A funeral, a town meeting, and Magnimar
We rejoin Our Heroes in Sandpoint, the day before a funeral and two days before a Town Hall Meeting.
Lyrie and Orik have left for Magnimar already. After his experience with the demon, Kand also realizes that perhaps he would be better suited in the big city. Nod 'finishes his vision quest' by which everyone understands him to mean that he has run out of delicious grapes and is ready to return to the Adventuring Lifestyle.
Grapes really ARE delicious, after all, but after the second bunch of them one generally starts to feel a little - upset. In the tummy parts, I mean. It is bad for adventurers to stumble into too many grapes for, like a chest of gold, it presents an almost irresistible temptation. Unlike gold, however, a Chest of Grapes leads quite quickly to nausea and, as we all know, nausea is just about the worst of the conditions an Adventurer can suffer. Only a single move action each turn? Why bother even dungeoning, I say.
Anyway. The afternoon and evening pass uneventfully; Vig and Nelson sleep outside of Kendra's room to keep her safe, Antwon sleeps in a comfortable bed, and Torvan and Nod sleep on the roof of the cathedral to watch for letters written in blood.
Nothing of interest transpires during the night.
The next day is a funeral for the former High Priest Abstalar Zantus. Besides Kendra channeling some sort of spirit: "Please.... help me.... The five - they are growing in power - I do not know how much longer I can keep them at bay... please.... help me...." The day, again, passes uneventfully, as does the evening (except for a late-night tête-à-tête betwixt Ameiko and Vig).
And then we have a meeting with the Town of Sandpoint. The local theatre is rented for the occasion, Sheriff Belor Hemlock has returned, and besides the Party - the Heroes of Sandpoint - Mayor Kendra Deverin, Sheriff Belor Hemlock, and new interim High Priest Koya Mvashti.
Mayor Deverin welcomes everyone and introduces the panel, and then gives a VERY quick run-down of the troubles Sandpoint has faced in the last few weeks, and the Party's role in dealing with said troubles. Then Antwon speaks to the crowd, with what starts with an explanation and ends with an exhortation to be better citizens, and better parents. It's quite moving, and when he's finished the crowd is momentarily silent, processing the new information (a demon lived under Thistletop! Nualia faked her death and was behind the goblin attacks!).
During the speech a guard enters and whispers to Sheriff Hemlock, which Vig (unnoticed as a Person of No Consequence) overhears about trouble at the docks that the Sheriff must come deal with. Sheriff Hemlock leaves, and Nod leaves through the front door to circle around and catch up, while the crowd is beginning to ask questions of the panel about Nualia, and fires, and goblins.
Nod gets to the alley next to the theatre just in time to see Sheriff Hemlock smacked with a club from behind, slumping down unconscious. Five thugs are assaulting him! Nod leaps to attack and drops one of the thugs immediately. Battle is joined!
One of the thugs is a wizard of some variety, but Nod is not cowed by his illusion magic and moves to prevent further mischief being done to the Sheriff. His battle cries attract the attention of the rest of the party, who follow close behind; a scrub of street thugs is no match for Our Heroes, however.
Yes, 'scrub' is the collective noun for street thugs. For goons it is a 'plunder', and for gangsters it is a 'knuckle'. But these fine gentlemen are neither goons nor are they gangsters, and I stand by my venery.
I am fascinated by collective nouns, as, I would imagine, are all right-thinking people who use language in some capacity. Here are some interesting places to investigate further:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_terms_of_venery,_by_animal
Wikipedia is, as always, the primary source. You might also try:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary_of_collective_nouns_by_subject
But there are some inconsistencies here: 'Swiss' is capitalized, for example, but 'swedish' is not.
My apologies for the digression. Combat, as I mentioned, was joined! And quickly left, with one thug surrendering, two unconscious, one dead, and one who leapt into the air, sprouted wings, and flew off to the south.
Vig and Nod run to follow the flying thug, while Antwon and Torvan hear screams and smell smoke - the theater is On Fire! The Rouge and Cavalier run inside to see the wall sconces in the theater have erupted into flame, which is rapidly spreading to the rest of the theatre. Torvan hustles Mayor Deverin outside, while Antwon, seeing that the other side door is sealed somehow, charges and bursts it open with a precise lance strike.
Vig returns to secure the surrendered thug and see to the other prisoners, while Nod runs to the Theatre front door to find it chained shut. If only Our Monk had a tool that was good for bursting and shattering things like chains used to seal theatre doors shut!
Our Monk does indeed have such a tool, as it happens. Huzzah! The front doors burst open and people begin pouring out into the street, away from the flames. Vig continues to bind the prisoners' wounds and keep Mayor Deverin safe, Kendra and High Priest Mvashti cast Create Water repeatedly to try and quench the fires, Torvan begins tearing down tapestries and decorations, and attempts to beat out the fires with heavy clothes, and Antwon directs people in the back of the crowd to the rear exits. Nod smashes a hole through the wall next to the front doors, allowing more people egress, and then moves to the roof to smash a hole in the ceiling to vent the smoke.
A collective of flamingos is a flamboyance! That to me is delightful - it just fits, you know? I could read about collective nouns all day.
The party reconvenes outside the theatre - charred a bit but mostly okay - and without needing much discussion realizes the REAL threat has flown off to the South. To Magnimar, most likely - Nod and Antwon (on Nelson) take off running, while Torvan, Vig, and Kendra procure horses and follow close behind, with the surrendered thug ("Yes, my name is Chad - what's wrong with that? Chad was my father's name! Why are you people being so mean to me?") bound and along for the ride. A ride which, for Chad (recently a Thug and now a Prisoner) is both physically and emotionally uncomfortable, you can be sure.
Our Heroes meet at an Inn - the Carbuncle's Jewel - which lies roughly halfway between Magnimar and Sandpoint. The innkeeper does not ask about Our Heroes' bound prisoner, and no explanations are given, and Chad at this point is lost in thought about how his recent past has gone, and what his near future might be like. Was 150 gold worth it for a month of work, kidnapping a Sheriff and holding him for ransom? If the boss turned out to be a demon or something, would he in fact have lived through this experience? The adventurers could have killed him, or left him for the authorities, but chose instead to keep him bound and along with them on the way to Magnimar! Deep and heavy thoughts indeed.
Oh look - it is an Ostentation of Peacocks! That just - it just works. I did not know that before now, but I nod my head because of COURSE a group of peacocks is an ostentation! Sometimes when I am sad about the Evil That Men Do I realize that a world which works well enough to combine those words in that way is not ENTIRELY gone wrong.
Magnimar is ENORMOUS. I mean, Sandpoint has 1200 people and a lot of action, a lot of dramas. Magnimar has more than twelve times as many people! It's really, really big, and has a lot of history, both recent and ancient. On every streetcorner is some sort of monument - some recent, but most old. Like, 8000 years old. The city lies across a high cliff, with the wealthy neighborhoods above and the poorer and docks below. The first part of an ancient bridge stretches several hundred feet into the ocean - a bridge built by the Thassilonians in time gone by. It is magnificent!
Our heroes are tired and, perhaps, a bit intimidated. Still, they have several thousand gold - each of them, that is - and so do what adventurers traditionally do in the Big City - they purchase gear that lets them be more effective at Murder and... well, adventuring.
Kendra buys the prettiest dress she's ever owned. She's about to sell a house and feels comfortable spending money on frippery. She also gets her hair redone to hide where large patches were singed in the recent fire.
Our Heroes have a contact in Magnimar, but are tasked with waiting another two weeks before contacting Montagnie Crowl, a professor of Antiquities at Magnimar University, to deliver some books, and Justice Embreth Daramid to deliver a fourth book and receive 500 platinum. They are supposed to use that time being watchful of their Patron's daughter Kendra - but here she is, shopping and getting her hair did, and clearly NOT staying anywhere away from things that can be described as 'trouble'. Such is the adventuring way, one supposes.
So instead they follow a lead from Chad - he was given a seven-pointed star tattoo that looks VERY much like the Sihedron rune,. By having the rune tattooed on his skin he was given a 10% discount on a casino boat in the Magnimar Harbor!
On reaching the harbor and inquiring around, the party learns that the boat burned and sank three days ago, with no survivors found. Nod and Vig swim out to check - a barrel is chained to the wreck, so Nod swims down to see a barge, still with everburning torches illuminating the broken hull, several bodies feeding several large predatory fish, and two external doors chained from the outside.
Oh my.
The dockworker (Cam Vancascarian, recently of the Riddleport Vancascarians) shows his own tattoo, and expresses his desire to have it removed, perhaps by a mage who can cast the erase spell. He also suggests to the party that if they want a kip with no questions asked (looking meaningfully to Chad, who is still bound and looks rather pensive at this point) that they find an abandoned building in The Shadow - or Underbridge, the region of Magnimar that lies in the shadow of the Irespan (the fragment of enormous ancient bridge stretching several hundred feet out to sea).
The Party find the offices of the Harbormaster, and from there connects with Bektilda 'Becky' Thasslegrove, the Guard liaison to the docks. After introductions she proves quite willing to work with Our Heroes - she's heard of their exploits in Sandpoint, and is frustrated by budgetary and bureaucratic issues stalling her investigation (the Mages and the Mayor's office aren't willing to work with each other to provide divers with water breathing is the main thing).
Some other beans are discovered, and at this point I - your Humble Narrator - must apologize, for I am not sure about who revealed said beans, or even in what order the information was procured. I might be experiencing some hearing loss in my left ear, and as we all know that is the ear which Hears Things What Are Secrets, and I think at least one of the NPCs is a bit of a mumbler.
So. The casino boss was a beautiful redhead named Lucretia. The casino boat had been in operation for several months - since early May, people thought. Its name was the Paradise. No money was recovered or found, and the bodies strewn around were most likely pulled out by predators, or swam out but killed by sharks and barracuda. There was some fishy business - pardon the pun - with the Star Tattoos, but Becky was having trouble finding more information. Most tattooed people were pretty tight-lipped about the whole thing.
Hmmm.
Well, realizing that there was most likely nothing more at this time to be discovered in Magnimar, and that they had some significant clues left undiscovered in Sandpoint, the party returns there. Kendra meets with a potential buyer for her house, and schedules an inspection, while the rest of the party sleeps (in a bed, or in a chair, or on a roof). Vig realizes, perhaps in a dream, that the reference to Harrowstone in Prof. Lorrimor's journal was not necessarily to the tunnels under the Glassworks, and so Our Heroes set out to find more information.
Okay. Okay, just one more. It is an Ambush of Tigers. Wow! Alternately one could call a group of tigers a 'streak', but why would you? Ambush is MUCH more appropriate when one is discussing things of a tigerish nature. There is no reason to do otherwise, I say. Perhaps at one point Our Heroes will be set upon by an Ambush of Tigers! It is certainly more likely to happen now than it was before.
Fine. It is a Tuxedo of Penguins. But that is the last one.
Oh - let's see. Information! Tonya Basaltdottar is one of the smiths in town, a dwarf who has lived in Sandpoint longer than almost anyone. Initially unreceptive to the party's exhortations: "Harrowstone? It's just an old ruin. Let the bones stay buried." She is persuaded to reveal what she knows; her husband was the stonesmith and carpenter there, and perished in the fire that destroyed Harrowstone prison.
From the Medium to Recent History of Sandpoint and the Sandpoint Region, an as-yet unpublished work by Brodert Quink:
It's three hours outside of town for Our Heroes, on a brisk Autumn day. The Party has identified a spectral scythe, floating through the air, seemingly wielded by two skeletal arms, on the aforementioned Western Balcony.
We will rejoin our party next time - they stand outside the walls of Harrowstone Prison, wondering at the path that has led them here, and wondering further what, if any, horrors await them inside.
Lyrie and Orik have left for Magnimar already. After his experience with the demon, Kand also realizes that perhaps he would be better suited in the big city. Nod 'finishes his vision quest' by which everyone understands him to mean that he has run out of delicious grapes and is ready to return to the Adventuring Lifestyle.
Grapes really ARE delicious, after all, but after the second bunch of them one generally starts to feel a little - upset. In the tummy parts, I mean. It is bad for adventurers to stumble into too many grapes for, like a chest of gold, it presents an almost irresistible temptation. Unlike gold, however, a Chest of Grapes leads quite quickly to nausea and, as we all know, nausea is just about the worst of the conditions an Adventurer can suffer. Only a single move action each turn? Why bother even dungeoning, I say.
Anyway. The afternoon and evening pass uneventfully; Vig and Nelson sleep outside of Kendra's room to keep her safe, Antwon sleeps in a comfortable bed, and Torvan and Nod sleep on the roof of the cathedral to watch for letters written in blood.
Nothing of interest transpires during the night.
The next day is a funeral for the former High Priest Abstalar Zantus. Besides Kendra channeling some sort of spirit: "Please.... help me.... The five - they are growing in power - I do not know how much longer I can keep them at bay... please.... help me...." The day, again, passes uneventfully, as does the evening (except for a late-night tête-à-tête betwixt Ameiko and Vig).
And then we have a meeting with the Town of Sandpoint. The local theatre is rented for the occasion, Sheriff Belor Hemlock has returned, and besides the Party - the Heroes of Sandpoint - Mayor Kendra Deverin, Sheriff Belor Hemlock, and new interim High Priest Koya Mvashti.
Mayor Deverin welcomes everyone and introduces the panel, and then gives a VERY quick run-down of the troubles Sandpoint has faced in the last few weeks, and the Party's role in dealing with said troubles. Then Antwon speaks to the crowd, with what starts with an explanation and ends with an exhortation to be better citizens, and better parents. It's quite moving, and when he's finished the crowd is momentarily silent, processing the new information (a demon lived under Thistletop! Nualia faked her death and was behind the goblin attacks!).
During the speech a guard enters and whispers to Sheriff Hemlock, which Vig (unnoticed as a Person of No Consequence) overhears about trouble at the docks that the Sheriff must come deal with. Sheriff Hemlock leaves, and Nod leaves through the front door to circle around and catch up, while the crowd is beginning to ask questions of the panel about Nualia, and fires, and goblins.
Nod gets to the alley next to the theatre just in time to see Sheriff Hemlock smacked with a club from behind, slumping down unconscious. Five thugs are assaulting him! Nod leaps to attack and drops one of the thugs immediately. Battle is joined!
One of the thugs is a wizard of some variety, but Nod is not cowed by his illusion magic and moves to prevent further mischief being done to the Sheriff. His battle cries attract the attention of the rest of the party, who follow close behind; a scrub of street thugs is no match for Our Heroes, however.
Yes, 'scrub' is the collective noun for street thugs. For goons it is a 'plunder', and for gangsters it is a 'knuckle'. But these fine gentlemen are neither goons nor are they gangsters, and I stand by my venery.
I am fascinated by collective nouns, as, I would imagine, are all right-thinking people who use language in some capacity. Here are some interesting places to investigate further:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_terms_of_venery,_by_animal
Wikipedia is, as always, the primary source. You might also try:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary_of_collective_nouns_by_subject
But there are some inconsistencies here: 'Swiss' is capitalized, for example, but 'swedish' is not.
My apologies for the digression. Combat, as I mentioned, was joined! And quickly left, with one thug surrendering, two unconscious, one dead, and one who leapt into the air, sprouted wings, and flew off to the south.
Vig and Nod run to follow the flying thug, while Antwon and Torvan hear screams and smell smoke - the theater is On Fire! The Rouge and Cavalier run inside to see the wall sconces in the theater have erupted into flame, which is rapidly spreading to the rest of the theatre. Torvan hustles Mayor Deverin outside, while Antwon, seeing that the other side door is sealed somehow, charges and bursts it open with a precise lance strike.
Vig returns to secure the surrendered thug and see to the other prisoners, while Nod runs to the Theatre front door to find it chained shut. If only Our Monk had a tool that was good for bursting and shattering things like chains used to seal theatre doors shut!
Our Monk does indeed have such a tool, as it happens. Huzzah! The front doors burst open and people begin pouring out into the street, away from the flames. Vig continues to bind the prisoners' wounds and keep Mayor Deverin safe, Kendra and High Priest Mvashti cast Create Water repeatedly to try and quench the fires, Torvan begins tearing down tapestries and decorations, and attempts to beat out the fires with heavy clothes, and Antwon directs people in the back of the crowd to the rear exits. Nod smashes a hole through the wall next to the front doors, allowing more people egress, and then moves to the roof to smash a hole in the ceiling to vent the smoke.
A collective of flamingos is a flamboyance! That to me is delightful - it just fits, you know? I could read about collective nouns all day.
The party reconvenes outside the theatre - charred a bit but mostly okay - and without needing much discussion realizes the REAL threat has flown off to the South. To Magnimar, most likely - Nod and Antwon (on Nelson) take off running, while Torvan, Vig, and Kendra procure horses and follow close behind, with the surrendered thug ("Yes, my name is Chad - what's wrong with that? Chad was my father's name! Why are you people being so mean to me?") bound and along for the ride. A ride which, for Chad (recently a Thug and now a Prisoner) is both physically and emotionally uncomfortable, you can be sure.
Our Heroes meet at an Inn - the Carbuncle's Jewel - which lies roughly halfway between Magnimar and Sandpoint. The innkeeper does not ask about Our Heroes' bound prisoner, and no explanations are given, and Chad at this point is lost in thought about how his recent past has gone, and what his near future might be like. Was 150 gold worth it for a month of work, kidnapping a Sheriff and holding him for ransom? If the boss turned out to be a demon or something, would he in fact have lived through this experience? The adventurers could have killed him, or left him for the authorities, but chose instead to keep him bound and along with them on the way to Magnimar! Deep and heavy thoughts indeed.
Oh look - it is an Ostentation of Peacocks! That just - it just works. I did not know that before now, but I nod my head because of COURSE a group of peacocks is an ostentation! Sometimes when I am sad about the Evil That Men Do I realize that a world which works well enough to combine those words in that way is not ENTIRELY gone wrong.
Magnimar is ENORMOUS. I mean, Sandpoint has 1200 people and a lot of action, a lot of dramas. Magnimar has more than twelve times as many people! It's really, really big, and has a lot of history, both recent and ancient. On every streetcorner is some sort of monument - some recent, but most old. Like, 8000 years old. The city lies across a high cliff, with the wealthy neighborhoods above and the poorer and docks below. The first part of an ancient bridge stretches several hundred feet into the ocean - a bridge built by the Thassilonians in time gone by. It is magnificent!
Our heroes are tired and, perhaps, a bit intimidated. Still, they have several thousand gold - each of them, that is - and so do what adventurers traditionally do in the Big City - they purchase gear that lets them be more effective at Murder and... well, adventuring.
Kendra buys the prettiest dress she's ever owned. She's about to sell a house and feels comfortable spending money on frippery. She also gets her hair redone to hide where large patches were singed in the recent fire.
Our Heroes have a contact in Magnimar, but are tasked with waiting another two weeks before contacting Montagnie Crowl, a professor of Antiquities at Magnimar University, to deliver some books, and Justice Embreth Daramid to deliver a fourth book and receive 500 platinum. They are supposed to use that time being watchful of their Patron's daughter Kendra - but here she is, shopping and getting her hair did, and clearly NOT staying anywhere away from things that can be described as 'trouble'. Such is the adventuring way, one supposes.
So instead they follow a lead from Chad - he was given a seven-pointed star tattoo that looks VERY much like the Sihedron rune,. By having the rune tattooed on his skin he was given a 10% discount on a casino boat in the Magnimar Harbor!
On reaching the harbor and inquiring around, the party learns that the boat burned and sank three days ago, with no survivors found. Nod and Vig swim out to check - a barrel is chained to the wreck, so Nod swims down to see a barge, still with everburning torches illuminating the broken hull, several bodies feeding several large predatory fish, and two external doors chained from the outside.
Oh my.
The dockworker (Cam Vancascarian, recently of the Riddleport Vancascarians) shows his own tattoo, and expresses his desire to have it removed, perhaps by a mage who can cast the erase spell. He also suggests to the party that if they want a kip with no questions asked (looking meaningfully to Chad, who is still bound and looks rather pensive at this point) that they find an abandoned building in The Shadow - or Underbridge, the region of Magnimar that lies in the shadow of the Irespan (the fragment of enormous ancient bridge stretching several hundred feet out to sea).
The Party find the offices of the Harbormaster, and from there connects with Bektilda 'Becky' Thasslegrove, the Guard liaison to the docks. After introductions she proves quite willing to work with Our Heroes - she's heard of their exploits in Sandpoint, and is frustrated by budgetary and bureaucratic issues stalling her investigation (the Mages and the Mayor's office aren't willing to work with each other to provide divers with water breathing is the main thing).
Some other beans are discovered, and at this point I - your Humble Narrator - must apologize, for I am not sure about who revealed said beans, or even in what order the information was procured. I might be experiencing some hearing loss in my left ear, and as we all know that is the ear which Hears Things What Are Secrets, and I think at least one of the NPCs is a bit of a mumbler.
So. The casino boss was a beautiful redhead named Lucretia. The casino boat had been in operation for several months - since early May, people thought. Its name was the Paradise. No money was recovered or found, and the bodies strewn around were most likely pulled out by predators, or swam out but killed by sharks and barracuda. There was some fishy business - pardon the pun - with the Star Tattoos, but Becky was having trouble finding more information. Most tattooed people were pretty tight-lipped about the whole thing.
Hmmm.
Well, realizing that there was most likely nothing more at this time to be discovered in Magnimar, and that they had some significant clues left undiscovered in Sandpoint, the party returns there. Kendra meets with a potential buyer for her house, and schedules an inspection, while the rest of the party sleeps (in a bed, or in a chair, or on a roof). Vig realizes, perhaps in a dream, that the reference to Harrowstone in Prof. Lorrimor's journal was not necessarily to the tunnels under the Glassworks, and so Our Heroes set out to find more information.
Okay. Okay, just one more. It is an Ambush of Tigers. Wow! Alternately one could call a group of tigers a 'streak', but why would you? Ambush is MUCH more appropriate when one is discussing things of a tigerish nature. There is no reason to do otherwise, I say. Perhaps at one point Our Heroes will be set upon by an Ambush of Tigers! It is certainly more likely to happen now than it was before.
Fine. It is a Tuxedo of Penguins. But that is the last one.
Oh - let's see. Information! Tonya Basaltdottar is one of the smiths in town, a dwarf who has lived in Sandpoint longer than almost anyone. Initially unreceptive to the party's exhortations: "Harrowstone? It's just an old ruin. Let the bones stay buried." She is persuaded to reveal what she knows; her husband was the stonesmith and carpenter there, and perished in the fire that destroyed Harrowstone prison.
From the Medium to Recent History of Sandpoint and the Sandpoint Region, an as-yet unpublished work by Brodert Quink:
"The ruins of the prison of Harrowstone are contained within a stone wall served by a single broken gate on the southern wall. Within the grounds the prison stands as a two story building with a western balcony on which many executions occurred. Two observation towers guarded the campus from on top of the walls. The warden's house was situated to the south of the main prison building and, to the east, lay a prisoners' graveyard. Today the graveyard is a murky pond after the area collapsed due to the fire which destroyed the prison. Within the prison was a chapel to Pharasma."It's not a very nice place, for sure. It was designed to house the worst of the worst - the only way prisoners left Harrowstone was when they found the sweet relief of Death and their Final Judgement, and more often than not said trip down that Darkest of Roads was due to their treatment in the Prison.
It's three hours outside of town for Our Heroes, on a brisk Autumn day. The Party has identified a spectral scythe, floating through the air, seemingly wielded by two skeletal arms, on the aforementioned Western Balcony.
We will rejoin our party next time - they stand outside the walls of Harrowstone Prison, wondering at the path that has led them here, and wondering further what, if any, horrors await them inside.
Comments
Post a Comment