Our Virtuous Lady
The Party for Episode 9
- mtb playing Manqoba
- CaptainSabatini playing Esgorman
Manqoba and Esgorman set out the next day to explore further than they'd yet been, filling Hemmingway's cart with rations and bringing Albert along as extra muscle. Plotting a course due east, they soon found themselves among familiar dunes. A shift in the wind brought a goblin yelp to their ears, so they crept forward, only to find a mob of anglergoblins attempting to corral an uncooperative giant hermit crab. Recognizing the disparity in numbers, they beat a hasty retreat.
Approaching the rise in the seabed, they spotted a westward traveling cart to their south. Horse-drawn and surrounded by armed folk bearing as many barrels as would fit. At this distance, it was impossible to tell what was in the barrels. Still, the half dozen guards were wearing the leathery protective gear last seen by the escaped leviathan extraction worker and the guards at the brewery.
The next day while descending the slope, they happened to spot a break in the rocks with something far more interesting: a pair of elaborate glass doors installed into the hill flanked by a pair of imposing coral mermen statues. The two considered popping the doors off their hinges but decided they'd be unlikely to find a buyer and so proceeded inside wearily. They found an opulent lounge carven and decorated with mosaics which must have been very nice before it was wrecked. Other than smashed furniture and tapestries, they found a strange rift in the floor with a black tarry liquid bubbling in the bottom. As they watched, they suspected something moved within, so they circled it wearily while they tossed the room. After some searching Esgorman found a malevolent-looking statuette. While it looked like nothing they'd seen, it had the vibes of some other culture's demons. Manqoba was reluctant to touch it but Esgorman saw only that it was made of silver and covered in jewels and so pocketed it.
They continued on past the field of giant hermit crab shells and camped the night, a typically normal event otherwise unmentioned except that each person in the group dreamed of some watery location from their life: a lake nearby their home, a bathtub, a ship traveled upon. They then dreamed of slipping beneath the water, each in their own way, and then finding themselves unable to escape. And then, just before their air ran out and their lungs filled with water, they startled away.
Weird coincidence they'd just found that evil-looking statuette. Surely unrelated.
After a restless night of bad dreams and ill omens, they continued east to find a grounded war galleon: clearly the missing Our Virtuous Lady they crept up to the side leaning against a dune, and surveiled it while discussing what to do about it.
While watching several of the anglergoblin shamans dragged out some very fresh human corpses and piled them up in a circle burned into the deck. A lanky shaman figure followed them out of the hold and approached the pile, raised its staff, shouted something, and spread something over them. The bodies thrashed as their bones surged out of their flesh. They stilled, then crawled to their feet and stood at attention before the head shaman. The lot of them headed back inside.
Creeped out but needing something valuable to cover the cost of the venture, they crept forward onto the deck as quietly as possible and decided to investigate the captain's cabin at the stern through its windows. Manqoba repelled down to find a trashed and goblin-lived-in but empty room. He called to Esgorman and the two quickly tossed the place, finding a sealed barrel of gunpowder that the goblins seemed unaware of, as well as the captain's stash placed too high for the creatures to spot: a coffer, a brace of pistols, a carved harpoon.
This was enough for the trip so the two loaded up and snuck back onto the deck. But this time they were less quiet and ended up being chased from the ship by animated and ossified dead. Their bow fire seemed to have little effect but they were able to easily outdistance the creatures and so led them away from the boat before ducking out of sight and watching the dim monsters keep shuffling on in that direction.
How does the monster's animating magic work? The text doesn't provide an answer. So come up with a reasonable result and roll dice. In this case I figured they might keep going, and I rolled a 7, so that's what they did. If I had rolled low, something bad for the players might have occured, such as returning to guard the ship. Rolled high, and maybe they would have outdistanced their range and so fallen to pieces.
Free of pursuers, they decided to investigate what they'd taken. The harpoon was elaborately carved with whaling scenes but was merely fancy, not magic. The harness had spots for several more pistols but had only two remaining loaded flintlocks.
Finally the coffer. It had an iron padlok but Manqoba revealed a facility with breaking into things and soon had it open. Inside they found a coin purse containing chunky trade gold coins, a scroll case, and a leather journal. The last detailed sundry fishing and trading ventures the ship had engaged in before telling of the night of the drain, the grounding far from home, their fortification of the boat, and the growing siege of sea monsters. The scroll case contained an elaborate and illuminated antique map of the Andrussian Basin. The coins were merely very valuable.
The map was just a piece of contextual treasure as written but the players immediately realized it showed them the extents of the basin and the locatiion of the lighthouse, information they hadn't previously had. This bit of background detail maybe the most valuable treasure they'd yet found.
Now appraised of how near to the eastern edge of the basin, they decided to continue on as they had to reach and see what might be found there. The answer was a cliff face but nothing interesting. So they turned north to find the corner of the basin, where they found a little more: the major river that filled the basin plummeting a hundred feet to crash into the sea bed and then just drain away. At the foot of it, they found a splintered ship that had clearly missed that the sea was gone, but among its remains, they only found broken glass, splintered dishes, and cutlery, which they left behind.
Having found the relative extent of the missing sea, they turned back towards Coiner's Shelf and began the week-long trip along the northern wall of the basin. The first day was uneventful but the second day they blundered into a field of quicksand. They all managed to free themselves by leaping from the cart but watched as their cart full of expensive rations was swallowed by the sand.
Having saved the treasure but not the food, the group decided to attempt to rush home before their last few rations ran out. Pushing hard, they managed to make it back with just a slight tightening of belts. The map, the journal, the harpoon, and the evil statuette (caveat emptor) for a comfortable profit from the trip.
Statistics
Total Party Members: 8
Hexes Explored: 19
Caves Explored: 4
Dungeons Explored: 0
Players Participated: 8
Megafauna Captured: 2
Skirmishes Survived: 8
Foes Vanquished: 1 feral dog, 6 anglergoblins, 1 anglergoblin shaman, 1 albatross, 4 sea plagued, 1 sea monk
Treasure Obtained: 2886 previously + 260 for illuminated map + 260 for evil statue + 260 for bag of coins + 80 for fancy harpoon = 3746
Tragic Deaths: 1 (crab friend)
Map
 |
| The map after 9 sessions |
Notes
Notes: Typically I roll treasure for this by grabbing a handful of dice and then multiplying the result by 10. I managed to roll 26 twice and then 13...to a guy who was noted as paying double for weird treasure. It do be like that sometimes.
Thus far the biggest problem both in- and out-of-game is maintaining players. We miss weeks because we don't have enough people to run, and then when we do play the players are reluctant to put their characters in significant danger due to their low numbers. It might come down to players simply hiring enough help. Perhaps we can work out a treasure share deal?
No comments:
Post a Comment