Notes for a New Campaign City, Parsantium

[RichGreen]

Short Old Quarter encounter

1. Two arcanists from the Esoteric Order of the Blue Lotus have an argument/magic pissing contest in the street. They are both a bit drunk and are demonstrating their respective powers to each other.
• Himaghna is a vanara mantrika (sorcerer) – a monkey-like humanoid with light blue fur and a prehensile tail.
• Fazil Al-Zarqa is an Akhrani fire mage, bearded and wearing a red turban.
• Both are wearing bright blue djellabas decorated with lotus flowers.
The contest starts off good-naturedly and safely enough with the two mages shooting magic missiles and jets of fire into the air and a small crowd gathers to watch. However, as they get more and more into it, they start to get a bit slapdash. Fazil launches a fiery arrow which accidentally sets fire to some hanging washing, then Himaghna splashes a donkey with an acid spray. To cap it all off, Fazil goes too far and summons a fiery elemental which runs amok! The elemental appears in between both mages and successfully knocks them both out with its double attack. It’s down to the PCs to save the day.

Angry Elemental
Large elemental beast (earth, fire)
Level 8 Solo Brute XP 1750

Initiative +7 Senses Perception +12
HP 240; Bloodied 120
AC 23; Fortitude 24, Reflex 19, Will 19
Resist 10 fire
Saving Throws +4
Speed 8
Action Points 2

M Slam (standard, at-will)
Reach 2; +11 vs AC; 1d10+6 fire damage, or 2d10+6 fire damage if the elemental is bloodied.

M Double Attack (standard, at-will)
The fiery elemental makes two slam attacks.; +9 vs ; 2d8+5 fire damage.

Elemental Frenzy (immediate reaction, when attacked by an adjacent enemy while bloodied, at-will)
The elemental makes a frenzied slam attack against the enemy; +14 vs AC; 1d10+8 damage.

Death Burst (when reduced to 0 hit points, ) Fire
The elemental explodes in a burst of flame and brimstone; close burst 10; +10 vs Reflex; 2d8+5 fire damage.
Miss: Half damage. The elemental is destroyed.

Brimstone Bellow (minor; encounter)
All enemies within 5 squares of the elemental take a -2 penalty to attack rolls until the end of its next turn.

Bloodied Torment (immediate reaction, when first bloodied; encounter)
The fiery elemental recharges and uses brimstone bellow.

Alignment Unaligned Languages Primordial
Str 22 (+10) Dex 16 (+7) Wis 16 (+7)
Con 18 (+8) Int 6 (+2) Cha 12 (+5)

After a few rounds, the two mages stagger to their feet and Fazil is able to dismiss the monster, sending it back to the Elemental Chaos. In gratitude, he gives the PCs 3 x 100 gp garnets (treasure parcel #10)

 

[Gilladian]

Sounds marvelous! The PCs should have a fun time with that one.

One street encounter that I always enjoy is a runaway/stampeding animal. It can be a fairly easy encounter, or quite challenging, depending on the circumstances. A rampaging mule with a load of firewood is quite a different problem than a warhorse that a small child has taken an illicit ride upon and lost control of.

A burning building is another possible, and quite dangerous, random encounter. I've used it a couple of times; once when the PCs were dining in a restaurant, and there was a fire in the kitchen, and once when the Inn the PCs were sleeping in was set afire (by arson). I think I also once ran the classic "you hear a person screaming at the window above you; smoke and fire are erupting around them" scenario.

A lost child is another fun encounter. Is the child really lost? Are they bait for some theivish trap? Or a lure for a con? Is the child sick? Does someone want the child dead? There are a lot of simple scenarios, and lots that could lead to a whole adventure in themselves.

 

[RichGreen]

Hi Gilladian,

Thanks for the suggestions!


Richard

 

[RichGreen]

two more Old Quarter encounter ideas

2. Godilas of the Cooper’s Guild and Farouk of the Guild of Salters, Packers and Joiners both try to drive their bullock carts carrying barrels down narrow Carpenter’s Row at the same time but in opposite directions. A ridiculous row: “You back up!”, No! You back up!” ensues, followed up by a mild scuffle in which Godilas comes out on top.

3. Vaman, a short, fat Sahasran carpet-maker and member of the Guild of Weavers & Dyers has problem that should be familiar to the PCs! According to the weaver, ratmen are coming out of the sewers near his carpet shop, breaking in and stealing his carpets. The Guild is sympathetic but hasn’t really been able to help and Vaman doesn’t really want to get mixed up with the Golden Scimitars – members of his guild aren’t targeted for protection money. He can offer the PCs a carpet worth 400 gp (treasure parcel #9) if they will deal with the problem and get back his stolen property.
If the PCs are up for it, Vaman will show them the manhole in the alleyway behind his shop. If the PCs climb down the ladder, they run into a gang of Ratfolk <Creature Collection p.110>

Level 7 Encounter (1,502 xp)
• 2 ratfolk chuckers (level 3 artillery)
• 4 ratfolk gnawers (level 6 minion)
• 1 ratfolk tailfighter (level 6 soldier)
• 1 ratfolk oracle (level 8 controller)

 

[RichGreen]

Catch up on session logs

I've got a bit behind with copying these across from my LJ but here are the links to the last few sessions of Wrath of the River King for anyone who's interested:

The Fey River Road

The Court of the River King

The Siege of the False Mill

After this last one, we wrapped up the adventure and moved the action back to Parsantium and kicked off the Golden Scimitars plot we've been discussing here:


28th Maius
After resting in the false mill, the PCs wake up to find themselves inside the real mill in Riverbend. Krivinn heads to the barn where Hamid the miller is being held to check he hasn’t been executed. He hasn’t – it’s morning on the day after the party entered the Feywild. The PCs go to see Kemal the muhtar and show him the note from Ellessandra and her wedding ring. The headman orders Hamid’s release and the grateful miller rewards each PC with 100 gp and a fey acorn (a one-use item that allows the PC to fey step 5 squares as a minor action). As the PCs go to leave Riverbend, they meet Ellessandra one last time – the eladrin is mourning Flax, her son.


30th Maius
The PCs arrive back in Parsantium.


31st Maius – 1st Iunius
Rent an apartment in Aymara Sabban in the Maker’s Ward for 30 gp per month, situated above a courtyard and over a workshop which Krivinn rents (20 gp per month). Ella hangs tokens in the palm tree in the courtyard as a shrine to Thellyne while Krivinn arranges for local labourers to whitewash the walls of his workshop so it can become a shrine to Bahamut. The paladin also heads over to the Celestial Bastion in the Imperial Quarter again to pay his tithe. This time, he makes a better impression on Orthas.

On the second night, Ella has a bad dream – the subject is the massacre at Thellyne’s shrine in the Feyshore Forest perpetrated by Heinsoo and his men. She wakes up in a cold sweat.


2nd Iunius
The PCs are shopping for potions and magic items in the Mercantile Quarter when a messenger snake appears and delivers them tickets to the Theatre of Aymara that evening. The party are to be the guests of Dulicitus, noted dramatist. Ella buys herself a pretty dress and Krivinn polishes his armour.

That evening, at the performance of Iancu Petronas’ play, The Fey King of Darkwood, the PCs meet Dulicitus, Vetranis and Gerontius – three conservative dramatists who want to hire the PCs to find out what Petronas is up to. The prize-winning playwright is rumoured to be connected to the Golden Scimitars. The PCs agree to take the job.

After the play, the PCs follow Iancu and his acting troupe to the red-light district in the Poor Ward. When the actors go inside a brothel called the Winking Vixen on Grape (aka Gropec**t Lane, Sharden volunteers to go in and find out what they’re up to. Ella warns the dwarf “you’re not going to get your end away on party funds!” as he heads inside. Sharden has a coffee and something to eat but manages to fend off the offers of private dances and more while keeping an eye on Iancu and his friends. Deciding to go for the direct approach, he goes up to the playwright and chats to him, getting an autograph and offering to buy him a drink. Meanwhile, Ella has snuck up to a window on the ground floor – peering in she can see the brothel’s madam arguing with a large, intimidating-looking man over a ledger.

Sharden heads outside to report but before he can tell the others much, the Grape Lane Bashers attack. There are two humans, a half-elf and a gnoll in the band and their tactics seem to involve ganging up on one opponent – in this case, Krivinn. Despite this, the dragonborn is able to kill Taras the tumbling knife-fighter, and then Ella shoots Danilo with two critical hits as he comes towards her, scourge flailing. The gnoll, Yegor, is killed, causing Danilo and Ekrem (the half-elf) to run for it. Krivinn brings down Danilo as he runs past – only Ekrem escapes with his life!

Cheers


Richard

 

[RichGreen]

Session #31

This brings everything right up to date with the last session before Christmas:

Meanwhile.... Bolval visits the temple of Ninkash in the Jewel Ward and delivers the sealed message he’s carried from the Ironcrags. He’s told he’ll have a message to take back there “in due course”. Since he’ll be staying in Parsantium for a while, the cleric visits the White Palm in the Makers Ward, original home of the Desert Sands brewing company, making friends with its proprietor, Kaham al-Vizhon in the hope of picking up some new brewing tips.

2nd Iunius (contd)
Someone has run the bell for the Watch. Perhaps because of his lawful nature, Krivinn starts lining up the bodies of the Grape Lane Bashers in a row before Ella asks him what the hell he’s playing at. Instead, they talk to Tamrin, the Winking Vixen’s gruff dwarf bouncer, bribing him not to say anything to the Watch about the PCs’ presence. Attempts to get him to talk about the Golden Scimitars don’t work though.

Head down the street to the Sultry Siren where they meet Bolval who’s having a drink; Sharden goes home. From here, the PCs can see the Winking Vixen – they see the Watch arrive and the bodies removed, then Iancu Petronas and his friends leave. They follow the actors back to Aymara Sabban.

3rd Iunius
The PCs go to the Golden Bean Tree in the Khanduq of the Nightingale’s Song in the morning. Iancu and his friends arrive to have breakfast. After a while, Ashraf (member of the Golden Scimitars) and his two bodyguards enter as two gnolls take up position outside the café. Ashraf tries to extort money from Yasmina the owner; the PCs leap to her defence and a fight kicks off! Ella kills Ashraf, shooting him through the neck and spraying blood all over the walls. Krivinn is surrounded by the two bodyguards and the two gnolls who use pack tactics to inflict extra damage on him. He goes unconscious and fails a death save but is revived by Bolval who is a great healer. Brave Ella kills one gnoll but is most upset when Seref, balding bodyguard, has the gall to throw a dagger at her, wounding her for 5 hp. Furious, the elf takes him down, knocking him unconscious. The second gnoll and the other bodyguard run for it. Before the Watch arrive, the PCs wrap Seref in a borrowed carpet and take him back to their apartment for interrogation.

Ella leads the questioning but Bolval and Krivinn stand guard to make sure she doesn’t torture her prisoner – learn that Ashraf reports in to someone called Vadim (a “big guy with dark hair”) and that the bodyguard who ran off is called Berreff. Apparently, Vadim can sometimes be found at Fahil’s Floating Palace. Once the interrogation dries up, Ella knocks Seref out again, they wrap him back up in the carpet and leave him outside the Watch station.

That evening, the PCs send a messenger snake to Iancu Petronas (costs 10 gp, can do from khanduq), inviting him to Fahil’s that evening to discuss a career opportunity and saying the message is from Vadim. The PCs head to the floating casino and meet the jovial Fahil. Bolval plays Three Dragon Ante, Ella plays Bounder and Krivinn tries his hand at Bounce It! The elf ranger chats to a camp water genasi called Juma (of the Juma Gang) and tries (unsuccessfully) to get into the VIP area. She recognises a man who appears briefly from the VIP cabin to have a chat with Fahil - this is Zeno Meverel, the adventure's villain.

Cheers


Richard

 

[Gilladian]

It sounds like things are going splendidly!

This afternoon, my PCs are going to be questioning a goblin prisoner. I can only hope things go as well for him as they did for your captive...

 

[RichGreen]

It sounds like things are going splendidly!

This afternoon, my PCs are going to be questioning a goblin prisoner. I can only hope things go as well for him as they did for your captive...

Good luck - let me know how it goes!

The Golden Scimitars adventure is going pretty well so far but I'm now doing some thinking about the overall campaign plot and how to follow things up once this one is finished. As a reminder, the plot is this:

Vrishabha, rakshasa lord and former rajah of Dhak Janjua (which became Parsantium) is currently imprisoned in ice at the top of the Pillars of Heaven mountains. His servants - rakshasas, yakfolk, lamias and others - seek to free him so he might reclaim his throne. Vrishabha is an Epic level threat and the campaign's climax will be dealing with him once/if he escapes the ice.

Vrishabha is served by a number of rakshasas who have infiltrated Parsantium. One is a very important government official - haven't decided which one yet - in the Imperial Quarter; another is Avishandu, head of the Old Quarter's criminal underworld.

Avishandu is using wealth gained through criminal activity by the Golden Scimitars to fund expeditions in search of ritual books and sacred texts all over the world which may contain the secret of freeing Vrishabha. One of the PCs, Brave Ella, witnessed a massacre of clerics and rangers of Thellyne by Avishandu's agent, Heinsoo (yes, he is named after the 4e designer!) in which a valuable prayer book was stolen. The PCs have come into contact with the Golden Scimitars through their early adventures against the Dockside Crew. During these encounters, Ella recognised their tattoos from the woodland kililngs.

At the end of the Golden Scimitars adventure, the PCs will likely kill Zeno Meverel and deal a hammer blow to the organization by rampaging through his headquarters, but I'm thinking the Golden Scimitars is just one of the gangs under Avishandu's control or Zeno just runs part of it. Avishandu will plant a "raktarvarna" - a snake that can disguise itself as a sword or valuable item to spy on the PCs by leaving one among Zeno's treasure.

That's as far as I've got. I need to decide what happens next. One possibility is that the PCs gain a clue to the whereabouts of Heinsoo in the lair and/or a hint about the sacred books quest and go after him as he seeks to steal another religious book. This could take them to an exotic location such as the Egyptian-style desert kingdom of Khemit or somewhere in the city. I favour the city again at first with part of the adventure involving a trip to the Hippodrome, then doing the exotic trip as the next adventure.

During the paragon tier, my thoughts are to have some adventures that explore the dark past of Dhak Janjua and get the PCs mixed up with things like the Kali Cult. These could be quite dark dungeon crawls deep beneath the city - think the undeground temple of Kali in the second Indiana Jones film, as well as blackstone gigants, yuan-ti etc

I also have the Open Design adventure Halls of the Mountain King, spanning levels 8-11, which would be an unrelated story (like Wrath of the River King) but would fit well with the party as it includes two dwarves.

Any suggestions or advice gratefully received!

Cheers


Richard

 

[RichGreen]

Session #32

Hi,

We played again on Monday following a break for Christmas and continued with the Golden Scimitars/Iancu Petronas plot. The players threw me a few curve balls (as per usual) but so far it's going well. Here's what happened:

3rd Iunius (contd)
Iancu Petronas and friends arrive at Fahil’s Floating Palace. Krivinn and Bolval are recognised as the heroes who defended Yasmina from the Golden Scimitars racketeers. Iancu congratulates them for their bravery, buys them drinks and gives them free tickets to see his play at the theatre. The PCs notice Francio, one of the actors, has slipped away and is talking to a tall Akhrani with a birthmark on his face. The dragonborn and the dwarf buy Francio a drink and insist on talking to him. After a short while, he makes his excuses and leaves, followed by the PCs who spot him buying pesh in an alleyway. Krivinn confronts the actor, taking his drugs and intimidating him into revealing that he owes a lot of money to a loan shark. Because he’s not been keeping up with his payments, Francio is having to do jobs for the Golden Scimitars on the orders of Vadim (the man he met at Fahil’s). Tomorrow, he is due to participate in a street fight between the Most Excellent Order of Stonecutters and Masons and the rival Guild of Potters and Tile-Makers. The two PCs promise to help Francio if he stays away from the street battle.

4th Iunius
Bolval goes to the temple of Ninkash in the Jewel Ward to seek guidance on the Remove Affliction ritual. Meanwhile, Krivinn goes to the Celestial Bastion to see if the soylana is able to help the dragonborn deal with the upcoming street fight. Orthas tells Krivinn he’s on his own; the only other paladin of Bahamut he knows of in the Old Quarter is a female dragonborn called Sora who is out of the city at the moment. Returning to the Makers Ward, Bolval and Krivinn meet up with Sharden and head to the Dock Ward to try and speak to Sgt Saurish of the City Watch. On the way there, they run into two arguing arcanists from the Esoteric Order of the Blue Lotus – a vanara mantrika (sorcerer) and an Akhrani fire mage. Their row goes out of control when the fire mage summons an angry elemental. The PCs intervene, killing the elemental which explodes in a brimstone death burst. When the mages come round, Krivinn lectures them on how to behave responsibly and insists they pay for the damage they caused. Afterwards, their trip to the Dock Ward is wasted – Sgt Saurish is not at the Watch station.

Later in the afternoon, the PCs arrive in the Builders Sabban as the Masons vs Potters street fight is about to start. The party spot Cyrus (halfling rogue, ex-Dockside Crew) and a band of Golden Scimitars led by Yorgi Bin Kosta dressed as Masons in the alleys off the main drag. The PCs move in to attack the Golden Scimitars as the two mobs of guild members clash further down the street. Bolval casts spirit of healing which keeps Krivinn fit and healthy as he is attacked by two knife fighters and several of Yorgi’s lackeys. The paladin strikes Yorgi with a 66 hp critical and Sharden finally manages to use his avenging light to maximum effect as the bloodied dragonborn is standing next to his target! The invoker’s grasping shards slow down Cyrus and Krivinn kills him before he can escape from the PCs for a third time, but they are unable to stop Yorgi getting away. The last surviving knife fighter is brought down by Sharden’s onyx dog just as the Watch arrive on the scene.


Next session, they will be invited to the White Palm to report to Dulicitus and the tavern-keeper Kaham will offer them a job getting rid of the two Golden Scimitars planted on his staff.

Any comments or suggestions?

Cheers


Richard

 

[Gilladian]

I just wish I could play in your game! It might make me understand what people like about 4th edition

My game has too many threads right now. I need to decide what options the PCs are really interested in pursuing. Hmmm... they really won't tell me!