Our penultimate chapter provides six adventures set in the Bounty Kingdom. Taking the form of jobs in need of some Knaves, individually they are rather short, and barring a company leader in the first two are more or less disconnected from each other in terms of plot.
Little People of the Grand Mount is our first adventure, suitable for 1st level characters. While in some remote village somewhere between the borders of Torrigiana, Alazia, and Quinotaria, the PCs are approached by Roughger of Punchrabbit, a company leader and Knave whose fame precedes him. He offers the group silver and to join his company if they help out with one “easy-peasy job.”
The nearby Grand Mount is home to many tales about fairies, witches, and other sorts. One such folktale is of a child who climbed up and met a clan of fey known as Goodfellas, obtaining great riches from them. Roughger’s client is a local landowner who wants the PCs to retrieve one goodfella alive in exchange for as much silver as they weigh. Unfortunately it’s the rainy season, and climbing up the Grand Mount is easier said than done. Also, Roughger already hired and lost half a dozen henchmen on this very same quest and doesn’t believe in the sunk cost fallacy.
The adventure overall is low in lethality, with the greater dangers being the suffering of exhaustion, traps, and dangers of the environment. The PCs can gather rumors in town about the Grand Mount, while climbing it involves overcoming the fairies’ misleading magic, avoiding sliding down steep inclines, and hunting for food if they run low on rations. A supernaturally-fast donkey with golden hooves can help lead the party further up, or if they show it disrespect will lead them back to their starting point at the foot of the mountain.
The Goodfella Refuge is guarded by a pit trap that is a mossy hole in the side of the mountain that causes characters to slide rather than fall to their deaths. The goodfella fairies are cooking a meal by the time the PCs arrive and are quite hospitable. There’s a small table of possible interactions the PCs can do to get on their good sides, such as winning a game of Poppycock which uses petroglyph numbers and symbols (disadvantage on gaming set rolls if PC cannot read them), making their meal taste better with salt, or going along with a joke where one of them insists that they’re “goonfellas, not goodfellas” and to not get the name wrong next time only for the next one to make the same statement but in reverse.
The job is completed if the PCs convince one of the fairies to accompany them to Roughger and the client’s estate, with the goodfella making a strange ticking sound all the while. After being paid and the party leaves the estate, the villa’s roof explodes. Otherwise if the PCs fail in their quest (at some point an approaching storm makes the Grand Mount unclimbable), Roughger shrugs and promptly forgets about the job.
We also get a stat block for Roughger, a CR 5 Chaotic Neutral humanoid with Legendary Actions that allow him to move and attack additional times a round. He is otherwise built as a melee fighter, having multiattack with two-weapon fighting: a +1 mattock called Headcracker and +1 handaxe called Cleaver. He’s a military veteran whose former soldier buddies have all died in battle and thus nobody remembers his name. He founded a company known as the Punchrabbits made up of scoundrels and pillory scum. Their headquarters is the Punchrabbit’s Den, which has a level 1 Cantina and Stable as Grandluxuries and is located on the road between Frittole and Tristoia in the northern part of Torrigiana.
Rugantino: Tales of Love and the Knife is another 1st level adventure. Roughger or another appropriate company leader has some undefined business in Port Patacca in Alazial and asks the PCs to accompany him there. And by “business,” Roughger means “squandering money for several days in unrestrained revelry.” During the trip he gets to know them better as a means of some character development. After reaching the city and partying at the Cockrel Inn (along with some sample NPCs to interact with), a puppeteer by the name of Gheraccio approaches the party for a job. He used to do performances with a marionette he created known as Rugantino. The marionette disappeared one night and Gheraccio is worried that he was kidnapped for ransom or even worse, thrown to the fire.
But before the PCs can take the job a group of rival Knaves known as the Snakes will approach Gheraccio, talking down the PCs and claiming to be better-suited for the job. Naturally the PCs will have to engage in a Brawl in order to avoid losing a client and prove their worth. If they lose then they’ll wake up in an alley with Gheraccio (who decided to go along with them anyway), but with 1 coin or 1 memorabilia each missing due to Brawler’s Etiquette.
The PCs can gather clues in town, first by meeting an old woman who speaks an obscure Alazial dialect that can be sussed out via an Intelligence check or with the help of an NPC from the Cockrel Inn if a good relationship was established. From her they’ll learn that a red-headed woman visited one of Gheraccio’s shows and left with a “little boy” who is likely the marionette. There’s also a rude child who points them in the direction of a friar that knows the name of the red-head. The friar tells the party that her name is Rosetta and frets about her safety due to her falling in love with Ninetto. Ninetto belongs to a group of thieves known as the Freeloaders who are hiding out in the Gropewood.
The Gropewood is a supernaturally-dark forest that must be navigated via Survival, with failed checks causing risk of Exhaustion and random encounters. The Freeloaders are 3 bandits led by a morgant, and Rugantino, Rosetta, and Ninetto are among them. Rugantino is not actually a hostage; he got tired of Gheraccio’s shows, but was unable to communicate such fears as he never seemed to get through to his creator. He ran away with Rosetta for a new life, although he doesn’t find a life of crime to be a worthy replacement for his old job. Additionally Rosetta is having second thoughts about her relationship. Due to these factors it is possible that the PCs can talk them into voluntarily coming back with them, although the rest of the bandits will not see reason and are eager to fight.
The Forest of Howling Boars is an adventure for 2nd-level Knaves. This job comes from a community of charcoal burners on the border between Torrigiana and Pianaverna. A group of howling boars have been terrorizing hunters in the region with greater frequency, and the community saved up money to hire some “Professional Boar Exterminators.” While the company’s leader would ordinarily send their best henchmen for this kind of job, such Knaves are still in prison and so the task is passed on to the PCs.
The job is located in the village of Ponteratto, home to a bridge spanning a river, and the village is honest about being in need of aid from dangerous boars and hosts a feast in their honor (with quite a bit of boar-meat). However there are rumors that these aren’t ordinary boars, possibly being wereboars, boar-men, or even giant boars! PCs can gather information and rumors by participating in various Dive Games.
The truth of the matter is that the boars of the forest are gaining intelligence. Led by a particularly smart member of their species known as Biggerboar, they are forming the basic foundations of a system of government, including mass gathering of truffles to be used as a trade good. The howls in fact come from the Boaryguards, soldiers among their kind seeking to scare away intruders. Since the villagers are unaware of the boars’ intelligence they’ve been eating boar meat earned through hunts, which doesn’t endear the animals to their humanoid neighbors.
While talking animals in the Kingdom aren’t normally cause for alarm, the chances of opening up peaceful relations with Ponteratto are quite slim. A pair of sylvans known as Rind and Knuckle have been playing off both sides. They’ve offered to do tasks for the boars that the animals are unable to do due to lack of opposable thumbs, while stashing away a large share of wealth from the truffle trade, slaughtering wild boars to create sausage to sell to Ponteratto, and playing upon the villagers’ fears with rumor mongering. Nero is a wereboar and a spy for Biggerboar, posing as a human in Ponteratto; he does hope that the two communities can find peace, but he’s also aware of the mutual enmity and is really torn up inside.
The adventure is a bit open-ended in how the Knaves go about their mission. While investigating the nearby woods they can come upon or run fall afoul of Rind and Knuckle’s traps, and can find the sylvans’ hovel which has Roastporker’s Cleaver to be used as evidence of their guilt...although the rest of the adventure doesn’t mention Roastporker at all. Presumably one of the villagers or a wereboar?
Additionally, the PCs can come upon Swinotopia, a mini-dungeon system of caverns guarded on the outside by patrols of boars. If the PCs manage to avoid violence such as by sneaking inside or declaring themselves as diplomatic envoys, then Biggerboar will hear them out. If they killed any boars in getting to him he would not be willing to negotiate and instead declares a call to arms by attacking the party.
The adventure can be resolved in various ways. Wiping out the Swinotopia community is one, or just running away which fails the job. Determining Rind and Knuckle’s guilt will do much to quell hostilities, although it’s a first step rather than a permanent solution. A form of trade agreement or compromise where Ponteratto and Swinotopia respect each other’s autonomy and provide goods and services to each other is a longer-term solution.
The Good, the Bad, and the Marionette is for 3rd-level Knaves and meant to take place at a hard point in the PCs’ lives. The guards of Tristoia have adopted a “scorched earth” policy to the company, and Rougher (or another company leader) has long since disappeared. Jobless and with nothing to do, their company leader returns out of the blue one day with a happy declaration: “I have a job for you!”
Embarking on horses, the leader explains that they’ve been employed by the Sublime Doctor Azimut to retrieve some goods he paid for in the swamps of Maremma Impestata located in Torrigiana. Azimut is a snake-oil salesman who’s been chased out of various places for his fake elixirs, but has apparently found an alchemical formula that actually works. One of the ingredients is the plumage from a rare beast known as a Foioncus Albinus, and the elixir can bestow upon its drinker otherworldly beauty. The last known Foioncus Albinus was owned by the befana* by the name of Veriana, who cut off all contact with Azmiut after receiving payment.
*a monstrous species of hag native to the Kingdom.
Doctor Azmiut will inform the party of all this upon meeting him in Deadman’s Crossing on the edge of the swamp. Payment is secured once they return with the monster alive and well, and they only have a day and a half to do the job. This time limit is due to the fact that the person seeking the elixir has their personal guard showing up at the Crossing, and if it’s not ready then then the deal’s off.
The swamp is a treacherous wilderness crawl, with potential monstrous encounters such as a herd of boars led by a giant one, and a swamp monster known as a Catsnake which is fond of dragging a boat’s oars, poles, and occupants beneath the swampy water. Veriana’s shack is silent, and its sole occupant has died within the last 24 hours. A group of butterati did her in via juniper cordial, an extremely strong alcoholic beverage. The louts happened to leave one of their number behind: Cinnamon, a marionette hiding with a sack of stolen goods. She can be found and chased, fooled due to her gullible nature, or turned against her former gang for leaving her to fend for herself in the swamp.
The butterati’s den is a network of islands and stationary boats connected by bridges. The occupants range in stats but borrow statblocks from the Monster Manual and NPC entries in the final chapter of this book. They predictably draw from brigand-themed entries, such as Bandit, Thug, Duelist, and Cutthroat. There are also sleeches beneath the water, which Cinnamon won’t tell the party about if she was chased or forced to accompany the PCs. The Foioncus Albinus is a three-legged cockrel that is easily frightened and can suffer a heart attack if suddenly surprised. It is ornery and will fight the PCs if they try to take it, although it can be tamed with juniper cordial.
See Acquaviva and Die! is an adventure for 3rd-4th level PCs set in the Duchy of Acquaviva of Volturnia. The Duchy’s ruler, Duke Arpaxio de Seevedra, sends a missive to the PCs’ company to go to the Holey Gate and learn from a spirit where a witch buried an immense treasure.
In reality there is no treasure, and the Duke plans on using the spirit to determine which three young men is his legitimate heir. In life a befana known as Whooppee claimed that all three of the boys were his, causing a bit of a succession crisis. The witch lied, and the Duke found this out over time but not the identity of his true son. The Arpaxio lineage has been cursed so that every descendent will be afflicted with some type of mental disorder; the Duke is obsessed with dairy products of all kinds and his castle stinks to high heaven as such foodstuffs are in every room. None of his supposed sons demonstrate any forms of insanity, which makes determining their heritage all the more difficult.
The Holey Gate is a supernatural back-door leading to Inferno that shows up in a different place every month in the dukedom, which everyone knows about but avoids due to its great danger. The Duke will lend to the party the son living with him, Basset the monk, to conduct a ritual to summon a backbiter (a spirit tied to a departed soul) via a special scroll.
Basset has stats of an acolyte and healing potions to use in case of an emergency, and the PCs must first visit the Ditch of Serpents to meet one of Whooppee’s disciples in order to find the location of the next Holey Gate. Once there she can tell the party a bit about Whooppee, and may even give them a powerful artifact known as the Mantle of Snakes in exchange for candy, an entertaining tale, or entering into a relationship or having sex with a PC that catches her fancy. The Mantle grants several minor passive defenses: invisible to the walking dead, +1 AC and saves, blindsight 10 feet, resistance to poison damage, and can summon a swarm of poisonous snakes out of the mantle to attack adjacent targets.
Alternatively the PCs can learn the Holey Gate’s location from a warring group of bandits and guardspeople by siding with one or the other faction, and whose respective leaders (Shady the bandit captain and Sarino the guard captain) are two of the three heirs. The Gate itself can be opened by petitioning the flocks of ravens guarding the gate with an appropriate ability check or bribing them with shiny valuables. The area beyond the Holey Gate is known as Limbo, a mausoleum of the dead whose locations have titles such as the Gallery of Nouns, Hall of Adverbs, Crypt of Adjectives, and the Cell of Swear Words. Innumerable undead can be found here, either as blind and deaf zombies with 5 foot blindsight or specters known as backbiters. The latter type are linked to the tongues and mouths of departed souls, separated into alcoves by types of speech. The PCs have various means of finding Whooppee’s backbiter, such as conversing with other backbiters or bypassing riddles and traps (to be made by the DM). Once found Basset will unfurl the scroll and cast the spell to ask the question. Whooppee is a smartass and while forced to tell the truth, she will tell unrelated truths first, particularly embarrassing secrets about the PCs, Basset, and anyone else present. If asked the same question three times she will give the answer, and the heir is determined by the DM and needs of the plot. If the PCs get on the backbiter’s bad side then she’ll summon a horde of the undead to attack.
Upon exiting the tomb the true heir will suddenly adopt some offbeat behavior the next morning: Basset will talk to plants, Shady will become obsessed with his own reflection, while Sarino will become paranoid of all horses in the belief that they want to kill him.
Penumbria Jeez Festival is a job for 5th level PCs that takes place in the most deadly region of the Kingdom. The PCs’ leader has to settle a prophecy debt with Lapidario de Mali, an impoverished nobleman in the city of Crimini. Once there the PCs meet a messenger of their employer in a dance hall just after said messenger wins a knife fight. Lapidario explains that a group of people are breeding monsters and selling the creatures’ poison without the permission of the Criminese Cupola. Located on a farm somewhere, the PCs must find the location, overcome the responsible parties, and bring back evidence of the unapproved crimes.
However, the Criminese Cupola aren’t going to hedge their bets on a single band of Knaves and thus hired a rival Band of the Shrimp who have even less scruples than the PCs. Lapidario will tip the party off about the rivals but decline to inform them of said Band’s true employers. The PCs have the option to confront the Band while in town or head off on their quest immediately.
While traveling north in search of the monster traffickers, the PCs will come upon evidence of burned farmsteads, looted granaries, and the corpses of peasants rotting under the sun. Survivors will tell the PCs that the responsible parties are a mercenary group known as the Bounty Bludgeons. The next village the PCs come upon is Malconvento, which has thankfully not been destroyed. A local vintner can tell the PCs about a safe trail to find the monster traffickers somewhere within the Forest of Nests, but in exchange they must help defend the town against the Bounty Bludgeons who are bound to come in several days.
PCs who offer to help the village can undertake various tasks to shore up defenses, train commoners to fight, and lay traps which will kill off the weaker enemies once the Bounty Bludgeons arrive. If the Band of the Shrimp hasn’t been dealt with, they’ll assault the village alongside the Bounty Bludgeons. The PCs will have 20 commoners fighting at their side, but it can be a potentially deadly battle due to enemy numbers. Victorious PCs will be held as guests of honor in a local celebration, and can avoid an encounter with a swarm of spidercrows when taking the vintner’s safe route. As the spidercrow swarm may not be as punishing as the mercenaries, this is very much a “moral dilemma” kind of choice, but one I can see many gaming groups choosing to take the high road.
But there is one mandatory encounter where the PCs come upon a corpse pile of the monster trafficker’s previous victims. The pile is watched over by a pair of Anguane (naga-like snake-women), and the gear of the bodies are mostly shoddy. However, there’s a breastplate as well as a rapier which is actually a legendary weapon: Fraudo’s Brand, once owned by a legendary King of Thieves. It’s a +1 weapon that still has the shoddy quality.
The farm within the Forest of Nests is watched over by five criminals, 3 of who use the bandit stat block and 2 have different stats. One is a Dragoon, the other an Explorer, but I cannot find such a stat block for the latter either in the Brancalonia sourcebook or the core Monster Manual. There’s a litter of viperwolf pups and an adult mother that are being milked of poison. The PCs can do what they want with the viperwolves, but bringing back the poison as evidence along with any prisoners taken alive will help finish the mission.
And Now? talks about potential future options for the gaming group’s band of Knaves. It outlines the next books to be published: the
Atlas of the Kingdom will give further detail on the setting of the Kingdom, from greater details in culture, regions, adventure hooks, and gameable material such as equipment and monsters. The next book is the
Knives, Carafes, Clubs, and Coins that is a complete campaign with new adventures as well as Den options, four new factions, leaders, and four Big Heists. The book mentions that a mini-series known as the Daily Jinx contains more short adventures in the here and now.
While there are Daily Jinx products (up to #3) published as of this writing, the two above products have not been released. The two Brancalonia supplements in English are the
Macaronicon and the
Digital Lasagna. I happen to own both, and this is a guess on my part but the former seems to cover a lot of the material that the Atlas of the Kingdom would highlight. The Digital Lasagna is a collection of small supplementary material, such as maps, updated pregenerated PCs, an official artbook, figure flats, and the four current issues of the Daily Jinx.
Thoughts So Far: The adventures are short and have a good mixture of combat, investigation, and socialization. While most of them are linear, several have various open-ended means of finishing the job. The ones I liked the most include Little People of the Grand Mount which makes for a good low-stakes “tutorial session,” the Forest of Howling Boars for its emphasis on investigation and sandboxy means of resolution, and Penumbria Jeez Festival in thematically showing off said region’s deadliness while also allowing the PCs to feel like Big Damn Heroes for taking the high road. I wasn’t as fond of See Acquaviva and Die in that it felt a bit too linear and the possibility that the PCs may not even get the chance to meet the heir at all during the quest.
Join us next time as we finish this book with New Monsters and Enemies!