A SAILOR'S LIFE FOR ME...
Sunstrong 3-7, 4433
Characters:
Gorr, ranger 5
Robert the Swift, fighter 4
Suba-Jin the Three-Handed, cleric 4
Xénos, spy 1
Late Night in the Hood
The group lurked on The Bridge, one of Viridistan's rougher neighbourhoods. They had subdued a thug from the Coffin Masters gang and browbeat him into showing them his hideout, in the hopes of finding the missing stonemason Sesto.
Suba-Jin convinced a local drunk to let them into his home, and from that vantage the group surveyed the alley for the rest of the night, tracking the gang's activities. In addition to groups of thugs coming and going, some strange characters passed by:
- a tall, fat Orichalan whose breath fogged in the warm night, with 5 cloaked & masked figures following in lock-step;
- a tough-looking adventuring party (two fighters, two thieves, an M-U & probably a cleric) led by a tall, steely-eyed Skandik warrior in plate armour with piercing blue eyes and a frightening countenance;
- a short, wiry fighting-man covered in a cowl, with scaly reptilian skin.
The night passed fitfully for Robert, who couldn't sleep properly and was left tired and edgy [-1 to all rolls]. After watching this procession of strange characters throughout the night, the group decided that Sesto wasn't actually that big of a priority and they had business elsewhere.
Back to the Night Wolf Inn
The group returned to the inn outside the Great Wall, bringing the recuperating Eric Withakay and Lord Fesgate along in their wagon. The tavern was packed full of patrons in the midafternoon:
- snow-white warrior women with wild hair, black war-paint & minimal clothing [first met back in Session 7]
- red-skinned, bare-chested Altanian barbarians from the edge of the Empire; and
- a group of men wearing polished, elaborately fluted plate armour, sort of resembling Avalonians, with solar iconography on their equipment.
A floor show was absorbing the whole tavern's attention: a blue-haired elven woman of spellbinding beauty was singing ballads in a foreign language, accompanied with her mandolin. Her playing was masterful, even if many patrons were only enraptured by her looks.
The group mingled for a while. Gorr searched through the brick storage room behind the bar and found liquor bottles of every type & description, most of which he had never heard of before. He snapped up one that interested him, deciding not to explore down the spiral staircase to the cellars below.
When the bard's set was done to raucous applause, she left the stage to speak with the concierge. Robert and Suba-Jin joined their conversation. James introduced her as Rain, and the group noticed that her hair wasn't just blue but changed colours as the conversation went on, sometimes turning scarlet or pink.
Talk turned to a few odd events or characteristics of the Inn. Rain mentioned two points of interest:
- a trapdoor in the floor of the stage that led to something dangerous below, and
- some non-guild members who had attempted to force the eastern tavern door, not understanding that the Inn prevented unauthorized entry that way.
At this point Robert & Suba-Jin decided to come clean about the Inquisition's pressure on them to spy around the Inn. James was keenly interested, but didn't seem too worried. He appreciated the group's candour and told them to simply tell the Inquisition the truth - the guild was an adventurer's organization dedicated to mutual benefit, with no political goals. Whether High Inquisitor Phaidros would be satisfied with that is another matter...
Before she left, Rain mentioned that she was looking forward to the Midsummer garden party, mentioning some sort of card game called Evocation. The group decided to search for a book on the subject in the Inn's library.
They wandered through a few strangely decorated rooms, marvelling at the odd iconography of wolves, stars, and other features. They found the two-story library piled high with tomes of every possible description. Gorr spotted the statue of an exotically-dressed woman labelled "Nisbal the Immortal, luthier of the Sunset Palace." Suba-Jin managed to grab a book on card games which mentioned Evocation.
From there the group proceeded to:
Room IV - Restful Seas
Cyan & copper clouds scudded through a pale pink sky. Beneath, a bright turquoise ocean stretched in all directions. Searching the room uncovered some pirate costumes, a few cutlasses, more powder & shot for Suba-Jin's revolver - and a travelogue scrawled on weathered paper:
"We had been searching for sunken treasures in the gray sandbars that surround the room's furniture, following a rumour overheard in the tavern. A great storm came up from the ocean and drove us far off our course, to the north. During the storm, the huge glass lens Olayinka had picked up in the attic was swept overboard. She had been using it to study the stars, and was bitter about the loss.
When the gale finally ended we found ourselves far outside the sandbars, in deep ocean. We patched up the ship, and traded our remaining goods at native villages along the shores of several islands. Some villages were friendly, but others were hostile and the natives attacked on sight. I suspect the hostile villages were filled with cannibals.
We skirted the coastline of a vast island, until we reached a peninsula cut off from the main island by a massive stone wall. We were well received by the natives of Tanoroa, the small village that guards this wall. The villagers call the larger island The Isle of Dread. Their own peninsula is known simply as "Home."
The villagers told us a tale about an ancient city in the central highland of the isle that was built by the same people who built the wall. The villagers call the builders "the gods", but I noticed that the names of the gods and the personal names of the clan ancestors were often the same, so I suspect that their ancestors and the builders were one and the same. I believe that the natives once possessed much more advanced culture and that the descendants of the builders have returned to a more primitive state.
The inland city is rumoured to be filled with treasure beyond imagining. In particular, I heard persistent tales concerning a great "black pearl of the gods" that still remains in the inland city. The island waters abound with excellent pearl beds, so the rumour of the black pearl may well be true.
The village contains a number of huge life-like statues of iron, bronze, and stone. Since no villager currently has the skill or the craft to make such statues, the tale of a lost city built by 'the gods' seems reasonable. I would have liked to explore inland to verify the rumours, but too many of my fellows died in the storm or by cannibal spears. Only five of us are left. I am the only experienced adventurer, the others are only hirelings. We can sail the small catamaran well enough but on land, in hostile territory, we would be helpless.
Once back at the Night Wolf Inn I should be able to recruit a party of professional adventurers, then I will return to claim the great black pearl.
A crude map was included:
After a night's sleep, the group took the catamaran and headed north to this mysterious and vast island. [It was around this time that my computer crashed.]
After most of a day sailing north, a few small islands came into view. Perhaps they were the southern islands shown on the map? The group made landfall at the smallest one and entered the jungle.
They encountered a group of svelte, ethereal women in the jungle with greenish hair and bark-like skin, speaking an unknown language. The group attempted to communicate. The women led the way to a cave in the jungle, indicating the group should enter.
Inside the cave, old dusty bones lay on stone blocks. In a low-ceilinged chamber decorated with violent cave-paintings, two smooth stone slabs covered ancient graves. Pulling the slabs aside revealed shriveled, mummified bodies wearing jewelry of beaten gold. The party looted these treasures and all was well for a moment - until a cold & sinister light shone in the mummies' eyes, paralyzing the group with supernatural terror!
One of them seized Suba-Jin and rapidly drained the life-force from the unfortunate cleric. Robert was struck by the other. The group beat a hasty retreat and fought a running battle, Gorr showering the mummies with holy water & burning oil from a tree. At the beach beside their boat, the final blows were struck and the last of the restless dead fell beneath the ranger's darkly glowing axe.
The party had obtained some treasure from the ancient graves, but at a heavy price: Suba-Jin was one of their most dedicated and experienced members. Standing on the beach, they pondered their next move.
Monsters Defeated:
2 mummies (1720 xp)
Treasure Obtained:
circlet, goblet & bracelet of beaten gold
gold earring w/ ruby chips
- There is a lot of information to read through around here! To make things easier I created a new tag called 'message from the concierge' which collects informational posts about the Night Wolf Inn so they're easier to find!
- Suba-Jin was killed in melee combat, and by an undead creature.
That means 2 new character classes are available:
The Barbarian - halfway between fighter and ranger. 1d12 hit points per level, wilderness skills and better saving throws make him hard to kill, but begins the game illiterate and gains levels slower than a fighter.
The Necromancer - Raise an army of skeletons, but the whole Empire probably hates you!
There is a new version of the Auto-Filling Character Sheet that includes these classes and a few other bug fixes. You can get it in the usual place (on the sidebar).
