows Color Spray number two (motherfuckers!), and this one hits the mark. All three remaining grunts go down and the eagles start ripping into them with gusto as Jake finally begins to act out a battle plan, thus Inspiring their Courage.
And yet the implacable Myrkel still comes for Jake, whom takes it upon himself to not only continue to kite the blind killer, but use him to end the lives of the Color Sprayed.
Jake pushes the man he had been fighting into Myrkel as he advanced, and Myrkel cuts him down. Ahh, you got me, cries out check, making a bluff check. It might have worked if not for the fact that the noise was clearly coming from an area not at the killer's feet.
As Jake and Myrkel do their merry dance, the archer who had failed the original Color Spray comes back to battle readiness, but soon meets his end at the talons of bard buffed eagles.
It is clear that the rest of the battle is merely a technicality. Eagles slay the downed men as Jake keeps their leader busy and finally Jake casts Blindness/Deafness again on Myrkel, who fails again.
Now blind and deaf, Myrkel loses his cool entirely and wildly attacks around him. Trees splinter, a nearby corpse gets even more corpse-y, and eventually he collapses onto his knees and drops his blade.
He is helpless and forsaken. Myrkel knows it is over even before Jake slits his throat and ends his torment along with the CR 8 encounter.
The Aftermath
With the battle over, Thanus and Jake look over the loot. The grunts seem poorly equipped, most likely in their own kit, but the bows they use are all well made and similar enough to be from the same source. Perhaps provided along with the arrows for the job.
As the bodies are more closely examined, the duo notice various tattoos that would mark the dead men as low level freelancers from New Sarnath, which is something they already knew from their conversation with the now dead guard.
The dead mage has a wand of Entangle, perhaps further explaining the road massacre, along with a few scrolls and potions. Thanus consumes a pint of his blood as per Blood Transcription and gains some of his magical knowledge.
Myrkel had masterwork gear, a bastard sword, a heavy steel shield, and banded mail. Examining some of the items more closely, the mark of House Amathy can be found on the items, but the mark is defaced, scratched out. Perhaps an Amathy outcast turned freelancer?
As the gear comes off, the party sees Myrkel has severe burns over much of his body, but at the edges of the burns one can almost make out tattoos, one of which might also be a portion of the Amathy symbol, a stylized blood red eagle. If he is an Amathy outcast, he clearly didn't leave the Company on good terms.
The ambush leader also had a few magical trinkets: A +1 cestus with the unique ability to do Stunning Fist once per day, but with some minor repercussions to the user, and a ring that once per day allows the user to gain access to a combat feat he doesn't possess. That would explain his sudden blind fighting skill.
Lastly, a scroll case is found and Jake examines the contents. A letter with the New Sarnath seal, though subtlety different and now broken. The letter itself is coded, though looking at it briefly Jake is confident he could probably decipher it, though it would be time consuming. He decides to keep the existence of the letter a secret for the moment and takes it without Thanus knowing.
With looting done, the two start to head back the way they had come, though Jake insists on dragging back the dead deer that the ambush party had brought with them to their camp. He is sure that his "lord" Braggor will appreciate his squire's thoughtfulness in bringing home dinner.
To be continued...
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