The Friends awake in The Sharks Head Inn. Over breakfast, they discuss what they know.
Beastmen of some sort have at least two bases in Solemnity. Talari is convinced this is a major operation, and the queen must be warned. One problem: despite two lobknights being in their party, the queen of Orthos is impossible to get an audience with. They don’t even know where to start. In addition, the beastmen are still out there. The Friends decide they need more info to progress.
This was an awesome session, at least for me. They investigated the city on its terms, treated it like a real place, and learned some things as a result. I felt the city come alive, and my prep was flexible enough to let them pursue what they wanted. There was a bit of light dungeon exploration, a lot of conversation, and some characterful moments.
They discuss their leads and split into two teams:
Rolf and Icoriol are going to head to the Ruby Promenade to St. Zoshk's War College to gain information on the rulers of the city.
Talari, Balthazar, Siriel and Clement will head to the warehouse to investigate.The warehouse seems deserted. It’s in a quieter part of town, in amongst some shoddy houses. It’s on the very southern edge of the Doson Ward, neighbouring the rundown Black Beach. The Friends know there’s some kind of giant gorilla guarding the entrance, so they investigate for other entrances.
With a lucky roll, Talari finds a small house (maybe it’s a shed?) adjoined to the back of the warehouse. Behind a closet, a stone staircase leads downward.
“Wait here.” Talari announces, and promptly turns invisible. He descends the staircase while the others wait outside.
I finally remembered to use some dungeon exploration rules, so I announce to Talari’s player that his invisibility will last 6 turns (1 hour) - 6 rooms. This lets him explore unimpeded but leads to a neat decision: to learn more of the dungeons contents but risk being visible before he leaves the dungeon.
He first comes across two ruined chairs, once luxurious. He heads east and finds a banner bearing a symbol of a claw - the same symbol worn by the man that turned into a beastmen on the street. At it’s foot is a bowl of dried blood and a tablet which reads “Beast of Gnarr, greatest of the hell knights legion, your heads dance under a rain of blood. Come to us, O beast. Bless us with our lord’s fury.” Talari pockets the tablet.
Down a southern passage he finds a round room with a statue of a roaring lion. Through a western passage he comes to a grand chamber - a large, though low ceilinged, cathedral. It stinks of rot. Talari stands on a raised platform in the north of the room. In the center, an altar covered in innumerable bloodstains. To the south, he can see the back of the giant gorilla his familiar had seen. Along the northern wall, on a table, are boxes of human organs, sorted by type. Two trembling guards peer into the room from a western hall, but they cannot see invisible Talari.
He has been down here some time. Talari takes the info back to his companions above ground. After some discussion, they decide they want to know more about the “beast of gnarr” mentioned on the tablet. Clement suggests they ask his temple elder about it - Father Randall of Baron Paul - who’s temple is in Lugar Del Aberton on the other side of town. They set off.
Rolf and Icoriol spend the morning talking to Rolfs old teachers. Icoriol is questioned in the halls by wandering academics - and elf is a rarity here. After much discussion, Rolf cannot find anyone that can get them an audience with the queen directly. He is told they’ll need a powerful patron to vouch for them first. To this end, Rolf provides what he has learned of the happenings of court.
Queen Mahd-Ratan-Cecily, consort of King Yanapo (who is busy in his northern kingdom of Kohm) has long been advised by The Lawful Council - 5 pious men who hold religious authority. Recently, due in part to a new religion (The Tenets of the Nations of Knights), The Lawful Council has had some rearrangements. Duke Allant-Ratan-Rosse, a venerable merchant prince (and leader of Icoriols Guild) now sits on the table, as does Ludo Discognia, the leader of The Guild of Astrologers. Though known to be holy men in their own right, they are not directly tied to the church. The Bishop Yened-Alnar-Oland and two of his priests make up the rest of the council. The clergy is afraid of losing power in its own council.
It’s not as simple as approaching one of these men and getting audience however. To even meet them one must have made themselves of note. The easiest way to do that is to make onself useful to one of the various factions of Solemnity - The Knights of the Black Rose, The Guild of Astrologers, The Royal Academy of Sorcerers, X, X, X
Icoriols pointy ears prick up at the mention of the academy of sorcerers. In Encathra, he acquired a letter of recomendation from Nimdok the Arcanist. The elf and the boy head to the Solemnas Cliff to find the guild headquarters - Reids Tower.
In their travels they passed by The Tenebrous Church, an ancient church to the architect of battles outcome - Tenebrous the Warmaker, member of the divine court. Clement leads The Friends astray from his temple. When someone notices, he explains that he has a son from which he is estranged. With his recent travels and brushes with death, he wishes to see him. At the last minute, he loses his nerve, but Talari urges him forward. Clement knocks, and waits.
It seems like no one is home, until the door opens a fraction. Clement stares nervously at the face hidden in shadow beyond the door. The man grunts. “Don’t want any.” and shuts the door.
Out of character, the player explained that they’d rather flesh out the sons personality before encountering him in a major scene. In character it made for a characterful moment where the son took one look at a religious man (who he did not recognize) and promptly declined. What could have made him find religion so distasteful?
They arrive at Baron Pauls temple in the afternoon. Father Randall is overjoyed at the return of their temples paladin (paladins are actually clerics, they’re called paladins on Korianis because a rich history of warfare makes them a bit hardier than other clerics. This is a bit odd in 5th edition but we don’t have a real paladin so it’s fine :P) but his joy turns to shock when Siriel removes her mask, revealing her tiefling heritage. Clement attempts to vouch for her integrity but figuring it’s not worth the trouble, Siriel opts to leave the temple, waiting outside.
After attending a service, Clement and The Friends, minus Siriel, go up to Father Randalls office for private consultation. After a short discussion about the New Knights, they show him the tablet, and ask what he knows.
I often find myself torn between throwing the players a bone and staying true to my lore. I know that Gnarr is ancient, and not quite related to religion in a way that the priest of a niche little saint would know about, but this plan came from the players brains by thinking about the world logically and I want to reward that kind of thing. I left it up to a die roll - if I can’t decide then chaos will.
(As an aside, I gave Clements player the decision of what his church thinks about the new religion which, though it wishes to return to old ideals, may challenge the current faith. He came up with a very interesting and balanced answer - being that this church does not shun change but seeks to take the good and fix the bad. A little modern thinking for my liking but I often neglect the reasonable side of humanity in favour of pulpy fantasy storytelling, so it’s nice to have a balanced outlook.)
“I’m sorry,” Father Randall says, “I’ve never heard of the beast, but I have heard of Gnarr. There are whispers of rugged men that live underground. They call themselves the Beastkin of Gnarr. Only rumors, of course, but I had heard they had a kind of unholy transformation. It sounds as though this rumor is true.”
The players are unraveling more and more factions of Solemnity. This is great - I struggle with beginnings, I hate exposition and I can never find a way to shove it in that doesnt seem forced, yet they need this information to make informed decisions. Last session was a little bit slow and a little bit boring because, I think, a lot of stuff just happened without a lot of decision making or interest. The players now have just enough information that they’re seeking out more for themselves, and my lore dumps become objectives. This was a total accident, but definitely something I’ll want to figure out how to do on purpose.
During the conversation, the sun dips behind a cloud, and the office goes dark grey. Balthazar, content to listen to the conversation, hears something. A ragged raspy breath. The hairs on the back of his neck stick up. His heart begins to beat harder. Faster. From behind Father Randalls stained glass window, a sillhouette emerges, seemingly in mid air. The shadow form of a four-legged beast - a wolf or a dog - but huge. It’s twisted and warped due to the make of the glass, but Balthazar knows it’s looking at him. Waiting. Watching. It’s jaws hang open. Balthazar slowly but with urgency, without taking his eyes off the approaching beast, taps Talari on the shoulder. The beast is almost upon them when Talari turns to look. Balthazars muscles unintentionally seize up as he braces for impact.
The entire room jumps as the window behind the priest cracks. Something small - a brick or a stone - has been thrown into the window. Relief floods Balthazars body as, with the cracks appearance, the sun re-emerges from behind the cloud. The shadowy canine is gone.
Poor Balthazar has been a bit picked on. His backstory is full of fertile details and I’m not patient enough to let them come out slowly so he’s had a lot of stuff happen to him. I love watching the players try to figure out what this thing is, what it wants. It hits different when they’re guessing and I know the answer. I like to make up stuff like this on the fly, and I think the players can’t tell the difference, but it sometimes rings a bit hollow to me. But knowing the answer to the mystery and seeing the players try to figure it out is a different kind of joy. This is the core of why I love to DM - I get to know all the secrets.
The Friends conclude their conversation with Father Randall and leave the church. Siriel is no where to be seen.
Two hours ago, when Siriel left the church, she lasted about 5 minutes before she grew restless. Rather than sit and wait while passers by gawked at her horns, she decided to head back to the temple under the warehouse.
Siriels player only really did this because we kinda bullied her into it. I asked what she was doing while she was waiting and she half-heartedly expressed a desire to explore the temple. I think this player is still finding her feet a bit in terms of declaring what she’s going to do on her terms, rather than reacting to a more rigid structure (I blame baldurs gate III, though to be fair she got about 5 hours sleep the night before) If you’re reading this bofie: this was a cool fucking moment and you should just run off and do random shit more often.
She can’t literally go invisible, but she might as well. She slips unseen down the staircase Talari found. In the room with the chairs, she listens to the western door. Curiousity gets the better of her, and she knocks. The rattle of chains and a muffled snarl are what she gets in response. She can’t see through the key-hole, it’s too dark (At this moment we realised that Talari shouldn’t have been able to see because he had no light. However, he did have torches, and he didn’t run in to any creatures so it’s easy enough to just accept that he probably had a light of some kind. Although - can an invisible creature carry a light source? Wouldn’t it go invisible? Maybe he shoved his lantern along the ground with his foot. It also might have resulted in a different encounter with the guards in the chapel area, but I digress. Back to the rogue), so she opens the door ever so slightly to take a look.
Chained to the wall is a full fledged beastman, a murderous rage in his eye, his intelligence entirely gone. He thrashes and roars in the presence of the light. Siriel closes the door. Turning her attention toward a northern door, she sees light coming from under the door. Peaking through the keyhole, she sees a crouched cultist, clutching a sword and peering nervously at the door. His hood is down, patches of beast fur cling to his misshapen skull.
I thought this might be a good teaching moment for our new rogue - who immediately made an awful lot of sound on her stealth mission. But, I was rolling for random encounters and she was lucky enough to avoid them every time. Still, looking at the dungeon key, there are a bunch of sleeping cultists in an adjacent room, so I ruled they’d be on edge but too scared to check it out. Also, our rogue is craftier than it seems, she was smart enough to look for light under the door. Man, I love that old school dungeon type stuff. Her doing that earned her the drop on these cultists.
Sneaking away, Siriel makes her way to the banner where Talari found the tablet. Not wanting to get in too deep after making so much noise, she doubles back to the chairs room, only this time the door is open. She hesitates, draws a dagger from her belt, and waits for someone to emerge. When they do, she is upon them instantly, sinking a dagger under his arm, killing him instantly (swashbuckler rogue is no joke).
However, she had not seen how many cultists where asleep in the room beyond the door. The fight turns suddenly from a 1v2 into a 1v7. Thinking quickly, Siriel uses the opportunity created by the killing of the first cultist to fling wide the eastern door, then flee up the adjacent staircase, hiding around the bend of the spiral.
The cultists emerge into the passage, and look around (I used the search action!). They conclude she must have fled deeper into the temple, and go searching. Siriel breathes a sigh of relief.
You could argue that it’s common sense they might think she, yknow, fled the dungeon, but these cultists a) just woke up, b) aren’t very bright due to beastman magic, c) are cowards, they don’t want to split the group, d) failed their search roll. I also didn’t want to punish this players cool rogue moment. I don’t mind compromising on logic a little bit in cases like these.
Siriel can’t help but push her luck. After she is sure the cultists have gone past, she sneaks down into the room they all exited. Good move. There are two chests in this room. She spends some time picking the locks (I rolled to see if the cultists came back - her luck holds) and surmises her treasure: 2000 gold pieces, a long vellum scroll, and a potion containing a scorpions tail and a small beating heart. There is another door in this room (the other players were egging her on to go through it) but she fears the cultists return. She exists the dungeon with 400gp, the scroll and the potion.
This was my favourite part of the session. New-ish player doing some cool rogue shit and getting rewarded for it. This is D&D! Also the players were dissapointed they didn’t get to see what was behind that door and the answer to that question is very funny. I have a feeling when they find out they’re going to blame Siriel even though she couldn’t possibly have known. Lol.
An hour later, Siriel meets up with The Friends in Lugar del Aberton, sharing her info and loot. She gives the scroll to Talari, who instantly recognizes a powerful spell (8th level! But he has to spend some time studying it to find out what it does).
Across town, Icoriol and Rolf wait patiently outside Reids Tower, headquarters of The Royal Academy of Sorcerers. The royal academy, it turns out, is actually a group of about 12 passionate academics, none of which are magicians themselves. Their influence comes from their wealthy patron, Lord Clayton-Reids-Slade. At first they are told to leave, but on presentation of the letter, they are let in to see the lord, especially when he finds out an elf is at his tower.
After a thorough questioning by the lord about all things elf, the three get down to business.
I chose to end the session here because we were gettin low on time and I would rather prepare this conversation than half-ass it. All in all, great sessions. Constant activity, player driven, my job as arbiter was so easy, and the world felt real. It would have been nice if Icoriol had had more to do, I feel a bit bad for his player, but it was a relatively short session either way, so it wasnt that much sitting around.
Next week, who knows!? They have a bunch of different avenues. I’m excited to see what happens. It’s really coming together.