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  1. - Top - End - #61
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Griffon

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Thank God for that. They certainly had me worried towards the end, what with Kel'Serrar and his itchy "draw-fingers." Well that and Maebh's first suggestion for getting inside, which was along the lines of, "No wooden door can withstand copious amounts of fire."

    What do they say? The answer to life's problems is the immediate application of fire? Kill it with fire? If that doesn't work, kill it with more fire?

    So all in all, Shylocke probably came out of that smelling like roses. Except his privy, because Harold's unthinkingly cruel like that.

    Cheers,

  2. - Top - End - #62
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Griffon

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Well we played it out last night, and despite Sins getting here late, we still managed a roughly three hour game.

    Let's see, what happened?

    Discussion was had, a fire was fought, a nice old couple were discovered, Harold was badly hurt but some decidedly unfriendly fire and then bought himself new clothes.

    For more details, stay tuned.

    Cheers,

  3. - Top - End - #63
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    ReaderAt2046's Avatar

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Quote Originally Posted by Phoenixguard09 View Post
    Well we played it out last night, and despite Sins getting here late, we still managed a roughly three hour game.

    Let's see, what happened?

    Discussion was had, a fire was fought, a nice old couple were discovered, Harold was badly hurt but some decidedly unfriendly fire and then bought himself new clothes.

    For more details, stay tuned.

    Cheers,
    Did Melisiandere show up again?
    Prince Fraternal of Pudding, Snuzzlepal, Feezy Squeez Lover, MP, Member of The Most Noble And Ancient Order Of St. George, King of Gae Parabolae.

    Lego Ergo Sum

    "Everyone's cute if you just look at them the right way"~Rebekah Patton Durham, Princess of Pudding.

    "If they have stats, we can kill them... I'd like to point out that we also have stats..." ~ PhoenixGuard09.

    Warhammer 40K: Where the faction that is a cross between the Inquisition and Space Nazis are the good guys.

  4. - Top - End - #64
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Griffon

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    No, Dhara made no return appearance last night, though I can say that she was mentioned in conversation several times.

  5. - Top - End - #65
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Griffon

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Over halfway through the writeup for the last session. We're just about to get to the infamous fireball attack.

    Stay tuned,

  6. - Top - End - #66
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Griffon

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Session 2.4: The Infamous Fireball

    Welcome to the seventh-

    "The Game." - Sins.
    "I hate you!" - Ladyhawk, with a laugh.
    "We all do." - Wings.

    Aargh! Welcome to the seventh session of Three Coins.


    They've all well and truly trashed Shylocke’s manse and are now resting in the courtyard behind the White Stallion Inn with the cart, discussing what is happening with regards to the cult and what they plan to do about it. It is late at night, and most of the town is winding up after a long day. On the way back, Tremor stopped off at a tavern and availed himself of a drink.

    Spoiler
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    The conversation began well, but soon devolved into tracking back over onto questions they had already moved on from. Sadly, there was very little constructive effort put in here as the topic turned to the impossibility of buying trust.


    A small plan is devised regarding Harold's nobility giving him a good chance with talking to Carhold, a noble in his own right.

    Spoiler
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    Small hitch here, in that Harold's "knighthood" is based around pillaging the Northlands. So would Midlanders necessarily respect or even acknowledge an Invarrian title? The consensus is that it's better than nothing.


    At this point they finally get around to listening to what Maebh had come up with, though they did interrupt her at every turn. While most of it was consolidating what they already “knew,” mainly regarding Elspeth’s Queen being referred to as the Queen of Eagles, she did come up with an important point, namely that the notebook seems to suggest that she wishes to put one of her people in a position of power in Summer Hill.

    Tremor suggests that killing the current powerbrokers would be a good move, though admittedly, all of them are suspected Elspeth agents.

    Spoiler
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    But after all, as Ladyhawk said and Dev reiterated, putting someone in power who is native to the area is one of the best ways to solve civil unrest. It worked for many real world ancient empires, why not for Elspeth?


    Regarding the letters, the only conclusion Tremor came to was that they are painful to decipher, but Kel’Serrar points out that they don’t know who ‘R’ is and while they have suspicions (Rangard), due to the nature of their employment, pointing out their suspicions to him would be a sure way to miss out on payment, plus he could pay off half the town to kill them.

    On the other hand, Carhold is definitely a possibility to talk to.

    Spoiler
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    Kel’Serrar really pushes for this meeting to occur, preferably in the open, or at least in a place where he and/or Maebh can provide overwatch.


    “If you need to move, let me know in advance. Organise a signal, even if it is really stupid. I care not, so long as it gives me enough time to get a shot off.” – Kel’Serrar, to Harold, discussing the upcoming meeting.

    Spoiler
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    “We need a watch word.” – Dev.
    “The watchword is ‘help.’” – Sins.
    “Funkytown.” – Wings.
    “No. Um, what should the watchword be?” – Dev, pondering.
    “Funkytown?” – Wings, being ignored.
    “Runs past screaming…” – Sins, describing the inevitable ending to this conversation.
    “No, one or two words that can be worked into conversation.” – Dev.
    “Apple?” – LD.
    “You don’t want to say it accidentally.” – Sins.
    “Well, how about, ‘This is a funky town?’” – Wings.
    “Unfortunately I have, ‘The sparrows fly south for the winter,’ stuck in my head. Curse you Skullduggery!” – Sins.
    “Heh, I really need to read them at some stage.” – Dev, getting offtrack. “Now, two words, that can be worked into conversation.”
    “Moustaches.” – LD, with finality.
    “That’s one word.” – Dev.
    “Big moustaches.” – Wings with a smirk.
    “Something LD wouldn’t normally say.” – Sins, pointing out the floor in using ‘moustaches.’
    “How about three words? ‘Danann eat me.’” – Sins.
    “She says that a lot too.”
    “Yeah, but she won’t say, ‘Please, Danann eat me.’” – Sins.
    “You guys might forget it’s the watchword though!” – LD.
    “That’s what I’m counting on.” – Sins.
    “So we need three or two words that she can say to us so we can get out of there.” – Dev.
    “I like plough horses.” – Ladyhawk, submitting her own suggestion.
    “I HATE PLOGH HORSES!” – LD, as Breanna’s parents sadly met their end at the hooves of some plough horses, leading to the Leathe’s fixation/fear.
    “That’s brilliant. Plough and horse.” – Dev.
    “No it is not! It’s against everything that I stand for!” – LD.
    “See? Brilliant. There’s no way you’d accidentally say it.” – Wings, happily.
    “But I won’t say it even if it’s necessary, so you guys won’t even know anyway.” – LD.

    After literally seven minutes of this crap they finally come up with, “Pay attention to our illustrious leader, he has something to tell you.” As you can see, it is no longer a watchword but a watchparagraph.


    They go back to talking about speaking to Carhold, mainly using Harold’s nobility to gain entrance, leading to the best pun combo of the night.
    “We moustache him a question.” – Sins.
    “But I’ll shave it for later.” – Dev.
    It was god-awful, but sadly amusing at the same time.


    The overall gist of Harold’s plan is to establish some sort of trading agreement between Naille and Varr. He hit a bit of a snag with Naille being an inland kingdom without any access to the sea, but as you will see later, he works around this rather nicely.

    Spoiler
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    Theories on the Meanings of the Black Book
    Him/He: Probably Shylocke. Maybe Rangard. Could be someone else.
    Queen of Eagles: Queen Esmerelda of Elspeth.
    Grand Master: Maybe Shylocke but probably Rangard. Perhaps someone who hasn’t revealed himself yet.They’re pretty sure that he’s Shylocke.
    Knowledge of the Veil:
    Her Wisdom:
    The Hill of Summer: Summer Hill.
    The Lord of the Gate: Maybe Rangard. Harold brings up a good point, mainly that the Captain of the Watch would be considered a “Lord of the Gate.”
    The Seabear:
    The Wolfwhaile:
    Deprived of spark: Either lost the Focus Stone, or dead.
    The Wolfwhaile’s handler:
    The Woodwolf:
    The experiment: Summoning the daemon.
    The Lord of Winter: The summoned daemon.
    A mite: Breanna Blackrose.
    The Others:
    The Lady: Perhaps Dhara.
    Her Falcon: Either Dhara or Chirya.


    The decide to break for the night, Kel’Serrar climbing his favoured tree, Breanna pitching one of the, as yet unused tents in the courtyard next to the cart and Harold, Maebh and Tremor head off to rent rooms in some taverns.

    Perception Checks passed by Breanna and Maebh.

    While pitching her tent, Breanna picks up the distinct smell of smoke. In a predominantly wooden town. As she looks around, startled, she catches Maebh’s eye. She has smelt it too. The two of them tell the others and they move off as quickly as possible towards the red glow in the sky in the direction of the merchant district. As they do, Tremor shouts out in his gruff baritone, warning the township.

    “FIRE! FIRE IN THE MERCHANT DISTRICT!” – Tremor, bellowing.

    They arrive in the merchant district, pushing their way to the front of the crowd which as gathered to watch as….

    Rangard’s house burns down.

    There is a handful of people working hard to put the fire out, but Rangard’s manse is beyond saving. The neighbouring dwellings are in little danger any more, teams of servants working hard to contain the blaze, though there are signs that the fire had spread to the other houses before the effort had been organised.

    They quickly realise that Maebh’s trickle of water she can create will not be enough to fill the buckets any quicker than getting the water out of the wells.

    Harold runs over to one of the firefighters.
    “Is there anyone left inside!?” – Harold, over the blaze.
    “Not that we know of!” – Servant, beating at the fire with a blanket.
    “Can I help!?” – Harold.
    The servant tosses the Invarrian his blanket, which is flaming on one corner, and runs off to the stockpile to grab another.
    Harold too runs over to the stockpile, dipping the end of the blanket in a bucket to put out the flames before grabbing the bucket itself and throwing the water on the fire, tossing the empty bucket behind him to get it refilled before charging off to fight the blaze.

    Tremor too, heads to the stockpile and joins the fight.

    Spoiler
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    I have both Harold and Tremor take Toughness Checks to see how they cope with smoke inhalation. Minor Strength and Toughness negatives if they fail, but these do stack meaning that they can die from it if either their Strength or Toughness hits -10.


    Meanwhile, Breanna and Maebh decide that discretion is the better part of valour with regards to the fire and Kel’Serrar is busy fighting back hatred and fear of the fire and ashes.

    Spoiler
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    Another check for Tremor and Harold as they continue to fight the fire. Tremor starts to have some difficulty, finding that the smoke is beginning to tear up his throat. Harold finds himself shying back from the heat and flames, unable to really get anywhere.


    It takes some time, but eventually the fire is gotten under control, but by then the fire has utterly gutted the house. The ground is red hot, but at least there are no more open flames after almost an hour of heavy fighting.

    Spoiler
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    A fair bit of discussion as the party head back to a dark alleyway to discuss the possibilities.
    Why Rangard’s house burnt down.
    - Because the cult found out he was working against them.
    - Because he was working for the cult, cut and run and is now covering his tracks.
    - Because he was working for the cult, cut and run and now this is revenge.
    - There are two cults and this is a mob-war.


    “I think Maebh’s theory might be correct. Two cults in one town. We pissed off one and they got back at us by killing off our employer.” – Tremor, despairingly.
    “They didn’t necessarily kill him to our knowledge.” – Kel’Serrar.
    “Well as they say in my land, payback…. Is a bitch.” – Tremor.
    “And they still don’t know who we are.” – Harold, said with far too much confidence.
    “I have a feeling he’s still alive. I just don’t think he’d die.” – Kel’Serrar. Possibly meta-gaming, but who cares?
    “I’d like to check out what’s left of the place when it’s all cooled down because there might be hidden passageways under the house which he may have used to escape.” – Maebh, thinking of all the options. That and she never trusted Rangard, so scarpering is something she can believe of him quite readily.
    “Or he could have not been in the house.” – Harold, a bit more trusting.

    Working off Harold’s suggestion that they are still unidentified, they move on to why Rangard would be attacked.
    “He must have been attacked for a reason.” – Maebh.
    “So what about Shylocke? He attacks Rangard to stop him from being a big influence in the town.” – Harold, thinking through culprits.
    “Or was it us and we just don’t realise it?” – Ladyhawk. “Because with everything else we’ve accomplished, I would not be surprised if we were to just accidentally burn down our employer’s house. Probably kill his dog or something while we were running away.”
    “Thinking about it, our companion in red whom we have not seen for ages doesn’t like Rangard.” – Kel’Serrar. “And, they might not know who we are, but if someone’s acting against them and well, Rangard’s already been cursed once so he’s a known opponent. Another alternative is that they’re covering up evidence.
    “They might be covering up evidence, he might be a known opponent, he might even have evidence to hold against them and he’s already been cursed once-” – Harold, warming to his theme.
    “We’ve not been exactly subtle all these times, meeting him, working with him, meeting him in public places, dragging people to his house.” – Kel’Serrar, interrupting and making a very good point.
    “He’s not been completely subtle either.” – Maebh.
    “He has.” – Kel’Serrar.
    “No, he hasn’t. Not really.” – Harold.
    “He’s been relatively subtle, trying to meet us in dark and secluded places. There haven’t usually been many people around when he’s met us rather than us meeting him. He’s been more subtle than we have.” – Kel’Serrar.

    Seeing as it is about midnight, Harold, Tremor and Breanna head back to their sleeping arrangements while Maebh and Kel’Serrar climb up onto the roof of the building across the road from Rangard’s manse, hoping to stay out of sight while they watch anyone who takes undue interest in the destruction of the manse after the crowd disperses. Kel’Serrar scrambles up easily, making a little bit of noise and alerting the people inside. An elderly Midlander couple lean out the window and see the two Danann trying to scale their dwelling. They exchange looks and then walk away from the window, probably confused.
    “Damn PC’s.” – Dev.
    Maebh on the other hand cannot get proper purchase and takes another attempt to get up. She does so, but any chance of being stealthy about it is pretty blown. At least once she gets up there she won’t have to move and anyone coming along won’t know she’s there. Anyone currently in the vicinity on the other hand is aware of her presence.

    Tremor on the other hand goes off to the tavern and decides to scratch some designs onto the table. He’s moved on from his shoulder pet and is now considering a mount. Something tough, sturdy, something a Dwergar can ride. Oh, and mechanical.
    “On a steel horse I ride,
    I’m wanted,
    For running through doors.”

    Spoiler
    Show
    The Invention Skill for the Engineer is ridiculously open-ended and I hope that any Norbayne GM brave enough to take on an Engineer in the party realises that he can’t let the Engineer get carried away. The Engineer first puts forward an idea. This can be literally anything. The GM must then come up with the rules for said item and the difficulty of creating it. There are three basic categories, Easy, Average and Difficult. An Easy Invention doesn’t impose any negatives to the Design Check, an Average one imposes -20 and a Difficult one a -40. As the GM you are fully within your rights to say no to a character’s idea on whatever grounds you like, though try to make sure that only the exceptionally ridiculous are vetoed. For example Wings wished for a mechanical horse. I would rate this at Difficult, and it would require extra work to be sentient. (Magic.) Then Ladyhawk informed him that he could ride a mechanical anything, leading him to suggest as giant mechanical eagle. Which could fly. This I informed him would be so difficult it would make building the horse seem like drawing a circle.

    Once per level the Engineer may actually make an attempt to create one of his crazy designs once he has a working blueprint and the materials needed. But I shall not bore you with further details. Back to the story.


    He draws several designs but in the end settles on a small steel falcon. He comes up with something that might be workable in the future but he doesn’t believe his calculations are quite right. What he’s designed is probably not capable of flight. Tremor goes to bed.

    Kel’Serrar sits and stares at the burnt-out manse and Maebh dozes on the roof nearby as the early hours of the morning wear on. Over an hour into their vigil, Kel’Serrar hears a slight whisper coming from below. He looks over the edge of the roof and sees the elderly couple looking up at him, offering a plate of fruit and a pitcher of water.
    “We know you’re going to be up all night, so here’s something to keep up your strength.” – Elderly couple.
    “Much obliged.” – Kel’Serrar, stunned and yet thankful at this generosity.
    “What nice people.” – Ladyhawk.
    “Remind me not to burn down their house when the time comes.” – Sins, laughing.


    Over the course of the next few hours, the couple inside go to bed, wishing their two rooftop vigilantes a good night and Kel’Serrar eventually awakens Maebh to take her watch. Unhappy at being woken from her rest, she hunches down on the edge of the roof, drawing her cloak about her.

    The sun is just beginning to come up when she sees a man in a long grey cloak walking down the roadway.
    “Kill him.” – Ladyhawk.

    The dull light makes it hard to tell if he’s really there, but soon he is close enough to make out details. He has his hood up and his cloak conceals pretty much to be seen. He is not holding anything in his hands. Walking down the road, he stops just in front of Rangard’s destroyed manse.

    Maebh takes up her spear and prods the sleeping ranger with the haft.
    Spoiler
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    ”Oh great, I’ve been stabbed.” – Sins
    “No, with blunt end I’d say.” – Dev.
    “… It’s Maebh.” – Sins.
    “True, she probably reckons that you’d wake up faster if she stabs you.” – Dev.
    “The less blood in him, the quicker he reacts.”


    More to come, which can be readhere.
    Last edited by Phoenixguard09; 2020-03-27 at 08:46 AM.

  7. - Top - End - #67
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Griffon

    Join Date
    Jun 2012
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    Queensland, Australia
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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Welcome back.

    Kel’Serrar recognises that the man is definitely a Midlander, relatively slightly built. Maebh suggests that he be shot in a non-lethal place but Kel’Serrar declines as that would be a ‘Bad Idea.’ TM.

    Maebh in the end leaves the ranger up on the roof and stealthily climbs down, succeeding with a bit of luck and silently creeps across the road towards the man in grey. This close, she can tell the man is almost a head shorter than she is and is cloak is of expensive quality. She decides to tackle him, hoping to take him unawares.

    The tackle is effective, the Danann mage slamming shoulder-first into the man, smashing him to the ground where she quickly pins him there. As she does so, she realises that the face is familiar. It is the same man who disappeared right in front of her eyes when they investigated the Harvest Wolf.
    “Knock him out, knock him out, knock him out, knock him out, knock him out!” – Dev and Wings, together and frantic.

    He looks to be in his mid-to-late fifties, with greying hair that is becoming quite wispy and thin. He looks quite old and just a little bit frail and Maebh is surprised that he wasn’t knocked out by her tackle. She swiftly thinks about whether or not she should try to strangle him or smashing his head against the ground. She decides on the latter. And in the process…. He disappears. Again. Before he does so, she can see the bastard’s smiling.

    In the air around them, as Kel’Serrar can hear it too, they hear a voice.
    “You still don’t know who I am, do you?” – Disembodied voice, who then delivers some mocking laughter.
    “I’m throwing a fireball.” – Ladyhawk.
    “You don’t know where he is.” – Wings.
    “I don’t care, I want to throw a fireball at something.” – Ladyhawk.

    Enraged, Maebh flings a ball of fire into the sky, venting her frustration at being foiled again.

    More laughter.
    “You really don’t know who I am.” – Disembodied voice, answering his own question.
    “Where’s the voice coming from?” – Ladyhawk.
    “All around you.”
    “NO! There needs to be a direction so I can send a Wall of Blades that way.” – Ladyhawk.

    “But I am not totally unfair. I am willing to talk.” – Disembodied voice.
    “Name a location. Preferably one that does not lead to us being blasted apart.” – Kel’Serrar.
    “Here works well.” – Disembodied voice.
    “Tell us everything.” – Maebh, being very forceful with someone who she can’t see or seem to pin down.
    She is ignored.
    “I hate you. I will kill you.” – Maebh, swearing revenge.
    More mocking laughter from the air around them.
    “Who are you?” – Kel’Serrar.
    “You may call me, The Trickster.” – The Trickster.
    “Considering your latest antics, a fair response. Care to explain what this was?” – Kel’Serrar.
    “You have witnessed the destruction of someone who was causing problems.” – The Trickster. The manner in which he spoke indicated he was choosing his words carefully.
    “So is Rangard dead then?” – Maebh, trying again.
    “You don’t know.” – The Trickster.
    “Yeah? Well neither do you by the sounds of it.” – Maebh, giving up on playing respectful.
    He laughs, but her verbal foray has hit home. From this they deduce he is a proud individual.
    “The disappearing act is a nice touch. Care to teach it?” – Kel’Serrar, moving on.
    “I do not believe it lies within the talent pool of one such as you.” – The Trickster.
    “How about mine?” – Maebh, curious.
    Silence.
    “Ah it does…. You *****.” – Maebh. Now she’s just getting insulting.
    There is a human growl of discontent before, “You’re a bitch.” – The Trickster, sullen.
    “And you’re wimpy disappearing bastard.” – Maebh, warming to her theme.
    He growls once more, but he turns it into a laugh. It is a forced laugh though, almost like he needs to enjoy this for it to be worth the time.
    “What information do you feel like sharing with us then?” – Kel’Serrar, fishing.
    “You will be seeing more of me soon enough.” – The Trickster.
    “I look forward to it.” – Kel’Serrar, aiming for cocky courtesy.
    “I dare you to materialise in front of us and disappear again.” – Maebh, trying to get a chance to blast him apart.
    “How do you know that what you have seen was even me at all?” – The Trickster. A bit cryptic.
    “But you were there! Physically present!” – Maebh, outraged.
    “Ah, an illusion is only as real as you believe it is. If you thought he was real Maebh, it could well have felt that way.” – Kel’Serrar, seeing possibilities.
    “You are quite perceptive. I look forward to seeing you in the future. Farewell for now.” – The Trickster.
    “Which one do you look forward to seeing?” – Maebh.
    “… Farewell for now.” – The Trickster.
    “Bastard.” – Maebh.
    “Bitch.” – The Trickster.
    “I hate you.” – Maebh.
    Silence.

    Due to their investigative efforts, I gave them a level up, something they were all craving. I think they were all after some new toys to play with.

    I’ll put up their basic choices later.

    Spoiler
    Show
    I turned off the recording for the period of time where we determined what everyone gained in their level up. Upon resuming it, I informed everyone as such.
    “Recording once more.”
    “And there was much rejoicing.” – Sins.
    “Yay…” – Absolutely everyone, without fail, timed this to perfection.

    I have an awesome group.


    The sun is coming up and the Market District is beginning to come to life in the new day. Maebh, back up on the roof, sends a Whisper to Tremor, Harold and Breanna.

    “We have many important things to tell you about last night. We want to explore the ashes before everyone wakes up, so get the *expletive* down here.” – Maebh’s Wind Whisper.

    Tremor meanwhile, awakens in the morning after a restless night’s sleep. He realises that a flying creature would be very difficult to create and so puts his efforts into using what he’s seen of Harold and Breanna’s marcwolf pups to help him in putting his newest design onto paper. A large, mechanical marcwolf. While he’s scratching down the design, Maebh’s Whisper arrives. He listens to it, then ignores it all and continues with his design.

    Breanna is sleeping in her tent when she gets Maebh’s Whisper.
    “What!? Wait, what was that!? Oh, just Maebh.” – Breanna, who gets up, stretches, puts on her boots and makes her way to the Merchant District to meet up with the others. She leaves the tent next to the wagon, her marcwolf pup following, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, fairly differently from its master.

    Harold is also awakened by the Whisper, causing him to get up and head downstairs to the common room of the Iron Moon and orders breakfast. The barkeep glares at the Invarrian when handing over the food. Harold on the other hand just sits down at one of the tables, his little marcwolf sitting next to him, forepaws on the table eating off the plate.

    Seeing the man’s consternation, Harold drops a sulver on the bar before he leaves. The barkeep acknowledges this gesture with a nod and then goes back to polishing the glasses.

    Soon enough, Harold and Breanna arrive to meet up with Maebh and Kel’Serrar. Despite the heat still present in the ashes, it is far more bearable than last night, merely uncomfortable rather than lethal, and they begin their preliminary investigation. They soon find things very difficult, what with all the ash. Sifting through it all is taking a lot of time, plus it keeps getting into their lungs and eyes.

    After about an hour, Kel’Serrar still sits upon the roof in his lonely vigil. He watches over the others as they look around in the ashes, making sure that they have plenty of time to appear inconspicuous if anyone approaches. From inside the house he sits upon, he can hear movement. Below him, a head pokes out the window, looks up, smiles kindly and then disappears back inside. The delicious scent of bacon being fried wafts up from out the window and it isn’t long before the elderly couple reappear, offering bacon and water to the young Danann on their roof.
    “How did it go?” – The old man, winking conspiratorially.
    “Aww, what lovely people.” – Ladyhawk.
    “Rich old people are the nicest people in the world.” – LD, pronouncing this with all the force of a little goddess.

    “Rather well.” – Kel’Serrar, mysteriously.
    “Ah yes, I see.” – Old man, smiling appreciatively and tapping the side of his nose.
    The couple goes back inside.

    Kel’Serrar jumps down to go check out the ashes himself while Breanna climbs up and has a peach thrown to her by the old woman inside, who realises that the person climbing her house is different from the person who climbed their house earlier. Sadly, Breanna fails to catch the fruit, but the old woman manages to recover the failed attempt herself.
    “I’m a better catch than you!” – The old woman, in a way that can only illicit an “Awww, cute,” in response.
    She hands the fruit up to the Leathe.
    “Thank you, you’re such a nice old lady.” – Breanna.
    “And skilled.” – The old woman.
    “Such a nice, skilled old lady.” – Breanna. “TEACH ME!”

    To describe the remains of Rangard’s home would require me knowing many synonyms for ash to prevent the description from being repetitive. It is really stuffed. I would have drawn up a floor-plan but the whole thing is now just a mountain of ash with a few support struts.

    Maebh considers the benefits of blasting the ash away with a powerful gust of wind, asking the rest of the party whether or not it’s worth it. They say yes and back away as soon as she starts her casting process. It takes her a long time to build up the power necessary but when she does, she wipes the foundations of the house clean, blasting away the ash. Unfortunately, she also knocks down some of the support struts, which had been weakened in the fire.

    Maebh uses her new spell, Gust of Wind. She used a bit more power than she intended, miscasting but passing the resulting Toughness Check.
    “Ah, she’s just winded for a bit.[/i] – Sins. He was full of them.
    “I’m going to throw you out the window in a minute.” – Ladyhawk, laughing.


    The howling wind alerts several other people in the vicinity who look out of the houses lining the street. They see the Danann mage walk forward into the destruction and shrink back inside their own houses. Obviously, she’s a little out of the league of the average merchant.

    “Wow, that was great.” – Harold, sarcastic before heading into the foundations to search once more. Maebh snaps and throws a Flare at the Invarrian’s back.
    “Tempers will flare.” – Sins. I think it was ignored at the time, but as I said, he was on fire. Well, someone was anyway.

    Spoiler
    Show
    This is the first time I’ve had to properly deal with inter-party conflict. Ladyhawk explained that she only wanted to hurt the Invarrian, not to kill him. But of course she is using magic fire to teach her lesson. To discourage her from doing this again, I didn’t allow her to just cause 1 point, and made her roll for Damage. Magic should be respected and not used a toy. On the other hand, this did put Harold in a fair bit of danger, so I ended up fudging by ignoring all of Maebh’s bonus Damage to Fire Spells. I hope that the end result was fair to both parties, but I sincerely hope that this doesn’t happen again.


    Harold lands on his face, his back on fire, Before he can get up, Maebh puts the fire out with an aimed torrent of magical water over his back.

    Fury of the River causes another point of Damage. But at least the fire’s put out.

    The water courses through the foundations of the house, turning the whole place into a thick ashen slurry.

    Kel’Serrar runs over to the wounded Invarrian and quickly patches him up as quickly as he can, padding the wound with bandages and applying a salve he picked up at some stage for the burning. Meanwhile of course, Harold is face down in what is now mud, his nice new clothes now ripped, burnt and muddied. He gets up, and in the face of Maebh’s hostility, walks away.
    “That’s it, screw you all. You can all do this yourselves.” – Harold.
    The Invarrian walks off to a tavern and rents a room to go clean up.

    After his departure, Kel’Serrar and Maebh continue to search the area, but soon realise that if there was any small pieces of evidence the fire-wind-water combo would have destroyed it.
    Some jokes about how Maebh has caused a multitude of asthma attacks and flooded half the town.

    Meanwhile, over in the Iron Moon Inn, it takes Tremor four hours, and to quote Dev, many anachronisms later, but in the end he has a design so inspired that the technology to make it does not exist. Tremor will need to find a smith who can look at his design and make the components exactly right. Or he could do it himself, but the margin for error is extremely small.

    Spoiler
    Show
    The Invention Check roll could scarcely have been better with a 01, but what Wings wants to make is ridiculously ahead of its time, ie. A clockwork, draft-horse-sized bear-wolf. Naturally once it’s made, he will still have to infuse it with sentience to get it working properly, but even a big mechanical statue of a draft-horse-sized bear-wolf would be impressive in terms of building it.


    After creating this masterpiece of a drawing, Tremor heads downstairs, buys a drink and heads outside with the hard liquor in his water skin. He soon shows up, rolling slightly as he walks. He casts his eye over the muddy scene, choosing to ignore the dirty figures of the two Danann. From his position he sees that the fire appears very controlled and as far as he can tell, either the response was very prompt or the blaze was set in a very controlled manner. Heading inside, Tremor slips in the mud, but upon getting up finds that there really isn’t much to look at.

    Tremor comes to the conclusion that there’s likely no evidence left to be found.

    Breanna meanwhile, sitting on the roof has had about five peaches thrown up to her. Being on lookout duty has turned out to be really good fun.
    “I love these old people! Can I be adopted by them?” – LD.

    Finding the White Stallion Inn, Harold cleans himself up before heading out to avail himself of another set of nice clothes including a comfortable royal blue shirt and a long leather jacket, fur lined around the collar and a good quality, thick leather belt. He’s off to go see the Naillish ambassador, Baronet Edmond Carhold. He soon realises that he isn’t sure about where to find the man, so he engages the merchant in conversation, eventually getting to his main point, hoping to hide his question amongst innocent conversation.
    “Where would I find the Naillish ambassador?” – Harold, after chatting with the man for almost an hour.
    “Oh, he’s a regular customer of mine, as you now know. He is quartered in the mayor’s residence, the big hall up on the Hill.” – Robett, the clothes merchant.
    Think Meduseld with less gold and horses.
    The Invarrian finishes the conversation and pays the man. Now looking the part of a wealthy sea-raider, Harold goes to find Baronet Edmond Carhold.

    He makes his way to the Great Hall. It is old, older in fact than most of the town around it. Sitting high upon the Summer Hill itself, the hall commands an imposing view upon the surrounding lands. Harold doesn’t know the history of this place, but even he can tell it’s of an older style than the rest of the town. Walking up the stairs, he is stopped at the doors by a guardsman in a thick, dark red leather tabard.
    “Who might you be?” – Guardsman.
    “Harold Oakenshield of Varr.” – Harold, answering as formally as he can.
    “And what business brings you here?” – Guardsman.
    “I wish to see the Naillish ambassador if possible.” – Harold.
    “Is the Baronet expecting you?” – Guardsman.
    “No, I would like to make an appointment.” – Harold.
    The guardsman beckons over a page.
    “Tell the Baronet that a Harold Oakenshield is here to see him.” – Guardsman to the page.

    Harold and the guardsman engage in some conversation while the page is away, yielding some information. The guardsman is actually the captain of Summer Hill’s guard, Royan Setwatch. After almost ten minutes, the page returns and quietly gives the guardsman Carhold’s response.
    “The Baronet is free to see you now Sir Oakenshield. Please allow me to take your weapon.” – Setwatch, polite as he should be towards a foreign dignitary. Even if that dignitary is considered as such because of his ability to kill, steal and plunder.
    Harold hands over his sabre, having left the rest of his armoury on the cart and is guided inside by the page to the eastern wing of the hall. The page introduces the two men, acting somewhat like a herald.

    “Sir Harold Oakenshield, of Varr, this is Lord Edmond Carhold, Naillish ambassador here in Summer Hill and Baronet of the Carhold.” – Page.
    Harold sees a man of middling size, neither particularly tall nor short, with short dark hair and thick stubble on his jaw. He is between thirty and forty years of age and dressed in dark with a black leather jacket. The Invarrian holds out his hand and the Baronet takes it firmly.

    “Ah, Sir Oakenshield. What would bring you here?” – Edmond Carhold, inquisitively.
    “I’m here on a matter of business between our two peoples.” – Harold Oakenshield, putting his nobility guise on.
    “A matter of business?” – Edmond, warming to the theme.
    “There has been some talk that it might be more profitable to trade with Midlanders rather than raid them.” – Harold, getting straight to the point.
    “I see.” – Edmond, with a slight grin. It suggests that he himself has not had to deal with aftermath of an Invarrian assault. “And where would this talk be coming from?”
    “Some younger members, some older members of the Invarrian court obviously. I quite like the idea of offering trade myself. Who would dare raid the raiders? And it would be profitable for both our people.” – Harold, smugly confident that he has the upper hand.
    “You raise a fair point. Now, I have happen to have some knowledge of you.” – Edmond.
    “Really?” – Harold.
    “Yes.” – Edmond.
    “And what do you know?” – Harold.
    “I happen to know that you haven’t been on Varr for years. So could you please tell me how it is you would know what is being said in the Invarrian courts these days?” – Edmond, playing his wildcard.
    “Well not today obviously, but when I was last home there was talk of this. And if an older personality were to return to court and support this, with an interested party, ready to go. It could be useful.” – Harold, backtracking smoothly.
    “I can see that this proposal has its benefits. I can certainly see how it would benefit me.” – Carhold, nodding. “Now you are aware that I am no merchant?”
    “I am aware of this, but you are a nobleman and can therefore talk to your king and have the trade rights written up and ready for us to sign.” – Harold.
    “I can think of two more objections, the first being that the Invarrians, whilst they as far as I am aware, hold a certain amount of respect for their Stormlord, they are by no means a united kingdom. Would they hold to an agreement? Would the Stormlord be able to prevent his reavers from attacking Naillish ships?” – Edmond, revealing he knows a surprising amount about the way things are done on Varr.
    “I could not say. But if Invarrians loyal to the Stormlord were to find out that some reavers were forsaking a bond between the Stormlord and your king, those reavers would be considered traitors and punished as such.” – Harold.
    Carhold smiles, though he does not seem entirely convinced.
    “My last objection is that Naille is a land bound kingdom and your people are predominantly seafarers. As it is, I see no direct avenues for trade. We are landlocked and share no borders with you. Any trade would be occurring through hostile territory. ” – Edmond.
    “Hmmm, this is true.” – Harold, at a loss. He, of course, doesn’t really know the geography of the area very well.

    In response, Carhold finds a map and unrolls in upon the table.
    Spoiler
    Show
    I try my best to draw a map. It’s awful but at least gets the point across. Instead of trying to explain it, I’ll just have to scan and upload the slightly better map I drew later. So:

    WATCH THIS SPACE FOR A MAP OF SUMMER HILL AND THE SURROUNDING AREA.


    They continued their little conversation.


    “Well, there’s Winterbourne. They have a coastline. You could establish a trade agreement with them.” – Harold.
    “Now, our king and the king of Winterbourne traditionally do not have much love for each other. At the moment, we are quite neutral, but it would be very difficult to arrange. There’s a lot of hatred there.” – Edmond, looking over the map.
    “How about Greymont then?” – Harold.
    “Heh, funny story there actually. Now this story really isn’t a secret, but all the same I will ask you not to spread this around. Greymont’s king is in his late twenties, but his wife is older as she was his late older brother’s wife before he died an untimely death. As is tradition, as his brother’s unmarried heir, he married the widow and adopted his brother’s young daughter too. The girl is of a comparable age with our own king and it is common knowledge that Greymont wishes to marry her off to him to prevent her from contesting the throne with any future heirs he might sire himself.

    As you can imagine, we do not want to be in a position where Greymont can say, yes but only if our king marries their bastard girl.” – Edmond.

    “Well, you may not get along with the men of Winterbourne, but perhaps it might be worth opening up a lucrative trade agreement with them, opening up a way to a trade agreement with us. In itself, it might stop them from wanting to trade with Elspeth.” – Harold.
    “There’s not much chance of that happening. Greymont hates Elspeth more than they hate us.” – Edmond. “Your idea does have some merit. I shall have to consider this.”
    “Of course. There’s no need to rush to any conclusions here. Please take your time.” – Harold.
    “I thank you. You must remember, I am only a baronet and that my position does not give me much standing in court. I can speak, but I cannot promise I will be heeded. But I shall gladly send a message to my king and inform him of this offer.” – Edmond, swallowing his pride. “As a further question, what sort of goods would be on offer here?”

    Harold is well aware that the goods his people would attempt to sell would be goods pillaged off other people. Carhold probably is as well. On the other hand, Invarrians do have skilled leather and metal workers.

    “Well-made leather, well-made steel.” – Harold
    “Well-made **** from other lands.”
    “If Invarrians can no longer raid certain points along the coast, they will concentrate more on places we can raid. So if a certain location has something you want….” – Harold, leaving the ending open.
    Carhold laughs and pours two goblets of wine. The two clink the glasses together and knock them back, toasting a to-be successful business partnership.

    And we left it there,

    The Wrap-Up:
    I'm not home at the moment so I can't actually tell you what they took, but everyone save Tremor had access to the Major Talents Sins and Lights have been working on due to the majority of the group reaching their fifth levels in their respective classes. No one has elected to multi-class yet, something I am grateful for as I can just guess that they'll pick classes I haven't finished yet.

    The Infamous Fireball of course refers to Maebh's Flare, something which the group has discussed at length. Dev admits he deserved it and Ladyhawk admits she was heavy-handed but I imagine there will still be a strained relationship between the characters. Which does make sense really, though it is sad as personally I like having a friendly party. Picking on Breanna was fine, but throwing fireballs is not good.

    Anyway, hope everyone enjoyed that. We're taking a bit of a break due to exams and assignments. Ladyhawk, Sins and myself are just getting really busy at the moment, but we hope to have a game played by the end of June. Sins has something like ten tests in three weeks, Ladyhawk has several assignments and I have an exam and a few assignments too. Plus an essay that I only found about today. On the plus side, I've managed to figure out a way to write about Lord of the Rings, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

    See you next time,
    Last edited by Phoenixguard09; 2020-03-27 at 08:49 AM.

  8. - Top - End - #68
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Amidus Drexel's Avatar

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Heh, intra-party conflict is nigh-inevitable in a party with human players.

    Always good to cut it short, though.

    As always, this is incredibly entertaining, and I look forward to more.
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  9. - Top - End - #69
    Firbolg in the Playground
     
    Marlowe's Avatar

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Very enjoyable thread and I'm interested in the system. I must say the setting sounds frighteningly brutal. Like midsection "Canticle for Liebowitz" brutal. Is it just the PCs?

  10. - Top - End - #70
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    Griffon

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Hey Marlowe,

    Glad you're enjoying our little adventure and I hope you stick around.

    To answer your question, the setting itself aims for a relatively dark fantasy. A splash of horror here and there for those who like it, but I envision it as allowing a GM to play whatever sort of game he likes. Hopefully anyway.

    Now when you ask about the brutality, if you refer to instances such as Maebh's sacrifice, then that is Ladyhawk's homage to some source material. With the addition of a small amount of sadism I guess.

    However stuff like the torture of the prisoner they took is just the sort of game I like to run. Basically, if I get a group of heroic characters, I will gently prod them towards things that seem necessary at the time, but when looking back on it are viewed as evil. I like exploring the idea of just how far you will go to be a hero.

    And in addition to that, the setting is pretty brutal too. Only luck came between Kel'Serrar and death in the very first combat with the marcwolves, Harold has come close a few times, and Tremor came way too close in the combat with Chirya. I have rules for losing limbs, appendages and the like too, but I asked them what they thought of it before I decided on implementing the rules for this campaign.

    After all, we're trying to have fun here and playing a cripple might dampen the experience for some.

    So yes, to a certain extent the setting is brutal, as is the system, although I like to think it's a bit more gritty realism in terms of combat, rather than over the top lethality.

    Plus Luck Points play a part too, helping people out with regards to actually being heroic. Without them, I don't think anyone would dare.

    Cheers,

  11. - Top - End - #71
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Griffon

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Well, we just played Session 1.8: Walking Away.

    Next session hopefully in about a fortnight.

  12. - Top - End - #72
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Griffon

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Just letting everyone know that the write-up for Session 1.8 is coming soon, I've just been a bit busy recently, what with sorting out university stuff, Ladyhawk's birthday celebrations and some other stuff which I don't exactly remember at the moment.

    On the other hand, we had hoped to play Session 1.9 this Friday, but this has been postponed for at least a week. Maybe two. We shall see.

    Anyway, the write-up is coming,

    Cheers,

  13. - Top - End - #73
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Griffon

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    So as to make sure that you all know what is happening, we plan to play Session 1.9 tomorrow night.

    I'm really aiming to have 1.8 available to read tonight, but damn I've been busy.

    Cheers,

  14. - Top - End - #74
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Griffon

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Session 2.5: Walking Away

    Welcome to Session 2.5.

    "YOU LOST THE GAME!" - LD
    "Now that we've got the obligatory reference out of the way-"
    "Go see Man of Steel!" - Dev.
    "Shut up Dev." - Ladyhawk.
    "Just shut up. Reference time is over." - Wings.

    Okay, then, moving on. Small recap, Harold has just had a meeting with Edmond Carhold, the Naillish ambassador to Summer Hill in his apartments in the Grand Hall. The rest of the party meanwhile are still sifting through what is left of Rangard's house.


    Harold walks out of Carhold's apartment feeling good about what he has just done. He comes face to face with a small man of Selkye descent, clad in dark grey. He has a recurve bow at his back with a quiver of black fletched arrows at his back. His eyes flash with recognition as his hand reaches for a knife at his belt.

    There is a fair bit of discussion regarding what Harold should do here, as Dev tries to gather a bit more information on the surroundings, namely that there are no guards in sight and the combat is taking place in a corridor. There is a closed door directly behind the Invarrian's assailant, in addition to the closed door behind Harold which leads to Carhold's rooms.

    This discussion devolves into hysterics when Ladyhawk suggests tackling the man and going for his knife-hand, the accompanying hand gesture appearing rather risqué. As the majority of the group is dirty-minded in the extreme, there was over a minute of laughter and progressively worse re-enactments of Ladyhawk's initial suggestion.

    Children.....

    Spoiler
    Show
    On the other hand, it did end up reminding me of a joke. To be warned, children should probably look away now, and it's probably only going to make sense with those familiar with Warhammer.

    Spoiler
    Show
    How many Slaaneshi cultists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
    At least two of course, but how they got in there is anyone's guess.


    Crass, I know, but everyone thought it was funny on the night.



    Harold moves forward and attempts to grasp his assailant's wrist to prevent him from drawing the knife.

    An opposed Dexterity Check for Harold here.

    Spoiler
    Show
    Opposed Checks work along the premise of rolling over your opponent's Statistic, with a negative or bonus equal to every point either over or under the opponent's Statistic. In this case, Harold needed to roll above his opponent's Dexterity, with a negative of 12, as his opponent's Dexterity was 12 points higher.


    Harold manages to grab hold of the smaller man's wrist.

    "****!" - Selkye assassin, startled, who attempts a left-handed punch at Harold's face.
    The strike fails to connect.
    "Nice try." - Harold, who strikes back.
    The assassin ducks under the Invarrian's roundhouse punch and lays a hand on Harold's forearm.

    Failed Willpower Check from Harold.

    Oakenshield falls to the ground, instantly deprived of physical motion, and slowly drifting into a magical coma. The assassin steps over the defeated Invarrian and opens the door to Carhold's rooms.

    "Wha- AAARGH!" - Carhold, taken by surprise as a knife flies across the room and embeds itself in his shoulder.

    Harold is about to get up when he hears what can only be described as an earth-shaking roar from behind the other door. Said door is slammed off its hinges and an eight foot tall, jet black Feartarbh charges across the hallway and into Carhold's rooms, luckily stepping over the Invarrian on the floor.

    The Selkye looks behind him and immediately darts to a window, flinging himself through it. The Feartarbh follows, taking half the wall with him.

    "YES! I love this guy!" - Dev.
    "Can we make him party leader instead of Harold?" - Sins.
    "Yes, can we?" - Dev.


    Carhold comes over to Harold and helps the Invarrian up, the Selkye's spell swiftly being overcome by Harold's natural toughness.

    "Thank you for standing between the assassin and myself, but I think my shadow will take care of it now." - Carhold, with a bit of a smile.
    "I'm sure he will enjoy it." - Harold, returning the grin.
    "Shall I help you to a doktor of some description?" - Harold, using the Invarrian term, not knowing the Midland word.
    "No thank you, the mayor's physician should suffice. I will make my way there now." - Carhold.
    With his hand to his shoulder, he heads off.

    Harold, still shaking off his magically induced sleep, makes his own way to a drinking establishment.

    Meanwhile, Breanna comes to the conclusion that any evidence left in Rangard's house would have been incinerated, blown away or drowned. Therefore, leaving now would not necessarily be a bad idea. Together, the rest of the group find Harold in the Iron Moon Inn, the first place they look for him, knowing that his problems with higher authority will lead to repeat occurrences of him bringing his marcwolf pup into the only establishment with a "No Dogs," policy.

    Maebh walks over to Harold, who sits in a booth, nursing a mug of ale with his pup sitting beside him.
    "May I speak to you?" - Maebh, uncomfortable with the situation.
    "You can." - Harold, blunt and not looking up at her.
    "I am very sorry for reacting how I did. I attacked in anger and I do sincerely apologise." - Maebh, awkward and clearly not used to apologising.

    "Can I add puppy-dog eyes?" - Ladyhawk, giving her best approximation. It's quite effective in reality.
    "... I think she should roll on Charisma to see if I'm affected by puppy-dog eyes." - Dev, thoughtful.
    "Okay then, Ladyhawk, Charisma Check."
    A 03.
    "You are very much affected by the puppy-dog eyes. Mainly because you see them and think, 'Awww, reminds me of home.'"

    Spoiler
    Show
    As an aside, this conversation was quite awkward. I mean, how often does this situation occur in reality.
    "I am very sorry for the way I acted." - Party 1, remorseful.
    Party 2 turns to a random bystander.
    "I accept the apology." - Party 2.
    Dev tried precisely this by turning to me after the laughter following the puppy-dog eyes check had died down and announcing that he accepted the apology.


    Everyone else sits down at Harold's table and buys various drinks and food. They proceed to sit around and ignore the fact that they are on an urgent, deadly quest.

    Spoiler
    Show
    To cut down on pointless exposition, they inform me that they are sulking because they've hit a dead-end and their employer is dead. I inform them that they are useless and there is much laughter. LD says that everyone's useless, leading to Dev saying that she's one of the most useless members of the party. LD fires back by reminding everyone of Dev's inability to hit the marcwolf in the first encounter. Dev threatens her with death by pencil.

    "Ah, I've had worse." - Wings, matter-of-fact.
    Silence....
    "You've.... died?"
    "No, been threatened with worse. Paper cuts was the worst." - Wings, nodding.
    "No, no, no, paper cuts.... and lemon juice!" - Dev.

    And my plot goes down the drain as everyone decides that talking about their favourite methods of mutilating captives is far more productive.

    Moving on....


    I decide that it's time to throw them a lifeline.
    "Now, think about this. Rangard sent you guys to go check out Shylocke. Now you checked out his house, but where did Rangard tell you to go find Shylocke?"
    "Ah, the marketplace?" - Ladyhawk.
    "No...."
    "Oh, the place they trampled me! The inn!" - LD.
    "The Harvest Wolf." - Sins.
    "THAT!" - LD.
    "Exactly. That's where he told you to go. If you remember, Rangard told you to get into that backroom because Shylocke goes in there often to have little meetings and such that Meldith was not able to get into. Now, Breanna broke up that meeting, and the Trickster was, perhaps, present. At least as present as you can suspect the Trickster to be."

    "So that meeting was in the back room of the Harvest Wolf. What does that lead to?"

    There was a lot of talk about the significance of the Harvest Wolf. How it was an easily accessible location for the cult generally.

    "Who owns the inn?" - Sins.
    "Wilmund Brewer."
    "That's a great last name." - Sins.

    I then ask who everyone thinks is the main bad guy and then who they need to stop immediately. Most toss up between Rangard or Shylocke being the main bad-guys, though everyone agrees that the Queen of Elspeth is probably in charge of one of them.

    "Alright, this is getting nowhere. Who's Dhara working for? Or is she in charge of her own operation?"
    "Nah, she's just a hand." - Wings.
    "Well there's two options. Either she's an independent or she's working for the other side. If she's an independent, then that's a third or fourth faction which we were not even aware of." - Sins.
    "She did specifically say that she was suspicious of both Rangard and Shylocke." - Dev.
    "Yeah I think it's safe to say she's not on Rangard's side. But she might be on Shylocke's." - Sins.

    They then discuss how much they disclosed to Dhara about their employer, situation and investigations.

    Spoiler
    Show
    To help everyone with keeping track of what was actually disclosed to Dhara, here's that conversation the players couldn't completely remember.
    Spoiler
    Show


    Taking the now full bowl, Harold walks over to the tied up woman and splashes it on her face, drenching her upper body. She wakes up spluttering, scared and obviously with a massive headache.

    Dev considers asking the rest of the group to leave the immediate area here.
    “Well, we’re not interrogating her.” – Harold.
    “What are you going to do then?” – Maebh.
    “Uh, I was thinking charming her.” – Harold.
    Everyone cracks up.
    “OH FOR THE LOVE OF CRAP!” – Harold, exasperated.
    “I’ll get the bandages….” – Kel’Serrar, resigned.
    “You’ve tied her to a boulder, how charming could you possibly be?”
    “I want to hear this played out actually.” – Sins.


    The others back off a small distance, but all of them are within earshot and Kel’Serrar has an arrow nocked and ready.

    “I am sorry about my associate knocking you out. I had no choice in the matter. What’s your name?” – Harold, putting on his best ‘I’m a sweet, lovable dog-man, not a vicious killer,’ voice.

    “Can you let me go first?” – Red-clad woman, eyes darting from side to side.
    Slowly, steadily so as not to startle her, the Invarrian reaches across and unties the ropes. Despite this, he is still somewhat wary, hand on the hilt of one of his swords.

    “My name is Dhara.” – Dhara, smiling with just a little more goodwill than before.

    A Southlander name.

    “So why were you following us Dhara?” – Harold, gently.
    “Oh, I saw you in Summer Hill and thought there was something suspicious about the Harvest Wolf. I saw your performance there yesterday and I realised that we were on the same side. So I wanted to come and meet with you, share information and find out what you know about this business.” – Dhara, earnestly.

    “Well, why don’t you tell us what you know first, and then we’ll tell you?” – Harold.
    “Well, I’m afraid I really don’t know that much. I’ve only recently found an interesting correlation between Morgaris Shylocke and Petyr Rangard. I think they might be working together on something which bodes ill for Summer Hill.” – Dhara.

    “Hmm, now that adds up with why Rangard would want that Focus Stone. I mean, they are trying to summon a giant daemon, a Focus Stone would help.” – Kel’Serrar.

    “This is true.” – Harold, to Kel’Serrar. He turns back to Dhara. “We were actually hired by Rangard. Unfortunately, we are not sure what is actually happening, but for now we’re just trying to get some information. There is a bandit camp in the area. We’re trying to find it.”

    “Ah yes, I know of this bandit camp. A notice was actually put up in the area about a month ago, warning the town as a whole that bandits were in the area. They should be just to north-west of here.” – Dhara, nodding. She’s trying to helpful.

    “Breanna, I believe you have her knife.” – Harold, holding his hand out expectantly. Breanna hands it over. Holding the blade of the longknife in his hand, the Invarrian offers the woman back her knife.

    “Why thank you. I didn’t think I’d ever see it again when I woke up without it.” – Dhara, sheathing the blade in the scabbard down her leg.

    “You’re coming with us to the bandit camp. I think we’d all appreciate it if you would watch our backs for us.” – Harold, using his staff to push back to his feet.
    “That’s good, I’m happy to help. I have a feeling you’re all working towards the good of Summer Hill.” – Dhara, also getting to her feet, a little unsteady due to the headache.
    “Okay, we’re moving out.” – Harold, to the rest of the party.


    Following on from this, it's pointed out that no one could really know it was they who trashed Shylocke's place.

    Despite not having come to any conclusions, Maebh speaks up in the middle of this discussion.


    "Look at us! We're not doing anything. We should stop this moping and actually go do something. Let's go." - Maebh, as she stands up, takes up her spear and begins to walk out of the tavern.

    The rest follow her out and they all stand outside the door of the Iron Moon.

    "I want to go to the Harvest Wolf." - Harold.

    There's a bit more discussion here. I shall condense it for the sake of brevity as it really wasn't all that groundbreaking. The Selkye assassin comes up and Harold explains that he seemed to recognise the Invarrian. Maebh immediately wants to go after him, prompting Harold to inform her that he was last seen with a massive Feartarbh pursuing him through the town. Ladyhawk then hopes that the elderly couple who helped them earlier are okay and Sins, LD and Ladyhawk all threaten me that if those old people are either evil or harmed, there will be consequences.

    It turns out that Breanna is the best tracker of the group, seeing as she has taken a bonus to the Survival Skill, followed by Maebh and Tremor who have taken the Skill and Kel'Serrar and Harold have not.

    It's decided that Tremor and Kel'Serrar should go try to find Dhara while Maebh and Breanna attempt to go find the Selkye assassin and Harold heads to the Harvest Wolf to scout out the situation.


    Maebh and Breanna.
    The two girls make their way to the Grand Hall, walking around the side of the building to the approximate place Harold told them about. They find that there is a rather large hole in the west wall of the Hall. Peering inside they first see a massive black Feartarbh sitting at a table. The Feartarbh notices them as they approach and appears furious before calming down almost immediately.

    "Sorry." - Feartarbh, gruffly apologetic.
    "Hello. How are you?" - Maebh, trying to be friendly.
    The Feartarbh responds with a somewhat quizzical look. His silence is more confused than unfriendly however.
    "We wish to help you with your search for the Selkye. We have some questions of our own we would like answered." - Maebh.
    "How did you know about the Selkye?" - Feartarbh.
    "We are friends with the Invarrian you ran over." - Maebh. This cracked us up.
    "What Invarrian?" - Feartarbh.
    "The man you were chasing incapacitated our friend and in your rush to catch him, had to step over his body. He later came and told us the story." - Maebh.
    The massive Feartarbh looks down at the floor, and if it weren't for his bulk and fearsome appearance, one would guess he looks ashamed.
    "Oh. I didn't see him." - Feartarbh.
    Maebh pats him consolingly on his arm.
    "Aww, he looks so cuddly in my head." - Ladyhawk. I guess my description of an eight foot tall, jet black minotaur came across as cute. Despite the massive build and horns. Dev suggests I obtain a small stuffed minotaur for Ladyhawk for Christmas.
    "I need to find my charge now, I am late. Farewell." - Feartarbh, who nods in a companionable manner and walks out of the room, probably looking for Carhold.

    Maebh and Breanna head down the hill from the smashed wall, heading into the heart of the market district. They quickly deduce that the chase probably didn't last too long. They can see an overturned market stall with the owner struggling valiantly to right it.

    Tremor and Kel'Serrar.
    Looking for Dhara, Kel'Serrar suggests that heading out of town might be the easiest way to find her. The two of them head toward the eastern gate. As they do so, a grey-fletched arrow flies down from behind, striking the ground between them. Tied around the arrow is a small scroll.

    Meet me at the eastern gate tonight,
    Bring the rest of the party,

    M,
    "Could that be Meldith?" - Tremor.
    "Shylocke's first name is Morgaris...." - Kel'Serrar, worried.

    They decide that Kel'Serrar will go find Breanna and Maebh and Tremor will try to find Harold. It is already late afternoon so they will have to hurry if they wish to meet the mystery figure tonight.

    Harold.
    The Invarrian goes to the Harvest Wolf and sees a small body of clients in the tavern. He heads to a secluded seat at the back of the establishment and proceeds to sit and watch. The clientele seem to be enjoying themselves, Brewer can be seen at the bar, polishing tankards and a young man, Brewer's assistant, is sweeping the floor in front of the hearth. Harold goes to the bar and orders a pint of strong beer before sitting back down. As he does so, an obviously rushing Tremor bursts in and immediately uses the privy.

    It is a running joke now that whenever a player excuses themselves from the table to see to the call of nature, their character also runs off to find the nearest privy/convenient bush.

    Maebh, Breanna and Kel'Serrar.
    Meanwhile, the two girls approach the man who is still clearly struggling with the weight of his stall. He sells bolts of cloth, many of them quite exotic, and all the rolls are large affairs and rather weighty.

    "Did you happen to see a Selkye and Feartarbh run past here earlier?" - Breanna.
    "Oh, I saw the Feartarbh going that way. How could I miss him?" - Cloth-trader, pointing to the west and further into the market district. "But I didn't see what he was chasing."

    While the two girls are questioning the merchant, a clearly tiring Kel'Serrar runs up to them.

    "We've found something of interest on the way out of town. It seems we either have a message from an unknown benefactor or a slight problem. Considering how little we actually know, we might need to take this opportunity." - Kel'Serrar, after swiftly getting his breath back. "Oh, and we all have to be there."
    "Fair enough." - Maebh.
    "Was there a name?" - Breanna.
    "M." - Kel'Serrar.
    "Okay then. Brilliant." - Breanna, sarcastic.

    Harold and Tremor.
    Harold keeps an eye on the old barkeep and therefore notices when Brewer ducks into the backroom as soon as Tremor walks into the privy. This piques the Invarrian's interest, not that Brewer walked out as soon as Tremor removed himself from the room, but that Brewer exited the common room in as surreptitious a fashion as possible.

    The Dwergar swiftly finishes his business and heads out of the privy to see that the Invarrian is not attending his drink very closely, scanning the rest of the tavern as he is. Tremor walks over to Harold's table, intending to swipe some of the Invarrian's beer.

    Tremor reaches the table and takes a long pull from the tankard.
    "We've got a message from someone who only signed off as 'M.' It's a bit suspicious but I think we're looking at meeting whoever this is tonight." - Tremor.
    "Did they give a specific time?" - Harold, still scanning the tavern.
    "No, just that it needed to be tonight and the whole group." - Tremor.

    Harold concentrates on the conversation that he can hear from the other clients of the inn. One man has lost his cat. Another man is complaining about a large rat problem in the residential district.
    I had to specify here that large rat problem didn't necessarily mean that large rats were the problem, but that the rats constituted a large problem. I got a laugh and we moved on. And before anyone asks, LD was the one with the obligatory Princess Bride reference, namely ROUS's.
    Finally a workman on the other side of the common room responds loudly enough for the whole room to hear to a question about which Harold is intimately familiar with.

    “No, haven’t seen him around at all. But did you know his servants were found on the road outside his house with arrow wounds? How suspicious is that?” - Midlander workman.
    Harold pricks his ears up, but aside from that, attempts to stay inconspicuous.
    "No, I didn't hear that. Reckon he's dead too?" - Another workman.
    "Why would we not have heard about the servants dying?" - Third workman.
    "What do you think it means?" - Second workman, asking the first.
    "How did you hear about it anyway?" - Third workman, continuing his train of thought, also addressing the first man.
    "Because my cousin saw it happen." - First workman, only answering the last question.

    Upon discussion, the group reason that this cousin probably didn't see who was responsible. The group is after all, quite easily recognised. Harold is about the only Invarrian in town and both Maebh and Kel'Serrar cut rather individual figures in the area. Only Tremor and Breanna could potentially blend into the populace, and neither of them particularly successfully. The Dwergar and Leathe populations are small in Summer Hill. The fact that the authorities aren't out after an old black and white Invarrian suggests that they're not aware that Harold had a part in this.

    Seeing that Harold is ignoring him, Tremor walks over to a small booth in the corner of the common room where two dwarves are sitting, one smoking a pipe and both cradling tankards of some strong alcohol. The Dwergar notices that these are Geardarr, or hill dwarves, more tanned and less stocky than his own people. The older one with his pipe looks up with his one good eye and smiles at the new arrival.
    "Ey laddie, grab a seat!" - Old Geardarr, obviously rolling drunk. There is at least a score of empty tankards littering the tabletop, with even more having fallen beneath it.
    "Don't mind if I do. " - Tremor, returning the grin.
    "AY! GET US THREE ALES NYUH!" - Old Geardarr, massive grin plastered to his face and beckoning to the bartender.
    "Uh-huh." - Bartender, who props his broom against the wall and walks around behind the bar.

    Within seconds of Tremor deserting him, Harold had walked to the bar to wait for service.
    "What can I get you sir?" - Bartender, whilst pouring three tankards of ale for the dwarves.
    "Four pints of your best beer." - Harold, already fishing out the coins.
    "You right to take those four to your table? Because I don't think those dwarves can get up over there." - Bartender with a wry grin.
    "I'm right." - Harold with a chuckle, who takes the pints two in each hand and walks over to the table of workmen.

    The bartender then deposits the tankards with the dwarves and then retreats back behind the bar.

    Maebh, Breanna and Kel'Serrar.
    "Alright, I guess we have to go. How much time do we have?" - Maebh, referring of course to the mysterious note.
    "The note says tonight. What time that means is anyone's guess." - Kel'Serrar.
    "Assuming nightfall, that gives us three, four hours at the most?" - Maebh.
    "Thereabouts." - Kel'Serrar.
    "Should we keep looking for this assassin while we still have light?" - Maebh.

    The three then wander through the marketplace, asking if the Selkye has been seen, but the merchants are not particularly helpful, their attention drawn mainly to the massive Feartarbh rather than whatever he was chasing. The best they can do is just point to the west.

    This having failed them, the three travel from door to door of the dwellings which rim the marketplace, asking if anyone has heard strange noises coming from the rooves. Unfortunately, this doesn't turn up any results.
    "Excuse me, have you heard any weird noises from the rooftops today?" - Kel'Serrar, executing his best salesman voice.
    You do turn up one creepy individual.
    "Hello, I'd like to..." - Best seedy impression I could do.
    "SLAM THE DOOR!" - Wings.

    Then follows some discussion about the feasibility of asking about rooftop jaunts, mainly that the beginning of the chase occurred down the middle of the market district, which is an open plaza. The possibility of someone being able to escape unseen onto the rooftops in broad daylight while being actively chased is slim to none.

    The problem is, the Selkye is rather inconspicuous and the Feartarbh would have drawn the attention of anyone who saw the chase.

    Spoiler
    Show
    I couldn't figure out why this came up but LD started an interesting tangent.
    "Why is there an 8 foot tall minotaur on my roof!?" - LD
    "Actually it would probably be, why is there an 8 foot tall minotaur in my bathroom." - Dev.
    "Why does my bathroom no longer exist? All of a sudden, it's open-air."

    "You've run into a dead-end with this investigation."
    "What about the Feartarbh? Did he just run through it? No dead-ends for him!" - LD.
    "He is a dead-end."


    Having hit a metaphorical dead-end, Maebh decides to head back to the Grand Hall, thinking to talk to the Feartarbh again. Breanna and Kel'Serrar follow her.

    More to come. Right here.
    Last edited by Phoenixguard09; 2020-03-27 at 08:42 AM.

  15. - Top - End - #75
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Griffon

    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Queensland, Australia
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    And here it is.

    Harold and Tremor.
    From the scars all over the younger Geardarr's hands, Tremor deduces he is a carpenter or blacksmith or maybe even a butcher. He is not a warrior, being neither particularly well-muscled, nor scarred in a way which suggests conflict in his past. The scars appear to be small knife cuts to his hands. The elder dwarf has a long, pale scar running down the side of his face, from his temple and down his neck. He is weathered and his face craggy, his demeanour and presence leading Tremor to believe that he was a mercenary in the past, though he has since gone to seed.

    "So, how is your trade progressing these days?" - Tremor to the younger dwarf, knocking back a mouthful of ale.
    "You would be amazed how many people are after good woodwork these days. The blacksmiths all want it for their weapons. My business is going well." - Geardarr carpenter with a wink, he too knocking back his ale.
    "I couldn't help but notice your eye, but your scar looks to be a similarly grievous wound. How did it happen?" - Tremor, turning to the elder.
    "Ah lad! Aaah, I in tha hills, tha Arrer Hills, I lost me eye. Tha carrion they came up and took it! Cut us up real good, but no they didn't get me, didn't get me, didn't get me. I lay down, all quiet like and wait til there's no sun, no moon, nothin. An' then, when 'ey start gettin' all riled up and e'erythin', that's when I ups me axe and took a few of them! I paid 'em back real good for me eye, but I never be findin' it again." - Old dwarf warrior, who trails off into his ale, obviously scarred by the event in more than just body.
    There is a little silence at the table as the three dwarves take care of their ales.
    "Did you hear a house burnt down in town just last night?" - Geardarr carpenter, changing the subject.
    "Ah yeah, do you know what happened?" - Tremor.
    "No, not really. As far as I know, the man inside hasn't been seen since though. Probably dead." - Carpenter.
    "Hmm, who was it? Anyone you knew?" - Tremor.
    "No, I didn't know him. Heard he was a sorcerer though. Set his house on fire to destroy the evidence some people are saying." - Carpenter.

    Many fanfares from the assembled group. They find it interesting that their own suspicions on Rangard are being carried out by the rest of the town.

    "Do you reckon you could still wield a weapon?" - Tremor to the elder.
    "Ah, I'd a-love to laddie. But I can a-see about three o' ye at tha moment." - Elder, surprisingly upbeat.
    "Could you sober up in the next three or so hours?" - Tremor.
    "Uh, no lad! Too much alcohol." - Elder, unrepentantly cheerful.
    "And you?" - Tremor, to the younger dwarf.
    "Eh, not much use in a fight mate. Sorry." - Carpenter, shamefaced.

    Harold meanwhile has brought drinks over to the group of workmen, and while they first favour him with suspicious looks, mainly on account of his fine clothing, they quickly realise that he's brought them beer, so he can't be all bad.

    "I heard you talking about Shylocke's house. Did you say that some poor buggers were found outside? Do you know what happened?" - Harold, passing around the drinks.

    Spoiler
    Show
    "Why did you say that in an Irish accent?" - Wings.
    "Because I like my Irish accent you ****er." - Dev, good naturedly.
    "That became Scottish." - LD.
    "I also like changing my accent halfway through." - Dev.
    "Now that one started to go Welsh."
    "I'm having an identity crisis!" - Dev.

    And then we got sidetracked talking about kebabs for about six minutes.... Yes, that seriously happened.


    "I know, it's awful isn't it? We reckon he killed all those men and ran away into the forest." - The second workman from earlier, who identifies himself as Wawrike.
    "Why would he do that though? He was the most powerful man in town?" - The third workman, an older man by the name of Patris.
    "More powerful than even the mayor really." - Garron, the first workman with a short laugh.
    "How could he have that much power? I'm new here." - Harold, inquisitive.
    "Ah, well he has all the money. Not that Mayor Redwyn has that much power anyway. Well, not him personally." - Patris, knowingly.
    "In fact, I don't even know how he could have so much money." - Wawrike, referring again to Shylocke.
    "What about Rangard? I don't know much, but he's a big name around the town too isn't he?" - Harold.
    "Ah yeah, he's that other merchant isn't he? It was his house that burnt down, right?" - Garron.
    "The short man right? I heard he dabbled in all kinds of sorcery." - Wawrike, making a sign to ward himself against Black Magic.
    "Probably dead. And if he was a sorcerer, than a good thing that is too." - Patris.
    "What type of sorceries did he dabble in?" - Harold, perhaps fishing a little too deeply here.
    "You'll mind your own business if you know what's good for you. Asking questions like that can only attract the wrong sort of attention friend." - Patris, in a warning, but friendly tone.
    "His friend definitely was a sorcerer though. Up to his eyes in Black Magic" - Garron, in an undertone.

    Of course the players don't know if that makes him a warlock or if that's the superstition talking.

    They then discuss that Rangard did tell them his friend was a magic user, though he died at the hand of Mordra Goldshine, stabbed in the back.
    "Aww, poor mage." - Ladyhawk.
    "That's okay, we stabbed that guy in the back ourselves." - Wings.
    "Actually Kel'Serrar shot him in the top of the end."
    "Which is a kind of stabbing." - Dev.
    "He died of natural causes. An arrow in the head naturally ends one's life." - Sins.


    "Did anyone notice where the barkeep went?" - Tremor to his new friends.
    "Ah, I didn't notice he'd gone." - Carpenter.
    "Want another round?" - Tremor.
    Both dwarves are pretty enthusiastic.
    "I'll just go find him then. My shout." - Tremor, getting up and heading to the bar.
    Harold has just gotten up to get some more drinks for his own table and the two meet at the bar.
    "I'll be with you in a minute." - Brewer's assistant, who quickly heads into the backroom.
    "Distract them, I want to find Brewer." - Tremor, whispering under his breath.
    "He's in the back." - Harold, similarly discreet.
    The assistant comes back into the common room.
    "What can I get you?" - Bartender, polishing a tankard.
    "I'd like to get a round for everyone!" - Harold, raising his voice at the end so that the whole bar focuses on him. There is much cheering.
    The bartender starts to pour the beers and then hand them out after taking the Invarrian's money.

    With successful Concealment and Silent Move Checks, Tremor sneaks around the bar and then finds the nemesis of hidden heroes everywhere. A closed door. He manages to open it without any problems.

    Tremor
    He steps carefully inside, using the shelves filled with barrels of alcohol to hide himself from the inhabitants of the room. There are two people sitting at a table in the centre of the room, lit by a single candle. One has his back to the Dwergar. The other is a short, elderly man, clean shaven with thinning grey hair. The room is quite dark, so that is about all Tremor is able to make out. The elderly man is sitting side-on to Tremor, so the Dwergar feels relatively safe from his hidden vantage point.

    More generally successful checks.

    Tremor makes a slight shuffling noise as he moves around to try and get a better view of the man with his back to him, who he suspects must be Brewer. The two men pause their muttered conversation and look around the room, but notice nothing odd and continue talking.

    To Tremor's relief, the other man is Wilmund Brewer. The Dwergar stands as still as he can and listens into the conversation as well as he can.

    Spoiler
    Show
    Ladyhawk put it best I feel.
    "But, but, but, he's a dwarf! How is he better at this than everyone else!?" - Ladyhawk.
    The answer is a fair bit of luck and spending his Skill Pts on Concealment and Silent Movement despite everyone telling him he had better things to focus on.


    Harold
    Back out in the common room, Harold is feeling no ill-effect, however around him patrons are starting to feel a bit drowsy.

    Garron faceplants on the table.

    The Invarrian's eyelids begin to droop as the rest of the room starts to drop off. Even the two dwarves in the corner are affected, the elder one shaking the younger carpenter even as he too succumbs to the drowsiness.

    Harold shakes it off as best he can. Something is seriously wrong here. It's mid afternoon. People should not just be falling asleep simultaneously at this time.

    Maebh, Breanna and Kel'Serrar.
    They make their way back to the Grand Hall, mood's somewhat disconsolate as they have been unsuccessful in finding the assassin. Approaching the gaping hole in the wall, they see a man they assume must be Carhold and the Feartarbh bodyguard sitting at the table, playing a card game.

    It appears the noble is winning and as they approach they hear a deep baritone sigh and a quick laugh from the man as he pulls the small pile of gold towards himself. Both players look up when they notice the group of three approaching. Both appear friendly enough but Kel'Serrar notes that the Feartarbh does have an astounding number of massive weapons ready to hand, not the least of which the broad-bladed dagger at his belt, a blade which would pass for a broadsword in a smaller individual's possession.

    "Hello again." - Maebh, rather friendly.
    Both respond with friendly, yet quizzical looks.
    "I'm still looking for the Selkye from earlier." - Maebh.
    "I lost him." - The Feartarbh.
    "Where did he go?" - Maebh.
    "I don't know. That way." - The Feartarbh, pointing out the gaping hole in the wall. He is trying to be helpful, but he simply doesn't know where the man went.
    "Where did you lose him?" - Maebh.
    "At the end of the marketplace. He rounded the corner on the right and was gone." - The Feartarbh, unhappily.
    "Do you have any idea who this assassin was?" - Maebh, to Carhold this time.
    The noble gives her a look like, "Do you know who I am?"
    "Do you know who I am?" - Ladyhawk.
    "This is not a game of who the **** are you."

    "Haven't got a clue." - Carhold, dismissing the matter and going back to his cards.
    "I'm sorry, who are you again?" - Maebh.
    "... Lord Edmond Carhold of Naille." - Carhold.
    "Ah right... Never heard of you." - Maebh, dismissive.
    Carhold gives the mage a piercing look and then starts to laugh, soon joined by the deeper booming laugh of his bodyguard.
    "In all seriousness, do you have any idea who he is, where he's gone, anything like that? We need him." - Maebh, getting back to business.
    "I don't know, but if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say an Elspeth agent. They wouldn't want me here." - Carhold.

    Spoiler
    Show
    And then it got really off the wall.
    "If he ever comes back to assassinate you again, could you please tell him-" - Ladyhawk. That's as far as she got before we all cracked up laughing.
    "WHAT!?" - Wings.
    "Are you here to kill me? Oh, well I'd better just give you a message."
    "Did you really just say that?"
    "Yeah. If he comes back, or if you see him around, can you please tell him that Maebh at the cart by the gate wants to speak with him." - Ladyhawk, laughing.
    We decided to pretend this bit didn't happen.


    The three of them politely take their leave and make their way to the east gate to meet with the mysterious 'M.'

    Tremor
    "So, Morgaris, what's the situation?" - Brewer.
    "They're coming along quickly. We hope to have it under control by midday tomorrow." - Shylocke.
    "And then I appear from around the corner. BUSTED!" - LD.
    "No! Stay out! No busting! Please!" - Dev.
    "NO! In every single RPG campaign on the internet or movie or tv show or book, just when they're about to say something really important, someone knocks on the door, someone knocks something over, someone has to sneeze, someone dies. No busting!" - Ladyhawk.
    That escalated quickly. Those selfish bastards, dying just before the plot is revealed. We did contemplate making Wings make a Willpower Check to avoid doing something stupid.

    "Is the Legion ready?" - Shylocke.
    "I will have word from the Captain tomorrow. Any time after that, they should be here and available for our use. Which is all to the good. What news have you on this group of cretins running around the town at the moment?" - Brewer.
    "Are we the cretins?" - LD.
    "Woot! We're moving up in the world!" - Sins.


    "Yes, after they ransacked my house, I found my journal was missing. I made sure that they should not be able to come to any conclusions from that. At least I hope they will not." - Shylocke, somewhat shamefaced.
    "Writing a journal was foolish, yet the mark of an organised mind. As such, I will not punish you for that. Back to the matter at hand, I have two of them out there now. I have told Larus to put a little nightshade into their drinks. I imagine that those two will be done by the time this conversation is over." - Brewer.
    "Very good. I must go now Master. The longer I am in town, the greater the chance I will be discovered." - Shylocke.
    "I must get back to the bar anyway to keep up appearances. May the Veil move aside for you." - Brewer.
    "Thank you Master. As always, I am grateful for your time." - Shylocke, who walks out the back door Breanna used just the other day, disappearing. The door slowly creaks shut.
    Brewer meanwhile walks out into the Harvest Wolf's common room.

    Harold
    The bartender is polishing the tankard with a feverish intensity noticing that the Invarrian is not dropping as quickly as the others. Despite the man's nervousness, Harold feels himself slipping away.

    Failed a Toughness Check and then a Willpower Check to resist the poison. A Luck Point is spent to reroll the Willpower Check, but with no luck. Harold's in deep trouble now.

    The Invarrian soon realises that his hands and legs are not responding. But he does have a general command of his arms. He attempts to pick up his drink in an attempt to splash it on his face to wake himself up, but his hands just won't respond. He spills his drink all over the table, the tankard falling to the floor.

    Tremor
    Knowing that the people out in the common room are slowly dying from Nightshade poisoning, Tremor immediately starts searching for an antidote. His initial results yield no results, so he takes a deep breath and searches again. He does find a few vials which he can't identify. They might be antidotes. They might be poisons. He takes both the green and red vials before rushing out into the common room, bursting through the door, hatchet in one hand and hammer in the other.

    Wildly swinging, the Dwergar shoves the startled Brewer aside and smashes Larus' kneecap with the hammer, the assistant falling to the ground with pained scream. Tremor turns to Brewer.
    "You've made a grave mistake dwarf." - Brewer, furious.
    "So have you!" - Tremor, hefting his weapons.
    The barkeep disappears in a blast of roiling flame, which billows towards Tremor and Larus, setting both their clothes and a not inconsiderable portion of the bar on fire. Tremor immediately stops, drops and rolls, seeing to himself before patting the flames out on his crippled prisoner.

    "Now if I pour this beer down your throat, which vial will fix it?" - Tremor, to the scared, burnt, crippled bartender.
    "I don't know! Don't hurt me!" - Larus, terrified.
    "Let's test this shall we?" - Tremor.
    "Seriously, I don't know!" - Larus. Tremor notices that the man's eyes flick towards the red vial.
    The Dwergar pours some of the beer down the man's throat, and while there is much gurgling and spluttering, Larus eventually has no choice but to swallow. He immediately bursts into tears.
    "I don't want to die!" - Larus, wailing.
    "Which one is it?" - Tremor.
    "I don't know!" - Larus, still wailing. Once again his eyes twitch to the red one.
    "Alright, let's try the green one." - Tremor.
    The bartender's eyes look to almost be daring the dwarf as Tremor prepares to administer the liquid. Tremor pours three drops down the man's throat and forces him to swallow it.
    "I will still die." - Larus, almost resigned to his fate.
    "Yes. Now what does this one do?" - Tremor, indicating the red vial.
    "Extreme... pain...." - Larus, drifting off into a deep sleep. His breathing becomes more regulated, his eyelids droop and body relaxes.
    Tremor administers three drops of the red vial.
    Immediately, Larus' body convulses as if being hit by nightmares. He still appears to be unconscious, but in his convulsions, his chest seems to be rising in the air and his limbs flailing everywhere.

    The Dwergar packs the vials away for later use and finds the insensible Invarrian, supporting the far taller Harold without too much trouble, despite his bad state.

    Tremor finds an apothecary after a short walk, and meets a kind looking old man with a severely hooked nose. The apothecary introduces himself as Melvyn and agrees to do what he can for the poisoned Invarrian. Tremor informs him of the nightshade poisoning and happily hands over four sulvers for an antidote for his friend. He then asks Melvyn to identify the mixtures in the two vials, which the old apothecary hastens to do, looking first at the red vial and then the green.

    "This first one is an infusion of fyrewort root in aqua. Makes you feel as if your very veins are on fire. It's a narcotic, but it does ease external pain, making it quite useful really for war surgeons. And that is a mild pain killer." - Melvyn the apothecary.

    Harold is administered the antidote and then uses the next hour resting and building up his strength.
    I informed Harold that once he gets over the poisoning he will be fine, but he will have the occasional twitch for the rest of his life.
    "You're old already. It won't be that long." - Ladyhawk, callous.


    Tremor helps Harold to the east gate to meet the others.

    They spend a fair time planning how they're going to watch the gate in preparation for this meeting. After all, no one knows who this is going to be, but everyone has their suspicions and none of them are nice.

    Walking to the gate, evening is just falling. The first thing they notice is a lack of guards upon the walls, however a short figure is standing beneath the gatehouse in the open gateway. The figure walks towards the group, cloaked and hooded, shrouded in the fading light.

    "I can take you to Rangard." - Meldith Ivorwyn.
    "He's alive?" - Tremor.
    "He's alive and waiting for you outside the town." - Meldith.
    "I see he's being somewhat subtle." - Kel'Serrar.
    "Indeed, that's why I'm here as you can't seem to do that yourselves." - Meldith.
    That's a burn.
    The Selkye woman leads the companions out the gate and out onto the road.

    Around Summer Hill is wide expanses of farmland and it is towards a nearby farmhouse that Meldith leads the companions. She knocks upon the door.
    "Who is it?" - Disembodied voice from inside.
    "Meldith. I have company." - Meldith.
    The door opens and the party troop inside the small building.
    A young man in a roughspun tunic opens the door, eyes widening as he looks at the company and then invites them in. He opens a trapdoor, revealing a stairwell which leads underground, beneath the farmhouse. The party follow Meldith down and come face to face with Petyr Rangard once more, sitting at a desk.
    "Well well, friends. This is all your fault." - Rangard.
    "Really?" - Maebh, indignant.
    "Can we all just sit down before we start laying the blame on each other? Mainly because I've just been poisoned." - Harold, resigned.
    "Oh yeah sure, take a seat. Especially after you made sure I lost all mine, and my walls and my roof and my books and everything I owned." - Rangard, bitter.
    "How is that our fault?" - Tremor.
    "They didn't know who I was. And all of a sudden they did. And that certainly couldn't have been because you told them could it?" - Rangard, sarcastic.
    "I thought you said you were a known enemy?" - Harold.
    "I didn't say that. I was cursed, but that was a dead drop. They had no idea who I was, which was the only reason they never went after me publically. And then you went around and you told them who I was." - Rangard.
    "No, not us." - Kel'Serrar.
    "We don't even know who they are! We're new to Summer Hill. You never told us anything!" - Harold, angry in his own turn.
    "All I know is that one of their agents came in and she came in and said, "I know who's working against us." I have Meldith's report on this." - Rangard.
    "But who is they?" - Maebh.
    "I wasn't sure. That's what you people were supposed to figure out! That's what I paid you for." - Rangard.
    "Well then, tell us what these are." - Harold, handing over the letters and the Shylocke's journal.

    Rangard reads the letters first.
    "You know the mayor's last name is Redwyn right?" - Rangard, referring to the persona of 'R.'
    "No, we didn't!" - Harold, forgetting that they did. "That's why you hired us, because were an unknown quantity."
    "... Was it that ****ing hard to find out who the mayor was?" - Rangard, disdainful.
    "That's it. Hand over my spellbook. He has until I flick to Fireball." - Ladyhawk.
    "In my experience, people who are hired to investigate, usually do some investigation." - Rangard.
    "We were busy investigating other things, like the leads you gave us." - Breanna.
    "And that worked out well didn't it?" - Rangard, scathing.
    There's no answer to that.

    Rangard reads the second letter.
    "Hmm, I hoped Carhold would not be caught up in this, but he is asking for a meeting at the Harvest Wolf, which is the establishment I asked you to check on in the first place." - Rangard.
    "We did, several times." - Tremor.
    "And as Meldith informs me, your first attempts were damned useless." - Rangard. "Hmm, actually I don't know if Carhold is actually in on this. He wouldn't respond to any of my messages."
    "Well maybe, he lost internet connection." - LD, perfectly weighted and cutting response.
    "But he's not used any code in this message at all, no attempts to hide his identity. Maybe he's not involved at all?" - Rangard.

    The dispossessed merchant starts to read the black notebook but barely makes it through the first page before tossing it aside and pronouncing it utter drivel.

    There is a fair bit of conversation here as they discuss whether Rangard's accusation against them are true. They quickly realise that they really only told Dhara who they were working for. And so now the Southerner is a roundly hated individual by the party, one I am sure they will be itching to get back at.

    Back to the story at hand though.


    "Do you know of a woman named Dhara?" - Harold.
    "No." - Rangard, sitting at the desk with his fingers steepled.
    "How about a Chirya?" - Kel'Serrar.
    'No, haven't heard of that one either." - Rangard.
    "Actually.... I have worked with her at one stage. I hired her to help with the Corpsewalker operation. But I have not seen her since." - Meldith.
    "Ah. Well, Kel'Serrar, could you please explain to our friends here why she came to Summer Hill?" - Harold.
    "Mainly to accelerate the spread of war in the area. And you know she hates humanity?" - Kel'Serrar.
    "Yeah, I have to say that became apparent after seeing some of the malicious pleasure she was taking in inflicting the virus on those bandits." - Meldith.
    "Well the way I see it, we have two options here Rangard. We can either sit here bitching about how you have no home, or we can set about the arduous task of actually fixing the problems we have made. Your choice. Or we could just pack up and leave, because I am homesick and just want to get out of this place." - Harold.
    "You want to go home, go ahead but I won't be paying your way." - Rangard.
    "Right, fine." - Harold, standing up and walking out.

    The Invarrian walks to Summer Hill's stable and approaches the stable-hand as the young man sees to the horses.
    "What can I do for you my lord?" - Stable-hand.
    "I need a horse. How much?" - Harold, in no mood to bandy useless words.
    "One hundred sulvers." - Stable-hand.
    "One crown for the horse and another for the tack?" - Harold.
    "Brilliant, the horse is yours." - Stable-hand.

    Tremor passes on what he overheard in the Harvest Wolf.
    "If what you've told me about Brewer and Shylocke is true, both of them must die. And as far as the legion is concerned, that's Elspeth's Legion. If they get a clear run at this town, we're screwed." - Rangard.

    The party decide that they need to get an early night and head back to the town.

    Harold is walking his horse out to the north of Summer Hill when he hears Maebh's voice on the wind asking him to wait. He does so an soon enough, the party has come to farewell him.
    "We do have a lead on Brewer and Shylocke. We're hoping to destroy the cult tomorrow." - Maebh, trying to get Harold to stay.
    "I must go, but I will be back. You will see me again" - Harold.
    And the Invarrian walks his horse down the road, away from the other four companions before disappearing into the gloom.

    And we left it there.

    The Wrap-Up:
    It's so goddamn late here and I am bloody tired so I'll make this short. We will be playing 1.9 tomorrow evening, so I hope I can stay awake for it. We're right on the cusp now.

    Stay tuned and I hope you enjoyed.
    Last edited by Phoenixguard09; 2020-03-27 at 08:45 AM.

  16. - Top - End - #76
    Bugbear in the Playground
     
    ReaderAt2046's Avatar

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    I take it the "M" of "

    Meet me at the eastern gate tonight,
    Bring the rest of the party,

    M,
    is Melisandre?
    Prince Fraternal of Pudding, Snuzzlepal, Feezy Squeez Lover, MP, Member of The Most Noble And Ancient Order Of St. George, King of Gae Parabolae.

    Lego Ergo Sum

    "Everyone's cute if you just look at them the right way"~Rebekah Patton Durham, Princess of Pudding.

    "If they have stats, we can kill them... I'd like to point out that we also have stats..." ~ PhoenixGuard09.

    Warhammer 40K: Where the faction that is a cross between the Inquisition and Space Nazis are the good guys.

  17. - Top - End - #77
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    Griffon

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    No it was Meldith, but the group certainly suggested it might have been Dhara. I think Dev in particular wanted her to explain herself. :P

  18. - Top - End - #78
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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Quote Originally Posted by Phoenixguard09 View Post


    Children.....

    Spoiler
    Show
    On the other hand, it did end up reminding me of a joke. To be warned, children should probably look away now, and it's probably only going to make sense with those familiar with Warhammer.

    Spoiler
    Show
    How many Slaaneshi cultists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
    At least two of course, but how they got in there is anyone's guess.


    Crass, I know, but everyone thought it was funny on the night.

    Heheheheheh, this is hilarious.

    Looking forward to more, as always.
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  19. - Top - End - #79
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    Griffon

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    I am sorry that it appears that this has been neglected.

    I am however, pleased to inform you that this is not the case.

    We did play Session 1.9 a little while ago and I intend to have it available for reading pretty soon. We also wish to play what will likely be the last session of the story arc on the 20th, a longer break than we would have liked, but there's been several commitments which had to be honoured by various parties.

    Rest assured though, this has not been forgotten, nor has it died. I will post the write-up soon.

    Cheers,
    Campaign Logs:
    Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: COMPLETE
    The Great Maw: NEARLY COMPLETE
    Seven Stones and a Pale Shadow: JUST BEGINNING

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Glad seeing this back! And I somehow missed last month's update!

  21. - Top - End - #81
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    Griffon

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Well it was played and things happened.

    Stay tuned, for next time we shall see explosions, doors being hacked apart and a lot of death.

    Cheers,
    Campaign Logs:
    Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: COMPLETE
    The Great Maw: NEARLY COMPLETE
    Seven Stones and a Pale Shadow: JUST BEGINNING

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Quote Originally Posted by Phoenixguard09 View Post
    Well it was played and things happened.

    Stay tuned, for next time we shall see explosions, doors being hacked apart and a lot of death.

    Cheers,
    I hope none of it afflicted Harold or Tremor or anyone fuzzy!

  23. - Top - End - #83
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    Griffon

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    I can assure you that no one fuzzy was harmed in the event. From memory at least. Once again, Breanna outdid herself with acrobatics, scouting and exceptional leg-hacking ability.

    In fact, in what turned out to be the culminating chapter in the first story arc, everyone got at least one Crowning Moment of Awesome. Some people got more than one, but you can all read about that soon.
    Campaign Logs:
    Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: COMPLETE
    The Great Maw: NEARLY COMPLETE
    Seven Stones and a Pale Shadow: JUST BEGINNING

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  24. - Top - End - #84
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    Griffon

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Okay, now I'm way behind on write-ups but we played again on Friday night. It was a good session which almost set up the next arc.

    Anyway, there are now three write-ups coming for you all to look forward to. My university stuff's almost done for the year so I should have some time coming up to work on it all.

    The first of the three is also nearly done.

    Cheers,

    To whet your appetite, here's something which we played that was separate from 1.9. Enjoy!

    Session 2.5 (a): Harold's Midnight Ride

    It is early evening and Harold Oakenshield is riding along the road. His plan is to find the old marcwolf cave the group used as a campsite, hoping that he might find Dhara at some stage. He wants to confront her, something he didn't want to confide in the rest of the party due to what he perceives as their murder-happy tendencies. He wanted to talk to the woman, preferably without killing her.

    Failed Perception Check.

    One moment, he is riding along the dark, rough road by himself. The next, there is a woman riding beside him.

    "Whatever you're trying to do, it's too late Oakeshield." - Dhara.
    "I'm guessing you work for the queen of Elspeth." - Harold.
    "Indirectly, yes." - Dhara, with a shrug.
    "You also work for Shylocke then?" - Harold.
    "Well, I don't work for Shylocke. Let's just say we share some motives." - Dhara, thoughtful.
    "You say you share motives. What motives would those be?" - Harold, fishing.
    "The queen wants us to succeed. Shylocke is an important tool in allowing this to happen." - Dhara.
    "As a tool, he can be cast aside." - Harold, pondering, more to himself really.
    "Absolutely. As we all are." - Dhara, quietly.
    Silence....
    "So tell me, who do you work for?" - Harold.
    "Ah come now Oakenshield, I can't tell you that." - Dhara with a slight chuckle.
    More silence.
    "Are you planning to kill me at the end of this conversation?" - Harold, resigned.
    "No. I'm planning on having Chirya kill you at the end of this conversation." - Dhara, who then nods to someone standing in the shadow if the nearby treeline.

    Three arrows fly out of the darkness, two flashing over his head and one skating off the Invarrian's armoured shoulder. There comes a muffled curse from the darkness but Harold is too busy to notice.

    Harold turns his horse and gallops flat out towards the town once more, several arrows thudding into his back as he rides. It isn't until he is in sight of the gatehouse that Harold ceases his horse's exertions, pulling the steed back to a walk.

    The Invarrian finds the farmhouse he left in such a rage earlier in the evening, dismounts and knocks on the door. The exasperated young farmer who owns the place opens the door a crack and looks out, recognising the somewhat war torn Invarrian.

    "Oh you've returned?" - Farmer.
    "Yes. I'm going to have to talk to Meldith again. I just want to kill the people who've been shooting me." - Harold.
    "She's not in at the moment." - Farmer, looking like a night-time visit from an irritable bloody Invarrian is just about the last thing he wants to deal with.
    "Where is she then?" - Harold.
    "No idea. Like she'd tell me?" - Farmer, fear giving way to irritability.
    "Right, fair enough. Farewell then." - Harold, swiftly losing interest and walking away.

    Harold realises that he is going to have a big day tomorrow. Cults to infiltrate, people to kill and the like. As such he decides that his best bet is to enter the town and find somewhere to stay. He stables his horse and continues to the gates on foot.

    As he does so, he is stopped by a guardsman at the gate holding a torch.
    "Don't cause any trouble, alright? It's late at night and I want ye' to go straight to bed. I'm only letting ye' in at all because ye' look a right mess and I recognise ye' from when ye' helped fight the fire in the Merchant District." - Guardsman, with a friendly pat on the shoulder. His other hand never leaves his sword hilt, so he's still wary of the Invarrian.
    "Actually, I have a quick question if you wouldn't mind. Has the captain of the guard changed recently?" - Harold, thinking about his theory regarding the 'Lord of the Gate' mentioned in Shylocke's notebook.
    "No, Royan Settwatch is still the captain of the Summer Hill guard." - Guardsman, amiably.
    "How long has he been the captain?" - Harold, fishing.
    "Ah, since before I came to the town, I'm from Haystead In The North originally. At least twelve years he's been in charge." - Guardsman.
    "I see. Thank you. Have a nice night." - Harold.
    "I'm a guardsman, there's no such thing. But no problem friend, but go straight to bed now, ye' hear?" - Guardsman, concerned as he notices that the Invarrian is swaying a bit as he walks.

    Harold makes his way to a tavern, taking his very tired marcwolf pup with him. The common room is deserted in the Iron Moon and there is no one behind the bar. He sees that there is no one there and heads back out to the stable to grab his tent. He goes to the wagon and sets up his tent near Breanna's before heading off to sleep, his marcwolf pup crawling out of his backpack and huddling up against his neck.

    And we left it there...

    The Wrap-Up:
    This one was interesting. I'd given the group instructions to send me what they were going to do the night before their sting operation. Dev doesn't like typing, so he asked me if he could play it out as a mini solo-session, to which I agreed.

    Other than Dev, only Sins really gave me any information on what he was going to do, stuff you will likely discover in future write-ups.

    Cheers,
    Last edited by Phoenixguard09; 2020-03-27 at 08:41 AM.
    Campaign Logs:
    Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: COMPLETE
    The Great Maw: NEARLY COMPLETE
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  25. - Top - End - #85
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    Griffon

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Session 2.6: The Coming Metaphorical Storm

    This is how I opened the session:
    "Once again welcome to Session One-Point-Whatever-The-Hell-This-Is, and yes you lost The Game. I'm getting in before you bastards."

    It is early morning on a cloudy day. It is rather miserable and is only going to get worse as the day wears on. Everyone had rather restless nights, whether just through bad dreams in the case of a few of them, or being shot at in Harold's case.

    The plan-
    "Crap, we had a plan?" - Dev, probably surprised.
    Was to use today to strike against Brewer and Shylocke.
    "Because that worked so brilliantly for us last time." - Dev, probably sarcastic.
    Now the last any of you saw of your "illustrious" leader-
    "Since when have I been illustrious?" - Dev.
    Will you shut up! The last you saw of your illustrious leader, he rode off into the sunset, saying he'll be back.
    "No he rode off into the sunset saying, "F*** you." - Wings.
    "No, I said I'd be back!" - Dev.
    "What Wings said is what we chose to remember." - Sins with a laugh.

    "We need to come up with a plan." - Ladyhawk.
    "We need to find Shylocke and Brewer." - Sins.
    "And then take them down." - LD.

    Spoiler
    Show
    They got a little sidetracked again where Ladyhawk accused some of the other players of not contributing to the investigation. Most of her calls were fair, although she was a bit off criticising Sins.
    "And you lurk up in your tree, doing...." - Ladyhawk, thinking of a diplomatic way to say, 'nothing.'
    "Patching up all the wounds you guys inflict on each other." - Sins, cutting.
    "Ha, what wounds?" - Ladyhawk.
    "What wounds asks the fireball thrower?"

    Spoiler
    Show
    I had to leave the room for a short period and Dev tried to convince Sins to look up some form of anime pornography on the computer.
    "What!? Why would people even like that?" - Ladyhawk.
    "Because it's funny."- Dev, not really thinking his answer through.
    "WHAT!?"- Practically everyone.
    "Sorry PG, I've failed my Sanity Check. I'll just be quietly burbling in the corner if you need me." - Sins, sadly.


    The conversation then turned to Harry Potter, somehow.... Ladyhawk suggested that the time-turners could have resolved everything. Dev countered with a "fact" that all time-turners were destroyed. Which begs the question, why not then create a time-turner and then use it to go back in time before the time-turners were destroyed. Dev reckons it would take time to create one, but it's not as if you need time if you have a device that exists solely to make sure you have time.

    Ladyhawk asks why all these capable wizards would not go back in time and kill Tom Riddle before he got powerful. Wings tries to get into the conversation, but is informed that to do so would be adding to the mess.
    "But the box fixed itself..." - Wings, seemingly troubled.
    Cue hilarity.
    "The time-turner cabinet, that was destroyed, it, fixed itself in the book." - Wings. I think he may have been a bit confused here.
    "Which book? Cause I'll check this when I get home." - Dev.
    "B.... A, B.... Yeah, B." - Wings, now just really confused.
    "What!?"
    "Ah!I meant the movie, you know part A and part B. Yeah, the last book." - Wings, laughing.
    "PG, are you crying?" - Ladyhawk, concerned.
    "I just, I... Don't.... I'm failing MY Sanity Check!"
    "I know it was hit by a spell, it was destroyed and then it fixed itself." - Wings.
    "Not only do I not.... Yeah I don't know. I got lost at Book A and Book B."
    "Plus it's Part 1 and Part 2 isn't it?" - Dev.
    "Yeah but that's too may numbers. Way too confusing. Anyway, now that we've totally destroyed eleven minutes."
    "Destroyed? Don't you mean, enjoyed?" - Dev.
    "Shoot him now." - Ladyhawk.


    Breanna
    The small Leathe wakes up in the morning and stretches, patting her marcwolf's head fondly before putting on her belt and getting ready to face the rain to get to the Iron Moon Inn, where she's going to meet the others. As usual, she has slept later than she meant to, but the others are used to her tardiness by now. She is about to head out when she notices the note on the floor of her tent.

    The Danann have yet to be fed and know where you are.
    Sleep well,


    She notices that the paper seems to be the same as that used by Tremor in his work, swiftly realises that this is either Kel'Serrar or Maebh messing with her, laughs and walks out.
    "I have a feeling I am going to die today. Whether that's die and get eaten or get eaten and then..." - LD, smiling as she realises what she's saying.
    "And then die? No, that doesn't seem like a logical cause and effect at all!" - Wings.


    Earlier that morning
    Tremor
    Tremor Ironfist awakens in the morning to discover that his paper and writing implements have mysteriously vanished.
    "You bastard, you stole my paper!" - Wings to Sins, who was cracking up.

    Maebh sends a message out to the whole party, including Harold, hoping that her message might encourage him to come back.

    Meet me at the fountain. - Maebh's Whisper.

    Everyone meets up, braving the rain. To their surprise, Harold arrives too. Also to their surprise, he's dealing with some arrow injuries. He's bandaged, wet and mangled.

    Spoiler
    Show
    It was fairly evident that Ladyhawk had watched Harry Potter recently after informing us that she viewed the Whisper as sounding like Parseltongue and that she wanted to check the fountain for something similar to the Chamber of Secrets. To encourage her investigative nature, I rewarded this.


    Maebh finds that there is a loose brick at the base of the fountain, covering a cavity. Inside the cavity is a small box. It is locked.

    "Break it open!" - Wings.
    "Can I break it open?" - Ladyhawk.
    "Yes."
    "Wait, cause I'm an Engineer, can I pick locks?" - Wings.
    "She can." - Pointing at LD.
    "Yeah but I might break my wrist. I need insurance!" - LD.
    There is a fair bit of laughter before....
    "Okay, I've taken Lockpicking and I have a +10% on it. Dexterity right?" - LD.
    And so the youngest player demonstrated a greater understanding of the system than most of the others. And I was very proud.


    Breanna gets the box open with her dagger and inside is twenty sulvers. She and Maebh dole them out, four each, including Harold.

    "Now we need a plan. I think we need to, despite all my better judgement, split the party. Now some of us should go to Shylocke's house and see if we can find anything more. If we can't burn it down and try to draw him out into the open where we can kill him." - Kel'Serrar.
    "Kill him? Really?" - Tremor, questioning.
    "I call for an immediate change in leadership. " - Dev.
    "I also think some of us should go to the mayor. If he's in not in on it, it's going to be really hard to slip this by him without his consent. Luckily we have some willing volunteers just here." - Kel'Serrar, referring to Tremor, Harold and Breanna.
    "Wait a minute, I didn't volunteer for-" - Tremor, indignant.
    "Yes you did. You did if I say you did." - Maebh, acting as Kel'Serrar's lieutenant in his hostile takeover as captain of this merry band.
    "You have been volun-told. Do as I say." - Kel'Serrar, willing to brook no argument.

    Having determined that Kel'Serrar and Maebh are heading to Shylocke's house and that Breanna, Harold and Tremor are going to the Grand Hall to meet with the mayor, they go their separate ways.

    Harold, Tremor & Breanna
    Having climbed the stairs to the entrance to the Grand Hall, the trio is stopped by the Captain, Royan Settwatch.
    “Wow, what happened to you?” – Royan Settwatch to Harold.
    “Let’s just say a bad run in with a Danann with a bow.” – Harold, putting it somewhat lightly.
    “Haha, right.” – Royan, deciding it’s better not to enquire too deeply. “So, what can I do for you friend?”
    “Is the mayor busy today?” – Harold, trying to make an appointment and failing.
    “I can’t tell you of the mayor’s schedule today, for I do not know. He wouldn’t tell me anyway. But I can organise an appointment with him and he can work it out.” – Royan.

    “So what are you three doing?”
    “Sneak around him and kill him.” – Wings.
    “Hey, come on! I like this guy!” – Dev.
    “Oh okay, we do it the polite way. Knock him out!” – Wings, evilly.
    “Since when has knocking people out been the polite way?” – Dev.
    “Since he smashed through that door and the people behind it.” - LD.
    "I can actually see now why people find this entertaining to read." - Ladyhawk.
    "Yeah, but now we've wasted an hour." - LD.
    "WASTED!?" - Dev, scandalised.
    "Yeah, it's already half-past eight."
    "So yep, wasted." - LD.
    "Anyway, let's see how I can use the environment to my advantage. What can I throw him into?" - Wings, evilly.
    "No, I'll just make an appointment." - Dev.

    Spoiler
    Show
    Would you believe that we got sidetracked about violently dealing with telemarketers, how feminism is "stupid," tapping empty glasses with a pencil to make music and how pushing someone down a flight of stairs does not constitute murder as there is no guarantee they will be alive when they hit the bottom?

    No I wouldn't believe it either if it didn't happen to me. Would you also believe that this sidetrack actually took up over half an hour after it was already pointed out how much time had been wasted?

    Good. It's not just me.


    "If he's busy we'll come back later." - Harold, turning to go.
    "If you say so, but I doubt he's that busy." - Royan, shrugging.
    "Actually, do you think you could slip us in somewhere?" - Tremor.
    "I can find out for you." - Royan, beckoning up a page.

    He sends the page off with some quiet instructions and then continues to talk to the three of them, unconsciously steering clear of the somewhat off-putting Leathe. They inform him that they want to see the mayor to come to an arrangement, but remain pretty ambiguous on what that arrangement actually is.

    Kel'Serrar & Maebh
    The two of them head to Shylocke's abandoned house. The windows are boarded up and there is a bar nailed across the dwarf-shaped hole in the wall. They slip under the bar blocking the doorway. The place is unlit, there are sparse cobwebs in the ceilings and there are bloodstains on the walls, though the corpse has been removed.

    Maebh goes to the library and opens up the secret room using the torch bracketed into the wall. In the secret room, the eye is drawn first to the large, unornamented round wooden table in the centre of the room which is surrounded by ten chairs. Following that, they notice again that the walls are lined with bookshelves. Apart from the table, chairs, books and a small writing desk over in the far corner, the room is practically empty. It also appears that the room has not been touched since they were last here.

    Maebh calls up a small flame in her right hand to give the two of them some light and they both head over to the writing desk. There is a quill, some blank sheets of parchment and a dry inkwell. Maebh starts sifting through the parchment, trying to see if there are any magical traces left upon them, but she is disappointed to find there are none. Kel'Serrar walks to the round table in the centre of the room and studies it. At first it appears to be unornamented, but after some careful looking he deduces that there is a thin ring carved into the upper surface. The carving appears to be set no more than an inch from the edge of the table and seems to be a perfect circle. Beyond that, there seems to be nothing special about the table, save that it seems to be bolted onto the stone floor. Maebh looks very closely at the table and blue light passes over her eyes. To her magical vision she can sense that the table has been used in a daemonic binding ritual in the past. The groove possibly held blood during this ritual.

    The group considers setting it off or destroying it, starting out with Dev telling Wings to put an axe into the groove despite the fact that neither Harold nor Tremor are in the immediate vicinity.
    "Hey, I want you to go meddle in the affairs which you know nothing about and I know nothing about either."

    Eventually they come to a decision...


    "Maebh, you might want to back away in case this turns out to be more stupid than even I think this is..." - Kel'Serrar, ominously drawing his belt knife.
    Maebh immediately turns and walks out of the room.
    The ranger on the other hand takes his knife and plunges it into the surface of the table, over and over again, concentrating mainly on the carved groove. The table.....
    Does nothing.

    It has not reacted in any way, shape or form. Kel'Serrar sheathes his knife with something approaching disappointment. Maebh walks back in and presses her fire-filled hand onto the surface of the table. The light in the room diminishes and the mage finds herself having to feed more power into the spell to keep the flames alight as she smothers the flame into the table. The wood begins to heat up and she can feel that it would not take too long to actually set it on fire. But there is not a magical reaction.

    Breanna, Harold & Tremor
    The page runs back out and addresses the group directly.
    "The mayor will not see you right now." - Page.
    "I will make sure that Mayor Redwyn knows you want to see him, but for now there is nothing I can do." - Royan Settwatch, apologetic.
    "I have very important news. There is a legion of Elspeth on the way." - Tremor, playing a trump card.
    "We know this because we saw them last time we were out of the city." - Harold, lying through his teeth.
    He takes a Deception Check here, with a small bonus as Settwatch is favourably inclined towards the Invarrian. He succeeds easily.
    "That is worrying. Why didn't you say so earlier? I must tell the mayor immediately." - Royan, who runs inside himself, not deigning to use the page this time. This news is far too important for that. He runs up to the door, opens it and then turns back to the three companions.
    "Are you coming or not?" - Royan, holding the door open. After all, as far as he is concerned, they've seen this legion, so they're going to have to give the information.
    The three of them sprint up the stairs. They have their audience.

    Kel'Serrar & Maebh
    Kel'Serrar runs upstairs, realising that they are on a time limit. After all, they have no idea how much time they have before the cult is enacting their plan. The ranger searches Shylocke's room, completely ransacking it. It has not been disturbed since last they were here and Harold's crap has therefore become putrid. The bed has been literally torn apart. Sadly, Kel'Serrar finds nothing immediately incriminating, but the search was a long shot anyway.

    Maebh meanwhile picks a book at random, sits on the writing desk and closes her eyes, willing herself to really focus on it.
    Successful Channelling Check, although only thanks to the bonus granted by the Focus Stone.
    Maebh's eyes begin to glow, the pale blue light leaking from under her closed eyelids. A small tempest builds up around her, rippling her hair and garments, yet not disrupting anything else in the room. She feels the power welling up within her until, like a glass filled to overflowing with water, she loses her grasp on the magic. With a keening shriek, the light gutters out and her eyes snap open. She has a splitting headache, but the book lies open upon her lap. She has broken the lock. She finds that the book seems to be a list of rituals, each of them on the topic of binding daemonic entities.

    Wings asks if Maebh could write down these rituals to give to Breanna and it is pointed out that Kel'Serrar grabbed the parchment over in the corner and the inkwell was dry anyway. The conversation then turned to how Kel'Serrar had stolen Tremor's writing implements the night before. Of course this means that the players had to start using their own writing implements as chopsticks. I include all this simply because it amused me.
    "He who can catch fly with chopsticks can do anything." - Dev.
    "He who walk through airport sliding door sideways is going to Bangkok."
    Sometimes I make myself laugh. Other times, I drive myself to tears.
    Back to the game.


    Maebh studies the book, flipping through it and reading the forward. She quickly comes to the conclusion that the book is a record of successful daemonic bindings. The mage closes the book and tosses it into her backpack and heads out of the room, looking for Kel'Serrar. She approaches the threshold warily, but the fire does not block her path. It seems that in breaking the lock, the book no longer sets off the spell.

    Kel'Serrar meanwhile continues his searching of the room, turns around and comes face to face with the Trickster, who is lounging against a wall, smiling sardonically.
    "Hello. Welcome my friend." - The Trickster.
    "You're quiet." - Kel'Serrar.
    "Thank you. I pride myself on my ability to approach unseen and unheard." - The Trickster.
    "I hope I'm not destroying anything too important here." - Kel'Serrar, somewhat sarcastically.
    "Of course not. Feel free. I do not need this place anymore." - The Trickster.
    "You sure?" - Kel'Serrar.
    "Absolutely." - The Trickster.
    The confirmation that the Trickster is Shylocke, or at least that's how the players took it.
    "I'm going to hazard a guess and say that if I shoot you, the arrow will just go straight through you as you're not really here, are you?" - Kel'Serrar.
    "And you are correct. You really are quite astute aren't you?" - The Trickster with a small nod and a somewhat gracious smile.
    "If I were, I probably would not have joined this venture in the first place." - Kel'Serrar.
    "That is probably true, sadly. You may just have enough time to leave this place without any repercussions falling upon you." - The Trickster.
    "Interesting. How long will you give me?" - Kel'Serrar.
    "Two minutes." - The Trickster.
    "And you won't mind if I 'accidentally' break a few doors on the way out?" - Kel'Serrar.
    "Not in the slightest." - The Trickster, still smiling sardonically.
    "Then I will take my leave." - Kel'Serrar, who strides out of the room.

    Maebh leaves the hidden room to see Kel'Serrar walking swiftly down the stairs and towards the front door.
    "I wouldn't just stand there if I were you." - Kel'Serrar.
    "I heard voices." - Maebh, still standing in place.
    "We're not alone in here. If you would like an interesting conversation, head into the top room, but I wouldn't be here in a few minutes if I were you." - Kel'Serrar.
    Maebh runs upstairs but finds it empty. She looks around, but finds nothing. Kel'Serrar meanwhile is waiting for her outside on the road. She trails a flaming hand over anything flammable, and exits the now burning building.

    "We didn't start the fire..." - Dev, singing the Billy Joel song.
    "Except this fire, we did."

    And with that note, I leave it here. But just for now, I'll be back shortly.

    And here it is, the next part.
    Last edited by Phoenixguard09; 2020-03-27 at 08:35 AM.
    Campaign Logs:
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  26. - Top - End - #86
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Griffon

    Join Date
    Jun 2012
    Location
    Queensland, Australia
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    I hope you all believed me. And now back to it.

    Breanna, Tremor & Harold
    Having been led to the mayor's office by Settwatch, the companions find themselves facing a rather heavy-set middle-aged man in opulent dark red clothing. He is not obese, but relatively portly, with shoulder length dark hair and a straggly beard.

    Borous Redwyn looks up from his desk from where he is writing something.
    "What is it Settwatch?" - Mayor Redwyn, covering whatever he was writing with another sheet of parchment.
    "We have a report that Elspeth is moving on the town. These three here have seen the legion." - Royan Settwatch, wasting no time and indicating all three companions.
    Redwyn's eyes widen slightly and he frowns at the suggestion.
    "Can you tell the mayor what you saw?" - Royan, turning to Harold.
    "Okay, well we saw a military camp, just a short distance from the town with Elspeth flags flying above." - Harold.
    "I don't believe that you're telling the whole truth there. I can't see why they would be coming for us. There's no danger." - Redwyn, shaking his head and frowning.
    "I am just relaying what I have seen." - Harold, holding his hands out and appearing apologetic.
    "Would you be an agent from another kingdom, trying to foster ill will between Summer Hill and Elspeth?" - Redwyn, accusingly.
    "I'm an Invarrian, from the Isle of Varr! Why would I..." - Harold, flustered.
    "Why would we want to **** with your relationships? We could sit here all day at this rate." - Tremor, taking up where Harold left off.

    Breanna reasons to herself that Redwyn is trying to discredit them in front of Settwatch, who everyone realises is the one with the real power here. If Redwyn wants them out of the way, he needs to convince Settwatch that they are in the wrong.

    Thankfully, Harold is pretty lucky and Settwatch seems to like him. In addition to that the captain is a relatively intelligent man and can see that the companions have a point. Why would an Invarrian care about this?

    "Well if anything, surely we could take the precaution of putting the guard on high alert? If we're wrong , we're wrong. But if we're right, then everyone remains safe." - Harold.
    "I don't see why we should put the guard on alert today. After all today is not a nice day, look at it. It's raining outside. The guardsmen have lives beyond being guards. They are militia. If we draw them all up today and then nothing happens, that will have been a complete waste of their time, not to mention the losses in profits." - Redwyn.
    "But if it does happen today, then Summer Hill would be unprotected and vulnerable." - Breanna.
    "It will not happen today. The Legions of Elspeth are not marching on Summer Hill and will not be doing so in the foreseeable future." - Redwyn, getting somewhat angry.
    "How do you know, Mr Know-It-All?" - Breanna, under her breath.
    "If it does happen today and the guard are not sent out, Summer Hill will be destroyed." - Harold.
    "As I said to the tree girl, they will not be attacking Summer Hill in the foreseeable future. Now I am a busy man. Stop wasting my time with this." - Redwyn.
    "Are you willing to bet your life on this?" - Tremor.
    "Absolutely. Settwatch, please escort these people out of my office immediately." - Redwyn.
    Royan Settwatch opens the doors and makes a gesture towards the companions to leave. They do so.

    "Captain, would you mind speaking with me outside?" - Harold, to Royan.
    "Absolutely Sir Oakenshield, I would be glad to." - Royan, holding the door open as they troop out.
    Tremor purposely trips on the doorway and stumbles forward, critically drawing Settwatch's attention. As the captain helps the gruffly apologetic Dwergar to his feet once more, Breanna ducks into the corner and quickly casts Shadowskin, shrouding herself in darkness and making herself as inconspicuous as possible, provided she sticks to the shadows. Before Settwatch closes the door, the Leathe ducks inside, silently rolling across the floor and into the corner of the room. The door closes behind her, locking her in the room with her target, alone save for her knives.

    "Kill him, kill him, kill him, kill him!" - Wings and Dev, chanting their encouragement. It got near to the chanting in the Fellowship of the Ring when they are running away from the Balrog.

    "So, Sir Oakenshield, what was it you wished to speak to me about?" - Royan, inquisitive.
    "You and I are both men of action and we both know that politicians can be slow to action. In a time of crisis, precautionary measures are always wise. Perhaps not drawing up the militia, but at least send some scouts. I would prefer to be proven wrong than be proven right by our deaths." - Harold, putting his hand on Settwatch's shoulder.
    "Sending out scouts would be very easy to do. And while the mayor did not seem to be too concerned about the situation, rest assured I am. I will send out scouts forthwith." - Royan, nodding his thanks.

    Maebh & Kel'Serrar
    Having exited the building they both notice a figure lounging against the wall of the house opposite Shylocke's dwelling.
    "Oh, you came out a lot quicker than I expected." - The Trickster, smiling.
    "I reach my deadlines." - Kel'Serrar.
    "I see we have met again." - The Trickster, to Maebh.
    The mage doesn't deign to respond. For now she lets the thin trail of smoke wafting out of the house speak for her.
    "So, what have you found?" - The Trickster, for all the world seeming helpful and smiling somewhat sardonically.
    "Perhaps you would be better suited to tell us than the other way around. After all, you know the house better, don't you?" - Kel'Serrar, taking a stab at the Trickster's identity.
    "Well played. You know who I am?" - The Trickster, chuckling quietly.
    "It's obvious. Evident really." - Kel'Serrar.
    "I see. Evident? No matter. It's true, I did used to live here. It was nice." - The Trickster, quietly, almost reminiscent. He smiles, in a somewhat kindly manner. "I told you that you could leave the house without repercussions. I am extending that to the town as a whole. Please, leave now and be happy. If you stay, I cannot guarantee your safety."
    "Why do you want us to leave? What will we be in danger from?" - Maebh.
    "You will likely not survive the coming storm." - The Trickster, only answering Maebh's second question, a fact that seemed lost on the pair of Danann.
    "Too bad now that my curiosity has been roused." - Kel'Serrar with a shrug.
    "I tell you now, take this offer and you will survive the storm." - The Trickster, still looking like he only wants to help.
    "Is it a proper storm or one you're creating?" - Maebh, inquisitive.
    The Trickster just stares at her.
    "Why, what's in the storm?" - Maebh, interrogating.
    "Thunder and lightning, like all storms." - The Trickster, ambiguous.
    "I can do that. I thought you were supposed to be impressive. Is there going to be a tornado too? How do you know this? Can you control the weather?" - Maebh, dismissive.
    It is evident that this incessant questioning is annoying him, cracking through the normally calm exterior.
    "It was a metaphor!" - The Trickster.
    "Then I ask again, what's going to happen? If there's no thunder and lightning then it is not a real storm." - Maebh, seeing that in his anger he might make an uncharacteristic mistake.
    "It is not a literal storm-" - The Trickster, cut off.
    "Then what is it?" - Maebh.
    "It is a metaphorical storm." - The Trickster, with some heat.

    "Obviously I'm trying to get under his skin. Is it working?" - Ladyhawk.
    "It's working on me." - Sins.


    The Trickster pointedly turns away from the mage and looks steadily at Kel'Serrar. Not to be cast aside like this, Maebh steps across in front of the ranger with a sardonic smile. The Trickster shakes his head in amusement.
    "Anyway, I'm far too interested in your plans to just leave now." - Kel'Serrar.
    "The plans are not mine, but my master's." - The Trickster.
    "Ooh, who's your master?" - Maebh, still trying to get the Trickster to look at her.
    She is ignored.
    "That just makes it all the more interesting I'm afraid." - Kel'Serrar, falsely apologetic.
    "This is the last chance you will receive. Leave now." - The Trickster, losing patience.
    "Sorry, I've survived worse I'm sure." - Kel'Serrar.
    "I'm not leaving either." - Maebh.
    "I'm saddened by this. We may not meet again. For what it's worth, being as we are on separate sides of this conflict, I wish the best of luck." - The Trickster with a sad nod.
    "I'd wish you the same luck but judging by how you have performed so far, I do not think you would need it." - Kel'Serrar.
    "If we do meet again, I may have no choice but to kill you. I am very grateful to my master, and he wants you dead. Believe this, I am not a bad man. I just wanted the power to make a difference in the world and sadly this storm is how I must repay my debts to a great man. Farewell." - The Trickster.
    He nods and disappears.

    Breanna
    Redwyn has begun to write his note again now that his visitors have left him. Intrigued, Breanna creeps over behind him to read over his shoulder.

    Redwyn's note.
    Spoiler
    Show

    I have been told you need help.

    R,


    She is standing behind him, preparing to strike when a side door opens and in walks a woman. She is tall and her features have a somewhat familiar cast to them. The Leathe realises that this Southland woman has very similar facial features to Dhara, the woman they encountered out on the road. Save her clearly greater age, they could be sisters, though this woman is at least twenty years older than the woman in red they captured before.
    "Borous, get up!" - Woman, commanding.
    The mayor immediately jumps to his feet, almost standing at attention.
    "Who were those people who were here?" - Woman.
    "Uh, I think they were working against the cult." - Borous Redwyn, clearly about to speak some more.
    This is before she delivers a thunderous backhand across his face.
    "You idiot! What did you tell them?" - Woman.
    "Nothing! They knew about the Legion. I tried to get them to back off." - Borous, whining.
    She slaps him again, a solid forehand this time.
    "Did you give away that they are coming?" - Woman.
    "No, I denied their very existence. I made sure that they had no reason to be suspicious at all." - Borous.
    If he hoped that by doing so he would make her happy, he is sadly mistaken. She slaps him again.
    "You idiot! How vehement were you in denying their presence?" - Woman.
    "As much as I needed to be! They were utterly convinced they were coming. The Invarrian even claimed he had seen them on their way!" - Borous.
    "You idiot!" - Woman, slapping him again. "How can he have? They haven't even moved out of the Eaglefort yet!"

    Spoiler
    Show
    Redwyn looks absolutely devastated, almost on the verge of tears. Over the years of their marriage, the Lady Sarya Silverwood has terrorised her husband, to the point that at any time he feels he may have failed her, he immediately worries that she will bash the living **** out of him. Because she does so on a regular basis. She wears many heavy rings, and each crashing strike she has inflicted has broken the skin. The mayor is bleeding from various lacerations to his face and is going to be sporting some serious bruising.


    "I will have to get word to the Queen immediately. You disgust me." - Sarya Silverwood, with one last backhand, this one almost half-hearted before walking out the main door.
    Redwyn sits down behind his desk once more, wipes the blood off his cheeks with a handkerchief and then breaks down into tears.
    Breanna resolves that he has felt enough pain today and slides the knife into the side of his throat and withdraws it. She then takes the various bits of parchment from the desk and stuffs them in her belt pouch, thinking to save them for reading or even further use later. There might be clues to be read and if not, at least she can use them to draw her adventures for later publication.

    Spoiler
    Show
    This is a blatant hint to LD to get off her ass and draw/paint me pictures.


    In the drawers of the desk the Leathe finds many letters and a small pouch of coin, all of which she pockets. Following that, she then makes her way out the side door after the now deceased mayor's wife.

    Tremor & Harold
    The Dwergar and Invarrian follow Captain Settwatch outside and pick up their weapons.
    "Be ready for a fight. It's coming." - Tremor, while shoving his axe through his belt.
    "From where?" - Settwatch, looking troubled.
    "It's just a feeling. But it will happen." - Tremor, grim.
    "Hey, where's the Leathe?" - Settwatch, looking around.
    "I don't know. She must have already left, her weapons aren't here." - Harold, hoping that Settwatch wouldn't have noticed that she never left her daggers outside at all.
    The captain looks troubled but he trusts the Invarrian and lets it slide.

    Two scouts have been sent out to find this Legion. Off the record of course.

    Kel'Serrar & Maebh
    Kel'Serrar begins scanning the town to find a good defensible position to hold when the Legion arrives. Maebh thinks about attempting to find Dhara, but comes to the conclusion that she's probably made herself far too difficult to find and they are on a time limit.

    Kel'Serrar figures the Grand Hall is probably the most defensible spot, and decides that his best bet would be to go check it out. He arrives with Maebh in tow to find Tremor and Harold just about to leave.

    Breanna
    The Leathe continues to follow the late mayor's wife through the Grand Hall, remaining completely concealed as she does so, past the occasional servant. Eventually the woman leaves the building and goes outside, walking down the street. Unfortunately, inside the building, it's hard to notice the shadow-swathed assassin, but outside she would be noticeable on the streets. On the other hand, if she can just get onto the rooftops, she should be free. Tearing down the street, hell for leather, she takes a running jump and clambers up the wall, with only a little difficulty, hoping that anyone who noticed her wouldn't raise a cry.

    Once up on the rooves she can move swiftly and with little fear of discovery. She sees that the mayor's wife has been joined by a squad of ten men in leather jerkins with black surcoats, bearing round shields adorned with the sigil of a single white arrow. They walk out the main gate, enter the stables and mount up. All the while, the diminutive figure of a shade-cloaked Leathe watches them from atop Summer Hill's outer wall.

    The mounted party heads down the eastern road. Breanna slides down the outer wall and follows them on foot, though soon realises that she's going to lag too far behind and her erstwhile companions will likely need her today. She quickly turns back and walks back through the gate, nodding companionably at the guards.

    Harold, Tremor, Kel'Serrar & Maebh
    They wait while Tremor uses the guardsmen's chamber pot and once he comes out, they discuss with him what their next plan is while walking back down the stairs and into the city proper.

    It is almost midday when the companions stop at the wagon, assuming that Breanna will go there to rendezvous with them. While doing so Kel'Serrar informs the rest of his and Maebh's run in with the Trickster and Harold informs those two of how the mayor is most likely connected to the cult in some way. And then how he sent the Leathe in to eliminate him.

    They discuss the Trickster's identity, and generally they figure Shylocke would be the Trickster. Maebh also sends a Whisper to Breanna.
    "I have a book for you. We're at the wagon." Maebh's Whispering Wind, in a taunting manner.

    It is only a short time before Breanna reappears at the cart. She stops to fondle her marcwolf pup before informing the rest of the group of her actions.
    "The mayor, Redwyn is now dead and his wife's a bitch. He's not Redwyn now, he's Deadwyn. The wife looked eerily similar to Dhara." - Breanna, trying to get through it all as quickly as possible.
    "Oh, speaking of Dhara, she nearly killed me last night. She's mates with Chirya now, hence my arrow-wounds." - Harold, interrupting.
    "As I was saying, the wife's now in charge of Summer Hill, and I might add, insane. She's just left the town with a squad of what I reckon are her personal guards." - Breanna.
    "What livery?" - Kel'Serrar, intrigued.
    "Black field with a silver arrow." - Breanna, reciting it off the top of her head.
    No one's familiar with the sigil, but they all agree that the assumption that they are her personal guard is a good one.
    "Anyway, I followed her as far as the east road. I also have the note he was writing when we barged in on him." - Breanna, nodding to Tremor and Harold and producing the note.
    They notice immediately that the note is written in the same handwriting as their earlier note which was also signed by the mysterious R.

    The companions troop off to the White Stallion Inn. On the way Tremor theorises that the centre of the town may have some significance. Interestingly enough the Merchant's District is just about in the centre of the town. And both Rangard's and Shylocke's houses were in that same district. Very convenient.

    On the way Breanna is quizzed about the nature of daemonic summoning, asked about what sort of stuff they should be looking for. She answers that summoning circles can be constructed of many different materials but metals are most common, particularly valuable metals like gold.

    Once inside the Inn, they order meals and Maebh hands the book over to the Leathe assassin. Breanna takes it with some glee and quickly realises that she can use this information.

    In game terms, the book grants her bonuses to her Willpower for the purpose of summoning daemons, justified by being able to read what went wrong in the cult's own attempts. Being forewarned is forearmed and all that. On top of this, in a story sense, she may read through it to gain a better idea of what sort of daemon summoning has been attempted and what has succeeded, therefore giving a better idea of what they might face.

    Spoiler
    Show
    "Basically, what you grabbed was their record book." - To Ladyhawk.
    Dev drops a fifty cent coin he was fidgeting with.
    "And the penny dropped." - It was a lot funnier at the time. I got high-fives and everything.


    "As far as I'm concerned, the Grand Hall or the very centre of the town are the most likely locations. Hmm, maybe the warehouses.... Look at that, they're close to the centre and the nearest section is the slums..." - Harold, looking at a map of the town which Tremor has fished out of his pack.

    Reading her book, Breanna notices that most of the summonings are being conducted within Shylocke's house. However, at the end of the book she reads a note which says that other research is being conducted in other locations. They can't split the party. And it's crunch time.

    They decide on their next target, the warehouses, hoping that they're not wrong. If they are, they're going to be too late. If they are too late, at least the warehouses might provide some places to hide.

    And we left it there...

    The Wrap-Up
    I do wish I had done this earlier so that I could remember the session a bit better. I do remember approaching the session at the time as if it were going to be the end of the arc, but it didn't happen. We ended up playing the end of the arc over two sessions, but it all turned out well.

    I hope everyone's continuing to enjoy this.

    Anyway, stay tuned for they're about to properly reap the whirlwind....

    Last edited by Phoenixguard09; 2020-03-27 at 08:36 AM.
    Campaign Logs:
    Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: COMPLETE
    The Great Maw: NEARLY COMPLETE
    Seven Stones and a Pale Shadow: JUST BEGINNING

    Follow us on Instagram for artwork and updates:
    The Norbayne Campaign

    Exilian: A friendly place for gamers and repository of interesting content: A link to Exilian. Sign up and say hi!

  27. - Top - End - #87
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    WhiteWizardGirl

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    I'm glad you guys like it :D We are hopefully going to play another session soon.

  28. - Top - End - #88
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Amidus Drexel's Avatar

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    Yeah, you guys' sessions are brilliant. I love reading these write-ups.
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    A few odds and ends.

  29. - Top - End - #89
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    Scow2's Avatar

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    I hope so too! Love reading this campaign journal - especially the antics of Tremor and Harold.

  30. - Top - End - #90
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    Griffon

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    Default Re: Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: A Norbayne Campaign Log

    I have to say thanks to everyone who reads this. Your enjoyment means a lot to all of us.

    I'm just wrapping up the next session to be put up now. I'm really hoping to have it available to read this afternoon.

    Then I only have one to write up before the 29th, which is looking like our next session date due to exams, family stuff and LD's ballet.

    Anyway, cheers for now. Hopefully I'll be back soon.
    Campaign Logs:
    Three Coins, Two Birds and a Gilded Sword: COMPLETE
    The Great Maw: NEARLY COMPLETE
    Seven Stones and a Pale Shadow: JUST BEGINNING

    Follow us on Instagram for artwork and updates:
    The Norbayne Campaign

    Exilian: A friendly place for gamers and repository of interesting content: A link to Exilian. Sign up and say hi!

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