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In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 27B: Sights of Venom

May 27th, 2022

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 27B: SIGHTS OF VENOM

September 7th, 2008
The 15th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

LIGHT OF A FALSE DAWN

Tee followed a long and winding path back to the Ghostly Minstrel, eager to shed any possibility of being followed. By the time she arrived, the sun was just beginning to rise past the edge of the Spire.

In the common room, Tee saw her companions sleeping around a table. Tee’s short missive had not specified when she would be returning, and so the others had waited up for her… Or, at least, waited up for as long as their stamina could endure.

After a moment’s thought, Tee decided not to disturb them yet. Instead she made her way upstairs, changed into a fresh set of clothes, and then came back down. Stretching heartily on the stairs he yawned, “Oh! That was a wonderful night’s sleep!”

She woke the others. “What are you all doing down here?”

Agnarr instantly realized what she was doing. “Huh… I must have had too much to drink.”

The others played along as well, fostering the illusion – in case there were any eavesdroppers in the inn itself – that they had all spent the evening here.

Tee, meanwhile, was trying to figure out her next step. Reaching a resolution, she made some polite farewells and then headed for the front door.

But Dominic stopped her. “Oh! Tee! What about that book you were going to loan me? You know the one… I think it was called What Happened Last Night? It sounds really interesting, but I don’t know anything about it…”

Tee smirked and all of them made their way upstairs to Elestra’s room, where they hoped they might have a bit more privacy. Once there, Tee quickly briefed them on what had happened the night before.

Once they had been satisfied, Tee made her farewells again and left the inn.

A FRUITLESS INTERLUDE WITH TEE

Tee turned out of Delver’s Square and headed up Tavern Row towards Emerald Hill. Once there, she went straight to Iridithil’s Home and Doraedian’s office.

As she entered, Doraedian looked up with surprise in his eyes. “Tee! What are you doing here? Your lesson isn’t until tomorrow.”

“I know,” Tee said. “But there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

But now that she was here, she wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted to say. She still wasn’t sure what Doraedian would think if he knew the full scope of what she had been doing, and she couldn’t bear the thought of his harsh judgment.

So she chose her words carefully, laying out – with the slightest possible amount of detail – the discovery of the apartment building in Oldtown, the involvement of the cultists, and her suspicion that they were trying to finish what Helmut had started by assassinating the Commissar. She was particularly hoping that Doraedian would know something useful about the centaur named Dilar, but he did not.

In fact, on some level, Tee had hoped that Doraedian could tell her what to do. She was overwhelmed by the enormity of what she had gotten herself involved in. But while Doraedian promised to take her concerns to the Commissar, he wasn’t sure that anything would be done about it. “You’re not giving me much to work with, Tee.”

Feeling somewhat dejected, Tee returned to the Ghostly Minstrel. She found the others gathered in Elestra’s room.

SCOUTING ON CROSSING STREET

Tee looked at them. “I think we’re on our own with this one.”

Since it looked as if the authorities weren’t going to get involved, the conversation turned to what they were going to do about it.

“Let’s kick down the front door,” Agnarr said.

Elestra, however, pointed out that Tee knew the pass-signs for the site – they could just walk right through the front door (assuming all of the watchers were as ignorant as Tee was). And the others weren’t even sure they should get involved. Or that they would be able to accomplish anything if they did.

And so, in the end, they decided to take a gentler approach. Ranthir revealed that his arcane researches had recently yielded the perfection of a spell allowing for the remote viewing of nearby locations. If they could get close enough to the apartment complex, he would be able to – at least briefly – peek inside.

Since they didn’t know who – or what – might be keeping an eye on the apartment building, they decided that it was important to keep as low a profile as possible. And since a large group would attract more attention than a smaller one, Tee and Ranthir found themselves heading up into Oldtown while the others remained behind at the Ghostly Minstrel.

The apartment building being used by the cultists was one of several similar buildings lining Crossing Street. Since Ranthir would only be able to target two specific locations with his spells, they decided to scout out the other buildings to get a better sense of what the layout might be like inside the cult’s building.

What they discovered was that all of the buildings were owned by the Vladaam merchant house. The residents were all part of the Vladaam estate and each building was run by a separate collective. Most of the people they talked to, however, proved surly and unhelpful, and it quickly became apparent that the residents of the other buildings knew little or nothing about the building being used by the cultists.

Each building was two stories tall, with a single entrance on the front opening onto a central hall with various doors leading to a dozen or so apartments. Encouraged by these similar layouts, they decided to break into an apartment in the building directly adjacent to the “project site”.

With Tee’s skills this proved to be quite simple. Going to the window they were able to look across the narrow alley between the buildings. There was a thick curtain hanging in the window on the opposite side, but Ranthir was able to use a minor cantrip to jerk it aside – causing it to flutter as if caught in a breeze.

This revealed nothing except an empty room… except that Ranthir was left with the impression that something large had moved rapidly out of his line of sight just as the curtain started to move.

Thus convinced that there might be something more interesting to see, Ranthir used his more powerful spell of clairvoyance to peer into the room… and there, standing in the midst of wrecked furniture and miscellaneous debris, he saw two massive, insectoid creatures.

At the sight, he blanched.

As he watched, one of the creatures reached out with its sharp talon and literally drilled the still-drafting curtain into the wall, pinning it in place.

Ranthir kept his arcane gaze focused there for awhile, but the strange and disturbing creatures did nothing more than scuttle back towards the center of the room and settle themselves down on the floor.

When it seemed clear the creatures weren’t going anywhere, Ranthir pulled his perception out of the spell and pondered the problem of where to place his second (and last) clairvoyance.

Using a different divination, Ranthir was able to pinpoint several magical auras within the building – all of them concentrated in a room on the second floor. That seemed potentially interesting, so Ranthir placed his second point of clairvoyance and peered through…

There were three men standing in another ruined room. He quickly noted that all of them wore the broken square rings of the cultists. Two of them wore coiled viper amulets, and they appeared to be arguing – vociferously – with the third man, who had a black palm print tattooed onto his forearm.

Unfortunately, Ranthir could only look into the room. He couldn’t hear anything.

“Can you read their lips?” Tee asked.

“Perhaps…” Ranthir looked doubtful.

“Is there any way you can let me see it, too?” Tee asked. She’d often practiced reading lips as a little elfling.

“I’m afraid not.”

Ranthir could make out little of what they said, but he was able to pick out a few key phrases here and there: “The Ebon Hand won’t stand for this—“ “—the Brothers of Venom knew—“ “Wuntad will hear of this!”

Ranthir was repeating all of this to Tee. At the mention of Wuntad, she blanched. They’d known that they were almost certainly dealing with chaos cultists, but the confirmation that Wuntad was directly involved was disconcerting nonetheless. In many ways, she was terrified of him.

The argument was clearly growing hotter. The cultists were pacing around each other, shouting with red-faced rage. It became more difficult for Ranthir to make out what they were saying. And then, just before his spell came to an end, he saw one of the serpent cultists – a Brother of Venom? – begin casting a spell. He barely had time to recognize it as an enchantment of paralysis before the final strands of the clairvoyance unraveled.

He turned to Tee. “Let’s get out of here.”

NEXT:
Running the Campaign: Improvising Floorplans – Campaign Journal: Session 27C
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

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Ptolus: Running the Campaign – Missing Clues

May 15th, 2022

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 27A: The Midnight Meeting

“By coming here, you have already joined this Brotherhood,” Dilar continued. “Over the next few weeks you will be contacted. For many of you there will be training. You will be asked to do things. Many of these things will seem simple or even unimportant, but you should never doubt that in even the smallest service you are aiding the Brotherhood and all that we are attempting to accomplish.”

If you’re a long-time reader of the Alexandrian, you’re probably familiar with the Three Clue Rule: In a mystery scenario, for any conclusion that you want the PCs to make, you should include at least three clues.

This redundancy makes mystery scenarios robust, so that they don’t break down during play and leave either you scrabbling frantically, your players frustrated, or both. In my experience, the process of fleshing out a scenario to support the Three Clue Rule also usually results in a more dynamic and interesting scenario.

When I’m prepping a module, therefore, I make it a point to check each revelation and make sure that the Three Clue Rule is being observed. For published adventures, unfortunately, this often isn’t the case, and I’ll need to add clues. Session 27 of In the Shadow of the Spire is a good example of this.

Many of the events detailed in this session — the secret meeting and project site — are from Monte Cook’s Night of Dissolution mini-campaign. A key revelation is, in fact, the location of the project site. From the secret meeting, the published adventure includes one clue pointing to that revelation:

Dilar has a number of papers and notebooks with him. […] Among other things, the papers show the location of the Brothers of Venom’s secret project: an apartment build in Oldtown off Crossing Street. The documents refer to the building only as the “secret project” or the “joint project,” however. (The address can lead them to the Temple of Deep Chaos, found in Chapter 4.) The pages also discuss the cult’s new allies, the Ebon Hand cult, and mention that cult’s leader, Malleck, and their activities involving kidnapping young people and transforming them.

(You can also see here a secondary revelation — the alliance with the Ebon Hand — which is non-essential.)

Seeing this, the first thing I did was prep Dilar’s papers as a physical handout that I could give to the PCs.

You can see that this is not particularly elaborate, being a fairly simplistic example of the lore books technique we’ve discussed previously. The primary goal here is just to let the players “shuffle through the papers,” rather than listening to me narrate them. The map here also neatly correlates to the map of the city hanging on the wall during our sessions, so the players would’ve been able to take this handout over to the map and literally figure out where they needed to go.

As it turned out, however, the players never actually got this handout. Which is why the next thing I did was so essential: Adding additional clues to support the revelation.

To the adventure’s credit, it does discuss multiple paths by which the PCs might come into possession of Dilar’s papers: They might, for example, kill him and loot them. Or they might bloodlessly infiltrate the meeting, take the opportunity to surreptitiously peek at his papers, and then get out without the cult being any the wiser.

But these routes still all go through Dilar’s papers, creating a chokepoint that makes the scenario fragile. You can see that in actual play here: Because of how events played out, only one PC infiltrated the meeting, making the “kill all the cultists and loot their stuff” outcome basically impossible. Tee was also well aware of how vulnerable she was, meaning that she didn’t want to take any risky actions that might expose her (e.g., looking at papers she shouldn’t be looking at). If I’d run the adventure as written, it would have broken here.

What I needed to do was create additional vectors leading from the secret meeting to the project site. (Alternatively, I could have gone for a node-based approach, adding clues to the secret meeting pointing to cult-stuff other than the project site, and then seeded additional clues to the project site in those other nodes.) My thought process went something like this:

Well… what is the actual purpose of this meeting?
What if it’s to brief cult members on the project site? That would also explain why Dilar is bringing notes detailing the project site to the meeting.
We know that this meeting includes new recruits. They’re not going to be fully read in on the project. (Which is convenient logic, because otherwise all of the scenario’s revelations would get frontloaded into this single scene instead of being slowly peeled back by the PCs over the course of their investigation.)
What would the cult be asking new recruits to do that might be related to the project?
They could be assigned as external security/lookouts!

This immediately gives me two new clues:

The PCs can infiltrate the meeting and get briefed on the contents of Dilar’s notes.
The PCs could question Iltumar about what he learned at the meeting.

And then, by having the cult members taken directly from the meeting to the project site, I can add another clue:

Following cult members leaving the meeting will lead PCs to the project site.

While this took a little bit of thought, one thing to note here is how little prep was actually required. This is often the case. In my experience, it takes virtually no effort and a truly minuscule amount of time to add basic clues to a scenario. That’s because clues are just indicators. The meat of the scenario — the stuff you’ll spend the bulk of your prep time on — is what the clues point at.

(The most common exception to this is when you design a handout for the clue, like the lore book for Dilar’s notes. But this is usually not, strictly speaking, necessary, and the time you’re investing there is more in the value-add of the cool handout than it is in the clue itself.)

Despite the relative ease of adding these clues, also note how much depth we’ve added to this scenario. For example, the original adventure only told us:

The cultists are here to plan further murders, trade advice on poison use, and engage in perverted sexual acts.

But we now have a much more specific agenda for the meeting. The natural interrogation of the scenario that happens when we think about the vectors required for clues means that we now understand the what and why of the cultists here. So if the PCs were to eavesdrop on the meeting or, as it turned out, infiltrate the meeting, we have a much firmer foundation to stand on for improvising the scene.

As I say, this happens all the time when you apply the Three Clue Rule in your scenario design.

The other thing you’ll discover is that missed clues will no longer be something that you fear. This can feel weird, but it’s incredibly liberating. For example, if this scenario had still depended on Tee looking at Dilar’s notes, I would have felt the need to reassure her that it was OK to sneak a peek. I would have needed to find some direct or indirect way of letting her know that she didn’t really need to be afraid of exposing herself and getting caught.

But because I knew that I’d made the scenario robust, I didn’t need to do that. The result was a vastly better scene, in which the tension of discovery drove the stakes from beginning to end. It would have been a shame if I’d felt a need to deflate that tension in order to prevent the scenario from breaking.

And this is, again, something that happens all the time when you’ve got the Three Clue Rule backstopping you. Missed clues are no longer catastrophes; they are a vital part of the scenario’s flow.

If you haven’t experienced this firsthand, it can feel paradoxical. It might even feel like a violation of the principles of smart prep: You have this prepped content that you’re not using! It’s wasted! But, in practice, missing a clue isn’t a waste — it’s a consequence, a cost, or a choice. And even if you have a clue that is “wasted,” it’s not that big of a deal because, as we noted before, the clues are mostly ephemera. They aren’t the meat of the scenario.

NEXT:
Campaign Journal: Session 27B – Running the Campaign: Improvising Floorplans
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

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In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 27A: The Midnight Meeting

May 15th, 2022

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 27A: THE MIDNIGHT MEETING

September 7th, 2008
The 14th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

Tee put her disguise back on and hit the streets, trying to find another contact for the Brotherhood. She wasn’t having much luck, however, until she stopped looking for the Brotherhood and started looking for people who knew Jamill. After that, it wasn’t long before she was pointed in the direction of a small pub at the north end of Tavern Row where a blond woman with sparkling green eyes and a small scar above her lip was nursing a beer.

Tee gave her name as “Laurea”. The woman introduced herself as Arveth and, like Jamill, she was clearly wary of Tee’s questions regarding the Brotherhood. But once Tee actually dropped Jamill’s name, her suspicions seemed to melt away.

It turned out that Arveth had actually been waiting for Jamill to show up so that they could “talk about tonight” (a revelation which made Tee more than a little nervous). Arveth slipped Tee another of the rings with a broken square and said, “Wear this ring and come back to Tavern Row tonight at midnight.”

Tee thanked her and headed back to the Ghostly Minstrel (taking a deliberately circuitous route to throw off anyone following her and stripping off her disguise before entering the inn itself). She rejoined the others and quickly briefed them in on what she had accomplished.

There was still the problem of Iltumar. They assumed that he was probably planning to go to the meeting that night, too, and they had no idea what might be waiting for him (or Tee) there.

“Is there any way we can stop him?” Tee asked.

“Can’t we just tell him not to go?” Dominic said.

Tor rubbed his chin. “Considering the way he reacted when I tried to talk to him about it in even general terms… I don’t think it would work.”

They talked round (and round) the subject for several minutes, but eventually concluded that they couldn’t approach Iltumar directly about what was happening. Instead, they decided to distract him – keeping him busy with something else so that he wouldn’t have time to attend the meeting.

Tee crossed the hall and touched base with Ranthir (who had returned to his studies). Ranthir affably agreed with their conclusion, and was very open to the idea of letting Iltumar study with him as a way of pulling him out of the meeting.

Unfortunately, the plan didn’t work: Tor waited several hours before heading over to the Bull and Bear around ten o’clock, only to discover that Iltumar had left at nine o’clock. Iltumar had told Hirus that he was going over to the Ghostly Minstrel… but he wasn’t there.

Tor went back and told the others. “He’s gone.”

THE MIDNIGHT MEETING

(09/15/790)

Tee had already resolved to go to the meeting: If Arveth was going to be there, she would be expecting Tee (as “Laurea”) to be attending. There was no sense throwing away all the work they’d done to make contact with the Brotherhood, and Tee might be able to learn something valuable from the meeting itself.

The possibility of someone going with Tee (using the ring they had found in Pythoness House) was briefly raised, but they eventually decided not to push their luck. Elestra was concerned for Tee’s safety and made it clear that, if Tee hadn’t returned within a couple of hours, the rest of them would come looking for her. It wasn’t entirely clear to Tee what they could do (since none of them even knew where the meeting was going to be held, exactly), but there wasn’t much time to argue about it: With midnight rapidly approaching, Tee slipped back into her disguse, went out the rear door of the Minstrel, and circled around to the south to make it appear that she was approaching Tavern Row from the opposite direction.

As she arrived, Tee spotted Arveth at the far end of the Row. But she was approached by a different woman with mousy-brown hair. The woman gave Tee an innocuous greeting, but with a subtle tilt of her head she indicated a nearby rooftop. Tee surreptitiously glanced in that direction and spotted a shabbily dressed girl. With Tee following on the street below, the little girl ran down the roofs and came to a stop next to an alley near the middle of the block.

One of the buildings flanking this alley was a small, seedy-looking pub named the Rat’s Nest. Tee could see that the backdoor of the pub opened into the alley. The door was open and a woman dressed like a serving wench was standing in it. When she saw Tee round the corner, she waved her over. As Tee drew near, she opened another door that led into a small, open area. Several large, wooden crates had been stacked up in this space, allowing Tee to climb up onto the rooftop garden of the building directly behind the Rat’s Nest (which fronted onto Runshallot Street).

The only other exit from the rooftop garden was a door. With a shrug of her shoulders, Tee swung it open. The room beyond appeared to be nothing more than a sparsely-decorated living quarters. Three thugs were crowded around a small table, playing cards. As Tee entered, they looked up. One of them pointed towards a bench that had been shoved up against the wall near a flight of stairs leading down to the first floor. Spread out across the top of the bench were a dozen white masks with crude eyeholes cut in them.

“Put on a mask, then go downstairs.”

Tee nodded. She was actually quite grateful for the mask, since it would save her the difficulty of figuring out what to do if Iltumar recognized her. She grabbed a mask, tugged it down over her head, and then headed down the stairs.

The stairs bottomed out into what appeared to be a cobbler’s shop. There was a large table near the fireplace, with a half-dozen cultists in identical masks sitting around it. As Tee came down the stairs, they turned and stared at her. The effect was deeply disconcerting.

At the bottom of the stairs, another cultist waited – this one unmasked. “Take a seat. Keep your mask on. And remember, no names.”

Tee nodded her understanding and headed over to the table. Her eyes instinctively found the exits: The stairs she had come down and two doors – one that might lead outside and another directly opposite it.

A few minutes later, there was the sound of movement coming from above and then another masked cultist came down the stairs. Tee recognized his stride and his body language. It was Iltumar.

Oh, Iltumar… Tee thought. What are you doing?

With Iltumar’s arrival, the greeter at the bottom of the stairs was apparently satisfied. He crossed to the inner door and knocked.

A moment later, the door swung open and a large centaur entered the room, stooping under the human-sized lintel.

Oh shit, Tee thought. She didn’t recognize him, but it was possible that he knew her. There weren’t that many centaurs in the city, and most of them had some sort of connection to the Narred enclave.

“My name is Dilar,” the centaur said. “And I am honored to see so many who are ready to take the first, glorious steps in championing the cause of freedom. You have come to this meeting from many different places and for many different reasons. But you share a common dream – a dream which the Republicans have begun, but which they were not daring enough to realize!”

Tee cringed at the thought of the Republicans – who had tried to kill the Commissar – not being daring enough, but there was a palpable sense of excitement from the others around the table and she was careful to match it.

“We have a real chance to make a difference!” Dilar said. “To change the course of history! By choosing to be here, you have chosen to be heroes. You have chosen greatness.”

Tee saw Iltumar straighten up at the mention of the word “hero”.

“By coming here, you have already joined this Brotherhood,” Dilar continued. “Over the next few weeks you will be contacted. For many of you there will be training. You will be asked to do things. Many of these things will seem simple or even unimportant, but you should never doubt that in even the smallest service you are aiding the Brotherhood and all that we are attempting to accomplish. Over time, your responsibilities will increase.

“The truth is that, even now, we are in desperate need of your help. And so I am asking for all those who can immediately commit themselves fully to our cause to volunteer for our newest project.”

Iltumar’s hand shot up. Several others, including Tee’s (against her better judgment), followed.

“Excellent.” Dilar smiled. “Now, for one final point of business. We have many allies in our struggle. Among them are the brothers of the Ebon Hand. They have a public temple, but as long as we must operate in secret it is important that none of you should go there. However, if any of the Ebon Hand should contact you, you should treat their words as if they came from the mouths of the Brotherhood itself.”

With the meeting concluded, the greeter instructed those who had not volunteered to return upstairs and then leave the way they had come. The others, one at a time, were let out through the front door.

THE PROJECT SITE

Once outside, Tee was met by Arveth. With few words exchanged between them, Arveth led Tee to an apartment complex on Crossing Street in Oldtown.

Arveth identified one of the buildings as the “project site” and explained that security had become very important. She led Tee to a position in an alley across the street from the building from which she could covertly observe the building’s entrance, then she taught her several hand-signs.

“Members of the Brotherhood will identify themselves using these signs,” Arveth said. “You’ll stand watch between the hours of midnight and six o’clock every day. If anyone attempts to enter or leave the complex without properly identifying themselves, you should raise the alarm. Do you understand?”

Tee nodded. She was certain that the “Brotherhood” was planning to kill the Commissar (what other work of the Republicans could the cultists want to carry out?), and she desperately wanted to know what could be hidden inside the apartment complex which could further those designs… but Arveth either didn’t know or didn’t think that Tee should know. Pushing the issue might make her suspicious, and Tee had the feeling that she was in deep enough at this point that she wouldn’t be allowed to simply back out of the deal.

Arveth arranged to pass messages to Tee through the Delver’s Guild, and told her that she could contact Arveth in the tavern where they had first met during the evening hours.

With these arrangements made, Arveth left Tee to her first shift.

However, this left Tee with something of a dilemma: She knew that her friends were waiting for her at the Ghostly Minstrel, and the hour was fast approaching when they would abandon restraint and come looking for her on Tavern Row. Their efforts might come to no effect at all, but they could just as easily bumble their way into ruining all of her work at infiltrating the Brotherhood.

While keeping a faithful watch on the apartment complex, Tee planned carefully. After about half an hour, she started looking around nervously. This escalated until she was actively miming the need to relieve herself.

Hoping that her act had convinced anyone watching her, she retreated down the alley. Emerging onto Tower Road, she was able to flag down a carriage and ride it to the White House – a nearby gambling establishment that she had visited a few weeks earlier. As she had hoped, there were several messengers waiting to service the large, late-night crowds there. She quickly wrote out a terse message assuring the others that she was safe and that she should not go to Tavern Row, dispatched the messenger, and then slinked back to her post on Crossing Street.

Tee had no way of knowing what she might have missed during her absence, but the rest of the night passed quietly. Just as her shift was ending, however, she saw two men in black robes leave the apartment building. They gave the proper signs and headed south down the street.

Tee briefly considered following them, but then discarded the idea. A few minutes later she concluded that no one was coming to specifically relieve her (she guessed that the other shifts must be watching the building from different locations), and she slipped away quietly.

NEXT:
Running the Campaign: Missing Clues – Campaign Journal: Session 27B
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

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Ptolus: Running the Campaign – Counterintelligence Vectors

April 15th, 2022

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 26D: Elestra Digs Deep

Jamill slammed back the last of his amber-colored drink. “Okay, this is your last chance. Who sent you?”

Elestra suddenly became aware that two rather large men with short clubs strapped to their thighs had suddenly materialized out of the crowd behind her. She stammered, unable to find any kind of answer that would satisfy Jamill.

Jamill jerked his head and headed towards the back of the bar. The two thugs laid their hands on Elestra’s arms. She got the message and let them hustle her out through the back door of the tavern.

When you have factions in your game, those factions should react to the actions of the PCs.

But if factions act as if they know every action the PCs take – as if they were omniscient, all-knowing entities with an eavesdropping device planted under the gaming table — that becomes a frustrating experience for the players and stifles their ingenuity.

There are a number of methods you can use for handling this, but I’ve generally gotten good results taking the decision out of my hands and mechanically determining it.

For example, you might have a random faction encounter check, similar to a random encounter check. For example, roll 1d6 once per day and if you roll a 1, some faction is going to take action against the PCs (or, at least, based on what they know about the PCs’ actions). Increase this to a 2 in 6 chance if the PCs have been making a lot of “noise.”

Another option is to mechanically check whether specific PC actions are detected by relevant factions (e.g., the faction they’re taking the action against or a faction that has them under surveillance). You can think of this as a stealth-type resolution, but at a more abstract level (and possibly using different skills).

Note: This is different than a situation where a faction DEFINITELY knows what the PCs are doing. For example, if the PCs break into a Renraku facility and get spotted by surveillance cameras or fight NPCs who escape and can identify them, you can just actively play Renraku’s response.

A key thing I recommend here is that the PCs should be able to influence the outcome of these mechanics, ideally in a way that involves meaningful choices by the players and is more than just an all-or-nothing decision to take or not take the risky action.

For example, the events in this session use the counter-intelligence system I shared here on the Alexandrian back in 2010. (When I originally mentioned them in this article and talked about the gameplay they made possible that otherwise would never have arisen, it was specifically this Ptolus campaign I was talking about.)

The other thing to note about these counter-intelligence mechanics is that they aren’t uni-directional: The players can also use them to figure out if people are asking questions about them.

In the case of this session, the impact on play was pretty straightforward:

Elestra succeeded on her Gather Information check to gain information about the cult Iltumar was involved with.
But the cult also succeeded on their counter-intelligence check to detect that Elestra had been asking questions about them, resulting in the ambush at the Onyx Spider.

Elestra really had dug a deep hole for herself here, and I thought it quite likely that the scenario was now going to turn into a rescue op by the other PCs. (Or possibly even somebody finding Elestra’s body in an alley. The decision not to tell anyone else in the group what she was doing was incredibly risky.) But she managed to turn the tables quite nicely.

Taking Jamill back to their rooms, on the other hand, was a potentially disastrous decision from a counter-intelligence standpoint: The bad guys didn’t know who Elestra was, but if they knew where she lived they’d be able to figure it out pretty quick.

Tee recognized the risk and took some very smart actions to blunt the counter-intelligence vectors that had been established. Just dumping Jamill somewhere would have left him free to continue trying to figure out who Elestra was and why she’d been asking questions. Running him out of town under the guise of the cult itself AND planting the idea that Elestra had been “dealt with” even if she decided to stay in town was both a plan and a contingency plan.

The follow-up decision to then use Jamill’s identity to infiltrate the cult itself was also smart play, and would shape how the entire scenario would play out.

NEXT:
Campaign Journal: Session 27A – Running the Campaign: Missing Clues
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

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In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 26D: Elestra Digs Deep

April 15th, 2022

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 26D: ELESTRA DIGS DEEP

August 24th, 2008
The 14th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

The Onyx Spider - Ptolus (Monte Cook Games)

As two o’clock neared, Elestra headed to Tavern Row.

The Onyx Spider was a large, squat, two-story building wedged into the south end of Tavern Row. Elestra knew it to have a seedy and dangerous reputation. And as she passed through the front doors into the common room, it wasn’t hard to figure out where the tavern had gotten its name from: In the center of the room, levitating ten feet off the floor and embedded in a huge crystal sphere, was a giant spider carved from black onyx. It looked expensive.

Elestra spotted Jamill at the bar and pushed her way through the crowd to where he was standing.

“So you’re interested in the Brotherhood?” Jamill asked her, stonefaced.

Elestra nodded. “I might be interested in joining.”

“Might be?”

“I guess I just want to know about it.”

Jamill’s brow furrowed. “Right. Okay, who told you about the Brotherhood?”

Elestra hesitated. “A friend.”

“Who?”

“Well, it was more a friend of a friend… you know?”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t really… He kind of spoke to me in confidence and…”

Jamill slammed back the last of his amber-colored drink. “Okay, this is your last chance. Who sent you?”

Elestra suddenly became aware that two rather large men with short clubs strapped to their thighs had suddenly materialized out of the crowd behind her. She stammered, unable to find any kind of answer that would satisfy Jamill.

Jamill jerked his head and headed towards the back of the bar. The two thugs laid their hands on Elestra’s arms. She got the message and let them hustle her out through the back door of the tavern.

As they stepped through the door into the narrow alley behind the Onyx Spider, however, the two thugs briefly took their hands off Elestra. She immediately called upon the Spirit of the City and began her transformation in to a bird, hoping to fly away.

But the thugs were too quick for her. A large hand snapped out and grabbed the fragile sparrow-Elestra in mid-flight. She could feel it crushing the delicate bones of her new form and she was forced to abandon the attempt.

The two thugs reached for their clubs, but even as she landed lightly on the floor of the alley, Elestra was quick to draw her rapier. Her blade lashed out at the face of one of the thugs, cutting a deep gash through one cheek.

The thug screamed in pain, but even as Elestra grinned with satisfaction she felt the other thug’s club smash into her already aching ribs. Ignoring the blinding flash of pain, she spun around and cut a matching gash across the second thug’s cheek.

Jamill stepped out of the alley. He had drawn a longsword, but his swing seemed slow and clumsy to Elestra. She easily parried it and drove her own blade viciously past his defenses, skewering him through the stomach.

With a deep groan, Jamill let his longsword slip from his fingers and sank to the dirty cobbles of the alley. The two thugs stared at Elestra, glanced at each other, and then ran off in opposite directions.

Thinking quickly, Elestra grabbed Jamill (who had now slipped from shock into unconsciousness), threw him over her shoulder, and headed north towards the Ghostly Minstrel. Circumspectly circling around the inn, Elestra snuck in through the kitchen and headed upstairs.

She grabbed Agnarr from his room and left him to bind and blindfold Jamill in her room while she went back downstairs to leave a message with Tellith to let the others know that she would like them to come up to her room as soon as they returned.

TEE IS THE CLEVER ONE

Tee and Dominic arrived back at the Ghostly Minstrel together. Receiving Elestra’s message (by way of Tellith) they headed up to her room.

When they knocked, Elestra cracked the door slightly and peeked out at them. “Oh! Hello!” She visibly scanned the hall behind them to make sure that it was empty, then ushered them inside.

Agnarr was sitting on the bed with a vaguely bored expression on his face. Jamill was trussed up in the middle of the room, still unconscious. Elestra shuffled her feet nervously.

Tee looked back and forth between the three of them. “What am I looking at, exactly?”

Elestra, in a slightly disjointed fashion, explained everything that had happened. Tee was unbelieving. Wasn’t this exactly what she had told Elestra not to do?

“And then you brought him here?” Tee said, incredulously. “Why would you—“

Another knock came at the door. Tee quickly waved Elestra out of the way and cracked the door.

It was Tor.

“I had a message from Elestra to come up?”

Tee nodded. “Elestra has created a… situation.” She opened the door wide enough for Tor to see Jamill. “And it would probably be better if you weren’t part of this developing disaster.”

“Haven’t you just told him pretty much everything there is to tell?” Dominic said. “Just let him in.”

But Tor nodded to Tee and left. Tee shut the door.

“What—“ Elestra started.

“Shhh.” Tee cut her off. “Let me think.”

She had asked Elestra not to go asking questions, but she had. And now she was faced with almost exactly the type of situation she had feared: A cultist in their rooms, compromising whatever safety or security might be left at the Ghostly Minstrel. Anywhere else would have been—

“Elestra, I need you to go out and find a vacant warehouse. Somewhere far away from here. Try the South Market.”

“What are you—?”

“Just go. We’ve got to get this done before he wakes up.” Elestra left. Tee turned to Dominic and Agnarr. “You two stay here and keep an eye on him. If it looks like he’s going to wake up, knock him out again.”

Tee dashed out of the room and headed across Delver’s Square to Ebbert’s. She bought a strange, eclectic collection of material and then returned to the Ghostly Minstrel as quickly as she could.

By the time Elestra returned with the location of a suitable warehouse in the South Market, Tee had stripped down the common items she had purchased and assembled the makeshift components of a primitive disguise. Her biggest goal had been to make herself look human instead of elfish, hoping that would be enough to throw people off the trail if it came to that. (Of course, Elestra hadn’t been disguised at all… but there wasn’t much she could do about that.)

Tee had Agnarr and the others carry Jamill downstairs and load him into a carriage, making protestations as he went about how his friend had had “too much to drink”. Tee surreptiously joined them a few moments later. She bribed the carriage driver well and had him drop them off at the empty warehouse.

TEE HUSTLES

There was a dilapidated chair in the corner of the warehouse. She had Agnarr tie Jamill to it and then told everyone to wait outside.

“Will you be okay?” Agnarr asked.

“If not, you’ll hear me shouting. I have big lungs.” Tee gave a slightly nervous grin.

Once the others had left, though, she slipped the broken square ring that they had found in Pythoness House onto her finger and pushed those nervous feelings deep inside and set her face in a look of cold determination. Then she slapped Jamill awake.

“I’m ashamed of you.”

Jamill shook his head. “What’s going on? Who are you?”

Tee removed his blindfold, carefully making sure that he would see the ring on her finger without letting him know that she was trying to make sure he saw it.

Jamill shook his head again, trying to get his bleary eyes to focus. “What happened?”

“You couldn’t handle a little girl?” Scorn dripped from Tee’s voice. “A little girl who turns into a bird?”

Jamill suddenly turned surly. “She was tougher than she looked…”

“She’s been dealt with,” Tee said with a finality that made it clear that Jamill was lucky that he hadn’t been “dealt with”, too. “You’re an embarrassment. You’re embarrassing us. Get out of town. Don’t come back.”

And then she left him… still tied up.

BACK TO ELESTRA’S ROOM

Tee rejoined the others. She stripped off her disguise and they returned to the Ghostly Minstrel, gathering Ranthir and Tor on their way back to Elestra’s room.

They quickly compared their notes from the day. Tor filled them in on his fear that Iltumar might be followed by cultists, his meeting with Shim, and the news that they had been followed.

“But Shim said that it was an Imperial priestess.”

“What does that mean?” Elestra said.

“Do you think that the Church might be in league with the cultists somehow?” Tee said.

Dominic suddenly looked queasy and uncertain.

“Or perhaps there are just some members of the Church who are cultists,” Ranthir said. “The Truth of the Hidden God said that the Brotherhood of the Blooded Knife infiltrates religions.”

“Is it possible that Rehobath is working with Wuntad?” Elestra asked.

A flurry of panicky hypotheses followed, but then Tor held up his hands. “There’s something else you should all know.” He paused for a moment, trying to find the right words to express something that felt like a confession. “I’ve started taking steps towards becoming a knight with the Order of the Dawn…”

“Congratulations!” Tee said, a huge smile spreading across her face. “That’s wonderful!”

“But that means,” Tor said, “That the priestess might have been following me. The Order might be keeping an eye on me to make sure that I don’t do anything unworthy.”

To a large degree, all of this left them back at square one: Tee hadn’t dared to ask Jamill any questions because it might have made him suspicious enough for her gambit to fail. They didn’t know how to interpret the information that Shim had given to Tor. All they’d really done was to confirm that Iltumar was tied up with some very dangerous people.

“As much as I hate to say it,” Tee said, “Elestra may have had the right idea. If we move quickly, I might be able to find someone else in the Brotherhood that I can talk to by using Jamill’s name as a contact… before he has a chance to warn them or they discover that he’s missing.”

This didn’t thrill any of them, but it seemed like their best chance at this point.

“Of course,” Tee said with a withering look in Elestra’s direction. “I’ll be taking proper precautions.”

And she walked out.

NEXT:
Running the Campaign: Counterintelligence Vectors – Campaign Journal: Session 27A
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

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