Session Date: 04/19/2024
Loot Division
Loot From Last Session
- 8 green dragonscale breastplates
- Small weapons:
- White birchwood wand with a cast silver spider at the top
- Wand of Web → 7 charges
- Rod carved out of a red wood with a similarly carved coiled snake wrapped around it → Calthel
- Rod of the Pact Keeper +1
- Whip made out of some sort of greenish leather
- Called the Strangler’s Whip.
- This whip allows you to make two attacks, either of which can grapple, and gives you advantage on Athletics checks made to climb or to tie up enemies. Requires attunement.
- A set of four knucklebone dice with runic markings on them
- These knucklebone dice allow you to cast speak with dead on a corpse once per short rest, even one which does not have a jaw. In addition, if you take a bonus action to roll the dice, you have advantage on Arcana or Religion checks to identify creatures. Require attunement.
- White birchwood wand with a cast silver spider at the top
- Large Weapons:
- Sword
- Staff with Green snake
- Small box 1 (jewelry box)
- 3 fire opals
- 4 moss agates
- 4 polished red coral
- Small box 2
- 17 Platinum → Ships takes
- The remaining 4 chests contain:
- 2704 gold
- 3042 silver
- 338 copper
- 329 electrum
- Shelf with bottles
- Blue
- Color changing
- 2 probably cure potions?
Loot Split
- 386g 434s 48c 47e 2p each person
- 6 magic items that are not potions
- The potions to divided up
- 2x level 3 inflict wounds → Ships
- Lesser Restoration → Charity
- Disguise Self → Ships
- The gems (values below) go to Calthel
- 3x 1,000g gem
- 4x 100g gem
- 4x 10g gem
- 8 dragonscale breastplates
- Sarras takes one, not wearing
- Ships, worn
- Charity took one, not wearing
The Session
There is a fairly large stock of non-perishable foods of various kinds, as well as writings from the person who was living here left behind as well. They do not read like the product of a well-mind, though these writings are very different from the notes of the previous court mage (indication of high nerves) while these writings are somebody who does not have a basic psychological attachment to morals, values, and taboos of society. They write dispassionately of horrible things and ideas as things that would be interesting to try. There may be some pieces of useful knowledge that could be picked out, but not so much in the abstract as a lot of this are terrible thought experiments. Sarras takes the writings so that we can review it later.
We ultimately leave the manor and return so that we can report our findings.
Next on our list was to go through and ask about lighthouse operation. Duchess Bellicent was coming in to start the draft for the year, and we were going to ask her to lend us a war wizard so that we could return to the fjord to deal with the sea monster that was there.
Over the next two days we train up the locals and get the light houses fully manned and operated so that we could re-open the ports before they decide to start breaking our mandate. The local fisherman are definitely happy about this change.
The formal trials for the cultists will be held by the Baron Gilbert the day after. It will be Sarras’s legal role and privilege to determine whether or not to ask for clerical mercy for any of the people on trial. She recalls that the Baron indicated to her that if other people we felt were deserving of clemency then he would not be opposed to her exercising her judicial privilege. Sarras had also previously implied that she would allow the Baron to sentence anyone directly related to the grandchild being possibly sacrificed.
Nobody but Azelais saw what happened to the kid, actually, and when she is questioned during the trial about the grandchild, she will not deny that the child was sacrificed. Nobody else was party to the decision to sacrifice the grandchild, though the were some that were present and did not raise objections.
All cultists here were present for some level of sacrifice. The only person we could argue has the lesser burden of sin is Bastiana the mercenary. She will be very plain in her description and she explains that it was not her job to prevent these people from doing things, it was only her job to make sure the Rector could continue to conduct business normally and nobody find out that he had spells placed upon him. She does not apologize for anything, and she does not make any particular plea for mercy - she almost more tries to drum up business. She notes that the College of the Sword of Cornu is absolutely faithful to their clients, and the College is the only hope for Cornu’s independence.
If she is not sentenced to death, Bastiana’s price will be 20 years of hard labor with essentially a high bail for the College of Swords to pay off to let her out. Sarras writes the letter off to the College of Swords about Bastiana’s sentencing and she recommends that they let Bastiana stay there for a while to reflect on her crimes as they were related to a suspicious cult. We do confiscate any earnings she had from the cult and redistribute them to the affected Houses.
On the 11th day of the month, Azelais and the five other cult members are beheaded, with Bastiana going to the hard labor camp. Baron Gilbert will behead them himself and is very professional about it.
On the morning of the 12th we hear the bell ringing in the port to signal that the Duchess’s ship has been spotted.
The Duchess sails in and disembarks with fanfare and four person honor guard. She comes up to the castle and the Baron Gilbert will report that the draft is ready and that her ship should be able to depart tomorrow if she so wishes. Once the Baron begins to explain what’s going on, she will ask to take the reports from the Marquis’ new knights directly, and make use of the library to do so.
Once we are alone with her and her escorts in the library, she recalls having hired four of us, and will ask for our full report. The Duchess asks us to introduce Charity and Gwen to her, and then the full report on everything going on.
We give a full report of what’s been going on and she hastens Bastiana’s transport to be sent off to serve her sentence. She also arranges to send to Yolanda to the Order of St. Minnien at the Abbey of St. Minnien to study. She then is going to insist that Vicar Bodwin will go with her to the continent to serve with the army. She will confirm the appointment subject of the approval of various bishops for Gwen to serve as Rector Lucius’ clerk to hold down the office of the vicar and be the administrator in the meantime.
Once she realizes that this is from a negligence of the Knightly estates to the point one such family lost the manor for a number of years… To put it plainly: there is, at present, numerous major people in this cult unaccounted for:
- Who was in the manor
- Who sailed toward Duffholm breaking quarantine
- May or may not be the manor person
- The guy who caused the disappearance on Skerry Yayek and teleported away
If Charity will assist the party and account for the identity, whereabouts, and capture of at least two of these people - assuming they are different people - then, while she can’t restore her original ancestral lands, she will absolutely give Charity Coldherstshire Estate.
The Duchess will also approve a couple of Baron Aberly’s requests when he is readmitted to the room. She will legitimize the illegitimate son Iago, allowing him to go to the school at Compass Tor. She will approve the guardianship of the young children in the palace to stay with the Marquis for the summer. When Raoul is named to watch the estate over the summer while he is on campaign, everyone in the room can tell that the Duchess disapproves with a glance, though she will still approve it and say that should he have need of advice that cannot be provided with the amount of staff that will be away for the summer, he is to take that advice from the Marquis’ court (that is, us).
There is clearly more for us to do, but she does believe we deserve a reward for the service that we have already provided. She is planning to leave one of her war mages here with us as with her request, one that is capable of teleporting so that they can catch up with her. They can also leave additional personnel with us if we would like, since they can all teleport to her later.
Options:
- Weapons trainers (learn additional fighting style)
- Have her wizards use the time they’ll be here
- copy a few scrolls for Ships
- copy a few rituals for Calthel
It is clear that there is one particular person who wishes to stay behind, but she makes it a point to avoid him and not allow him to stay. He tries to argue with her quietly as they are on the way out, but that does not work.
Useful Sim is left behind and he is at least a level 11 wizard. He sits down with us to discuss what’s going on at the fjord and what we expect when it comes with a confrontation with that.
I take the ritual water breathing for later. I also ask for a scroll of find familiar as well.
Stepstone - Useful Sim’s Teleport Circle Sigils:
- Kingdom of Arimath
- Duchy of Caviness
- Caer Arctos (Duchess Bellicent’s Castle)
- Druckenford (Coastal port nearest Stepstone Isles)
- Ettindrop (Coastal port nearest Pallid Isles)
- Inchknock (Second-biggest isle in Pallid Isles)
- Sawmarket (Horse-market near Thornhurst)
- Duchy of Curachis
- Thornhurst Cathedral (biggest church in the kingdom’s capitol, one of the three most-used teleport circles on the continent)
- Duchy of Yrcheon
- St. Niniane’s Abbey
- Canthridge (Duchy Capital)
- Duchy of Caviness
- Kingdom of Midmire
- L’anse Vieux
- SW port, Monastery Bight, Trader’s Sea
- Boca Grenouille
- NW canal port, ocean port
- Port Astacus
- Primary trading port
- In NE Midmire, Destrian Strait
- Murensia
- Barony seat of Arbagna
- In E Midmire on the Via Ortolana from Astacus to Sycamora
- St. Flechevert du Betenoire
- County seat of Alaric
- S of Arbaqgna on the Via Ortolana
- Bivouac Fontaine de St. Regia
- County of Jasteris
- S of Alaric on the Vaia Ortolana
- Infantry camp
- Port Sycamora
- SE port on Trader’s Sea, end of Via Ortolana
- L’anse Vieux
- Kingdom of Kornu
- Puerta Guadanya
- Nothernmost port in the March of Ferro, open ocean
- Puerto Eses
- SE port in the March of Ferro
- Monastery Bight, Trader’s Sea
- Puerta Guadanya
- Celeviran Empire
- Capital of Celevir
- Far SE of the continent
- One of the most used teleports on the continent
We take a long rest and Sarras decides to go down to see if we can check in with fourth largest. We go down there and there is no sign of 4th Largest being on that stretch of coast.
Children of the Dread Lord:
- 1st Largest: extraplanar 100%
- 2nd Largest: might be extraplanar, half dragon
- 3rd Largest: material plane
- 4th Largest: material plane
- Disdainful of 2nd largest for being a halfbreed
On the morning of the 14th, Sim suggests that it seems like a nice day to go and kill a sea monster. We get everything together and head out, heading down the switchback trail at the side of the fjord until we reach the base of it about where we know that Azelais emerged when she came up from her communing with the Dread One.
Calthel casts water breathing on all of us.
Useful Sim’s spell list:
- 1: Thunderwave, shield, magic missile, longstrider
- 2: See invisibility, invisibility
- 3: Counterspell, dispel magic, erupting earth, sending, water breathing
- 4: Greater invisibility, arcane eye, control water
- 5: Bigby’s hand, conjure elemental
- 6: Chain lightning
Charity picks the heroism rune.
As we are standing above the fjord, we all find a spot where as we look into the water we can see a spot where there is churned up mud and dust rather than the normal sea floor. It seems as if there is some sort of under ground water flow down there and as we examine it we can tell that there is a little under water sink hole about 10’ across. There are currents down it in two directions. We drop down from the shale of the beach and see a left and right direction from the sinkhole.
Calthel uses his scroll of find familiar to turn his familiar into a fish, which goes through. The entire corridor is filled with swirling muck. The fish familiar goes to the left toward the more open water. After about 20’ the fish will find that the passageway dead-ends and it turns around and comes back. On the right about 20’ down it also dead-ends, and then Calthel realizes that while he knew this thing had substantial magic, either:
- there are invisible passages
- this doesn’t make sense with the moving water
- far more likely: this creature casts a guards & wards spell on this whole area
- guards and wards gives a hard time determining directions, and you get confused on directions
I try to go through this again and there is a fork coming off against the opposite wall, and there is another fork. I have the fish hug the wall and go through this and just follow along the wall until I realize that there is a very long passage with many things branching off toward the left.
I report this to Sim and he says that while this is cast with a single spell, there are 14 subspell items, but dispel magic would only remove one thing. He could dispel the vision and directional confusion but that would leave him without a 6th level spell. In this case, the vision and direction effects are both the same singular effect.
The other effects he would not dispel:
- dancing lights in four corridors
- magic mouth in two locations
- stinking cloud in two locations
- constant gust of wind in one area
- suggestion in one area
- if there are doors, all locked magically
- if there are stairs, webbed
Sim would dispel the confusion and visibility effect and then begin exploring, eventually finding a chamber:
Initially, chamber 1 has murk swirling around, and it seems almost as if it’s snowing. After a moment, the fish familiar can tell that it’s actually bone. The creature here picked a lot of bones, then cracked and splintered them until they were small pieces. This is not unusual for scavengers, but the water gives it a weird effect.
Sarras recalls that when the undead came out of here, the ghouls were waterlogged. This is likely where the ghouls hung out before they were sent after us.
The fish finds the second chamber.
In this chamber are soggy decomposed corpses that are in many various states of decomposition. This is not a cheerful place, and it is perhaps for the better that it is a little fish familiar that is here instead of the actual party.