This page is dedicated to chronicling my ongoing Dungeons & Dragons Campaign, "His Daughter's Name." This sequence of adventures is based on events already set forth in the story of The Company of Wandering Kings, as well as things that I have planned for the story that haven't shown up yet. Things will be a bit different, of course, as the players encounter various nefarious things ... but that's part of the fun.
Introduction
For those not "in the know," I play Dungeons & Dragons. I've been playing for a few years, and my current group and I have been playing the new, 5th Edition, for a few months now. Recently, I have decided to run my own campaign, as the Dungeon Master, and befitting its initial purpose I have set the campaign in Avorah.
This page is for something a little different, but still fitting for this blog — at least, I hope that's the case. See, we play each week, but switch campaigns. One week is mine, wherein I continue my campaign. The next week is for our regular Dungeon Master, and we play his.
In an effort to keep everything in order, and ensure that nobody forgets where we were in the story, I've decided to keep a recap here on this blog. This seemed pertinent since the first leg of the campaign took place in Moonguard. Many of the things I've worked out for the story are coming through in the campaign, and new things that happen in the campaign have a very real chance of making it into the story.
Like my other new page for the year, Inspiring Word, this is pretty much just for me. But I'll keep it here, just in case anyone is interested in hearing the various exploits of my gaming group, as I guide them through the trials and tribulations of Avorah.
Session One
THE RED SPRING FESTIVAL
December 23, 2014
It's Autumn in Moonguard. Campaign season is over, and the residents of the city are preparing for the Winter harvest. To celebrate these two momentous events of the year, the month-long Red Spring Festival is in full swing. Well. It only lasts a month for the civilian population, and only for the ones who don't work any fields. For most everyone else, there is work to be done.
But the atmosphere of the festival is electric, as the adventuring party returns home from the desert battlefields of the Wastes, to the south. They are brought before the Triumvirate — the three ordained priestesses of the Ten Guards — and it is announced that, not only have they been promoted to Armsmen, they have been selected to represent Moonguard in the final bout of the Grand Melee. They will fight against four champions from the East. Specifically, the Helm, Saint Aca's city, which boasts the only standing army comparable to Moonguard's.
The party consists of Kriv, a dragonborn fighter wearing hand-forged chainmail; Aseir, a half-elf bard with a taste for the proverbial finer things; Thorin, a dwarven druid with the backing of the most powerful woman in the city; and Grindel, a "human" ranger (and his faithful animal companion, of course) in the personal service of Sister Naya Belmont. They enter the arena as strangers, and step out of it as a team. Sort of.
The party's performance against these champions — which boasted an archer with a propensity for rooftops, a magic-user with an illusory sword, a knife-master, and a gladiator — catches the eye of not only the people of Moonguard, who celebrate raucously as their honor is upheld by these newcomers, but also of the reigning monarch of Moonguard: Princess Selena d'Courte.
Within the princess's private council chamber atop Selena's Walk — the tower at the center of the city, not named for the princess; in fact, better to say that the princess was named for the tower — the party is brought forward, and given a very discreet, very important mission.
A member of Sister Ai Nan-Tamé's Third Guard, a junior officer by the name of Loki Heiler, is missing. And, for some reason, Princess Selena is very, very concerned.
Session Two
HEILER AND BROGAN
January 05, 2015
It's the middle of the night. Two members of the party — Thorin and Grindel — have gone off to handle this mission in their own way. Kriv and Aseir decide to work together. They learn from Princess Selena that Loki Heiler is still a boy, and that any pertinent information they might glean about him would probably be best found in his mother, Anna Heiler, a noblewoman living in the Inner Ring of the city.
Lady Heiler is still awake, despite the late hour. Most likely this has to do with her preoccupation with her missing son. But it might be for ... other reasons as well.
In the meantime, Grindel heads off to his own barracks. He is, after all, a mercenary for the Ninth Guard — resident trackers, spies, and general miscreants of the army. He and his companion (a bull mastiff named Dog) find their commander, Sister Belmont, standing Deep Watch outside the barracks. She is particularly interested in a little bug, a slightly red-tinged tick, and doesn't acknowledge her prized lackey until a long while has passed.
From her, Grindel learns that Heiler is rather highly prized in his Third Guard, and that the chief threat of not finding him has very little to do with his mother, or the princess. It's Sister Nan-Tamé who is likely to be a threat. Our ranger opts to head to the Third's barracks, to see if there might be more information to be had.
Outside the city, a newcomer arrives. Like Grindel, he is a member of the Ninth. Unlike the ranger, however, he is an enlisted man. He has received a note, hastily scrawled and delivered, by an old childhood friend: Anna Heiler. It covers a few things, but everything comes back to three simple words.
"I need you."
This newest member of the search party, as it turns out, is Haywood: an elven rogue, skilled with short bow and rapier. He considers himself a gatherer of information, more than a soldier. He was recruited by the Ninth for this precise reason. Sister Belmont is much more interested in the quietly skilled than the brashly talented.
Eventually, the party is reunited in Lady Heiler's manse, where they learn that Loki is a proud boy, convinced of his own potential greatness and loathe to admit any need for help. He is also a creature of long habit: if he is not at his barracks (or on campaign), he is with his mother; if he is not with his mother, he is at the library or the outer walls, studying. But Loki Heiler has another interest lately, and that is ... esoteric magic. Alternative methods of sorcery and general trickery. It is this new interest which eventually leads the party to him ... though they don't realize it at first.
The next day, the party splits up to find information on the boy, but they are all led to the same place: an old, ramshackle church, and a man named Brogan. Grindel speaks with this man, and eventually recognizes him as an apparent acolyte of Allacinne, the Saint Mother. Brogan seems to know about this church, home to a "movement" (cult) which calls itself the Forgotten Sons; more than he is willing to tell.
The rest of the party enters the church, and finds it to be some sort of storefront, or at least it looks that way to begin with. After a brief altercation, the shopkeeper reveals something disconcerting about himself: his body, and apparently his mind, is dead. An illusion has been woven about the place. The wooden walls wipe away with a touch to reveal cold, lifeless stone. And the private meeting in the back chamber shows itself to be an unholy communion of shambling corpses.
Grindel, in fighting these monstrosities, opts for a more far-reaching tactic than just bow and bolt: he brings a torch. As the party fights off a cabal of illusionist zombies, the church — or at least, the illusory coat of reagents — goes up in flames. By the time the fight is over, the entire building is a bonfire, and going back in to search for the boy becomes an arduous path.
Junior Sentinel Loki Heiler is found in a secret cellar beneath the back room, shackled to a table and drained of his power. However, when Kriv brings him up into the inferno — worried more about the runes carved into the walls of the cellar, which Aseir recognizes as being responsible for the boy's lack of power — Heiler is revived. He uses the overwhelming heat from the blaze not only to rejuvenate himself, but to obliterate the final zombie in the room, which was still trying to reach Grindel by climbing out the only window in the building.
The party deliberates on what to do with this boy. Do they take him back to his barracks? Or to his mother? Eventually, it is Haywood, Lady Heiler's old friend, who answers the question. The party prepares to bring Loki back to Lady Heiler, wondering what could possibly have led to such strange happenings.
And what, exactly, this Brogan character knows about it.
Session Three
RED STONE, RED HAND
January 16, 2015
A meeting with Lady Heiler is interrupted by proof that the corrosive nature of this necromantic magic has spread from the civilian population to the Iron Wolves themselves. A group of the Second Guard’s finest has interrupted a mother’s reunion with her prized son, only to reveal themselves as a now-familiar threat: dead-but-functioning corpses with a proclivity for repeating themselves. They’re after the boy.
The party — specifically Kriv, Aseir, and Grindel (Haywood having been sent away by Lady Heiler to inform "her" of the situation ... whomever "she" is) — refuses to let them
inside.
This new group of zombies, comprised of three Armsmen and two Junior
Sentinels, proves more resilient than their robe-covered compatriots.
Meanwhile, Thorin — Sentinel Heiler’s brother-in-arms — has received word from Sister Nan-Tamé: the threat presented by the boy’s disappearance may not be entirely natural. In this case, she gives him a shard of re’trol, the Red Stone, a cleansing ore which is often laced into weapons of other metals to increase their potency against aberrations and similar creatures. Thorin opts to have his scimitar re-forged, and meets his fellow adventurers just in time to join the newly-made field of battle in front of the Heilers’ manse.
After various decapitations and immolations, the party
emerges victorious and is rewarded for its efforts in its first mission as a
specialized strike team. While Grindel and Thorin “extract” information out of
Brogan — their cultist prisoner from outside the burning church — Kriv and Aseir
accept a new mission from the princess: to seek out the power behind this cult,
the Forgotten Sons, and put an end to the threat of undeath.
They are led to the mining town of Crest, Moonguard’s
primary source of re’trol, from which there has been no recent reports from the
army’s suppliers. This is, according to Brogan, the base of operations for the Forgotten
Sons, who proclaim themselves to be the “dirty little secret” of the church.
While the ordained priests and priestesses hand out their missives and their
favors, these lost children of Father God carry out the grisly work that no one
wants to admit needs doing. They took the boy not because they wanted to, but
because they had to. He was the key to halting some dark, secret cataclysm, an
event of such calamity that no one — not even the Sons themselves — could predict
its eventual repercussions.
The party opts to take Brogan’s tattooed hand — a sign of his
affiliation with the cult — and truss Aseir up to take his place, hopefully in
order to infiltrate the Sons’ headquarters and end their operation. After
supplying themselves with the necessary provisions — potions, holy water, alchemists’
fire, and a re’trol-forged blade for Grindel — they set out.
Crest is set against the foot of a nearby mountain, and the
mine from which the town derives what wealth it has is a cave, which seems to
have been claimed by the Sons. Most of the town is delighted to accept Kriv — the
only member of the party to display his affiliation, by wearing his
Armsman’s badge in plain view — but a ... select few are less than thrilled.
The rest of the party decides to take a stealthier approach.
While Aseir/Brogan waits for word from his “brothers,” Grindel and Thorin take
up watch at the mouth of the cave. They set up a trap, using Thorin’s newfound
skill at metamorphosing himself into a giant spider ... just in case.
The night ends with an ambush gone awry. The Forgotten Sons try to tie up loose ends with Brogan,
only to end up obliterated by a group of adventurers which may not handle
social interactions very well, but always ends up on the winning side when the time
comes to draw steel.
And for a group of soldiers ... isn’t that all that really
matters?
January 26, 2015
The Red Stone keeps the party on track, as they enter into the unnatural darkness of Crest’s mine. The weapons of Thorin and Grindel act as beacons; while chunks of ore prized from their latest conquests keep Kriv and Aseir out of the dark. They descend, and the caverns oblige them. As the human enterprise of the mine slowly shifts into a sequence of seemingly natural caves, the party’s guard goes up.
Session Four
THE BONE EATER'S CROWN
January 26, 2015
The Red Stone keeps the party on track, as they enter into the unnatural darkness of Crest’s mine. The weapons of Thorin and Grindel act as beacons; while chunks of ore prized from their latest conquests keep Kriv and Aseir out of the dark. They descend, and the caverns oblige them. As the human enterprise of the mine slowly shifts into a sequence of seemingly natural caves, the party’s guard goes up.
At one juncture, they find discarded supplies. Not just pickaxes
and torches, but scribes’ tools, and simple weapons. Rope, and empty vials.
These aren’t simply the tools of miners, but the remains of any number of
people. But why are they here? What could have brought them so deep into the
earth, and why would they leave their supplies behind?
Even deeper into the caverns and the adventurers find a fork
in the road: one path is natural, leading down, down, down. The other path is
carved into the cave wall, by seemingly human hands, and it is this path that
sends the adventurers into the dark truth behind this cult’s power. At the end
of this path is a ramshackle, makeshift campsite, with a fire pit, and several
burlap tents. And at the far end, fifteen feet lower than the rest of the cave,
is a pit.
A pit of bones. Gnawed, discarded bones.
At first, there is no sign of anything untoward. Kriv
investigates the pit, and Aseir joins him, but they find nothing in particular.
However, upon trying to escape the pit, they are assaulted. The bones have
risen, reconstituted themselves, and the party finds itself doing battle with
animated skeletons, with shattered swords and teeth marks like tattoos.
As the party prepares for battle, the dead fire pit behind
them flares to life, and Haywood — the elven spy — enters the fray. The party makes
relatively quick work of the skeletons, but this only uncovers a greater
threat: nestled in each of the skulls of these abhorrent creatures is a dark
shard of ore. Once five shards meet the dank air, they coalesce into a crown,
and this crown blesses the head of a great, gigantic bear crafted from the
remaining bones.
The bear is huge, strong, and unnaturally fast. For each
movement the party makes, this ursine monstrosity meets them with a charge. Thorin
makes use of his new transformation, Haywood displays his singular gift for
balance, while Grindel, Kriv, and Aseir trade blows and are knocked aside in
equal measure, as the bear skeleton makes a battlefield of both the pit of
bones and the discarded campsite.
However, these are not Princess Selena’s chosen for nothing.
They emerge triumphant, even against such an abomination as this unholy king of
beasts.
But their battle has caught the attention of the Forgotten
Sons, who rush to the camp in an attempt to uncover who has infiltrated their
midst. Unfortunately for these fresh acolytes, however, the party is drunk on
victory, and their blades are sharp. Three of the six cultists are dead within
the first few seconds, and the remaining three are dead soon after.
Grindel learns that the tiny bug he has been sheltering
since leaving Moonguard is a sign, portending some calamitous end, “the End of
Everything,” and it feeds on blood. Gorging on the final cultist, it returns to
its host, docile and content.
Apparently.
There remains another path in the cave. The party returns to
the fork and takes it, Grindel swift and silent in the lead. This path leads
even further down, not just geographically, but arcanically. For at this end is
the remaining members of the Sons.
A gladiatorial arena has been worked into the floor of this
stone coffin. While five of the cultists stand at its head, chanting, the remaining
twenty stand opposite, cheering as they watch a prisoner fight bare-handed
against a bronze wyrmling.
All the while, standing sentinel over this grisly display,
is the decomposing corpse of a fully-grown bronze dragon.
Kriv, Aseir, and Thorin join their compatriot, infiltrating
the crowd as the prisoner falls victim to the beautiful savagery of the tiny
dragon.
When a volunteer is called to enter the arena to replace the
dead man, Kriv steps forward.
Session Five
ITH'NAX
February 09, 2015
The wyrmling is poised to strike, but not of his own will. Still a baby — without the self-reliant, self-sufficient streak so common in older dragons — he gets along in life by watching his mother. But his mother is dead, lying in the back of the cave — rumored to have carried the obscure Acerbian name of Byg’azh since antiquity.
Kriv surprises the little one by speaking to it in the only
language it knows: Draconic. From this, Kriv learns that this wyrmling is
fighting humanoids against its will because the woman who seems to have
replaced his mother — “New Mama” — has ordered him to.
It’s as simple as that.
Haywood, who also knows Draconic, opts to help Kriv along
with the wyrmling, while Aseir and Grindel take the fight to the Forgotten
Sons. The die has been cast, and the final showdown between two religious
factions begins.
Grindel seeks refuge within the body of the dragon to set up
the perfect strike, while Aseir opts to continue his disguise, assisting his
fellows from the obscurity of the crowd. The crowd is tasked with seeking “the
interlopers,” and the leader attempts to wrest control of her prized pet from
these newcomers.
The battle ends with choice strikes from both Kriv and
Grindel — who aim for the leaders of the congregation — while Aseir tackles their
followers with a pyroclasm of alchemist’s fire; through clever use of his own
abilities, he manages to maintain his deception by pretending to be just as
terrified as the others, when he suddenly catches on fire.
By the time combat stops, the Forgotten Sons have been wiped
from Crest. But not until Grindel learns some troubling information:
The Forgotten Sons are not
the source of undeath. Rather, they were simply using unorthodox (illegal)
means to fight against ancient signs of the end of the world. The old legends,
according to the cult, are coming true. And they have seen enough to worry
them.
Including the fact that the dead are rising from their long
sleep.
The wyrmling, whose name turns out to be Ith’nax, follows
the party back to Moonguard, convinced as he is that Kriv and Haywood are his
new parents — and that the rest of the party, including Dog, are his brothers.
On the way back home, however, another wrench is thrown into
the works. Prince Selbin, honorary captain of the First Guard — the Saint’s
Aegis — and one of his sister’s personal guards are accosted by a band of
monsters out of a fairy story: goblins.
Kriv tasks his new companion with taking the prince to
safety before turning his attention to the threat at hand. While the fight ends
quickly, and cleanly, it still presents a problem: to wit, goblins have
supposedly been extinct for centuries.
How are they alive?
Prince Selbin is returned to his bodyguard by Ith'nax, terrified but
grateful, and they all return to Moonguard together. Princess Selena’s private
task force realizes, rather quickly, that their mission is still ongoing.
Grindel and Haywood seek knowledge from their commander. Grindel, convinced not only by his own reasoning but by the words of Sister Naya, seeks to discover the truth behind Moonguard. Kriv seeks counsel from his old friend. Aseir has plans of his own.
The Forgotten Sons were after something, and it was
somewhere in the city.
Whatever it was, they believed that it could halt the coming
apocalypse.
Session Six
FIVE ADVENTURERS AND A FISHERY
February 23, 2015
Another day, another mission. But before that, the party has some particular business to take care of. Kriv introduces his oldest friend — not the friend he’s had the longest, but literally his oldest friend — to his newest friend — not the friend he’s had the least, but literally the newest — and ends up on the training field for the first time in a long while.
Frisbrand Stoutfeather, called “Greyhair,” is an
alchemist by trade. But there’s a reason that he’s part of the Dreadnought, and
Kriv learns that the hard way. But,
in exchange for a sound thrashing, our dragonborn champion also gains something
new: Frisbrand, like most dwarves, has some experience with smithing. His
runes, a secret and ancient art, increase the potency of Kriv’s favored scimitar, to ensure that he’s well-equipped not only
to attack his enemies, but defend his allies.
Aseir decides
that he must pursue the arcane arts, such that he will be able to glean
information from the dead, as well as the living. Lady Heiler knows the way to
do it. In order to learn the darker truths of magic, which she calls “crossing
the Pale River,” Lady Heiler sends the party’s bard to visit an old friend:
Sithe Breckenridge, the only trueborn daughter of Commander Aranh Breckenridge.
She, Lady Heiler insists, has the training to help Aseir. Alongside this name, Lady Heiler also has a special circlet
for him; by wearing it, he will be able to bypass the language training necessary
for most mages.
Haywood is given
a special mission directly by his commander: he is in charge of the interrogation
of a man who claims to have connections to the Forgotten Sons. However, this
prisoner is less than forthcoming, and Haywood
decides to play the long game. In preparation for the next time he seeks information from his
new “friend,” Sister Belmont has given him a new sword: a pitch-black blade
with a skull for a pommel.
Grindel ends up
dealing with someone — or something — far removed from the others: himself. Under
the influence of a particularly vivid fever dream, Grindel meets with an apparently older version of himself, who
lives in a deadened world, and has a warning: don’t ignore the signs. Don’t
make the same mistakes he has. The Apocalypse is coming, but earlier than it
should. The end of the world is a constant cycle of life, death, and rebirth.
But should the world end now, the cycle will break. Everything will vanish,
forever. An interloper has infringed upon Avorah, and this invasion might well
prove the key to the ruination of everything Grindel holds dear. In order to help him, the other Grindel leaves his
younger counterpart with a new set of pipes. With hope, and a little luck, they
might be pivotal.
Hopefully.
Thorin is given a
much more mundane mission than his fellows: bringing a family heirloom from a
pair of worried country parents to their enlisted son. Upon arriving back in
Moonguard, but before meeting up with his fellows, Thorin discovers that the intended recipient of the cloak he has
been given to deliver didn’t make it through training; he died, as is a danger
for any potential soldier. Thorin decides
to send the cloak back to the poor boy’s parents.
Once the party reconvenes, Princess Selena gives them a new
mission: in order to find the artifacts that Grindel heard about — old fairy tales that the Forgotten Sons
apparently believed in, and thought would halt the cataclysm to come — they need
access to a special codex to tell them where to look. However, the codex is in
the hands of an elusive thieves’ guild operating out of the Outer Ring. The
party only has two names: Akar del Norak, and Uncle Scratch.
Prince Selbin has a gift for the party, as well. Their own
plot of land, and a base of operations, through which the party will be able to
operate as a proper, private company. Princess Selena sidesteps property
laws — soldiers cannot live off of their own barracks without officer status — by
offering the party a promotion. With this comes the opportunity to hire
personal slaves — or, rather, attendants.
The final act of the day is for the princess’s private task
force to venture into the Outer Ring and dig up information on Master Akar’s
guild. Grindel has no trouble
blending in, and Kriv is similarly
successful. Thorin manages to remain
inconspicuous in his attempts to help his fellows. Haywood and Aseir,
however, are less so.
The day is wrapped up on the precipice of a barroom brawl.
In short, business as usual.
March 09, 2015
No one expected to see her there.
Along with every single soldier of the Ninth Guard.
Session Seven
WOODSBANE
March 09, 2015
No one expected to see her there.
Sister Naya Belmont never stood on ceremony; she didn’t even
own a dress uniform. The last time
she’d shown up to see a soldier down the Pale River, she’d been four feet tall.
Years had passed. Many, many more
soldiers had died since then.
She stood with the others in the Ninth, those who wore her
badge and flew her banner, stock-still and fuming. There was no approaching the
commander of the Serpent’s Sting when she was like this.
A man with a bronze serpent on his jacket approached her.
He spoke without moving his lips: “Word has it Her Majesty’s
boys were striking out against Master Akar —”
“Don’t call him ‘Master.’”
“... Sorry, my lady.” The man, Crow, bowed.
“Why? Why did a fucking
turf war claim one of mine? Do I look
like a wolf?”
“No, my lady.”
“What happened?”
Crow sighed, wiped down his pants with his thin-gloved
hands, and forged ahead, his voice so quick and quiet that it almost counted as
another language: “Her Majesty put them on a fetch mission. The Olvith Codex.”
Sister Naya’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “Whatever dust rat stole the damn
thing was sloppy, on account of being seen, which means Scratch made an end of
him right quick. They’re off the grid again.”
“But Her Majesty’s chosen few found them,” Sister Naya
pressed, looking suddenly murderous.
Crow nodded. “Right. At least, one of their bases. I don’t
know all the details, but at least one of them slings spells with the best of ‘em.
Maybe he had to do with it. I don’t know. Your, ah ... what do they call it
now? Officiated adjutant contractor? Whatever.”
“Grindel.”
“Yeah. Him. Him and that four-legged devil were on the scent
this time. Maybe that’s all the difference it needed. Maybe we should partner up with Sister Harker, like
people keep saying. I ... I dunno.”
Sister Naya growled low in her throat, and quickly drew a
thumb up against her forehead in prayer — O
Sacred Son, may ye find solace in Her Silver Light — before returning to the
matter at hand. Others next to her, those few who could hear, were glancing
sidelong at her every handful of moments. They looked disapproving.
Her fellow priestesses were both eyeing her from their
positions, at the other side of the procession, wondering if they would have to
stage an intervention before their deceptively hotheaded compatriot killed
someone.
Committing murder at a funeral seemed just sacrilegious enough
to fit in Sister Naya’s wheelhouse.
“So, what?” the good commander hissed. “They tracked down a
rat’s nest?”
“On the west pier, yes. Grindel slipped in, the lizard-man
from the Fourth was there, too —”
“Dragonborn.”
“... What?”
Sister Belmont sent a spasmodic glare Crow’s way, and he
suddenly remembered who he was talking to.
“Dragonborn. That’s
the term he prefers, and it’s damn sure the
term you’re going to use. We don’t track down information to shit on it, do we? He was there. He
witnessed Haywood’s last stand. You’d better show him more respect than that,
soldier, or maybe you belong with the pissants in the Sixth? Would you rather
fly with the sunrise, soldier?”
Crow went pale. He knew, better than most, that his
commander wasn’t in the business of idle threats. “No, my lady. My apologies.”
“Keep talking.”
“... Not much else to say. They tracked down a nest, it
got torched. Ten of Akar’s went up, one of our own went down. To hear the way
folks are already talking, Haywood made a hell of a stand against ‘em. You know
well as I do, Akar’s boys don’t make it easy. They shut down one of his
safe-houses and executed ten of his enforcers. It’s a victory.”
“When it ends here,”
Sister Naya snarled, “it’s not a victory. So what the hell happened at that
orphanage?”
Crow smirked. “Ah. That.
I guess some rough-and-tumble morons took issue with Miss Sithe’s practices. Took one of her girls
hostage, demanded to see her.”
“That’s right.” Sister Naya eyed Crow suspiciously. “You
lived at her orphanage before we found you, didn’t you?”
“I did, my lady.”
“Any more casualties?”
“Only the good kind. The bard took one, Haywood took
another, and Miss Sithe herself claimed the third. Girl’s fine, rest of the
kids are already turning the whole spectacle into a game.”
A painful smirk crossed Sister Belmont's face. “Well. At least
he cleaned up the street before it claimed him.”
People were looking at her. It was her time to speak.
Sister Naya Belmont strode up to the podium, stared down at
the closed coffin that housed one of her own, and closed her eyes. When she
summoned up her voice, it was not with her usual quiet rasp. Hers was a harsh,
heavy bark of authority:
“The legends say that Moonguard is Vilaya’s city. The
legends ... say a lot of things. I remember the stories, of what is expected of us. I remember the oath I
swore. Words and songs and promises. I’m supposed to stand here and reaffirm
those promises, to tell you all the flowery words that make the masses sleep
better while Vilaya’s army fights the
good fight.”
She could spy Grindel, that most elusive of mysteries. The
dragonborn and his fledgling; the bard, the skin-walker. All present and
accounted for.
It made her angry.
“... But I’m not going to do that. The Ten Guards are
family. We spill our blood for this city. We do it because we swore that oath,
we made that promise, but that doesn’t make this some glorious spectacle.”
A quiet unease spread throughout the crowd. It wasn’t just
soldiers here, but civilians. Nobles, looking to make a good impression.
Merchants, seeking new clients in those very nobles. Exactly the sorts of
people she hated to see whoring themselves out at an event like this.
Bad enough that the Festival had been interrupted. They had
to make it into a joke, too?
“The soldiers who
wear my winged serpent are my children. Whether they like it or not.” She
thought of Grindel, and almost laughed. “One of my sons, his name was Haywood. And
Haywood died yesterday. Which is why we’re here. Not in the field, not against
an insurmountable enemy, but here. Within these White Walls. My boy died in his own house.”
There was a collective flinch.
Sister Belmont's eyes seemed to glow beneath her heavy cowl.
“So don’t expect me to sing his praises and tell you he’s
all right with the Silver Lady, because he’s not. The war has come to our front
lawn. This just got personal.”
She clenched her teeth; they almost cracked.
Her fists were clenched so hard that rivulets of blood ran
rivers down her knuckles and dripped beside her, like silent guards.
“I hope you’re listening, Akar del Norak. I hope you’re
watching, and I hope you understand what you just did. This fucking ceasefire ends. Now. My boy’s brothers are coming for
you. And if they don’t deliver your head to me on a plate ... I’m coming for you.”
She eyed every one of Her Majesty d'Courte's chosen soldiers
in turn, baptizing them in a pyroclasm of white-hot fury.
By the time someone else — Sister Nan-Tamé, of all people — thought to
interrupt Sister Belmont's vicious mockery of a eulogy, she’d disappeared.
* * *
Come, and listen, as I tell a story
Steeped in silver moonlight, bloodshed, and flame;
A quiet ballad of gentle glory
And lingering questions of whom to blame.
Is it the soldier, wrapped in her hubris,
Who placed that blackened blade into his hand?
Is it the fire, blazing and ruthless,
Without malice, or mercy, o’er its span?
The enemy, his brothers, or himself?
Can death bear the hard, heavy yoke of fault?
Place not this book back upon its worn shelf —
Nor permit its return to Heaven’s Vault —
Before the Truth shakes asunder the sky
In a song to make wet Our Siren’s eye.
Session Eight
INTO THE WOODS WE GO
March 30, 2015
After Haywood’s funeral, the guild hall for the princess’s task force is completed. They’ve become officiated, almost like a separate regiment — Guard Zero — crafted specifically to find the source of undeath. But before that, they have a special task. A special mission, delivered out of incandescent rage and the threat of immeasurable violence against their persons if they don’t deliver that fucking thief’s head to me right fucking now.
Sister Naya Belmont is not the most eloquent politician.
This much is clear.
The party learns that Master Akar’s guild has left the city
proper. They have taken up residence up north, at Hawker’s Mill. Aside from
supplying Moonguard with much of its lumber, this place is (in)famous for
having been built up in a supposedly enchanted forest. Those who lose their way
in this forest have a nasty habit of disappearing.
Then reappearing, as ... something else.
Akar’s guild has taken over Hawker’s Mill. Every
citizen — every man, woman, and child — is a member of the guild. At least, so says
the traveler who offers to guide the party through the forest and ensure that
both their objectives are completed.
Retrieve Akar del Norak’s head, and the Olvith Codex.
The plan is simple — the lost children of the forest scale
over, grow feral, and become creatures known as lizardfolk. Kriv, being dragonborn, can play the
part convincingly enough. Aseir,
being ... Aseir, may not be able
to do the same thing, but he can at least ensure that he looks terrifying
enough that it won’t matter. This thanks to the random amputated limbs that he
keeps on his person for just such occasions.
... Don’t ask.
After a chance encounter with these lizardfolk along the
bank of a winding river, the plan is set in motion. Deacon, the party’s guide, will play the part of a terrified
townsperson, while Kriv and Ith’nax take on the role of the
monsters.
The plan goes ... somewhat as expected, mostly because the
vast majority of Akar’s thieves are children who have very limited experience
with dragonborn and multi-limbed zombie noblemen.
Theoretically.
It is the party’s newest member, a young assassin by the
name of Vytal, who takes advantage
of the chaos by finding Master Akar. In direct defiance of the insanity outside,
taking down the old, decrepit patriarch of the Moonguard’s poorest and most
vulnerable is quick, clean, and efficient.
The Codex is found, the head is retrieved, and the majority
of Akar’s guild is massacred.
This last, courtesy of Grindel.
The party leaves the town of Hawker’s Mill in shambles. They
expect to come back to their base of operations to make headway on their main
mission. However, outside the White Walls of Moonguard, something is wrong.
Entirely too wrong.
Smoke and fire, screams and cries of pain and misery, greet
the party as it comes back home.
Session Nine
THE LINE OF D'COURTE
April 13, 2015
Moonguard is rioting. Half of the city is convinced that the last wishes of their beloved princess must be upheld: Selbin d’Courte is the rightful King of Moonguard. Half of the city is convinced that enthroning a ten-year-old boy with no formal training is absolute madness.
The party is left to question both their stance in
Moonguard’s politics, and their tactics on how to handle whatever stance they
choose.
The Second Guard is stretched thin, trying its
best to handle the civilians without bringing the bloodshed of the front lines
into the White Walls. After ensuring the safety of his private base of
operations, Grindel guides a handful
of his allies through the remains of the city, while Aseir returns to Sithe Breckenridge.
The party reconvenes, and reconnects, back at
the Heiler manse.
Where the eldest
of the previous queen’s children resides. Anna Heiler — formerly Anna Lynn d’Courte — has
more than a few revelations for the party to uncover, and they most all have to
do with the state of the royal family.
Decades upon decades after the founding of Moonguard,
Vivian d'Courte was born. She was the First Daughter of the Queen, the Crown
Princess, and her most fervent wish was to build Moonguard into a place that Saint
Vilaya herself would be proud to defend ... and, to defend it herself.
Vivian became Queen, and married a young
warrior: Aldway Blackworth, a Son of Allacinne. With him, Vivian had her first
daughter: Anna Lynn.
Leaving the rule of Moonguard to her Lord
Husband, Vivian went on pilgrimage. She visited each of the cult cities of the
Four Saints, hoping to learn whatever she could to live up to the legacy of her
city's sacred founder. During this journey across the continents, Vivian met a
mysterious scholar named Haywood.
Entranced by this elven traveler, Vivian's vows were forgotten; and with Haywood — 6 years after the birth of
her trueborn daughter — Vivian brought a son into the world: Aseir.
Vivian returned home, once Aseir was safely ensconced in the small township of Lord's Landing,
under the watchful eye of his sire. Fearing the disastrous effects of trying to
keep a secret, Vivian instead decided to inform King Blackworth of her tryst
with Haywood. The king, who had been born in Allisett and believed fervently in
the teachings of Mother Allacinne, immediately forgave his wife's infidelity.
So supportive was he, in fact, that Vivian was racked with guilt and resolved
to never leave her home again.
This was not to be.
Selena, the second royal daughter, was born. Her
sister, Anna Lynn, was 8 years old. Her half-brother, Aseir, was 2.
Some years later, Vivian found herself forced to
leave Moonguard to answer for the actions of her soldiers on a foreign front,
and it was on this mission that she once again crossed paths with Haywood. The
queen's promises to her husband flitted away like so much ash in the wind, and
a third daughter — Vytal — was
gifted to her.
Anna Lynn, at 13 years, left to train at the
city of Jul Nastae, and to eventually join the Order of Saint Ulria. Aseir, 7, began to realize he had a
certain ... gift for convincing other children to do as he said. Selena, 5,
learned of Saint Allacinne at her Lord Sire's knee.
Unlike Aseir,
Vytal was kept a secret from King
Blackworth. He went to his grave, never knowing of his wife's third daughter.
By the time the third royal child, Prince
Selbin, was born, Anna Lynn had returned to Moonguard as a fully-ordained
Sister of Ulria, and had joined the ranks of the Third Guard as a magic-user at the
relatively young age of 24. Aseir,
at 18, had also begun to harness the magic in his royal blood. He became a
storyteller, philosopher, and traveling swindler. His gilded tongue took him
far, and he gained a taste for the proverbial finer things. Selena, 16, began
to learn the art of politics as her sire's apprentice.
Not a year after his son's birth, King Aldway
Blackworth succumbed to illness. Vivian left home yet again to find help for
her ailing husband, but never made it back home. Anna Lynn, a sorceress among
wizards, had quickly risen to command of the Third Guard (giving captaincy to
her apprentice, a Callistoran arcanist named Ai Nan-Tamé), and vanished without
word upon her mother's death, leaving Selena to care for their sire. Selena did
so, taking up the post of Princess-Regent, which afforded with it Captaincy of
the First Guard. King Blackworth died not long after. Local folklore said that
he held on just long enough to see his beloved daughter's coronation.
Selena, as acting monarch, took up the post of
Commander for the First Guard, and would — in the absence of her elder sister — eventually
offer the empty captain's chair to her brother.
Ai Nan-Tamé took up command of the Third Guard,
hired Aric Milford as her second, and backed the princess's claim with all the
strength she could muster.
Anna Lynn, meanwhile, sought out her
half-brother, Aseir, at Lord's
Landing. She hoped to find Haywood,
the mysterious man who haunted her mother's dreams, to deliver the news of
Vivian's death to him, personally. She found neither Aseir nor Haywood; the
former had already struck out on his own, while the latter mentored his
daughter on the dirt-choked streets of Eastwharf.
Anna Lynn did not find nothing in Lord's
Landing, however; indeed, she found her calling. The eldest child of the lost
queen took up the task of reviving this destitute fishing villa, once a fabled
destination of kings and empresses. She used her knowledge to heal the sick,
help the crops, and otherwise assist however she could. She was eventually
given the custodianship of Loki Heiler, the crippled son of a lord's servant,
and took on a new mantle entirely: mother.
However, Loki Heiler was unwanted in the
Landing. This was hard country, with harder people, and a crippled boy who
could not work was worse than useless. When Loki began to show his own skills
at arcane manipulation, Anna Lynn saw no other course of action but to return
to Moonguard, where such skills were prized instead of scorned. She took up a
new identity, as Anna Heiler, and began the song-and-dance of nobility in a big
city. She eventually partnered with a like-minded noble — Lady Sithe Breckenridge — and
resolved to clean Moonguard's corruption from outside the realm of law, instead
of under the yoke of royalty.
During this time, Haywood did his best to help his only daughter, teaching her all he
knew on the ways of survival, but never quite managed to tell her the whole
truth: that Vytal was the daughter
of a queen. Before he could finally resolve to tell this huge secret, he
received word from his lost love's eldest daughter: Anna Lynn d'Courte,
forgotten Princess of the Moon, needed him.
This proved fortuitous, however, as it turned
out that Aseir had earned the
attention of Commander Alicia Grant, Keeper of the Lichyard. The magic in him
had blossomed, and he quickly gained recognition. Such that he even caught the
eye of his own elder half-sister. Thus were sire and son reunited, under the
banner of the monarchy.
Thus armed with this information, the party
comes up with a plan to reconnect the various factions of Moonguard. Before
they tear each other apart.
Session Ten
THE LOST PRINCESS
April 27, 2015
Kriv returns to the fray, and does his best to console a grieving monarch. But King Selbin is too deep in mourning to listen to reason, no matter its source. He has commissioned both the Third and the Fifth to keep his lady sister’s body preserved until justice can be found. Instead of ruling his country, the boy is focused on a personal vendetta against an unfair world, and nobody — not his advisors, not Kriv, not Ith’nax — is able to convince him to stray from this path.
Kriv returns to the rest of
the party, and learns of their plan to rebuild Moonguard. It’s a simple enough
concept, in theory: Anna Lynn d’Courte is the eldest of the former queen’s
children; she is the former Commander of the Third Guard; she was initially
slated to take the throne after her mother’s death. Not only does she have
leagues of experience, she was meant for
the role.
But the question remains: how to convince the
people that Anna Lynn is fit to rule? She has the experience, but the fact is
that she abdicated her role both as Crown Princess and as Commander. How can
she be trusted?
This is where the party comes in. Grindel has a plan: allow Anna Lynn to
take the throne only temporarily, while Selbin is taught to rule. This
quells the issues from both major warring factions. To those who stand behind
Selbin, the throne is promised to him; to those who stand behind tradition, Anna Lynnwill ensure that the city is well-cared-for while the king, once again a prince, is
trained properly.
Grindel, Aseir, and Kriv bring
Anna Lynn out to meet with various political leaders throughout the city, in a
bid to quell the riots. However, as they give their various pitches, the energy
outside shifts. It’s not just rioting anymore. It’s horrified screaming. It’s
bloodshed and cracking bones.
The dead have risen again.
Including a fallen princess, who died before her
time.
Aseir finds himself facing his
own sister in combat. A budding necromancer, and the living dead. Bound by
blood and foul magic. As they work out issues they weren’t even aware they had
mere days ago, the rest of the party fends off the princess’s honor guard of
corpses.
Meanwhile, Anna Lynn d’Courte cements her role
as the peoples’ champion by using skills that her adopted son can only dream of
having, and sending every shuffling, shambling predator she can find up in
smoke.
Session Eleven
THE MAW OF UD'MAUD
May 11, 2015
Sar’Kel is an ancient place, off on the
northwestern edge of Phila; a dwarven city carved into a mountain, on an island
called the Maw of Ud’Maud. Through his training with Lady Breckenridge, Aseir has used the Olvith Codex to
track down a holy artifact — an object used, or blessed, by one of the Matron Saints.
Meanwhile, the rest of the party has been called
upon to perform a special favor to the new queen. Annabelle requests that her
young brother, who is once again the Crown Prince, accompany them on their latest
journey to gain some field training. Grindel
agrees, on the stipulation that the newly-found Captain Trevahn Fremont,
having shed his old alias of Deacon, act as Selbin’s personal guard.
Trevahn, for reasons that nobody can guess,
agrees.
On the trip along the coast, on the Maiden’s Dagger — a private ship owned by
the crown — the party decides to get started. Grindel coaches young Selbin on the art of archery, while Kriv teaches swordsmanship. Vytal, meanwhile, opts for a more
subtle approach. She challenges the prince to a game of cards. Not to gamble,
but to sharpen his observation skills.
Then, the drinking game.
Selbin d’Courte learns more about the real world
on a three-day sailing trip than years of private education courtesy of the
Inner Ring. Upon arriving at the Maw, and entering into Sar’Kel, he learns even
more.
A young Halfling businessman, reportedly the
proprietor of the only tavern/inn in Sar’Kel proper, is being held hostage by a
gang of goblins. The party, being largely decent folks, opt to rescue the Halfling.
Prince Selbin enters into his first actual
fight. He is wounded, but also claims a kill. The Halfling is saved, and the
party, sans Aseir, earn free lodging
for their time in Sar’Kel. However long that might take.
Session Twelve
SEA SHANTIES AND SANITY
May 25, 2015
It’s market day. More specifically, market night. Kriv leads the prince — in disguise — and Trevahn to their Halfling friend’s inn, where they are served food, drinks, and are offered a glimpse into the night life of a mountain city. A group of dwarven sailors are singing an old song, one that Trevahn is clearly familiar with.
They keep singing, and keep singing, and keep
singing.
Trevahn is first to notice something amiss, but
he doesn’t specifically do anything about it. For now. He has a job to do, and
his job doesn’t involve questioning where these new verses to an old song have
come from.
Prince Selbin approaches the dwarves, Trevahn
with him, and ... becomes something else. Something more powerful than
himself. Something arcane.
Something ... connected.
Kriv is pulled into a bar
brawl with the dwarves that spills out into the market proper. But bloodshed,
cracked bones, smashed skulls, busted ankles, have no effect on the other
people visiting the city, plying their wares and sharing their stories. When
the fight is quelled, with the assistance of another dwarf who simply wanted in
on the fun of a good old-fashioned mauling ... no one has noticed the
disturbance.
Except Rendil, their Halfling benefactor.
Rendil informs the party that Sar’Kel is trapped
in an endless loop. The same day, and the same night, have been playing out for
weeks. Rendil himself seems to be the only individual aware of the situation,
as no one he talks to or works with has any idea what he’s talking about ...
or worse, don’t even hear him.
Kriv, Ith’nax, Selbin, and Trevahn are the only people who remain aware
of their actions. Only they seem to remember having been in a bar fight. Only
they seem to have any chance of helping Rendil reclaim his home.
Rendil believes that the root of the problem is
somewhere deeper in the mountain, in or perhaps even under the tombs beneath
the city. Because Rendil has often tried to venture into the tombs, but after
so long he forgets what he’s looking for. So he goes back home. Then he
remembers, and tries to go down again. Then he goes back up. Then he remembers,
and goes back down.
He’s given up.
But maybe ... just maybe ... these random
travelers can help him remember.
And maybe ... just maybe ... these random
travelers will claim the artifact that led them here.
June 08, 2015
Back in Moonguard, Queen Anna Lynn d'Courte — having disregarded her dear younger sister's "tradition" of leaving the ancestral title upon the head of their (apparently) dead mother — makes a judgment call that Selena never would have: to wit, she has stricken the name of one of her predecessor's chosen from the list of Guard Zero's ranks, and replaced him with another.
Titus Meister is not what one would call a trustworthy man; in fact, there aren't many who would consider him a man at all. This elderly tiefling seems to be clawing out an existence long past what anyone would consider "fighting age," still able to take the field and defend himself long after the century mark, when most old folks are simply counting their blessings to have made it this long ... and waiting to die.
Imprisoned for crimes against the crown, Titus has a debt to pay. He also has two choices on how he intends to pay it: a prison sentence, or military service. Having no desire to stay locked in a box for years on end — there's a reason Titus has lasted this long, and staying idle staring at walls isn't it — Titus opts for the latter.
Thanks to his very particular skills with certain ... less than savory magical practices — Phila would call him a blood witch; Callistora would know him as a thaumaturgist, and Aubrith would use warlock — he is put under the jurisdiction of Aseir as the newest member of the party.
With help from Sister Nan-Tamé, the queen sets up a summoning circle to ensure that Kriv, Grindel, Vytal, Trevahn and Selbin are not left at a tactical disadvantage. Aseir and Titus are sent directly into the heart of Sar'Kel, where they reconvene with most of their fellows. Vytal, unfortunately, is indisposed, and none of the others quite know where to find her. They are left to continue their mission without her.
The descent into the crypts of Sar'Kel, deep within the mountain underneath the city itself, is relatively uneventful at first. There are a sequence of guards going about their patrols as though nothing at all is amiss. They don't seem to understand that anything is wrong, leaving the party stranded and left dealing with a guide — Rendil — who has no rightful idea of what he is doing anymore. The magical loop is already resetting his memory, leaving him without any particular motivation to continue on the mission that sent him down here in the first place.
More guards appear from lower in the crypts, but unlike the handful that the party has encountered before, these few seem to be aware of their faculties ... enough to set their sights on these outsiders and draw steel.
The guards stand little chance against Moonguard's chosen, but it turns out that they were hiding more than just a hidden agenda. As their foes fall, the newly-reunited members of Guard Zero are left to watch as beetles erupt from the corpses, and coalesce into another figure. Something inhuman.
Something ... twisted.
She greets the party with something resembling welcome, but it's clear that she is working for someone, or something, even more powerful. She has been sent to welcome the party into more than just a mountain full of honored corpses.
Is this mysterious, monstrous woman responsible for the magical disruption that has taken hold of Sar'Kel? Or is it the portal into another world, which she prompts them to enter?
Or are all of these things simply symptoms of a larger disease?
Before the group is able to make sense of this, they find themselves in a forest choked with fog. Aside from this blatant impossibility — how can a forest exist inside a mountain? — there is a larger problem.
Wolves.
But not just any wolves ... these beasts can speak, and they don't have anything pleasant to say.
June 09, 2015
Werewolves.
Even in a world filled with magic and divine intervention, there are certain things that simply don't exist. They're myths, plain and simple. Granted, there are rumors that the tribes of Northern Aubrith — the snow-capped roof of the world, specifically: a place known as Tera Acerbis, or "Land in Darkness" in the common tongue — are able to transform into animals, or at least manipulate light and air to form an illusion of such a transformation.
And there are certainly animals that are intelligent enough that some certain insist they were once human. But the stories of people who transform into feral engines of rage when the moon is full? There hasn't been a single case of such a thing being true, even in the archives of Jul Nastae — the Bed of Wisdom — where Saint Ulria herself taught her first students.
However this forest was conjured ... it isn't following the rules of Avorah.
Vytal is reunited with her fellow state-sanctioned murderers, after an encounter with the same creature that led the others into the forest; she tells Vytal that if she wants to learn about her past ... particularly the mother she never knew ... then Vytal would do well to seek out someone by the name of "Madam Eva, the forest-dweller."
Armed with this knowledge, she and the rest of the party do battle with a pack of werewolves. These creatures are hardy; stronger, more resilient, and certainly more savage than their natural counterparts. Their bites are not only dangerous but infectious. Unknown to the party, anyone who fails to resist the siren's call of a lycanthrope's tainted blood is doomed to join their number.
It's quite fortuitous, therefore, that most members of Guard Zero are made of hardier stuff than the hapless folks they fight, who have clearly succumbed.
All except, of course, the one member of the team who is most susceptible to corruption.
Aseir.
The battle ends with all members of the group still in one piece and able to walk; all except Rendil, who'd been knocked unconscious to ensure that he wouldn't cause any trouble. But then, he never did seem to have much skill with sling or arrow. So perhaps that isn't a problem.
Outside the boughs and branches of the haunted forest, the party finds themselves on a windswept green ocean of grass. But even on an open field, the fog remains. It's impossible to tell the time of day, nor the state of the land. There are no travelers on the dirt roads, nor animals. The entire place is desolate.
The party follows the main road to a village known as Barovia, whereupon they meet with a man named Kolyan. He's a big man, with mutton-chop sideburns and a hefty build. He's a blustering sort, but introduces himself to the party as Barovia's mayor.
The village has been plagued not just by werewolves, but the shuffling, shambling dead. A huge pile of bodies outside the town's gates act as a single funeral pyre, just to make sure that their dearly departed don't rise up and attack their loved ones.
This village is not defensible. The party eventually decides that the only way to ensure that the remaining citizens — numbering about 200 in total — survive this unholy fog is to arm them with silvered weapons, prepare them for long travel, and move them all to the region's primary seat of power:
A city called Ravenloft.
June 22, 2015
The road to safety is never easy, but the citizens of Barovia have something that should tilt the scales in their favor: a band of adventurers with more honor than common sense ... or perhaps it would be safer to say that they're reckless, dangerous sociopaths with no sense of self-preservation.
Either way, the party — Kriv, Titus, Aseir, Trevahn, and Selbin — agrees to protect them. They still have an artifact to find, but they've been promised payment for their service. And they still need to track down a way back home. Until then, murdering monsters in exchange for gold is a solid enough game plan.
Theoretically.
As Ravenloft approaches on the horizon, the traveling caravan is accosted by giant, screaming bats. They descend upon the hapless citizens, most of whom are barely fit for farming, much less for defending themselves. The responsibility of protecting the people of Barovia lies with Moonguard's finest, and the roving marauders from another world do their best to live up to their previous reputation, by turning even the most innocuous of landscapes into a hellstorm of slaughter.
The bats make meals out of a grand total of seven villagers before they are dispatched.
With the removal of the monsters, however, comes a new obstacle: a ravishing woman, seemingly from nowhere, meets with the party at a crossroads, and seeks their company. There is something off-putting about her, though. Most of the Barovian men, and even the boys, are captivated by her. And while Kriv and Titus manage to stave off any particular charming effect that radiates from this creature, Aseir is interested in no such mental fortitude.
The best way to deal with a seductress, after all, is to seduce her right back.
It is agreed, for the moment, to permit this woman, who gives her name as Sælia, refuge with the townsfolk. This isn't so much out of a gesture of trust, at least for most of the party, but blatant, flagrant mistrust. The old adage has it that one should keep their enemies closer than their friends, and Trevahn in particular is convinced that this isn't just the best way to handle the situation, but the only way.
Once the party makes their way to Ravenloft proper, they run into a new set of problems: to wit, there is no place to place the disenfranchised citizens of Barovia, and the adventurers themselves have no place to stay, either. It turns out that Ravenloft is ... neutral at best when dealing with strangers, and is often quite hostile toward outsiders.
Barovia's blustering mayor, Kolyan, insists that the party has done enough for his people, and that he will meet with the citizens' council of Ravenloft to speak for his people. This still leaves them with the question of where they might sleep, however, considering the fact that the only public lodging house in Ravenloft — the Outward Inn — has no current vacancies.
Kriv takes a meal at the Laughing Demon, a local restaurant known quite well for its proprietor's proclivity for giving his dishes odd names like corpse chowder, wolf balls, and vampire stakes. Aseir and Titus seek out friendly faces, but have little luck. It's late, they're newcomers, and the town seems bound and determined to ruin their chances at actual rest.
Trevahn, however, offers up a lead: there is a young woman living in one of the bigger estates in the residential district, looking for good, trustworthy people to perform a certain task for her.
Guard Zero will have to do.
In exchange for a lead on the location and well-being of her father, Lady Kendra Evangeline Lorrimor has offered up rooms in her mansion. Said father, Professor Petros Lorrimor, is a scholar of ill repute in Ravenloft. None of the locals are interested in helping her find him; they're convinced he's off on yet another ghost hunt, so to speak, and that Lady Kendra is simply worrying over nothing.
Ironically, she is left relying on the kindness of strangers — something her town is infamous for not doing — in order to track down the truth.
July 06, 2015
The town of Ravenloft is special, but not in the way that most people would want to admit. Some towns are built around universities, or famous festivals, or even more famous artisans. But Ravenloft has no such brightness in its history.
Ravenloft was built to support a prison.
Harrowstone was, while it was active, one of the most notorious jails in its region, and twice per year prison convoys would round up the worst criminals from smaller jails across the land. At Harrowstone, these demons in mortal trappings would await either a swift death by hanging, or a slow one by starvation and neglect.
Most people weren't picky ... so long as they died.
Fifty years ago, the mid-year convoy brought a particularly horrific group of criminals to Harrowstone, all at once, names sought out by Kriv in the hopes of gaining some insight into the nature of this place, and whether or not it is fit to protect the innocent from the horrors outside:
Session Thirteen
HE'S A WANDERIN' MAN,
HE'S A LYIN' MAN
June 08, 2015
Back in Moonguard, Queen Anna Lynn d'Courte — having disregarded her dear younger sister's "tradition" of leaving the ancestral title upon the head of their (apparently) dead mother — makes a judgment call that Selena never would have: to wit, she has stricken the name of one of her predecessor's chosen from the list of Guard Zero's ranks, and replaced him with another.
Titus Meister is not what one would call a trustworthy man; in fact, there aren't many who would consider him a man at all. This elderly tiefling seems to be clawing out an existence long past what anyone would consider "fighting age," still able to take the field and defend himself long after the century mark, when most old folks are simply counting their blessings to have made it this long ... and waiting to die.
Imprisoned for crimes against the crown, Titus has a debt to pay. He also has two choices on how he intends to pay it: a prison sentence, or military service. Having no desire to stay locked in a box for years on end — there's a reason Titus has lasted this long, and staying idle staring at walls isn't it — Titus opts for the latter.
Thanks to his very particular skills with certain ... less than savory magical practices — Phila would call him a blood witch; Callistora would know him as a thaumaturgist, and Aubrith would use warlock — he is put under the jurisdiction of Aseir as the newest member of the party.
With help from Sister Nan-Tamé, the queen sets up a summoning circle to ensure that Kriv, Grindel, Vytal, Trevahn and Selbin are not left at a tactical disadvantage. Aseir and Titus are sent directly into the heart of Sar'Kel, where they reconvene with most of their fellows. Vytal, unfortunately, is indisposed, and none of the others quite know where to find her. They are left to continue their mission without her.
The descent into the crypts of Sar'Kel, deep within the mountain underneath the city itself, is relatively uneventful at first. There are a sequence of guards going about their patrols as though nothing at all is amiss. They don't seem to understand that anything is wrong, leaving the party stranded and left dealing with a guide — Rendil — who has no rightful idea of what he is doing anymore. The magical loop is already resetting his memory, leaving him without any particular motivation to continue on the mission that sent him down here in the first place.
More guards appear from lower in the crypts, but unlike the handful that the party has encountered before, these few seem to be aware of their faculties ... enough to set their sights on these outsiders and draw steel.
The guards stand little chance against Moonguard's chosen, but it turns out that they were hiding more than just a hidden agenda. As their foes fall, the newly-reunited members of Guard Zero are left to watch as beetles erupt from the corpses, and coalesce into another figure. Something inhuman.
Something ... twisted.
She greets the party with something resembling welcome, but it's clear that she is working for someone, or something, even more powerful. She has been sent to welcome the party into more than just a mountain full of honored corpses.
Is this mysterious, monstrous woman responsible for the magical disruption that has taken hold of Sar'Kel? Or is it the portal into another world, which she prompts them to enter?
Or are all of these things simply symptoms of a larger disease?
Before the group is able to make sense of this, they find themselves in a forest choked with fog. Aside from this blatant impossibility — how can a forest exist inside a mountain? — there is a larger problem.
Wolves.
But not just any wolves ... these beasts can speak, and they don't have anything pleasant to say.
Session Fourteen
THE BLOOD OF THE MOON
June 09, 2015
Werewolves.
Even in a world filled with magic and divine intervention, there are certain things that simply don't exist. They're myths, plain and simple. Granted, there are rumors that the tribes of Northern Aubrith — the snow-capped roof of the world, specifically: a place known as Tera Acerbis, or "Land in Darkness" in the common tongue — are able to transform into animals, or at least manipulate light and air to form an illusion of such a transformation.
And there are certainly animals that are intelligent enough that some certain insist they were once human. But the stories of people who transform into feral engines of rage when the moon is full? There hasn't been a single case of such a thing being true, even in the archives of Jul Nastae — the Bed of Wisdom — where Saint Ulria herself taught her first students.
However this forest was conjured ... it isn't following the rules of Avorah.
Vytal is reunited with her fellow state-sanctioned murderers, after an encounter with the same creature that led the others into the forest; she tells Vytal that if she wants to learn about her past ... particularly the mother she never knew ... then Vytal would do well to seek out someone by the name of "Madam Eva, the forest-dweller."
Armed with this knowledge, she and the rest of the party do battle with a pack of werewolves. These creatures are hardy; stronger, more resilient, and certainly more savage than their natural counterparts. Their bites are not only dangerous but infectious. Unknown to the party, anyone who fails to resist the siren's call of a lycanthrope's tainted blood is doomed to join their number.
It's quite fortuitous, therefore, that most members of Guard Zero are made of hardier stuff than the hapless folks they fight, who have clearly succumbed.
All except, of course, the one member of the team who is most susceptible to corruption.
Aseir.
The battle ends with all members of the group still in one piece and able to walk; all except Rendil, who'd been knocked unconscious to ensure that he wouldn't cause any trouble. But then, he never did seem to have much skill with sling or arrow. So perhaps that isn't a problem.
Outside the boughs and branches of the haunted forest, the party finds themselves on a windswept green ocean of grass. But even on an open field, the fog remains. It's impossible to tell the time of day, nor the state of the land. There are no travelers on the dirt roads, nor animals. The entire place is desolate.
The party follows the main road to a village known as Barovia, whereupon they meet with a man named Kolyan. He's a big man, with mutton-chop sideburns and a hefty build. He's a blustering sort, but introduces himself to the party as Barovia's mayor.
The village has been plagued not just by werewolves, but the shuffling, shambling dead. A huge pile of bodies outside the town's gates act as a single funeral pyre, just to make sure that their dearly departed don't rise up and attack their loved ones.
This village is not defensible. The party eventually decides that the only way to ensure that the remaining citizens — numbering about 200 in total — survive this unholy fog is to arm them with silvered weapons, prepare them for long travel, and move them all to the region's primary seat of power:
A city called Ravenloft.
Session Fifteen
A SHADOW OVER RAVENS
June 22, 2015
The road to safety is never easy, but the citizens of Barovia have something that should tilt the scales in their favor: a band of adventurers with more honor than common sense ... or perhaps it would be safer to say that they're reckless, dangerous sociopaths with no sense of self-preservation.
Either way, the party — Kriv, Titus, Aseir, Trevahn, and Selbin — agrees to protect them. They still have an artifact to find, but they've been promised payment for their service. And they still need to track down a way back home. Until then, murdering monsters in exchange for gold is a solid enough game plan.
Theoretically.
As Ravenloft approaches on the horizon, the traveling caravan is accosted by giant, screaming bats. They descend upon the hapless citizens, most of whom are barely fit for farming, much less for defending themselves. The responsibility of protecting the people of Barovia lies with Moonguard's finest, and the roving marauders from another world do their best to live up to their previous reputation, by turning even the most innocuous of landscapes into a hellstorm of slaughter.
The bats make meals out of a grand total of seven villagers before they are dispatched.
With the removal of the monsters, however, comes a new obstacle: a ravishing woman, seemingly from nowhere, meets with the party at a crossroads, and seeks their company. There is something off-putting about her, though. Most of the Barovian men, and even the boys, are captivated by her. And while Kriv and Titus manage to stave off any particular charming effect that radiates from this creature, Aseir is interested in no such mental fortitude.
The best way to deal with a seductress, after all, is to seduce her right back.
It is agreed, for the moment, to permit this woman, who gives her name as Sælia, refuge with the townsfolk. This isn't so much out of a gesture of trust, at least for most of the party, but blatant, flagrant mistrust. The old adage has it that one should keep their enemies closer than their friends, and Trevahn in particular is convinced that this isn't just the best way to handle the situation, but the only way.
Once the party makes their way to Ravenloft proper, they run into a new set of problems: to wit, there is no place to place the disenfranchised citizens of Barovia, and the adventurers themselves have no place to stay, either. It turns out that Ravenloft is ... neutral at best when dealing with strangers, and is often quite hostile toward outsiders.
Barovia's blustering mayor, Kolyan, insists that the party has done enough for his people, and that he will meet with the citizens' council of Ravenloft to speak for his people. This still leaves them with the question of where they might sleep, however, considering the fact that the only public lodging house in Ravenloft — the Outward Inn — has no current vacancies.
Kriv takes a meal at the Laughing Demon, a local restaurant known quite well for its proprietor's proclivity for giving his dishes odd names like corpse chowder, wolf balls, and vampire stakes. Aseir and Titus seek out friendly faces, but have little luck. It's late, they're newcomers, and the town seems bound and determined to ruin their chances at actual rest.
Trevahn, however, offers up a lead: there is a young woman living in one of the bigger estates in the residential district, looking for good, trustworthy people to perform a certain task for her.
Guard Zero will have to do.
In exchange for a lead on the location and well-being of her father, Lady Kendra Evangeline Lorrimor has offered up rooms in her mansion. Said father, Professor Petros Lorrimor, is a scholar of ill repute in Ravenloft. None of the locals are interested in helping her find him; they're convinced he's off on yet another ghost hunt, so to speak, and that Lady Kendra is simply worrying over nothing.
Ironically, she is left relying on the kindness of strangers — something her town is infamous for not doing — in order to track down the truth.
Session Sixteen
GIVE RISE TO THE FORGOTTEN
July 06, 2015
The town of Ravenloft is special, but not in the way that most people would want to admit. Some towns are built around universities, or famous festivals, or even more famous artisans. But Ravenloft has no such brightness in its history.
Ravenloft was built to support a prison.
Harrowstone was, while it was active, one of the most notorious jails in its region, and twice per year prison convoys would round up the worst criminals from smaller jails across the land. At Harrowstone, these demons in mortal trappings would await either a swift death by hanging, or a slow one by starvation and neglect.
Most people weren't picky ... so long as they died.
Fifty years ago, the mid-year convoy brought a particularly horrific group of criminals to Harrowstone, all at once, names sought out by Kriv in the hopes of gaining some insight into the nature of this place, and whether or not it is fit to protect the innocent from the horrors outside:
- Father Charlatan
- The Lopper
- The Mosswater Marauder
- The Piper of Illmarsh
- The Splatter Man
Harrowstone Prison is no longer active. A fire, some fifty years ago, rendered its once-insurmountable stone walls too damaged to be anything but a pile of gravestones without names. It's unknown just how many people died, but the stain of their memory has left a mark on Ravenloft's history. Such that the town has turned over a new leaf, and seeks total removal from its own past.
Which is probably why Professor Lorrimor is so ... problematic.
Seeking out some clues in his private study, the party is only able to track down a single piece of solid evidence: a journal entry bearing a familiar name.
---
The Forgotten Sons are more than just a cabal of necromancers. I see that now. Undeath is their Fountain of Youth. Uncovering their motive does not place me at ease, as I thought it might. Their desire to be eternal simply makes them more dangerous.
---
This leads to a question: who are the Forgotten Sons? Are they a misunderstood sect of Avorah's principle religion? Are they necromancers from this land of fog and monsters? Both? Neither? Why is a cult from Avorah mentioned in an old journal in this random mansion?
More to the point ... what do they have to do with Harrowstone Prison?
While Aseir and Titus seek to uncover more information about their situation, and perhaps track down a way home, Kriv offers up his assistance to the mayor of Barovia. Together, they manage to convince the citizens' council of Ravenloft to take up the project of offering the remaining Barovians a place to stay.
The only place big enough to accommodate so many people at once, and on such short notice, is Harrowstone itself. But that ... presents a problem. Rumors abound that the place is haunted, and the damage done to the place by its infamous fire has rendered the building unfit for anyone until it is repaired. But until the rumors are dispelled, or else the spirits of the dead given proper attention, there's simply no way to move forward.
Kriv offers the services of himself and his fellows in the name of keeping his word to Kolyan. The artifact can wait. There is a deeper magic at work here, and what seems at first like a side trek may prove more fortuitous than that.
The expedition to Harrowstone begins.
Kriv, Aseir, Titus, Trevahn, Selbin, and Sælia make the trek southward to the high hill where the prison stands sentinel like a broken-down gargoyle. The grounds permeate with an arcane miasma that calls out to anyone who sets foot onto them. Forgotten memories of a blazing cataclysm of death and misery assault them at every turn, and Sælia reveals that she cannot join her new companions on their latest journey.
She is physically incapable of setting foot here.
There's something deeper, something even more nefarious, than the ghosts of an old tragedy guarding the devil's halls of Harrowstone. Opening the great wooden doors into the prison proper brings forth the physical embodiment of the echoes in the ground, and the ghost of a woman seeks to rend the flesh of these invaders into as many pieces as there are corpses hidden in the shadows of these old stones.
The party succeeds in fending off the specter, but that isn't enough.
Rendered vulnerable to ... invasion by his own half-brother, Prince Selbin d'Courte falls victim to the most potent skill in any ghost's repertoire:
Possession.
Session Seventeen
DANCING WITH THE DEAD
July 20, 2015
After fending off Harrowstone Prison's first grisly guardian, only Aseir has any idea what to do about their ailing monarch. Selbin has fallen unconscious. It is Aseir's assertion that the young prince has been possessed, and that the only way to force the remains of the old ghost out of his person is to bring the boy right up to the precipice of death.
A ghost yearns to influence the lives of mortals, and a host is only useful if it is healthy ... or at least passable.
However, Trevahn is less than interested in that plan. He insists that, if the plan is to purge the prince of this poltergeist, then it must be done with someone else with proper medical — or religious — training in attendance. For some reason, Trevahn doesn't trust Aseir's judgment.
Kriv, in the meantime, uncovers a corpse nestled in the front entryway of the main prison building, which had been guarded by the ghost responsible for this particular conflict of interests. The body is headless, and the only clue to the identity of this unsightly victim is a satchel, with the initials P.L. marked on it, filled with a number of research materials that marks it as the property of Professor Petros Lorrimor.
Vytal, meanwhile, has been hunting werewolves. While her compatriots handle town politics, she has become a silent guardian, quelling any threats from the fog outside from reaching the walls of Ravenloft. She has honed her skills, and outfitted herself with a pelt and cloak. Her skills are sharpened, her equipment is enhanced, and she has decided that she's now ready to handle the inner workings of this town.
Her first glimpse into the ... darker implications of Ravenloft's culture comes when she approaches the outer walls to a vegetable stand selling off excess crops from the surrounding farmsteads. Five little girls are skipping rope, and singing a rather disturbing song, repeating the same five verses over, and over, and over again:
Put her body on the bed,
Take a knife and lop her head.
Watch the blood come out the pipe;
Feeds the stirge, so nice and ripe.
Drops of red so sparkly bright,
Splatters spell her name just right.
With a hammer, killed his wife,
Now, he wants to claim your life.
Tricksy father tells a lie.
Listen close, or you will die.
Upon questioning the little girls about the origin of their little rhyme, Vytal discovers that it's just one of those pervasive little bits of folklore, of which no one seems to quite remember the origins. She resolves to investigate further.
The party reconvenes in the town proper, whereupon Vytal meets Aseir's new companion: the succubus Saelia. Immediately suspicious, but not quite ready to act on that suspicion, Vytal simply decides to go along with it for now. Her half-brother is comatose, and without intervention it isn't quite clear how long Selbin will last.
After speaking with Father Grimburrow, head of the Temple of Pharasma, the party offers up the body of the professor for proper burial, and offer Selbin into the care of the church while the priest and his acolytes seek out the proper means for an exorcism.
Outside, a street musician from Borovia is seeking to eke out her living in this new venue, playing a violin beside the statue of Warden Hawkran. As she plays to a small crowd of people going about their business, the party hears a strange, pervasive buzzing sound.
Stirges.
The monstrous flying abominations come in a swarm, and seek to make a meal out of the crowd, and the party. But the one target they specifically avoid is the young musician. The beasts seem to obey her, in a way. At least, they very pointedly do not attack her.
When the gigantic blood-sucking creatures are dealt with, Kriv takes the opportunity to seek help for the crowd, leaving the rest of the party to investigate these new developments. The stirges, while clearly living creatures, have some sort of connection to the arcane miasma that seems to permeate Harrowstone. They are tainted.
Titus takes the time after the battle to look over the journal found inside the professor's satchel, hoping to find clues. The following entries of the journal have been highlighted:
---
It is as I had feared. The Sons are interested in something here in Ravenloft. But what could it be?
---
Whatever the Sons seek, I am now convinced that their goal is connected to Harrowstone. In retrospect, I suppose it all makes sense. The stories they tell about the ruins in town are certainly chilling enough. It may be time to investigate the ruins, but with everyone in town already being so worked up about them, I'd rather not let the others know about my curiosity. There's plenty of folks hereabouts who already think I'm a demonologist or a witch or something. Idiots.
---
It is confirmed. The Sons seem quite interested in something someone who was held in Harrowstone. But who, specifically, are they after? I need a list of everyone who died the night of the fire. Everyone. The Temple must have such a list.
---
I see now just how ill-prepared I was when I last set out for Harrowstone. I am lucky to have returned at all. The ghosts, if indeed they were ghosts (I did not find it prudent to investigate further) prevented me from transcribing the strange symbols I found etched along the foundation. Hopefully on my next visit I will be more prepared. Thankfully, the necessary tools to defend against spirits are already here in Ravenloft. I know the church used to store them in a false crypt in the Restlands, at the intersection between the Eversleep and the Black Path. I am not certain if the current clergy even know of what their predecessors have hidden down below. If my luck holds, I should be able to slip in and out with a few borrowed items.
---
Tomorrow evening I return to the prison. It is imperative the Sons do not finish. My caution has already cost me too much time. I am not sure what will happen if I am too late, but if my theory is right, the entire town could be at risk.
---
Armed with these clues, the party splits in twain: Vytal decides to head to the Temple of Pharasma to seek out the victims of the Harrowstone Fire, while Aseir and Titus seek out what the Restlands are. They learn from Aseir's newest employee, Alendru, that the Restlands is the name given to the cemetery on the outskirts of town. Each main pathway through the graves and mausoleums has its own name, as well. Two of them are Eversleep and Black Path.
After a brief excursion with an elderly gravekeeper, Titus finds the hidden passageway into the false crypt where, hopefully, Guard Zero will find some assistance in the fight against this new brand of undead.
Vytal, meanwhile, in her research at the Temple, uncovers the truth about the grisly skipping song, and more details regarding the five notorious criminals responsible for the riot that preempted the Harrowstone Fire (which, it turns out, wasn't an accident like most people thought, but a conscious decision by a desperate Warden Hawkran to save the people of Ravenloft from the rioting prisoners).
- Father Charlatan was a con artist who claimed to be a highly ranking member of any number of religions, and swindled an unwitting populace out of their savings in exchange for false miracles and cures. His crimes were so extensive, and so blasphemous, that each church spurned by his reputation demanded that he be sent to Harrowstone to be executed.
- The Lopper was a serial killer famous for chopping off his victims' heads with a rusty, dulled hatchet.
- The Mosswater Marauder was a dwarven artisan who was driven into a fit of rage after learning of his wife's infidelity. He used his hammer to smash her skull, but was immediately remorseful. His sanity wrecked, the dwarf known as Ispin Onyxcudgel became convinced that if he could just reassemble the pieces of his wife's skull, she would return to life. However, when a particular fragment proved to be missing, he began to seek out other skulls.
- The Piper of Illmarsh was the most mysterious of the five; his real name is unknown. He would taunt his targets by playing a mournful dirge on his flute. He would use a powerful paralytic called lich dust to paralyze single victims, and then permit his pet stirges to drain them dry of blood.
- The Splatter Man was, like Petros Lorrimor, a professor of esoteric magic. The professor was a scholar of a field of study known as Anthroponomastics — the study of personal names, and their origins. An accidental association with a succubus warped his study into an obsession. His every faculty was bent upon the power of a name, and how he could use it to terrify and control people. He developed an uncontrollable fascination with an imaginary link between a person's name and what happens to that name when the person dies. Every handful of days, he would arrange for his victims to find a letter from her name written in blood. Once the name was spelled completely, he would come for her, killing her in a gory mess meant to look like an accident.
Armed with this information, Vytal seeks out lodging for the night. She briefly discusses fortune-telling with Kendra, who turns out to have used the name "Madam Eva" and "forest-dweller" in her youth, and the two women arrange for a reading the following day, as Kendra's reagents are limited.
That night, Vytal is plagued by a dream. She finds herself locked in a cell at Harrowstone, with her name — V - Y - T — being spelled out in blood on the stone wall above the bed of straw that apparently serves as her bed.
Upon waking, Vytal looks out the proper window of her room to see a slight figure leaving the Temple of Pharasma; to do what, she doesn't know.
But she knows it isn't good.
Session Eighteen
THE HAUNTING OF HARROWSTONE
PART FOUR
PROJECTED DATE OF PLAY:
July 27, 2015
Summary Forthcoming.
The End.
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