31 Flavors of Justice

The Chaotic shadow organization called The Assemblage was reeling from our successes against them. They sent messages to threaten us and even sent a guy to wrap up loose ends by shutting down the remaining local operations and disappearing any leftover operatives. We flipped the script on them and bagged their regional manager of loose end snipping. Here's what happened.

Sloane, Slaid, and Vylas had a wealth of hooks to choose from for adventure, but the nagging Assemblage activity won out for session. Instead of chasing treasure maps or mountain temples, we opted to hunt the hunters locally after they threatened Sloane's mom's bakery The Muffin Top. Mom ain't in the game, she's off limits.

We mulled over ideas, most of which were long play, wide net rumormongering, until we interviewed the Dockmaster and a plan began to form. He had been visited twice by a well-spoken fellow in a dark hooded cloak embroidered with some version of the Assemblage's variable emblem, sometimes bug arms and sometimes human arms and sometimes robit arms surrounding the central logo. I thought it'd be real convenient if we had access to Locate Object and could just divining-rod our way to the villain by finding his cloak.

Turns out we had a potion! We thought. But we had sold it in downtime. Ok plan B, let's hire someone. We went to our contact at the Temple of Turas who pulled a string to get us a mage from the Tower of Knowledge in exchange for security and a nice lunch. Right up our alley.

My experience with Locate Object has been mixed, the distances in wilderness and dungeons where I adventure the most being generally greater. It's pretty effective in a city though, especially when you can search by grid and know what you're looking for. It didn't take long for us to find our way back to the Tower of Knowledge of all places. Our mage ally happened to be a ranking officer in the organization and was pretty sour about cultist shenanigans showing up in his house.

A student's room held the cloak, a middling level mage who passed all the background checks for admittance. Vylas and his right hand elf Gilfandel loitered near the stairwell in case anything spicy happened while the rest searched the room. A couple nerds showed up and looked curious but kept on about their business. Then our guy showed up, saw us tossing his room, and tried to run. The elves were on him quick and brought him back.

Man what is this wizard's name that's helping us, the DM wondered. Well clearly it's Mister Wizard. So Mr. Mister Wizard interrogated the kid, happy to clean his own house while helping us hunt down the cultists in the city. The kid gave up his Mentor, who he was supposed to meet in a few days, and we offered him his life in exchange for his help in a sting operation. He agreed since he was pretty sure the Mentor was just gonna kill him anyway.

The site was a cafe, a tea house of decent quality. The elves infiltrated the staff, Slaid and his crew took up position across the way, and Sloane established a consignment deal with her mom's bakery and scheduled a delivery right at the time of the meet. All the kid had to do was play his part to lure in the Mentor and we'd nab him. Or kill him. You know, whatever.

The clientele of the tea house was a few mages, none matching our guy's description at a glance, and some civilians. Nothing unusual for the place. The kid took his seat and shortly afterwards a commotion was heard inside. A rat drew all eyes as it tried to scurry through the dining room, but when Sloane stuck it with her knife it was an illusion! The rest of us saw a black robed man creep up behind the kid.

The action was swift, Slaid's crew of bladedancers and archers and whatnot putting the target down fast enough that no one else had to act. The girls quickly scooped him onto a horse and got him out of the way. Well, that's that! Job's done! Except ole boy didn't have any spell books or components or mage stuff on him. If the Mentor was a mage, this weren't him, despite being dressed the same and making the meeting. We opted to stay in place and see what else might happen.

After a while, the clientele cleared out, uncomfortable with the violence nearby. The mages were left and with less of a crowd we were able to look more closely at them. One actually did kind of match the description of the Mentor, so I approached in my guise as a waiter to get a closer interaction. He smirked and paid his bill, rising to leave, so I followed him out to hold the door like a good host. I also grabbed my stashed sword from the host stand just as he turned to gloat about how well our trap went off but too bad we missed him! Haha! Mustache twirl!

Well. That's certainly a choice to make. I guess he was so arrogant he didn't realize I was about to beat his ass. I planted the pommel of my sword between his eyes, which crossed and he staggered. He was able to get a spell off before I could hit him again, trapping me, Sloane, and the rest of the dining room in magical sticky webbing. Unfortunately for him it didn't stop me from casting my own spell which cut him down with magical blades, chop chop. I'd have rather pummeled him again but once he went to magic I couldn't risk it. I was just happy it wasn't a fireball.

He survived his defeat thanks to healing potions and quick response from the rest of the team. We've got him in custody now and have learned about a ship coming in soon, which we will capture as we've done before, and a rogue werewolf operation at a nearby farm that could be bigger trouble than we'd guessed. Someone really ought to do something about that.

Musings:

The more time we spend in a friendly urban environment, the better our relationships get with the powers that be. We are cleaning house pretty well so the adventure will have to extend beyond the city soon. I will note that the suggestions given by the big brain RPG developers like Macris and Gygax are that adventure primarily happens on the frontier, where resources are slim and allies are few. We are experiencing why those suggestions are wise as we regularly leverage a broad array of resources that we otherwise would not have. I worry that we will grow accustomed to doing so and struggle to adjust once the hooks take us on.

There are, of course, urban environments that are as filled with peril as the wilderness. We even have hooks pointing us to such a place. Allegany just ain't that. It's the regional bastion of Law and we are clubbing Chaos at every turn even if individually we aren't exactly model citizens. We're establishing a strong reputation that should serve us as we advance in notoriety or at the very least provide a place to send our bodies back to.

Lemon Pound Cake

With the last of the apparent wererat menace exterminated, we were left with a few options. We knew a little about the shipping details of the shadow organization the Assemblage, which was shaping up to be the BBEG of the campaign. We also had the Stargazers' Sextant and the hook to figure out the temple/constellation/???? mystery for the Naurivus monks. Top that off with some seemingly minor local hooks like haunted farms and several treasure maps and we were flush with things to do.

We decided to point ourselves at the Sextant hook in the mountains and knock over anything on the way, like treasure maps or one of these farms. The farmhouse and barn were on a big piece of land with a dry gully alongside, which we discovered late in the day. We pulled back and camped to be fresh on the approach.

Overnight some beetles showed up, big ole things probably let loose by whatever was at the farm and intent on doing us harm. We harmed them instead. But that encounter confirmed our suspicions that the farm was connected with the Assemblage's weird ass beetle project.

I held overwatch with the wardogs and my new henchman Gilfandel while the rest of the party engaged the house. After some tense chatter with the denizens, somehow Sloane was pulled into the back door and it was barred against entry. About this time some chuckleheads were creepin' from the barn nearby to outflank the party. We cut them off while the group dealt with the gomers in the building, a bunch of armed men who really didn't like random guys showing up on their doorstep looking for pound cake.

Two concurrent fights happened, with Sloane just dogwalking the guys who thought to kidnap her while me and the hounds wiped out the flankers. Guygiss slid down the chimney like Krampus and ruined the remaining guys' day. After all was said and done we had a secret passage under the barn and a bunch of dead cultists.

The passage led to a beetle feeding lair like we'd seen before, and then beyond to the guys doing the feeding. They weren't ready. We found a preparation and shipping operation just like before along with a little treasure. We set an ambush to capture the guys who showed up. We also found a note that named a specific island city as an important spot for the Assemblage.

A Plague of (Were)Rats

We can't be everywhere at once. This fundamental truth has led to at least one hook developing to apparent critical mass as sessions have progressed. Did we choose this session to finally investigate whatever's going on with that haunted farm down the way? No. We kept on one of our original goals of eliminating wererats. These kinds of choices matter in a living world.

The Temple had info for us regarding the missing son of Nicodemus the Wererat, who was allegedly the one responsible for most of the proliferation of the cult within Allegany. He was holed up with the last vestiges of his cult at a warehouse (werehouse?) on the West side. Don't worry boss, we're on it.

Vylas the Spellsword and Sloane the Slayer took a hunting dog and tracked around the outskirts of the town near the warehouse. We were pretty sure they'd have a bolt hole/sekrit escape hatch because they had literally had the same in every other lair we'd found. We weren't wrong and located it after some sniffing around.

Guygiss the Nightblade took his cadre of henchmen on a night-time breaking and entering recon with Slaid the Bard and the rest of us on overwatch. The agreed upon signal was Guygiss to scream girlishly if discovered so the henchmen could signal the cavalry. Simple. Effective. Ignored.

Guygiss made some noise on entry and alerted the guardians, who ambushed him once he closed the door behind him. He was outnumbered 4 to 1 but despite his appearance ain't no little bitch. He went down swinging with nary a holler until the killing blow. He downed 3 of them but the last one got him. His henches, confused by the noise, moseyed over to the PC overwatch and expressed some mild concern. This definitely had nothing to do with Guygiss's 6 Charisma and the loyalty such things inspire in followers.

Vylas (that's me) rode to the sekrit hatch in case of escape while the rest of the party bust in the front door, hackin' the enemy down in the wanton destruction only adventurers can bring. Guygiss was missing and the running battle through the building was tinged with worry over his fate.

I broke in the back door and discovered ole boy's son Norvi packing like he was leaving. Nope. We exchanged sword blows until he was dead, along with his bodyguard. I found some evidence that the wererats had been burned by the Assemblage, the shadow organization responsible for all this Chaotic nonsense and our ultimate quarry, but no Guygiss.

The rest of the party killed the last wererat and found Guygiss strapped to the table around which torture implements were arrayed. It's a good thing we got to him because it was clear the instant pain was applied he would break and give up everything he knew.

Meanwhile, a wererat was captured outside by Guygiss's hench Brutus, the bandit he'd converted last session. Apparently Brutus had orders to abscond with any wererat he could catch for "research purposes." One of Slaid's Lawful Bladedancers witnessed the capture and insisted on the monster's death. It was an interesting exchange because it was henchman/henchman, not PC/PC, both acting as their controlling players' thought most fitting for them in that scenario. Brutus eventually backed down and the monster was slain, but it coulda gone either way.

Macris says something about this:

I was proud of DM Jes who, when the two henchmen confronted each other, began to roll reactions to see just how hard they'd stick to their orders. I'm not sure exactly how he parsed the rolls. ACKS provides some guidance regarding obedience with modifiers following:

At any rate, henchmen aren't extensions of the player. I'm glad when push came to shove that it was run that way. It's a lot to handle as a DM. I have no interest in controlling every little action of a double handful of henchmen on top of the antagonist factions I've got to run in a session as a DM.

Wererats down. Eliminated? Who knows? Next up? I don't know. Probably pick through the aftermath of that farm, unless something lucrative presents itself.

[Glowing Exclamation Mark]

Our session started off with some book keeping, with a lot of conversation about alchemy and potions and formulae. It's a new wrinkle for our players so the interested parties want to make sure they're getting everything right. The danger of ACKS is getting lost in the weeds. It's an eternal battle.

Once we got down to business, we resolved a meeting with the abbot of a group of monks concerned with constellations and orrery maintenance. We had previously recovered a holy relic that when used in concert with the order's orrery would reveal a secret entrance in the subterranean temple. The conversation was primarily about how much the monk would pay us for the artifact, for access to the temple, and other transactional behavior, leading to the departure of my Lawful Nobiran Wonderworker from the party.

I missed whatever terms they eventually hashed out while I was rolling a Neutral Elven Spellsword, but when I joined back up we were in the temple with the abbot, who used the Sextant of Naurivus to open the secret passage. It revealed a chamber with some books on constellations, maintenance instructions for the orrery, and a map leading to the next of three total temples like this one.

There was more research to be done with the discovered material but that would take more than session time so I committed to that for downtime, since the spellsword is essentially a fighter/mage. We had session time left and a treasure map that wasn't too far away so we thought to cap off the day with a little score.

The map led us to a rocky outcropping near a waterway. There was an entrance leading underground that we wriggled into. A workshop filled with mechanisms and traps awaited us. Some cleverness and luck got us through, avoiding a rushing water trap and portcullis to trap us there. When we exited with a little treasure, there were bandits occupying our base camp and menacing our hireling wagon drivers.

Fortunately, it turned out that Guygiss knew them from a past life. We learned they had worked for the wererat lieutenant Jenner that the party had killed some time back and were rudderless without his guidance. So bandits do what bandits do. They were using the spot to lure folks in, trap them, then kill them and take their stuff. Probably put the map out as part of the trap.

Guygiss convinced their leader to join up as his henchman and we were invited back to their camp. The rest of us were pretty suspicious and when our escort started trying to make space as if to fight or take cover, my new spellsword Vylas sprung into action, shouting "ambush" to warn the others and killing the nearest bandit to him. The fight was short and one-sided, with the adventurers suffering no harm and all but Guygiss's new friend Brutus dead. There wasn't even an additional ambush! These handful of gomers thought they'd catch us off guard I guess?

Brutus said there were ten or so bandits back and camp, but he'd get us by their sentries and help us subdue them to show his loyalty to Guygiss. Duplicity and magic defeated the remaining bandits, which we captured to turn in for bounties. We confiscated their wagon and loaded up our own with prisoners and loot and trundled back to town, fat and happy to have robbed the robbers.

Musings:

You've got to know when to fold 'em. I find myself at odds with murderhobos and cutthroats pretty often, but there are two friction points there and the distinction is important. 

The one is character behavior in line with their role. The thief is gonna steal, the mercenary is gonna work for the highest bidder, and the necromancer is gonna raise the fallen to fight for him. These are things that happen in the game, driven by the characters' roles, and if there's friction over them, there should be. It can lead to interesting play as a result. My characters tend to clash with those characters, but it's all part of the game.

The other is more of a meta approach to the game itself, which I attribute to a combination of the influence that video games have had on player behavior and the gp for xp conversion of games like ACKS and AD&D. When the focus of play is the ROI of every action taken, then it's no longer about the interactions themselves but only how big a reward you're gonna get for the quest you completed. You're playing a video game at that point, identifying the reward system and maximizing the output. You're a stealth archer in Morrowind.

I say all this only to point out why I retired my uber-Lawful Nobiran Wonderworker, a half mage, half priest character unique to ACKS. If there's friction between characters, then the characters can work through that, as we had been doing to this point with Caldor the Nobiran as the party's kind of conscience balanced by the self-serving Neutrals. If there's friction between players, then that's lame. 

Dunder Moose once called me the "fun police" after noting my penchant for playing the straight man style characters. I can't really argue with that. But that's all in character. I'm not trying to police anyone's fun as a player and it's easy enough to adapt to the game the other players want to play. If we're out here tryna ding, then so be it. It's all just an excuse to hang out with our friends anyway.

Planetarium

March 1, 2X26

The cultists are still active within the city. We are learning more about their operation every time we act but we still don't have a firm target to eliminate them. They are compartmentalized.

Adventuring is hard on my studies. I am committed to getting my spell books in order which leaves me little time for anything but serious action. I am told the rest went to invest in a whaling ship to hunt giant rockfish. Their spines are useful for counteracting poison.

Once they are finished at the docks, we return to an unexplored passage beneath the city, near the beetle lair we cleared out recently. It lets out into a forgotten temple with long-abandoned relics bearing the symbology of Naurivus, the god of explorers. We clear the place and discover a mechanism that mimics the constellations and an access point into a basement filled with tools and workbenches and such.

We are prepared for bloodshed but discover only a small monastery of monks dedicated to the upkeep of the machinery. They do not know anything of the temple other than rumors of its existence. We request to speak with their abbot who comes around every few months. He is supposed to arrive towards the end of the week. His visits are close to but not exactly mimicking itinerary of the smugglers we have apprehended. I pray it is mere coincidence.

March 3, 2X26

It appears that our party members have all independently accepted employment at a masquerade party which many worthies of the city are attending. I am supervising door security, Sloane is watching the side entrance, Slaid is performing, and Guygiss is somehow allowed near the food to inspect for poison.

I select a man in a bull mask for a "random inspection" which we all know is never random. He has an aggressive bearing that does not match the mood of the party. The guards recover a poisoned blade and though large and angry, the man goes quietly into custody.

Sloane arrests a man trying to smuggle in swords and Guygiss detects poison applied to some vegetables being readied for service. He slaps them out of the hands of anyone working with them and then things start happening.

The cooler holding the prisoners has a ruckus during an escape attempt. Guygiss arrives and somehow the bull-headed man ends up in a pool of his own blood. Meanwhile, a man is stabbed in the crowd. We lock the place down, render aid to the wounded, and capture the would-be assassin before he is able to escape.

The party is over and we await updates from the Temple of Turas investigators.

What a Tangled Web

February 22, 2X26

We return to the park where we destroyed the tiger beetles and dragonflies to search for any evidence of cultist activity now that we know what to look for. We dig out a false wall that leads outside of the city and follow a trail into the countryside beyond.

February 23, 2X26

We bypass a copse of trees with giant flies and bees fighting over some pile of carcasses and arrive at a cabin in the woods. Guygiss scouts ahead, triggers a trap, and gets shot at by a crossbow. We get kinetic and secure the scene with 2 captives and several dead. The captives as usual claim ignorance, just following orders, etc.

We collect evidence, paperwork, and verify that the smuggling operation is similar to what we've already seen from this group. A small tributary has a loading area where they take on barrels of parts from dissected beetles and row it away on rafts bound for the ships docked in the city.

February 24, 2X26

We pack the confiscated wagon with everything we need to take back to the Temple and burn the rest of the parts as they have no value to real magic, only this weird cult. The giant flies and bees are dispatched by smoking them into docility and using magic to subdue them. We capture the giant bee queen and a bunch of larvae. Could be our own hive of jelly or valuable to sell. There's an unknown challenge with raising killer bees.

We return victorious to the Temple and turn in another batch of criminals and evidence. This cult is bigger than we realized and spans at least a few nearby ports. We'll have to consider our next moves to take them down.

God Forbid a Man has a Hobby

February 15, 2X26

My studies are interrupted by Slaid who attempts to draw me into the taverns and bars he is so comfortable in. I decline. I learn a short time later that there are strange blue lights seen from the sewers. Our party decides it is our duty to investigate.

February 16, 2X26

Jonathan of Turas does not have any reports of civic unrest due to the lights and gives his blessing to investigate on our own. We effectively have sanction to travel the sewers without being considered trespassers and that is good enough for us.

A massive nest of luminous beetles greets us, which we destroy with magic and sword. Beyond it is a revealed a poorly hidden passage leading into a proper basement. Curious.

Slaid subdues an old man working at his table on leathers or something. I remain behind with Elmo the Elemental, who is too large to effectively navigate the smaller corridors. Further inspection reveals Dimitri to be collecting and harvesting bugs for parts, but not the usual parts for sanctioned magical research. While weird, this is not necessarily criminal despite Slaid's aggressive tactics.

Unfortunately for Dimitri, schematics and formulae and other written materials are found implicating him in cross-breeding activities for bug-centric abominations. We had just last week dispatched two lairs of bugs in the local park. We had taken that to be pretty mundane but now we are not so sure.

There are many men in the building above who conveniently descend into the basement in twos and threes to be easily dispatched by Sloane and Slaid. I watch the rear with Elmo, only needing to drub a runner and a group investigating from beyond a locked door in the basement. Elmo is easily up to the task.

In short order we have the location under control, a pile of evidence, and some prisoners to interrogate. We learn a little about the operation, where the bug parts are transported by river to the docks to be shipped to parts unknown. We ambush and capture the rivermen when they arrive and cart the whole lot down to the Temple.

Jonathan is convinced the ship at harbor needs to be investigated. The ship captain complies and we uncover more evidence as to their ports of call. We also suspect another cell remains locally. It appears that a compartmentalized organization is secretly contributing various aspects of a cross-breeding operation to a central figure. Istreus reveals to me that the Captain is bewitched, adding another layer to the nefarious nature of our quarry.

We await the results of the Temple's questioning and further sanction to act in the Law's name, at least against the local cell. I am eager to uncover what knowledge is possessed by this cult and separate the wheat of the delicious secret power that is Istreus's purview from the chaff of the heinous Cthonic activities of chaos-worshipping madmen.

Musings:

We're low level so we catch low level hooks. There's a farmhouse with milk being overturned and bugs infesting the park and whatnot. I am excited that the seemingly mundane, tutorial level stuff is revealing bigger doin's. I'm ready to confiscate research and material from this cell and put it to proper use. It also looks like an opportunity to spread into the region beyond the city which will give the DM a chance to flesh out his world. Exciting things coming.

I don't typically play spellcasters so this Nobiran Wonderworker is a reach. He's both arcane and divine, levels very slowly, and has fingers dabbled in all the magic research mechanics. I'll have to force myself to engage with these things as we go. I even hired an apprentice.