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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 7229038" data-attributes="member: 79141">Session 22 (145) - Bonds of Forced Faith BriefingMore copying and pasting, with a few bits of originality thrown in.  (A couple of players were absent, so the updates had to be detailed!)Several weeks later. King Lorcan and his retinue have joined Stanfield in the Mayor’s mansion. They occupy a turret overlooking a crowd of protestors.  With the king are his advisor Harkover Lee, bodyguard Dame Melissa Gahlot and a visitor from Crisillyir names Tomas Masaryk – a clergy godhand with information about the witch he calls ‘The Red Contessa’.  The group are awaiting the arrival of skyseer Rachel Lang, and intend to strike at dawn.  (Tonight is a lunar eclipse – a bad omen.)Stanfield has just finished persuading the king to allow him to join the assault and impressing upon all present the ravages inflicted on his town by the witches.Harkover Lee then shares his researches with the group:The coven’s leader, the Red Contessa, can sense any blood spilled within 3 miles and can speak and see through pools of blood. Harkover has a magical black gem that will help the group sneak up on her.The witch known as Sister Pernicity can command dark fey and the spirits of the dead. Sister Deliria confuses people’s minds, using trickery, illusions, and enchantment. There may be more witches.People have reported attacking the witches, inflicting mortal wounds and then seeing no effect. They have many minions, some willing, some coerced, some enchanted. And not all of them are human. The witches are never seen far from their minions, so perhaps they derive power from them.The witches have captured more than a hundred hostages in the past month and hundreds more in the past decade. Ritual sacrifice in the past has drawn the peak of Cauldron Hill in close contact with the realm of spirits, but Harkover cannot determine what the Contessa intends her current crop of blood sacrifice for.The visitor Tomas Masaryk has come from the nation Crisillyir, who follow a religion known as the Clergy. Tomas claims he has information that will be useful and Harkover has used magic to verify the truth of his claims. He can be trusted as an ally, at least for the mission of defeating the Red Contessa.  Harkover then invites Masaryk to speak:Tomas is a geneu credeto - a godhand devoted to the service of Triegenes. He names the leader of the coven as the Red Contessa – a heretic cast out of the faith forty years ago.  Five years ago she returned to Crisillyir and snuck into the Vault of Heresies, from which she stole the blasphemous ritual bond of forced faith, scribed by the ancient fiend Namtar-Shamash of the demonocracy (which Triegenes gloriously defeated a thousand years ago).  The ritual means that willing allies or unwilling hostages share their life force with the caster, whose physical might is increased. Wounds dealt to the caster are instead distributed among those bonded to her, but she must remain within 250 feet of them. Drowning and other non-wounding subdual should still work, as would moving her far enough from those bonded to her.Dame Melissa looks down at the protestors and loudly questions the strength of King Lorcan’s connection to his people – the very rites of rulership they will rely upon in the coming conflict may be weakened by the king’s loss of face and territory in his recent, failed war with the nation of Danor.  Tomas commiserates with the king and expresses his dislike of the infernal tieflings.A messenger reports to the royal guards, who convey that the skyseer Rachel Lang still hasn’t arrived. Just then shouting from all across the island draws everyone’s attention out the window. A ship is sailing into harbour — no, not sailing, churning with some grumbling mechanism that belches black smoke and white steam in its wake. It flies both a white flag, and the flag of Danor.As the ship nears the island, they can make out its name: Hinc ad Aeternitatem. A steam-powered runabout embarks and approaches the island.At length, two visitors are brought before the king – a female tiefling, and a tall, thin deva.  The tiefling bears many unusal weapons and calls herself Amielle Latimer. (Dame Melissa subtly interposes herself, and rests a hand on the pommel of her sword.)  Her deva companion looks uncomfortably cold and draws a thick fur cloak about him.  The deva does not speak (though he stares at Stanfield a lot).  Amielle explains their mission [in a very Pythonesque French accent]:An astronomer colleague of hers (she gestures at the deva) has calculated that tonight’s lunar eclipse will be in conjunction with the dark planet Nem, creating a strong surge of necromantic mana. At 8:30pm the focus of that power will align with the peak of Cauldron Hill, so any magic performed at that time will be greatly enhanced.  The Danorans know that the Risuri think eclipses are bad omens, but they cannot let superstition cause them to hesitate. They must strike tonight, before the eclipse reaches completion. Amielle says that she had rushed “on Danor’s fastest ship… well, actually, Danor’s second-fastest ship (Danor’s fastest ship was being… oh, never mind)” to warn them while there’s still time.  She volunteers to join the assault.King Lorcan considers her news and agrees to attack now.Stanfield impresses on everyone present how dangerous the mission will be.  Amielle uses this opportunity to try to persuade her deva companion from joining them, but he is insistent.  He reassures King Lorcan that he is more than capable of looking after himself.A commotion down below heralds the arrival of Flint’s chief of police. He bows to the king, nods to his mayor and glowers at the tiefling.“I have news about the skyseers, my king. A mob attacked them and they had to flee onto the water at Parity Lake. Last I saw the mob was looking for boats to pursue them. They must have been enchanted, your majesty. Some of my men were injured in a brawl, and we couldn’t make them calm down long enough to explain themselves.”Before the police chief can explain anymore either, screams sound from the crowd of protesters. A figure in the crowd has brandished a dagger high and he removes his hood, tilts his head up, and plunges the blade into his own throat.People scatter as the blood pours out onto the ground. The blood slowly rises up, waving its hands to forestall any hysterical reactions like attacking it.  Dame Melissa has her returning spear at the ready.The Red Contessa’s blood simulacrum speaks: “Greetings people of Flint. No one cares about you! You’re more chattel to them than you are to me, and I’ve been sticking your children in a black pot and cooking them alive for thirty years.“Well, time has come to change that. I am your queen now and a queen treats her subjects well. The abductions shall stop! Anyway, we don’t need more hostages; we have too many already.”  She gestures up to the mountain top and a line of fires shining there. People are being burned alive.“Hush, king. I have no words for you that will speak louder than the sound my boot will make crushing your skull against the stone of my mountain. You’re an old man, and so I’ve lit candles for your birthday. Come if you dare. I’ll let you bow to me in fealty.”“Now, my subjects, ask yourselves. Who will better protect you? A king who has lost a war, who has let his enemies sail into your harbour? Or a queen who burns those who offend her? Let me demonstrate.”A few hundred feet away, with no other warning, the Danoran vessel explodes, vanishing in a cloud of white.“Merde!” cries Amielle Latimer, “Danor’s second-fastest ship!” Uncontained steam from the boiler launches timbers and metal shards through the air. The remnants of the boat catch fire and crumple. But over the roar of its destruction the witch’s laughter can be heard as her blood simulacrum melts away.This part of the session was a lot more fun and funnier than this write-up suggests.  I wasn't taking notes, that's how funny it was.  My personal favourite moment was when Malthusius' player (playing Stanfield) cottoned on to his connection with Malthus.  I had mocked up a similar character sheet to those included with the adventure (at least from a distance in the dim light of a pub), and the player was properly perplexed.  "Did you mock this up, or was this always part of the adventure?!?" I include the mock-up so you can see what a hash it is close up. Ho ho. </blockquote>

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