Curse of the Crimson Throne Recap # 8 [RPG]

[22 Gozran, 4708 A.R. continued]

Yraelzin, Goldcape, Takota, and Ralph reunite in the abandoned fortune-telling shop that serves as a combination meeting place and safe house.  The others explain to Ralph about what happened when they met the Harrower again, and how they helped lay to rest a haunting of the Green Market.  Goldcape shares a plan to capture Yraelzin’s stalker, and the others agree.  But first, they decide to walk to nearby Citadel Volshyanek to collect their promised reward for capturing Verik Vancaskerkin and the other deserters.  But as they walk near the docks, a trio of cutpurses emerge to bar their path.  “Pay the toll or get the knife!” one of them growls.  But the Harrowed Heroes have faced worse threats, and a short but brutal battle begins.  Ralph gets hit by a vial of acid before crushing one of the cutpurses with his new battle-maul, while Goldcape sends a screeching Rocky to handle a second foe.  One cutpurse, circling around to the rear, threatens Takota before realising there’s no profit to be had here.  He turns and flees through a series of narrow alleyways, but his would-be victims give chase and soon capture him.

At Citadel Volshyanek, the gate watchman, Sergeant Clenkins, happily takes the cutpurses to the building’s cellblock.   But when he leads the group to Field Marshall Cressida Kroft’s office, they see she’s not alone.  A handsome man sits in one of the chairs at her desk, and as the others enter, he rises and bows.  Kroft introduces the charming man as an old friend named Vencarlo Orisini, and explains that he’s been a useful advisor about the temperament and morale of the citizens of Korvosa in these dark times.  Vencarlo has heard of some of the group’s exploits to date, and praises their results.  Kroft also thanks the group for their excellent handling of the Vancaskerkin situation, and provides the promised reward, before bringing up a delicate task she has in store for them if they’re willing to keep assisting the Korvosan Guard in an unofficial manner.

Vencarlo Orisini

Kroft explains that the city’s ambassador from Cheliax (a powerful empire from which the original settlers of Korvosa came) risks becoming a serious problem.  According to Vencarlo’s sources, the ambassador, Darvayne Gios Amprei, plans to use the recent unrest in the city as an excuse to recommend Cheliax impose sanctions or even a full trade embargo.  But the ambassador’s motivations are selfish ones, as he plans to then buy up large portions of the city from desperate landowners before profiting once he arranges for the trade war to end!  But Vencarlo has also learned that Ambassador Amprei has been making monthly visits to a place in Old Korvosa called Eel’s End—a notorious den of vice run by a dangerous man named Devargo Barvasi—the “King of Spiders.”  Kroft says that if they can find out what the ambassador is doing in Eel’s End, it might provide just the leverage they need to “persuade” him not to recommend sanctions after all.  But as Barvasi is not likely to be forthcoming with uniformed members of the Korvosan Guard, a group of private citizens who can handle themselves in a tough spot might just do the trick.  Kroft places a hundred platinum pieces on the table and says the group can keep whatever’s left over after bribing Barvasi for the information—though if “negotiations” turn violent, no one will shed a tear over the King of Spiders.  Vencarlo says that the fencing academy he runs in Old Korvosa is near Eel’s End, and he could escort the group there on his way back.

The group asks for some privacy to talk it over amongst themselves, and end up agreeing.  They decide that the best course of action is for Ralph to try to infiltrate Barvasi’s operation while, potentially, Goldcape and Yraelzin trail the ambassador during his next visit to Eel’s End (which regularly occurs on the first of every month—in about a week’s time).  For now though, the group decide to focus on capturing Yraelzin’s stalker.  When they return to Kroft’s office, they agree to the mission, promise they’ll be in touch, and politely decline Vencarlo’s offer of an escort.

[23 Gozran, 4708 A.R.]

In the morning, Goldcape’s plan is put into effect.  With his teammates hiding (somewhat clumsily, in Takota’s case) on a rooftop nearby, Yraelzin walks alone into a dead-end alleyway.  Some seconds later, a nondescript gnome follows him in.  “I’m not going back!” the diminutive figure growls, brandishing a weapon.  Yraelzin’s allies spring and quickly overwhelm their foe, but The Reckoner is still learning the sheer power of his battle-maul and accidentally kills the assassin outright!  It seems like the mystery of why Yraelzin was targeted may never be solved, but Goldcape hits on the idea of seeing if the Temple of Sarenrae can assist.  She rushes over there and nearly drags Wiquita back to the scene.  Wiquita is shocked that she recognises the body—it’s one of the temple’s groundskeepers!  The ratfolk priestess channels benign necromancy to force the corpse to answer two questions.  Although the answers are vague, it seems most likely that the gnome thought Yraelzin was searching for him to drag him back to Razmiran!  For his part, Yraelzin says he knows nothing about the matter, and that gnomes aren’t particularly common in the god-ruled nation.  Wiquita arranges to have the body taken for burial in the Gray (the city’s graveyard district), but is clearly angry with the group—she says what they’ve done wasn’t immoral, but was definitely reckless.

With one problem solved, the group turn to the next.  Ralph says he’ll begin his infiltration of Eel’s End, and makes a plan to meet the others at the Burnt Honey Inn in two days’ time.    When he makes his way to the last pier of Old Korvosa, Ralph sees that, even during the daytime and in a period of martial law, the vice business is booming!  Five elegantly-painted barges are moored together at the end of a single pier, with planks lashed between their decks to make it easy to move from one to another.  A quick survey of the scene shows that four of the barges have clear purposes—a gambling hall, a narcotics den, a brothel, and a flophouse.  But the fifth and largest vessel bears no signage at all.  Ralph spends a couple of hours in the gambling barge, The Twin Tigers, betting on games like knivesies, where one player tries to grab coins off the table while the other plays stabs at him!  The operators of the ship, two dark-skinned brothers wrapped in red Vudrani veils, keep an eye on things.  From the garrulous brother, Anpugit, Ralph learns that the King of Spiders is currently recruiting for the omnipresent ranks of enforcers who make sure the customers don’t get out of hand.  After leaving the gambling ship and heading toward the fifth ship that must be Barvasi’s headquarters, Ralph is turned away from entering the aft deck by armed guards.  He says he’s come looking for work and wants to get hired on as a pier guard, but they laugh at his middle-class accent and silk shirt and turn him away.

[24 Gozran, 4708 A.R.]

Ralph spends the day in The Twin Tigers masquerading as just another resident of Korvosa looking for a way to pass some time during the city’s lockdown.  His real goal is to wait for the occasional fights that break out when a large wager goes poorly for someone, intervene, and show that he can handle himself.  Meanwhile, Takota spends the day in Skaldwood trying to craft some jewellery while Goldcape purchases a large guard dog.

[25 Gozran, 4708 A.R.]

At their appointed meeting time, Ralph enters the common room of the Burnt Honey Inn and tells his allies that he hasn’t had much luck yet.  Still, he intends to stick with the infiltration plan and arranges a signal to inform the others if he gets in over his head.

The "King of Spiders"

Later that day, Ralph again approaches the gang of enforcers guarding the aft deck of Barvarsi’s ship.  When Ralph tries again to get hired on, they laugh and insult him.  Ralph challenges one particularly obnoxious man to a bare-knuckle fight, and when he holds his own (and bloodies his opponent’s nose for good measure), they decide to let him through to where the day’s other new recruits are.  Past a pair of large double doors bearing a complex painting of a spider, Ralph finds himself in the captain’s cabin—though it’s clearly been converted into a throne room of sorts.  The walls are thick with spider webs, in which scuttle dozens of spiders.  Several rough-looking recruits sit at sturdy oaken tables enjoying a raucous feast, while in an iron birdcage hanging from the ceiling like a chandelier sits a tormented house drake.  A narrow door hanging ajar reveals a flight of stairs leading below.  Sitting in a large, leather chair atop a platform is a tall, muscular man with shaggy black hair and a fierce glare.  His black leather armor is hand-crafted to form the shape of a spider on his chest, and real spiders constantly crawl along his skin.  Obviously, this is Devargo Barvasi, the self-styled King of Spiders!

Ralph joins the day’s other recruits as they finish their welcoming meal.  But then things get down to business, as Barvasi starts randomly picking recruits for a variety of cruel tests, such as remaining still while a fist-sized spider crawls on them, or refusing to flinch when asked to put their hand in an open flame.  Ralph’s test is a game of knivesies, and it’s clear that the loser will be thrown overboard to sink or swim on their own!  When the game starts, Ralph’s hand is a blur as he grabs the knife and starts stabbing as the other recruit frantically tries to scrape all the coins into his belt pouch.  Although a glancing blow leaves him temporarily deafened, Ralph wins the game.  Given a sap and told through pantomime to come again the next day, Ralph tracks down Takota for treatment and reports his good news: the infiltration is a success!

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GM's Commentary

This was supposed to be time to introduce Vencarlo Orisini (a major NPC in the campaign), but the PCs' decision not to accept his "escort" kept his "screen time" to a minimum.  I couldn't have him insist without giving away too much.  Fortunately, he reappears later in the campaign and no harms seems to have been done.  One of the things I appreciate the most about these early Paizo APs is that they're resilient in the sense that the writers don't make everything hinge on groups doing exactly what is expected.

The stuff with the gnome assassin was a homemade subplot I started just to give Yraelzin his own story and make him a "real PC" even though I had to run him as a GMPC.  I don't think I expected the group to be so decisive about capturing the assassin, and I had to make up his motivation on the fly.  I think it worked okay though, and led to some interesting developments with the Church of Sarenrae.

Approaching Eel's End as a one-person infiltration job was a surprising move, but I was happy to roll with it.  It did have the effect of "splitting the party" (something I think gets more opprobrium than I think it should).