Session 53: GP for XP; or The Adventurers’ Desperation
10/29/23-11/10/23, rest 11/11, active 11/12
PC: Alari, Zektel, Cracaryn, Karl, Auto
Hench: Wulfric, Elizabete, Dubya, Domiku
The players failed to prepare or plan anything in downtime this week which displayed itself in the uncertainty at the beginning of the session. They chose Team B due to Team A being in time compression and opted to dig up rumors of potential adventure hooks in Bellport by both buying drinks for randos at bars and researching in the Glowing Hand mage guild’s library of which Alari is a member.
Meanwhile, Karl Barx used his time to incite the rabble against the Barony, speaking to the stevedores and porters and such down by the docks and swaying them to consider unionizing. The city ruled by the “Bloodletter” is definitely the best place for this behavior and no trouble would come from it.
I asked the group whether they wanted DM generated random rumors or if they wanted to “stack” 3 of their own and kinda meme up a hook. They chose the latter and spent several days in pursuit of the endeavor. Eventually they told me that Merlantis almost certainly has a real treasure trove, what could they learn about the infamous mythical city?
It turns out Merlantis is a sunken city somewhere off the coast to the north. The dudebro Nagamen that are alleged to live there dupe other random creatures into trolling the bay as pirates, bringing back loot. The Lords of Merlantis supposedly enjoy sweets and baked goods and it’s already been established that despite them having no legs or feet, they covet sneakers of all kinds.
The party knew of a portal that might lead them to Merlantis that they had discovered some time back out in the wilderness far to the West so the general plan was forming to somehow go there and somehow get through the portal to somehow rob or destroy Merlantis. So far so good.
Karl was arrested shortly thereafter, hands clenched around propaganda pamphlets about the evils of the establishment. The charge was Mayhem, narrowly avoiding the much worse charge of Sedition. He attempted to leverage his detainment against the government, with his loyal hench remaining free to lobby on his behalf and keep his growing crowd of rabble properly roused. His trial date was set for 4 months from his arrest, so the fledgling revolutionary was stuck. The player was nonplussed and swapped to his Team C PC, a dwarven Machinist named Auto.
With Auto in the mix, the group opted to use his contacts with the Frutzii (notViking) barbarians who the dwarf had some history with. They got a meet with Captain Ulfgar and eventually convinced him that an attack against Merlantis was beneficial to all. They asked for some unreasonable amount of gold as reward for ridding the bay of this nautical threat and rolled high enough to have it accepted.
Armed with a heavy bounty on the Merlantean leader’s head and some loaner magical weapons, the group of adventurers immediately sought to risk it all in some other non-Merlantis endeavor like hunting for lairs or finding a dungeon. Much talk of getting people levels was thrown around, which is boring but you ain’t gonna level without adventuring so it was all gonna work out from my perspective.
They settled on getting out west and taking a run at the Fallen Castle dungeon near The Friendship Hills. This would prime them for their next session to check into the portal and also maybe get them some xp. The group took to the road, stopping to pick up baked goods in Millon. Somewhere between Millon and Talston, they were approached in the early morning hours under a misty haze by scores of gnomes. I described them like David the Gnome from back in the day, big pointy red hats and cheerful little dudes. They had maximum reaction check so just had a giant picnic which the party was uber suspicious of because no one is ever just nice for no reason. Dawn came and the gnomes departed, leaving the party confused but exceptionally well-fed.
Just short of Deinwick, the party again had an encounter in the early morning hours, this time three elderly women hobbling along with canes and stooped backs. At 4 am or whatever, the party was very suspicious of them. There was a brief conversation where the women explained they were traveling to Talston and wanted an early start. The party wasn’t really buying it but there was no violence on offer so they bid the women farewell and left out.
The walls of Deinwick were entirely purple and gold, like the walls at Teutch’s tower, which was weird but they didn’t really stop to figure it out. They got to the wizard’s tower at the end of the day and rested.
The Fallen Castle dungeon has been around forever. It was Teutch’s first dungeon introduction to the campaign and has been delved a few times in session to varying degrees of success. There are often signs of passage around there, monsters and men coming and going. This time was no different, with the road that Teutch built leading right up to a sort of courtyard that had been developed over time and showed signs of previous activity around it. No one was camped here currently so the PCs had an uncontested way into the dungeon through the giant sized double doors that were askew from the Storm Giant Castle’s collision with the mountain underneath it.
Once inside, the players tried to remember kinda which path they had taken in the past. They went in that general direction but opted to avoid descending to the 2nd floor where they knew a Medusa to be. It was around this time that Zektel remembered that he had a map he had drawn during the last session here. He joked about how terrible it was, but it was perfectly functional in terms of knowing where the rooms and passages were. We’ll make a mapper of him yet.
The group followed in the footsteps of those who came before, finding already picked over rooms and surprisingly little in the way of monsters. In Daniel the Storm Giant’s bedroom they found some giant centipedes eating the remains of the several different battles that had been fought there. The centipedes hissed in warning and the party left them to their meal.
Several elves and dwarves in the group made searching for secret doors a priority so tons of time was spent searching every room and hallway with no punishing random encounters for the most part. They discovered a stairwell leading down which they took to the second level. Once they found the secret door out, they realized this place hadn’t been traveled hardly at all. It was dusty and musty and led to a treasure room filled with artistic expressions of Daniel’s inner soul. Or something. A bunch of artwork in silver and electrum, with a fine alabaster statuette of a man throwing a discus as the centerpiece.
Someone said they were snatching all the treasure up and I prepared to trigger the ceiling collapse that probably would have killed the entire party, but someone hollered over the eager looter that they were checking for traps. Disaster was averted and a successful attempt at disarming the trap allowed them to haul out the loot.
They pushed further in, through another secret door that led into a sitting room of some kind with a giant overstuffed chair and more of the ever-burning torch sconces that they stole from the place during the last visit. This room was quite large and they spread out to search it for secrets while Auto attempted to tear the sconces loose to sell.
A random pair of ghouls burst into the room in a ravenous frenzy, but no one was surprised and the fight was on. Auto was right by the door and tried to throw burning oil on them, but set himself on fire instead, the first level Machinist screaming as he burned and collapsed. Some shots were fired, the ghouls charged, and when the dust settled Alari and Auto were down and Zektel, the party’s shaman healer, was paralyzed. Fortunately the newer PCs still had their fate points and were able to recover with some scarring and Zektel eventually shook loose of the paralyzation to heal them.
The party limped out with their loot in tow, glad that their horses weren’t killed or stolen while inside, and made it back to Teutch’s tower with no further complications.
Musings:
Fate points win again. Feels cheap to ignore death, but there are still the mortal wounds rolls that affect the PCs so that’s something. I may do away with Fate Points once we make the switch to ACKS II. If I do, I’ll implement the reserve xp system that ACKS uses to allow your next PC to not have to start at 0 xp. It’s clear the game wants you to have an “oh shit” button to account for disaster. Just a matter of which you use I suppose.
Karl had us laughing pretty good with his communist rabble rousing and apparently planned to get pinched and play the martyr. We’ll see if he survives the trial. The crime rules in ACKS are great, streamlined, and easy to implement. I highly recommend their use if you need a criminal proceeding in a pinch.
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