Curse of the Crimson Throne Recap # 7 [RPG]

[20 Gozran, 4708 A.R., continued]

As everyone’s heading out the door to respond to The Harrower’s request for a meeting, Ralph receives another message: one of the street urchins in his intelligence network has come up with an important lead.  He excuses himself to go investigate while the others proceed.  As they get closer to the riverside docks, Yraelzin, Goldcape, and Takota can see that hundreds of people have filled the street, protesting against what they view as the illegitimate ascension of Queen Ileosa to power.  On-going labor strikes by dockworkers add to the atmosphere of impending violence, leading Goldcape to suggest the group travel via rooftop as much as possible.  Soon, the ominous marching of a Hellknight legion coming to break up the now-illegal assembly can be heard.  But the real danger comes not from the Hellknights or the angry protesters—instead, it comes from below!  The ground starts to rumble, and a moment later the city street cracks apart and long fissures run across the bricks.  The road bursts upward, casting chunks of rock into the air and raining bricks on the surrounding area.  The stench of sewer filth and garbage belches forth, heralding the approach of a freakish sewer beast!

Tentacles lash out wildly, stunning many of the protestors, as the hungry beast looks at the moving feast before it.  But from a nearby rooftop, Takota conjures a roiling ball of fire and hurls it at the beast, distracting it!  The Shoanti shaman isn’t prepared for the sewer beast’s response, which is to slither a tentacle up the side of the building and yank the man down by the ankles!  Yraelzin and Goldcape launch arrows and crossbow bolts that gradually weaken the monster, but the situation looks dire when it seems they’ve only driven it to drag the unconscious and nearly dead Takota toward the hole it emerged from.  Fortunately, Rocky blocks the path and the aberration finally releases Takota before fleeing into a maze of alleys.  With the sound of marching coming closer and closer, the Harrowed Heroes get Takota to his feet and hurry towards the safehouse.

Inside, the fortune-telling shop, lit by candlelight, looks comfortable and well-maintained.  The veiled woman known only as The Harrower sits on the far side of a round table, shuffling a deck of cards.  When Yraelzin, Goldcape, and Takota take seats, The Harrower begins by congratulating them on finally bringing Gaedren Lamm the justice he had long evaded.  She goes on to say that with the recent turmoil, the city could very well teeter into anarchy—but that the cards foretell a chance to avert that fate, if heroes arise.  She says that only if those assembled around the table are truly unified will they have a chance to stem the tide of darkness that is coming, but that secrets breed mistrust.  She invites the trio to forge a stronger bond by trusting each other with something they’ve been keeping hidden.

Perhaps surprisingly, Yraelzin is the first to respond.  For the first time ever in their company, he removes his mask!  Revealed to be a blond-haired, nervous-looking man in his early twenties, Yraelzin goes on to say that he needs help.  For the past week, he’s had the feeling of being watched . . . hunted!  A few days ago, he says a brick fell from a building ledge and almost crushed him, and other “accidental” near misses have occurred as well.  For her part, Goldcape shares that vanara normally have more fingers on each hand—but that Gaedren Lamm once cut some of hers off!  When his turn comes, Takota explains that he was born a boy named Mato who wished to be a warrior, not a shaman.  The Harrower then spreads her deck of cards and looks at them carefully before revealing their cryptic import.  She says that the evil legacy of Gaedren Lamm is not finished—that “the son is worse than the father”; that soon the Hellknights will depart, but in their place will come a much worse threat—the “women in grey”; and that when she next meets them, there will be but “seven days to the grave”.

As she finishes, there’s a loud knock on the door.  The candles flicker for a moment, plunging the room into momentarily darkness, only to then reveal that The Harrower has disappeared—and that the fortune-shop looks like it has been abandoned for months.  Goldcape answers the door to reveal a fashionably-dressed young woman.  She introduces herself as Zeeva Foxglove, and shows them a Harrow card with the address of the fortune-telling shop and a promise that her troubles will be solved scrawled on the back.  She explains that she’s the owner of the Green Market, a large space in South Shore where vendors from in and around Korvosa set up stalls to sell fresh produce, jewellery, crafts, and more.  Two days ago, she explains, the Hellknights violently enforced the dusk curfew in the Green Market and, since then, inexplicable phenomena has been taking place!  Objects seem to move on their own accord, tables upend themselves, wagons roll without being pulled by horses, and howling winds almost sweep people off their feet.  She says she’s had to close the place until the problem could be dealt with, and that’s when she found the Harrow card.  She offers a small reward for help, and the listeners agree to assist if they can.

After Zeeva Foxglove has left, the trio make a plan to research the Green Market to see if they can find any clues about what might be causing the problems.  Takota talks to some residents of the area, and although some are unwilling to talk to an “uncivilised barbarian,” he does meet one recent customer who claimed to hear a voice carried on the swirling winds inside.  Goldcape and Yraelzin decide to do some historical research and head toward the Jeggare Museum, one of the city’s oldest private institutions of history and culture.  The curator, Mercival Jeggare, is happy to point Yraelzin in the direction of some relevant records but the priest runs out of time before the museum closes to examine them fully.  Goldcape hires a private scholar to look into The Harrower’s mysterious reference to “the women in grey”, but, unfortunately, the researcher doesn’t turn up anything useful.

[21 Gozran, 4708 A.R.]

Dark clouds threaten rain as Yraelzin finishes his research in the museum’s archives.  He learns that the Green Market was built just under three decades ago in the city’s newest area of expansion.  But, almost three centuries ago, before Korvosa was founded, the land was the domain of the Sklar-Quah—the Sun Clan of the Shoanti peoples.  A respected shaman named Galdron Greenheart embraced the way of peace and dedicated a shrine to his people nearby before he was persecuted and murdered by the Chelish colonists who soon came to occupy the land.  When Yraelzin shares this information with the others, Takota surmises that the recent violence in Green Market has awakened Galdron Greenheart’s long-dormant spirit!

[22 Gozran, 4708 A.R.]

In the morning, on the way to Green Market, Goldcape decides to stop in and check with Old Lady Cloggins, her land-lady.  Old Lady Cloggins is not best pleased that a small number of Hellknights are still billeting in her house, but admits that, if nothing else, they are a tidy bunch!  Goldcape hears a scream from outside and rushes to see that Yraelzin, has been impaled by a crossbow bolt!  No assailant is visible.  With magical healing, the bolt is removed, though he still seems weak and suspects it may have been poisoned.  Perhaps his tale of being hunted is true after all!  Goldcape insists on reporting the attack to the Korvosan Guard, and they say that when time allows, they’ll look into it—but that they have more pressing matters at the moment.

When the trio arrive outside Green Market, Takota explains to Zeeva Foxglove his theory of what’s causing the disturbance.  As he’s trying unsuccessfully to get the nearby Hellknights to depart, Goldcape decides to take a look around inside.  She’s almost crushed by a wagon wheel that somehow breaks off an axle and comes rolling towards her!  Takota enters and can hear a Shoanti voice carried on the wind, warning against war being brought to this sacred land.  With his spiritual magic, Takota confirms that the Green Market is haunted by the awakened spirit of Galdron Greenheart, and is able to formulate a ritual that could put the spirit to rest.  He walks south to nearby Skaldwood and speaks with Telmayne Fire-Eyes, a young shaman, and she helps him collect seven broken klar blades.  Takota returns to Green Market, finds the specific site where Galdron Greenheart was buried, and, although battered by the winds and hurled objects, ritually places the broken blades on the ground in a symbol of tribal unity and peace.  With a whisper in the wind, Takota knows he has been successful and that Galdron Greenheart will rest once more.

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GM's Commentary

The player running The Reckoner wasn't able to attend this session, the only one he's missed in the campaign to date.

The sewer beast encounter comes right from the AP, and I pretty happy with how it turned out--very exciting!

I worked in some background flavour about protests and how trade unions are illegal in Korvosa, something mentioned in the Guide to Korvosa.  I never really developed the idea further, but if there wasn't so much else going on, I might have.

The Harrower encounter was good for role-playing (opportunities to get PCs to talk about their backgrounds are valuable) and also for foreshadowing Chapter 2 with nods to the Gray Maidens, Rolth Lamm, and more.

The side-quest in the Green Markets was derived (with some alterations) from Pathfinder Society Scenario # 4-06: "Green Markets."  Especially with a Shoanti PC and knowledge that Shoanti would be a big part of Chapter 4, I just couldn't pass up the chance.  I thought it went really well and helped introduce the PCs to a different part of the city.