Session 4 Recap – October 8th, 973
The morning began with a round of grim arithmetic. Hunkle, Ironbark, and Shamus remained feverish from rat bites, and the only cure—three castings of Lesser Restoration—cost more than the party’s purse contained. After much debate, they scraped together 530 gold from pooled savings and borrowed another 70 from the Adventurers’ Guild at 5% monthly interest, adventurers being notoriously poor credit risks. The spells were purchased, the afflicted restored, and the party’s collective solvency gravely impaired.
Once all three were well, Pfinder announced that he would be taking his leave. After deep reflection, he decided that his talents were best used chronicling Archea’s injustices rather than fighting them directly. He had accepted a position at The Royal Standard but, having recognized that paper for the mouthpiece of the Crown that it was, he also sought out employment at The Ragged Quill, an alternative newspaper run on less than even a shoestring budget out of The Gutter’s End; the most desperate and impoverished neighborhood of all of Manchester. He acknowledged that the situation could facilitate a mysterious flow of ink, paper, and other supplies from the Standard to the Quill, a matter that did not seem to concern him unduly.
Fortunately, he was good enough to find his replacement and introduced Merrythought to the party. She was an elf devoted to “making lives better” (and occasionally “making doors open without keys”). While she was reluctant to be pigeonholed into a specific class, keen eyed members of the party quickly pegged her as a Level 1 Bard/Level 1 Rogue.
After this, Cassyndra gave more details of her aunt, Grelda. It seems that prior to joining the party, Cassyndra was a member of an organization that had a, perhaps, less than salutary view of the Archean government. Eventually Grelda, a member of the same organization, was captured and rather than reveal information about Cassyndra and others, cut out her own tongue. Now Cassyndra has received information from others in that organization that Grelda is due to be transferred to the new Northmarch Correctional Bastion although the exact time of the transfer is not known.
October 12th, 973
After some preliminary scouting and other activities (described in the Preview), the group got down to the business of freeing Kenning. Loath to owe favors to criminals (or, worse, to admit needing them), they declined the aid of Maris Vell of the Black Lily Syndicate. However, they resolved to free her imprisoned associate, Silas Venn, anyway—reasoning that if they succeeded without her help, the balance of obligation would tilt nicely in their favor.
Reconnaissance began under cover of darkness with the additional shield of pouring rain.
- Heka, Cassyndra’s familiar in rat form, scouted the first floor and basement, noting the general layout of the corridors and the locations of two guards before being shooed out.
- Ant and Wolfgang descended the coal chute to confirm the layout of the basement, noting the furnace, coal storage, and sewer access. They also secured two sets of manacles and a ring of keys.
- Merrythought scaled the perfumery next door to peer through the second- and third-floor windows and confirmed there was no roof access. A passerby thought he saw someone climbing the perfumery but was firmly advised by Hunkle that, no, he had not seen anything out of the ordinary at all.
- Lavleen, using Speak with Animals, consulted the local pigeons and rats. Sadly, their insights were limited to the location of crumbs and the emotional trauma of being repeatedly shooed from the premises.
In the morning, Merrythought had “accidentally” met a prison guard named Dorin on his way home and, posing as a new arrival seeking work, learned that twelve guards staffed the jail by day and six by night, all under a tyrannical sergeant.
From here the party retired to The Hero’s Respite to discuss plans and considered their options – fire, explosions, stealth, direct assault, etc. Perhaps because of the late hour, Wolfgang kept circling back to explosions but eventually hatched a brilliant plot whereby the party would approach Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler, buy 100 meatpies from him, and arrange for him to introduce the party to the guards as wholesalers with a new food product in need of testing… and who best to test them than prisoners?
CMOT Dibbler sold the pies to the party for 10 gp and accepted 10 gp as bribes for himself and the guards; the guards allowed Wolfgang to enter the prison and distribute the meatpies and, along the way, see pretty much the entire prison as well as the location of Kenning in a second-floor cell.
Thereafter, the party hatched a plan whereby Ant, Wolfgang, and Cassyndra’s familiar, Heka would enter the basement via the coal chute with the plan to dispatch the guard in the basement and free Silas while the rest of the party entered through the locked service entrance, dispatched the first-floor guards, and then went to the second floor to free Kenning.
Just after midnight, they donned their masks and put their diabolical plan into action. Ant and Wolfgang successfully entered the furnace room and caused just enough smoke and noise to attract the attention of the basement guard. Despite being surprised to see them, the guard was able to sprint away before they could attack him and made it to his alarm bell and set it off.
The benefit of surprise lost, the first-floor party rushed the first-floor guards and Hunkle and Ironbark engaged them in combat. Lavleen, bringing up the rear, found a closet of records much more interesting than the combat and started stuffing them in her backpack “for later study”.
Cassyndra, linked telepathically to Heka, descended to the basement and used a Sleep spell on the guard before he could get upstairs and Ant and Wolfgang manacled him.
On the first floor, two more guards and a commoner came out of the breakroom but, finding themselves trapped, either died (one of the guards) or ducked into the infirmary and barricaded themselves inside (the other guard and commoner). In the meantime, both Merrythought and Gareth charged upstairs to the second floor. While Gareth handled the second-floor guard, Merrythought opened Kenning’s cell only to find that his cellmate was demanding to be released as well. Kenning begged her not to do so saying that his cellmate, Henry, was a murderer so despite Henry’s threats that he would report everything to the guards, he was left behind, Merrythought having taken the precaution of casting Disguise Self prior to entry. When asked, Kenning identified one other prisoner who should be freed and he joined the group.
By now, the third-floor guard responded to the second floor and was killed by Gareth and Merrythought and down in the basement, Ant and Wolfgang freed Silas then opened three other cells and tossed the keys to the now freed (and bewildered) prisoners.
The party reunited on the first floor where Silas and Kenning changed out of their orange jumpsuits into clothing that the party had brought along while the extra prisoner changed into a guard outfit that the party had found in the storeroom. The records closet was set on fire to Lavleen’s great disappointment and the party made a clean escape.
Reluctant to show up at the Hero’s Respite with a someone in a prison guard uniform but also reluctant to not show up at the Hero’s Respite at all, the party decided to send Ant and Wolfgang back to the Respite looking quite drunk while the others went to the docks to book cheap rooms for the night; the presence of someone in a prison guard uniform was explained by Cassyndra’s performance as his associated “lady of the night”.
Silas, Kenning, and the other prisoner were gently questioned separately with Silas confirming his association with the Black Lily – he worked for them and Maris as a forger but also did some forgeries on his own time and was caught for those. He expected to be able to return to his position with the Black Lily but anticipated having to make some degree of amends to Maris for the trouble his freelancing caused.
Without saying as much, Kenning all but confirmed that he was a member of The Ebon Blades. He was arrested when he was out on a mission to post issues of the Blades’ broadsheet, The Ember, when his group was interrupted by a Civil Guard patrol. As per the prearranged plan, he attacked the guards to slow them down while the rest of his group scattered with the broadsheets. Inasmuch as the only charge he faced was that of attacking a Civil Guard, he suspects the rest of the group got away clean and he was never suspected of being a Bladesman.
When the party noted that Barin had told them that he was in prison for having caused a light to go out during the Governor’s speech, Kenning laughed, “Barin’s very good at spinning a sob story, isn’t he? A very useful fellow, that one.”
Sobering, he went on to describe The Ebon Blades’ cell and cutout structure, a structure that was necessary because of the “enhanced interrogation” techniques used by the Crown. “They torture you and mutilate you and when you’re about to die, they heal you up so they can do it all over again. And if you die, they have a cleric right there to cast Revivify on you to keep it all going. Our structure has nothing to do with trust or our assessment of someone’s loyalty; it’s all about knowing that if someone is captured, they’ll break eventually. All that that person can do is to hold out as long as possible to let the rest of their cell escape… but eventually he’s going to tell everything that he knows.”
The final freed prisoner—the one Kenning had requested they rescue—spoke little, saying only that, like Kenning, he needed to return to Dolven’s Hollow.
The party resolved to rest at the docks for the night, reunite with Ant and Wolfgang in the morning, and escort Kenning and his quiet companion back to Dolven’s Hollow—releasing Silas to his own devices.
Homework And Announcements
- Experience Points
- We ended the last session with everyone at 270 XP.
- You might have earned up to 100 XP more from solving the Internet Maze. There’s a total of 50 available for the six rooms with clues that spell out a specific word and 50 more available from puzzle embedded in the five Word documents. Take less if you need help solving or need to be told the answer (as described previously).
- For Session 4 the group gets 900 XP for freeing Kenning and 25 XP per guard/commoner for a total of 1100 XP. Divided among 9 characters is roughly 125 XP per character.
- So, everyone should be somewhere between 395 and 495 XP which means you’re all Level 2. Go ahead and apply the improvements to your character sheet but understand that the Adventurer’s Guild won’t let you see the Level 2 jobs board until you pay them their 200 gp fee.
- I’ll take care of the changes for Hunkle, Shamus, Gareth, and Ironbark as I have their character sheets with me.
2. Changed to 5.5E Characters
As I understand it, everyone is now playing 100% 5.5E characters. If my understanding is incorrect, however, and you’re playing a character with 5E elements, let me know.
3. Send Me a List Of Your Special Powers
For everyone except for Hunkle and Shamus, after you apply your Level 2 improvement, please send me a list of your 5.5E character’s special powers and spells so I can read about them and learn how to properly GM them. Please do so even if I’ve seen your character sheet before. This time, I need to write it all down!
4. Next Session
Our next session is at B#1’s on 11/5 from 0900 – 1230 (ending 30 minutes sooner than usual). I’ll inquire about everyone’s Thanksgiving plans at that time so we can plan the rest of the month.
5. Party Finances In Ruins
Party gold is 0 and the party owes 70 gp to the Adventurer’s Guild at 5% interest per month starting 10/8/973. You can be sure I’ll be keeping track.
6. Manacles Left In The Jail
One of the two sets of manacles collected from the jail was left behind – please remove it from your character sheet if you haven’t already done so.
7. House Rules Changes
- Missile/direct spell energy attacks may cross spaces occupied by allies or may be aimed at spaces which have allies behind them but are still in the line of fire. If natural 1 (or perhaps higher depending on circumstance) is rolled for that attack, the attack hits the ally instead of the target. Can be waived if ally is prone or under some other protection.
- Since we’re playing 5.5E rules now, we’ll switch to the more liberal encumbrance rules for this edition which are found on page 363. In brief, if you’re a Small/Medium creature (as we all are), you can carry Strength x 15 pounds total without any troubles. Beyond that, however, you’ll have to drag/lift/push the load which will drop your Speed to 5 and has a maximum limit of Strength x 30 pounds. One advantage of this is that your electronic character sheet will now correctly display whether you are encumbered or not.
8. Preview of Session 5 Fight
Our next session, session 5, will open with Barin letting the party know of a band of hated tax collectors passing through a nearby remote road and an invitation to attack them and steal the collected taxes. He’ll note that the taxes can’t be returned to the peasants from which they were stolen as that will mark the peasants as being against the Crown so the party will keep the money and he trusts that they’ll do something appropriate with it.
Gareth, for one, will be relieved. Although he participated in the Kenning caper with good cheer, one can’t help but note that it didn’t provide him with any money to send home to his family…
At any rate, with the information that Barin provides, you’ll be able to set an ambush for the tax collectors at your chosen time and on ground of your choosing. We’ll play it like this,
- The tax collectors will be riding in a two horse carriage that provides some protection against missile fire.
- A cart and two mules will be available to you to bring the treasure back after the successful ambush.
- The heavy rains will be continuing but you’ll be able to choose the time/lighting conditions of your attack.
- You’ll also be able to choose almost perfect ground for your ambush.
- That means you’ll use a whiteboard marker to draw on my blank map the ground that you want to ambush the tax collectors on. You’ll draw out,
- The path of the 10 foot wide dirt road the collectors are taking.
- Any trees/bushes in the area. The road the collectors are taking passes through a mix of forest and plains so you can populate the area as densely with foliage as you please… or not.
- Any hills/canyons/holes/etc in the area.
- I’ll then roll some dice to make random changes to what you’ve drawn and the result will near perfect ambush terrain (100% perfect terrain, of course, never happens).
- You’ll position yourselves where you want to be in the resultant terrain and wait for the collectors. Since you’ll know their schedule, you’ll have timed it such that they arrive right when you want them to (unless they fall behind schedule or run ahead of schedule; the latter seems unlikely given the rain!).
- That means you’ll use a whiteboard marker to draw on my blank map the ground that you want to ambush the tax collectors on. You’ll draw out,
- If you plan to ambush them in the evening or the night, anticipate the need to walk back to Dolven’s Hollow for several hours in the middle of the night… which can be dangerous!