Notes for a New Campaign City, Parsantium

[RichGreen]

Session #11 The Floating Head

Latest session was on Monday:

18th Maius (contd)

After listening at the door to Madame Zeboltha’s chamber, the PCs decide to see if they can attack from two flanks. Sharden and El’em head outside into the courtyard and climb the stairs. Unfortunately the dwarf is too noisy while trying to put Orloch’s keys into the lock, alerting the occupants of the room. Both doors fly open and Madame Zeboltha’s two Tiangaon bodyguards attack Sharden and Krivinn with their kusari-gamas. Inside the room, the PCs can see the two warrior-monks, Madame Zeboltha (a tiefling warlock, scantily clad and wielding a skull-topped rod) and the captain, Irocar. The walls are adorned with occult symbols and strange alchemical equipment sits on a table in one corner. Creepiest of all, a human head floats in a jar of glowing blue liquid.

The PCs attack the villains, killing the two Tiangaons (although they do get to trip Sharden and Krivinn first), then slaying Madame Zeboltha before ganging up on Irocar who gets in a vicious brute strike on Krivinn before going down to an arrow from Brave Ella. El’em uses his magic to pull a crumpled note from the mouth of the head in the jar – this is from Elias Wang of the Dockside Crew to Madame Zeboltha. The others loot the bodies: Ella takes Irocar’s bow and Sharden grabs the tiefling’s rod. After the head in the jar winks at Gong, the PCs get freaked out and Krivinn cleaves it in twain. Sharden uses a ritual to conjure Tenser’s floating disk to carry all their treasure (including a red egg nestling on a bed of hot coals in a bronze bowl and a unicorn’s horn) and the party head downstairs. They search the rooms on the ground floor, finding many interesting items – a silver filigree lantern with the corpse of a pixie inside, a mud-encrusted idol of the Gorilla King, and the hide of a white wolf among others. After a thorough search, El’em uses his flaming sphere spell to attack the otyugh in the cesspit behind the curtain. The hapless gulguthra is soon killed as an “anti-plague measure” by the PCs. Out in the alley, Krivinn smashes the mould-covered fountain depicting Ravana, king of the rakshasas.

Having plundered the whole tenement, the PCs return to their houseboat with their treasure and go to bed. Ella leaves a note for Mangesh, telling him a nail stealer bird is causing his boat to leak before she retires.

19th Maius
In the morning, Sergeant Saurish of the City Watch knocks on the PCs’ door, keen to question them about their role in two recent incidents: one involving the Dockside Crew, the other thuggee. Gong admits they helped rescue Sethos from the Dockside Crew but denies involvement in the second fight. The watchman leaves, but not pointing the PCs in the direction of the Old Fishery – headquarters of the Dockside Crew.

Next week I think they'll go to the Old Fishery but they have a few quests outstanding:

• Dealing with the Dockside Crew
• Finding out who killed Ashna and reporting back to Girish
• Mangesh’s leaky boat
• Slaying the black dragon
• Finding a new place to stay
• Exploring the forest ruins with Sreedhar

Any comments?

Cheers


Richard

 

[RichGreen]

The Maker's Ward

Here's some notes on the Maker's Ward, adapted from the excellent FR accessory, Calimport:

The Maker's Ward contains many of the skilled trade guilds and some of the newest khanduqs in the city. While not a socially prestigious address, Maker's Ward is home to many tradesmen on the rise, and their close proximity to the Caravans Ward aids them in their businesses. Sadly, the various businesses do not work together to improve their community; rather, they work against each other in near-constant vendettas and street brawls (if not full guild wars) in order for one guild or family to dominate particular trades, costers, or business deals.

Many of the these fights are carried out in the taverns and coffee houses of the tavern district in the northern half of the ward. This area is renowned for the White Palm, a large, elaborate tavern with a minaret and beautiful shady courtyard. This tavern was the original home of the very successful Desert Sands brewery. From here, the business grew as it became the most popular light beer in the Old Quarter, then Parsantium, and then in the inns and taverns of the Caliphate of Akhran and beyond. Once they outgrew the facilities, the Desert Sands company moved the brewery itself but retained this site as a tavern. It is still owned directly by company head Talib al-Effid; these days his son-in-law Kaham al-Vizhon is its proprietor and barkeep.
• Secret: Kaham is cheating on his wife, Fatima, with a handsome young male actor named Beatus (a friend of Iancu Petronas). Not only that, he has showered Beatus with expensive jewellery that he can ill afford and has been borrowing from the tavern's reserves to do so. If Talib finds out, his vengeance will be swift and terrible.

Within the ward's guildhall district are three distinct neighbourhoods, known as sabbans (an Akhrani term):

Builder's Sabban
In the SW corner of the ward, this sabban encompasses much of the dirty, noisy, and thoroughly necessary builder's trades of carpentry, masonry, and the like. Tucked away against the walls of the Poor Ward and the Faiths Ward, the Builder's Sabban always seems full of work and activity, providing fresh building materials for the city that never seems to run out of demand for them.

Weaver's Sabban
The bulk of the businesses in this central neighbourhood produce rugs, carpets, clothing and tapestries but there are also places that deal in luxuries, amenities to soften life, and rare items to indulge anything, from a taste for sweets, to a passion for antiquities.

Aymara's Sabban
With many artists operating and competing within this sabban, named for the Goddess of the Arts, courtyards become impromptu sculpting competitions, walls become inadvertent canvasses of the latest masterpiece (designed only to outdo a rival, less so for art's sake), and around it all wander the romantics, the poets, and the lovers of Parsantium. Located in the northeastern comer of the ward, near the parks of the Garden Ward, many temperamental artists, creators, and bards flock to this neighborhood looking for and often finding kindred souls and old friends.

Any comments?


Richard

 

[RichGreen]

Session #12 The Old Fishery

Hi,

Here's what happened in Monday night's game. This part of the adventure used the map and description of the Old Fishery (part of the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path, Pathfinder #7).


19th Maius (contd)

Ella and El’em go to Mangesh’s houseboat to see him but he’s gone fishing. Head for the Old Fishery with Ella and El’em leading the way. Initial scouting doesn’t reveal any obvious signs of criminal activity – just the stench of fish gone bad and the sound of people working inside. Krivinn tries (unsuccesfully) to sneak up to the delivery entrance and gets shot with a crossbow bolt for his trouble by Hookshanks, an ugly scarred dwarf. Ella covers the front door while the other PCs move in to support the paladin inside the fishery workfloor. Meanwhile, the bad guys get reinforcements too – Cyrus the halfling and a guard drake come through one door and Giggles the half-orc and some more chummers enter through another and battle is joined!

Ella realises no one is coming out the front door so picks the lock and charges in to attack Cyrus from behind. The craven halfling flees to his office and escapes. Krivinn, bitten savagely by the drake, decapitates Hookshanks with a righteous smite from his execution axe, as Giggles attacks Gong. El’em casts shock sphere and finishes off the remaining chummers, leaving the others to deal with the half-orc. The genasi then casts thunderwave to launch the drake into the vat of spoiled fish, killing it. The PCs search the bodies and then the whole of this floor, finding some copper and silver coins and a lot of disorganised business records. For reasons best known to himself, Krivinn throws quite a few of these into the fish slurry.

Brave Ella heads round the boardwalk to the rotting old barge lashed to the fishery, followed by Gong and Krivinn who use slates from the office as stepping stones to avoid slipping off the deck and into the water where a jigsaw shark awaits. Ella leaps on to the boat but realises the deck looks likely to give way at any point. Returning to the lower workfloor of the fishery, Krivinn opens one of the shutters and smashes a hole through the side of the ship. Ella goes inside but is attacked by a drain spider. Once it’s been killed and nothing of any use is found in the cabin, the PCs decide to give the hold a miss and figure out how to get to the hidden underpier. Brute force seems the best option: Krivinn smashes a whole in the boardwalk and lowers Ella down.

Ella opens the door to Elias Wang’s office – a large room with a hole in the floor open to the waters of the Dolphin Strait. Inside are Elias Wang, leader of the Dockside Crew, and his aging Tiangaon bodyguard, Lo Chong. As Ella moves into the room, the third occupant reveals itself – Wang’s pet crocodile – who bites the elf’s legs. The ranger falls unconcscious and the others rush down through the hole to help. Lo Chong goes into melee as Elias Wang, clearly a warlock, curses the PCs and casts fiery bolts and eldritch blasts at them. The PCs kill the crocodile first, then Lo Chong, but Elias Wang teleports away as the party close in on him.

Any comments?


Richard

 

[RichGreen]

Monkey Temple skill challenge

Hi,

I've posted a draft version of a skill challenge set in the Feyshore Forest ruins here.

Any thoughts gratefully received!

Cheers


Richard

 

[Gilladian]

Good use of the source adventure! I'm thinking of using this same adventure in my upcoming campaign, but shifting it to a tannery on the edge of a cliff, instead of the fish-processing plant. I'll have to seriously modify the maps, but it should be fun! A long fall replaces the jigsaw shark danger, and the alligator will have to be subbed in with something else...

I'm going to leave the orphans in the mix; I want my PCs to feel that the Warrens are a truly horrid and tragic place - I'm hoping they'll decide to clean them out.

 

[RichGreen]

Good use of the source adventure! I'm thinking of using this same adventure in my upcoming campaign, but shifting it to a tannery on the edge of a cliff, instead of the fish-processing plant. I'll have to seriously modify the maps, but it should be fun! A long fall replaces the jigsaw shark danger, and the alligator will have to be subbed in with something else...

I'm going to leave the orphans in the mix; I want my PCs to feel that the Warrens are a truly horrid and tragic place - I'm hoping they'll decide to clean them out.

You'll have to let me know how it turns out! Coincidentally, on Monday night, when we played this at the London Gamers club, another group had just finished the whole Curse of the Crimson Throne that evening. One or two of them came over to ask how we were getting on and were a bit disappointed when I explained I was only really using the Old Fishery map and encounters.

Cheers


Richard

 

[RichGreen]

The Khanduq of the Nightingale's Song

This location is somewhere the PCs might end up hanging out if they move to the Maker's Ward from Flotsam:

A khanduq is an Akhrani-style bazaar on two levels situated around a courtyard, typically with a few private guards to keep out the riff-raff. The Khanduq of the Nightingale’s Song is situated in the Aymara Sabban (neighbourhood) of the Maker’s Ward and is frequented by artists, musicians and their wealthy patrons. Four minarets topped with glazed blue domes adorn the corners of the building, and in the centre of the courtyard stands a beautiful fountain, depicting the winged figure of Aymara the Golden with a silver lyre under her arm, in the shade of several palm trees. During the day, the area around the fountain is crowded with the stalls and tents of local artists and craftsmen. Shoppers in the khanduq can buy icons, ceramics, carvings, pieces of sculpture and many other art objects from the stalls and from various shops situated along the sides of the courtyard. The khanduq is also home to two places of refreshment and relaxation:

The Golden Bean Tree is a coffee shop run by an attractive Akhrani woman named Yasmina and is frequented by painters, mosaicists and sculptors who gather here to drink coffee, smoke sheeshah and boast about their work, all the while on the look out for a patron to commission their next project. The Golden Bean Tree offers simple Akhrani dishes accompanied by fresh fruits and honeyed bread and has an excellent selection of coffee beans. Yasmina has a exquisite singing voice which she sometimes shows off on stage at the Blue Monkey. She ignores the doting attentions of the artists who hang out here, preferring the company of (usually older) rich merchants and nobles.

The Blue Monkey is a tavern where customers can hear some of the very best music in Parsantium, performed by local bards and singers, free of charge. The landlord, Hatim the Fat, is blind but has a great ear for music and knows a lot of interesting gossip. His pet monkey, Abu, does indeed have blue fur. The Blue Monkey has a fine wine cellar, and serves decent food as well as a wide variety of ales and lagers.

The streets surrounding the khanduq serve the needs of the local artists and musicians: the Street of Sitars is full of shops selling musical instruments; the Street of Tesserae is crammed with stalls and shops peddling artist’s materials – paints, brushes and scupltor’s tools as well as tesserae for mosaics.

An apartment near to the khanduq costs around 30 gold bezants per month.

Any comments or suggestions for adventure hooks here?

 

[RichGreen]

Session #13

Hi,

Here's what happened in Monday night's game which got the PCs to 4th level (mostly) and brought the second adventure, Witness!, to a close. Next, the PCs are going out of the city with Sreedhar to the forest ruins of Gopura, then on to Open Design's Wrath of the River King. This longish interlude will hopefully give me some time to make some sense of the tangled web I've woven of the Parsantine underworld - likely the subject of its own post.


19th Maius (contd)

The PCs search Elias Wang’s bedroom using El’em’s mage hand. They find several incriminating papers and some treasure inside his footlocker. The papers include Captain Gnash’s schedule, a price list for slaves, details of businesses paying protection money to the Dockside Crew and a letter from someone called Zeno. Under a rug, the party find a trapdoor leading down into the Hidden Quarter. Having searched the Fishery, Krivinn and El’em decide to set it on fire.

Afterwards, Gong and Ella go to see the Water Boys. Gong explains what he thinks happened to Ashna and that the PCs have brought her killer to justice. Girish gives the party a silver necklace bearing the symbol of Bahamut as a reward.

Meanwhile, Krivinn and El’em go to the Dock Ward’s City Watch station in search of Sgt Saurish. He’s not there but the disinterested watchman on duty points them in the direction of Orloch’s slum tenement. Here they find Saurish and Krivinn explains that the PCs were the ones who dealt with Orloch and his organization “in self defence”. The sergeant tells them members of the Golden Scimitars are known to frequent Fahil’s Floating Palace in the Poor Ward.

Next, the PCs go to see Jagadamba – she doesn’t really know anything useful about the criminal gangs of the Old Quarter but she does sell the PCs some potions and buys the gold bowl inscribed with demons for 100 gold bezants. Krivinn and Sharden argue about Madame Zeboltha’s Orcus-topped rod until the old witch asks them to leave.

The PCs gather their belongings from their houseboat and get ready to leave the city, with a Tenser’s floating disk on hand to carry their gear. Ella buys a net on a pole for Mangesh to catch the nail stealer and leaves him a “helpful” note. As they head for an inn away from Flotsam, they are attacked by the Golden Scimitars. There are six armed attackers and a spitting drake. El’em and Sharden are able to deal with three of the men pretty handily with their spells and prayers. Meanwhile, Mehmed the swashbuckler and Ziper the berserker move in to flank Krivinn, while the drake spits at Gong and Ella and the leader of the gang directs his men’s attacks. Towards the end of the battle, Mehmed switches his attentions to Gong while under Krivinn’s divine challenge and collapses dead as a result! When the PCs kill Ziper and the drake, the Golden Scimitars leader runs away, but not before El’em lands a hefty blow with his quarterstaff.

Any comments?

Cheers


Richard

 

[Gilladian]

It will be a long time before I actually run my version - we're halfway through Rise of the Runelords, and I contemplate that taking until at least August to conclude. Then we'll start the campaign where I'll be placing some of the Crimson Throne adventures

(oops, helps not to click send too soon)...

I will certainly try to remember to tell you what happens!

 

[RichGreen]

It will be a long time before I actually run my version - we're halfway through Rise of the Runelords, and I contemplate that taking until at least August to conclude. Then we'll start the campaign where I'll be placing some of the Crimson Throne adventures

(oops, helps not to click send too soon)...

I will certainly try to remember to tell you what happens!

Cool! How did the Hambly Farm encounter with the ghoul scarecrows (Pathfinder #2) go? If I run Scions of Punjar, I thought I'd switch the scarecrow golems in that adventure for the much scarier ghouls.


Richard