I telegraphed the scene, rather than let my players dredge through a combat they were destined to lose. After the session, I explained my decision to the players, and they were happy with it.
Additionally, when writing the scene, I tried to give a scene of Kell's and Nick's tactics and abilities. For example, Nick immediately pulls Carloa off Kell, whereas Kell uses Dima to intercept a bullet fired by Josiah. If you do run the scene, I encourage you to do the same.
A fancy feast… interrupting fey… telepathic minotaurs… and secret meetings were the setting for our latest foray into constable-hood.
Oddly enough, neither the king nor Principal Minister Lee seemed to notice Brakken pounding on the insides of our heads as well as the meeting room door. This probably shouldn’t be surprising, since telepathy is something a wise king and his advisors would likely want to guard against…but fortunately for us Danor’s royal family clearly had no such wards in place, as Brakken informed us he’d picked up some rather interesting thoughts from them after Asrabey’s abrupt entrance into the peace feast.
Sovereign Han Jierre was apparently very concerned with our pending trip to the Bleak Gate - enough to send a messenger there warning the Obscurati of our impending arrival. Meanwhile Lya Jierre seemed rather more concerned with her uncle’s response to the situation than our own activities. Curious…
A rapid search of Hotel Aurum by Minister Lee’s lackeys found Han’s messenger for us while we kitted up for a Bleak Gate invasion. Brakken telepathically shared his memories of B Team’s experiences with us while we prepared, and then we rushed downstairs to interrogate Han’s messenger: a nervous-looking human man sandwiched between two guards.
His initial protestations that he was simply going for a walk withered under Lisandra’s Detect Thoughts spell, and the man quickly spilled the beans upon learning of this terrifying Risuri hoodoo magic. ‘The beans’ proved to be not very tasty. He was simply meant to take a letter and walk along the Stanfield Canal. The letter had some familiar-looking sigils on it but no signs of the magic required to transport it to the Bleak Gate. Perhaps the canal bridges themselves contain the enchantment?
We didn’t really have time to speculate on it, as the unfortunate messenger was bundled off by guards and we were bundled into a carriage with the king and principal minister. ...Have I mentioned how much I hate being trapped in confined spaces with important people?
The king wasn’t going to make it an easy ride either, as he immediately began quizzing us on who the team leader was. Angharad and John looked at Ella, and Ella looked at Lisandra, and Lisandra decided that she really didn’t like the direction John and Angharad were looking and stuck up her hand as tribute. The king was… understandably concerned by this conflicted interaction and asked us to justify our reasoning.
Alright everyone, please share your work with the class...
Lisandra tactfully alluded to Ella’s recent family issues and prior insanity and general all-round year of trauma without actually saying any of that, and John and Angharad subsided and went along with it - although not without a concerned look from the kineticist. Ella, for her part, was just very glad to have avoided this responsibility. Lisandra, for her part, quickly became very concerned about this responsibility: as the king impressed upon us that this was the most important mission of our lives and as the de facto leader Lisandra would be responsible for commanding the thirty-odd military coming with us.
...I thought we were constables, not army commanders?
Fortunately Delft Dad was there to reassure us as the carriages dumped us at the ritual site and the king made a big ole speech about just how very important we all were and how we’d lead this extra-planar expedition to victory.
Everyone, gather well within the confines of the powered rust that circles the bonfire. The Principal Minister has handed each of you a small bag of charms. When you travel to the Bleak Gate, you will be trapped there until sunrise. After sunrise, if you wish to return, tear open the charm bag. Be warned, it is said the sun barely pierces the land of the dead. Moreso, open the charms with caution. For when you do so, you will return to the equivalent position in our world. If that position would be a solid object, the physical trauma sustained to your bodies would be lethal. Ensure you return by sunset, by eighteen hours, for if you do not, you will be trapped in the Gate forever.
These are not risks without reward! No doubt you have heard the rumours, of shadows stalking the alleyways, of silent killers, of swift kidnappers. These monsters are real. There are traitors to our land shrouded by darkness. So desperate to hide their crimes that they operate in the land of the dead. But loyal soldiers, I do not send you alone. Instead, I send you with four of the finest Royal Homeland Constables. For a year, this unit has defended Risur from both within and beyond. You are to report to Constable Lisandra, treat their words as if it was my own. With these constables, you will cleanse this city of enemies, you will create a safer Risur, and you will make history!
The King’s concluding words coincide with the sound of his sword being unsheathed. Despite the darkness of the grove, the King’s blade glistens with the reflection of an absent moon. The king slowly slices the air vertically before him, and before you, a slither of darkness replicates the blade’s trajectory. Meanwhile, the Principal Minster clasps an orb of gold, and some of the powdered rust begins to slowly levitate. The slither of darkness begins to sporadically flutter in width. But to Lisandra, the flutters seem systematic, as if a mouth whispering, beckoning the words “enter, souls”. Suddenly, this mouth expands into a portal to unending darkness. You hear Bazza shout
“MOVE OUT!!”
Ha ha ha, yeah… that’s us: Obscurati-foiling extraplanar expeditioners extraordinaire! Who definitely didn’t come back from our last such mission minus three limbs and laden with trauma. We got this. Team leader Lisandra has got this.
(We’re all gonna dieeeee.)
On the upside: if we fail, Cauldron Hill will probably explode or turn into some kind of horrifying witchoil tentacle monstrosity or something and kill everyone, so there won’t be anyone left to mourn us.
Upside… right?
In the midst of all this stress Delft made a point of reminding us what our goals were: capturing Obscurati higher-ups, uncovering information on their operation, and finding firm evidence linking Lya Jierre to this (hopefully) nefarious organisation so the king can get out of his impending nuptials.
Pretty sure there are easier ways to cancel a wedding, dude…
Thus reminded of our purpose - and surrounded by Grappa, Asrabey, Bazza, and two dozen military soldiers - we were bundled through a portal to the Bleak Gate before we could change our minds.
Bazza was a specialist who worked under Dale, protecting Cauldron Hill, but has since been promoted since his introduction in Session 0. He is quite reserved outside work, in part because he has not fully mourned the loss of his comrade, Dazza, who served on the Coaltongue as security in its maiden voyage.
The other side was… dark. Creating a light we also discovered it to be bleak: covered in dead trees and shadows. That part at least was unsurprising. Shining like a giant beacon for everything that might possibly want to harm us, we set off toward the Bleak Gate version of Cauldron Hill - with Ella in the lead. The gnome tiefling proved to be a… somewhat ineffective scout: finding the entrance to the enemy stronghold while simultaneously being found herself.
Combat ensued, with Ella turning invisible (my, imagine how useful that could have been one minute earlier) and everyone else rushing to her rescue. Creepy-eyed humans with force-guns, shadowy figures made of ribbons, and terrifying Bleak Gate creatures in collars fought fiercely but eventually fell - taking two of our soldiers with them.
The one enemy left alive - a female mercenary with zero fucks to give about her job - gave us all the information she had. As per usual, it seemed we’d arrived just a little too late: whatever operation had been underway here was finished and the facility was being packed up. She hadn’t even seen their inglorious leader, Tin-tickler, lately. Ah well… at least there were still 40 odd guards and 100 engineers to take out our impotent fury on. As well as, you know… all the people deeper in the facility where our lady guard friend had never been…
An easy task for our force of 28 people and 1 geased construct!
Thus, with hope in our hearts, we entered the Obscurati hideaway: proceeding down the Tunnel of Empty Tedium to the Double Doors of Possible Doom Except We Don’t Really Know Because Our Guide Is A Gods-damned Geased Construct Who Can’t Tell Us Anything Specific And Has To Talk In naughty word Circles All The Time.
...Needless to say, we opened the doors.
The room beyond was… boring. Except for the hidden doors in each wall and the eyeball staring at us from the ceiling. But other than that? Very boring. John - originally from a circus - knew just how to liven the place up though: shooting the viewing lens on the ceiling and sending a veritable flood of guards our way.
Parties are always better with friends, right?
And thus here we find ourselves: deep underground in another plane of existence with up to 40 guards determined to send our souls to the Bleak Gate properly and then forward us all to the Plane of Nem like some kind of express extraplanar soul delivery service. Or possibly just trap us all here in witchoil and burn us into non-existence… Who knows?
I hope if we do get turned into witchoil then Captain Dale finds us and feeds us cocoa… That’s the kind of afterlife I could live with…except not, because we’d be dead. But you know what I mean.
Anyway.
Will Team B.A.D get out of this one alive? Will we find out why Asrabey’s wife abandoned him to live in a dismal grey-scale world on the other side of existence? And will John ever find this so-called Tertri Lashkov and get a cool-ass force-gun of his own? Find out this week: on Zeitgeist!
Last time on Zeitgeist, Team BAD was in the middle of assaulting the Bleak Gate facility of the Obscurati. Guards were pouring into the corridor from two hidden rooms. The guards were trying to make use of their guns, to alert others further into the building, while team bad and the military were trying to dispose of them quietly. Once the guards had been defeated we went into the hidden rooms to look at the controls, and lay an ambush for those that would come check.
John, deciding that stealthly disposing of them wasn't worth the effort, fiddled with the control panel, drenching them in oil, and then igniting them. Ignoring Ella's attempts to stop him. Afterwards, our 25 soldiers and Team BAD would burst into he next room, fighting to dispose of the enemies as a group. 29 vs 40 became 16 vs 0. Ella mostly debuffing the enemies, Lisandra combining her magic and her blade, Angharad cutting people down with fire, and John.. John harassed an old dwarf for his technology...
Outside the facility, an Ob agent told John about a dwarf engineer who augmented their weapons. This dwarf quickly handed over his schematics to John, who later would use them to completed his Ballistic Launcher and Spatial Temporal Energy Resonator (B.L.A.S.T.E.R.).
Now, was the facility was explored deeper, the lights would cut out and a familiar, Crisillyiri, voice would greet the party. Bloody Steelshaper. He offered a ceasefire and a chat, and no one was willing to take him up on it, Lisandra telling him to go naughty word himself. Ella's heart would drop in a moment, as her fathers voice would come over the speaker, shouting for us to not trust him. He is a liar and a cheat. Leone quickly scolded his guards, demanding the engineering to be cuffed.
3 metallic constructs would come out at steelshaper's behest, seemingly intelligent and sentient, telling steelshaper they should've been given weapons. "They have an artifact of a goddess, we should have an artifact to match them." Sadly for them, they were right. Lisandra and her blade of Srasama destroyed one of the constructs. Angharad, seeing a large target that he didn't have to worry about keeping it alive, got to cut loose and used a summer blade on it. The last construct ran to the door and beat on it, asking to be saved. Asrabay though, he didn't give it any mercy, he just wanted his wife and would cut it down.
Ella would struggle with the control panel for the doors, until a strange voice coming from the walls would demand the doors open, in the name of Tinker.
And then they were in a large hanger bay, a gigantic statue made of metal. Walk ways elevated up 100 ft and elevators to access them. Steelshaper was flying around barking orders, Marcel; Ella's missing father. Ella would use magic to get to her father quickly, but Kell and one of his bodyguards would try and stop her, leaving her struggling with them, John turning into an air elemental to get up faster. Angharad and Lisandra would rush over tot he elevator, dodging Steelshaper controlling the giant metal statue to swing its arms at them. As the combat would continue, the thugs would drop. Norm would be ignored by Angharad, Ella getting grappled by Kell, and just staying alive and Grappa, that frustrating robot would not betray the party, but in fact awaken the giant statue.
Ella's Ob engineering father, Marcel, handcuffs Kell's bodyguard to the rail, whilst the constables close in on Lorcan to save Ella.
Grappa reaches out, placing his hands on collolsus. “My child. What brutes have deteriorated your mind? I would tell you who I am, but you will not remember me. Perhaps you can understand this:” Grappa softly runs his metallic hand down the colossus’ face. “The love that words cannot say.”
The colossus speaks with words that reverberate the entire chamber “Papa?”
Grappa tries to respond with his clicker, but his fingers vibrate, held by some invisible force. Steelshaper gestures as Grappa rises, elevated to eye-level with Leone. Grappa kicks feebly. “You! I knew I recognised this body. After all you have done, you came back! WITH THEM! You fool! You have ruined it all, again!” One of Grappa’s arms is ripped free, plummeting towards the witchoil below. Gears cascade and bounce off the colossus and the catwalk. As Leona speaks. “Destroying her was not enough?” A leg rips off. The metallic sheets that cover the wall begin to buckle. “You destroyed this project! Because of your ignorant folly, because you could not settle for taking one mind, this!” Leone stamps his foot “This is a glorified paperweight!” Leone rips off another leg. The sudden change in a centre of gravity gives Alexander Grappa an opening, who rotates and tries to crush Leone with his remaining hand. Leone grabs the hand, and propels Grappa back. He rotates Grappa, spinning him and rupturing his entire body. Remnants of gears, rivets, and wires spill forth, bouncing off the collous and catwalk. The affair ends in Grappa’s head falling into the darkness below. It spins slowly, looks up at the colossus, and with deep deliberation and emotion closes his eyes.
“PA-PA!”
A deafening rumble fills the chamber as a massive engine turns over. Black smoke begins to pour out of the vents along the colossus’ back, equivalent to a small factory worth of smokestacks. You recognise the smell of burning witchoil. Lisandra, you hear the screams of hundreds of souls being melted into oblivion. The colossus lunges its arm upwards, sending a massive palm straight for Leone. Leone holds out his hands as if pushing a massive boulder up a hill and the colossus’ clasp halts: “Your father sought to destroy you, Borne.” Leone is shifted slightly backwards as the colossus, the so-called Borne, lunges its hand forward. It’s halted once more. “You cannot” Leone’s knee buckles, “you must not liste-” Leone’s eyes roll backwards and Borne clutches the steelshaper and pelts the steelshaper into the witchoil pools below. The colossus takes a step forward, causing a massive tremor to shake the room. Everyone please make a reflex save.
My son, what have they done to you. And as there was this touching reunion, Steelshaper would kill Grapa, enraging the statue and making everything worse. Now the hanger was shaking as the statue killed Steelshaper. Woooo, naughty word you steelshaper. The statue would climb out of the mountain, busting its way through the roof as everyone scrambled to get away. In the chaos Kell would be killed as he was stabbing Ella to death, Angharad not letting her die, Lisandra and John dealing with Steelshaper's wizard.
Everyone would make it to a sideroom, before passing out from the sheer energy as the statue broke through the mountain. The group would wake up an undetermined amount of time later, every door was covered by rocks. Asraby digging us out, Angharad would join him with that, Ella dealing with her father. Eventually they would get close to making it out, and we would hear Dale's voice.
That statue, whatever it was had dragged us back to Lanjyr... and everything was going wrong. Yay.
That's fantastic. I like seeing other groups have their PC's related to NPC's. Your Ella the daughter of Leone Quital. Kieran, the alchemist in my campaign is the younger brother to Tinker Oddcog.
Yes, I think only Angharad is not related to a NPC from the book. John is the adoptive son of Nigel Price-Hill. Lisandra is the lost daughter of Father Balthazar (from Book 4). Ella, the gnome tiefling, is niece to Tinker Oddcog. I skipped over Ella's family history in the last post, so I understand why you may have thought she was related to Leone. I will clarify things here.
Ella's father, Marcel (gnome tiefling from Danor) and Ella's mother, Effie (gnome from Risur) previously lived with Ella as a happy family in Danor. However, Marcel began to succumb to bleaching. Desperate from a cure, Effie wrote to her family, including her estranged brother, Tinker. Tinker promised Ella's father a cure for the bleaching, but he would need to sail to Flint to receive it. The desperate family traveled to Flint and took residence with a sizable portion of Effie's side of the family. Now, the story deviates depending on perspective. According to everyone except Marcel, Tinker was nowhere to be found. Marcel succumbed to the Bleaching in 470 AOV.
In reality, Tinker contacted Marcel and recruited him into the Ob operations. The Ob falsified documents to make it look as if Marcel died from Bleaching. Marcel's heart could barely take the blow of leaving his family, but he believed the Ob project could end Danoran-Risuri conflict; thereby, saving many more families than his own.
So what is the cure for the Bleaching? I changed the typical lore behind the illness. In this world, bleaching is caused by prolonged exposure to the same angular momentum. Gnomes must be near as many things spinning clockwise as are spinning counterclockwise. This comes from the fey dislike/sickness caused by spinning wheels. Ella's father, who mainly worked on perfecting gears, was exposed to the same gears spinning the same direction for years. Now, he carries a brooch of a gear spinning the opposite direction. His arm remains bleached, but the illness has not progressed.
In the downtime before Book 6, my players asked Marcel about his brooch. They seem to love this lore, thinking it befitting that a fidget spinner can save a gnome's life.
Our constables last found themselves standing on a shattered hillside, watching an enormous freaking construct rampage through Flint on a childlike quest of curiosity and wonder! One that was getting thousands of people killed… As Captain Dale explained the situation, Delft Dad contacted us via Sending and told us to get our still-living butts to Hotel Aurum to help formulate a plan.
Kasvarina convinced Asrabey to help with the evacuation, and the rest of us dragged Ella’s hapless father through his first taste of sunshine in thirty years and into a carriage. As our constables traveled into the city, we the players found ourselves traveling through time: flashes of recent events slipping past almost too quickly to follow. Dale drinking coffee as Cauldron Hill erupted... A black-bearded member of the Battalion committing suicide deep in the bayou... Governor Roland secretly encouraging Avvakir to break workers out of locked factories once his guards were absent… The mayor of the Cloudwood dead in a morgue… and Nathan Jierre and Conrad Keppler studying the colossal construct through a shiny new telescope.
I gave the players a narrative montage of the Collosus' time in Flint. If people are interested, I can post the whole scene.
I will say this, though. Unbeknownst to the players, Roland had an ulterior motive for sending Avvakir out to save workers from Parity Lake. He was hoping the ex-constable deva would die. And he did. Roland has now begun to groom the Avvakir into an Ob agent. Avvakir will fight the party in Adventure Nine, but the players will have a chance to remind the deva of his past life to turn him to their side.
We eventually arrived at Hotel Aurum to find a much smaller but equally terrifying foe awaiting us: Aunt Maya.
She wasted no time laying into Ella and her long-lost father: scolding Marcel for the terrible job he’d done raising his daughter and Ella for not coming home in several days and did she know how much stress and grief she’d caused her great-grandmother? It finally ended when Maya realised that one of the people she was scolding was, in fact, someone who’d been dead for thirty years.
Ella took advantage of the momentary lapse in yelling to rush Marcel past the confused gnome and inside. There we found many important and influential people but only one that really mattered: Delft Dad.
Okay I lied, Pete was there too.
'
A constable who regularly works out of the break room. The skald bakes goods in hopes to lure colleagues in, which he then traps with captivating stories.
Delft apologised for the lack of pastries and King Aodhan took over: asking for our report, questioning Marcel, and informing us of The Plan.
The Plan - spearheaded by Frank [the royal technologist/aussie wizard] - was to shoot off a bunch of fireworks and hope the colossus followed them. Then once it was hopefully in the harbour we could distract it with boats while the king banished it to the Dreaming. You know: like giving a kid a bunch of rubber duckies at bath time and hoping they don't squirm too much while you wash them.
This sounded like an excellent plan with absolutely no chance of failure and really, what else were we going to do with a giant robot? Use it to fight giant kaiju battles with the fey titans?
...Apparently not. (Much to my disappointment.)
We unanimously agreed that leading the construct along the route that would kill more buildings than people was the best option, and with that decided headed off to the docks. Although not before Ella dumped her dad with Aunt Maya: figuring that if anyone could keep him safe from a giant witchoil monstrosity then it would be her.
The docks were… absolute madness, as hundreds of people tried to evacuate the city by any means necessary. Thames Grimsley was unsuccessfully trying to calm them down but it wasn’t until Lisandra made an inspiring speech that they actually started listening. They listened so well that they actually decided to join in the military’s efforts rather than obstruct them. Good job, Lisandra!
Even the Coaltongue wasn’t immune to all the commotion though: with the captain having apparently died to a heart attack at the sight of the colossus. Angharad recognised the sailor who informed us of this as none other than the Old Stag himself: also known as Rear Admiral Morris Dawkins.
The Cipith didn’t bother to inform the rest of us of this though, so we remained blissfully unaware that the head of the Vekeshi assassins I mean Mystics was present, as we nominated Lisandra as stand-in captain and prepared for the events ahead.
Fireworks were fired... spells were pre-cast... the king began his ritual… and the Coaltongue pulled out into the bay as the colossus approached. Naturally, mother nature decided this was the perfect time for a thematically appropriate thunderstorm.
Rain bucketed down as we began our game of chicken with the enormous metal-baby: struggling to keep the king out of his reach but close enough for him to complete the ritual. Borne swatted at ships like the aforementioned child throwing a temper tantrum at bath-time and left shining trails of witchoil glistening on the water’s surface.
The oil began to bubble, and rise, forming oddly, gruesomely familiar shapes: Angharad with melted features and stakes through his limbs, and John’s former partner with an oily explosive device in her hand.
Arianrhod, a fey tormentor/lover from Angharad's past was allied with Ekossigan. Honestly, the party did her a favour by killing the herald of seasons. Arianrhod wants Ekossigan's chair at the Court all to herself.
However, she has seen Angharad grow in power. Knowing he seeks vengeance and has powerful allies, she worries her seat at the Court will be shortlived. She hopes to kill Angharad so she may rule in peace.
An enchanter, Arianrhod must rely on allies to defeat the party. Using the residual torment of the souls embedded in Witchoil, and the party's greatest fears and regrets, she shapes the oil into forms that specifically disturb the party. Each emits an aura of a different emotion, to which the PCs occasionally succumb. Eventually, Arianrhod draws on Harkover's fear of his old tyrannical self to shape the oil into a massive dragon that encases her.
Angharad and John immediately turned on Ooze-gharad: annihilating it before it could act; and the eschat-oil-ogist blob only had enough time for a single attack before it was likewise destroyed. Something about the witchoil figure had managed to plant a seed of anger in John and Lisandra’s minds though, and as Ella walked away from Lisandra the oracle lashed out and stabbed the tiefling straight through the back.
Lisandra barely had time to apologise to Ella and heal her before more witchoil figures appeared: these ones shaped like Connor and an awful amalgamation of Ella’s family. Lisandra felt a much more natural anger overcome her as she looked at the face of her dead lover, and cut the doppelganger to pieces in a single full-round. Meanwhile Ella had to be saved from her Demetri-ooze family by John and Angharad - the gnome utterly unable to attack even semblances of her family.
There was one final horror left to endure though: as a nymph with twig-like figures emerged from the stormy waters and mocked Angharad. The Cipith had no time to respond to Arianrhod’s taunts before streams of witchoil rose up and surrounded the fey: forming a reptilian shape not seen in Risur in centuries. A dragon.
Things getting messy.
Looking upon this legendary terror, John, Lisandra and Ella all immediately fell prey to confusion: leaving Angharad alone to fight the fey. The witchoil wyvern turned to the confused constables and began to breathe in their souls, taking wisps of their very beings into the witchoil making up its form.
Ella dropped unconscious as Angharad lashed out at Arianrhod with a ferocious flurry of attacks: trying but failing to pierce her oily hide. The kineticist’s skin blackened as he put his all into the combat: destroying his own body even as he ripped apart Arianrhod’s. Witchoil melted off the dragon and pooled on the deck like black blood, and lightning flashed all around as the Coaltongue pivoted away from the rampaging colossus.
Green light gathered around the construct in the bay as on deck Arianrhod’s draconic form melted away. She sneered down at Angharad even as the oil dissipated: “You can’t defeat me. Why don’t we stop playing this game?”
The Cipith tried to respond but found himself stuttering as memories of his tormented childhood returned: filling him with fear. Lisandra was quick to remind the Cipith that he was not alone though: casting Remove Fear and giving Angharad a second chance to denounce his abuser.
As the Cipith stood tall - no longer a vulnerable, stolen child - his words had a visible effect on the nymph: shrivelling her body and leeching away her power as he formally rejected her for the first time. The fey fell to the metal deck of the Coaltongue and began to burn, her flesh melting away as she tried to flee. She never made it to the edge of the deck though: Angharad’s final words catching her and unravelling her on the spot.
The king’s ritual reached its climax as the fey vanished, and Borne turned to the ship with fury in its eyes. Before it could breach the Coaltongue’s defenses though, green vines of light wrapped around the colossus and dragged it into the Dreaming: leaving Flint bay suddenly, startlingly calm...
As the storm died down and the surviving ships limped back to shore, the king turned to us and asked our opinions. Should he tell the truth, and tell his people of this new, vague threat posed by the Obscurati? Or should he unify them against the familiar enemy of Danor and lay the blame for recent events at the other nation’s feet?
The truth, we all agreed. Tell your people the truth.
When the Coaltongue finally docked it was greeted by cheering crowds, and as we gazed out at these thousands we had saved the king commanded us to kneel. Taking his sword, he bestowed upon us our reward and our new responsibility: official knighthoods of Risur.
And thus rose Dame Eleanora Cassia Arista Demetriou of Flint.
And Sir John Price-hill of Flint - not Slate.
Likewise Sir Angharad Cipith of Flint - not Garrick.
And Dame Lisandra Arvantis of Flint - no longer Lyrie.
To recap, Garrick is the birthname of Angharad (the fey called him Angharad), and Cipith is the surname given to humans taken by the fey.
John was originally from Slate, merely travelling to Flint for a gun expo. Now he calls Flint home. Lyrie Ward was the name assigned to Lisandra by her adoptive father, Father Otis. Lisandra Arvantis was an alternative name she used for high class grifts. In one such grift, the RHC used her crime as leverage to force her to gather evidence on her mark. She joined the RHC as Lisandra.
I gave the player a few boons the moment they were knighted. Firstly, they immediately leveled up. Secondly, their wounds began to close. They all gain fast healing 1 whilst within Risur's borders.
As we stood, the magic of the land rose with us: healing our wounds and wrapping us in its warm embrace.
Home.
Imperfect. Conflicted. Soot-stained. And half-destroyed. But ours. And safe.
For now.
So. What lies ahead for our new-made knights? In this land haunted by shadows and plagued by inequality... how will our futures unfold? Is there some prophecy yet hidden in the stars - far beyond our soot-stained skies - that even Nevard had not seen?
In between thwarting the Ob's agents in Risur, the party mourned their dead allies and caught up with NPCs. This included attending an observatory opening at the home of Conrad Kepplar, a philanthropist who hands out scholarships to help those less fortunate and the minder of Nathan Jierre (he used the tiefling's presence as an excuse to build his dream extension). Ella talked shop with her Ob father. Too low ranking to be subjected to a geas, Ella's father shared the story of his recruitment and his knowledge of the Bleaching. Lisandra's adoptive father takes over the Gallo's School for Boys. Angharad uses his devastating blow on Ekossigan to leverage power over gremlins, hoping to amass his own small army to demonstrate his autonomy. John adds more upgrades to his gun.
One item my party missed from Book 5 was the unique daggers wielded by Connor (Lisandra's lover slain by Kell). The explosion was so devastating, I couldn't think of a reasonable excuse to have them present. Connor wielded two inferno daggers, an item shamelessly adapted from the Starfinder system.
Inferno Knife
Price 3,000 gp
Not all developments in military technology are successful. Originally designed by Pemberton Industries to be a perfect survival tool, the inferno knife combines the cutting prowess of a survival knife with the virtues of a lighter and road flare. By squeezing one trigger, the user can inject a small stream of fuel from the hilt’s reservoir onto the blade’s tip, and a secondary trigger can ignite it, creating a small torch to signal others or light campfires. The product’s launch was disastrous, and users filed hundreds of complaints about the knives’ needless complexity. As a result, inferno knives have flooded the market and become showy weapons for criminals and performers, though timing the blade’s ignition in combat remains an unpredictable art.
An inferno knife is a masterwork dagger. If the wielder of an inferno knife rolls a natural 20 on an attack roll, the target catches on fire. An inferno knife uses petrol as fuel. It contains enough fuel to remain lit for 1 hour, shedding light in a 20-foot radius. Each successful natural 20 reduces the remaining duration by 5 minutes. A single charge of petrol costing 5 gp in a technologically advanced region refills the weapon’s reservoir.
Here are some news articles issued to the players. I asked some players how their character thwarted the Ob in the downtime. I use the word "stern" far too often.
We begun Adventure Six. The party is suitably hyped to travel to Ber. Upon arriving, the constables try to find Brakken and eventually trace him to the courtroom. They defend him well, uncovering Rush's involvement. Impressed with Gluacia, they allow both Brakken and Glaucia to travel with them to the Summer Court. Before leaving Seobriga, they drop by Mellisa's house. With the journalist, Ella reflects on her vested interest in the mission, as Tinker is family.
Though, just as a humanoid turtle is bringing out some lunch from the kitchen, Rush and his colleagues burst through the skyline, ruining everyone's day and meal.
