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The starting roster for Ben's campaign consisted of Carrie, Damon, Al, and
me. We sure could have used Ryan before the night was out!
The setup: We are in the Empire of Tarantium, which we may think of
essentially as Imperial Rome, except that about 200 years ago the
then-Emperor made a deal with the barbarians. His daughter married a
barbarian leader, and we have since been ruled by a combined dynasty. This
has caused certain changes in the culture - barbarian style longswords are
as accessible as short swords, for instance - but revitalized the Empire.
Togas are coming back, old-fashioned naming conventions are returning among
the patricians, and we are expecting to go to war with the heathen Gilded
League (a confederation of roughly Arabic city-states to the south) in the
next year or so. The Empire is monotheistic, worshipping the Supreme Diety
Orus. Orus created the world and all the pagan gods, then took a nap
leaving the gods in charge. When he awoke, he was horrified to find the
way many of the gods had behaved, and demoted them. The Gilded League
still misguidedly worship these gods and probably sacrifice children to
them. Opinion is divided as to whether the non-human dieties were guilty
of misbehavior and punished with demotion or not.
We are the confidential staff of retired Senator Lucius Simpronius
Alabraxis, a patrician wizard who is retiring to a distant family villa in
Bithinia, a province of Aquitainia, south of the Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) and
bordering on barbarian lands. Depending on our precise nominal positions
in the household, our salaries are room + board + 10-30 gp/month.
The Adventure: What follows is extracted from a letter home written by the
rather prim junior cleric of the household, Sofia Napea Theophilia,
daughter of Senator Simpronius's younger sister, to her family. Notes with
game mechanics or fleshing out the parts that she was reluctant to explain
fully to her mother are in brackets. If this format proves too cumbrous
and annoying I'll discontinue it. I had no idea Sofia was going to go in
for such complex sentences.
... I write from Brigantium, on the verge of leaving for the real
hinterlands. The provincial capital is quaint, but quite clean. ...
I came here in advance of Uncle's main entourage to arrange for rooms and
meet with the three other members of his confidential staff whom he had
instructed to meet us here. The multi-talented squire-cum-fletcher, who it
appears is a child of the woods (Damon's character is a half-elf ranger
with more skills than you can shake a stick at> and goes by the sweet name
of Robyn, proved respectable, presentable, and well-spoken; but the
entertainer, Tamara, her taste having been formed in the more plebeian
venues, unfortunately had a wardrobe completely unsuited to her duties in a
patrician household. (Carrie's character is a rogue with three levels of
perform and she doesn't meet Sofia's rather stuffy standards.)) I
therefore took her shopping, and we passed a pleasant afternoon, as you may
imagine. She is a trifle young and flighty, but she is good hearted,
brave, and determined, as I soon discovered.
After we completed our purchases, I was attracted by the birdsellers, but
she expressed a desire to return to the inn, and since the streets seemed
quiet and well-patrolled by vigiles {police} I saw no harm in our going our
separate ways. {On the way to the garment district, a man attempted to
flirt with both of the women at once. Sofia ignored him, but Tamara
flirted back and got his name, Marius. Since it was obvious he was an
adventure hook, but there was no way Sofia was going to lower herself to
notice him, I developed a sudden desire for a pet and turned Carrie loose.
When Tamara split off from Sofia, she went straight back to the inn to
finish the flirtation.} I got an excellent bargain on a bird from the
interior, a clever and friendly gray parrot with a red tail. His name is
Scipio, and he can already say "What a pretty bird" and "Hail Caesar."
On returning to the inn, I found that the last person I was to meet, a
northern gentleman with the unlikely name of Fergus {Al's rogue}, had
arrived safely, but Tamara was in a tizzy. Though incoherent, she managed
to convey that she suspected a crime was in progress and that she had
witnessed a portion of it, or of its aftermath. {When she went back to
the inn, Marius had left, but she found out in which direction he had gone
and followed. She saw him duck into an alley and overheard him talking to
someone with a gruff accent, something about "getting them" and the
importance of not being detected. Hiding, she saw him leave, heard someone
tossing heavy bundles around, and observed a half-orc leaving with a
tarp-covered donkey cart. Since Carrie's character's intelligence and
wisdom are both low, she played the delivery of this information so
incoherently the rest of us could barely extract any information from it.>
Frankly, I thought she was exaggerating, but in order to soothe her fears
we returned to the spot where she had overheard the plotting. No
unambiguous evidence being forthcoming (Fergus broke in the door and we
found two bundles - one of a woman's clothing, one of a boy's - and
disturbed the householder who lived above. Sofia did not participate in
the door breaking, but went down the street as soon as it started,
reasoning that someone had to be free to bail them out), we proceeded to a
nearby inn where one of the villains had attempted to flirt with her. He
was still about, so she approached him and pretended to be amenable to his
distasteful proposals, in order to elicit information from him.
(Tamara flirted shamelessly, trying to elicit information about what work
he did and who he did it for. Marius was cagy with details like his boss's
name and home base, but did say he was leaving on a trip south the next
day, and arranged to meet her in a village which he said was midway between
High Forge, the village nearest Villa Alabraxis, and his master's place.)
While she did this, I called upon the power of Orus to learn whether this
Marius was indeed of bad intent. (Detect Evil) The answer was a decided
positive. When he attempted to lure Tamara upstairs with him, she excused
herself and met with us outside. While she was explaining what little she
had learned, and we were debating whether to pursue this and how, she saw
and recognized the other party to the villainy she had overheard, a burly
half-orc, coming down the street. Shortly after he went in, Marius came
out. Robyn followed him, and we followed Robyn at some little distance.
When we caught up to Robyn in an alley between a lodging house and a
stable, he had detected, through the keyhole, that Marius was alone with
two canvas bags big enough to hold bodies. Again calling upon the power of
Orus, I determined that the bags contained living beings. It being clear
now that we were dealing with kidnappers and that Tamara's fears had been
justified, we debated our next move, whether to burst in on Marius, or to
pursue Tamara's proposal that she gain admittance quietly by pretending to
have changed her mind and followed him for indecent purposes. While we
were discussing this, we heard the half-orc returning, and hid; however,
Fergus, being a large man, was detected. During the ensuing melee, I
gained access to the room and cut open the canvas bags to release the woman
and boy contained therein; alas, they were drugged, and my not being
present in the alley prevented my healing Fergus immediately when he was
laid low. My attempt to save him was inadequate, and by the time the
vigiles arrived, it was too late for him... Fergus, Robyn, and Tamara all
fought valiantly, killing the half-orc and terrifying Marius so that he
abandoned his victims and escaped. The vigiles are presently looking for him.
(Not certain that it would work, Sofia used the "Deathwatch" spell to see
if she could find out how many people were in the room. Ben allowed it,
with the caveat for the future that all she got was an inventory list of
people in the AOE; this spell cannot be used for targeting or for detecting
invisible foes. Fergus convinced the half-orc that he was merely sleeping
off a drunk, then attacked him from behind when he turned away. This
proved to be a mistake. The half-orc got a +4 strength bonus and, since we
had been running around outfitted for a peaceful town, our armor classes
and weapons were not good. Not realizing just how bad the situation was
about to get, Robyn and Sofia left Fergus and Tamara to deal with the
half-orc and waited by the door for Marius to come out. He did, and Robin
attacked him from behind, but Sofia ran in to try to get the victims out.
This would have worked better if they had been conscious, but they weren't.
While she was determining that they were drugged but alive, she was
suddenly notified by the Deathwatch spell that Fergus had dropped.
Unfortunately, rushing to his side involved giving both bad guys attacks of
opportunity against her, and she dropped to 0 hot points. What I should
have done then was "heal minor wounds" on myself (bringing myself up to 1)
and then "cure light wounds" on Fergus, but I thought I was unconscious.
By the time I realized what I could have done and got permission to
reality-wash it, Al had already started making another character, and told
me not to bother, so we decided that Sofia panicked and crawled to the end
of the alley screaming for the cops. She feels very guilty about this.
Tamara was also rendered unconscious, so it looked very bad for Robyn there
for a minute. When Robin finished off the half-orc and Marius heard the
vigiles coming, he ran off.)
The woman is a plebeian war widow from (Neighboring Country) (Ben had
forgotten the part of his notes with her name and the name of the place)
who has no idea why she and her son were kidnaped. After the Temple
revived her, she had nowhere to go, so Tamara and I had her to sleep in our
room. Uncle Lucius arrived in good health and spirits about midmorning
(Ryan, you probably came in with him), and you may imagine the reluctance
with which I gave him the news. He did not give me a word of blame, thank
goodness, and permitted me to hire the widow as a chambermaid. He also
authorized me to arrange Fergus's funeral and to hire his replacement. My
options for hiring, on short notice and in this provincial area, were
limited; but I found someone who may be acceptable, though a barbarian.
His name is Alfred, and he says his ambitions are to join the Emperor's
Guard and earn a good nickname.
We have been in a great bustle making the final preparations to go out to
the Villa, and I have stayed up late to write these lines to you. You must
treasure up the excitement of this letter, for I am sure I am about to
embark on a life of country dullness, spiced perhaps with domestic malice,
as Uncle has some political rivals in the area. You must write and tell me
all the gossip... (personal stuff snipped).
(Sofia doesn't want to worry her family, but from the locational clues
Tamara got from Marius our employer believes he can identify a particular
political rival as Marius's boss. Since he is also a senator, his minions
are protected from much legal action - as are we. It also seems probable
that the widow is not being entirely honest when she says she doesn't know
why she was kidnaped. She was snatched in a different country and kept
alive and together with her son at some trouble, and she claims to have
only a plebian widow's normal amount of money. This is no random snatch or
kidnaping for profit. There should be something deep going on, and by
keeping her in the household we are asking for more trouble. There's no
point saving her and then turning her loose to get kidnaped again, though.)
In post-morteming the evening, we decided that Ben had figured the
challenge rating wrong and out-classed us a bit (as a party of four 1st
level characters, the rules suggest we should have had a CR1 encounter, but
instead we were given a CR 4 encounter, resulting in one dead PC, two more
at 0 or less, and the last man standing having lost two-thirds of his hit
points by the time Marius ran off), but that a few bad decisions and
unfamiliarity with the rules on the players' parts were just as responsible
for Fergus's death and the nearness of disaster. If Fergus hadn't clonked
the orc on the head, which he wouldn't have done if Al had realized before
clonking him that Fergus wouldn't have worn his chain shirt around town, or
if I had stopped to look up the rules on dying when I first went to 0, we
would have done better. Ben probably was not anticipating that my
character's inhibitions would keep her from participating in combat at all,
either! The up-side of all this is that the three survivors get bonus xp
for the difficulty of the encounter and for rescuing the victims. Carrie
will probably also get an extra xp award, because she role-played her
eyelashes half to death trying to get information out of the Marius.
Last Updated:
Saturday, 26-Apr-2003 21:27:39 CDT
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