Game Notes: Session 6

Previous Session Additions / Deletions / Corrections:

Before the end of Session V, the party released Guy’s merekat back into the wild.

It had been established before the start of Session IV that the name of the High Cardinal of the Church is named Cardinal Nikolai.

Notes:

Gameplay began in Drea, just outside the inn, where Floyd discovered the previously-dead body of Guy to be alive and well. Floyd informs the others, who all gather round. Floyd inspects his wounds, and finds that he has “recovered” just enough to be barely alive and awake. Particularly suspicious of this development is Brix, but Guy convinces him to stay long enough to relate the story of his resurrection.

*The following is based on information that took place during an extra-curricular session between Guy & the DM*

During Guy’s brief foray into the netherworld (which he tries to assure the party is a dark and scary place), Guy encountered the Ravid that the party rescued in the Tower of the Broken Moon. The Ravid offers Guy a deal of sorts: the Ravid will return Guy to the land of the living, but notes he is marked for death – the maximum amount of time that the Ravid can keep Death away from Guy is two years, and it could be less than that. The only way that Guy can end this curse of sorts is to destroy the ring on Cardinal Nikolai’s finger. In addition, Guy must work to achieve the greater good at all times, and he cannot suffer an undead to live (or whatever the equivalent of an undead’s existence is). He then returned Guy to the world.

The party agrees to help Guy in this endeavor to destroy Cardinal Nikolai’s ring. They move to split up their loot from the Tower of the Broken Moon escapade, only to discover that they never identified the fifteen vials they made off with. At this point, a very strange thing happens, and Hirsute all of a sudden becomes MacGuffin. No one is able to explain it, and they quickly forget that his name was ever Hirsute at all, unless it would be convienent to joke about it. The next morning, Guy appears scratched up and explains it away as bad dreams.

The boys visit Havarn, who totally squeals about Floyd’s lock picking escapades. Floyd attempts to explain what he was doing, but the rest of the party is too closed-minded to listen to his side of the story, preferring instead to immediately trust the weaponsmith with whom they’d had a combined total 3 hours of conversation, tops. Havarn recommends that the the party visit (I can’t remember his name – it starts with a “G”, and I’m going to call him Gaurm until corrected), who can identify the spells. They also get information on the farmer friend of Havarn’s whose son is missing. Virgil also recalls and expresses an interest in going to the Tower of Puzzles, a place that he heard about through Abel.

The boys travel to the home of Gaurm – it is a very architecturally unattractive towery-hut. Guarm turns out to be a security-minded gnome. He invites the boys in where they discover that Guarm is in correspondence with Dr. Ethan – apparently, they are part of the same network. Guarm reveals that Ethan tends to gravitate towards Urbandale. He identifies the vials – there are 13 potions and two oils (Bless Weapon, Magic Weapon, Eagle’s Splendor, Owl’s Wisdom, Cure Light, and Spider Climb are all in there), and in recompense, asks that the party perform one of two jobs:

They can go back to the bridge they crossed in Session IV and investigate it, bringing back what information they can discern, particularly if the bridge is haunted by a ghost.
They can return to the old mill (See Floyd’s song, “Fuck the Old Mill”)

At first Guy, Hirsute, and Floyd are extremely against to returning to the old mill, but Virgil and Brix (in conjunction with the DM) pull out the “greater good” bullshit (a truly tangental motivational hook), and Guy swings the other way.

Before embarking on this job, however, the party has Havarn’s job to complete. The party travels to the village where the boy’s family lives, hunting and cooking along the way (Virgil hunts and Floyd cooks; Guy’s attempts at hunting and cooking are less successful, except on the last day, when he manages to catch a plethora of fish. Unfortunately, his extreme, unprovoked attitude problem towards Floyd causes his fish to become somewhat ruined during cooking. Guy also experiences nightmares every night, which Virgil solves by gagging Guy in his sleep.

When they arrive at the village, they find the boys parents and get a description of him, his motivations for disappearing, his last whereabouts, and his name (Arthur). They go to the town inn, an establishment called the Cracked Flagon, which was Arthur’s last known whereabout. Once there, they discover Gruth, the man they apprehended in the Verl’s Crook murder, hanging out there with two of his friends. Gruth quickly recognizes them, and Virgil, Brix, and Guy approach him. Floyd quickly plants an arrow in Gruth, but this provokes the ire of the Bartender / Proprietor, who threatens to summon Graham, his security guard, if another offensive action is taken. He demands that Floyd apologize to Gruth, so Floyd does, by playing “Marshall Drooley is an Idiot” for him, which fascinates Gruth. Virgil promptly lays Gruth out. This prompts the Bartender to call for Graham, who turns out to be a minotaur. A quick fight ensues, in which MacGuffin is laid out… again. The Bartender and Virgil negotiate their way out of combat, mainly due to Graham’s imposing combatative force. Gruth’s cronies take his unconsious body upstairs to recover.

Guy goes outside to drink with Graham. Virgil goes outside to wait for Gruth to escape. Guy learns that Arthur was last seen here talking to Old Tom, the storyteller who frequents the establishment. Floyd begins to play at the inn, and Brix sits down to have a drink with a gentleman who is rude and dismissive to him. Gruth comes downstairs to have a talk with Brix – as Brix relates later, the conversation entails Gruth’s revealing that he is now a higher ranking official in Doogal’s organization, and he has a job for the party in Urbandale, if they’re so inclined to take it. Gruth explains that he’ll be at the inn for another week.

Old Tom arrives and begins storytelling. Floyd is interested, so he comes over to listen. He strikes up an aquaintanceship with Tom. Guy comes in and asks Tom about what he told Arthur. Tom relays the story of Thuenger (attachment provided by DM to follow), which culminates with Arthur’s descision to seek the hammer of Thuenger, out in the swamps inhabited by the Lizardfolk.

The party has a brief word with Gruth before heading out to the swamps. They encouter the Lizardfolk, and sleep in their village. The next morning, they visit the Chief, whom Floyd engages in diplomatic talks. They find Arthur, who, while injured and recovering from a snake bite, is still determined to obtain the hammer from the domain of Kriss, who, we are given to understand, is a Lizardfolk deity of some sort. Floyd visits the Lizardfolk shaman, Likolik, and despite what appears to be a successful and polite attempt to engage Likolik in discourse, he finds the shaman to be very rude and off-putting (logistics note: based on Floyd’s Diplomacy check, which was a rolled 18 plus 7 ranks in diplomacy – unfortunately I forgot to count the +2 synergy bonus that I receive from having a high Bluff – for an effective 25, sufficient to make a hostile creature at least indifferent towards you, it would seem to indicate that Likolik’s initial attitude towards Floyd would have been beyond hostile, and he is therefore viewed by Floyd at the present time as an immediate and dangerous threat). He is unable to discern any valuable information from Likolik, and that is where the session was called.

End of Session VI