Down and Out in Taren Kost – Campaign Report Episodes 5 and 6

We have had two more sessions, hot on the heels of Interlude 1 (you can find the earlier adventures here).

Our cast for these, both episodes:

Hartesa Wormwort Ulshyve, dark elf mushroom farmer and inferniculturalist, and self-described hick, with imp familiar “Portobello”.  (Warlock, played by B2)

Reed Greenbottle, Visse agent of Taren Kost’s Trade Directorate, License Enforcement, and stickler for the proper rules.  (Rogue, played by R)

Episode 5

Mercutio “the Green”, dissipated human conman and wild magic sorcerer, color changes as a side effect from his wild magic.  (Played by J)

Episode 6

Skatska, self-exiled acid-breathing Dragonborn who seeks the old gods.  (Paladin and now Warlock, played by D)

Episode 5: Finding a Lost Noble

Reed is called in by Third Undersecretary Retief* and asked to look into the case of a missing nobleman, Daran Taravonni, which was kicked down from the head of the directorate Baron Argos Starsword, but at least comes with a purse of five gold.  Reed heads to pick up some help from Hartesa and Mercutio and then goes to The Stormwind Tavern.  The tavern is an old establishment for serious drinkers run by Jerrick. Mercutio has a rocky relationship with Jerrick and even more so with one of the other patrons, the Northman.  The civic guard watching over the building hands over the crime scene to Reed without any further explanation and they investigate, there has obviously been a scuffle, blood and overturned furniture, torn cloth and fragments of a mask.  Jerrick explains that Taravonni was a regular who occasionally rented out the tavern after closing for a bit of peace and quiet, he has no idea why anyone would want to kidnap him.  They follow the blood trail out the back, where they encounter the Northman.  He and Mecurito glare at each other for a bit and then a deal is made, and he tells that he saw Taravonni dragged out but “some men in masks”, one of whom was wounded and taken off by a friend and the other masked men took Taravonni away.

Further investigation unfolds: they talk to Jayree, Visse healer-priestess of the Light of the Blessed Sun free clinic, who told of a wounded actor who visited last night.  Disable two thugs employed by Eight-Finger Louie who were trying to collect on a debt owed by Mercutio.  Before arriving at the Temple of Art, in the Night Ward which was a temple back before the Sundering and converted into a theatre afterward, where they break in and interrupt a sinister (but very well staged) ritual in progress.  They are able to kill the cultists and their leader, from whom a bat made of bone fragment erupts from his chests and flies away, and save poor Taravonni.

In they aftermath, Reed is thanked by his superior, Lady Taravonni vanishes and Mercutio remains in debt to various unsavory people.

(This was loosely based on the adventure Curtain Call: A Sharn Adventure -affiliate link- which is fun, some weak points on the investigation side, but easily adaptable to most large fantasy cities.)

Episode 6: Of Thieves and Chess Sets

Reed, Hartesa and Shaska are enjoying a relaxing breakfast at the Gilded Lilly when an origami messenger bird arrives for Hartesa, it reads “Magical chess set stolen from House Stormbrand.  Significant reward for its recovery.”  They immediately head for the Stormbrand Estate and bluff their way in, watched by Tybolt, the major domo, they investigate the game room where the set was stolen from.  The set itself was kept in warded drawers in a chess table which the thief apparently disabled after entering through a window and presumably left the same way.  Hartesa want to head to Island of Revia, from whom the set was taken from three hundred years ago, but she is convinced to stay in the city for now.

Reed knows some people who deal with the unusual item trade and goes to speak to one of them, Yvette Kallimet, mistress of antiquities, a slender half-elf who is usually smoking something in a long holder who runs a shop full of antiquities and oddities.  She passes on that she had heard that a freelance thief named Katikins was in town.

Though many fumbles, they finally leave word (and gold) at the Jeweled Egg, an inn at the edge of the whitesmith’s district, that they are looking to hire Katikins.  Which they eventually do, to steal from themselves!  Then they ambush him as he leaves the attic room of the Gilded Lilly.  Which does not go as they hoped and only a hideous laughter keeps him from escaping.

They question him and he trades his freedom for the name of the person who hired him to steal the chess set, Lovaret Khassalla, grandmaster of night.  And that is where the session ended.

Notes: Anytime we can get three or more players it is a full game, two players leads to an interlude.  Next adventure along shortly.

*Yes, named in honor of the Keith Laumer character.

Theatre photo by By 投稿者 – 実物, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17630077, Chess photo by PereslavlFoto found on Wikimedia Commons and used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.