CHRONICLE VAULT 20071227, FROM THE LIBRARY OF RHAVUS THE FIEND-SAGE ...
Fireseek 4, 595 CY
With the sage Eligos working on the research regarding the green worms, spawn of Kyuss, and the apocalyptic Age of Worms, the heroes set out to find lodging in the Free City of Greyhawk at the Crooked House. The proprietier of the inn and tavern, a colorful gnome named Tarquin, gave the heroes a good price on a week's residence at the Crooked House. The band of adventurers then promptly set out into the depths of Oerth's largest and most cosmopolitan city to spend a week amidst the hustle and bustle.
Shanks checked the seedier sections of the city and asked around regarding Ilthane the black dragon or references to the Black Mother, but came up with just blank or curious stares to his queries. Duke attained a membership in Greyhawk's Guild of Wizardry as well as the worldly Arcane Order in order to further increase his knowledge of all things magical but was turned down by the snootish members of the Sages’ Guild. The Translators’ Guild was more than happy to accept his membership, as they had only a handful of members and not a one of them could read or write the closely guarded language of the druids. Their sheer delight at having met someone who would be willing to translate a set of ancient papers detailing the Order of the Storm, a druidic circle that dropped out of history centuries ago, was enough for them to offer free membership in the guild if Duke would aid in the translation. The dwarf wizard/druid promised to come back but could not spare the time to devote to the deciphering at this time.
Kong checked out the Mercenaries’ Guild and joined up, while Argo hocked his freshly caught trout in the lower market of the city, earning a bit of gold in the process. The halfling ranger also joined the Cartographers’ Guild for a chance to make some more coin and purchase maps of exotic locations. Kaspar decided he needed a new weapon and went shopping, spending the rest of the day browsing shops and searching for a good compliment to his monk skills. He found a +1 quarterstaff of undead bane that seemed to suit his purposes very well.
The entire party also asked around to find out who to talk to about negotiating a peace treaty with the lizardfolk of the Mistmarsh. They were directed to speak with Hasgrov Tallbus, a member of Greyhawk’s Directing Oligarchy (the governing body that operated along with the Lord Mayor to run the city). Hasgrov’s office was in the Grand Citadel and the companions easily found it. The wizard was a busy man but listened carefully to what they had to say. He pulled out a large file regarding the various lizardfolk tribes of the Mistmarsh, located the one for the Twisted Branch tribe, and indicated he would send an escort into the swamp to bring Hishka to Greyhawk. Hasgrov scheduled the peace treaty negotiation in five days and asked that the party return then to moderate.
The companions returned that evening to the Crooked House and enjoyed a fine meal and drinks in the common room. Tarquin was an accommodating host and listened intently to the stories and tales told over the dying firelight. The next day found the heroes setting out into the wilds of Greyhawk once again, whether it was information gathering (like Shanks was unsuccessfully), checking out the Free City Arena (Kaspar and Kong found the arena to be under last minute maintenance in preparation for the Champions’ Games in the next two weeks), selling unwanted items (Duke carried around the party treasure cache and returned with a tidy sum for all after selling unwanted things), or selling fish in the lower market (Argo kept a fresh supply of trout). A cold wind blew in from the north, bringing flakes of early winter snow to the city of Greyhawk, and the heroes spent another fine evening at the Crooked House.
The third day in the big city was spent primarily spending well-earned money on necessities, such as potions of healing from the Temple of Pelor and other expendable items. A few potions of remove disease were purchased in anticipation of dealing with more green worms as the haunting events of a week’s past was still fresh in everyone’s minds. The evening of the third day found the companions once again enjoying a meal at the common room of the Crooked House, when they were greeted by their friend and fellow adventurer Drake the Slayer. Drake had disappeared into the heart of the city upon arrival and has not been seen since. The good-natured warrior bought rounds of drinks for everyone, indicating he had hit paydirt at the Wheel of Gold Gambling House in the High Quarter. He winked and said the entertainment there was top notch – Kong especially should check out a particular “entertainer” named Candy Cane (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).
The evening was progressing well into night and Drake got up to order another round. Kaspar was the only one to catch out of the corner of his eye what happened next. While Tarquin was filling mugs with his watered-down ale, the huge warrior pulled out a dagger and plunged into the gnome’s backside! The elf monk reacted quickly, alerting everyone to what happened, but Drake darted out of the common room and ran upstairs. As the men and women in the Crooked House began to panic and scream the companions set to work. Duke ran to the aid of the fallen Tarquin and administered what first aid he knew while Argo, Kong, Shanks, and Kaspar ran after the fleeing Drake.
The screams of the frightened people awoke many of the Crooked House’s patrons and the four heroes found rushing past them difficult as they moved downstairs to see what the ruckus was about. The Crooked House was a three story building with rooms for rent on the second and third floors. The four of them quick searched the two floors in ten minutes but found no sign of Drake nor a sign of forced exit (the huge warrior was not known for his finesse and if he had wanted to escape he probably would have jumped out a window, shattering glass).
Meanwhile, downstairs, a problem was beginning to build. While Duke had managed to stop Tarquin’s bleeding, a particular vocal member of the gathering crowd starting shouting, demanding justice for the intolerable crime. A citizen was dispatched to fetch the Nightwatch but in the Foreign Quarter help was always too far out to be counted on. The merchant began to whip up the crowd, declaring Duke and the rest of the heroes as accomplices to the heinous act that must be punished. Duke had to stand on the bar to be seen and heard over the crowd and starting countering the merchants’ baseless accusations. The dwarf was not terribly skilled in crowd manipulation or debate, but he was aided by the rest of his companions when they returned from their fruitless searching upstairs. Eventually, logic won over the crowd and they started to turn on the merchant instead.
It was Duke who caught the man slide the dagger out of a hidden sheath and lock his steely gaze with the dwarf’s. Duke quickly cast a shield spell just in time to deflect the thrown dagger, after which the merchant fled the common room to the seedy streets of the Foreign Quarter. The companions chased after the fleeing suspect after Kaspar identified the thrown dagger as the one used to stab Tarquin. Duke suggested they were dealing with a doppelganger or shapechanger of some kind, and his suggestion turned to be true when the heroes engaged their opponent in the street outside the Crooked House. The doppelganger was a skilled fighter but was no match for Kong’s greatsword, Kaspar’s whirling fists, Shanks’ spiked chain, or Argo’s well timed dagger thrusts. The man fell to the ground, reverting to his natural doppelganger found as the icy hand of death clutched at his mortal shell. The whistle of the Nighwatch could be heard a few blocks away and it was decided to search the body for clues as to the thing’s identity. They found a strange key with a large head on it depicting a ship being pulled down by an octopus, as well as a few magical items that they took as compensation. The Nightwatch arrived moments afterwards, confirmed the heroes’ story, and carted away the doppelganger body. Inside the Crooked House, Tarquin had recovered enough to speak and thanked the companions profusely, offering free rent and meals for a month in appreciation.
The five heroes slept uneasily that night, the events weighing heavily on their minds. The next morning Kong and Shanks immediately set out for the Wheel of Gold Gambling House to try and ascertain the fate of Drake. After dealing with the snooty management they discovered that a man fitting Drake’s description arrived three days ago and spent some time with an “entertainer” named Candy Cane but that neither she nor the man had been seen for two days. The timeline fit with when the party reached Greyhawk City but they could not find any more leads at the Wheel of Gold.
Argo and Kaspar went and sold the equipment they recovered from the doppelganger while Duke started asking around the Crooked House regarding the strange key. He learned that the symbol was used by an old merchant company about ten years ago that held some property in the River District along the Selintan River. Most of the buildings had been torn down or remodeled, but one abandoned warehouse still stood – Sodden Hold. After waiting for Kong and Shanks to return, the party set out for Sodden Hold to find out what the doppelganger was doing with the key to its front door.
The warehouse itself was fairly nondescript, in poor shape but falling apart, with the faded symbol of the ship and octopus over the locked front door. The key fit perfectly and the companions entered into a large room filled with boxes and crates. Several doors led to other areas of the building, and a fifteen foot high catwalk ran along the far wall. Shanks and Argo quickly climbed up to the catwalk to investigate while the rest of the companions searched the main room. Throughout the warehouse they found footprints – far more than would be expected for an abandoned warehouse. Argo discovered some of the tracks leading to the blank wall at one end of the catwalk and discovered a secret door leading to a stairwell going back down to the first floor.
Duke decided to check out one of the doors in the main room and Kaspar covered him. Unfortunately, the door he picked triggered a pit trap to open beneath his and the elf’s feet! The quick monk acrobatically dodged backwards but the dwarf wizard was not so lucky. He plunged forty feet down to the spiked floor suffering a piercing wound and heavily bruised muscles at the bottom. With the aid of a rope and the elven monk he got back up but everyone was a bit more cautious after that. They searched the other rooms off the main warehouse, and after a bit of determined searching Shanks discovered a ring of swimming buried amidst old ledgers and paperwork from the merchant company ten years ago. He then decided to burn the paperwork for no apparent reason, which he did against the wishes of the rest of the party.
The secret door and the stairwell was the only unexplored option, and Kong led the way down. They found what appeared to be a storage area behind the stairwell and a door leading on. Inside the storage area were a few odd items – a bag of holding, a few signet rings with a family crest none recognized (the image of a star with a lion-like mane surrounding it), and an embroidered cloak with the same symbol. Shanks checked the door and found no traps so they continued on cautiously. The room beyond appeared to be some sort of a prison – there were five moderately-sized cells, but only three were occupied. One was occupied by what seemed to be a dead man, another by a dirty elven woman sitting quietly, and the third by two men wearing clothes reminiscent of the Nightwatch. The elven woman was unresponsive at best, but the two men told the heroes that they were members of the city guard and had been captured for some unknown reason. They never saw who was keeping them prisoner. Duke and Kong began to work on getting the bars free – the dwarf wizard used acid splash to weaken the iron bars while the barbarian used his muscles to break them. It worked and the two guards approached thankfully …
… then stabbed both of them with carefully hidden longswords. The facial features of the two “guards” began to shift familiarly revealing their true nature as doppelgangers. A tough fight broke out in the narrow confines of the jail cell but eventually the heroes were triumphant over the crafty and skilled doppelgangers. They found a few magical items on the fallen bodies and took them to sell later if nothing else. The elven woman watched what was going on with a glimmer of hope in her broken eyes. She identified herself as Ilya Starmane, and said that she had been kidnapped from her home a few weeks ago and taken to this awful place. Ilya had an idea that she was captured because her family was an influential trading partner between Greyhawk and the elven nation of Celene but her captors never identified themselves. The heroes returned her cloak and signet rings and freed her from the prison. She escaped and promised to reward the heroes for their brave actions after finding out where to contact them in the future. The man who appeared dead turned out to be just in a dazed and disturbed sleep. It was decided to free the man and seek clerical attention after Sodden Hold had been fully explored.
The companions surmised at this point that they had stumbled onto some sort of doppelganger gang on the banks of the Selintan River. But why were they be targeted specifically? The answer may lead behind the double-doors leading further into Sodden Hold beyond the prison.
Session Updates
Well, good session. Just a reminder – I’d like to start around 7pm every Thursday. If you can’t make it for one reason or another, please, please, PLEASE let me know as soon as possible. If we can reschedule ahead of time I’d prefer that but sometimes things just don’t work out.
Also, if you can think of anyway to make this campaign more enjoyable please let me know. Perhaps something you’d like to see, or a direction you’d like to take your character – just let me know and it can probably be worked in.
Quest Cards In Progress
* What's Ilthane Up To?
* NegotiateTreaty with Lizardfolk of Mistmarsh
* Investigate Strange Key from Doppelganger Body
XP Recap
7th-level Characters 3,500
8th-level Character 2,000
‘Till next, Game On!
“Weird” Dave Olson
Dragonfyre Gaming Association
weird.dave.dfga@gmail.com
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