Sanctuary and Sacrilege

The Characters:

Fik the half-orc monk and follower of Irori

Crux a half-elf storm druid and escaped slave

Tasilon a Human fighter/merchant on the run from trouble at home in Qadira

The party having beein invited to the Stannis family estate in Cassomir for a dinner and to receive a letter of safe passage find their dinner plans altered as Jannus Kimbote the brother of the party’s patron and head of the Taldoran espionage aparatus was less than pleased at the Partys arrival in Taldor and that Stannis was seeking safe passage for them, when he was supposed to give them a sharp knife in the back.

Stannis urgently shaved of his beared and his well coiffed head of hair is brought out to the dinner table  on a large serving platter, and the band of adventurers  is taken into custody. but are allowed the meal promised them, as dinner is about to start some unexpected guests arrive from the Capital: Princess Eutropia the Taldoran monarchs only living child and Father Basiri the last Arch-Bishop of the Church of Aroden the dead god of Human culture, history and ingenuity.

It is clear that Kimbote has designs on Eutropia, but it is equally clear she does not return any feelings for him, at least not any positive feelings, The party keenly watches the machinations of Taldoran politics threw out the evening, until the end of the night when they are escorted to a cell in the basement where they await trial on charges of being enemies of Taldor, agents of Qadira at best or in partnership with infernal powers at worst.

Later in the evening Basiri and Eutropia go to the party’s cell and make them an offer. They will help the band out of their legal trouble and in exchange Crux, Fik and Tasilon go and investigate what happened to two of Basiri’s acolytes dispatched to investigate what had happened to a church in a small fishing village down the coast.

The PCs ride off as Basiri makes a stink about the conditions of the prisoners and that he is taking them to a temple and giving them Sanctuary until the legal matters are resolved, and that he him-self would be advocating for them.  The distraction allows the gang to ride out of the city for the fishing village that is a good day’s ride down the coast.

Nearly to the village the PCs are ambushed by goblins picking off travelers on the road:

On the way we ran afoul of a small goblin force who had set themselves on the road and were waylaying travelers unfortunate enough to fall into their ambush.  Unfortunately we did.  However we proved to be far more than a hand full for them and they were summarily routed.  A short search of their camp revealed a frantic missive requesting help from the church that never reached its destination.  When we reached the village where the church stood, we found it mostly deserted.  We searched high and low to see if we could make heads or tails of what had happened.  We didn’t get over far with that before a sentry spotted us and attacked.  They too were dispatched with minor effort.  We found a young girl who had been hiding in one of the homes.

—Tasilon in a letter home to his family in Qadira

The girl tells a tale of the women of child bearing age being taken to the old church for a some evil purpose. From this point Crux has a plan to lure out the members of the cult, at least the fighting types. Peering into the church gets a good eye and earful of a sermon praising Dagon * and encouraging the towns folk to give them selves over to Dagon.  The preist is flanked by a Skum (think Deep-One from H.P. Lovecraft) Crux shatters a church window with a rock, causing more of the cultists(mostly fishermen from the villiage) Tasilon stays at range taking an opponent with his long bow while Fik ineffectually charges and tries to intimidate one of the cultists who responds by stabbing him in the chest with a harpoon. injured he and crux manage to down the last cultist and proceed to enter the church.

Tasilon flings the  church doors open and announces to the Dagonite priest. “you are not welcome here, its time for you to go” This was followed by an arrow that hands it mark hurting the evil cleric quite badly. The villagers in the pews dive for cover as a short battle ensues, with arrows from Tasilon and spells from Crux taking down the Dagonite. From there Tasilon closes on the Skum who hurls a trident and misses Crux and Tasilon. Tasilon finishes it with a swirl of blades and divine fire.

The villiage and Basiri’s remaining acolyte free from the Dagonites the party set off for Cassomir and their journey north.

* is a link to the real world mythological figure of Dagon

MASKS: one year later.

About a year ago I wrote a post about Eureka 501  Adventure Plots To Inspire Game Masters and Masks: 1000 Memorable NPCs For Any Roleplaying Game.  At the time I had only looked at the PDF of Masks and had yet to bring it to the table.  A year on and Masks is up fora couple of ENnie awards: Best Gaming Aid and Product of the Year and it deserves to win both awards in my opinion.

Masks is the go to book at my table. Every game I have GMed in my home game or at the local gaming convention, Con of the North has felt the influence of this book. Any system, any genre its the place to go for on the fly NPCs or a pivotal character in the plot I have found both.  Even the format of the entries has become my default method for NPC write ups,  Yup the book is just that good.

So,  yeah go vote for it or better yet.  BUY IT!!!!!

Landfall and a last stand.

The Characters:

Fik the half-orc monk and follower of Irori

Crux a half-elf storm druid and escaped slave

Tasilon a Human fighter/merchant on the run from trouble at home in Qadira

Late in the third watch a commotion on deck awakens Fik and Crux from their slumber and meditations. Tasilon still suffering the effects from the previous nights drinking will not be  aroused until things get much noisier up top.

Crux and Fik reach the deck to discover the night watch incapacitated and the deposed Captain Reyes and Gaelen the Elf  Wizard making an escape in a lifeboat. Reyes rows furiously and Gaelen throws his few remaining spells tagging Fik with a magic Missile threw the mist created to cover their escape.  the deck mounted ballistae are brought to bare and  soon after Tasilon arrives on deck long bow in hand.

Arrows and ballista bolts fly as the fugitives are ended and with them the desperate attempt to escape the ship.

The next day the party  and their prisoner/hostage Crisrof Stannis depart in a pinnace for the Cassomir the main port city of Taldor. Once ashore they dispatch Stannis to get them a letter for safe passage and the others go about business Fix visiting the local temple of Irori where he receives bad news of his home monastary, and Crux begins to familiarize him self with the local flora and fauna. Tasilion went about selling off the pinnace and  getting set for the journey north:

I find myself the master of a small trading caravan!  I have hired a cook to travel with us during the just over month long trek north by land.  I believe I have negotiated a number of good contracts.  I was able to trade our services if needed to another caravan heading in the same direction and carrying mostly different loads of goods to market.  I’d hate to be in competition with another merchant.  Competition is only good for the buyer, not the seller.  We will be getting 24 silver a day for the three of us and access to my cook from time to time.  They will provide their own food stuffs to be prepared.  We may be called upon to protect the goods from bandits or worse should anything happen upon us with nefarious intentions.  Otherwise, we are being paid a good wage for going where we were going in the first place.  I believe this to be a win-win situation. –Tasilon in a letter home to his family in Qadira

The party still awaits the return of Stannis with a letter of safe passage and for the cook to round up any remaining supplies for the journey north.

The ENnies!!!

Just a quick post the ENnie nominations are up and voting starts Friday. Lots of good stuff nominated so get out and vote this Friday!

 

Who done it on the high seas.

The Characters:

Fik the half-orc monk and follower of Irori

Crux a half-elf storm druid and escaped slave

Tasilon a Human fighter/merchant on the run from trouble at home in Qadira

Gaelen an itinerant elf wizard who has attached him self to the party as they appear to have an arcane shaped vacany

At the end of the last session there was a murderer loose aboard the ship, some one who had killed Asim in the last session as he slept in his bunk. Crux took the lead in the investigation bringing all the other passengers above decks and proceeded to detect magic on the belongings of of the passengers to narrow the suspect list (the murdere had left a very expensive glass vial containing a few remaining drops of an invisibility potion)

Meanwhile Tasilon began to search their belongings. Tasilon’s searches  uncovered a couple of things Asim’s scroll-case in the hay  for the goats of Bhen-Yamin a child-like goat hearder with a small caravan from Katapesh. the tools of an assassin were discovered among the things belonging to Sebastian redtail, a man claiming to be a religious pilgrim returning home.

Crux talked to Bhen and while he did have an altercation with Asim and Asim’s big ego and bigger mouth, he did not kill him, and Mister Redtail quickly convinced him that the killer was not him, and a rank amateur. but after a Starling-Lecter like exchange as to what Crux should be looking for. This spread suspiscion on to Chrisrof Stannis a Taldoran nobel on the way home to Taldor and a late arival for  the passage from Absalom to the mainland.

I was preparing to bring another of Desna’s followers down when Crux suggested strongly that I talk with Crisrof Stannis (Yes, THAT Crisof Stannis) instead.  I began with him as I did the others.  I asked simply “Did you do it?” and when they responded no (who wouldn’t?) I explained that I believed them but that I would have to verify their story by having someone break their thumbs until we were satisfied with their answer.  I had hoped that the initial threat of violence would be enough to bring them around, but, alas, it was not.  So once more we went to speak with Barris[the previous First Mate].  Like an artist working in his favored medium Barris broke him within moments.  He told us everything we needed to know about how, when, and why he’d killed off Asim.  Taldor.  Need I even bother saying any more?  Always trying to find a way to turn everything into a reason to go to war.  His lord was so afraid that Kimbote had been working with Qadirian rebels to overthrow their government and take away what little they have…again.  Another pawn in their larger game killed for no particularly good reason.

After much haggling over what to do with him now that we uncovered his plot we were able to come to the agreement that he would be taken with us as we make landfall and set free after he’s procured a letter of safe passage for us.  He has also promised to petition for us in this whole matter of working with Kimbote and Kimbote being the target of
the Prince’s ire.

-Tasilon in a letter home.

Next up the journey to Taldor in a longboat.