I've just started DMing Savage Tide for a group in Utica NY. We're not likely to make it to the bitter end due to my short tenure here, but we'll see where the campaign takes us. Upcoming posts will detail the cast and initial adventure. We have a small group at present (3), so each player is running two characters.
The Cast
Denia Arabani
Data: Female Human Swashbuckler 1 (CG)
Hook: Singlehandedly slew four muggers in an alleyway outside the Sasserine Sleigh Ride
Background: Denia is from a cadet branch of the eminent Arabani family. Her father was a successful merchant captain, but his ship never returned from its last voyage. Two years after it was due home, when Denia and her mother had given up all hope, one of the sailors from the ship made it back to Sasserine and brought the tale of Captain Arabani¡¦s tragic end. The ship was captured by the infamous pirate Javellani Harshaw of the Crimson Fleet, who forced Denia¡¦s father to walk the plank and burned the ship to the waterline after looting its cargo and forcing the surviving crew to join her pirate crew. The young sailor eventually found an opportunity to escape and make his way back to Sasserine. After receiving this news, Denia¡¦s mother died of sorrow, leaving Denia nothing but a pile of debts and some of her father¡¦s old gear. Denia vowed to take revenge on Captain Harshaw and the rest of the Crimson Fleet pirates, and took to frequenting the taverns of the Azure District, crewing on local fishing boats when she needed money, and seeking every opportunity to try out her father¡¦s trusty rapier.
Shookt!alui
Data: Male Darfellan Barbarian 1 (CG)
Hook: Demonstrated his prowess with the harpoon by casting one completely through a barrel filled with sand from thirty paces away in an attempt to convince a whaling captain to hire him.
Background: Shookt!alui¡¦s family are refugees from an island far off in the remote reaches of the southern sea. They were sole survivors of an attack by Sahuagin on their village. Shook¡¦s father took work as a harpooner on a Sasserine whaler, and Shook grew up in the back alleys of the Azure district, brawling regularly with the human children who made fun of his strange appearance. His father was away for long periods of time, but when he was at home, he regaled Shook with tales of strange and faraway places, including his adventures on a tropical isle where he was once marooned for two years by a shipwreck, a place with huge reptilian monsters the size of houses that sailors of the South Seas call the Isle of Dread. Shook¡¦s father has once again been away from home for several years, and Shook is trying to get away from a life of doing menial work on the waterfront by capitalizing on his father¡¦s reputation as Sasserine¡¦s most expert harpooner to get himself hired on a whaler in a similar capacity.
Arrosselon Uwelmani
Data: Male Elf Swashbuckler 1 (CG)
Hook: Once served as a cabin boy on the Hippogriff. When Hippogriff was attacked by the infamous Crimson Fleet pirate Captain Blacktooth, a huge and fearsome Tuov barbarian whose sobriquet comes from his black-lacquered teeth. Arrosselon¡¦s quick thinking saved the life of the Hippogriff¡¦s captain and crew¡Xhe cut the ropes binding them while the pirates were busy drinking up the ship¡¦s supply of rum, and they were able to retake the ship from the drunken ruffians. Captain Blacktooth escaped, and now bears Arrosselon a very big grudge.
Background: An orphan, Arrosselon has spent most of his life at sea. With the Hippogriff¡¦s recent return to port, stories of the ship¡¦s narrow escape from the pirates have circulated, and Arrosselon is somewhat of a celebrity on the waterfront.
Sandra Absalee
Data: Female Human Wizard 1 (N)
Hook: Sandra comes from a minor noble family, but they are noted because for thirteen generations, her foremothers have been members of the Witchwardens.
Background: Sandra recently completed her magical training, and her mother has pushed her out of the nest, giving her a sum of money and telling the reticent young woman that she needs to learn about the city and the world and make a name for herself. Her mother has high expectations of her, hoping she can become the fourteenth Witchwarden in the family. She has been staying in a boarding house across the street from the Sasserine Sleigh Ride in the Azure District, trying without much success to acclimate herself to the crude sailors and laborers who frequent the waterfront. She is struggling with the inhibitions instilled by a prissy governess who shaped her upbringing. Sandra¡¦s great aunt is the eminent opera star Nylaria Absalee.
Turl Howerbass
Data: Male Dwarf Cleric 1 (N; Xerbo)
Hook: Recently placed on furlough from the Azure Cathedral for having a violent disagreement with one of the temple¡¦s wealthiest patrons because Turl gave him some business advice that did not work out. The disagreement turned into a brawl between Turl and the patron¡¦s retainers. Turl gave a good account of himself, knocking five of them out of the combat with his bare fists before the priests intervened and separated the parties.
Background: Turl is ugly and taciturn even for a Dwarf. Turl¡¦s father apprenticed him as an acolyte in the Azure Cathedral so they would not have to look at his misshapen face across the dinner table every evening. Although the priests didn¡¦t like him much, Turl¡¦s aptitude for arithmetic and instinct for smart investments earned him a place as the Priest of Xerbo¡¦s aide. Until recently, his investment advice was widely sought after, attracting many worshippers and patrons to the Azure Cathedral¡¦s congregation. Since being placed on furlough, Turl has made an indifferent living gambling in the Champion¡¦s District.
Indy Tamberlane
Data: Male Halfling Rogue 1 (CG)
Hook: Indy is wanted by the Cudgel Watch for breaking and entering. He was seen and recognized after he broke into the private quarters of the keeper of the Thrice-Born Phoenix. This innkeeper made the mistake of bragging that he had inherited a map of the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan from an adventurer uncle. Indy¡¦s plan was to purloin the map and undertake an expedition to this infamous ancient ruin in search of treasure. Now he¡¦s on the lam, having barely evaded the Cudgel Watch¡¦s pursuit by ducking through the gate into Shadowshore¡¦s twisted alleys. Now he is holed up in a rented room above the whorehouse known as the Velvet Hatch, counting how long his money will hold out and lamenting the failure of his plans.
Background: Indy was until recently a respectable journeyman cobbler in the Cudgel district. He has aspirations of escaping his dull life and being an archeological explorer. His great uncle, a moderately successful adventuring rogue, left him a sword, a whip, and a set of lockpicks, nourishing that hope. He has heard stories of the archeologists¡¦ society known as the Seekers and would do anything to join them.
Session One--The Incident at Pier Five
Patchwall 12, CY 597¡XKora Whistlegap delivers Lavinia¡¦s invitations to the party members and each agrees to appear on the morrow.
Patchwall 13¡XThe party assembles at the Vanderboren mansion. Brief encounter with the Jade Ravens as the depart the premises to prepare for their trip to Cauldron. Lavinia presents the party with her difficulties, asks them to investigate what Soller Vark is doing aboard the Blue Nixie, and if possible recover her money and her father¡¦s signet ring.
Retiring to the Rusty Pirate to complete their planning, the party initially comes up with a plan to hire prostitutes to distract Vark and his crew, with Sandra Absalee playing madam and making sure the entertainments go as planned while party rogue Indy Tamberlane scouts the ship. [Jokes pass around the table speculating on the sorts of social diseases that one might catch in Sasserine¡Xdemon drip, iron clap, and dire crabs.] They visit the Minx Market and arrange with Madame Fairweather to hire Cherry, Kitty, and Phoenix for a private party at the group rate of 25 gp for the night following. Madame Fairweather warns the party that if her girls are ¡§damaged,¡¨ she¡¦ll send Brutus, the imposing half-orc bouncer, to extract ¡§compensation.¡¨
After this, Denia Arabani, Turl Howerbass, and Indy take a moonlight stroll along the quaywall to Pier Five, with the objective of scouting the situation with the Blue Nixie. They find that two ships, the Griffon and the Farfoam are tied up at the pier, but a third ship is anchored about 100 yards off the end of the pier. This ship¡¦s crew is busy striking down cargo¡Xwhat looks like large crates¡Xinto the hold. The three party members casually stroll down to the end of the pier, and Denia slips into the water and swims quietly out to this ship. She discovers that it is indeed the Blue Nixie. She overhears a variety of animal sounds (birds squawking, a big cat of some sort roaring) and infers the cargo are animals. She also infers from overhearing Soller Vark chivvying the crew to hurry along with the loading that he plans to get the ship underway soon. After she returns to the pier and reports her findings to her mates, she and Indy watch the Blue Nixie from the quaywall while Turl hastens back to the Rusty Pirate to warn the rest of the party. By the time they have returned, the loading is done, and Vark¡¦s crew are battening down the hatch cover as if making ready to get underway. Vark and several of the crew members then lay below, leaving a watch on the quarterdeck and two sailors puttering about the main deck coiling ropes and swabbing the deck. The moon has just risen an hour past, and Denia¡¦s quick calculations indicate high tide should be in about four or five hours. She suspects the Nixie will sail with the ebb tide.
The party decides they can¡¦t afford to wait until tomorrow night to make their move. Indy tries, unsuccessfully to convince the quarterdeck watch on the Griffon to let the party borrow their ship¡¦s boat, which is moored to Pier Five just below the Griffon¡¦s bow. The party then retreats down the quaywall to the west, finding a spot near the junction of the Gator Canal with the harbor that is perhaps a hundred feet from the head of Pier Five. They decide to steal the boat instead, so Shookt!alui slips into the water and swims across the harbor, under the Griffon, and up to her boat. Cutting the boat¡¦s mooring lines, he pulls the boat slowly through the water, stationing himself on the far side of the boat to make it appear as if it broke away by itself and went adrift in the harbor. It takes the watch some time to notice, and by the time he calls the mate on deck and the mate finishes dressing him down, the boat is eighty feet or so from the ship. Finally, the mate rousts four crew members¡Xtwo go across the pier to borrow the Farfoam¡¦s boat, and two jog down the quaywall in case their boat is pushed shoreward by the current. As the two crewmen in the Farfoam¡¦s boat row toward the stolen craft, Indy spots the two crewmen coming down the quaywall and offers for the party to help retrieve the loose boat if they can use it for a while. These two defer to the mate, who shouts a stream of obscenities from the quarterdeck, to the effect of saying ¡§no way.¡¨ The mate orders these men back to the ship, and eyes Indy suspiciously as he retreats to join his comrades.
Meanwhile, the rowers approach the boat Shook is pulling through the water. Shook sees what is happening, leaves the boat to drift, and swims underwater to the bow of the other boat. He pushes their bow around to point them the wrong direction, and when they catch on and spot him, he swims under the boat to the stern, scrambles over the transom, and before the two sailors can react, he knocks one of them cold with the butt of his harpoon. The sailor falls down, rocking the boat, and Shook looses his balance and falls into the water. When he comes up again and tries to grab the gunwhale of the boat, the other sailor is ready for him and slashes his arm with a knife. Shook loses his cool and skewers the poor bastard with his harpoon, pulling him into the water and leaving his bleeding body to sink when he extracts his harpoon. The mate observes the struggle and sounds the ships bell to call his crew on deck. By the time Shook gets into the Farfoam¡¦s boat and starts pulling for shore, twelve sailors armed with belaying pins come storming down the Griffon¡¦s gangplank and onto the pier. As they make it to the quaywall, two break off to run and alert the Merchant¡¦s Watch, while the others head up the quaywall toward the party. Indy and Turl jump in the water, thinking to swim for the boat Shook has captured, while Sandra, Denia, and Arrossellon Uwelmani ready for battle with the sailors. Sandra sleeps three sailors before the battle is joined. The two swashbucklers trade blows with the sailors, and Sandra uses a magic missile to hit one. Turl, who has narrowly managed to dogpaddle his way back to the surface and grab a piling, climbs back up the quaywall. Indy swims toward the captured boat, while Shook, seeing the battle ashore, dives into the water and dolphin kicks quickly to the quaywall. When he climbs up and joins the fray with his fearsome harpoon, the three remaining uninjured sailors flee. Three mortally wounded sailors lie in a lake of blood on the cobblestones, and another stumbles past his three sleeping comrades, holding his belly where Denia¡¦s rapier pierced him. As Turl tends the huge knot on Denia¡¦s skull, Indy pulls for shore in the Farfoam¡¦s boat. By the time Indy reaches the quaywall, a dozen more sailors from the Farfoam are advancing cautiously down the pier. Having witnessed the carnage, they stop some distance away, while the party scrambles into the boat and makes for the Blue Nixie.
The watch on the Blue Nixie has noted the disturbance on the pier, and as the boat approaches, he hails its crew and orders them to stand off. The party changes course and rows parallel to the ship¡¦s side, about thirty feet away. The topside watch ready their crossbows and send someone below to fetch Soller Vark. In response, Turl casts obscuring mist, and Denia and Shook slip into the water. Arrosselon takes the oars and turns the boat so that it emerges out of the cloud of mist and bumps bow first against the side of the Nixie. Turl boosts Indy up so he can grab the rail of the ship, while the watch fire their crossbows and one bolt hits Arrosselon. As Indy scrambles aboard, Sandra sees the end of a rope hanging over the rail and uses mage hand to pull it downward, giving Turl a way to climb up. Meanwhile, Arrosselon readies his bow. A good shot hits the quarterdeck watch and he panics and jumps over the stern. Meanwhile Shook swims under the ship, scrambles up a loose rope on the other side, and slips over the rail undetected. He charges across the deck as the second crossbowman takes aim at Arrosselon, unaware of his impending doom until the point of Shook¡¦s harpoon sprouts from his chest. Two of Vark¡¦s thugs emerge on deck, charging Shook¡Xone pierces Shook¡¦s thigh deeply with his rapier. Indy leaps from behind the ladder to the quarterdeck and slashes one with his sword, as Shook, roaring in anger, drops his harpoon and lets the attached sailor fall over the side with a splash, grabs the fellow who stabbed him, and bites his neck. His powerful jaws and sharp teeth crush the poor thug¡¦s windpipe and he collapses on deck in a pool of blood. By the time Soller Vark and his mistress appear on deck, Turl has used his healing power to close Shook¡¦s wound, and Shook has downed another thug with his fearsome teeth. Denia has climbed up the anchor chain and stationed herself on the fo¡¦cs¡¦le, where, after changing her wet bowstring she is ready to begin picking off the rest of his crew. It doesn¡¦t take Vark long to realize that his crew is overmatched, and he orders the watch in the hold to ¡§burn them all!¡¨ before fleeing over the side, harried by Sandra¡¦s hawk familiar and Denia¡¦s arrows.
Shook pursues Vark into the water after biting the trailing rope tied to his waste clean through¡Xhis run to the far side of the ship pulled the harpoon and its victim back up the the rail, where Turl neatly snags the harpoon haft and pulls the now dead victim up on deck. Pursuing his quarry like the fierce orcas his tribe reveres, he swims downward, gauging Vark¡¦s position in the murky water by the echoes from the high-pitched clicking noises he makes. He savages Vark with his sharp teeth, then tows his unconscious form back to the surface. At this point, fatigue kicks in, and he lets go of Vark and survival floats for a time to catch his breath. Meanwhile, Turl strides to the port side and unlimbers his crossbow while trying to force one of the swimming sailors to surrender.
Denia proceeds down the forward hatchway, whence smoke and the sounds of panicked animals are emanating. Indy emerges from the after cabins, where he had peeked in to make sure no more thugs were hiding, then runs across the deck to follow Denia. In his haste to get down the ladder into the galley, he slips and falls on his backside, fortunate not to have tumbled head first and broken his neck. Making her way through the galley into the smoky hold, Denia drops to hands and knees to get under the smoke, making her way toward the light of a small fire on the far side of the hold. Suddenly, a man-sized arachnid creature emerges out of the smoke. Snatching her with its pedipalps before she can react, its enormous mandibles encircle her abdomen and pierce her vitals as she screams in fright. She is conscious, but grievously wounded, and all she can think to do is play dead. Hearing the scream, her shipmates come to her aid. Indy is first, feeling his carefully way among the broken cages until he sees the dim form of a spider¡¦s posterior through the smoke. He stabs the spider-creature just as it is about to begin feasting on Denia. The enraged creature turns on him, trying to add him to its growing stock of food in this convenient lair. He dodges, ducks, and weaves, taking advantage of the smoke and his agility to avoid the fearsome pedipalps that seek to snatch him and drag him toward those deadly jaws. Denia crawls away from the distracted spider and stumbles to her feet. At that moment, Turl arrives in the smoke-filled hold, using what is left of his healing powers to bolster the badly injured Denia somewhat. Turl, and Denia join the battle, distracting the spider-thing from focusing its attentions on Indy, and finally Shook, having heard Denia¡¦s scream, climbed back aboard the Nixie despite his wearied state, and retrieved his harpoon, finds the fight by sound through the smoke, and deals the creature a crippling blow. Turl dispatches it with his battle axe. Denia finds the fire, which has fortunately not spread too quickly, and smothers it with the cloak of a thug killed by the spider-creature. The four comrades stumble up on deck, coughing and wheezing from the smoke, where they find Sandra and Arrosselon trying to remove the battens holding the hatch cover down.
[End of session]
Session Two--The Vanderboren Trove and the Missing Brother
Patchwall 14
The party goes about post-combat tasks. Turl uses the last of his cure spells to ease Denia¡¦s nasty rhagodessa bite. Then Indy does a thorough search of the ship while Shookt!alui takes a swim to recover the Griffon¡¦s ship¡¦s boat, which is adrift in the harbor, and the rest of the party rigs a three-fold block and tackle to pull the hatch cover and let the smoke out of the hold. Indy¡¦s thorough search of the cabin turns up what is left of Lavinia¡¦s platinum from a trunk under the captain¡¦s bunk, and he finds a secret compartment with her father¡¦s signet ring. Attached to the ring is a strange note listing a series of monsters facing either sunrise or sunset. A search of the hold reveals little but exotic animals, most dead except for a few parrots who were shielded from the smoke by a mat over their cage. At some point during the search, the party notices that a patrol from the Merchant¡¦s Watch is standing at the end of Pier Five, mingled with the ship¡¦s company of the Griffon and the Farfoam.
By this time Shook has brought the boat back. His mates loot the bodies of the dead thugs, and send him diving to find the body of Soller Vark. A bit of jewelry and gold coin is always welcome among novice adventurers! The party hauls the unconscious sailor up from the boat and awakens him. They interrogate him, but find out little about Vark¡¦s operation that they hadn¡¦t already figured out.
After some discussion about how to proceed, the party determines that four of them should stay aboard the Blue Nixie to maintain possession on Lavinia¡¦s behalf, while two go ashore to deal with the Watch and inform Lavinia of their success. Accordingly, Indy and Denia row ashore in the Griffon¡¦s boat with the captured sailor, whom they intend to return to his ship. When they arive at the end of Pier Five, a heated argument ensues with the Watch sargeant and the mate of the Griffon. Indy and Denia protest that they are innocent¡XDenia claims she was only defending herself and her friends from an unwarranted attack by the Griffon¡¦s crew. The sargeant insists on arresting them anyway, and they proceed peacefully to the garrison of the Merchant¡¦s Watch, where Indy convinces the Watch captain to let them free after posting a nominal bail and registering their address.
By this time, it is near dawn, and Indy and Denia proceed to the Vanderboren manor to report to Lavinia. She is a bit disturbed at the combat with the Griffon¡¦s crew, but very pleased at the return of her ship, the signet ring, and the money. She dispatches Zartha, a hadozee who served as mate of the Blue Nixie under her father¡¦s command, with his crew. They relieve the rest of the party of watch duties and bring the ship back alongside Pier Five. The rest of the party proceeds to the Vanderboren mansion, where Lavinia commends them and offers them a monthly salary of 100 gp each to serve as her retainers. She instructs them to rest, and be prepared to accompany her to her vault in the morning.
Patchwall 15
The party accompany Lavinia in her private coach to the west pier of the High Market, where they take a ferry across to Castle Teraknian. They are escorted to the Vanderboren family vault by a clerk. Indy notices the eight-pointed star of the Seekers that adorns the door to the vault. Lavinia uses the signet ring to open the door, and Shook and Indy lead the way in after Indy checks for traps. As they proceed across the first chamber of the vault, Shook hears the scrape of metal on stone, and manages to turn and thrust his harpoon at a construct guardian¡Xa good-sized cobra made of iron bands. Almost caught by surprise, he roars in anger at the creature. He damages the thing slightly, and it lunges at him and bites him in the thigh, pumping in poison that doesn¡¦t faze the Darfellan in his enraged state. A scuffle ensues for several rounds¡Xthe iron cobra fails to bite any further victims on successive strikes, but only Shook seems able to pierce its iron hide with his great strength, and after another couple of blows from his harpoon he severs the construct¡¦s neck. Its remains writhe and emanate purple arcs of magical energy, then lie still, its mechanical gore of gears and springs spread across the stone floor. A thorough search of the chamber reveals a catch that causes the entwined snakes carved into a pillar to twist apart, opening a narrow door into another chamber.
This chamber is octagonal, each of its walls carved with a bas-relief representation of a different monster. In the center is a strange, deeply-grooved pillar, and the Seeker symbol encompasses the pillar¡¦s capital where it adjoins the ceiling. One of the points of the Seeker star is red¡Xthe one facing the door they¡¦ve come in. The party puzzles over this strange room, and quickly figures out that the pillar spins. They also realize that the paper that they found with the signet indicates some sort of combination that must be entered to gain access to the Vanderboren hoard. After considerable discussion and experimentation, they decipher the combination and enter it. Lavinia is disappointed to find that most of the treasure has been removed, but there is still a bit left. A pile of ledger books documents dozens of IOUs for favors the Vanderborens have done for most of the guilds and noble families in town, ensuring that Lavinia can keep the family estate solvent, at least. And even more intriguing is a trunk full of journals and sketchbooks in Lavinia¡¦s mother¡¦s hand, but written in a strange language. They contain charts and drawings of huge reptilian monsters, among other things. Denia is able to decipher some of the notebooks, which are written in Sylvan, and it turns out that they document an island far across the water known as the Isle of Dread, a place her parents had explored. Apparently they founded a colony there not long before their deaths.
Leaving the vault, Lavinia inquires as to whether anyone else had visited the vault recently, and the clerk informs her that her brother Vanthus, who disappeared a month ago, has made several visits in recent weeks. She instructs the clerk not to let him in again if he returns, and to inform her immediately.
After they return to the Vanderboren Mansion, the party has leave for the afternoon, and they go out to sell some jewelry taken from Soller Vark¡¦s corpse and spend the 200 gp reward that Lavinia has paid them from the treasure in the vault.
Patchwall 16
Lavinia summons the party in the morning to give them their next assignment, to find her brother Vanthus, and if possible to bring him back to her alive in hopes that she can redeem him and help him turn from the evil path to which he has turned. The party spends the morning asking around in the Azure District (where Lavinia had heard he was shacking up with a woman). They find out that Vanthus¡¦s lover is Brissa Santos, a former pickpocket turned artist who has managed to make a name for herself doing murals and landscapes for a variety of wealthy customers. Neither Vanthus nor Brissa have been seen for weeks, however, so the party turns up no useful leads on their whereabouts. They canvas the Noble District in the afternoon and evening, but no one there has any leads for them.
Patchwall 17
Suspecting that somehow Vanthus may be involved with the illicit trade in exotic beasts (and thus with Soller Vark), the party attempts to gain an audience with Keltar Islaran the harbormaster, who, they reason, must be in cahoots with Vark¡¦s scheme. The attendant who answers the bell refuses to let them in, and informs them that the harbormaster is indisposed and cannot see them. Later, they take a gondola across to Shadowshore to ask around there. They find out that Vanthus has often been seen there in the company of a violent and notorious smuggler named Penkus. A few weeks ago, the two were seen arguing with the owner of the boatyard ¡§It Still Floats!¡¨ The party visits Panchi, the proprietor of this place, and after Shook demonstrates his prowess with the harpoon by throwing his through the side of a hauled-out boat, Panchi admits that he sold Vanthus and Penkus a boat, which they loaded with lamp oil and rope and rowed off to the west.
Patchwall 18
The Indy, Denia, and Shook spend most of the day making further inquiries after Vanthus, particularly trying to find out if he has any connections with the exotic animal market. At dusk, they are sitting in the Sasserine Sleighride when they are approached by a nervous-looking half-elf who calls himself Shefton. Shefton has heard they are looking for Vanthus and might be able to take them to him for a price. The price is agreed upon and Shefton takes them to a boat, and has Shook row them out to Parrot Island. He leads the party up a narrow path through the vegetation up to a clearing atop the island¡¦s limestone shelf. He uncovers a concealed hatchway and tells them it leads to Vanthus¡¦ hideout. He bids them lead the way in, but the party balks. Shook tries to use threats to cow Shefton into leading the way instead. Shefton balks and draws his knife, backing away defensively. Shook, quick as always to respond to a perceived threat, casts his harpoon and slays Shefton before he can react or run away. A brief but heated discussion ensues between Indy and Shook as to whether this act was necessary¡Xit is apparent that the party finds Shook¡¦s violent tendencies troubling, even though he is a useful man to have on one¡¦s side when it comes to fighting. In the end, there is little to say, and there are no outside witnesses to the murder, and Shefton¡¦s motives in showing the party to this place do seem suspect. So, the three determine to go back for the rest of the party, then return to explore this subterranean hideout and see if they can find Vanthus.
[End of session]
Escape from Parrot Island
Patchwall 18 (Continued)
Indy stays behind on Parrot Island and secretes himself in the bushes to keep an eye on the entrance to Vanthus¡¦ supposed hideout, and Denia and Shook row back across the harbor to fetch the rest of the party. They arrive at the Rusty Pirate, where their comrades have gathered, about an hour later. Their compadres quickly agree to return and see if they can find Vanthus in his underground hideout. While Sandra, Turl, and Arrosselon fetch their gear from their rooms, a large patrol of Merchant District Watch show up in the common room of the Pirate, accompanied by the mate of the Griffon. By the time the three return, Shook and Denia are in the process of being arrested¡Xapparently the owners of the Griffon have some pull with the Dawn Council, or at least with local council representative Anwyn Arabani. The party is unable to dissuade the watch officer from completing the arrest, and indeed Turl almost gets himself arrested for muttering disparaging comments under his breath. Shook and Denia are able to leave some of their adventuring gear with the party (rope, cure potions, torches), and give them directions to where they moored Shefton¡¦s boat before they are whisked off to the Merchant¡¦s garrison. Before departing, the rest of the party pays one of the apprentice hands at the Rusty Pirate to deliver a note to Lavinia alerting her to the arrest and the party¡¦s intention to look for Vanthus on Parrot Island.
Arriving on Parrot Island, Turl, Sandra, and Arrosselon have little difficulty finding the trail up the bluffs to the middle of the islet. They scout through the bushes around the clearing surrounding the entrance, and find nothing except Indy, who reveals himself when Arrosselon gets close to him. Having no sense that anything is amiss, the party decides to enter the tunnels below. Turl climbs down first and scouts inward for a few feet using his darkvision. Finding nothing, he signals his comrades to join him. No sooner does Sandra find her way to the bottom when a man appears at the top of the ladder. By torchlight, he resembles the portrait in Lavinia¡¦s dining room¡XVanthus! He laughs at the party for falling so easily into his clutches, and bids them to greet Penkus¡¦ ghost for him, then slams the hatch down and begins piling rocks on top of it. The party is trapped. The quartet roundly curses Vanthus and bemoans their luck, but determines to explore the tunnels to see if another exit can be found.
The narrow entrance tunnel opens via a sticky door into a larger (ten-foot-wide) corridor running east and west. After Turl jerks the door open, a brief moaning sound disturbs the silence, sending chills up everyone¡¦s spines. The party first heads right, through a pair of half-open doors at the end of the corridor. Turl enters the large chamber beyond the doors in an attempt to have a look around. Aside from a few scattered pieces of adventuring gear in one corner, and a door in another, there is a pair of half-open doors on the opposite side of the room. As he moves across the room towards these doors, a human shape lurches through them, jerking unnaturally as though being moved by puppet strings. Turl raises his battleaxe and charges forward at the animated corpse, slashing at it and missing. Indy sees the thing through the doorway and moves to support his companion, while Sandra aims a beam of silvery light that explodes when it hits and opens a gaping hole in its chest but does little to slow its inexorable onslaught. Turl believes the corpse-creature to be an ordinary zombie, dressed in ragged pirate garb, but as it attacks its mouth distends wide, like a snake¡¦s maw when swallowing an egg, revealing sharp, bestial shark-like teeth that grip Turl¡¦s shoulder and tear at his flesh when he shakes free of the thing¡¦s jaws. A brief melee ensues, in which the party discovers that Turl¡¦s axe is really the only effective weapon against the thing besides magic. Sandra uses her last offensive spell against the thing, loosing a ball of blue magical force that strikes the thing in the face but doesn¡¦t bring it down. Indy¡¦s sword barely pierces the thing, while Arrosselon proves unable to hit the mark with his bow, and Sandra is reluctant to use more of her meager arsenal of prepared spells against the thing. After half a minute of scuffling, a solid blow from Turl¡¦s axe finally severs the corpse¡¦s spine, breaking the sinister magical forces animating it, and the party stops to breath. Turl downs one of the party¡¦s precious cure potions to ease the bleeding and pain caused by the creature¡¦s vicious bite.
Turl decides the small door in the northeast corner of the room looks promising. With Indy¡¦s aid and repeated tugging, the door finally comes free. As Turl and Indy try not to land in a heap, another corpse-creature advances around the corner and totters toward them, uttering an incoherent moan that signifies its state¡Xboth mindless and in a state of hideous, eternal torture brought on by misdeeds committed by the corpse¡¦s owner in life. Turl barely has time to raise his axe to ward it off, but manages to land a solid blow to the shoulder that sends the creature staggering backward. Indy pulls out his whip and strikes over the top of Turl¡¦s helm, wrapping it around the thing¡¦s neck and dragging it to the floor. The thing does not bother to rise to its feet, instead grabbing Turl¡¦s leg and delivering a bone-crunching bite. Meanwhile, Sandra screams a warning as a second zombie stumbles through the doors on the west side of the room. As Orosselon and Sandra try to fend off this zombie, the first lurches to its feet, then delivers a second hideous bite as it gets past Turl¡¦s guard. Turl faints, as the pain and loss of blood prove too much even for his tough dwarven frame. Indy shouts for help and steps up to engage the undead thing. The zombie ignores Indy¡¦s pathetic sword blows and falls upon Turl¡¦s inert form, trying to devour it as if it¡¦s undead body needed such sustenance. Horrors and more horrors! Sandra drags Turl¡¦s corpse free and pours a potion down his throat¡Xhis bleeding slows, but he fails to come around. A second potion revives him, but not before the ravenous zombie fells Indy in its ghoulish lust to get past him and finish making a meal of Turl. The ensuing combat is nearly disastrous. As Orosselon battles the second ravenous pirate zombie, the first buries its face in Indy¡¦s entrails, emerging only when another blow from Turl¡¦s axe disturbs its gory meal. Soon, Turl is again down, and Sandra is forced to defend her fallen comrade from the zombie¡¦s feeding frenzy with her only remaining weapon¡Xher staff. She has no time to regret expending her last offensive spell upon the first zombie. A novice wizard wielding a staff is most assuredly not a marvelous thing to behold, and Sandra¡¦s first swing at the zombie misses it, and the backswing smacks poor Turl in the head. Thank the gods for her petite frame and Turl¡¦s thick dwarven skull¡Xotherwise her blow might be the death of the poor wounded cleric. Thank Wee Jas that she had evoked her mage¡¦s armor before entering the tunnels, or the zombie might have made a meal of her as well. Finally Arrosselon manages to destroy the other zombie after half a dozen vicious slashes with his dagger, and as he steps over to aid Sandra, she manages to smash the corpse¡¦s skull with her staff and release the malign energies infusing it with the lust to feed upon the living. The party is victorious, and they manage to revive Turl with the last of their wound-curing potions, but Indy is beyond salvation¡Xhis entrails are half eaten and his soul has already departed for Yondalla¡¦s Land of Plenty.
As if to punctuate the difficult straits in which the party finds itself, the moans of this place¡¦s dead quickly inform them of their dire peril. Hastily, they retreat to the entry chamber to the tunnels, dragging Indy¡¦s corpse with them and taking a hammer and pitons from a rotting backpack in one corner of the room where they fought. They barricade themselves in for the night, spiking the door to keep the undead predators from attacking them. They extinguish their torches and take turns sleeping, posting a watch to awaken the party for a desperate last stand should the zombies batter down the door.
Patchwall 19
Despite ominous moanings and knockings upon the door, the trio remains safe for the night, and after resting and preparing spells, they decide to venture cautiously forth once again in search of an escape route. Turl uses a spell making him imperceptible to the unliving in order to scout. He searches the western end of the complex, finding a couple more of the ravenous zombies but no obvious exits. The small passageway to the northeast of the room in which the previous day¡¦s battle took place leads to a room where several more of the zombies rest in their unquiet, gnawing upon old bones, along with another skeletal creature wearing the holy symbol of Olidammara upon its breast. The thing stares right at, or perhaps right through Turl as he stands in the doorway, and although there is a door on the far side of the room, the dwarf loses his nerve and retreats back to the battle room. Next, he scouts west, entering a large room with the remains of a dock and a large pool of water into which the roof has partially collapsed. As he walks across the room toward a door on the far wall from which the sounds of sea swells emanate, he is set upon by a crab the size of a halfling. As he shouts for help, he realizes that this is karmic retribution for his numerous tasteless jokes about the dangers of catching ¡§dire crabs¡¨ at the velvet hatch. Thanks to the protection granted by Xerbo, the undead in the other room do not perceive Turl¡¦s cry for aid. It is quite fortunate that he has summoned his comrades, for a veritable squadron of the crustaceans swarms out of the water to attack, and it takes some doing to dispatch them. One nearly amputates Arrosselon¡¦s foot with its pincers. A bloated corpse floating in the pool has a cure potion in its pouch, and an empty sheath on its belt prompts Turl to search the waters below, yielding a silver dagger.
Two doors on the north side of the chamber open to reveal only small, empty storage chambers, while Turl¡¦s keen dwarven sense for the layout of underground complexes tells him that the door in the northeast corner almost certainly leads back to the room with the five undead creatures. Instead, the party proceeds westward, through a doorway and into a natural passage in the rock that is half-flooded by the high tide. Turl drinks the elixir of swimming salvaged from Soller Vark¡¦s corpse, then leads the way through this passage, his stout frame resisting the buffets of the waves that surge through the cave. As the party proceeds forward, Sandra is knocked down once, pincushioned with sea urchin spines and weakened by their poison. She requires rescuing as the undertow in a deep pool sucks her underwater, but eventually the three adventurers find themselves in another manmade passage, standing before a wooden door. It is barred, but yields to Turl¡¦s axe.
The hideous stench within reveals the presence of a festering corpse before vision does. The remains belong to Penkus, and clutched in his bloated fingers is a note blaming Vanthus for his demise and revealing his actual whereabouts¡X¡§in the lap o¡¦ th¡¦Lotus beneath th¡¦Taxidermist¡¦s hall.¡¨
The party is disappointed that the chamber appears to be a dead end, but Turl wants to make sure, so he calls upon Xerbo to grant him divine insight. Going into a trance, he seeks the faint traces, imperceptible to mortal senses, that indicate the presence of a secret door. Indeed there is one, and he quickly finds the catch and opens it. Inside is a dry, dusty, cobwebby room containing three chests. No escape tunnel, but Turl¡¦s all-purpose dwarven power-tool opens the chests, revealing some long-hidden pirate treasure. . .
[End of Session]
DM Commentary--Well, sometimes we have to resort to a little artifice when a player can't make it. Fortunately, in this instance, previous campaign events made for a plausible reason for characters to exit the stage temporarily. Or at least we hope it's temporarily--depending on the workings of the squeaky wheels of justice in Sasserine, who knows what will happen? And here's a toast to the memory of Indy, who bravely sacrificed himself to save his comrade Turl from certain death at the hands (well, teeth) of the ravenous pirate zombie.
Shook to the Rescue?
Patchwall 19, continued
While most of the party is trapped in the caves under Parrot Island, Denia and Shook are dragged before the magistrate of the Merchants¡¦ District Court the next morning. Denia¡¦s cousin Anwyn Arabani is the magistrate in question, a beautiful, fair-skinned woman with platinum-blond hair, in her late 30s.
(Background info that Denia knows and shares with the party later--Anwyn¡¦s pointed ears remind the world of her unusual origins¡Xher mother spent over a decade abroad as House Arabani¡¦s trading agent in Port Blue, a city in the chaotic Pomarj. She returned with a half-elven daughter in tow, claiming she had been married briefly to an elven man who was tragically murdered during the violent episodes surrounding the overthrow of the infamous Slavers of the Pomarj. Anwyn claims her father was, in fact, a Drow, a mysterious swarthy elf of the Underdark, although that claim seems dubious given her fair skin. In any event, Anwyn¡¦s mother was somehow able to convince the rest of the Arabani clan that her daughter was legitimate, and so after her death Anwyn became heir to the Arabani estate and the Merchant District¡¦s representative on the Dawn Council. Denia¡¦s father Egbert Arabani was privately quite upset, as he was next in line for the inheritance, but since Anwyn¡¦s mother died while he was away on an extended voyage, Anwyn was well entrenched by the time he returned and he decided not to contest the inheritance in court in the interests of family solidarity.)
Also attending the court session are Lavinia, forewarned by the party¡¦s message of the night before, and Dinmont, a slimy pettifogger whose services the family has relied on to get the law bent in their favor. Before the court is called to order, Anwyn¡¦s clerk Giles enters and whispers a message to her. She becomes visibly pale on hearing it, and takes several minutes before regaining her composure and calling the court to order.
After several ¡§drunk and disorderly¡¨ cases are dispensed with, Shook and Denia are called to the dock for arraignment. Lavinia and Dinmont also approach the bench to plead on their behalf. To the consternation of the captain and mate of the Griffon, who are present, Dinmont talks Anwyn into postponing the hearing until the 4th of Ready¡¦reat, since not all the witnesses are available today. Anwyn sets a bail of 2,000 gold orbs for each of the accused, which Lavinia agrees to post for them, and Anwyn orders them to wait in Giles¡¦ office to complete the formalities.
Later, in Giles¡¦ office, our heroes encounter Plick, a roguish looking fellow accused of breaking and entering who has also been granted temporary freedom on bail because his accuser failed to show up this morning to testify against him.
After a short time, Giles arrives, locks the office door behind him, and bids the party follow him through a secret passage hidden behind a tapestry. The passage emerges into Anwyn¡¦s chambers. Anwyn holds a private audience with the three prisoners, giving her younger cousin a tongue-lashing for involving the family in a disreputable affair. Then she tells them that Keltar Islaran, the harbormaster, was brutally murdered last night. Anwyn¡¦s rival Heldrath Kellani is well-known to be angling to replace him, and Anwyn wishes to block her election to the position by the Dawn Council. In exchange for finding some dirt on Heldrath Kellani sufficient to keep her from being elected, Anwyn will find a way to get Shook, Denia, and Plick off the hook. They have until the 1st of Ready¡¦r¡¦eat, when the Dawn Council next meets, to accomplish this task.
After bail is posted and they are released, Shook, Denia, and Plick go to the Rusty Pirate to see if their friends have returned from Parrot Island. It¡¦s already noon, and there is no sign of their friends, so they borrow the ship¡¦s boat from the Blue Nixie and row out to the island to investigate. They find Shefton¡¦s boat (which their comrades had used to get out to the island the night before) beached at the east end of the island. Proceeding to the clearing, they discover the hatchway to the tunnels has been covered with rocks. Apparently their friends are trapped inside!
They remove the rocks and open the hatch. At the bottom of the shaft, a hideous corpse-like creature is ravenously devouring a small corpse. Shook throws his harpoon and hits the thing, but as he tries to pull it upward, the creature bites through the trailing rope and retreats into the shadows. Shook quickly knots the remains of the rope around the hook at the top of the shaft and slides down. He and the zombie engage in a brief but vicious biting match¡XShook wins, but not before the zombie¡¦s sharp teeth savage his left arm and shoulder.
The corpse belongs to Indy, and Shook carries what¡¦s left of it up to the top. The party briefly considers going back to get Shook¡¦s wounds tended, but worry for their missing comrades spurs them on. Covering Indy¡¦s corpse with leaves to keep the crows away, they re-enter the tunnels and begin exploring. Eerie moans and the sound of something gnawing a bone keep the small group on edge as they push westward into a room that is partly flooded and littered with dead crabs the size of halflings. Freshly killed dead crabs. As they explore this room, another of the zombies bursts from a door in the northeast corner. Shook hits it with his harpoon, but Denia¡¦s rapier pokes the thing without seeming to affect it much. Shook is quickly downed, and as Denia and Plick try to fight the zombie with Plick¡¦s daggers, another enters the room from the door the party came in. Things look grim.
As Plick and Denia fight desperately, the din of the battle rings out through the caves, and Sandra hears it. Sandra, Turl, and Arosselon swim and scramble back through the tidal tunnel and emerge in the room just in time to save their comrades. They help destroy one zombie as another wanders in, attracted by the sound of battle. Turl puts the two standing zombies to flight, abjuring them in Xerbo¡¦s name to begone. But then another zombie lurches into the room. Foreseeing the party¡¦s demise if drastic measures are not taken, Turl smashes the elemental gem he found in the treasure chamber, summoning a large mound of living earth and stone that erupts from the floor. On Turl¡¦s orders, it smashes the zombie next to it, and Turl directs it to proceed through the complex and kill all the remaining undead. The rest of the party attempts to evacuate, dragging Shook¡¦s barely breathing body with them. The elemental smashes another zombie in the next room, then proceeds toward the eastern end of the complex, with Turl closely following it. They encounter the two turned zombies, which have been rallied by the skeletal cleric Turl had seen in his earlier scouting around the complex. The cleric casts a spell upon the elemental and it flees in panic. Turl also flees, out of good sense, but is forced to take a different route than the elemental. Denia, seeing the elemental in full flight, with no sign of Turl, charges in to rescue her comrade. Instead, she runs smack into the undead cleric and one of the zombies.
As this is going on, Plick is busy trying to scale the walls in the entry shaft so he can pull the rest of his comrades to safety with a rope.
Denia fights the undead for several rounds, and is nearly overcome when the cleric closes its bony fingers on her shoulder and she feels the icy grip of its death magic squeeze her heart. Mustering her strength, she shakes off this necromancy and continues to fight, though her dagger fails to do much against the bony cleric.
In the crab-pool room, a pursuing zombie catches up with Turl and he turns at bay. Things look grim as he desperately battles the toothy creature with the last of his strength. The elemental flees into this room, still affected by the fear of the cleric. Suddenly, it snaps out of its panic and rallies. Turl orders it to aid him, and soon another zombie lies in a broken heap. Turl and the elemental hurry back to the battle, and soon the remaining two undead are reduced to a pile of bones and rotting flesh lying on the tunnel floor. A valuable magical item has been expended, but the party is safe and the tunnels have been cleared.
The party leaves Denia to watch the island and returns to Lavinia¡¦s mansion. She is saddened by Indy¡¦s death and promises a proper burial. She gives the party a cure potion to help Shook, but it is not enough to bring him around. So the party rests the night at her mansion.
Patchwall 20
In the morning, Turl heals Shook and the party returns to recover the treasure from the caves.
[End of Session]
Session 5--Dead Crabs and Taxidermists
Patchwall 21
Shook, Denia, Turl and Plick are badly hung-over from a wild celebration the night before and spend the day in bed at the Rusty Pirate.
Sandra and Arosselon, having been a little more moderate in their revels at the Minx Market, wake up first thing in the morning and start the work of following up on the leads provided by Penkus?Elast testimony. Inquiring with the innkeeper at the Pirate, they are informed of two highly reputed practitioners of the taxidermist’s trade, one Shantar in the Champion’s District and another named Nemien who resides in Sunrise. The two make their way to the Champion’s District and inquire about the former in the Tipsy Troglodyte, just inside the gate. They learn that Shantar is the most renowned of a dozen or so taxidermists who keep shop on Zelkarune’s Way across from the Hall of Zelkarune. Sandra gets the idea of visiting this venerable museum of teratology, whose centerpiece exhibit is the colossal Black Dragon that slew the city’s founder and bestowed its name and carcass to “the Largest Exhibit of Monsters South of Gradsul?E(as the sign outside proclaims it). She and Arosselon do a thorough search to see if any of the taxidermists credited in the display placards use trade sigils involving a lotus motif, and if either Shantar’s or Nemien’s work is presented there. Unfortunately these worthwhile hunches don’t pan out, and the pair leave the Hall enlightened about Sasserine’s history, but not about the meaning of the phrase “lap of the Lotus.?E
While searching the museum, Sandra’s intelligent mind is cogitating on the problem of how to approach the suspected taxidermists without giving away that they are under the party’s scrutiny. As they leave the museum, she hits upon the idea of having some of the party’s handiwork taxidermically preserved.
“Dire crabs are just the thing!?Eshe remarks, “but I don’t fancy just the two of us going back into the tunnels under Parrot Island, and trying to roust our comrades from their beds doesn’t seem a very promising possibility!?E
“Well,?EArosselon responds, “we’ve got enough gold, and there are plenty of fellows in this part of town in need of coin to fill their winepots. Let’s head back to the Tipsy Trog and see if we can find a couple of trusty bravoes who’d like to sell their swords for the day!?E
An inquiry with the tapster at the Tipsy Trog leads the pair to Stack and Liller, a pair of brawny but none too bright sellswords, whose purses if they were dumped out together on the bar wouldn’t have enough copper commons in them to make change for a silver Irongate starry. The pair is enjoying a morning mug of smallbeer, hoping a few more coppers will come their way before it’s time for the evening meal. A brief exchange reveals that their swords are sharp even if their wits are not, and that they are more than willing to do a day’s guard duty for a fat gold Greyhawk orb a piece.
After a quick stop at a sailmaker’s shop in the Merchant District for a few yards of coarse Gradsul canvas, the two adventurers and their hired hands hop in the row boat that formerly belonged to Shefton, and head for Parrot Island. There are no obvious signs that anyone has been on the island since the day before, so the foursome lowers itself down the shaft into the smugglers?Etunnels and proceeds cautiously to the collapsed subterranean boat dock where they fought the dire crabs two days before. Fortunately it’s cool down here, or the stench from the rotting crabs would be overpowering instead of merely unpleasant. Unfortunately someone else has gotten to the carcasses first—as the party approaches the pile of crabs, a pair of dog-sized jungle rats attacks Stack and Liller in an attempt to defend this prize pile of carrion. A short battle ensues in which the wizard and her rapier-wielding companion prove more adept at defending themselves than their hirelings do. The rats are killed, but Liller faints from blood loss after one rat’s incisors rip open his thigh, and his companion is nearly hamstrung by the other vicious rodent. Neither Sandra nor Arosselon is well-trained in the art of administering field dressing to wounded soldiers, but Sandra manages to overcome her ignorance and squeamishness, cutting a strip from her cloak and using an empty scroll-case to improvise a tourniquet.
It takes considerable labor on the part of Arosselon and Stack to lift the inert Liller and one rotting crab back to the surface and transport them to the beached skiff. “I’ll think twice before I get involved in another hare-brained witch’s scheme of yours, Sandra,?Egrouses Arosselon.
As the battered party rows back to Pier Five, Plick and Turl have fortuitously come down to the waterfront for a little fresh air to ease their pounding skulls. (Shook and Denia must’ve drunk four bottles of Cauldron’s stiffest XXXXX Eruption brand rum last night between them—Shook is still unconscious, and Denia’s response to Plick’s attempts to rouse her is “Ye got twenty fathoms o?Echain knockin?Eat me door this early in the mornin?E If it’s a-towin?Eyer after, take that prim crabcatcher o?Eyours over t?Ethe Sasserine Sleighride an?Efind yerself a seaworthy cog who’s ready for cargo, set me ‘eading? Just leave me ‘ere at the dock ‘til I can step me masts straight and square me main yards!?E
Grumbling about his poor aching head all the while, Turl channels the power of mighty Xerbo to heal the battered mercenary guards, while Sandra administer’s Xerbo’s balm to their bruised egos, in the form of a 5 orb reward for their bravery in the tunnels, and an offer of 15 gold orbs each for a week of work in unspecified guard duties. A most generous offer that’s hard to turn down, especially with 10 additional orbs per day of hazard pay. (“Kord’s loincloth!?EStack declares privately to his companion, “these adventurers sure got a lot o?Esparkle to throw around! It’s enough to make a feller grow big teeth!?E
The party hires a stevedore and his wheelbarrow to cart the canvas-wrapped crab carcass back to Zelkarune’s Way to serve as a cover for their investigations. Quite an entertaining procession they make, drawing suspicious looks from the Merchant District Watch, who know this lot well enough to know they’re up to no good, and from the Cudgel District Watch, who think everyone’s up to no good if they’re not respectable citizens of the district. As the party passes the Tipsy Trog, Plick breaks off to enjoy a mug of ale and a game of dice, and see if he can pick up any tidbits on the “lap of the Lotus?Ewhile his companions haul their stinky crab from door to door along Zelkarune’s Way. They manage to hold conversation with most of the taxidermists along this street, despite their malodorous prop, before the shop apprentice gossip from Shantar’s leapfrogs ahead of them and alerts the last few shop-masters in the row that this lot is all about “running their crabcatchers?Eand not likely “show any sparkle.?E
Their decaying crustacean having worn out its welcome, the party heads back to the Merchant’s District, snatching Plick away from his dice game and heaving the dead crab into a canal in the Cudgel District while the watch is looking the other way. As the laborer bites his silvers to make sure they’re not Scarlet Brotherhood counterfeits, Plick relates what he learned about the “Lotus?Efrom a couple of Champion’s District watchmen over the knucklebones.
“The Lotus Dragons, ya mean? Haven’t seen much o?Ethem this side o?Etown, but word has it they’re a regular guild o?Ethieves, and they’ve pulled off some stunts as got the Dawn Council crappin?Eballast pigs. Not like them gangs o?Ewee sharks as used to plague each other more than they plagued honest folk. Them’s real big sharks, and I wouldn’t go jumpin?Ein the water with ‘em, set me heading? ‘Less ye got twenty fathoms o?Echain, and no lookout in yer crowsnest, anyhow! Can’t say’s I know much about ‘em, though, just overheard a few rumors ‘round the Watch Garrison.?E
It is now clear that the “lap of the Lotus?Ein Penkus?Etestament refers to the lair of the Lotus Dragon thieves?Eguild, and it merely remains to check out Nemien’s establishment and confirm the suspicion that it is the “Taxidermist’s Hall?Eto which Penkus?Eletter refers. If so, it almost certainly hides an entrance to the guild’s lair, and thus the key to locating Lavinia’s wayward brother.
The party stops in at Lavinia’s to report that they believe Vanthus is closely involved with the up-and-coming thieves?Eguild. She refuses to believe he is beyond redemption and asks the party to bring him back alive if they can, though she knows it might be difficult.
Afterwards, they head to the Sunrise district and track down the establishment of Nemien Roblach, guildmaster of the Taxidermists?EGuild. They find it on Water Street, and Plick and Arosselon enter the shop. Nemien—a well dressed fellow with a gold tooth and curled mustachios—comes into the showroom at the ring of the bell, and inquires what they want, looking down his nose at them the whole time. Plick pretends to ask on Arosselon’s behalf about the possibility of joining the taxidermists?Eguild, but soon turns the conversation in the direction of asking whether Nemien has any connections with the Lotus Dragons. Nemien hotly denies any knowledge and summarily throws them out of his shop, barring the door behind them. Plick now strongly suspects that Nemien is in league with the gang, and while the rest of the party keeps an eye on the front of the shop while pretending to play dice, Plick cases the back of the shop, which has an exit on a quiet and apparently deserted lane, called Dead Dog Alley. Weeds grow up through the paving stones and a well stands in the middle of a small open courtyard, and the doors of all the buildings except Nemien’s shop are boarded up. Well, they appear to be—Plick’s careful examination reveals that the tips of the nails are bent over, allowing several of the doors to open. Inside, the buildings are dark, and Plick decides to investigate more thoroughly later.
The party heads back to the Rusty Pirate as the sun sets over the city’s West Gate. They retire early, thinking that just before dawn would be an ideal time for a strike against the Lotus Dragons. But Plick, on a hunch, makes a quick trip outside to make sure the party isn’t being watched. As he makes his way down the street, he spots someone following him, so he turns into an alleyway, slips into the shadows, and readies his sap. The follower enters after him, but Plick’s sap deflects off the top of his skull and fails to knock him out. A brief rapier battle ensues, with the thug ending up on the losing end. He faints from the pain of a rapier wound and Plick carries him back to the alley next to the inn, dumps him there, and goes to fetch Turl so the thug can be revived and interrogated. Sandra and Arosselon come along.
When they get to the alley, the thug is missing, and before the party can act on this discovery, they are assaulted with a barrage of poisoned darts fired by hand-crossbow armed thugs on the roofs above them. Turl succumbs to the nausea induced by the poison, but the others fight back. Plick and Arosselon manage to badly wound one of the assailants with darts and arrows, and as he attempts to stumble away across the rooftops he collapses and slides off the roof, falling to the street. The others flee.
Sandra manages to staunch the felled thug’s bleeding until Turl recovers enough to administer Xerbo’s lifesaving power to knit his broken bones and expel the darts buried in his flesh. Not practiced in interrogation techniques, the party fails to get much information from their assailant. They turn him over to the watch for questioning.
[End of Session].
Session 6--What do you mean you're going in the front door?
Patchwall 22
The party passes the night uneventfully. In the morning, they inform Lavinia of their findings and their intention to enter the Lotus Dragon headquarters in search of Vanthus. She warns them to be cautious, but is happy that they have quickly found where he is hiding.
Before proceeding with their plan, the party heads for the Nobles¡¦ District to make some purchases at a potion shop they have visited before. On their way, while crossing the Spice Street Bridge from the Sunrise District into the Azure District, they pass through a crowded that is visiting the market stalls on the bridge. Sandra sees a pickpocket filch a potion from Turl¡¦s pouch. Attempts to apprehend the thief quickly generate into a street melee when the thief pulls a knife to protect himself. An accomplice comes to his aid, allowing him to make a break for it by running along the bridge parapet. Plick throws a dagger at him as he flees, and he catches it in the back and falling lifeless into the canal. Turl cracks his accomplice¡¦s skull with his mace as the latter attempts to flee over the parapet, and his body ends up in the canal as well. Plick takes a dip in the canal and recovers the stolen potion¡XSandra uses her little magical talents to dry him off and clean him up afterwards.
After procuring some potions for healing wounds and a wand that produces gouts of flame, the party returns to the Rusty Pirate to rendezvous with Stack and Liller, who have been instructed to report there at nine. As it is by now approaching noon, the two sellswords are already a little tipsy, as they have been drinking with an unemployed marine soldier by the name of Calderon. In the course of announcing to their hirelings the day¡¦s task (entering the Lotus Dragons¡¦ lair), Turl lets most of the common room patrons know the party¡¦s plans. Despite this ineptitude, they manage to convince Cal to join their enterprise for an equal share of the loot. As a veteran soldier and brawler, Cal insists on taking charge of the party¡¦s tactics for the endeavor. (Cal makes no bones about his disdain for the party's sloppy work up to this point). Plick finds himself barhopping to the various taverns of the Sunrise district for the rest of the day, at Cal¡¦s direction.
Plick¡¦s mission is threefold. First, he is supposed to attract the attention of the Lotus Dragons by picking pockets¡Xencroaching on their territory and hopefully provoking a response. Plick is fairly successful at picking pockets, though he does get himself run out of a few places where is nimble fingers fail him. He is also supposed to work on gathering more information about the Lotus Dragons. This work nets a few additional rumors, notably that they have ties to the animal smugglers and have procured several dangerous creatures to guard their guildhall¡Xthe rumors are unfortunately silent on precisely what these creatures are. Finally, Cal comes up with an ingenious way of indirectly alerting the district watch to the problem of the Lotus Dragons. He has Plick punch him in the eye, then wanders into the Siren¡¦s House, a tavern directly across from the watch¡¦s garrison, buys drinks for some of the off-duty watchmen, and complains about being assaulted by a Lotus Dragon thief in broad daylight.
An afternoon of this sort of activity satisfies Cal that he has planted the right seeds, and he and Plick head for the Rusty Pirate just before sunset. As they head down Widow¡¦s Walk, they are ambushed by a trio of rogues. They use the same tactics as the assailants of the previous night, firing poisoned quarrels from the rooftop. Cal breaks down the door of a house to get to the roof where two of the assailants stand, and Plick follows him. The rogues flee, but one of them misses his jump across the alleyway behind the building and falls to the street. As he picks himself off the cobblestones, Cal springs on him and knocks him to the pavement again, then forces him to surrender at swordpoint. Cal is an intimidating fellow, and guessing that the rogue is a member of the Lotus Dragons, he manages to wring the location of a secret water entrance to the Lotus Dragons¡¦ hideout from him. After forcing the thief to revive Plick, who made a hard landing on the paving stones after being weakened by three poisoned crossbow darts, Cal takes him to the garrison. In the face of Cal¡¦s threats, the thief agrees to confess that he was the one who assaulted Cal in the morning. Unfortunately, the apprehension of a Lotus Dragon thief does not seem to move the district watch toward taking aggressive action against them, even when Cal talks to the watch lieutenant.
Cal and Plick head back to the Rusty Pirate, and the party decides to proceed with the planned assault on the Lotus Dragons in the wee hours of the morning. They turn in early in preparation. [Note: Shook and Denia have been off all day investigating Heldrath Kellani, and they haven¡¦t returned yet].
Patchwall 23
The party get up several hours before dawn, prepare spells, then take their boat to look for the entrance. They find the entrance under Pier 17, but the lifting door is latched from inside. Cal and Turl use oars to pry the door open far enough to jimmy the latch on one side, then Plick slips through and grabs the top of the door from the inside, swinging his way across like an ape so he can release the other latch.
Meanwhile, the boat comes under assault by some swimming creatures that look a bit like stingrays. As Plick¡¦s weight pivots the door open, the party battles the rays, which are knocking the bottom of the boat and biting at those who lean over the side to try to attack them. In the ensuing battle, the party manages to slay three of the creatures (Cal skewers two with his longspear), while Stack and Liller row for the pier inside the sea-cave revealed by the door. Plick rolls off the door back into the boat, and when the boat reaches the pier, the party quickly moves out of the boat onto the beach, out of range of the ray-creatures. One of these has bitten a small hole in the bottom of the boat, so it is to be hoped that the party can find another means of exit from the Lotus Dragon hideout.
[end of session].
DM comments--Welcome to our new PC, Calderon, and his player. Hopefully we'll have a little more background on Cal to share before our next session.
Well, we've been on hold for quite some time, playing a pair of FR campaigns, and most recently a foray into the new Ravenloft. (Ugh, 4 PC deaths in two sessions!) Soon, we will finish off Strahd (or maybe he'll finish us!) and I'm hoping I have a chance to pick this campaign back up again. In preparation, here's the last installment of the log for "There is No Honor."
Patchwall 23 (continued)
As the party is preparing to advance into the lair of the Lotus Dragons, Shook and Denia show up in the Blue Nixie?fs ship?fs boat. They finish off the ixitxachitls while pulling up to the dock. They explain that they returned from their stakeout of the Kellani mansion to discover that the others had already left to settle the Lotus Dragons?f hash. Sandra left a sealed note for them at the Rusty Pirate explaining what they were up to and where they had gone, and their companions were able to catch up with them.
Thus reinforced the party cuts through the Lotus Dragons?f defenses like a knife through warm butter. After clearing a number of rooms of enemies, and turning back from pursuing some rogues who were obviously trying to lure them into an ambush, the party catches one of the thieves alive, and forces him to bring them to Rowyn. He leads them into a different ambush, in the guild?fs training room, but the party manages to defeat the six rogues there, though Shookt!alui is overcome by their poisoned crossbow darts and succumbs to a bout of extreme nausea.
The party advances inward toward the guildmistress?fs quarters, slaying a chained Rhagodessa meant to keep them at bay. They find an interesting planning room, and ultimately walk past a propped up bugbear corpse into an opulent chamber, where they are received by the guildmistress herself, who is accompanied by a halfling-sized reptilian pet.
?gSo, would you prefer to speak to the Lady Lotus, or the Lady Dragon??h the guildmistress says. Calderon walks into the room, playing for time by pretending to negotiate with her. She advances a proposal to the PCs, offering them a healthy bribe to abandon Lavinia Vanderboren and join her thieves?f guild instead. At this point, the party, having advanced into the room, refuse her offer, out swords, and advance to attack. They quickly dispatch the reptilian pet and wound the guildmistress. She tumbles away from the party and calls her two bugbear zombies to attack (one in a corner of the room, one in the hallway). The party quickly corners her and kills her, and after a tough fight, destroy her zombie pets as well.
Afterwards, they cut off the guildmistress?fs head and move about the complex, warning the guild members they encounter that they?fll allow them to flee, but will kill them if they offer resistance. A secondary leader who lives next to the guild?fs torture chamber gathers the remaining thieves and takes the opportunity to flee.
The party finds the exit to the abandoned buildings near the taxidermists?f hall, and sends Plick and Denia to inform Lavinia of their victory. Later that morning, Lavinia shows up, with Captain Zartha and a few trusty marines from the Nixie?fs crew.
[end of session]