Introduction
We started this session with a minor modification to the standard procedure. The players were told they could “Press Pause” at the end of the session, even if still in a dungeon or other delve, or they could go back to town and have two weeks of Downtime. This was because I was going on vacation and would not be able to DM for a week.
Prologue
Before the session proper begins, Baron decides to take advantage of some confusion in the Street of Temples, as the Prophets of the Chosen are having a big gathering, tossing all of their worldly possessions into a great bonfire as they prepare to leave the city in advance of the upcoming Apocalypse.
Sneaking around and pretending to be a joiner, Baron attempts to steal some valuable personal items before they are tossed on the pyre. His plan is to remain mostly unnoticed in the chaos and mayhem of the celebration.
Unfortunately he was not able to maintain secrecy, was spotted by spooked housewives, already on edge. A cry went up and he was exposed, so he fled and was chased.
I decided to try a Skill-based chase scene, and asked him to make some die rolls based on ability scores.
Baron manages to grab 35 GP worth of goods before getting spotted as a thief.
You can run or fight the crowd.
Roll 3 checks, using INT, then WIS, then DEX (d20 roll under)
You will take 1 HP per failed check
19/9, 5/12, 15/7 (Fail, Pass, Fail)
Sadly, Baron only had 2 hp, so he was captured by the mob and beaten to death.
RIP Baron
Part One - 4 May
The party hires two each of Crossbowmen, Heavy Infantry, and Shortbowmen.
Due to the loss of a beloved PC, and adding a new player, we worked in a meeting with the Keepers of the Keys, the temple of Hades that Funeral is part of.
The senior priest of the Temple of Hades has introduced two magic users to Funeral and the group. He tells you about a shrine on the shore that has been re-occupied, and the Temple wants it cleared out. Bring back the miscreants, dead or alive.
They decide to travel out to the shore and clear out the closed shrine of Hades for the Keepers.
They approach the shrine from the road, keeping a stand of trees between them and the dilapidated shrine. They get as close as they can, without exposing themselves to view, and can smell woodsmoke.
Raven & Crow sneak further forward, crawling on the ground, and see a young boy come out & start scrubbing the door. Raven rushes forward, surprising the boy, and grabs him. He runs back to the trees with the youngster, where they tie his hands and gag him.The poor little guy is terrified and now he has a bloody nose.
They interrogate the boy about who is in the shrine. He tells them it’s a mean, old sorcerer who does magic with fire and burns people. He draws a map at their request, as best he can.
Part Two
They put two archer hirelings in charge of watching the boy and the wagon. Then the rest of the party approaches the shrine, which is a stone structure built into the side of a low hill, with a wooden lean-to style entryway with a large double door.
The door is not locked, and they burst in, weapons drawn!
They see along, narrow, dimly-lit room, with one guard standing by a small gong next to a stone archway going into the temple proper. The crossbowmen shoot the guard, and he falls to the ground, struck twice. Moving quickly to the opening, they step over the dead man, who actually looks as though he was already killed in a fire, and bypass the double-doors at the far end of the lean-to. They duck through a short hallway, with a hanging curtain divider on their left and a long, dimly lit hallway on the right.
Coming down the hallway toward them is a procession of coal-black men, carrying short swords that burn with a greasy orange flame. The coal-men are moving briskly, two by two, and they raise their flaming swords and attack!
This battle in the close space takes a while, as there are 14 of the coal-men. Both of the new Heavy Infantry hirelings are killed in the melee. Raven goes to peek around the corner at the end of the hall, and sees another long hall going south. They decide to look behind the curtain, and find a sumptuous dining room. The table is set with three silver place settings and an ivory centerpiece. They gather up these small treasures and move across the room, through the open archway in the south wall.
This large room is now being used as a bedroom, with a wardrobe, desk, chair, and side table near the large bed. As no one is in the room, they listened at the three doors leading out and hear no noises.
They ransack the room.
They find a locked strongbox, which they just pack into a backpack, as it jingles like it’s full of coin and they can open it later.
Barber takes a gorgeous black and orange ceremonial robe from the wardrobe and finds a medium sized codex…a ship’s log!
There is a strange diagram, a language they can’t read, and a folded parchment map. The map shows several connected chambers of a cave-like area, possibly partly underwater.
The log is from a ship called Picara, and it begins an undetermined amount of time previously, as the names of months are unfamiliar. She set sail from a port called Lustayr, and there are records of directions and times to various strangely named Islands - Kuva, Tuvago, Ro-ra-than, Varvuda. The Captain of the vessel, Leviz (?) and the Navigator Aryl, seem to switch off making notations. Both of them reference a mystical chart and an unusual navigation device, used for looking at the sun. Or a sun. Or star. The language is unclear.
There is also mention of two prisoners, one Pav-Esh (a rival Captain?) and “the fair Pollidemia”, a sorceress of Grekia (whether that is a place or an Academy is unclear).
The next to last page references the cave, ten miles southwest along the coast south of “the vessel of the Harbingers”. The next few entries indicate sailing south, then turning around to the mainland to get medical care for Pollidemia, who has become deathly ill.
Curious, but sure the log would take days to read and decipher, they put it away and continued the exploration. The door to the east led to a medium-sized chamber that was definitely the slave quarters for the boys. A door of metal bars, like that of a jail cell, blocked an exit south, which led down to a room with flickering flames that illuminated the ext of the stairs into a larger chamber.
No one was able to pick this lock.
A passage to the north led to a kitchen, where someone had been in the middle of preparing a nice vegetable soup.
At this point we “ran out of time” and pushed the PAUSE button, as mentioned above.
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