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Story Hour
Erkonin (Campaign #2) [Session 45: Rajalmin's Agent]
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<blockquote data-quote="prabe" data-source="post: 8194843" data-attributes="member: 7016699"><p>Session 30: Team Research Comes Through In Spades</p><p></p><p>Dramatis Personae:</p><p></p><p>ldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid</p><p>Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest)</p><p>Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul)</p><p>Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster)</p><p>Marxine - Mountain Dwarf Fighter (Champion)/Paladin</p><p></p><p>GM - Everyone Else</p><p></p><p>(Note: This session was held on Discord.)</p><p></p><p></p><p>17 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 108)</p><p></p><p>We decided to hold off on going to Krakom’s because it was getting well into the evening after all of our shopping and the frustrating day Elderron and Aldalomiel had in the library.</p><p></p><p>The evening passed with dinner and a show somewhere and the night was uneventful.</p><p></p><p></p><p>18 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 109)</p><p></p><p>The next morning, we all went with Aldalomiel and Elderron to the library. Vinya asked at the desk if there were research librarians or assistants who could be hired to help -- since our friends seem to be having some difficulty navigating the library.</p><p></p><p>Librarian at Desk: I think we can find a couple of people willing to be sidelined from their own research for a day or two.</p><p></p><p>Wonderful -- the price was 100gp for Aldalomiel and Elderron to each have a research assistant. Vinya paid for both of them and for Elderron’s day in the library.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: I’d rather you had the money to buy more spells.</p><p></p><p>Elderron got help narrowing stuff down about Rajalmin and the party that killed him a hundred or more years ago. There were four people in the party: A human wizard from New Arvai named Danrom Orth; a human monk from Kiranamakir (the capital of Mahassar) named Adlawan Gavlura; a dwarven paladin from Torm Brinnom named Etta Blackgranite (this is Tylrok Hammerhammer’s aunt); a halfling cleric from Dhaqi named Sarik Whitesand.</p><p></p><p>Apparently this party stumbled onto one of Rajalmin’s plans in Dhaqi, pursued him across multiple continents, and finally ran him to ground in New Arvai where they broke up a cabal he was trying to start. This cabal was trying to get information about the higher levels of government and society in order to gain behind-the-scenes control of the city through blackmail and extortion. They were getting their information from Rajalmin, but appeared to have regular meetings where they interacted with him, even when they didn’t have pressing needs or desires. Despite the consistently hedonistic ways of Rakshasa in general, this cabal’s hedonism didn’t run in sexy directions -- they were more interested in extravagant foods and extravagant intoxicants.</p><p></p><p>When we talked over this information Elderron got later, it occurred to us that Rajalmin might genuinely be targeting New Arvai -- he played a 30 year game to get revenge on Torm Brinnom, where Etta Blackgranite was from, tearing at one of the things that is central to dwarven life and experience -- the strongly interwoven social fabric of their strongholds. He might well be targeting New Arvai and Danrom Orth’s family.</p><p></p><p>Danrom’s journal said that most of the people Rajalmin were working for were killed. They believed he initially came to Erkonin through a portal. Or perhaps someone screwed up a summoning spell and got him instead of whatever devil they were going for.</p><p></p><p>Elderron looked into how someone on another plane get someone where to summon them -- sending spells work across planes. Also, if that other-planar entity could get to the Ethereal Plane they could hang out there (or in the Astral) and spy on what’s going on on the Prime (specifically Erkonin). Thereby giving themselves the required knowledge to be able to cast sending and send a message to someone. From there it’s a matter of offering promises and inducements and grooming that person, perhaps initially chosen because they seemed susceptible to this, to perform the summoning ritual.</p><p></p><p>It certainly seems that if there’s a way that Rajalmin can hurt those who hurt him -- or their descendants -- he’ll be working on that.</p><p></p><p>We decide that we need to find out if Danrom Orth has any family in town still.</p><p></p><p>Elderron, with one last bit of investigation, found a granddaughter, Ronma Orth, still living in the city.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel, doing research on Sossonatissis, the Blue Death, also had a really productive day.</p><p></p><p>One thing she learned is that The Blue Death and a noble Fey called the Lingering Silence have a long running feud and <em>dislike</em> for each other.</p><p></p><p>She learned about his primary motivation, about which he seems to be a bit monomaniacal: He wants there to be at least one god on Erkonin and he wants that god to be him.</p><p></p><p>(When Aldalomiel told the party this, Vinya quietly thought “I want there to be gods on Erkonin again, but I don’t want to be on the side of the evil dragon.”)</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel looked for information about what has driven him back to the Scoured Hills when he’s made forays across the mountains and ravaged the land. What she found is that he hasn’t so much been driven back, as that he was looking for something and either found it or decided that what he was looking for wasn’t where he was looking. The ravaging of towns and cities and settlements was because that’s what evil dragons do.</p><p></p><p>The main things he’s looking for are how to re-enable the god setting on Erkonin, information about what is necessary to do it, etc. He’s pretty single-minded.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel: That’s all beyond my pay grade. I’d rather just stop him doing it.</p><p></p><p>He’s a very powerful, very old dragon who has wrought havoc on adventuring groups who thought they were well prepared to deal with an ancient blue dragon.</p><p></p><p>She did remember something we’d been told in the past -- that the Noble Fey are starting to fill some of that “god role” here on Erkonin.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel, when she told the rest of us about this: It sounds like he might be jealous of the Noble Fey.</p><p></p><p>Aldalomiel went from looking into the Blue Death to trying to get more information about the Lingering Silence -- the Fey he has a beef with.</p><p></p><p>Her name is Tormanna. She’s the sister of the Walking Man, Falaggo, who we met and really liked. She doesn’t interact with mortals much -- though if you talk to her in a place where people are talking a lot and making noise, she can be pretty communicative. She tends to hang out where people are quiet -- for example a monastery where the monks take a vow of silence.</p><p></p><p>Tormanna and Falaggo are in House Dante, which is interesting to us as well.</p><p></p><p>We talked about hanging out at a crossroads at the next new or full moon and hoping to see the Walking Man again. Maybe he can help us get in touch with his sister. He also might have some insight into what’s up with Lothiriel being in Castle Dante -- is she a guest or a prisoner, and in either case why?</p><p></p><p>The next new moon is in ten days (28 Plantarin, Day 119).</p><p></p><p>Team Research hit it out of the park!</p><p></p><p>When Elderron and Aldalomiel were done for the day, we headed en masse to Krakom’s, the magical weapon store. We were greeted by a large half-orc, Krakom himself. He was the oldest half-orc any of us had ever seen and he was missing some fingers on his left hand.</p><p></p><p>Krakom: Howdy! How can I help you?</p><p>Elama: I don’t think we’re as dangerous as we could be. What can you do to fix that?</p><p>Krakom, with a twinkle in his eyes: I have many things. Unfortunately, whatever I have will still leave you an elf.</p><p></p><p>Marxine asked after one-handed weapons, like a battleaxe maybe.</p><p></p><p>Krakom: We can probably find something like that.</p><p></p><p>He went into the back of his store and returned with a warhammer.</p><p></p><p>Krakom: I’ve been waiting for the right person for this. It’s an Unmaking Hammer. If you hit someone’s armor hard enough with it, it weakens and ultimately breaks the armor. It can break a lot of other things as well, but that’s the good one.</p><p>Marxine: Nice. How much?</p><p>Krakom: 15,000</p><p></p><p>Oof.</p><p></p><p>Krakom: I have more in the back.</p><p>Vinya: While you’re back there, if you see anything I can use, please bring it with you.</p><p></p><p>He nodded and went into the back room again.</p><p></p><p>He returned this time with a quarterstaff made of ironwood. It had stylized fists carved on each end.</p><p></p><p>Krakom: When wielded by a monk, this weapon counts as an unarmed strike.</p><p>Vinya: Interesting…</p><p></p><p>Elama asked about Gauntlets of Ogre Power and he said he’d bring them out in a moment -- he had one more thing for Marxine to consider.</p><p></p><p>He came back with the gauntlets and a battleaxe -- the handle looked like it was made from well-aged wood and the blade itself was matte, as though it had been sand-blasted.</p><p></p><p>Krakom: It’s called Sandstorm. You can use it to kick up a dust cloud for concealment. It also does a little damage to anyone in the storm. The dust cloud lasts for as long as you are attacking and it stays centered on you. It gives you total cover from ranged attacks.</p><p>Marxine: How much for that one?</p><p>Krakom: 7500 gold.</p><p></p><p>Elama bought the gauntlets of ogre power as soon as Krakom had finished talking about Sandstorm.</p><p></p><p>Marxine asked how much he’d give her for her +1 maul and other magical weapon. He said he’d give 800 gold for those. Vinya asked if he’d buy the Pipes of the Sewers -- he said that was not in his line, and he didn’t feel comfortable that any offer he made would be fair to both sides..</p><p></p><p>Vinya nodded and ran to The Golden Flame in Gateside, because the pipes of the sewers seemed like the sort of marginally useful item that would sell at their shop catering to tourists. She was right about that and they paid her 400gp for them. Nice!</p><p></p><p>She got back to Krakom’s as Marxine was telling Krakom that she’d think about it and might be back later.</p><p></p><p>Back at the inn, Vinya rummaged around in the bottom of the bag of holding to pull out money, including the 400 she’d gotten for the pipes and some of the money from Dlublul. Elama chipped some money in as well, and we were able to get to 15,000 for Marxine to buy the Unmaking Hammer.</p><p></p><p>We went back to Krakom’s and Marxine and Elama talked him down from 15,000 for it to 14,000 for it. Marxine, with Elama’s permission, gave the 1000 left from what we’d gotten together to Vinya.</p><p></p><p>Elama: Now that we’re done shopping and are all broke, how do we find this Rajalmin cabal?</p><p></p><p>Elderron told us that Danrom Orth has a granddaughter, Ronma, who is an instructor at the School of the Mind. The School of the Mind focuses on magics and other means of controlling the minds of others and breaking such control -- illusion and enchantment, but also abjuration. She teaches optics, because understanding optics helps to make illusions more believable. She was not, according to what Elderron had learned, an adventuring wizard.</p><p></p><p>We decided to go talk to her, even though the day was getting fairly late, because she might actually be in danger.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Though a slow-moving and subtle sort of danger. He was working in Torm Brinnom for over 30 years and it took that long for things to come to a head there. And he didn’t really have that much money invested in Torm Brinnom -- 25,000 gp for each of seven oni, plus magicking up their weapons. But that’s less than 1000 gp per year each. He could afford to multi-task and work on revenge on multiple fronts at the same time.</p><p></p><p>We found her in her office at the School of the Mind, having late office hours.</p><p></p><p>Ronma: How can I help y…. You’re not my students.</p><p>Vinya: No.</p><p>Elama: We’re here for you!</p><p>Elderron: We want to talk to you about an encounter your grandfather had.</p><p>Ronma: I don’t know anything about that.</p><p>Marxine: Your grandfather was an adventurer. He helped banish a powerful fiend.</p><p>Ronma: Good on him. I gather he was an ass to Grandma sometimes, but good on him.</p><p>Marxine: The fiend had a 30-year plan that almost tore apart the entire social fabric of a dwarf stronghold.</p><p>Vinya: This fiend plays a really long, really insidious game.</p><p>Ronma: That sounds awful. My grandfather left some papers that didn’t get into the School of the World. I can bring them here in the morning, if you’d like.</p><p>Vinya: That would be perfect. Thanks so much!</p><p></p><p>At this point it was fairly late in the day -- time for a late dinner. So we went back to the inn and ate and rested and the night passed.</p><p></p><p></p><p>19 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 110)</p><p></p><p>In the morning after breakfast, we went back to the School of the Mind to look at the papers Ronma had. When we got there, she looked relieved.</p><p></p><p>Ronma: I looked through these last night. I’ve asked the school and asked them to increase the protections against fiends on the school, more particularly on this building, and even more particularly on my office.</p><p></p><p>She said that Danroth and his party had first crossed paths with Rajalmin in Kiranamakir, the capital of Mahassar. He would disguise himself as various people in the upper echelons and instigate duels between various nobles. They tracked him through Mahassar and Dhaqi and finally brought him to ground here.</p><p></p><p>The cabal here appeared to be his backup plan -- they summoned him every couple of weeks to talk to him and learn secrets about the wealthy in New Arvai. This was a brilliant way to get around the limitation that if he was killed on Erkonin he wouldn't be able to return until summoned personally by name. (Once summoned by name, he could return by any means.) So he had this cabal summoning him frequently.</p><p></p><p>They had the sense that his main activity was actually in Kiranamakir and Dhaqi and that the cabal in New Arvai was really mainly a backup plan.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: What was his plan in Kiranamakir and Dhaqi?</p><p>Ronma, handing over the notes: He was working to dismantle the government in Kiranamakir with all of the feuds and duels he was starting there. Though their duels aren’t typically to the death there -- with so many being started he was also effectively reducing the number of skilled duellists. The plan in Dhaqi was more difficult to discern -- they just busted it up.</p><p>Vinya: I don’t know if you would know this, but are you aware of anything over the last twenty or thirty years that would destabilize the city? Perhaps a subtle uptick or downtick in activity.</p><p>Ronma: I don’t know of anything, but really I wouldn’t.</p><p>Vinya: Can we borrow these papers?</p><p>Ronma: Yes. I hope they help.</p><p></p><p>We then took our leave of her, with the papers in hand, and decided to go talk to Tomud at the Simmering Poppy, on the grounds that Rakshasa are hedonists and the Green Hand deals in vices and pleasures. Whatever Rajalmin is up to in New Arvai might well have its first ripples in Tomud’s world.</p><p></p><p>Tomud: What can I do for you?</p><p>Vinya: We may be on to something, but we’re not nearly so certain about it as we were about the aboleth.</p><p>Tomud: You’re not reclaiming your marker then? You couldn’t with me, as I’m not the one who issued it.</p><p>Marxine: We’re giving a warning and hoping for some information perhaps.</p><p></p><p>We gave him the backstory about Rajalmin and Danrom Orth and Torm Brinnom and all of that.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Because this is a particularly hedonistic devil, it seemed like whatever he’s doing might be rippling your world. But in very subtle ways acting over a very long period of time.</p><p>Tomud: Oddly, there has been a slight reduction in the level of hedonism in New Arvai over the last while.</p><p>Vinya: Interesting. There’s less interest?</p><p>Tomud: Not in Stormyside - the level of interest there has remained about the same. But among the upper classes there’s less. Either they’re getting their needs met elsewhere or by means we don’t provide.</p><p>Vinya: Interesting.</p><p>Tomud: There’s always a difference in style between the poor and the rich. The rich will pay much for one very intense or extreme experience. The poorer people will pay the same amount over time to have smaller experiences on a regular basis.</p><p>Vinya: Are any specific individuals not coming around anymore?</p><p>Tomud: There’s always turnover -- we’ll have someone who’s an excellent customer who stops coming around, perhaps they die, but at about the same time a new young buck will start coming and become a very regular customer. We’re having more attrition than just death among the older customers and not so many young people beginning to become customers.</p><p>Vinya: That sounds like just the subtle sort of thing we’re looking for.</p><p>Elama: So do we get ourselves invited to a bigwig shindig?</p><p>Vinya: Do you have any ideas on how to do that?</p><p>Tomud: I don’t have that kind of pull, but someone in the higher echelons in my organization might.</p><p>Vinya: Is this the sort of thing we could, theoretically, cash in our chit for?</p><p>Tomud: Potentially.</p><p>Vinya: Good to know.</p><p></p><p>We thanked him and headed over to the guardhouse to talk to Captain Longroot about this, thinking that she might also have an idea about subtle instabilities in the city’s government or governance and maybe strains on the social fabric.</p><p></p><p>Vinya again gave the backstory about Danrom Orth and Rajalmin and the very subtle, slow-moving attack on Torm Brinnom.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Do you know if there’s something going on with the richer people in the city that might be some subtle effect of that sort?</p><p>Captain Longroot: Why are you asking about the wealthy?</p><p>Vinya: Because he’s not going to destabilize the government of New Arvai by disrupting Stormyside.</p><p>Longroot: There’s actually an anti-hedonist movement among the rich right now, led by The Enthroned preaching a sort of enhanced form of noblesse oblige -- taking responsibility for themselves so they can have authority over others.</p><p>Vinya: If we wanted to see this preaching, where would we go? And when?</p><p>Longroot: The temple of The Enthroned in Seneschal on Tagashir in five days.</p><p>Vinya: There are no mid-week groups for the faithful?</p><p>Longroot: Those would be less open to the public.</p><p>Vinya: Is this a homegrown movement or did it come from outside New Arvai?</p><p>Longroot: It coincided with a couple of new clerics coming in. It’s not an official new tenet of the faith, as far as I know, but the higher ups in the order tolerate it. If nothing else, the people who follow these new teachings have more money to donate to the temples.</p><p>Vinya: Do you have names of these clerics?</p><p>Longroot: There’s a human woman named Tirla Jimorn and an elf woman named Galinaori Thianthe. They came from Erlin or Lonoj. Somewhere upriver.</p><p></p><p>Elama used the helmet of detect thoughts to read Captain Longroot’s surface thoughts while Vinya was talking to her -- she later reported that they were all consistent with what she was saying.</p><p></p><p>From the background information on clerical orders: The Enthroned order believe that nobles and others of high ranks deserve to be served, and to be treated with more respect. They respect those who take noblesse oblige seriously, but it’s not universally expected. They have little-to-no interest in run-of-the-mill sorts, except that they serve their “betters.” Their most typical domains are Command, Life, and Light.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: They’re sort of the anti-Marxine.</p><p></p><p>We headed over to the Temple of The Enthroned so that Elama could talk to the religious people there. It was located in Seneschal, the most up-scale part of the city. The temple is very fancy and lavishly appointed.</p><p></p><p>Elama walked in and started looking around, noticing that it smelled like...breakfast in the temple. She followed the smell, and the sound of people talking, down a hallway off the main sanctuary to an open door. The rest of us sort of skulked around in the background.</p><p></p><p>There were a couple of priestesses and other noble types being served breakfast by some people who were waiting on them.</p><p></p><p>Elama talked with them about their anti-hedonism preaching.</p><p></p><p>Priestesses: If you are in a position of controlling other people, you need to first control yourself. We have privileges and responsibilities -- and shouldn’t be blowing money on momentary pleasures that we don’t remember late because we over-indulged. There’s not a lot in common with worshipping the storm.</p><p>Elama: We also heard this line of thinking didn’t start until two women came from out of town. Can we talk to them?</p><p>Priestess: You are.</p><p>Elama: Oh! You’ve been traveling. We have too.</p><p>Priestess: We spent most of our time in Tash. Then we went to Auriqua, but that city is very screwed up -- it’s all working class. From there we went to Embernook, which was even worse. There are wealthy people but no nobles. We didn’t stay there long.</p><p>Elama: What made you want to come all this way from Tash?</p><p>Priestess: Our superiors, after seeing how we improved how the temple in Tash is run, wanted us to come here and run this place better.</p><p>Vinya: Run better how?</p><p>Priestess: Oh, they thought the message wasn’t being well received.</p><p></p><p>(Elama’s detect thoughts got “More offerings.”)</p><p></p><p>Marxine used her paladin divine sense and detected nothing unusual -- no celestials, fiends, or undead. And the place had been hallowed.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Do you know if the message is still being well received in Tash in your absence?</p><p>Priestess: As far as I know. We’ve been here a couple of years.</p><p></p><p>We thanked them and left.</p><p></p><p>As we walked down the street, we discussed the fact that they appeared to be improving the nobility, in some ways at least.</p><p></p><p>Vinya: Concentrating wealth in the temple might be part of a long plan.</p><p>Elama: I have a spell that might help. Divination. I’ve never used it before.</p><p></p><p>We got back to the inn and spent some time in our room discussing what the question for the divination should be. We settled on:</p><p></p><p>Question: Is Rajalmin connected to The Enthroned priests in New Arvai and the sermon they will give in five days?</p><p>Answer: The Enthroned in New Arvai are preaching what they believe, not what Rajalmin would want them to.</p><p></p><p>Huh.</p><p></p><p>And there we ended.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="prabe, post: 8194843, member: 7016699"] Session 30: Team Research Comes Through In Spades Dramatis Personae: ldalómiel - Wood Elf Ranger (Hunter Conclave)/Druid Elama “Lamie” Galanodel- Wood Elf Cleric (Tempest) Vinya Anar - Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Sun Soul) Elderon - High Elf Wizard (Loremaster) Marxine - Mountain Dwarf Fighter (Champion)/Paladin GM - Everyone Else (Note: This session was held on Discord.) 17 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 108) We decided to hold off on going to Krakom’s because it was getting well into the evening after all of our shopping and the frustrating day Elderron and Aldalomiel had in the library. The evening passed with dinner and a show somewhere and the night was uneventful. 18 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 109) The next morning, we all went with Aldalomiel and Elderron to the library. Vinya asked at the desk if there were research librarians or assistants who could be hired to help -- since our friends seem to be having some difficulty navigating the library. Librarian at Desk: I think we can find a couple of people willing to be sidelined from their own research for a day or two. Wonderful -- the price was 100gp for Aldalomiel and Elderron to each have a research assistant. Vinya paid for both of them and for Elderron’s day in the library. Vinya: I’d rather you had the money to buy more spells. Elderron got help narrowing stuff down about Rajalmin and the party that killed him a hundred or more years ago. There were four people in the party: A human wizard from New Arvai named Danrom Orth; a human monk from Kiranamakir (the capital of Mahassar) named Adlawan Gavlura; a dwarven paladin from Torm Brinnom named Etta Blackgranite (this is Tylrok Hammerhammer’s aunt); a halfling cleric from Dhaqi named Sarik Whitesand. Apparently this party stumbled onto one of Rajalmin’s plans in Dhaqi, pursued him across multiple continents, and finally ran him to ground in New Arvai where they broke up a cabal he was trying to start. This cabal was trying to get information about the higher levels of government and society in order to gain behind-the-scenes control of the city through blackmail and extortion. They were getting their information from Rajalmin, but appeared to have regular meetings where they interacted with him, even when they didn’t have pressing needs or desires. Despite the consistently hedonistic ways of Rakshasa in general, this cabal’s hedonism didn’t run in sexy directions -- they were more interested in extravagant foods and extravagant intoxicants. When we talked over this information Elderron got later, it occurred to us that Rajalmin might genuinely be targeting New Arvai -- he played a 30 year game to get revenge on Torm Brinnom, where Etta Blackgranite was from, tearing at one of the things that is central to dwarven life and experience -- the strongly interwoven social fabric of their strongholds. He might well be targeting New Arvai and Danrom Orth’s family. Danrom’s journal said that most of the people Rajalmin were working for were killed. They believed he initially came to Erkonin through a portal. Or perhaps someone screwed up a summoning spell and got him instead of whatever devil they were going for. Elderron looked into how someone on another plane get someone where to summon them -- sending spells work across planes. Also, if that other-planar entity could get to the Ethereal Plane they could hang out there (or in the Astral) and spy on what’s going on on the Prime (specifically Erkonin). Thereby giving themselves the required knowledge to be able to cast sending and send a message to someone. From there it’s a matter of offering promises and inducements and grooming that person, perhaps initially chosen because they seemed susceptible to this, to perform the summoning ritual. It certainly seems that if there’s a way that Rajalmin can hurt those who hurt him -- or their descendants -- he’ll be working on that. We decide that we need to find out if Danrom Orth has any family in town still. Elderron, with one last bit of investigation, found a granddaughter, Ronma Orth, still living in the city. Aldalomiel, doing research on Sossonatissis, the Blue Death, also had a really productive day. One thing she learned is that The Blue Death and a noble Fey called the Lingering Silence have a long running feud and [I]dislike[/I] for each other. She learned about his primary motivation, about which he seems to be a bit monomaniacal: He wants there to be at least one god on Erkonin and he wants that god to be him. (When Aldalomiel told the party this, Vinya quietly thought “I want there to be gods on Erkonin again, but I don’t want to be on the side of the evil dragon.”) Aldalomiel looked for information about what has driven him back to the Scoured Hills when he’s made forays across the mountains and ravaged the land. What she found is that he hasn’t so much been driven back, as that he was looking for something and either found it or decided that what he was looking for wasn’t where he was looking. The ravaging of towns and cities and settlements was because that’s what evil dragons do. The main things he’s looking for are how to re-enable the god setting on Erkonin, information about what is necessary to do it, etc. He’s pretty single-minded. Aldalomiel: That’s all beyond my pay grade. I’d rather just stop him doing it. He’s a very powerful, very old dragon who has wrought havoc on adventuring groups who thought they were well prepared to deal with an ancient blue dragon. She did remember something we’d been told in the past -- that the Noble Fey are starting to fill some of that “god role” here on Erkonin. Aldalomiel, when she told the rest of us about this: It sounds like he might be jealous of the Noble Fey. Aldalomiel went from looking into the Blue Death to trying to get more information about the Lingering Silence -- the Fey he has a beef with. Her name is Tormanna. She’s the sister of the Walking Man, Falaggo, who we met and really liked. She doesn’t interact with mortals much -- though if you talk to her in a place where people are talking a lot and making noise, she can be pretty communicative. She tends to hang out where people are quiet -- for example a monastery where the monks take a vow of silence. Tormanna and Falaggo are in House Dante, which is interesting to us as well. We talked about hanging out at a crossroads at the next new or full moon and hoping to see the Walking Man again. Maybe he can help us get in touch with his sister. He also might have some insight into what’s up with Lothiriel being in Castle Dante -- is she a guest or a prisoner, and in either case why? The next new moon is in ten days (28 Plantarin, Day 119). Team Research hit it out of the park! When Elderron and Aldalomiel were done for the day, we headed en masse to Krakom’s, the magical weapon store. We were greeted by a large half-orc, Krakom himself. He was the oldest half-orc any of us had ever seen and he was missing some fingers on his left hand. Krakom: Howdy! How can I help you? Elama: I don’t think we’re as dangerous as we could be. What can you do to fix that? Krakom, with a twinkle in his eyes: I have many things. Unfortunately, whatever I have will still leave you an elf. Marxine asked after one-handed weapons, like a battleaxe maybe. Krakom: We can probably find something like that. He went into the back of his store and returned with a warhammer. Krakom: I’ve been waiting for the right person for this. It’s an Unmaking Hammer. If you hit someone’s armor hard enough with it, it weakens and ultimately breaks the armor. It can break a lot of other things as well, but that’s the good one. Marxine: Nice. How much? Krakom: 15,000 Oof. Krakom: I have more in the back. Vinya: While you’re back there, if you see anything I can use, please bring it with you. He nodded and went into the back room again. He returned this time with a quarterstaff made of ironwood. It had stylized fists carved on each end. Krakom: When wielded by a monk, this weapon counts as an unarmed strike. Vinya: Interesting… Elama asked about Gauntlets of Ogre Power and he said he’d bring them out in a moment -- he had one more thing for Marxine to consider. He came back with the gauntlets and a battleaxe -- the handle looked like it was made from well-aged wood and the blade itself was matte, as though it had been sand-blasted. Krakom: It’s called Sandstorm. You can use it to kick up a dust cloud for concealment. It also does a little damage to anyone in the storm. The dust cloud lasts for as long as you are attacking and it stays centered on you. It gives you total cover from ranged attacks. Marxine: How much for that one? Krakom: 7500 gold. Elama bought the gauntlets of ogre power as soon as Krakom had finished talking about Sandstorm. Marxine asked how much he’d give her for her +1 maul and other magical weapon. He said he’d give 800 gold for those. Vinya asked if he’d buy the Pipes of the Sewers -- he said that was not in his line, and he didn’t feel comfortable that any offer he made would be fair to both sides.. Vinya nodded and ran to The Golden Flame in Gateside, because the pipes of the sewers seemed like the sort of marginally useful item that would sell at their shop catering to tourists. She was right about that and they paid her 400gp for them. Nice! She got back to Krakom’s as Marxine was telling Krakom that she’d think about it and might be back later. Back at the inn, Vinya rummaged around in the bottom of the bag of holding to pull out money, including the 400 she’d gotten for the pipes and some of the money from Dlublul. Elama chipped some money in as well, and we were able to get to 15,000 for Marxine to buy the Unmaking Hammer. We went back to Krakom’s and Marxine and Elama talked him down from 15,000 for it to 14,000 for it. Marxine, with Elama’s permission, gave the 1000 left from what we’d gotten together to Vinya. Elama: Now that we’re done shopping and are all broke, how do we find this Rajalmin cabal? Elderron told us that Danrom Orth has a granddaughter, Ronma, who is an instructor at the School of the Mind. The School of the Mind focuses on magics and other means of controlling the minds of others and breaking such control -- illusion and enchantment, but also abjuration. She teaches optics, because understanding optics helps to make illusions more believable. She was not, according to what Elderron had learned, an adventuring wizard. We decided to go talk to her, even though the day was getting fairly late, because she might actually be in danger. Vinya: Though a slow-moving and subtle sort of danger. He was working in Torm Brinnom for over 30 years and it took that long for things to come to a head there. And he didn’t really have that much money invested in Torm Brinnom -- 25,000 gp for each of seven oni, plus magicking up their weapons. But that’s less than 1000 gp per year each. He could afford to multi-task and work on revenge on multiple fronts at the same time. We found her in her office at the School of the Mind, having late office hours. Ronma: How can I help y…. You’re not my students. Vinya: No. Elama: We’re here for you! Elderron: We want to talk to you about an encounter your grandfather had. Ronma: I don’t know anything about that. Marxine: Your grandfather was an adventurer. He helped banish a powerful fiend. Ronma: Good on him. I gather he was an ass to Grandma sometimes, but good on him. Marxine: The fiend had a 30-year plan that almost tore apart the entire social fabric of a dwarf stronghold. Vinya: This fiend plays a really long, really insidious game. Ronma: That sounds awful. My grandfather left some papers that didn’t get into the School of the World. I can bring them here in the morning, if you’d like. Vinya: That would be perfect. Thanks so much! At this point it was fairly late in the day -- time for a late dinner. So we went back to the inn and ate and rested and the night passed. 19 Plantarin 749 (Campaign day 110) In the morning after breakfast, we went back to the School of the Mind to look at the papers Ronma had. When we got there, she looked relieved. Ronma: I looked through these last night. I’ve asked the school and asked them to increase the protections against fiends on the school, more particularly on this building, and even more particularly on my office. She said that Danroth and his party had first crossed paths with Rajalmin in Kiranamakir, the capital of Mahassar. He would disguise himself as various people in the upper echelons and instigate duels between various nobles. They tracked him through Mahassar and Dhaqi and finally brought him to ground here. The cabal here appeared to be his backup plan -- they summoned him every couple of weeks to talk to him and learn secrets about the wealthy in New Arvai. This was a brilliant way to get around the limitation that if he was killed on Erkonin he wouldn't be able to return until summoned personally by name. (Once summoned by name, he could return by any means.) So he had this cabal summoning him frequently. They had the sense that his main activity was actually in Kiranamakir and Dhaqi and that the cabal in New Arvai was really mainly a backup plan. Vinya: What was his plan in Kiranamakir and Dhaqi? Ronma, handing over the notes: He was working to dismantle the government in Kiranamakir with all of the feuds and duels he was starting there. Though their duels aren’t typically to the death there -- with so many being started he was also effectively reducing the number of skilled duellists. The plan in Dhaqi was more difficult to discern -- they just busted it up. Vinya: I don’t know if you would know this, but are you aware of anything over the last twenty or thirty years that would destabilize the city? Perhaps a subtle uptick or downtick in activity. Ronma: I don’t know of anything, but really I wouldn’t. Vinya: Can we borrow these papers? Ronma: Yes. I hope they help. We then took our leave of her, with the papers in hand, and decided to go talk to Tomud at the Simmering Poppy, on the grounds that Rakshasa are hedonists and the Green Hand deals in vices and pleasures. Whatever Rajalmin is up to in New Arvai might well have its first ripples in Tomud’s world. Tomud: What can I do for you? Vinya: We may be on to something, but we’re not nearly so certain about it as we were about the aboleth. Tomud: You’re not reclaiming your marker then? You couldn’t with me, as I’m not the one who issued it. Marxine: We’re giving a warning and hoping for some information perhaps. We gave him the backstory about Rajalmin and Danrom Orth and Torm Brinnom and all of that. Vinya: Because this is a particularly hedonistic devil, it seemed like whatever he’s doing might be rippling your world. But in very subtle ways acting over a very long period of time. Tomud: Oddly, there has been a slight reduction in the level of hedonism in New Arvai over the last while. Vinya: Interesting. There’s less interest? Tomud: Not in Stormyside - the level of interest there has remained about the same. But among the upper classes there’s less. Either they’re getting their needs met elsewhere or by means we don’t provide. Vinya: Interesting. Tomud: There’s always a difference in style between the poor and the rich. The rich will pay much for one very intense or extreme experience. The poorer people will pay the same amount over time to have smaller experiences on a regular basis. Vinya: Are any specific individuals not coming around anymore? Tomud: There’s always turnover -- we’ll have someone who’s an excellent customer who stops coming around, perhaps they die, but at about the same time a new young buck will start coming and become a very regular customer. We’re having more attrition than just death among the older customers and not so many young people beginning to become customers. Vinya: That sounds like just the subtle sort of thing we’re looking for. Elama: So do we get ourselves invited to a bigwig shindig? Vinya: Do you have any ideas on how to do that? Tomud: I don’t have that kind of pull, but someone in the higher echelons in my organization might. Vinya: Is this the sort of thing we could, theoretically, cash in our chit for? Tomud: Potentially. Vinya: Good to know. We thanked him and headed over to the guardhouse to talk to Captain Longroot about this, thinking that she might also have an idea about subtle instabilities in the city’s government or governance and maybe strains on the social fabric. Vinya again gave the backstory about Danrom Orth and Rajalmin and the very subtle, slow-moving attack on Torm Brinnom. Vinya: Do you know if there’s something going on with the richer people in the city that might be some subtle effect of that sort? Captain Longroot: Why are you asking about the wealthy? Vinya: Because he’s not going to destabilize the government of New Arvai by disrupting Stormyside. Longroot: There’s actually an anti-hedonist movement among the rich right now, led by The Enthroned preaching a sort of enhanced form of noblesse oblige -- taking responsibility for themselves so they can have authority over others. Vinya: If we wanted to see this preaching, where would we go? And when? Longroot: The temple of The Enthroned in Seneschal on Tagashir in five days. Vinya: There are no mid-week groups for the faithful? Longroot: Those would be less open to the public. Vinya: Is this a homegrown movement or did it come from outside New Arvai? Longroot: It coincided with a couple of new clerics coming in. It’s not an official new tenet of the faith, as far as I know, but the higher ups in the order tolerate it. If nothing else, the people who follow these new teachings have more money to donate to the temples. Vinya: Do you have names of these clerics? Longroot: There’s a human woman named Tirla Jimorn and an elf woman named Galinaori Thianthe. They came from Erlin or Lonoj. Somewhere upriver. Elama used the helmet of detect thoughts to read Captain Longroot’s surface thoughts while Vinya was talking to her -- she later reported that they were all consistent with what she was saying. From the background information on clerical orders: The Enthroned order believe that nobles and others of high ranks deserve to be served, and to be treated with more respect. They respect those who take noblesse oblige seriously, but it’s not universally expected. They have little-to-no interest in run-of-the-mill sorts, except that they serve their “betters.” Their most typical domains are Command, Life, and Light. Vinya: They’re sort of the anti-Marxine. We headed over to the Temple of The Enthroned so that Elama could talk to the religious people there. It was located in Seneschal, the most up-scale part of the city. The temple is very fancy and lavishly appointed. Elama walked in and started looking around, noticing that it smelled like...breakfast in the temple. She followed the smell, and the sound of people talking, down a hallway off the main sanctuary to an open door. The rest of us sort of skulked around in the background. There were a couple of priestesses and other noble types being served breakfast by some people who were waiting on them. Elama talked with them about their anti-hedonism preaching. Priestesses: If you are in a position of controlling other people, you need to first control yourself. We have privileges and responsibilities -- and shouldn’t be blowing money on momentary pleasures that we don’t remember late because we over-indulged. There’s not a lot in common with worshipping the storm. Elama: We also heard this line of thinking didn’t start until two women came from out of town. Can we talk to them? Priestess: You are. Elama: Oh! You’ve been traveling. We have too. Priestess: We spent most of our time in Tash. Then we went to Auriqua, but that city is very screwed up -- it’s all working class. From there we went to Embernook, which was even worse. There are wealthy people but no nobles. We didn’t stay there long. Elama: What made you want to come all this way from Tash? Priestess: Our superiors, after seeing how we improved how the temple in Tash is run, wanted us to come here and run this place better. Vinya: Run better how? Priestess: Oh, they thought the message wasn’t being well received. (Elama’s detect thoughts got “More offerings.”) Marxine used her paladin divine sense and detected nothing unusual -- no celestials, fiends, or undead. And the place had been hallowed. Vinya: Do you know if the message is still being well received in Tash in your absence? Priestess: As far as I know. We’ve been here a couple of years. We thanked them and left. As we walked down the street, we discussed the fact that they appeared to be improving the nobility, in some ways at least. Vinya: Concentrating wealth in the temple might be part of a long plan. Elama: I have a spell that might help. Divination. I’ve never used it before. We got back to the inn and spent some time in our room discussing what the question for the divination should be. We settled on: Question: Is Rajalmin connected to The Enthroned priests in New Arvai and the sermon they will give in five days? Answer: The Enthroned in New Arvai are preaching what they believe, not what Rajalmin would want them to. Huh. And there we ended. [/QUOTE]
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Erkonin (Campaign #2) [Session 45: Rajalmin's Agent]
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