Murder Mystery in Wheloon
Jan. 30th, 2005 06:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothAfter a ridiculously long hiatus, we finally had another session of Tom's Sunday game. Dave decided not to come back after the last fiasco, but Michelle did, and brought Kevin, a friend of hers who hasn't played much. That leaves only Eric as the prickly powergamer of the group... well, and Josh. And me. So, half the group still, but half is better than 2/3rds.
We started with a new group of 3rd level characters, who we're intending to take up to high levels through a series of adventures... a normal campaign, in other words. Since the 'bunch of short vignettes' idea worked out so poorly.
The story starts when Rhiannon, a cleric of Lethander, received a whisper from her adventuring friend Chini telling her 'The theater must be stopped! Find Thierrin, he'll help.' Neither Chini nor her companions, Feral and Aluvar, were ever seen again, so after a few days Rhiannon and the barkeep of the blue-something tavern started collecting money for a reward for their safe return.
A week later, the rangers Noctus and Raima were meeting Zanzibar (a 'halfling' warlock; all his friends know he's really a kobold, but he keeps that secret from the guards) and Samuel (a human sorcerer who owned a house just outside of town, where destitute 'halflings' and other friends often imposed on his hospitality) to throw a party for Seinar, another ranger, who'd just been admitted into the Green Guardians who guarded the Hermit's Woods ten miles southwest of town.
Seimar never showed up. Ailithir, a local thief (altough she'd never been caught by the guard, yet) who also adventured with the others, remarked that he hadn't been seen for a while, and wondered if perhaps the disappearances were connected.
So, they decided to gather information from the townsfolk about the missing adventurers, and found that Chini's party had been exploring the sewers tracking down drug-runners, who they thought were working for Ambrose, a rich local noble -- but about a week ago they'd left to go off to the Hermit's Woods to look for the Lost Spring for some reason. They were supposed to meet Seinar there, on the way, to be present at his induction ceremony, but hadn't shown up -- Seinar had come to town to remark on that and look for them, and had gone off in search of them just the day before. He hadn't been seen since either.
There was no Thierrin in town, but there was a Tierrin, a jeweler. In case Chini'd messed up the name, they went and interrogated him, and despite Zanzibar's hardball tactics... well, he obviously wasn't the person they were looking for. They decided to break into Ambrose's house after dark, thinking that maybe there'd be *something* there, although they imagined it would have been the first place Chini's party would have checked.
However, when they passed by, they saw that someone had been there ahead of them, and ripped the door clean off the hinges. A crowd was gathered round remarking on the scary noises that had been coming from inside... bravely, the party volunteered to go in and 'help the injured'.
So, the house was searched for anything incriminating or valuable. They didn't really find much... a shattered skeleton wearing a bronze theater mask on the stairs, an animated shadow that fled as soon as it was seen, and an obsidian jar full of magical black dust radiating necromancy. They took a sample of the dust, and left everything else undisturbed. Well, except for a few locks and doors that the warlock had shattered.
So they decided to rest the night, and head out for the forest in the morning, since that was their last lead that they remembered. Rhiannon stayed at the temple, but the rest crashed at Samuel's place, and were awoken in the middle of the night by a loud explosion!
Leaping out of bed, Zanzibar blasted open the door into Samuel's bedroom, where the explosion had come from, and saw a firey inferno... and past it, a blackguard riding a nightmare wielding a flaming sword. As the vicious enemy set down his sword and pulled out a bow, Samuel ran out of the burning room, carrying the charred corpse of his wife... and glowing a little, and being slightly transparent. As the others rushed out to fight the enemy, Ailithir noticed that there was another charred body in the room, lying in Samuel's bed...
The enemy was strong, wielding his flaming sword and all, but Zanzibar got lucky and managed to fire off a wand of entangle, immobilizing the nightmare (and Samuel, who he'd expected to be unaffected, being a ghost and all), and then the rest of the party kept taking turns running away around the corners of the house as the blackguard charged after them, while pelting him with various ranged attacks. Eventually, he was forced to get back on his nightmare (who'd finally gotten out of the entangle) and flee for his life... but not before picking up Samuel's body, and fleeing with it.
Without his body, no one could convince Samuel that he was actually dead... and to be fair, he was *solid*, if a little transparent. He eventually accepted that his wife was dead, though, although he immediately dragged them all to the temple to have her raised... except that the only cleric in town who could even cast the spell was out, and none of them had the 5000+ gp to pay for the spell.
Since the attacker had worn a faceless mask, which reminded them of the theater mask they'd seen on the skeleton, they figured this was related to the mission they were on, and were only encouraged to keep tracking it down. They headed out into the forest, and were attacked by an owlbear! It grabbed Noctus and started squeezing him, but was soon annihilated by the party's ranged might. Just as it died, a pair of Green Guardians emerged from the forest to try to rescue it. Too late!
They were really annoyed that the party had killed it, and demanded that they turn back. The party explained that they couldn't go back, since the town wasn't safe... and, well, eventually explained the mission. The rangers didn't know Sienin, but did know where the spring was, so they took the party there.
At the spring, they found the dead bodies of Chini and her party -- and about a dozen zombies. And a ghast. Rhiannon turned the zombies, and they hacked the ghast to bits, then searched the slain adventurers, finding that they hadn't been killed solely by undead -- they bore sword wounds as well as claws. Also, they'd been looted of their valuables... but there was still a note pointing the party to the Lion Theater, aka (according to the note) the 'Theater of Bone'. They retrieved the bodies, slaughtered the returning zombies, and headed back to the temple where they too were laid in state. On the way, they talked with Theirrin, who was one of the high-ranking Green Guardians, but he didn't know much of anything useful. -- only that Chini and the others had been hoping to ambush a drug-smuggling operation at the spring. Apparently, the ambush didn't go off as planned.
At any rate, back in town, they barged into the Lion Theater and started looking around. It was full of people, but most of them were too busy to kick the party out. A ghost (who no one else could see) told Samuel that there was a secret door in the dressing room...
The party found and opened the secret door. Behind, a pair of actors in bronze masks (just like the skeleton's) guarded a stairway that led underground. There was an antechamber, though, so Zanzibar herded the whole party through the door and closed it behind them, before attempting to shatter a mask to see who was wearing it.
No such luck -- the spell was resisted, and the enemy attacked! And missed. Noctus managed to disarm one of its wooden sword, and as it dropped the sword it was revealed as a skeleton! With that revelation, the party attacked in earnest, and soon both guards were smashed to bits. The 'wooden prop' swords detected as magic, so they party picked them up to take along -- if nothing else, they were fully functional weapons that looked like toys, which might be useful in a land like Cormyr where all weapons were supposed to be peace-bonded. Not that the party was worrying much about that anyway.
They carefully went down the stairs (with Ailithir checking every five feet for traps) and found themselves in what looked like a temple of Orcus, from the design on the rug set in front of the altar. There was a corridor and a door, so after looking down the corridor, they opened the door, and quickly killed the orcish mage inside before he could do anything. Presumably he was bad; he was in a necromantic lab with several fresh human corpses spread out half-dissected.
But while they were stripping him of his valuables, Raiina and Samuel, in back, were attacked by a horde of enemies! A half orc charged them, while a woman hung back, leading another dozen zombies. Rhiannon turned the zombies (again), and the woman ran off, but the half orc fought to the death, dropping Raiina in the process before he himself was killed. Rhiannon healed Raiina, and they prepared to follow the fleeing woman into the heart of the Theater of Bone, to face down the true enemy at last. Presumably. next session
We started with a new group of 3rd level characters, who we're intending to take up to high levels through a series of adventures... a normal campaign, in other words. Since the 'bunch of short vignettes' idea worked out so poorly.
The story starts when Rhiannon, a cleric of Lethander, received a whisper from her adventuring friend Chini telling her 'The theater must be stopped! Find Thierrin, he'll help.' Neither Chini nor her companions, Feral and Aluvar, were ever seen again, so after a few days Rhiannon and the barkeep of the blue-something tavern started collecting money for a reward for their safe return.
A week later, the rangers Noctus and Raima were meeting Zanzibar (a 'halfling' warlock; all his friends know he's really a kobold, but he keeps that secret from the guards) and Samuel (a human sorcerer who owned a house just outside of town, where destitute 'halflings' and other friends often imposed on his hospitality) to throw a party for Seinar, another ranger, who'd just been admitted into the Green Guardians who guarded the Hermit's Woods ten miles southwest of town.
Seimar never showed up. Ailithir, a local thief (altough she'd never been caught by the guard, yet) who also adventured with the others, remarked that he hadn't been seen for a while, and wondered if perhaps the disappearances were connected.
So, they decided to gather information from the townsfolk about the missing adventurers, and found that Chini's party had been exploring the sewers tracking down drug-runners, who they thought were working for Ambrose, a rich local noble -- but about a week ago they'd left to go off to the Hermit's Woods to look for the Lost Spring for some reason. They were supposed to meet Seinar there, on the way, to be present at his induction ceremony, but hadn't shown up -- Seinar had come to town to remark on that and look for them, and had gone off in search of them just the day before. He hadn't been seen since either.
There was no Thierrin in town, but there was a Tierrin, a jeweler. In case Chini'd messed up the name, they went and interrogated him, and despite Zanzibar's hardball tactics... well, he obviously wasn't the person they were looking for. They decided to break into Ambrose's house after dark, thinking that maybe there'd be *something* there, although they imagined it would have been the first place Chini's party would have checked.
However, when they passed by, they saw that someone had been there ahead of them, and ripped the door clean off the hinges. A crowd was gathered round remarking on the scary noises that had been coming from inside... bravely, the party volunteered to go in and 'help the injured'.
So, the house was searched for anything incriminating or valuable. They didn't really find much... a shattered skeleton wearing a bronze theater mask on the stairs, an animated shadow that fled as soon as it was seen, and an obsidian jar full of magical black dust radiating necromancy. They took a sample of the dust, and left everything else undisturbed. Well, except for a few locks and doors that the warlock had shattered.
So they decided to rest the night, and head out for the forest in the morning, since that was their last lead that they remembered. Rhiannon stayed at the temple, but the rest crashed at Samuel's place, and were awoken in the middle of the night by a loud explosion!
Leaping out of bed, Zanzibar blasted open the door into Samuel's bedroom, where the explosion had come from, and saw a firey inferno... and past it, a blackguard riding a nightmare wielding a flaming sword. As the vicious enemy set down his sword and pulled out a bow, Samuel ran out of the burning room, carrying the charred corpse of his wife... and glowing a little, and being slightly transparent. As the others rushed out to fight the enemy, Ailithir noticed that there was another charred body in the room, lying in Samuel's bed...
The enemy was strong, wielding his flaming sword and all, but Zanzibar got lucky and managed to fire off a wand of entangle, immobilizing the nightmare (and Samuel, who he'd expected to be unaffected, being a ghost and all), and then the rest of the party kept taking turns running away around the corners of the house as the blackguard charged after them, while pelting him with various ranged attacks. Eventually, he was forced to get back on his nightmare (who'd finally gotten out of the entangle) and flee for his life... but not before picking up Samuel's body, and fleeing with it.
Without his body, no one could convince Samuel that he was actually dead... and to be fair, he was *solid*, if a little transparent. He eventually accepted that his wife was dead, though, although he immediately dragged them all to the temple to have her raised... except that the only cleric in town who could even cast the spell was out, and none of them had the 5000+ gp to pay for the spell.
Since the attacker had worn a faceless mask, which reminded them of the theater mask they'd seen on the skeleton, they figured this was related to the mission they were on, and were only encouraged to keep tracking it down. They headed out into the forest, and were attacked by an owlbear! It grabbed Noctus and started squeezing him, but was soon annihilated by the party's ranged might. Just as it died, a pair of Green Guardians emerged from the forest to try to rescue it. Too late!
They were really annoyed that the party had killed it, and demanded that they turn back. The party explained that they couldn't go back, since the town wasn't safe... and, well, eventually explained the mission. The rangers didn't know Sienin, but did know where the spring was, so they took the party there.
At the spring, they found the dead bodies of Chini and her party -- and about a dozen zombies. And a ghast. Rhiannon turned the zombies, and they hacked the ghast to bits, then searched the slain adventurers, finding that they hadn't been killed solely by undead -- they bore sword wounds as well as claws. Also, they'd been looted of their valuables... but there was still a note pointing the party to the Lion Theater, aka (according to the note) the 'Theater of Bone'. They retrieved the bodies, slaughtered the returning zombies, and headed back to the temple where they too were laid in state. On the way, they talked with Theirrin, who was one of the high-ranking Green Guardians, but he didn't know much of anything useful. -- only that Chini and the others had been hoping to ambush a drug-smuggling operation at the spring. Apparently, the ambush didn't go off as planned.
At any rate, back in town, they barged into the Lion Theater and started looking around. It was full of people, but most of them were too busy to kick the party out. A ghost (who no one else could see) told Samuel that there was a secret door in the dressing room...
The party found and opened the secret door. Behind, a pair of actors in bronze masks (just like the skeleton's) guarded a stairway that led underground. There was an antechamber, though, so Zanzibar herded the whole party through the door and closed it behind them, before attempting to shatter a mask to see who was wearing it.
No such luck -- the spell was resisted, and the enemy attacked! And missed. Noctus managed to disarm one of its wooden sword, and as it dropped the sword it was revealed as a skeleton! With that revelation, the party attacked in earnest, and soon both guards were smashed to bits. The 'wooden prop' swords detected as magic, so they party picked them up to take along -- if nothing else, they were fully functional weapons that looked like toys, which might be useful in a land like Cormyr where all weapons were supposed to be peace-bonded. Not that the party was worrying much about that anyway.
They carefully went down the stairs (with Ailithir checking every five feet for traps) and found themselves in what looked like a temple of Orcus, from the design on the rug set in front of the altar. There was a corridor and a door, so after looking down the corridor, they opened the door, and quickly killed the orcish mage inside before he could do anything. Presumably he was bad; he was in a necromantic lab with several fresh human corpses spread out half-dissected.
But while they were stripping him of his valuables, Raiina and Samuel, in back, were attacked by a horde of enemies! A half orc charged them, while a woman hung back, leading another dozen zombies. Rhiannon turned the zombies (again), and the woman ran off, but the half orc fought to the death, dropping Raiina in the process before he himself was killed. Rhiannon healed Raiina, and they prepared to follow the fleeing woman into the heart of the Theater of Bone, to face down the true enemy at last. Presumably. next session
