Curse of the Crimson Throne Recap # 67 [RPG]

[Oathday, 30 Erastus 4708 A.R. continued]

 

As if slowly rousing from a tranquil sleep, Anorak wakes up to find himself in a small cottage.  He’s still wearing his damaged armor, and quickly his last memory comes back to him: the tower!  Fortunately, Eldritch is there to fill him in on what happened (though, from the bird’s telling, Anorak has been “abandoned” by his colleagues and should seek bloody revenge).  Anorak grabs his axe from the pile of possessions heaped nearby, and heads out to find Goldcape and The Reckoner.  Realising they must have gone into the tower (as the front door stands ominously open), he goes inside and is quickly reunited with them.

 

Goldcape and The Reckoner explain what they encountered in the tower—the nightshade and banshee, as well as the strange magical pools, pedestal, and weapons.  Anorak’s awakening is most fortuitous, as his expertise in all things arcane gives him insight that the others lack.  He realises that the pools of inky liquid are in fact repositories of semi-tangible negative energy!  Falling into one would mean death for most living creatures.  But the dwarf realises that they in fact serve as the power source for the central function of the tower—travelling between planes!  By carefully manipulating the pedestal mechanism, the tower could transition between the four planes marked by sigils around its perimeter—the Material, Ethereal, Abyssal, and Shadow Planes.  But such a transition draws huge amounts of negative energy from the pools, making it possible for the Tower of Passage to function only once per day.  Unfortunately, because the box was destroyed when it was placed inside an extradimensional container, the tower is no longer mobile geographically within a plane.  On the Material Plane, it will always manifest in this precise location in Trail’s End!

 

The group discuss what to do with the tower.  Goldcape argues they should use one of his summoned mites to activate it to take it somewhere else so it will no longer menace Korvosa—and to keep it out of the Queen’s hands.  The Reckoner argues that would be a mistake, as monsters in one of those other planes could take the tower back to the Material Plane and attack!  As usual, Anorak sides with The Reckoner against Goldcape, and the matter is settled.  Plans are made to post a warning sign and a minor locking enchantment on the door.  That plus a dangerous magical trap that will soon reset, are hoped to be enough to keep intruders and stray passers-by from interfering with it.  The constant gloom projected by the tower will just have to be withstood, for now.

The group split up to put their new plan into action.  Goldcape stays behind to watch the tower while The Reckoner (now as Ralph Blackfeather) is teleported back to North Point by Anorak.  Ralph hurries to Hedge Wizardry to buy the arcane lock scroll, and finds Phaeton looking troubled.  The proprietor of all things magical explains that business has been poor lately—the lack of security on the streets, the slow-down in imports and exports, the new inspections of logs on who is buying and selling magical items, and trade disruptions caused by the giant wars—have all combined to put Phaeton in dire financial straits.  He says he’s thinking of moving to Magnimar, where business is apparently booming at Korvosa’s expense.  Ralph expresses genuine concern for Phaeton and offers to do what he can to help.  Hearing that Ralph will soon be travelling to some larger markets, Phaeton gives his trusted customer an expensive magical rod he’s been unable to sell locally in the hopes a buyer can be found abroad.

When Anorak and Ralph return to Trail’s End, Goldcape lets them keep watch on the tower as he flies on Rocky’s back to his safehouse.  He’s decided he wants to take Blackjack’s garb with him after all.  He also charges Sergeant Clenkins with a new mission: to keep an eye on the tower and shoo people away (but not to engage any Gray Maidens or other agents of the Queen).  Clenkins agrees, explaining that a concrete mission will be good for the rebel troops he’s training.  When Goldcape returns to the others, he magically repairs Anorak’s damaged armor.

 

The group decide to spend the night in an inn and then depart in the morning.  But the logistics of getting a disparate group of adventurers, their gear, and their animal allies ready to go proves surprisingly challenging!  When Anorak tries to teleport everyone to the inn (the Burnt Honey), his spell isn’t powerful enough, and he appears with just Rocky and Eldritch!  Annoyed at being left behind, Ralph starts riding his horse toward High Bridge while Goldcape magically takes on the aspect of a frog to swim across the Jeggare!  “Thank you so much!” she says sarcastically, dripping wet, when she finds Anorak at the inn.  Ralph has even more unkind words to say to Anorak.  Over dinner, the trio discuss their current problem.  They were planning on using magical wind-walking scrolls to hasten their journey to Castle Scarwall—however, upon close examination, no one in the group is certain they know how to activate them!  Ralph decides they’ll need to find a cleric in Korvosa, but that too presents challenges: the Temples of Asmodeus and Abadar cannot be trusted (as they’ve thrown their allegiance behind Ileosa), the Temple of Sarenrae is being watched, and Bishop d’Bear of the Church of Pharasma is still on board the Black Ship.  Ralph says perhaps he’ll try the nearby shrine to Shelyn (goddess of music and art) in the morning.  Meanwhile, Goldcape puzzles over Yraelzin’s earlier messages indicating he was staying at the “skull-topped tower” near the “crater lake”.  He pours over his recently-acquired book on the Hold of Belkzen and finds absolutely no mention of a skull-topped tower.

 

[Fireday, 31 Erastus 4708]

Feral dogs tussling over garbage in the alleyway outside Anorak’s room keep him tossing and turning all night.  As dawn approaches, the dwarf is so fed up with the clamour that he stomps outside and knocks them both out with freezing magic!  When he comes back in, Ralph and Goldcape (both having enjoyed a good night’s rest) tease him and nickname him “Anorak Dogslayer.”  The grumpy dwarf decides to go back to bed, and sleeps through the morning.  The other two go off on errands.  Ralph learns that the city’s small but beautiful temple to Shelyn could indeed help read the scrolls, though the price is high.  Goldcape does research at both Basha’s and Bookmaker’s, but neither has any clue about a “skull-topped tower” in Belkzen.  Costa jokes that perhaps it appeared out of nowhere, just like the tower that’s now casting a pall over Korvosa!

After lunch, the group makes a final (and ultimately successful) plan on how they’re going to leave Korvosa.  First, Ralph stables his horse indefinitely at the inn.  Second, Goldcape magically shrinks Rocky down into a small figurine.  Third, Anorak teleports everyone to Kaer Maga in the hopes that they can find someone there to read the wind walk scrolls for them.  Something goes wrong with the spell once again, this time wracking everyone with pain, but they do all appear in Kaer Maga.  Anorak had chosen the “esoterica” business run by the memorable vampire proprietor Froderic, and when they appear, he’s drinking blood from the wrist of an obviously-hypnotised young elf.  Seeing potential customers appear, Froderic sends his snack away and begins negotiating.  The group isn’t able to get the price that Phaeton wanted for the magical rod, so they decide to hold onto it for now.  Ralph is able to unload many of the magical weapons discovered in the Tower of Passage.

 

The trio spend the afternoon looking for libraries and temples.  Ralph learns that there’s a major temple to Pharasma in the city called the Godsmouth Ossuary, and the Pharasmins there could (for the usual fee) read the magical scrolls he needs.  He also gets a referral to a quality inn called Canary House.  When the group hear about what may be Varisia’s most complete archive of lore, a building called the Therassic Spire, they pay the hefty reading fee to gain access.  But there’s still no mention of a skull-topped tower in Belkzen!  Finally, Anorak realises that Yraelzin isn’t talking about a fixed location at all—it must be a reference to a bone house, a minor (and evil) artifact capable of creating an instant fortress out of a fist-sized figurine!  Ralph says it must belong to the Brotherhood of Bones, and is annoyed that Yraelzin has apparently made a deal with the group.

 

As the sun starts to slowly slip over the horizon to bring another day to a close, the Harrowed Heroes are finally on their way to Belkzen.  But with one ominous tower ahead of them, and another left behind, what does the future have in store?

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GM Commentary

A few of the recurring themes I've discussed in previous commentaries are very apparent in this recap.  First, Goldcape again makes the best suggestion about what to do with a problem (in this case, the tower) but is ignored by the two adult players; a frustrating situation for Goldcape's adolescent player.  Second, the group has logistical troubles with things like the number of creatures that can be affected by spells (counting familiars, animal companions, mounts, etc.), who can activate scrolls, etc.  They figured it out in the end, even if it did cost them some time and gold.  Third, I never did find time to really prep Kaer Maga to my satisfaction--it's just too big and there's too much out there on it.  I feel like I did an okay job referencing the materials on the fly, but I would like to really make the city come alive in a future adventure.