This is a closed module for the module Troubles in Otari.
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After vanquishing the menace under Orati, Biltri, Dethor, and Bauxite find the adventuring life good. They get a reputation as local problem-solvers, willing to take on a variety of jobs in the interest of Otari.
And then, tragedy strikes! Otari’s town’s beloved tavern, the Thirsty Alpaca, has suddenly and unexpectedly burnt down. Kruppe, your party's wizard, has vanished along with it. No one else was hurt and no remains were found in the ruins.
Tamily Tanderveil, the owner of the local fishery and your bread-and-butter client, asked you to unofficially look into the incident. With Kruppe dead or in hiding, the dwarven trio have brought on a couple of new teammates for this investigation: a dwarf from a faraway land, and someone with a rather… infernal… bent…
This job has proven the perfect opportunity to get to know one another and demonstrate your skills.
Bauxite gathers information from the sailors in town; he hears that Kruppe wore out his hero’s welcome quickly, racking up a huge bar tab and driving customers away with his constant monologues. He was working as a cook to pay off the debt, obsessing over a secret new recipe that he claimed would be the talk of the town.
Dethor taps into his underworld lore, and hears that the owner of the Alpaca was actually relieved the place burnt down; she gladly collected the insurance money and took her family on vacation down South.
Lucius follows up on that lead by doing some legal research; he finds that the Alpaca had a generous fire insurance claim backing it. It had been put in place 15 years ago. He also finds out that the owner wasn't reporting Kruppe's wages to the tax board; if he was being paid it was "under the table."
Biltri lifts heavy timbers at the site of the fire; under an old joist, he notices a melted pan that smells strongly of sulfur — a component of fire spells. Several unburnt items nearby are also coated in a greasy substance that Nandipha identifies as Halibut fish oil, as if something full of oil exploded. Finally, she notices tracks in the back, heading towards the road to Absalom.
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You gather in the smoky ruins to discuss your findings and any theories you have before reporting back to Tamily. You should make your report quickly, for she has an even bigger job for you on the docket.
In the meantime… Arson? Accident? Insurance fraud? Murder? Convoluted plot? A charred wall collapses as you gather, sending up a cloud of hot dust.
"It be a crime, burnin down a tavern! Where we supposed ta git our ale?" Baux laments.
He relates what he knows, adding "Kruppe seemed a decent sort. Might not be best with coin though, little trouble with the bar tab. Still nothing that couldn't be fixed wit some time and hard work."
He then grimaces and admits "He seemed more the type fer talkin than workin though..."
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"Looks like ol' Kruppe was cashin' in on some insurance moneys. If he's smart we ain't a gonna see him around here any more. But we should tip one back to the ol' Alpaca." says Dethor, shaking his head.
"Everyone always said I was the black sheep in the herd, but I ain't never thought o' burnin' down a tavern. That just ain't right, for any cost. A man's gotta have standards, y' know what I mean?"
"As for Kruppe, perty sure that fella ain't never done no honest work in his life. Now, me, I ain't gonna avoid no hard work, not unless there is anything else I could be doin', and I always have somethin' else I could be doin'."
"Aye. I'd raise a toast to the fallen, except the place where I get my ale is the fallen!" Biltri grumbles. The plates in his armor look a bit more sparse than they had been, and it seems he traded in the smoking sword and his own axe for the materials to craft himself a more interesting looking weapon. He stares off toward the road. "He always was going on about Absalom. Well, looks like Kruppe blew himself and the tavern to flinders but sounds like the owners landed on their feet."
"So, do we blame it on the kobolds?"
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Lucius stands amongst the charred debris of the Thirsty Alpaca and examines the melted frying pan.
"This is most... intriguing," he drags out the word, his voice deep and smooth. "Sulfur I am quite familiar with, but this halibut oil..."
He tosses the pan aside, moving on to inspect some other burned remains.
"The laws regarding this type of thing are quite clear. If Kruppe did indeed start this fire, even accidentally, he is liable for the cost of repairs. No wonder he fled, assuming that is what he did."
Lucius sniffs a charred dish towel before dropping it to the ground in disgust.
"You know, he came to me sometimes to have his cards read, although he rarely listened to my advice. Or even listened. What did he say, cryptically, the last time we met? 'Kruppe has his fate, and Halibut has his.' Somehow that's starting to make more sense."
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"No, no. I am certain Kruppe died in the fire. The tavern he frequented serving as his bier. Alas." Biltri manages to say with a straight face.
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"Biltri found it was beginning to grow on Biltri," the grim dwarf says in a monotone with his usual frown but maybe a twinkle of mischief in his eye.
“Sort of like a mold or somethin?” Baux says, looking at Biltri’s with a wry grin.
“What wit’ the fish oil, sounds ta me like someone trying ta frame Kruppe.”
“Well in any case, place is burned down. Town don’t have another tavern. Sounds like there is some rebuilding ta be done.”
Nandipha takes a deep breath, shifting the weight of all her hides and furs as she plods into town, Carrots by her side. A not very observant person might think that the dwarven huntress had two dinosaur companions. Carrots continually darts around, circling his mistress one way, and then another, and there is definitely another dinosaur tail swishing behind the young dwarf. Someone more observant would notice that the second tail is the dwarf's own, and it is frilled with feathers that match the feathers in Nandipha's coiled dark hair.
"Peace, Carrots, you be giving me dizzy spell, the way you be darting about!" Nandipha smiles at her dromaesaur companion, the smile lighting up her otherwise plain face. "Yes I know you be wanting food, but soon enough we'll be resting our feet in the Thirsty Alpaca with a pair of fish stews to fill our stomachs. Peace, now!"
All of a sudden, Carrots sniffs the air, smelling the burnt tavern.
"Snirp?" he chirps sadly.
Nandipha looks over at the smoking ruin, nonplussed. Her vision of a cozy afternoon selling hides and putting up her feet abruptly vanishes.
I may be having to make my own fish stew, tired of my own cooking as I am.
Then she notices the other dwarves and the strange horned human walking through the ruins. "You there!" she calls out to the group, hands on hips. "What mischief happened here?"
“Tavern burned down. Tryin’ ta figure out where ta drink now.”
Turning, Baux looks to the new comer. “Sorry, names Bauxite Dolgrin. Who are you?”
He has a smile on his face and tends to his beard. Dressed like many dwarves, scale mail and warhammer. The holy symbol is a little strange though, it isn’t from any dwarves deity your aware of. Looks like the symbol of Desna. What sort of dwarf worships her?
Giving carrots a look over, he then asks “Why have ya got a big lizard wit you?”
"Nandipha. Well met, Bauxite. My full name be Nandipha Dragonheart," she glances down at her tail with a sigh, "but nobody be calling me by my clan name for a long time now. They far away. I'm of the M'beke, from the Terwa Uplands."
Nandipha wears hide armor and feathers. Some seems to be sewn to her clothing as decoration. Other feathers appear to be growing out of her hair and tail. Then she pets Carrots. "This be Carrots. I raised him from an egg. He be my family, my friend and hunting companion."
"Snirp?" Carrots sniffs Bauxite.
“Terwa? Not sure ah know where that is...”
As the dinosaur approaches, Baux stays still. “Its jus doin that cause it’s curious, right? Probably smells salt an fish on me?”
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"And here I thought I was a long way from home," Lucius introduces himself with a polite bow and lets his tail swing freely, the way one does when one meets someone else with a tail.
Lucius gestures toward the smoking rubble.
"A friend of ours recently blew himself up, and disappeared, and caused insurance fraud, and destroyed our favorite tavern, and, well... I'm sure the list goes on."
"What brings you to Otari, of all places?"
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"Lucius has it right. Hmm... last Lucius I knew of was a ratfolk wizard. Tongue of silver... all that. You ain't him, transformated, transmogrified, or sumfin like dat?
"He still owes me for dat thing I did for him. He told me he didn't and I beliefd him fer a while, but not anymore. I got a beef wit' him I ain't a gonna ferget a fourth time."
Dethor turns to Nandipha. "Where da heck do you ackshually come from. I ain't never heard of no Terwa before."
"Snirp!" He smells like fish!
The dromaesaur finishes sniffing Bauxite, and then returns to Nandipha's side, watching the rest of the newcomers interact with Nandipha.
Nandipha raises an eyebrow as Lucius lets his tail swing freely. Maybe the horned man is like her, another child of chaos. The thought cheers her up immediately.
"Well met, Lucius." Then she turns to Dethor. "What be your name, sir? You did not say."
"As for where I be from..." Her eyes take on a distant look as she remembers home. "The Terwa Uplands be a place in the Mwangi Expanse, all mountainous and forested and shrouded in clouds. It rarely rains there, but water returns to the land in the form of mist. When you get up in the morning, you see the tops of the mountains rising like islands out of a sea of swirling white cloud. We border the coast, where the Eye of Abengo's endless storm batters the land and sea... But up where we are, all we get is the mist that sprays up from that storm. It be gentle and fine."
"They say that the M'beke be the most stubborn of all dwarves." She grins at the other dwarves, and at Lucius. "My clan claim that when they quested for sky, they tunneled all the way to the Plane of Air." She shrugs. "Maybe that true, maybe not. But the story goes that the people of the Plane of Air were upset to have so many quarrelsome dwarves -- because the M'beke like to argue -- surfing their winds and raising a ruckus."
Nandipha prestidigitates a slight mist in the air that tastes of sea salt, helping set the scene. "The air folk asked cloud dragons to be their emissaries, and the cloud dragons asked the M'beke whether they would ever move. The M'beke answered that they missed their mountains, but had gotten a taste for life among the clouds. So they told the cloud dragons that they would move only to a place where they could live among both, along with the friendship of the dragons." Nandipha holds out open hands, reaching out in friendship. "The flattered cloud dragons found the M'beke the Terwa Uplands, and moved there to be with them, two clans joined as one."
Then she blinks her eyes, and her shoulders slump. "As for why I left... Perhaps it be best to leave that story for another time. Let us just say that I also be M'beke, stubborn to a fault. When I left, I kept going."
She cocks her head. "Be you in trouble now? Since your friend burned this place?" She indicates the smoking ruin.
“Not proven.” Baux says in a slightly grumpy voice.
“In any case, we not ones that burned this so no problem there. Think we best tell Tamily what we know an then figure out where ta go from thar.”
He kicks at a corner of the burnt building, causing another cloud of dust.
A young red-haired halfling runs up to your group. He looks at all of you, including Nandipha. HEY! Tamily said for me to get all dwarves and the scary guy with the tail and come to her office! That's gotta be you, right?
Come on! He turns to go. But on second thought… he spins around and chucks a rock into the tavern's ruins. Something heavy collapses loudly and the kid chuckles as he jogs away.
At the whole 'scary guy with a tail' comment, Nandipha waves her own in indignation. "Why people always be scared of tails?" Then she turns to the others. "Who be this Tamily who wants all dwarves?"
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"Dat's got to be us. No one's gonna say Dethor ever backed down from a challenge. I may have walked away, slipped away into the darkness, or even cheated my way out of it. But backed away? Never!
"Not even my cousin Dethor or my older cousin Thulgrin would say that. Honest work, though? Bah!" Dethor visibly shudders at that thought.
'Damn it... now I am starting to talk like that over-blown arsonist of a wizard.'
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"No. Lucius is the scary guy with the tail," Biltri grumbles with a frown. "It distinguishes him from me. I have no tail. The scary part has nothing to do with tails. I mean, he's a half-devil and half-elf. Who wouldn't find elves scary?" The last muttered as he turns to follow the red-haired halfling youth.
The iron chain looped over his shoulder clangs against his breastplate as he marches, the giant iron fist kept steady on his other shoulder.
"Oh. Biltri." He introduces himself to Nandipha as a curt afterthought.
"Well-met, Biltri. Now... who be Tamily, and why she want all dwarves?" Nandipha whistles for Carrots. "Do you think she be buying my hides? And can we get fish stew there?"
And maybe a place to rest my feet for a bit.
Carrots had paused to lick Bauxite's hand, since it smelled like fish, but obediently bounds forward, running in circles around the dwarven group and the halfling child, just bounding with energy.
"Snirp!"
"Maybe fish stew. She pays us to find answers." He answers out of order.
Baux starts moving, then looks back at Nandipha. “Yer some sorta dwarf an she told the kid to git dwarves. What ya waitin fer, an engraved invitation?”
“Tamily runs fishery and closest ta a town elder this place has. Pays well too!”
He heads down the street, “Can talk while we walk.”
"She run the fishery? And she pay? Maybe I join you until I can find someone to buy these hides."
The hope of fish stew moves Nandipha forward.
You catch Nandipha up on your adventuring lifestyle as you head to Tamily’s fishery.
The sounds of chatter and laughter spill from the fishery’s open doors alongside warm and welcoming lamplight. Within, a few dozen common folk gather around rough tables with cards, dice, tokens, and other game pieces scattered among them. It seems that this place is serving as the local gathering place until the Alpaca is rebuilt. The smell of fresh fish stew wafts into the evening air.
A friendly and freckled human woman pops up from behind the counter and grins in greeting — it’s Tamily Tanderveil.
Her peg leg, a red-and-white striped affair with a bright blue bow at the top, thunks against the floor as she hurries forward. “It’s the local problem-solvers! I’m so glad you came! Welcome! Can I get you something to drink? Snacks?”
She gestures toward an empty table in a near corner, and with a flurry of clattering activity, she sets out bowls of fried vegetables, a platter of sausage rolls, bowls of fresh fish stew, plates of cookies, and mugs of frothy ale.
Tamily lifts her mug in a toast.. ”To Otari’s problem solvers… and old friends and new. She gives Nandipha a nod. It seems your crew is growing. And have I got the perfect job for you!” She is fairly bursting with excitement, so much so that seems to have forgotten about the Alpaca. Well, you can tell her later.
”You do such great work. And everyone knows that a good adventuring team needs a base of operations, right? Your hideout! Headquarters! A place to sleep that doesn’t charge by the night! And I have just the place for you—an old fish camp I used to run, right up the road from here. I haven’t been using it since I opened this place up, and I owe you all something big for solving those troubles under Otari, and all the work you’ve been doing around town to keep us safe of late.”
”If you want it, it’s all yours! What do you say? Just be careful when you check it out, since it’s been empty for a while, okay? No telling what’s holed up in there since we left. But I'm sure it's nothing you can't handle.”
She pauses. ”Oh, and don’t mind Blue Finley—they’re harmless.”
”So what do you say? Of COURSE you'll say yes, right? It's your very own BASE! Isn't it exciting?”
Baux quickly grabs a mug of ale.
Between gulps, he asks “Who and what be Blue Finley?”
“Oh, they’re harmless,” Tamily says, waving her hand vaguely. “They’re just a ghost. So long as you don’t bother them, you’ll be fine.”
Baux's jaw drops. Ghost!?!? How can that be harmless?
He slowly takes another gulp of his ale to try and recover. Wiping his lips on his sleeve, he then says "Now Desna not exactly front line in fight against undead, but my understanding be ghost is someone refuse ta leave once dead."
"Dead should make their way ta the boneyard."
"Oh, Blue Finley was there when I bought the camp way back when… they're just, well, rather blue. And they keep to themselves. Mostly, I think they will add a sense of character and history to your new home."
Nandipha claims two steaming bowls of fish stew, and sets one down before Carrots. She then carefully slices some carrots from her bag into the dromaesaur's bowl, before returning to her own. As she tastes her bowl, her eyebrows shoot way up. "This be fine stew! Thank you!'
But when Tamily mentions the fish camp, Nandipha's eyes light up. "Our own fish camp?! One that we can live in and fish?" Then she pauses. "What be the catch other than Blue Finley? Surely other folk must be interested in a fine fish camp."
"No catch. I just don't need the property anymore, and I owe your friends a debt of gratitude for saving us… plus, adventurers tend to run off doing adventuring things — I want to try and keep you local, where you can keep solving our community's more dangerous problems. It's a win-win situation."
She pauses. "It's a fixer-upper, to be honest. But I think you could do wonders with the property! You don't even have to fish there, Lucius. You can do whatever you want with the property!"
"Not fish there! Oh, no! We fish, and sell hides, and have big business!" Nandipha is adamant that is there is fishing to do, she's the dwarf to do it.
"It's a fishing camp with a lodge and some outbuildings where equipment is stored and fish are smoked. There's even an old boat and some equipment, though it's been a few seasons. There is plenty of space in the cabin for all of you, and Blue Finley has their own bedroom, too.
"Still not sure bout living wit a ghost, but rest sounds good."
Baux looks to the others, saying "I'm interested."
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"Oh, these ghost could be very good for business. There are a few things I'll need to get from my old place: my signboard, some incense, various personal items. But I think we'll be ready to hold seances within a day or two. "
Lucius rubs his hands together excitedly.
"Fortunetelling and fishing, together under one roof. Who would have thought?"
"Sounds like you're in! Great." Tamily produces a map from a pouch at her side, unrolls it, and shows you the camp’s location. “It’s right here, about six miles down the road. Three hours' walk — though I bet you're faster!”
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'So you're rewarding us with more work--clearly she understands dwarves--but we get to keep the property when we're done fixing it. Sounds fair." With his gravely monotone and perpetual frown hiding in his thick, black beard, one would not be blamed for thinking him sarcastic. "Anything, one, give you trouble while the fishery was active?"
'So you're rewarding us with more work--clearly she understands dwarves--but we get to keep the property when we're done fixing it. Sounds fair."
"That's exactly right. That's the catch. The fishing is great there too — it comes with an ocean view!"
"Anything, one, give you trouble while the fishery was active?"
“Oh, sometimes! There’s always spiders, and sometimes they get scary big. Some of the animals in the woods can tear you up if you’re not watching for them. Like, this time of year, there’s probably a few boars running around, and those things are just always in a bad mood.”