Murder in Baldur's Gate: Launch Weekend - a preview - and now reports of up to Stage 2!
Murder in Baldur's Gate continued with me running the remainder of the Introductory Stage; the Launch Weekend event expanded a small part of the stage into a 2-hour session, but there was still a major part of the stage to run: the meetings with the movers and shakers of the adventure.
The characters had been invited to three meetings, but the timing and distance between the meetings meant that they couldn't attend all three without splitting the party. I was somewhat pleased to discover that my players didn't want to do that; although splitting the party makes a lot of sense narratively, it is often a big problem in the game as one or more players can spend a lot of time waiting for the others to finish. In a 2-hour D&D Encounters session? It can really be a problem.
I reminded the players that they had three invitations: one from a wizard who wanted to discover who was behind the assassination, one from the commander of the Flaming Fist, and one from the poor people of Little Calimshan and the disenfranchised communities outside the walls of Baldur's Gate. The players dismissed out of hand going to see the commander of the Flaming Fist, but decided to first visit the wizard - Imbralym Skoond - and then go to meet their contact in Little Calimshan.
Imbralym was waiting at the Three Old Kegs inn, and I described the privileged surroundings around the establishment. The Inn itself was crowded with people - there was a line waiting to get in, with bouncers supervising the crowd - but the group found themselves recognised by the public and were acclaimed and shown into the Inn without having to wait. I consider it quite important to keep the players aware of the heroism they showed during the murder of Duke Adrien.
The group found Imbralym at a large table, and he soon ordered drinks for everyone. Lachie, playing a somewhat forgetful barbarian, wanted rum, and after drinking it exclaimed, "Where's all the rum gone?" as he looked mournfully into his cup. The serving girls quickly refilled it, as Imbryr explained to the rest of the group the current state of affairs in the city: the city is ruled by a Council of Four Dukes, with input from the Parliament of Peers. Chief amongst them is Grand Duke Dillar Portyr, who Imbralym dismissed as an easily-led fool. Duke Adrien was dead - as the group could well attest. Duke Belynne Stelmane had recently had a stroke and was not the woman she once was. Indeed, the only duke worth the title was Duke Torlin Silvershield, who truly cared about the city and was doing his best to stem the rise of lawlessness.
Imbralym then invited the players to meet Duke Silvershield, who had witnessed their heroics during the attack. The group accepted, and so were taken to the High Hall, the seat of government in Baldur's Gate. I was aided by the illustrations in the Campaign Guide to show the players how impressive the building was (although, because the map in the book has part of it cut-away to show the interior, a couple wondered if something had happened to the building to cause the damage!)
The Duke, who was also the High Priest of Gond, greeted the group and set forth before them his concerns about the city, especially the rise of foreign influences and lawlessness fostered by the Thieves' Guild. It was interesting to see how little the players were engaged by his speech - they'd already decided who they wanted to aid, and it wasn't the nobles! They promised to think about his offer, and excused themselves. I was pleased to see that they didn't cause a scene!
By now, the working day had ended (even on Founder's Day, people still work), and a large number of workers had come up from the docks and were trying to leave the city by the Basilisk Gate in the east to reach the Outer City. Unfortunately, there was a delay, and so the players found themselves in danger of missing their meeting in Little Calimshan. The rumours from the crowd were that a "shield" had vanished, but mostly they just grumbled about the delay and the dwarven toll-collector who was causing it.
The players investigated further, and discovered that a dwarf - Nant Thangol - was getting his guards to shake down the workers and charging many fees to leave the city, often for the flimsiest of reasons. They thus decided to make him see reason, something Lee and Callan most spectacularly failed to do; in fact, Callan was on the verge of being arrested before Lachie slammed down 25 gold pieces before the dwarf and demanded to be let through. Thangol's eyes went wide, he gathered the gold into his purse, and swiftly agreed to let everyone through. The Flaming Fist guards grudgingly let the group (and especially Callan) through, along with the rest of the workers. The group had just witnessed the first (of many to come) injustices against the poor folk of the city.
Thus, when they met with Rilsa Rael in Little Calimshan, they were already annoyed with the city, and Rilsa got appreciative attention as she described the injustices inflicted upon the poor. They met in her shop, with her master (an elderly gentleman) overseeing the conversation. Scents of cinnamon and snatches of exotic music were present during the meeting, in this little enclave of people from the land of Calimshan.
Rilsa raised the possibility of the people getting their own back - in particular against Nant Thangol, who, as the players had seen, was a particularly oppressive official. The group readily agreed that he needed to be taught a lesson, and the idea of "redistributing the wealth" from his hoard was happily agreed upon by the players. They had a goal, and they were ready to go right away!
However, before they could set out, there was a commotion in front of the shop. Rilsa went to investigate, and soon came back quite alarmed: a gang of kobolds was attacking one of the poorer settlements in the Outer City. The Flaming Fist wouldn't come to help - or even if they did, they'd arrive too late and cause more trouble than the kobolds! Would the group help?
Of course they would! The group rushed to where the kobolds were (6 kobolds and 2 dragonshield kobolds) and Grant's druid entangled a large group of the kobolds whilst Callan and Lachie defended the rest of the group from the attack. Lee moved to a good point and started picking off the kobolds with his bow, whilst Rich's wizard cast minor spells to slay them.
A second wave of kobolds, coming around the rear of some of the buildings, were able to engage Rich and get in a couple of blows, but ultimately the kobolds were no match for the party. Grant's entangle spell was particularly effective at cutting the kobolds' strength in half, and they didn't really have many hit points in any case. The Dragonshields, slightly tougher, couldn't really stand up to the massive damage that Lachie's raging barbarian could inflict.
With that combat over, we finished the session and the introductory stage of Murder in Baldur's Gate. My particular addition to the content of the adventure was the kobold attack, due to the fact that the main combat of the stage had been covered in the Launch Weekend. The adventure actually doesn't have kobolds as any of the suggested foes; I included them partly as a tribute to the original Baldur's Gate computer game, where kobolds are a major foe early in the adventure (there's even a cutscene showing them sneaking up on a farmhouse), and also to illustrate how the folk of the Outer City can't rely on the protection of the Flaming Fist: they have to fend for themselves. The session ran at slightly under two hours.
Paul, running the game under 4E at the other table, saw the group follow a similar path as to who they visited. He included a combat against some thugs and the session ran about 30 minutes longer than mine, but I didn't really get the details of what occurred.
I still need to become more familiar with the details of the city; although I had a vague idea of how the council was set up, I wasn't fluent enough at describing it in play. I'll need to do more study of the Campaign Guide! It has a lot of useful information; I just need to read it all and commit the important parts to memory! The next session will see the group take on the dwarven toll-collector, and I hope to also bring to life other events that take place in the city at the same time.
So far, so good!
The characters had been invited to three meetings, but the timing and distance between the meetings meant that they couldn't attend all three without splitting the party. I was somewhat pleased to discover that my players didn't want to do that; although splitting the party makes a lot of sense narratively, it is often a big problem in the game as one or more players can spend a lot of time waiting for the others to finish. In a 2-hour D&D Encounters session? It can really be a problem.
I reminded the players that they had three invitations: one from a wizard who wanted to discover who was behind the assassination, one from the commander of the Flaming Fist, and one from the poor people of Little Calimshan and the disenfranchised communities outside the walls of Baldur's Gate. The players dismissed out of hand going to see the commander of the Flaming Fist, but decided to first visit the wizard - Imbralym Skoond - and then go to meet their contact in Little Calimshan.
Imbralym was waiting at the Three Old Kegs inn, and I described the privileged surroundings around the establishment. The Inn itself was crowded with people - there was a line waiting to get in, with bouncers supervising the crowd - but the group found themselves recognised by the public and were acclaimed and shown into the Inn without having to wait. I consider it quite important to keep the players aware of the heroism they showed during the murder of Duke Adrien.
The group found Imbralym at a large table, and he soon ordered drinks for everyone. Lachie, playing a somewhat forgetful barbarian, wanted rum, and after drinking it exclaimed, "Where's all the rum gone?" as he looked mournfully into his cup. The serving girls quickly refilled it, as Imbryr explained to the rest of the group the current state of affairs in the city: the city is ruled by a Council of Four Dukes, with input from the Parliament of Peers. Chief amongst them is Grand Duke Dillar Portyr, who Imbralym dismissed as an easily-led fool. Duke Adrien was dead - as the group could well attest. Duke Belynne Stelmane had recently had a stroke and was not the woman she once was. Indeed, the only duke worth the title was Duke Torlin Silvershield, who truly cared about the city and was doing his best to stem the rise of lawlessness.
Imbralym then invited the players to meet Duke Silvershield, who had witnessed their heroics during the attack. The group accepted, and so were taken to the High Hall, the seat of government in Baldur's Gate. I was aided by the illustrations in the Campaign Guide to show the players how impressive the building was (although, because the map in the book has part of it cut-away to show the interior, a couple wondered if something had happened to the building to cause the damage!)
The Duke, who was also the High Priest of Gond, greeted the group and set forth before them his concerns about the city, especially the rise of foreign influences and lawlessness fostered by the Thieves' Guild. It was interesting to see how little the players were engaged by his speech - they'd already decided who they wanted to aid, and it wasn't the nobles! They promised to think about his offer, and excused themselves. I was pleased to see that they didn't cause a scene!
By now, the working day had ended (even on Founder's Day, people still work), and a large number of workers had come up from the docks and were trying to leave the city by the Basilisk Gate in the east to reach the Outer City. Unfortunately, there was a delay, and so the players found themselves in danger of missing their meeting in Little Calimshan. The rumours from the crowd were that a "shield" had vanished, but mostly they just grumbled about the delay and the dwarven toll-collector who was causing it.
The players investigated further, and discovered that a dwarf - Nant Thangol - was getting his guards to shake down the workers and charging many fees to leave the city, often for the flimsiest of reasons. They thus decided to make him see reason, something Lee and Callan most spectacularly failed to do; in fact, Callan was on the verge of being arrested before Lachie slammed down 25 gold pieces before the dwarf and demanded to be let through. Thangol's eyes went wide, he gathered the gold into his purse, and swiftly agreed to let everyone through. The Flaming Fist guards grudgingly let the group (and especially Callan) through, along with the rest of the workers. The group had just witnessed the first (of many to come) injustices against the poor folk of the city.
Thus, when they met with Rilsa Rael in Little Calimshan, they were already annoyed with the city, and Rilsa got appreciative attention as she described the injustices inflicted upon the poor. They met in her shop, with her master (an elderly gentleman) overseeing the conversation. Scents of cinnamon and snatches of exotic music were present during the meeting, in this little enclave of people from the land of Calimshan.
Rilsa raised the possibility of the people getting their own back - in particular against Nant Thangol, who, as the players had seen, was a particularly oppressive official. The group readily agreed that he needed to be taught a lesson, and the idea of "redistributing the wealth" from his hoard was happily agreed upon by the players. They had a goal, and they were ready to go right away!
However, before they could set out, there was a commotion in front of the shop. Rilsa went to investigate, and soon came back quite alarmed: a gang of kobolds was attacking one of the poorer settlements in the Outer City. The Flaming Fist wouldn't come to help - or even if they did, they'd arrive too late and cause more trouble than the kobolds! Would the group help?
Of course they would! The group rushed to where the kobolds were (6 kobolds and 2 dragonshield kobolds) and Grant's druid entangled a large group of the kobolds whilst Callan and Lachie defended the rest of the group from the attack. Lee moved to a good point and started picking off the kobolds with his bow, whilst Rich's wizard cast minor spells to slay them.
A second wave of kobolds, coming around the rear of some of the buildings, were able to engage Rich and get in a couple of blows, but ultimately the kobolds were no match for the party. Grant's entangle spell was particularly effective at cutting the kobolds' strength in half, and they didn't really have many hit points in any case. The Dragonshields, slightly tougher, couldn't really stand up to the massive damage that Lachie's raging barbarian could inflict.
With that combat over, we finished the session and the introductory stage of Murder in Baldur's Gate. My particular addition to the content of the adventure was the kobold attack, due to the fact that the main combat of the stage had been covered in the Launch Weekend. The adventure actually doesn't have kobolds as any of the suggested foes; I included them partly as a tribute to the original Baldur's Gate computer game, where kobolds are a major foe early in the adventure (there's even a cutscene showing them sneaking up on a farmhouse), and also to illustrate how the folk of the Outer City can't rely on the protection of the Flaming Fist: they have to fend for themselves. The session ran at slightly under two hours.
Paul, running the game under 4E at the other table, saw the group follow a similar path as to who they visited. He included a combat against some thugs and the session ran about 30 minutes longer than mine, but I didn't really get the details of what occurred.
I still need to become more familiar with the details of the city; although I had a vague idea of how the council was set up, I wasn't fluent enough at describing it in play. I'll need to do more study of the Campaign Guide! It has a lot of useful information; I just need to read it all and commit the important parts to memory! The next session will see the group take on the dwarven toll-collector, and I hope to also bring to life other events that take place in the city at the same time.
So far, so good!
Blackwarder
Adventurer
Thanks for updating, sounds awsome!
The more I hear about this adventure the more impressed I get, can't wait to get it, does anyone knows how I can track an amazon shipment? The iPad app isn't forthcoming.
Warder
The more I hear about this adventure the more impressed I get, can't wait to get it, does anyone knows how I can track an amazon shipment? The iPad app isn't forthcoming.
Warder
We’ve finally reached Stage 1 of the Murder in Baldur’s Gate adventure; it only took us three sessions! The first two were consumed by the introductory material as expanded by the Launch event. We had two tables of six players and a DM for this session, with Paul running 4E and me running Next. The table composition was slightly different from last week with Callan and Rich unable to make it, but we got replacements in Tim and Tait. Lee, Grant, Lachie and Harry made up the rest of the group.
Last session, the group had agreed to help Rilsa Rael as she dealt with the problem of the grasping toll-collector, Nant Thangol. The group discussed how they’d deal with him in the morning; Rilsa suggested an ambush on the street, but quite a few members of the group preferred breaking into his house. I had to point out they didn’t actually have a thief with them and, being a properly paranoid dwarf, he’d have good locks. They still wanted to check for themselves, so they headed out.
Of course, this meant they had to go through the Basilisk Gate again, where Nant was on duty. Lee tried to start a riot, but Nant wasn’t being as oppressive this morning and got little support. Instead, Lee was arrested for his trouble. Harry went with Lee as his advocate; everyone else had already passed through the gate and wondered why the others hadn’t joined them, eventually needing to ask one of the guards what had happened! The rest of the group decided to continue on to Nant’s house and worry about Lee and Harry later.
Nant’s house, beside the Blushing Mermaid tavern, proved to be too highly secured for the group to enter with barred windows and strong locked doors. (The description of the tavern had similar features). So, the group went to scout a likely ambush point and then returned to the tavern to plan their attack.
Meanwhile, Lee found that the head of the Flaming Fist wanted to talk to him. The background for Lee’s character is as a spy, and Lee explained that he was only “testing” the reaction of the guards and the populace – as he was concerned about what was going on in the city. This was accepted, and Lee and Harry were recruited into the Fist and charged with shutting down a opium den in Little Calimshan and then let go.
The group reunited, where Lee told the others what was happening and sent Lachie to warn the owner of the den. They then met up with the Flaming Fist mercenaries and went to close it down... only to find that the owner had already left with his clientele and goods. The place was still closed down, however. Then the mercenaries informed Lee that they had orders to close another tavern on the docks. Lee had no time to inform anyone about this, and just had to go along with the Fist.
The patrons at this second establishment were already fighting the Watch when the Fist got there; it seemed that Duke Silvershield had issued similar orders. Our heroes aided the Watch and subdued the patrons and closed down the tavern, only to find that the proprietor had already fled. It had been a day of partial successes for the Fist. The group returned to a tavern to wait until midnight and the ambush of Nant Thangol.
To begin the ambush, Lachie rolled out oil behind the soldiers escorting the dwarf and set fire to it, blocking their escape. Meanwhile, the rest of the group stepped forward to challenge them – well, at least that was the idea. With something of a lack of front-line players, Tait’s cleric was the one to challenge them. The commander of the soldiers rushed him, and knocked him out. With that, the battle was on; sleep spells disabled half the soldiers, and Grant’s entangle spell meant that the group were rarely fighting more than one opponent at a time. Lachie’s barbarian meanwhile raged and took down the entangled soldiers.
Both Tait and Harry were unconscious by the time the lieutenant commanding the soldiers was defeated – he was very tough to take out. Nant surrendered his takings and the group returned to Little Calimshan. There, they gave the strongbox to Rilsa, Lachie regained the 25 gold he’d given Nant the previous day, and they reflected on a busy day (and evening) in Baldur’s Gate.
Last session, the group had agreed to help Rilsa Rael as she dealt with the problem of the grasping toll-collector, Nant Thangol. The group discussed how they’d deal with him in the morning; Rilsa suggested an ambush on the street, but quite a few members of the group preferred breaking into his house. I had to point out they didn’t actually have a thief with them and, being a properly paranoid dwarf, he’d have good locks. They still wanted to check for themselves, so they headed out.
Of course, this meant they had to go through the Basilisk Gate again, where Nant was on duty. Lee tried to start a riot, but Nant wasn’t being as oppressive this morning and got little support. Instead, Lee was arrested for his trouble. Harry went with Lee as his advocate; everyone else had already passed through the gate and wondered why the others hadn’t joined them, eventually needing to ask one of the guards what had happened! The rest of the group decided to continue on to Nant’s house and worry about Lee and Harry later.
Nant’s house, beside the Blushing Mermaid tavern, proved to be too highly secured for the group to enter with barred windows and strong locked doors. (The description of the tavern had similar features). So, the group went to scout a likely ambush point and then returned to the tavern to plan their attack.
Meanwhile, Lee found that the head of the Flaming Fist wanted to talk to him. The background for Lee’s character is as a spy, and Lee explained that he was only “testing” the reaction of the guards and the populace – as he was concerned about what was going on in the city. This was accepted, and Lee and Harry were recruited into the Fist and charged with shutting down a opium den in Little Calimshan and then let go.
The group reunited, where Lee told the others what was happening and sent Lachie to warn the owner of the den. They then met up with the Flaming Fist mercenaries and went to close it down... only to find that the owner had already left with his clientele and goods. The place was still closed down, however. Then the mercenaries informed Lee that they had orders to close another tavern on the docks. Lee had no time to inform anyone about this, and just had to go along with the Fist.
The patrons at this second establishment were already fighting the Watch when the Fist got there; it seemed that Duke Silvershield had issued similar orders. Our heroes aided the Watch and subdued the patrons and closed down the tavern, only to find that the proprietor had already fled. It had been a day of partial successes for the Fist. The group returned to a tavern to wait until midnight and the ambush of Nant Thangol.
To begin the ambush, Lachie rolled out oil behind the soldiers escorting the dwarf and set fire to it, blocking their escape. Meanwhile, the rest of the group stepped forward to challenge them – well, at least that was the idea. With something of a lack of front-line players, Tait’s cleric was the one to challenge them. The commander of the soldiers rushed him, and knocked him out. With that, the battle was on; sleep spells disabled half the soldiers, and Grant’s entangle spell meant that the group were rarely fighting more than one opponent at a time. Lachie’s barbarian meanwhile raged and took down the entangled soldiers.
Both Tait and Harry were unconscious by the time the lieutenant commanding the soldiers was defeated – he was very tough to take out. Nant surrendered his takings and the group returned to Little Calimshan. There, they gave the strongbox to Rilsa, Lachie regained the 25 gold he’d given Nant the previous day, and they reflected on a busy day (and evening) in Baldur’s Gate.
The fourth session of Murder in Baldur's Gate saw my D&D Next table having eight players whilst Paul's 4E table had five players. I would have much preferred to have fewer players, but I wasn't willing to turn people away. Thankfully, I'm not unused to running such large tables - the last year of my AD&D campaign has made me quite familiar with those numbers - and D&D Next runs similarly to AD&D in combat speed.
This session was challenging to run, mainly because the main events of the adventure (Stage 2) are primarily background events. In particular, the Parliament had issued orders to the Watch to forbid the wearing of "clothes above one's station" in the Upper City, and vandalism was on the rise in the Outer City as discontent rose against the repressive policies.
So, I attempted to run a system where the group got more familiar with the city. This was not entirely successful, as quite a number of players weren't really sure what to do. Lee and Tim knew what they wanted to do: they wanted to increase the discontent in the city, so upon finding out about the sumptuary laws, Tim spent a lot of times in the Lower City causing trouble, in particular using the ventriloquism spell (well, it's part of the prestidigitation cantrip) to cause trouble whilst not being seen to cause trouble. Lee used his spy background to more keep in the background and observe what was going on.
A lot of the action centered around Lachie and Tait. The group had learnt from their contacts in the Flaming Fist that the new laws would be announced in the Wide, and so had gone there for the announcement. There, Lachie decided to buy some silk pants in a flamboyant shade of purple, which he immediately donned - a scant few moments later, the sumptuary laws were announced. This, of course, caused trouble with the Watch, although Lachie was swift to remove the pants (and his loincloth) when challenged.
It was Tait that got into trouble; his cleric started causing small tremors (which knocked over one of the market stalls) in order to distract the Watch from Lachie. One or two castings would have been unremarkable, but his constant use of the spell caused him to get arrested. Harry - whose monk is turning into a real pacifist - went to get him bailed out. I'm very glad to see this role-playing from Harry; he's really uncomfortable with what's going on in the city and his friends' reactions to it, and it makes for some good role-playing. Tait was eventually released with a warning.
The group also visited the House of Wonders, where I got to describe some of the inventions of Gond's worshippers and have impressed on them how important the worship of Gond is to the city.
I also brought up the important issue of where they were all staying, as Rilsa wasn't going to be able to put them up in the long-term. The group split up, with a number of them remaining in little Calimshan. As no inns were immediately apparent from the text (the one tavern having been shut down in the last session!) I invented a rooming house known as the Sultan's Turban, run by a halfling in a turban. Grant, seeing this, bought his own turban - though not of finest silk, being mindful of the sumptuary laws. The phrase, "turbans are cool" may have turned up a few times in the session.
Other players chose to stay in the Lower City, with one character ending up in the Upper City - despite paying a premium for his accommodation. Those in the Lower City began to notice an increase in vandalism - with anti-patriar slogans beginning to appear on the walls.
The trouble with all the preceding, of course, is it didn't really allow the group to work together (and was rather short of combat). Thus, I judged it a good time to introduce the rogue noble (or is that noble rogue?) Coran, who came across Lachie and hired him and his friends to deal with a problem in the Undercellar - crocodiles coming up from the underground passages and causing a great deal of disruption, especially at the balls that Coran was trying to frequent.
So the group went into the Undercellar and slew some crocodiles - using a variation of the Giant Lizard stats from the D&D Next documents. This was a tough combat - intentionally so - with the group coming up against 10 of the critters. A couple of the characters were unconscious by the time the combat was over, and many were badly hurt.
Of particular note was that a kobold was controlling the crocodiles; he was killed early in the fight, but had a coded letter in a language no-one could read - a couple of the players correctly guessed it might be in Thieves' Cant, but we're without a thief in the party so no-one could read it!
With that, we ended the session. Unrest is rising in Baldur's Gate, and I've introduced the immensely useful (from the point of view of the DM) Coran to the party. A kobold made a reappearance, and there's the idea now that the kobolds are more significant than immediately apparent - yes, they don't appear in the module-as-written, but that's the joy of this adventure, it's really easy to add additional material to give it even more interest. I'm very pleased with how it's going so far.
As for next week? I'll let you know how it goes!
This session was challenging to run, mainly because the main events of the adventure (Stage 2) are primarily background events. In particular, the Parliament had issued orders to the Watch to forbid the wearing of "clothes above one's station" in the Upper City, and vandalism was on the rise in the Outer City as discontent rose against the repressive policies.
So, I attempted to run a system where the group got more familiar with the city. This was not entirely successful, as quite a number of players weren't really sure what to do. Lee and Tim knew what they wanted to do: they wanted to increase the discontent in the city, so upon finding out about the sumptuary laws, Tim spent a lot of times in the Lower City causing trouble, in particular using the ventriloquism spell (well, it's part of the prestidigitation cantrip) to cause trouble whilst not being seen to cause trouble. Lee used his spy background to more keep in the background and observe what was going on.
A lot of the action centered around Lachie and Tait. The group had learnt from their contacts in the Flaming Fist that the new laws would be announced in the Wide, and so had gone there for the announcement. There, Lachie decided to buy some silk pants in a flamboyant shade of purple, which he immediately donned - a scant few moments later, the sumptuary laws were announced. This, of course, caused trouble with the Watch, although Lachie was swift to remove the pants (and his loincloth) when challenged.
It was Tait that got into trouble; his cleric started causing small tremors (which knocked over one of the market stalls) in order to distract the Watch from Lachie. One or two castings would have been unremarkable, but his constant use of the spell caused him to get arrested. Harry - whose monk is turning into a real pacifist - went to get him bailed out. I'm very glad to see this role-playing from Harry; he's really uncomfortable with what's going on in the city and his friends' reactions to it, and it makes for some good role-playing. Tait was eventually released with a warning.
The group also visited the House of Wonders, where I got to describe some of the inventions of Gond's worshippers and have impressed on them how important the worship of Gond is to the city.
I also brought up the important issue of where they were all staying, as Rilsa wasn't going to be able to put them up in the long-term. The group split up, with a number of them remaining in little Calimshan. As no inns were immediately apparent from the text (the one tavern having been shut down in the last session!) I invented a rooming house known as the Sultan's Turban, run by a halfling in a turban. Grant, seeing this, bought his own turban - though not of finest silk, being mindful of the sumptuary laws. The phrase, "turbans are cool" may have turned up a few times in the session.
Other players chose to stay in the Lower City, with one character ending up in the Upper City - despite paying a premium for his accommodation. Those in the Lower City began to notice an increase in vandalism - with anti-patriar slogans beginning to appear on the walls.
The trouble with all the preceding, of course, is it didn't really allow the group to work together (and was rather short of combat). Thus, I judged it a good time to introduce the rogue noble (or is that noble rogue?) Coran, who came across Lachie and hired him and his friends to deal with a problem in the Undercellar - crocodiles coming up from the underground passages and causing a great deal of disruption, especially at the balls that Coran was trying to frequent.
So the group went into the Undercellar and slew some crocodiles - using a variation of the Giant Lizard stats from the D&D Next documents. This was a tough combat - intentionally so - with the group coming up against 10 of the critters. A couple of the characters were unconscious by the time the combat was over, and many were badly hurt.
Of particular note was that a kobold was controlling the crocodiles; he was killed early in the fight, but had a coded letter in a language no-one could read - a couple of the players correctly guessed it might be in Thieves' Cant, but we're without a thief in the party so no-one could read it!
With that, we ended the session. Unrest is rising in Baldur's Gate, and I've introduced the immensely useful (from the point of view of the DM) Coran to the party. A kobold made a reappearance, and there's the idea now that the kobolds are more significant than immediately apparent - yes, they don't appear in the module-as-written, but that's the joy of this adventure, it's really easy to add additional material to give it even more interest. I'm very pleased with how it's going so far.
As for next week? I'll let you know how it goes!
I began this session of Murder in Baldur's Gate began with some material from the previous stage; members of the Flaming Fist harassing workmen from the Outer City. Jonas Valerian (Tim) had been in the Lower City causing trouble and so witnessed this; he and his friends persuaded the Flaming Fist to back off. This earned them a summons from Ulder Ravengard, who was impressed by their diplomatic skills, and wanted them to work for him. The group agreed - with Jonas making plans to use his contacts in the Flaming Fist to further the revolution he was fomenting in town.
(Harry and Lee, who have been working for Ravengard, weren't around this session).
However, the main part of the session was taken up by looking for the dastardly criminals who had been defacing the statues of Baldur's Gate. Well, perhaps "dehanding" is the better term, as the hands of several statues were broken off and removed. The group asked Rilsa Rael if she knew who was involved, and she told them she'd investigate.
When the statue of the Beloved Ranger was also "dehanded", things were getting serious with a lot of the city very unhappy with how things were going. Rilsa revealed that a gang of noble scions was responsible for the threats, and wanted to turn them over to the mob. The group needed to just work out where the nobles were. Asking at their homes, they discovered that the scions' parents didn't know where they were, and just wanted them taken home safely. Following advice from Coran, the group discovered they'd left the Upper City through one of the gates, and then made their way down to the harbour, onto a ferry, and eventually to a shop not fifty paces away from the headquarters of the Flaming Fist!
The nobles tried to fight, but they were severely overmatched by the group. The group chose to turn them over to the Flaming Fist, who assured them that no harm would come to them and they could return to their families after their punishment. That punishment turned out to be ten years imprisonment! Well, what Ravengard said was technically true...
Apart from dealing with the main plot of the session, we had more character and side-plot development. The note from the kobold needed to be translated, and Jonas took it to the House of Wonders to find an priest who could help him. Who he got was Devotee Chesserie Waters, who was somewhat starstruck by the "Hero of Founder's Day". She took the note and took a couple of days to decode it; she met Jonas over dinner (where he was oblivous to her flirtations) where she revealed it was in kobold and thieves' cant, offering money to the kobolds in exchange for breeding crocodiles in the sewers.
Jonas and Medrick (Rich) also joined the Sages' Guild, at a discount, with Ravek Tillerturn being the guildmember who took them through the rocess, whilst Bob (Lachie) got a new bow from Ettvagh Stodge of "Ettvard's Bows" in the Lower City.
This was a fairly role-playing intense session, with the only combat being quite minor. I expect I'll have to modify the next session to put in more combat to make up for the lack last session.
(Harry and Lee, who have been working for Ravengard, weren't around this session).
However, the main part of the session was taken up by looking for the dastardly criminals who had been defacing the statues of Baldur's Gate. Well, perhaps "dehanding" is the better term, as the hands of several statues were broken off and removed. The group asked Rilsa Rael if she knew who was involved, and she told them she'd investigate.
When the statue of the Beloved Ranger was also "dehanded", things were getting serious with a lot of the city very unhappy with how things were going. Rilsa revealed that a gang of noble scions was responsible for the threats, and wanted to turn them over to the mob. The group needed to just work out where the nobles were. Asking at their homes, they discovered that the scions' parents didn't know where they were, and just wanted them taken home safely. Following advice from Coran, the group discovered they'd left the Upper City through one of the gates, and then made their way down to the harbour, onto a ferry, and eventually to a shop not fifty paces away from the headquarters of the Flaming Fist!
The nobles tried to fight, but they were severely overmatched by the group. The group chose to turn them over to the Flaming Fist, who assured them that no harm would come to them and they could return to their families after their punishment. That punishment turned out to be ten years imprisonment! Well, what Ravengard said was technically true...
Apart from dealing with the main plot of the session, we had more character and side-plot development. The note from the kobold needed to be translated, and Jonas took it to the House of Wonders to find an priest who could help him. Who he got was Devotee Chesserie Waters, who was somewhat starstruck by the "Hero of Founder's Day". She took the note and took a couple of days to decode it; she met Jonas over dinner (where he was oblivous to her flirtations) where she revealed it was in kobold and thieves' cant, offering money to the kobolds in exchange for breeding crocodiles in the sewers.
Jonas and Medrick (Rich) also joined the Sages' Guild, at a discount, with Ravek Tillerturn being the guildmember who took them through the rocess, whilst Bob (Lachie) got a new bow from Ettvagh Stodge of "Ettvard's Bows" in the Lower City.
This was a fairly role-playing intense session, with the only combat being quite minor. I expect I'll have to modify the next session to put in more combat to make up for the lack last session.
Only four players were at my table this week for Murder in Baldur's Gate: Lee was back, but Harry and Rich had other commitments. Paul's 4E table had five players.
We were playing through Stage 4 of the adventure; this stage is fairly light on actual incident involving the players. The two major events were Rilsa Rael manoeuvring the garbage collectors to go on strike, causing great unrest in the Upper and Lower cities, and Ulder Ravengard's intrigues to gain the position of Duke of Baldur's Gate. The players were quite happy to see the garbage piling up as they otherwise continued their revolutionary path, but Ulder Ravengard's schemes required more attention.
The players learnt through their contacts in the city of the discontent with the Parliament of Peers with Ravengard: although it was traditional to give the title to a member of the Flaming Fist, his recent actions had made them want to give it to the alchemist Caldwell, an elderly patriar they thought would be easy to manipulate. As all of the players have now worked for Ravengard, he summoned them for a private discussion, where he expressed his outrage over the problems he was facing with the Parliament. Along the way, he suggested a solution to his problem: if they group could convince Caldwell to decline the nomination, he'd be able to gain the title uncontested. And he knew of someone who was ready to accuse Caldwell of inferior workmanship and safety problems with his alchemical products - if the group would mention this to Caldwell and he dropped the nomination, the accusation could be quietly dealt with...
The group immediately agreed with Ravengard, but privately were very willing to sabotage his plans. They began by visiting Caldwell's accuser, a dumpy alchemist named Yssra Brackrel. She explained to them that Caldwell's main product - alchemically treated lumber that was resistant to destruction - was actually very flammable. She was unable to directly give them proof, but told them that she'd been hired by the Provoss family after their stables had burnt down. The group wanted more proof, and decided to visit Caldwell to get some.
Caldwell received them, and reacted in some shock to the suggestion that his lumber was dangerous, explaining that if it was as dangerous as they insinuated, the city would have burnt down several times already! He gave them some samples to test, and went away grumbling; the group hadn't let him know the identity of the rumourmongers. The tests of the lumber showed that Caldwell's treatment did make it very resistant to fire, and Brackrel tried to insist that they were using something that Caldwell had made to throw people off the track. The group tried to talk to the Provoss family, but were refused entry by the gate guards, who took little notice of their insistance they belonged to the Flaming Fist: in the Upper Quarter, the Flaming Fist have no dominion!
At this point, the group were pretty sure that the accusation was actually false, and so they told Caldwell not to worry, and then went to Ulder Ravengard and told him that Caldwell would pull out! Ravengard - for now - suspects nothing, but this may not last.
As we were now two sessions without significant combat, I used the DM's trump card - Coran - to hire the group (particularly Tait) to steal a platinum plaque from the crypt of the Whitburn patriar family! This was complicated by two matters: the first was a cultist of Myrkul who was raising the dead in the crypt. This led to two combats, the first against 6 skeletons (very easily dealt with as Callan let his Light Cleric just destroy them) and then against the cultist and 10 zombies, which was a more difficult combat - Tait, who still had a first level character, went down as his protection from evil spell proved not as effective as he hoped. As the zombies swarmed towards them, Callan rather wished he'd kept his light burst power still available; however, once the zombies inside the original room were taken care of, the other zombies that were attacking from the rear were able to be faced in a doorway, and the better defensive position allowed the group to prevail. (It was a fairly long battle; eight rounds in total).
However, the plaque wasn't visible in the tombs they'd explored. Lee, searching around, found a secret passage that led to the inner crypt, where the group found that an ankheg had bored its way into the chamber. This was a potentially dangerous fight as it spat acid at Tait and Lachie, but the heroes managed to make their saving throws, and then Lachie's barbarian hit the ankheg very hard, and Lee shot it a few times. The group were hurt by the time it went down - and Tait unconscious again, having almost been killed outright by its bite - but it eventually only took two rounds to take down. Looting the valuables in the crypt gave them a tidy sum of money as well as the plaque, which they returned to Coran for a further reward. He told them to keep themselves available for an "entertainment" he'd be running in the upcoming weeks, and with that we closed the session. Again, it had run for about 2 hours.
There are a couple of things that I didn't include in this session from the notes that I'll catch up on next week (especially when the wizards rejoin us), especially concerning the Ducal election; it may be that the players are able to keep their position with the Flaming Fist for a bit longer...
We were playing through Stage 4 of the adventure; this stage is fairly light on actual incident involving the players. The two major events were Rilsa Rael manoeuvring the garbage collectors to go on strike, causing great unrest in the Upper and Lower cities, and Ulder Ravengard's intrigues to gain the position of Duke of Baldur's Gate. The players were quite happy to see the garbage piling up as they otherwise continued their revolutionary path, but Ulder Ravengard's schemes required more attention.
The players learnt through their contacts in the city of the discontent with the Parliament of Peers with Ravengard: although it was traditional to give the title to a member of the Flaming Fist, his recent actions had made them want to give it to the alchemist Caldwell, an elderly patriar they thought would be easy to manipulate. As all of the players have now worked for Ravengard, he summoned them for a private discussion, where he expressed his outrage over the problems he was facing with the Parliament. Along the way, he suggested a solution to his problem: if they group could convince Caldwell to decline the nomination, he'd be able to gain the title uncontested. And he knew of someone who was ready to accuse Caldwell of inferior workmanship and safety problems with his alchemical products - if the group would mention this to Caldwell and he dropped the nomination, the accusation could be quietly dealt with...
The group immediately agreed with Ravengard, but privately were very willing to sabotage his plans. They began by visiting Caldwell's accuser, a dumpy alchemist named Yssra Brackrel. She explained to them that Caldwell's main product - alchemically treated lumber that was resistant to destruction - was actually very flammable. She was unable to directly give them proof, but told them that she'd been hired by the Provoss family after their stables had burnt down. The group wanted more proof, and decided to visit Caldwell to get some.
Caldwell received them, and reacted in some shock to the suggestion that his lumber was dangerous, explaining that if it was as dangerous as they insinuated, the city would have burnt down several times already! He gave them some samples to test, and went away grumbling; the group hadn't let him know the identity of the rumourmongers. The tests of the lumber showed that Caldwell's treatment did make it very resistant to fire, and Brackrel tried to insist that they were using something that Caldwell had made to throw people off the track. The group tried to talk to the Provoss family, but were refused entry by the gate guards, who took little notice of their insistance they belonged to the Flaming Fist: in the Upper Quarter, the Flaming Fist have no dominion!
At this point, the group were pretty sure that the accusation was actually false, and so they told Caldwell not to worry, and then went to Ulder Ravengard and told him that Caldwell would pull out! Ravengard - for now - suspects nothing, but this may not last.
As we were now two sessions without significant combat, I used the DM's trump card - Coran - to hire the group (particularly Tait) to steal a platinum plaque from the crypt of the Whitburn patriar family! This was complicated by two matters: the first was a cultist of Myrkul who was raising the dead in the crypt. This led to two combats, the first against 6 skeletons (very easily dealt with as Callan let his Light Cleric just destroy them) and then against the cultist and 10 zombies, which was a more difficult combat - Tait, who still had a first level character, went down as his protection from evil spell proved not as effective as he hoped. As the zombies swarmed towards them, Callan rather wished he'd kept his light burst power still available; however, once the zombies inside the original room were taken care of, the other zombies that were attacking from the rear were able to be faced in a doorway, and the better defensive position allowed the group to prevail. (It was a fairly long battle; eight rounds in total).
However, the plaque wasn't visible in the tombs they'd explored. Lee, searching around, found a secret passage that led to the inner crypt, where the group found that an ankheg had bored its way into the chamber. This was a potentially dangerous fight as it spat acid at Tait and Lachie, but the heroes managed to make their saving throws, and then Lachie's barbarian hit the ankheg very hard, and Lee shot it a few times. The group were hurt by the time it went down - and Tait unconscious again, having almost been killed outright by its bite - but it eventually only took two rounds to take down. Looting the valuables in the crypt gave them a tidy sum of money as well as the plaque, which they returned to Coran for a further reward. He told them to keep themselves available for an "entertainment" he'd be running in the upcoming weeks, and with that we closed the session. Again, it had run for about 2 hours.
There are a couple of things that I didn't include in this session from the notes that I'll catch up on next week (especially when the wizards rejoin us), especially concerning the Ducal election; it may be that the players are able to keep their position with the Flaming Fist for a bit longer...
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