Chris (Pawnbroker), Nick (Mungo), Little Chris (Brakan), and Tim are all here. Tim is not playing Laerynthe this session. Instead, he is playing Shokek, one of the group's turgosk hirelings while Laerynthe spends time in Paiden. April (Patrisha Veka) is not here due to a convention.
The actual character group currently consists of: Pawnbroker, Mungo, Brakan, Patrisha Veka, Shokek, Kuchok, Pakak and Nop.
The characters depart from Lagan's Rock on the 242nd day of Abbatine Year 856. They are heading towards the oorthoi villages on the banks of the Paiden River, intent upon learning the truth of the rumors of atrocities committed against the oorthoi by Lecutor Amon's troops. They estimate that the journey will take about three or four days' of travel, and will use up their supply of food.
Meanwhile, Chabot leads the people of his Plaza off towards Kashaad. It will take them at least ten to fifteen days to reach the tributaries of Abbatine's Great River. In that time, they will have to traverse the Tadooban Forest, which is infested with atraphors trained by the Ganbell Clan to attack humans.
On the second day of travel, the characters encounter a substantial trail through the woods. Pawnbroker examines the trail, and estimates that it was made by at least 200 men and 100 beasts including breels and na-lizards. The trail is fresh, not more than a half-day old, and heads towards Paiden. The characters decide to continue on towards the oorthoi villages.
At the end of their second day of travel, the characters make camp and prepare food. While most of the group is arguing whether to head on or camp out, Brakan spots an ear-runner (a small, eight-legged forest scavenger) lurking near the edge of the firelight. Brakan points the creature out to Shokek, who rushes out and kills it with a spear. All the turgosk eat it. Unfortunately, the creature was carrying the chills, and both Shokek and Pakak catch the disease. By next morning they are both visibly ill.
The next morning the characters bundle the sick turgosk in bedrolls and load them on the pascullo. Several characters notice that a pack of ear-runners is now following them.
The characters arrive at River Bend Village, the oorthoi village closest to Paiden, around midmorning. They find the village still standing and inhabited, though the residents are clearly concerned about the immediate future. The characters are met by five stout oorthoi fishers bearing crossbows, who take them to Abu, the Headwoman of the village. Along the way, the characters estimate that River Bend Village has a population of about 300 oorthoi, of whom maybe 80 are adult males.
Abu meets the characters in the village's Common Lodge, and offers them jaya from a copper service. Half of the lodge is occupied by an infirmary, where an oorthoi healer is treating the wounds of some fifteen injured oorthoi. Abu tells the characters that the injured are among some forty refugees from Good Fishing Village, about a day's leisurely paddle downstream. The refugees arrived in the last two days, bearing stories of aggressive outlanders who demanded first to search the village, and then to burn it to "remove contamination".
Abu also explains that the five oorthoi with crossbows all served on the Paiden City Guard, and know how to fight well. Unfortunately, none of the other villagers are good fighters. She is quite concerned about the intentions of the outlanders, and what to do when they arrive at River Bend Village.
The characters ask Abu if the village healer is able to treat the sickness that has incapacitated Shokek and Pakak. She admits that while their healer has some magical skills, oorthoi are not susceptible to disease so he does not know the Cure Disease spell. She does promise that he will care for the sick turgosk as well as he can until the rest of the group returns.
The characters tell Abu that they will head downriver to Good Fishing Village to see what the outlanders (who they presume are Lecutor Amon's troops) are doing. Abu provides two boats, and two local fishermen to act as guides and paddlemen. While the characters investigate, Abu will prepare the villagers to move across the river, as the characters believe that Lecutor Amon's men do not have boats or magics to let them easily cross the river.
The characters' two guides are Chobu and Mabben, both squat oorthoi with arms made powerful by years of paddling along the Paiden river. The oorthoi tell the characters that with great effort, they can reach Good Fishing Village in as little as a half day, though all the paddlers will be exhausted (-8 fatigue) by the time they arrive. The characters agree to travel at this pace.
The characters spot a military camp halfway to Good Fishing Village. They are easily able to determine that the troops are Lecutor Amon's men from the white-triangle-on-orange banners flying above the tents. Soldiers fire arrows at the characters' boats at a long range (250 meters), hitting Chobu and Pawnbroker for minimal effect. Mungo returns fire and hits a shield-man with a crossbow bolt coated in twisting poison. The characters then return to River Bend Village, reaching it by nightfall. They promptly advise Abu to evacuate. She gives the order and starts moving her people to the other side of the river.
Near River Bend Village, the Paiden River is about 150 meters wide. Abu tells the characters that each round trip across will take about two hours, including time to load and unload the boats. She has enough boats to move about fifty people per trip, so the whole evacuation will take about twelve hours.
While the evacuation is underway, Abu tells the character that she will not be able to spare a boat to let the characters cross the river. She does provide the characters with a hut to sleep in, as they are all exhausted from their trip downriver. Pawnbroker spends some time fortifying the place, to ensure that the group won't be overrun by either ear-runners (which have become overwhelmingly common in the area according to several of the oorthoi) or Lecutor Amon's troops.
While Pawnbroker is working upon the hut, Brakan talks to one of the crossbow-wielding oorthoi, and shows him the archaic crossbow the elder at Lagan's Rock gave him. The oorthoi tell him that the string is bad (which Brakan had already guessed) and that half of the bolts were rotted through. He restrings the crossbow for Brakan, and gives him some new bolts, enough to give Brakan 20 good shots.
During the night, Kuchok and Mungo head off to hunt ear-runners with two of the local oorthoi warriors. They manage to shoot a total of eleven of the creatures, which they place upon the drying racks. They hope that when Lecutor Amon's troops reach the village, their breels will feed upon the creatures and contract chills from them.
After the hunt, one of the oorthoi tells Mungo that they were able to bag an unusually large number of the creatures in just a few hours' hunting. The characters start to speculate on why there are so many ear-runners around, especially since they appear to all be infected with the chills. They conclude that the beasts are probably Abbatine's doing, that he is using them to slowly destroy Prince Tonnalk's troops without visibly raising his hand against them.
The characters wake the next morning (the 246th day of Abbatine Year 856) to find that River Bend Village is deserted. They also find that Pakak has managed to recover from the chills, though Shokek remains infected. The oorthoi left two boats for the characters, which the characters promptly use to cross the river. Pawnbroker uses his Animal Handling to make the characters' pascullo swim across, but fails to control it on the way out. Kuchok is forced to run into the forest to recover the thing while the other characters go about their business.
Over the last day, the oorthoi have established a tent city on the far shore of the Paiden River. Pawnbroker and Mungo convince Abu that she needs to move the villagers farther back from the shore, and conceal her people's presence. After some conversation, she agrees and the oorthoi break down their tents. Meanwhile, Pawnbroker, Mungo and Brakan spend about a half day rigging camouflage for the oorthoi's boats.
Later that day, the characters spot five troops in River Bend Village: two breel-handlers (with breels), two archers, and one shield-man. The soldiers investigate for a few minutes, and the two breels eat a diseased ear-runner from the drying racks. Very abruptly, a priest traveling under a Haste spell arrives, talks to the soldiers, and leads them back towards the camp.
That night, small fire spirits are visible patrolling through the empty huts of River Bend Village (fire elementals with ST 2, DX 12, IQ 8, HT 2; base cost of 6 to create).
The characters decide that they have done all they can for the oorthoi villagers, and head back towards Paiden to see what has happened there. The journey takes them about a day, most of which is uneventful. However, some distance from the outlying plantations the characters start to smell a distinctive sooty scent in the air.
They quickly encounter a field of pod-plants, flooded with water blackened with char and soot. Beyond the field, they find a battlefield strewn with the burnt corpses of hundreds of Holy City humans. All indications (especially the obvious use of magic to create a conflagration across the area) are that the massacre was performed by Prince Tonnalk's troops.
While the rest of the characters carefully skirt the edges of the battlefield, staying as close to the banks of the Paiden River as possible, the three turgosk rush straight across. The movement attracts the notice of a hunting breel that had been scavenging the carcasses of the slain. It rushes at them, and harries the unfortunate Kuchok to death while Shokek and Pakak run to the comparative safety of the riverbank. Kuchok manages to land several good kicks upon the creature before it kills him, weakening it enough that Brakan is able to fry it with a well-placed explosive fireball. The spend a moment to bid Kuchok's spirit farewell, and continue on somewhat more carefully.
The characters pass several more destroyed plantations until they look down upon Paiden. The city is surrounded by devastation, and several sections of the city wall have been collapsed. Fires are visible within city, and thousands of troops surround the city.
While the characters are examining the situation around Paiden, all but Brakan are dazed by a spell apparently from nowhere. A group of twenty Living Weapons appear around them, some from behind cover and others from thin air. Brakan convinces them that he and the other characters are not part of Prince Tonnalk's forces, thereby avoid an unpleasant and one-sided bloodbath.
The leader of the Living Weapons introduces himself as Fesh, once of Pellwen's Plaza. He takes the characters to a burnt-out plantation, where there are nearly thirty wounded: fifteen Living Weapons (eight with the chills), ten Folk (five with the chills), and two Food-Makers (one missing an arm, probably savaged by a breel and one with the chills). Fesh assumes that because the characters are not part of Prince Tonnalk's forces, they are from Paiden and will want his help in defeating Prince Tonnalk. To prove his good intentions, he gives the characters a magical weapon: a curved broadsword with an inlaid hilt in the Mountainshadow style taken from a dead officer (Item Index 65). The blade is a normal broadsword, enchanted with +1 Puissance.
The characters talk with Fesh about the situation for a while. Fesh estimates that there are about five thousand troops in Prince Tonnalk's army, a total that easily dwarfs any the defenders of Paiden can home to muster. To make matters worse, Kuchok notes that there are many turgosk inside Paiden, which isn't going to be good in a siege.
Pawnbroker tells Fesh that if he can get the dead officer's armor, he can sneak into the cap and poison their water. Fesh sends some men, who promptly return with the body, clad in the ornately filigreed armor typical of Mountainshadow nobility. To further equip himself for his journey, Pawnbroker borrows one vial of twisting poison and the jhokk bracelet from Mungo.
Pawnbroker walks up to the outer gate of an encampment flying a red-with-green-circle banners. He tells the guards at the gate that he is Marble, son of Lind, from Lecutor Suek's troops. When the guard asks his business, he says that he has important news of two threats: the "rotting-skin things" are harboring Spyral contamination, and the small eight-legged things are carrying disease. The guard allows him to pass.
Pawnbroker makes his way to a field kitchen, where he poisons a cistern and a food pot with the twisting poison. He then heads to the breel pens, where the creatures are being tended to by a half-dozen breel-masters and two priests. He asks them how the breels are doing, and where he can get some breel repellent so he may safely return to his detachment. A priest tells him that the breels are not doing well, that many are sick because they have eaten the small eight-legged scavengers that recently appeared in great numbers. The priest also tells him that he can get breel repellent from the Master of Beasts in a nearby tent.
Pawnbroker talks to the beastmaster, who realizes that though he says he's from Lecutor Suek, he bears the insignia of Lecutor Challon. Pawnbroker kills the man and takes a dozen vials of anti-breel potion. He then spreads chaos in the camp with the aid of the jhokk bracelet and his ever-changing suit (which he changes to look like the armor of a soldier from Lecutor Challon's troops). He finally escapes the camp by making it appear that the horrible creature that had been terrifying the camp (himself, under the seeming of a jhokk) had scaled the wall. He arranges to be a part of the sally force sent out to search for the thing, and then simply walks away from the other troops. He then returns to Fesh and the rest of the group to rest for the night.
The characters are awakened early in the morning by a pillar of fire erupting from one side of the Mardakan camp Pawnbroker had visited the night before. The characters quickly conclude that the twisting poison Pawnbroker dumped in the water supply had had the desired effect.
Laerynthe rejoins the group around midday of the 249th day of Abbatine Year 856. He had been caught outside the city when Prince Tonnalk's troops arrived six days ago. They led off with pillars of flame, and immediately slaughtered many Holy City humans. Laerynthe had been able to watch most of the siege thus far, and tells the characters what he knows.
The Prince's troops have attacked Paiden twice. The first time mopped up the shantytowns and was very one-sided: Tonnalk's priests cleared one wall of the city with a pillar of fire and shattered some of the walls. About half of the Holy City folk were slain in the first attack. Many of the rest scattered into the forests, and between one-tenth and one quarter fled into Paiden. Of the survivors, half are Living Weapons and half are Folk: most Folk and Food-Makers died in the attack.
The second assault was only two days ago, and wasn't as uneven: Paiden's magicians managed some countermagic, and casualties among Tonnalk's troops were substantial. Many of Tonnalk's troops have contracted the chills, and are too weak to fight. Even more significant, most of the hunting breels are diseased, as they had been eating ear-runners on the battlefields while they scavenged. The local population of ear-runners seems to have exploded, especially since Prince Tonnalk's men arrived.
Prince Tonnalk is with the army, in a pavilion on the other side of the city. He may have two Maelstrom Walkers with him: two large palanquins, sealed to all view, are placed near his pavilion. Tonnalk also has a detachment of crocodile-headed Created troops and two small units of bat-folk (who appear to be used primarily as messengers).
Among the Holy City survivors, the Living Weapons are confused: they were supposed to protect the Folk, most of whom are dead, and follow the orders of the Food-Makers, who are largely also dead. The entire Holy City social order is shattered.
Laerynthe has been with several groups of Holy City survivors, and has been able to get most of them to follow him as a "native guide", but hasn't managed to get them to be loyal to him. The Living Weapons are too used to following Food-Makers. Laerynthe thinks that the Living Weapons are unlikely to give their loyalty to the likes of him, but could be persuaded to follow a Food-Maker (or some reasonable stand-in) to the Edge of the World.
The characters quickly conclude that they are unlikely to be able to assemble a direct assault upon Prince Tonnalk's army without effectively committing suicide. However, Pawnbroker proposes a guerrilla strategy of raiding: the Mardakan troops are using small fire-spirits as scouts, and normally send fairly small detachments (backed up by hunting breels) to deal with the refugee groups the spirits locate. With appropriate preparation, the characters and Fesh's Living Weapons could massacre one or two of these groups, damaging the already-low morale of Prince Tonnalk's troops. Laerynthe and the Living Weapons say that most sally forces number 10-15 troops and 8-10 hunting breels.
With this in mind, the characters take stock of their resources.
There are currently 72 Holy City folk in the ruined plantation:
In addition to the Holy City folk, there are the characters (Pawnbroker, Mungo, Laerynthe, Brakan and Patrisha Veka), their two surviving turgosk warriors (Shokek and Pakak) and Nop, a singularly motivated Folk of Chabot's Plaza (with DX 13 and Stealth-15).
The characters want to be able to prepare a series of traps for their quarry. Preparation time and necessary skills are listed in the table below. In most cases, common tools (shovels, mattocks, picks, knives) can be looted from the ruins of the plantation the characters currently occupy.
|
Task |
Time |
Skills & Equipment |
|---|---|---|
| Dig Pit Trap | 1/2 person-day | none |
| Dig Pit Trap | 1/4 person-day | Mining (all turgosk) |
| Finish Pit Trap | 1/4 person-day | Traps or Camouflage; 12 stakes |
| Make Stakes | 20 per day | Traps or Woodworking; knife |
| Make Stakes | 10 per day | knife |
| Make Ankle-breaker trap | 1/8 person-day | Traps; 4 stakes |
| Teach skill (1 point of experience) | 5 days | Teaching; can teach up to 10 people |
The session ends on the morning of the 250th day of Abbatine Year 856, near the end of the High Hot Season. The group is holed up in the main house of a devastated plantation once belonging to the Cassand Family.
Pawnbroker, Mungo and Brakan each get three experience points. Laerynthe, who was only active as a character for part of the session, gets two experience points. ÿ