The Alexandrian

Posts tagged ‘in the shadow of the spire’

Ptolus - In the Shadow of the Spire
IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 27C: THE SAINT OF CHAOS

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

Tee didn’t argue with Ranthir. They returned to the Ghostly Minstrel and reconvened with the others, quickly describing what they had seen.

Elestra was more than happy to let the cultists fight amongst themselves. Agnarr, on the other hand, was still urging them to charge in the front door. “We’ll catch them by surprise!”

Tee was convinced that the insectoid creatures were going to be used in some sort of an attack on the Commissar, and their discussion turned to what their primary goal had become: Was it to shut down the project? To protect Iltumar? Or somehow do both?

Tor talked about his plans to take Iltumar out the next day. “If he’s looking for something more exciting, maybe we can offer that to him.”

“But isn’t tit possible he’ll just think we’re trying to control his life?” Ranthir asked.

“That’s right,” Elestra agreed. “Tell a boy not to do something and he’ll do it just to spite you.”

Tee, reflecting on the fact that Elestra was scarcely older than Iltumar, shook her head. “I got the impression that, if I left, I’d be hunted down and killed. Even if we could somehow convince Iltumar to quit, just pulling him out could still be dangerous.”

In the end, they decided to wait until the next day. Tee would take her shift in disguise at midnight. And if Tor could pull Iltumar away so that they could be sure he wouldn’t be on duty, they would try an assault on the complex.

“Without Tor?” Dominic asked.

“I’d prefer to have his sword,” Tee said. “But we need to make sure that Iltumar isn’t the line of fire.”

“Aren’t we worried about the giant insect things?” Dominic asked, clearly worried about the giant insect things.

“They were afraid of a moving curtain,” Tee said. “I’m not too worried about them.”

“If they’re easily startled, I’ve got a cantrip that can make dancing lights,” Ranthir said.

Dominic laughed. “Ah! Lights! Lights! Look out for the lights!”

Tee grinned. “Agnarr! Get away from those lights and hit those things!”

They all laughed. Even Agnarr.

MISSIVE FROM THE MIGHTY

There was a knock at the door.

Elestra answered it and found Tellith standing in the hall.

“Oh, good. Master Agnarr is with you,” Tellith smiled. “I have a message for him.” She held out a piece of folded parchment.

Agnarr came to the door, grabbed the letter, and grunted a thank you. Elestra thanked her as well and then shut the door.

As soon as the door was shut, Agnarr passed the parchment to Tee. She read it aloud to him.

Master Agnarr—

As we have not received word from you in several weeks, we are urgently seeking confirmation that you are not, in fact, dead. If this letter should reach your hand, please send us a couriered response indicating your continued good health.

Order of Iron Might - Ptolus (Monte Cook Games)

The Order of Iron Might

Agnarr had no idea what this Order might be, but Tee was familiar with them. They were a guild of warriors based out of the Citadel of Might near the Arena in Oldtown. Tee had never been there, but she understood it to be a hiring hall of sorts for mercenaries, guards, and sellswords. She had some impression that Dorant Khatru, the Merchant Prince of House Khatru, served as the Order’s guildmaster.

“Do you think you joined them… before?” Elestra asked. “You know, when we lost our memories?”

Agnarr shrugged. “It’s possible.”

Links to their missing past had proven few and hard to come by. Tee was particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of following up on this one. She and Dominic both agreed to accompany Agnarr while he paid a visit to the Citadel of Might.

A KNIGHT’S TRAINING

Tor, meanwhile, had training to attend to. He headed into the Temple District. Sir Kabel met him at the entrance of the Godskeep and escorted him to the training field just outside the southern gate. There he was introduced to Sera Nara – a lithe and attractive woman with dark, copper brown skin. She wore her dark hair in a long braid down to her waist. The entire braid was tightly bound with bands of gold, and the tip was capped with a sharply-edged blade of mithril.

“Nara will be your instructor,” Kabel said. “I’ll have to leave Tor in your capable hands, Sera. I have to meet with Gemmell regarding the tourney rosters.”

Kabel went off about his business and Nara got down to hers. She adopted a practical, no-nonsense approach, but was clearly impressed with Tor’s ability with the blade.

“I practiced for many years,” Tor explained. “But these past few weeks it seems as if all that training suddenly makes sense.”

“Of course,” Nara nodded. “Your life has been at a risk. When the blood boils, the blade and body become as one. The heat of battle has made you a warrior. Now we will hone that ability into the skills of a knight.”

They worked hard. The session lasted for nearly two hours. Tor proved to be a fast learner, quickly mastering the rudimentary elements of the Order’s martial training.

“We perceive the world through sight and sound and touch,” Sera Nara said. “But all of us share a deeper connection with reality, as well. If you listen with your soul you can hear the Song of the World – the divine melody which links us all, man and god alike. Through the motions of his blade, a warrior’s body can harmonize with the Song. You will see your opponents without sight; hear them without sound; strike them without thought.”

When the training was nearly complete, Tor became aware that Kabel had returned. The knight stood a goodly distance from the practice field, but his attention was clearly focused on them.

Nara eventually finished. She complimented him again and told him to return to the field in two days. As Tor was gathering up his armor, Kabel made his way over to him.

“Master Tor. How was your training?”

“Exhausting.”

Kabel laughed. “Sera Nara is a demanding teacher. But these are demanding times. I think it’s more important than ever that you become a knight as quickly as possible.”

Tor smiled. “I would like that very much.”

“As would I.” Kabel returned his smile. “Now, a question. Do you know if Dominic has met with Rehobath again?”

Tor shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

“That’s to the good,” Kabel said. “Hopefully this dark chapter can be put behind us soon. If all goes well, I will have much to tell you when you return.”

Kabel made his farewells. Tor was curious about his enigmatic parting, but all he could really do was wait.

THE COMING OF TAVAN ZITH

Oldtown - Ptolus (Monte Cook Games)

Agnarr, Tee and Dominic, meanwhile, had entered Oldtown on their way to the Citadel of Might.

They had just turned off Dalenguard Road onto Four Fountains Street when their ears were assaulted by sudden screams. They were crossing the mouth of Whipstone Street, and turning that way they could see the tightly packed crowd of the merchant road suddenly surging towards them. There were shouts of “Fire!” and “Run!”

Moments later, a half-orc tore into view. He was completely engulfed in flame, but – despite his own screams and the look of terror in his eyes – the flames didn’t seem to be hurting him. However, when the half-orc grabbed onto a woman near him – in what looked like desperation – the flames did burn her. Badly.

Their crisis instincts kicked in. Dominic threaded his way through the crowd, trying to reach the woman who had been burned. Agnarr, meanwhile, hurled a waterskin at the half-orc. This, however, simply burned away in a cloud of steam without having any effect on the fire.

Tee kept her distance, but shouted at the half-orc to stop. “How can we help? What’s happening?”

But the half-orc didn’t seem to hear her. “What’s happening to me? I’m burning! Help me! For the love of the gods, someone help me!” His voice was tortured with panic.

And then, suddenly, the half-orc’s flames pulsed brightly. Dominic, having drawn near in his efforts to help the woman, was scorched.

Agnarr, seeing Dominic hurt, lost his patience with the situation. He tried to knock the half-orc out. Unfortunately, his efforts only succeeded in making the half-orc even more panicky.

Tee could see that the situation was getting out of control. She ran down the street – getting close to the half-orc and practically shouting into his face. “Stop it! We’re trying to help you, but you have to stop it! You’re hurting people!”

Something in her sharply spoken words – or perhaps the sudden appearance of a lithe elfling directly in his path – shocked the half-orc out of his panic. He looked around the street, seeming to see the scene around himself for the first time. Then he sagged to his knees, his face taut with pain. “It hurts…”

But the flames still weren’t hurting him. Dominic, laid a soothing blessing on the woman who had suffered burns, and then – at Tee’s signal – moved in to examine the half-orc (albeit it from a safe distance).

Now that the half-orc was more of a curiosity than a threat, the crowd that had been scattering in a rapid retreat instead began to draw closer. But just as it seemed as if they had successfully calmed the situation, another man suddenly grabbed at his eyes. Bolts of blue lightning shot out of them, striking several people in the crowd. The thick stench of ozone filled the air. At least a half dozen people collapsed.

Panic erupted once again. In the midst of it, Tee was suddenly struck by the sight of a dark-cloaked man striding boldly down the street and seemingly oblivious to the chaos around him.

He seemed so incongruous that Tee’s suspicions were immediately tweaked. She headed in his direction and hadn’t gotten far before she saw him brush past an older woman in her fifties. The woman almost immediately started floating up into the air. “Help! Help me! The demons have me! They have me by the arms! Help!”

“Agnarr!” Tee called back over her shoulder. “The man in black! I think he’s doing something!”

Agnarr tried to push his way through the crowd, but didn’t seem to be catching up. Finally he lost his patience and bellowed. “OUT OF THE WAY!”

The crowd parted before him, allowing Agnarr to abruptly catch up to the mysterious figure and swing away with his greatsword.

“Oh!” Tee gasped. “But I’m not even sure if he’s actually causing… Never mind.”

With some preternatural sense, the man barely managed to duck out of the way of Agnarr’s blow. Then he whirled, revealing a muffled face, and cried out in an imperious voice, “You dare to molest me, miscreant?”

… but then he caught sight of Agnarr’s imposing figure and apparently decided that flight was the better part of valor. He whirled away and took off running down the street, displaying an amazing agility at slipping through the now near-riotous crowd trying to escape from the chaos in the street. An elf he passed suddenly screamed and collapsed to the ground.

Agnarr was momentarily startled at the abrupt flight. He was even more startled in the next instant to find himself beginning to secrete acid through his skin. It burned sharply, but he gritted his teeth through the pain and ran after the man, ducking narrowly to avoid one of the blasts of lightning scorching through the air with the scent of ozone.

Dominic, meanwhile, was studying the half-orc. The flames weren’t burning him, but there was no denying the pain that the half-orc was feeling. In fact, the flames seemed to be feeding on him in some way – consuming his fundamental vitality in much the same way that a soul-thirsting undead might.

Tee was having some success in following in Agnarr’s wake, but she was losing ground. In frustration she pulled up short, notched an arrow in her bow, and took a shot.

It clipped the dark-clad figure’s shoulder as he ducked around the corner at the far end of the street, still desperately trying to escape from Agnarr’s blows.

Tee renewed her pursuit. As she neared the corner herself, she came upon a dwarf staring at the wall. Globules of black energy poured from his eyes… and a giant octopus appeared half-embedded in the wall, its long tentacles thrashing limply. Tee cursed silently, but decided it was a problem she’d have to deal with later.

Dominic, meanwhile, had figured out how to sustain the rapidly deteriorating half-orc… but his efforts weren’t actually curing his condition, only alleviating it. While he was trying to figure out a more permanent solution, several members of the city watch came running up from Four Fountains Street. Spotting Dominic’s robes, one of the watchmen approached him. “Have you got that under control?”

Dominic looked up. “Umm… More or less.”

Agnarr finally caught up with his quarry. At the last possible instant, the dark-clad figure whirled in an effort to defend himself, but Agnarr’s blade cut too fast and too strong, viciously slashing through the figure’s chest.

Grasping at his bleeding torso, the man doubled over. “You would dare the wrath of Tavan Zith?!”

And then Tee’s arrow took him in the throat. Zith collapsed to the street, his breath gurgling and blood bubbling from his wounds.

THE AFTERMATH OF TAVAN ZITH

But the chaos he had wreaked did not abate: The half-orc still burned. The lightning-eyed man was still firing randomly in all directions.

And the dwarf Tee had passed before was still summoning fell creatures into their midst: A massive hound – standing taller than a man’s shoulder (although perhaps not as tall as Agnarr’s shoulder) and wreathed in living shadow – appeared suddenly at the corner of Whipstone Street. Directly behind Tee. The crowds started running in a new direction.

Tee cursed and ran down the street towards Agnarr.

Before she could get there, however, Agnarr had reached down and grabbed the dying Zith by his hair. Hauling him up he was shocked to discover the features of a dark-skinned elf – just like Shilukar. But the shock didn’t stop him from cutting off his head.

Tee came skidding to a halt next to him. “Agnarr! What are you doing?”

“It didn’t work!” Agnarr, gasping in pain, held up one of his acid-coated hands.

“We needed to question him!”

“And we will.” Agnarr took off the iron collar from Ghul’s Labyrinth and snapped it around the dark elf’s neck. “Dominic should be able to heal this.” He grimaced again at the pain from the acid. “I think you might need to kill me… Maybe that would stop it.”

“It’s not that I wouldn’t love to do that,” Tee said. “But—“

“But I have work to do.” Agnarr nodded. Then he grinned. He turned down the street and ran back towards where the hound of shadows was spreading panic.

Tee, meanwhile, grabbed Zith’s body and stuffed it into her bag of holding.

Meanwhile, back by Dominic, the city watchmen were spreading out. They formed a perimeter around the lightning-eyed man and – before Dominic realized what they were doing – shot him dead.

“For the glory!” Agnarr charged through the panicking throngs. The suddenly flaming sword had a less than calming effect on the crowd, but it caught and tore at the insubstantial flesh-stuff of the shadow hound.

The beast – in terrible pain – threw back its head and howled. It was a sound born from the stygian pits of utter darkness, carrying in its very note a primal terror. It echoed off the buildings of the city. At its passing, a wave of supernatural fear swept over the entire block. People began scattering in complete panic. Even Tee couldn’t resist its effects, joining the screaming throngs in mindless flight.

The dwarf responsible for summoning the strange creatures suddenly leapt onto Agnarr’s back. “No! Leave it alone you! You mustn’t hurt it!”

Agnarr managed to shrug off the frenzied dwarf. Then with a final swing of his greatsword he finished off the shadowy hound. He twirled back towards the dwarf— And found an axe swinging at his head.

He narrowly turned the blow so that it only cut lightly into his armored side and then slammed the flat of his own blade into the dwarf’s face. The dwarf slumped into unconsciousness, his face badly scorched from the flames of the blade.

Back at the other end of the street, the city watchmen had thrown a rope around the floating woman and were pulling her back down to earth. Once her feet touched the ground, her condition seemed to pass. But the half-orc was still burning and his condition was deteriorating rapidly.

Dominic, however, had seen that death seemed to have stopped the lightning-bolts being hurled from the eyes of the other man. He was able to heal the man’s wounds and return breath to his body. And when he did, the condition didn’t reappear.

As he was finishing, the commander of the watchmen approached him. “I know you… You’re the Chosen of Vehthyl.”

“Umm… Yes.” Dominic was already uncomfortable with this conversation and it hadn’t even properly begun.

“What caused this?”

“I’m not… really sure.”

Agnarr came trotting up. “I am.” He quickly explained about the “sorcerer” who had been responsible for releasing these dangerous abilities.

“And what happened to him?” the commander asked.

“He escaped,” Agnarr said without missing a beat. “He ran that way.” He pointed in a plausible direction.

Dominic thought that the only way to cure the half-orc might be to kill him and then bring him back from the dead. The half-orc was terrified by the idea, but agreed. Before Dominic could say anything else, Agnarr thrust his flaming sword straight into the half-orc’s chest—

And a massive explosion ripped its way out of the half-orc’s chest and gouted its way down the length of the entire block!

An unnatural pressure wave preceding the blast threw Agnarr clear of it. He sat up and shook his head. “What happened?”

Fortunately the street had already been virtually abandoned and the members of the city watch had been far enough away that they weren’t injured.

The only thing left of the half-orc, however, was a desiccated corpse… Which, thankfully, no longer burned. Dominic had to work for several minutes – stitching sinew and regrowing skin through the sheer lifeforce of his faith – but he was finally able to restore some semblance of life to the half-orc’s pain-wracked body.

Agnarr, meanwhile, was stripping out of his armor in an effort to prevent it from any further damage. The acid-scarring hadn’t caused any structural damage yet, but his clothes were already badly scarred in many places.

“We’ll have to get you some new clothes,” Dominic said.

“Why?” Agnarr said. “There’s just a few holes!”

“It’s… umm… more about where the holes are located.”

Like the half-orc, Dominic only saw one solution. In a controlled fashion he stopped Agnarr’s heart, killing him. Then he immediately used his skills and divine gifts to revive him.

It worked. The acid stopped oozing from Agnarr’s pores.

TEE RETURNS TO THE SCENE

By the time her head cleared, Tee found herself on High Road, looking down off the Oldtown cliffs towards the sea. She cursed under her breath.

After a moment’s thought, she set off at a running pace towards the Ghostly Minstrel. Once there she barged into Ranthir’s room.

“Mistress Tee?”

Without saying a word she pulled Zith’s corpse half out of her bag of holding and then stuffed it back in. He was on her heels as she turned and headed back out into the street.

They were able to grab a carriage in Delver’s Square. As they rode back towards Oldtown, Tee filled him in on what she’d seen. “We’re not sure what we’re dealing with. I’m hoping you’ll be able to figure it out.”

“I’ll do my best.”

By the time they reached the ramp leading up into Oldtown, however, the watch had sealed the upper city.

It turned out that the bay of the shadow hound had affected a wide swath of the city. And in the tightly-packed confines of Oldtown the effects had been devastating: Riotous crowds and madhouse conditions. There had even been some reports of people throwing themselves out of windows in blind panic.

Tee, however, managed to identify herself as an associate of the Chosen of Vehthyl. Fortunately the guards stationed on the roadblock had apparently heard reports that Dominic had been helping them at the source of the disturbance. They let Tee and Ranthir through the blockade.

When they arrived back at the scene, they discovered that Dominic and Agnarr had already left. Everyone who had been directly affected by Zith’s attack had been quarantined on Whipstone Street. Things were firmly under control, but the watch commander was more than glad to accept Ranthir’s mystical expertise.

After examining those affected, Ranthir identified the effect as an uncontrolled explosion of sorcerous potential. “We all have a connection to the same arcane forces that I use in the casting of my spells,” he explained. “In some that connection is stronger than in others. It appears that in these victims that connection has been exploited. In layman’s terms, it’s been ripped open – power flows through it in a completely uncontrolled fashion.”

This meant little to any of them, but Ranthir was able to confirm that all of them had been fully cured.

But the dwarf kept screaming about the voices whispering in his ears. And the elf who had collapsed was now babbling in what appeared to be glossolalic tongues.

“So what’s wrong with them?” Tee asked.

“There’s no lingering effect of a mystical nature,” Ranthir said. “But whatever happened to them must have broken their minds. Killing them won’t help.”

The commander of the watch nodded sharply and then turned to one of his men. “We’ll send them to Mahdoth’s Asylum, then.”

Suddenly, out of the elf’s mad gibberings, Tee’s sharp ears caught a meaningful phrase: “The lance… The lance is coming…”

She had said something like that herself once, as her mind emerged from madness. The similarity struck her to the soul.

There was nothing else to be done there. Ranthir and Tee returned to the Ghostly Minstrel, hoping to find the others there ahead of them.

NEXT:
Running the Campaign: Playing to the CrowdCampaign Journal: Session 27D
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

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

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.

In our last installment of Running the Campaign, we talked about what happens when the PCs miss clues. That actually continues into this section of the session: The project site (i.e., the apartment building controlled by cultists) had been prepped using status quo design. That meant that everything inside the building was basically held in a state of plausible stasis up until the point that the PCs interacted with it.

Once Ranthir cast his clairvoyance spells, therefore, and peeked inside, that status quo was disrupted and events started playing out. One of those events was the argument between members of the Ebon Hand and the Brotherhood of Venom. My anticipation had been that some very important information would get dropped during this conversation (i.e., clues), but because Ranthir was (a) using a spell which only granted sight, not sound; and (b) he couldn’t read lips worth a damn, most of that information was forever lost.

(Well, until the PCs gained it in a different way. Three Clue Rule and all that.)

As you’ll see in future sessions, the decision here to briefly engage the project site (setting events in motion) and then almost immediately withdrawing (“Let’s get out of here.”) had a significant impact on how subsequent events would play out.

But there was also something else the PCs did here that I didn’t expect:

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.

This tactic emerged because I have a giant, 8-foot-long map of Ptolus hanging on my wall during sessions, which meant that the players could see exactly what these buildings looked like:

Project Site Map - Night of Dissolution (Monte Cook Games)

But such a moment could easily arise in any number of ways. The key point here is that the PCs unexpectedly went into a building I had not anticipated them going into.

Now what?

This, of course, is exactly why so many video games nail the doors shut on all the buildings in town.

IN THIS CASE…

In this case, the players’ proposed reason for going into the building conveniently gave me the solution: They hypothesized that the neighboring apartment buildings, although slightly different in size, would have similar floorplans to the project site. I had floorplans for the project site, so it was relatively easy for me to just use those floorplans as the basis for some quick improvisation.

This exact scenario probably won’t crop up that often for you, but the general principle can be more broadly applied: Grab a floorplan you already have prepped — from the current session or perhaps from a previous session — and use it.

Just like these apartment buildings, the similarity of the buildings can be quite diegetic: The world is filled with structures built to a common floorplan.

MAKE IT UP

Obviously the easiest thing for me to say is, “Just make it up.”

Easy to say and great if it works. But improvisation takes practice and, honestly, no matter how much practice you get, there’ll still be times when you come up dry. That’s what the rest of this article is for.

But before we dive into that stuff, a quick word about making it up: Don’t feel like the whole building needs to spring full-blown from your brow like Athena doing Doric cosplay. You can build it up over time, describing only what the PCs need to know at any given moment. As play proceeds, a sketchy understanding of the building will start filling in with details.

A few thoughts on this:

  • The first thing you’re likely to need is the exterior of the building. What’s the first thing that pops into you head when you think of the building? Describe that.
  • If it’s a tactical situation, a key thing here will be entrances (do more than one) and windows.
  • The second thing is to think about why the PCs are interested in the building: They’ll have probably already told you. (They’re looking for the CEO’s office. Or they’re trying to get to the roof. Or they want to hack the mainframe.) Roughly speaking, where is that stuff? First floor? Basement? Top floor?
  • Once they pick an entrance, describe the lobby or front room or kitchen or whatever it is they see when they go through that door.
  • Once again, think about where the exits are and start getting a sketchy feeling for where they might lead (with some thought for how they might connect to the PCs’ goals).

And then proceed along those lines.

But it also doesn’t have to be that complicated!

It’s very often true that you don’t actually need a floorplan at all.

For example, if the PCs have come here to meet with the CEO, you don’t need to know the whole building. In fact, you can probably just cut straight to a scene in the CEO’s office.

On the other hand, if you do need a floorplan and you need it right now (it’s a tactical situation, you’re playing with a VTT, etc.), then you can…

GOOGLE IT

Just hit up a search engine and type in whatever building type you’re looking for plus “blueprints” or “floorplans.”

This tends to work most reliably with modern buildings, but adding “fantasy” or “science fiction” to the search can often pull up what you need. (More reliably with the former than the latter.) These days if you add “RPG,” too, you’re likely to get a full-blown battlemap more often than not.

BUILD YOUR STOCK

Instead of scrambling with image searches at the table, you can get ahead of the game by building up a supply of stock floorplans for common locations.

  • 4 or 5 different houses
  • 2 or 3 warehouses
  • 3 or 4 offices buildings
  • A shopping mall

That sort of thing.

You can make a big push to assemble this in a marathon prep session, but it’s also something you can slowly build up over time: When you prep an adventure with a house, for example, tuck the floorplan for that house into the accordion folder or computer directory where you’re keeping your generic stock of floorplans. Over time you’ll just sort of accrete what you need.

Either way, you’ll slowly develop a sense of exactly what type of floorplans you’re likely to need, and that knowledge can often transfer from one setting to another. (As can many of the floorplans, in fact. Particularly if they don’t need to be seen by the players.)

RANDOM FLOORPLANS

Another option is to use a random generator to create the floorplan you need on-the-fly.

If you poke around a bit, you can find a number of online generators, like this Random Inn Generator from Inkwell Ideas. Collect these links in your digital notes and you can get something like this with the press of a button:

Random Inn - Inkwell Ideas

Personally, I prefer a more generic generator that I can use with just dice-and-paper. You can find the tool I use in my article on Streetcrawling Tools. It provides enough of a scaffold that I can iterate the rest, but is generic enough that I generally only need the one tool. That way I don’t feel overwhelmed hunting for precisely the right tool if my stock of generic floorplans doesn’t have exactly what I’m looking for.

It’s sort of the multitool of, “Oh crap, my players just went into a random building!”

NEXT:
Campaign Journal: Session 27CRunning the Campaign: Playing to the Crowd
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Ptolus - In the Shadow of the Spire
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.

Venom-Shaped Thrall - Night of Dissolution (Monte Cook Games)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 FloorplansCampaign Journal: Session 27C
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Ambush in a Medieval Alley - Algol (Edited)

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.

The Secret Project Papers - Night of Dissolution (Monte Cook Games)

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 27BRunning the Campaign: Improvising Floorplans
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Ptolus - In the Shadow of the Spire
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

Brotherhood - Night of Dissolution (Monte Cook Games)

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 CluesCampaign Journal: Session 27B
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

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