Sean's Campaign - Session #20

This session consisted of a lot of role-playing and a lot of screwing around. (The podcast has had a lot of editing, but at some point I gave up. I just took out things that could get us in trouble. Good luck!)

No Allen this week. It’s probably for the best because he gets a little twitchy when we screw around too much.

Then again, Joy and Brian were probably a little sick of the screwing around when it got later. But oh well, Dale, Aaron, Justin, and I were having fun.

Aaron was in rare form too. He’s usually pretty ready for gaming once we start, but not this day. He was really into thinking up acronyms for Artemis’s title or offering “helpful” advice on non-gaming stuff.

Justin was his usual self.

In spite of the screwing around, they were able to get quite a bit done; mostly because it was a 90% role-playing night.

We finally came up with an acceptable title for Artemis – Commandant of the Maratheelian War College. All it really means is that Artemis has a place that won’t throw him out immediately.

We resumed the game at a point about an hour after the assault on the city began.

The last of that suicide wave had been repelled, but with great cost. Several sections of the city wall were heavily damaged, but not ruined. Much of the city guard did not make it through that hour. And even though the monks and knights of Lataan average from eighth to tenth level, they do not have any combat clerics or mages, making things much harder on them.

The party was exhausted in many ways. Although we only played out the one battle, I told them that they had spent the rest of the hour moving to a new section of the wall, repelling the attackers, and then moving to another section of the wall and repeating.

The party started discussing options about what they could do. Afterwards they made a decision and needed to get the cooperation of the city leaders.

They found the two leaders of the Shining Orders on a raised platform with a mob of angry and scare people harassing them with questions about the safety of the city and their plans. The leader of the Order of the Shining Fist was serene and not speaking. The knight captain of the Order of the Shining Shield was not fairing as well as he was trying to calm down a mob of people that were unwilling to listen. His short temper did nothing to help things with the crowd now his rapidly thinning hair.

Artemis, being the most socially adept and charismatic person of the group who hadn’t ticked off one of these two leaders, disrupted the mob’s attention by using his flying boots to fly over them to land on the platform and talk with the leaders.

As discreetly as he could, he told them that the group had a way of raising the money get the aid of the dragon and to possibly get help from Endrin and Maratheelia. Ari (escorted by Sorra) would teleport a handful of scared, rich merchants to Endrin at 10,000gp a person (with a return trip in two weeks if needed) (remember I’ve changed Teleport). Then the rest of the group would take that money to the dragon and get his aid. While in Endrin, Sorra and Ari would talk with the king there to get any aid he could possibly give. After that was taken care of they would teleport to Maratheelia to attempt gain aid from the elves as well, and then they would return to Lataan.

The leaders agreed to this and put the party in protective custody (the good kind) and taken the basement of the mayor’s mansion.

Side note: luckily the party had not mentioned anything about the mayor, as the city had not released to the public that the mayor had been murdered. That could have led to something unfortunate.

The party spelled out their plan better to the two men in private. The knight captain had trouble comprehending that outsiders to the town were willing to do so much when they could simply leave. The leader of the monks wanted to be sure that the party understood that they were exploiting the fears of desperate people in order to help a larger number of people.

The party was told to go ahead and prepare to execute their plan in the morning while the knights gathered the merchant house leaders for the decision-making process for the morning as well. The knights would also guard the mansion as well as they could, but were told to be prepared for anything as several (but not all) of the merchant houses were not exactly the nicest people in town (opportunists and bullies are good descriptive nouns for them).

The party rested as well as possible and they posted guards to make sure they were safe.

The next morning the party took an hour and prepped for the day. During that time they could hear some arguing upstairs but couldn’t make it out (they found out later it was from the merchants wanting to bring their bodyguards with them to the meeting, which the knights prevented).

Eventually 12 men were escorted to the meeting by knights, 2 men each (father and eldest son) from 6 merchant houses.

The group really enjoyed the role-playing for this bit.

It was safe to say that these men were not good-aligned and they were definitely the alpha-male type.

But the party held their own; when the merchants pushed, the party pushed back, and then some.

The party explained to the merchants that they had this one opportunity to help the city and save their skins at the same time. Leaving by boat is impossible and the roads are dangerous and probably guarded. Immediately one man pushed and demanded special treatment. Artemis told him no, so the man argued with him, so Artemis to leave and not return. Guards escorted the man and his son out before it came to blows.

Next one of them tried to negotiate the price down to 1000gp from the 10,000gp. That fell upon deaf ears.

Another promised to pay once he and his family were safely in Endrin. That went nowhere as well.

One family had to bow out because there is no way they could afford the price. The party paid no mind.

Eventually one family bought 4 “tickets for Ari Airlines” and another jumped in for 5.

This left only one open slot, and one older man jumped in and bought the last one for 15,000gp. This infuriated the man’s son.

The merchants who were going were told to be back in an hour with the money and just enough to get by.

During that hour someone tried to set the mayor’s mansion on fire, but the knights took care of that quickly enough.

When the 10 passengers returned they were thoroughly searched (against their will) and then presented to Ari and Sorra.

They noted that the last passenger was not there, but his son was. When they questioned him about it, he reported that his father had a horrible accident when they got back home and was killed. That didn’t help the party’s feelings of the situation much, but there wasn’t much they could do about it other than keep a close eye on the fellow.

One casting of a spell later and Ari and Sorra teleported away with 10 aristocrats/merchants in tow.

Artemis, Zelast, Ysilia, Lindo, Trebor, and a few guards gathered up 100,000 of the 105,000 gold onto a litter, and began their journey to the Ring of Death to meet with the dragon.

Endrin only took minor notice of 12 new people appearing at their town fountain.

Ari and Sorra headed straight to the king of Endrin’s castle. They had ten followers at that point whether they liked it or not.

Just before entering the main gates a nervous young gentleman introduced himself to the party and asked to speak with Princess Arianna privately. When pushed he told her that he was sent by the daughter of the king of Endrin. Ari agreed to go with him and left Sorra to talk with the king (and deal with the merchants).

When she finally was able to meet with the king, she explained to him the situation. The king was unable to help as he had to men to spare, especially not for something such as that. But Aaron did roll a natural 20 on his diplomacy check, and since I (slightly) screwed Sorra over last time for rolling a natural 1, I had to give some help from the king. It was in the shape of healing wand, some Keoghtom’s Ointment, the weakest Necklace of Fireballs, and a pair of Eyes of the Eagle.

(The merchants were more or less ignored after that as well.)

While Sorra was talking with the king, Ari was talking with that king’s daughter.

It turns out that in just a couple of weeks the king will be holding games to entice heroes to come to Endrin from all around. The centerpiece of these games will be a one on one gladiatorial competition, with the grand prize being the princess’s hand in marriage (not Ari).

The princess understandably does not like this idea, but is unwilling to defy her father as Ari did hers.

So the princess needs a champion on her side. Someone who understands her situation and does not qualify as marrying material (and isn’t from Rhode Island).

Ari agrees to return to fight for the princess, but only if the princess helps with the situation in Lataan. The princess agrees.

Later, after some scroll shopping, Sorra and Ari meet up again and have a chat with Bull and the Roaring Bull Inn. They ask if he knows of anyone willing to help. He doesn’t, but he’s also surprised that the party is doing so much help.

Then 3 large, armored soldiers and a wizard enter the inn.

“Are you Ari?”
“Um…yes.”
“We were sent by the princess. We are yours to command.”
“Sweet.”

Shortly thereafter 6 people ported from Endrin to Maratheelia.

Their luck wasn’t so good in Maratheelia. The elves, still recovering from their recent shake up had less than Endrin did. The group was able to get one volunteer warmage from the academy, and she only joined when Artemis’s name was mentioned.

Some more scroll shopping and 7 people ported from Maratheelia to Lataan.

At that point in time the rest of the group was near the Ring of Death, with the expected 500’ high red dragon honor guard keeping tabs on them.

This time the dragon talked directly with the party. They explained to him that the previous talks were sabotaged by the mayor’s wife, who they believe to be a succubus, and now they’ve brought 100,000 gold in treasure with them.

Note: This next part Brian totally predicted. The word “godfather” got tossed around a bit at this point.

He explained to them that he didn’t care about the city’s minor issues, and the price was no longer 100,000gp. He demanded the 100,000 gold plus 50% of the city’s port profits for the next 100 years.

The party said that they didn’t have that kind of authority from the city so they couldn’t accept that deal. The dragon understood, so he told them to drop the litter of treasure and return to the city. At that point the party realized that they were in no place to bargain and had no good options. Their options were to head back to the city with nothing, head back to the city with a dragon as a highly paid ally, or to fight the dragon (and more) without two of their strongest members.

The party agreed to the dragon’s terms. In return he gave them some useful information.

First off, the city was doomed without his help. Probably wouldn’t survive an hour.

Next the kraken was controlling the weather to make it dark enough for the horde’s orc forces to be able to attack at nearly any time of day. The dragon stated that neither he nor his brethren would attack the kraken as it could pluck them out of the skies with its tentacles and he had no intention of fighting that thing under the water.

With that the party headed back to the city.

The next afternoon the party reunited in the city and told the knight captain the situation. When they got to the part about the dragon, he had to be held back until he calmed down. He cooled down and accepted the issue when the party made it clear to him that the city would be doomed without the dragon’s aid.

Next the party decided to try to take out the kraken, somehow. They didn’t.

The kraken sent some sea trolls and drowned (from MM3 and nerfed by me) to the shore to attack the party. With a lot of difficulty (combat and breathing) the party took care of that inconvenience.

They heard a roar in the distance that they believed to be an irritated kraken as it left the nearby area…for now.

Next week, another big fight.