This is the first session of the game, so much of the time is spent creating characters. Our merry group consists of: Jade, Chris, Nick, Gareth, Tim and April.
|
Player |
Character |
Description |
|---|---|---|
| Nick | Brother Xavier | A worn and haggard Avestite, who looks though he has seen better days. He was dispatched to the Cathedral to carry a message from an Inquisitor in the Delphi capital to the local Bishop. |
| Jade | Del Tarrant | A Charioteer of medium height and dark hair with unusual, blue-on-blue eyes with no irises. A friendly sort, who was trapped in the city by the weather after delivering Brindal Karth and Brother Xavier to the Cathedral. |
| Tim | Brindal Karth | Low-ranked Hazat, at one time a sheriff on Aragon. A smallish man who looks everywhere, all the time. His movements are precise and his clothing clean-cut. He looks as if his rigidly-precise control were slowly cracking. He arrived in Lenbow some time ago, escorting Brother Xavier to the Cathedral. As the game starts, he has not shaved for some days. |
| Chris | Peter Sangaree | Exiled Aragon native, an Engineer and onetime associate of Brindal Karth. 24 years old, dressed in grey and festooned with tools. Lest anyone suspect that he favors subtlety over direct action, his favored weapon is a huge assault rifle. |
| Gareth | Kotraz Norga | The "runt" of the litter, undersized for a Vorox. The bastard son of a Vorox noble, exiled from his homeworld and raised by humans. His aptitude for technology has landed him a comission with the Engineers, while his need for work has drawn him to the Wickingham Number Eight fusion plant. |
| April | Sister Joann | A Brother Battle warrior who grew up on De Moley, who has known nothing but the order all her life. She has recently been working for the Cathedral in Lenbow. |
Each character's beginning wealth was determined by the rules on page 189 of the Player's Guide. In general, this had the unsurprising effect of making the one Noble (who had also acquired a substantial quantity of Riches) rather flush with cash, while the two Priests (who had abjured Riches as injurious to their spiritual development) quite impecunious. Everyone else pretty much spread out in the spectrum in between.
Del Tarrant, of the Charioteers, distinguished himself right away by using massive numbers of Benefice points to acquire an orbital lander (a Runt-class ship). To be able to afford it, he burdened it with a series of disturbing problems, some of which are sure to haunt him later on. The ship is called the Remora, and is currently berthed at the landing field in the Port Quarter.
The characters are all in the throes of evening, midway through the long Lenbow winter. For their own reasons, they have all ventured to the City of Wonders, a noted local gambling hall, where they are seated at the same table, located in an alcove shielded from the rest of the building by a curtain.
Of a sudden, the characters hear screaming and the sounds of a disturbance from the alcove across the way. Brindal Karth rushes out instantly to see two or three figures fleeing down the corridor and through a door marked "Employees Only." He dodges past the near-hysterical serving-wench, slips through the door into a short passageway upon the heels of the fleeing men, follows them into the kitchen, then runs square into a cook carrying a huge pot of goulash. The three men make good their escape through the rear entrance of the kitchen.
Sister Joann follows Brindal Karth out into the corridor, then looks into the alcove across the way. She quickly sees a body lying slumped across the table, clearly dead of multiple knife wounds in the throat and upper chest. Spying the serving-wench, she shakes some sense into the girl's head and convinces her to go find some officials. That missing accomplished, she inspects the alcove and notes that there are four sets of mud boots and several cloaks in the alcove, plus an empty scabbard hanging on the chair next to the chair directly across from the dead man's chair. She also discovers that the dead man had a jumpgate cross about his neck, indicating that he was a priest in his life.
Peter Sangaree follows the other two, and also starts looking around the alcove, studiously avoiding the body, but paying particular attention to any valuables that the departed men might have left behind. He spots a gorgeously-made blade left lying beneath the table, opposite the side where the body is lying. Subsequent examination proves that the knife is fairly long, clearly the work of a master, and covered in blood. It also has a Hawkwood crest upon the hilt. Peter and Sister Joann then take a closer look at the cloaks in the alcove. They determine that all of them are fairly expensive in cut or material One of them is clearly the cloak of a Hawkwood officer, while a second is quite ostentatious.
While Brindal Karth, Sister Joann and Peter are investigating, the remaining characters spend their time ignoring the goings-on, studiously playing baccan and expropriating the chips left on the table by the other characters.
Most of their investigations complete, Peter Sangaree and Sister Joann head for the front of the building, looking for authority figures and their checked weapons. They encounter Lewis Eyebolt and his men heading the other way.
Lewis Eyebolt, the Captain of Security for City of Wonders, shows up trailing a half-dozen unwashed goons and promptly takes charge of the situation. He gets an explanation of the events from the characters (including the rather helpful information from Brindal Karth that there may be tracks out behind the building), gets all their names and current residences, and explains the way things are. Specifically, because the deceased was an ordained member of the Church, the murder will need to be investigated by a qualified member of the Inquisition. There being none in Lenbow, the Bishop of St. Anatasius Cathedral will have to call for one. Because the city is both isolated and engulfed in storm, it will surely take several days for the Inquisitor to show up. Worse yet, it is the normal technique of the Inquisition to cut a wide swath in any investigation, even with their witnesses are cooperating. Brother Xavier, the former Inquisitor, confirms that the Inquisition can show great zeal in hunting down the guilty. Lewis Eyebolt urges the characters to remain accessible and in the city until such time as they are called.
After Lewis Eyebolt finishes his speech, his men turn towards cleaning up the area with a disregard for normal investigative practices that Brindal Karth finds nothing short of horrifying. Father Xavier, noting two of Eyebolt's men carting the body off, orders them (with all the Impress he can muster) to give it over to him. After a short debate with Captain Eyebolt, the guards place the body in the employees' locker room for Father Xavier to examine. Father Xavier then mentions to Captain Eyebolt that he is going to take the body to the Cathedral, to which Captain Eyebolt exclaims, "Are you mad? We are arranging for a vehicle, so we can take it over without drawing attention!" Father Xavier is not particularly convinced by this line of reasoning, but he decides there is no reason to pick unnecessary fights with Captain Eyebolt when there are so many necessary ones to pursue.
Having determined that the body will remain in the locker room for several hours, Father Xavier searches it. He finds four things: several business cards describing the bearer as the Deacon Guillermo Feoss, Chief Money Counter of the St. Anatasius Cathedra; a money purse containing 350 Firebirds (a phenomenal sum that Father Xavier immediately takes possession of, that he might return it to the Church later); two decks of baccan cards, one opened and one sealed; and a serrated ceramsteel knife, half-drawn as if the owner didn't manage to clear it out of the scabbard before being slain.
As the characters head out of City of Wonders, they are invited into the cloakroom by a quiet, neatly-groomed man who is clearly not the same attendant who originally took their gear. He introduces himself as Gerald Forn, assistant to the Master of the house. He says his piece quickly and simply: the attentions of the Inquisition are never good for establishments like City of Wonders or the people who run them, and they can be equally bad for bystanders as well. Thus, it is in everyone's best interest to be able to present the Inquisitor with a quick, simple solution to the crime as soon as he arrives. The best solution would be to find the actual killer, but others might be almost as good. If the characters can manage something like this, City of Wonders would be happy to return the favor someday. Also, if the characters find that they need some help in arranging some kind of solution, City of Wonders will be perfectly willing to cooperate. Forn says all of this with as much subtlety as he can muster, but the characters seem to get the message (except for the Vorox, Kotraz Norga, who quickly becomes convinced that Forn wants tem to bribe him).
Brother Xavier and Sister Joann head to the St. Anatasius Cathedral to bring them the news of the death as quickly as possible. They reason that if the Chuch hears about the killing from them first, they will appear less guilty when the Inquisition eventually appears.
The two of them arrive at the Cathedral around an hour to midnight. Brother Xavier spends some time hammering upon the huge double doors of the Cathedral until Sister Joann points out that the doors are not locked, symbolic of the open arms of the Orthodoxy to the common peasantry. They look for a priest, and find Lucius Cross. He is understandably upset to hear the news, but admits that he is not completely surprised: Deacon Feoss did not live with the purity one might hope of an Orthodox priest, and often frequented questionable establishments, often in the company of Guildsmen. When the characters ask him if he knew any of Deacon Feoss' common associates, he says that he does not, but that a commoner friend of Deacon Feoss', the Day Watchman, Pablo Spear, might. Priest Cross gives the characters Spear's address.
While the two priests alert the Cathedral, Brindal Karth organizes the remaining characters to look for tracks in the mud outside City of Wonders. They manage to find three sets of footprints, two of them wearing what appear to be military boots. They also note that all three diverge quickly, as if they are just as interested in getting away from each other as they are in escaping City of Wonders. Unfortunately, they lose the trails when they cross more-traveled ways.
While the characters are out tracking, Brindal Karth tries to remember anything he can about the men he saw escapting the scene. He manages to recall that one of them was wearing an ostentatious velvet jerkin, and that the second was wearing a long coat of simple cut and fine material, but with what appeared to be smudges or scorch marks along the hem. Kotraz Norga, upon hearing this, thinks a moment, then says that many of the Kib Family masters working in the fusion furnaces affect long, fine coats. They particularly favor long coats, as they shield them from the cinders and hot metal shavings. However, their coats often become singed as a result.
The characters all reconvene at City of Wonders, where they speak to Rosemary and Sage, the two serving-wenches who served that table. Using a combination of Del Tarrent's incredible schmoozing and Brindal Karth's money (he bribes each of the serving-wenches with a whole Firebird), they learn a number of things:
The characters also show Gerald Forn the blade, which they have previously determined has a maker's mark upon it. Forn examines it for a while, then whispers out that it is the work of a local artisan, the Master Bladewright Letitia Kib, whose workshop is located in the lower levels of the North Face fusion plant.
The session ends with the characters saying goodbye to Gerald Forn late at night at his office in City of Wonders. Each character gains three experience points.