A Truly Lawful Society
Oct. 18th, 2005 09:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothLast night we had a somewhat abridged session of Patrick's game, as Ed arrived late (apparently, Google is making him work 80-hour weeks) and Patrick had to leave early (because Microsoft outsourced all his subordinates to India and China, so he has to do midnight conference calls to manage them). Jenn didn't show up at all.
We visited the 'corrupt empire of Bahklava', or whatever. Apparently, the Midrein basin inhabitants consider it corrupt because it charges non-citizens extra tolls on the roads; we saw no sign of actual corruption.
So the Black Griffons left the elven lands, retrieved Nigel (their gnome) and headed north to the mountain pass that would take them to the corrupt empire they'd heard about, where the next piece of the plenary malachite was apparently located.
Nigel warned them that non-humans were seen as manservants and slaves in the empire, so Rrann would have to 'playact' as a servant. "Ah, well then we'll just have to kill everyone we come across, simple enough." Eventually, he was convinced to play the part, mostly because Mariss took ill, and he felt obeying the orders of an unconscious druid was an act he could play effectively.
They did come to a city where they could sell their loot from the bandits before reaching the empire, though, and spent most of the money from that on small magical trinkets. This left them with only a little bit of travelling money, and when they actually reached the empire, this almost (but not quite) proved to be a problem -- everything in the empire was godawful expensive, including the dozens of permits needed to do anything -- permits to be adventurers, permits to actually venture off the roads, permits to travel *on* the roads, permits to camp out, permits to sleep at an inn, permits to cast spells, permits to... you get the idea. It all came to almost fifty gold by the time they were done, and they were warned not to skimp on the 10% loot tax if they actually came across any treasure, because the guards would know.
Of course, it wasn't like all that tax money was being wasted -- the roads were well kept, and there were no signs of bandits or monsters. There were slaves everywhere, but they were all taken legally (meaning, people sold themselves or their children, as opposed to being kidnapped like in Midrein), and treated well for the most part -- no differently from the servants and peasants, except that they couldn't leave.
But they followed the tug of the malachite to a less well policed section of the empire, where 'Treasure Hunter Law' held sway -- that being 'kill or be killed'. So they *didn't* accept the overly friendly slaver's offer of hospitality, and instead found an out-of-the-way cottage to set up camp in. They left Nigel and the horses there, and the three active party members (Rrann, Seldon, and Vryce) headed out to find their treasure.
Their hunt was cut short, though, when they came across a badly wounded but successful party of adventurers lugging out a ton of loot. They hid as they passed, and would have continued on, if it wasn't for the sound of bandits attacking them that lured the paladin into the fight.
The fight itself was pretty short -- Seldon had a staff of fire from the elven lands, and a couple blasts killed most of the bandits (as well as 'accidentally' killing the one detected-as-evil person from the group being attacked), at which point the remaining two surrendered. Vryce of course accepted their surrender, and took them to the slaver where he sold them into slavery, taking four of the children slaves in trade.
They brought the kids back to Nigel (after hiding from some Shadows in a rope trick for a while), who was somewhat surprised at the paladin's actions. "I didn't know you were into keeping slaves, let alone children..." "They'll make good acolytes for the temple once we get back to Midrein," he replied. "Ah, you don't care to enslave their bodies, just their souls," Rrann grumbled.
At any rate, the next day they set out again, and found that the malachite's pull only got them to within a half mile or so. That was a lot of area to search, and all the treasure was likely in the catacombs anyway. So they found a sewer entrance, and headed in.
They hadn't gotten sixty feet when, while they were crossing a broken section of boardwalk (not wanting to wade in the water, even if the city had been abandoned long enough that there wasn't actual sewage), a bunch of shadows attacked them! Even magical weapons seemed to have little effect on the creatures [thanks to horrible miss chance rolls], which quickly drained Rrann and Vryce to the point where they couldn't fight effectively anyway, but Seldon, after putting a spell on Rrann to protect him from the hypnotic babbling of one of the shadowy creatures, was able to blast them to nothingness with a series of magical missiles, which did have full effect. To be fair, Rrann got one good hit and two crappy hits in with his axe, and Vryce managed to dump his lay-on-hands for the day into one of them, dissipating it, but for the most part it was all Seldon.
So, thus weakened, they had no choice but to return to their little encampment and hope Mariss was feeling well enough to memorize some lesser restorations to get them back on their feet.
last session | next session
We visited the 'corrupt empire of Bahklava', or whatever. Apparently, the Midrein basin inhabitants consider it corrupt because it charges non-citizens extra tolls on the roads; we saw no sign of actual corruption.
So the Black Griffons left the elven lands, retrieved Nigel (their gnome) and headed north to the mountain pass that would take them to the corrupt empire they'd heard about, where the next piece of the plenary malachite was apparently located.
Nigel warned them that non-humans were seen as manservants and slaves in the empire, so Rrann would have to 'playact' as a servant. "Ah, well then we'll just have to kill everyone we come across, simple enough." Eventually, he was convinced to play the part, mostly because Mariss took ill, and he felt obeying the orders of an unconscious druid was an act he could play effectively.
They did come to a city where they could sell their loot from the bandits before reaching the empire, though, and spent most of the money from that on small magical trinkets. This left them with only a little bit of travelling money, and when they actually reached the empire, this almost (but not quite) proved to be a problem -- everything in the empire was godawful expensive, including the dozens of permits needed to do anything -- permits to be adventurers, permits to actually venture off the roads, permits to travel *on* the roads, permits to camp out, permits to sleep at an inn, permits to cast spells, permits to... you get the idea. It all came to almost fifty gold by the time they were done, and they were warned not to skimp on the 10% loot tax if they actually came across any treasure, because the guards would know.
Of course, it wasn't like all that tax money was being wasted -- the roads were well kept, and there were no signs of bandits or monsters. There were slaves everywhere, but they were all taken legally (meaning, people sold themselves or their children, as opposed to being kidnapped like in Midrein), and treated well for the most part -- no differently from the servants and peasants, except that they couldn't leave.
But they followed the tug of the malachite to a less well policed section of the empire, where 'Treasure Hunter Law' held sway -- that being 'kill or be killed'. So they *didn't* accept the overly friendly slaver's offer of hospitality, and instead found an out-of-the-way cottage to set up camp in. They left Nigel and the horses there, and the three active party members (Rrann, Seldon, and Vryce) headed out to find their treasure.
Their hunt was cut short, though, when they came across a badly wounded but successful party of adventurers lugging out a ton of loot. They hid as they passed, and would have continued on, if it wasn't for the sound of bandits attacking them that lured the paladin into the fight.
The fight itself was pretty short -- Seldon had a staff of fire from the elven lands, and a couple blasts killed most of the bandits (as well as 'accidentally' killing the one detected-as-evil person from the group being attacked), at which point the remaining two surrendered. Vryce of course accepted their surrender, and took them to the slaver where he sold them into slavery, taking four of the children slaves in trade.
They brought the kids back to Nigel (after hiding from some Shadows in a rope trick for a while), who was somewhat surprised at the paladin's actions. "I didn't know you were into keeping slaves, let alone children..." "They'll make good acolytes for the temple once we get back to Midrein," he replied. "Ah, you don't care to enslave their bodies, just their souls," Rrann grumbled.
At any rate, the next day they set out again, and found that the malachite's pull only got them to within a half mile or so. That was a lot of area to search, and all the treasure was likely in the catacombs anyway. So they found a sewer entrance, and headed in.
They hadn't gotten sixty feet when, while they were crossing a broken section of boardwalk (not wanting to wade in the water, even if the city had been abandoned long enough that there wasn't actual sewage), a bunch of shadows attacked them! Even magical weapons seemed to have little effect on the creatures [thanks to horrible miss chance rolls], which quickly drained Rrann and Vryce to the point where they couldn't fight effectively anyway, but Seldon, after putting a spell on Rrann to protect him from the hypnotic babbling of one of the shadowy creatures, was able to blast them to nothingness with a series of magical missiles, which did have full effect. To be fair, Rrann got one good hit and two crappy hits in with his axe, and Vryce managed to dump his lay-on-hands for the day into one of them, dissipating it, but for the most part it was all Seldon.
So, thus weakened, they had no choice but to return to their little encampment and hope Mariss was feeling well enough to memorize some lesser restorations to get them back on their feet.
last session | next session
