DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 31C: The Obstinate Prisoner

“It’s been two days since I had a drink,” the orc said. “Are you planning to kill me?”

“What are you talking about?” Tee said. “I just poured water over you head.”

“Maybe if we tried a nicer approach?” Ranthir said. “Tell us what we want to know and we’ll give you some food.”

“You tore off my ear and killed my friends and you think I’m going to talk for a little bit of food?”

They shut the closet door and withdrew a little.

A bad habit for a GM is to just keep constantly re-making the same check until the outcome swaps. That might be calling for Stealth check after Stealth check until the PCs finally fail a check and the whole compound goes on high alert. Or it might be letting the PCs make Interrogation after Interrogation check until they finally get a success and crack their target.

That’s obviously not how I handled the interrogation in this session. (The orc prisoner remains uncracked.) Instead, I’m using a Let It Ride technique. In its most basic form this boils down to treating the initial check to resolve a situation as a binding result. For example, you can’t just keep making Pick Locks checks until you pick the lock: Your initial check determines whether or not this is a lock that you can pick at this time. (For a detailed example of what this can look like in practice, check out Letting It Ride on the Death Star.)

In this case, the binding check actually took place in the previous session when the PCs first attempted to interrogate their prisoner. I did allow a couple of different checks before “locking” things in, basically modeling your typical good cop/bad cop situation. (These were, in my opinion, sufficiently different approaches that different checks were merited. Similar to how you could still try to kick down the door even if your Pick Locks check failed.)

Players, of course, will continue to push for more checks if they’re trying to escape a failure. That’s good! The key thing, though, is that you want them to be creative. Not just, “I do it again.” (“I pick the lock again.” “I threaten the orc again.”) But creating some new way of thinking about or approaching or solving or overcoming the obstacle. As the GM, you want to hold the line – particularly in muddy social situations – because it will push play forward in interesting ways.

The last thing to note about letting it ride in a social scene, like this interrogation, is that you can – and almost certainly should! – play through the scene. The check determines outcome, but it’s still worthwhile to roleplay through the actual interaction. (And, through that interaction, the players may end up identifying the alternative approach that will allow them to forge a new path.)

With that being said, don’t let the players’ desire to escape failure allow the scene to drag out. If a social scene starts to spin its wheels, you need to wrap it up:

• Is there anything else you want to say here?
• It doesn’t look like she’s going to budge. What do you want to do next?
• You keep at her for another thirty minutes, but she refuses to crack. Now what?

Or, frankly, just cut to the next scene.

Campaign Journal: Session 31D – Running the Campaign: Roleplaying NPC Scenes
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 31C: THE OBSTINATE PRISONER

November 9th, 2008
The 17th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

“Couldn’t we take one of these corpses and use it to intimidate that orc we’ve got locked in a closet?” Elestra asked.

“Haven’t we basically already done that?” Tee pointed out, leaving unvoiced her concern about the bloodthirstiness beginning to appear in the young girl.

“I’ve even torn off her ear,” Agnarr said.

They left the bodies, but they did return to the mansion.

They found the orc woman sleeping in the closet. Tee poured water over her head and they tried to question her again… but it went no better than the last two times they had tried.

The orc woman laughed at Elestra’s efforts. “You’re wearing pink leather boots. I can barely take you seriously.”

Tor stepped forward and ineffectually tried again. “I’m imagining you wearing pink leather boots.”

They were stymied.

“It’s been two days since I had a drink,” the orc said. “Are you planning to kill me?”

“What are you talking about?” Tee said. “I just poured water over you head.”

“Maybe if we tried a nicer approach?” Ranthir said. “Tell us what we want to know and we’ll give you some food.”

“You tore off my ear and killed my friends and you think I’m going to talk for a little bit of food?”

They shut the closet door and withdrew a little.

“She’s right about one thing,” Tee said. “If we just keep her locked up in there, she’ll die.”

“So?” Elestra asked.

They eventually decided to haul her down to the Imperial Cathedral. There they turned her over to Heth Neferul, explaining that she might be a source of information regarding the group attempting to breach the Banewarrens.

“And what of the lore spell?” Heth asked. “Was it successful, Master Ranthir?”

“Yes,” Ranthir said.

“It told us that the only way through the door was through the use of a magical wish,” Tee lied blithely.

Heth pondered this for awhile. “I will see if such powerful magicks can be acquired for you. In the meantime, continue your efforts to reach the sword. If our questioning of this orc yields any fruit, I will send word to you.”

PLANNING FOR THE MORROW

Returning to the Ghostly Minstrel they spent the better part of an hour cleaning up the coagulate gore and blood that had been spattered across them in the Banewarrens (and only now pausing to reflect on Brother Heth’s blithe reaction to the same).

While the others were finishing up, Tor left the Minstrel and went next door to the Bull and Bear. There he found Iltumar tending the shop. After some small talk (in which Iltumar proved to be his usual, overeager self), Tor asked him if he might be interested in practicing some swordplay the next morning.

“I would love to! Will Mistress Tee be there?”

“No, it would just be me and you,” Tor said. “Is that okay?”

“Of course!”

“Do you own a sword?”

“No, but I can ask Hirus if I might borrow one.”

“Do so,” Tor said. “I’ll meet you here tomorrow.”

Tor returned to the Ghostly Minstrel and gathered the others. Tor explained his plans with Iltumar – if the lad wanted to be a part of something larger, he was hoping to give him a better option than the Brotherhood of Ptolus.

Tor also wanted to try to reach Sir Kabel in Pythoness House as soon as possible, but he was worried that he was still being followed – possibly by agents of the Church.

After discussing their options, Ranthir proposed using a spell of invisibility that the he had studied in Shilukar’s spellbook. Thus cloaked in magick, Tor would be able to easily slip away from the mansion on Nibeck Street and make his way to Pythoness House undetected.

Ranthir wouldn’t be able to cast the spell until morning, but since Tor wasn’t supposed to meet with Sir Kabel until then they decided that the plan was as good as any.

They also wanted to make sure that the sealed door in the Banewarrens couldn’t be opened without them knowing about it. Ranthir would be able to lay a spell which would alert him if the door was opened and Elestra’s connection with the Spirit of the City would allow her to work a similar charm. Between the two of them they should be able to keep the sealed door under constant alarm.

However, these minor magicks were strictly limited in their range: If they were placed upon the sealed door, Ranthir and Elestra would be unable to move much farther east than the edge of Oldtown.

And with that plan in hand, not wanting to leave the door unwatched any longer than necessary, they returned to the Banewarrens. Ranthir laid his spell upon the sealed door and the rest of them set their watches for the night.

Running the Campaign: Let It Ride Interrogation  – Campaign Journal: Session 31D
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Go to Part 1

In my Dragon Heist campaign, the PCs ended up adopting the orphans. (Something which I have rather good reason to suspect is far from uncommon.) They also decided that they would, of course, have to make arrangements for their proper education, and so they began arranging apprenticeships and tutors for them.

JENKS wanted to become a cook. (He’d already been hanging out with the cooks the PCs had hired for Trollskull Manor and had been helping out in the kitchen.) His apprenticeship in my campaign was rather bespoke, as the PCs had acquired Frewn’s Brews (after driving Emmet Frewn out of town), converted it into a bakery, and made arrangements with the Baker’s Guild to sponsor an apprentice cook who was ready to become her own master. Thus was born Amara’s Bakery, and it was quite natural for Jenks to be apprenticed there.

NAT wanted to learn magic. Eltorchul Academy was an arcane academy founded by the Eltorchul family. (Detailed in the 3rd Edition City of Splendors sourcebook.) The current headmaster is Ambrulavage and Nat was placed under the immediate attention of Miss Ferolie.

SQUIDDLY, inspired by the party’s ranger, wanted to become an archer. He was apprenticed to the Fellowship of Bowyers and Fletchers. The guildmaster is Javan Riautar and Squiddly was apprenticed to Master Kennadr.

TUTORS

In addition to their apprenticeships, the PCs also arranged for additional tutors. I had four tutors respond to their advertisement, and the PCs ended up hiring several of them.

NALOLIR is a podrikey — a dwarven mining construct with the brain and spinal column of a kobold inside it. Nalolir escaped from Undermountain a hundred years go and now focuses on teaching history. He speaks with a somewhat robotic voice, but moves with a gentleness and precision somewhat belied by the sheer mass of metal being propelled.

FIREDROP is a pixie philosopher. She teaches the three philosophers — natural (the properties of the physical universe), moral (the study of sentient thought and ideology), and metaphysical (lore of the arcane and extraplanar). Physically, she is effervescent, always in flight and flitting here and there. Her speech is erudite, while also reflecting the endless, bubbling font of curiosity which is constantly driving her.

STARAI is a kenku scholar. His teaching method is extremely Socratic, almost ceaselessly echoing speech as a reflected question.

ETHLANDO is an elven scholar who was once a magi. Tragically, he suffered a curse which stripped his magic from him. (He does not hide his history as an arcanist or the curse which afflicts him, but he does not speak of why or how he came to be cursed.) His owl familiar, Bulbuena, remains loyal and is rarely far from his side.

I’m not sure how much general use these tutors might see, but I had mentioned them in a live chat and a number of patrons reached out to ask if I would share my notes on them. As you can see, they were not given an abundance of detail: The PCs’ arrangements for their adopted kids’ education were happening towards the end of the campaign, and even the ones they ended up hiring did not have much time for development.

You might consider calling upon them for any occasion where you might have need of a scholar.

SESSION 31B: THE VAULTS OF FORGOTTEN EVIL

November 9th, 2008
The 17th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

WORD ON THE STREET

They decided to head back to the Banewarrens and rejoin Kalerecent’s watch. On their way, however, they passed down Tavern Row. Here they found a dozen ravens perched here and there on various buildings.

“What’s going on?” Tee asked.

“Could it be the Killravens?” Ranthir said.

“I’ll find out,” Elestra said.

While the others continued on, Elestra put her ear to the street. She heard a few people talking about an incident on Tavern Row: The day before, a centaur named Unos, the owner of the Old Goose tavern, had been found murdered in the common room of his tavern at dawn.

Drowning out the affair on Tavern Row, however, were the varied reports surrounding the events at the Cathedral. There seemed to be a good deal of confusion surrounding the exact details. Public opinion was still split fairly evenly on the issue of Rehobath claiming the mantle of the Novarch, but that opinion was beginning to slowly shift in his favor.

THE EMPTY VAULTS

Elestra rejoined the others in the excavated cave outside of the Banewarrens. Kalerecent reported that everything there had been quiet during their absence, and so they headed down to continue their exploration of the farthest vaults.

Passing down a wide hall they came to a T-intersection. The narrower corridor they entered was lined with more than a half dozen of the now familiar warded doors.

One of the doors stood ajar. Inside the chamber beyond this door was a long, metal box, not unlike a lidless coffin. On each of the four corners of the coffin-like receptacle a large amethyst has been inlaid. The inside of the box was lined with six heavy leather straps, arranged in such a way as to bind someone within.

Tee was tempted by the obvious worth of the amethysts, but cautious as well. (They’d already encountered one cursed jewel in this place.) Ranthir examined them closely and determined that the gems had been used to focus several enchantments onto the inhabitant of the box. Some of these appeared similar to those found in a stasis box while others appeared to have some form magical negatement as their purpose.

“Would these enchantments have held Tavan Zith’s abilities in check?” Tee asked.

“Yes, I think so,” Ranthir said. “But they’re harmless now. The spells were broken and the magical energy has dissipated.”

That’s all Tee needed to hear. She pried out the valuable gemstones and dropped them into her bag of holding.

They went back out into the hall. A careful examination of the remaining doors revealed that the wards on one of them had been broken. They opened this door to reveal an empty vault with a large, circular depression in the center of the floor. This depression was filled with water and large patches of the rest of the floor were damp as well.

Tee discovered runes worked into the inner edge of the circular depression and Ranthir was able to identify them as part of enchantments designed to bind something to both the material and ethereal planes. He hypothesized that this chamber might have been used to contain the ethereal-shifting, blue-skinned troll-spawn they had fought before.

THE VAULTS OF FORGOTTEN EVIL

After a brief debate they decided to break open the remaining vaults. Opening the first of these released a blast of chilled air. A large block of ice filled the center of the room, extending from the floor to the ceiling. A careful inspection of this ice revealed that it was laced with thin filigrees of golden thread and Ranthir was able to discern that these threads were minutely etched with tiny runes. Unfortunately, he had no idea what purpose the threads or runes might serve. Large bulbous shadows could be seen within the ice, although making out any sort of detail was quite impossible. When Ranthir was satisfied that he had learned all that he could learn (which was little), he stepped back. Tee started blasting away at the ice using her dragon pistol.

After only a couple of shots, the ice had already cracked badly. Tee lined up her third shot—

—and the ice shattered! A slimy, writhing tentacle burst free. It was followed moments later by more. Tee fired blindly into the ice and then the creatures within were free.

There were three of them – blobs of soft tissue and pulsating gray matter; long tentacles writhing in levitative air; numerous, bulbous, yellow, feral eyes and befanged mouths scattered haphazardly within the folds of flabby flesh.

Tor, who had been standing on guard, dashed forward and slashed his sword across the eye of one. Tee, switching her dragon pistol to her side, drew her sword and lunged forward – stabbing through the eye of another and feeling the familiar thrill of it (although this eye was larger than most).

And then Agnarr stepped forward and with a single mighty swing his flaming greatsword cleaved its way through all three of the creatures in a single blow.

As each died in a deflating, wet heap of protoplasmic flesh, a wave of horrific terror swept across them – but each, in their own fashion, found a way to steel their soul against it.

Elestra, thinking of the wraiths they had fought before, took the time to burn the corpses thoroughly.

THE VAULT OF THE PAIN DEMON

They broke the wards on the next door, finding a vault not dissimilar in character but smaller than the last, with a pillar of ice suspended between floor and ceiling.

From a slightly safer distance, Tee again used her dragon pistol to blast away at the ice. Obviously her shots were disrupting whatever magicks had been laid upon the ice because it was not long before the shadowy form within began to shift and move.

As the ice began to crack, waves of hate-filled pain radiated from it. Grimacing against the pain, Tee continued firing. The demon trapped within finally burst free. Its skin was a glistening ebony. Its eyes were a blood-red crimson. Its mouth was a toothless maw with razored lips. Chains were fused about its wrists, each animate with hatred.

As it came free, Tee fired a shot, but it ricocheted harmlessly off the demon’s chitinous shell. The creature howled and the waves of psychic pain battering them seemed to intensify.

Ranthir recognized the thing: It was a naturally demonic creature. Its chains had been soul-bound to its demonic essence – binding its own pain sympathetically and allowing it to reflect that essence back in the psychic waves which were assaulting all of them (although Ranthir tasted only the edge of it from his relatively safe haven in the hall).

Agnarr and Tor had fallen back before its first assault – the waves of pain overwhelming their minds and the animate chains harrying their defenses – but now they rallied, pushing it farther and farther down the length of the narrow chamber. Step by step the pain demon was forced back.

Agnarr suffered grievous wounds from the chains – the cold pain of them numbing his limbs. And the assault of primal pain was strengthening. Those nearest the creature could feel it now as both a psychic and physical thing. The manifestation of pain itself was intense enough to open cuts upon their bodies.

In the end, they were able to beat the creature down.

Tor was left with a single, dramatic cut upon his cheek… But Agnarr welcomed the warming touch of Dominic’s healing.

THE CHITTERING SWARM

The next few vaults proved to be empty. There were no signs that they had even been used.

But then they unleashed the demon swarm.

As the ice of this third vault shattered, the chittering creatures boiled out. Agnarr and Tor had held the chokepoint of the door, but it mattered little as the creatures swarmed around them in every direction.

They found it difficult to fight the swarm. There was a pervasive aura around the dozens of demonlings that seemed to muddle their minds and the tiny creatures would hop from place to place, crawling over them and slipping into their clothes and armor. Some even tried to pry their way into mouths.

Tee fired several blasts ineffectively into the carpet-like mass of demonlings and then fell back before their indomitable advance. The party, in general, split awkwardly in two – with some retreating one way down the hall and others retreating in the other.

The creatures, despite their small size, had vicious claws that ripped and tore as they leaped and scuttled here and there in a chaotic, eddying swirl of motion. And the party discovered, to their horror and disgust, that the creatures were exuding some sort of unnatural black thread – iron-like in strength and binding to the wounds they dealt. The demonlings were literally stitching their limbs together.

Seeaeti howled in pain. Dominic quickly found himself mobbed by the creatures and rendered almost immobile within a cocoon of their black thread.

Ranthir poured flame from his hands and this had some limited success, but still the creatures came. Elestra called down bolts of lightning from thin air, but the demonlings seemed to dance around the scorching blasts.

They were going to be overwhelmed.

“Run!” Ranthir cried.

Elestra did. The others dived for cover.

A bead of fire flew from the tip of Ranthir’s finger into the midst of the chittering swarm. It blossomed into a ball of flame…

And in its wake were left the charred and stinking corpses of the demonlings.

Agnarr stepped forward and put the last of the little fiends out of their well-deserved misery.

This, however, still left them with the difficult task of undoing the demonic, black thread that had been sewn randomly across their bodies. Tee tried to simply rip her way free, but this opened some grievous wounds that sent black spots dancing across her vision.

They started carefully cutting each other free of the stuff. Only Elestra seriously botched this procedure, ripping a gaping wound in Dominic’s side. (The others dissuaded her from helping them with their own extrications.)

THE ABANDONED CAVES

They had now explored this entire section of the Banewarrens and made it as secure as they could (largely by killing everything in sight). Without passing through the sealed door, there was nothing else for them to do here. And so they were left with waiting for the emergence of whatever creature had slipped through the door before Kalerecent had shut it.

They decided to complete their explorations of the caves in which they had fought the umber hulk. Some of them were anticipating the possibility that the creature had returned (affording them with an opportunity to finish it off), and although others were skeptical that it would, if nothing else, eliminate the possibility of a second, unknown entrance to the Banewarrens.

It was an easy matter to return to the caves. Pushing farther into their depths, the group spotted a second passage that had been concealed by a boulder. A little distance further on, Tee saw that the passage they were in opened up into a larger chamber and that, out of that chamber, a second passage appeared to turn in the same direction as the concealed passage behind the boulder.

“Why would it put these boulders everywhere?” Elestra asked.

“I don’t know,” Tee said. But she decided to head down into the larger chamber to see if it did, in fact, meet up with the concealed passage in the way that it appeared to…

And narrowly avoided falling into a pit of loose gravel as it suddenly gave way beneath her feet.

From that they concluded that these boulder-hidden passages had been used by the umber hulk to bypass the traps and snares that it had laid out for the unwary.

With grunts of exertion, Tor and Agnarr managed to leverage the boulder out of the way and they headed down the passage it had concealed.

In the twisting passages beyond they found what appeared to be the creature’s lair: A large bed of stone had been crudely constructed in one corner of a cave in which other stones had been arranged and shaped towards some strange purpose.

“Could it be some form of art?” Ranthir said.

Tee briefly considered the possibility of taking this “umber hulk statuary” and selling it, but she eventually decided that there was unlikely to be any sort of meaningful market for it. Certainly no market worth hauling around several tons of stone for. “I might be able to hustle it… But it’s just not worth the effort.”

Hidden behind some cleverly arranged stones in another corner of the cave they found a surprisingly rich stash of gemstones and gold.

In the next cave they discovered the creature’s “larder”. A horrible stench permeated the air and the walls were slick with moisture. In a low spot near the center of the cave was assembled a grisly, bloody mess: The partially dismembered corpse of a goblin and a half-devoured corpse, greenish white with bloating and decay, that looked as if it might have once belonged to a man.

Tee was disgusted by the sight and wanted no part of it. But as she turned to leave, Agnarr stopped her. “Aren’t you going to search the cave?”

Tee bluffed him into thinking that she had already searched the bodies, but the others eventually convinced her that she should.

“There might be some sort of identification,” Elestra pointed out. “We could let people know what happened to him.”

Tee sighed and started searching.

“Wait,” Agnarr said. “I thought she already searched them?”

“I’m just making sure I didn’t miss anything.”

“Oh. Okay.”

There were no identification papers, but the man was carrying a small coin purse drenched in sickly decay. Tee left it where it lay.

Running the Campaign: PC vs. PC Social Checks  – Campaign Journal: Session 31C
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Youtube is back bay-beeeee….

This video almost never got released, but patrons of the Alexandrian made me reconsider. You can also read the original essay (which was actually adapted from the script for this video) if you’d prefer.

We also have more videos in the editing pipeline, so I hope you’ll join me in crossing our fingers for more cool Alexandrian video content.