Curse of the Crimson Throne Recap # 10 [RPG]

 [27 Gozran, 4708 A.R. continued]

Outside Citadel Volshyanek, Goldcape and Ralph Blackfeather continue to discuss what to do with the fugitive Trinia Sabor.  Goldcape has put together a plan to smuggle her out of the city by boat, but Ralph says they need to turn her over to Field Marshal Kroft or risk getting in trouble themselves.  When they return to the safe-house, they persuade Trinia that the Korvosan Guard will ensure she gets a fair trial and that the Hellknights won’t get hold of her.  Ralph uses some make-up and hair dye to make Trinia look several years older and they escort her the short distance between the safe-house and the citadel.  But Trinia’s disguise doesn’t hold up against the casual glance of a farmer who had seen a sketch of the fugitive, and he shouts and starts drawing attention.  Ralph decks the man and hurries Trinia inside.  Although she’s safely turned over to the Korvosan Guard, it won’t be long before everyone in the city knows her new location.

Thousand Bones

From there, the Harrowed Heroes split up.  Ralph visits Hedge Wizardry and tells Phaeton the information he’s gathered about the Scrag Fisher—that it hasn’t arrived.  Phaeton expresses his hope it’s simply mundane sailing delays.  Meanwhile, Goldcape flies on Rocky to the Shoanti campsites in Skaldwood to talk with Takota.  But bad news awaits—Takota has been seriously injured and is unconscious!  Apparently, he and a Shoanti brave named Gaekhen were in the city when rumors spread that Shoanti were harbouring Trinia.  They were chased by a mob and badly beaten, and Gaekhen was killed!  Takota is now under the care of Thousand Bones, a newly-arrived Shoanti shaman who is also Gaekhen’s grandfather.  Thousand Bones says that Takota will recover in time, but the Shoanti have decided to leave Skaldwood.  The nomadic people have decided the risk of remaining while the city is in such turmoil is simply too high.  But Thousand Bones has a request of Takota’s friends.  The elder explains that his grandson’s body has not been recovered, and that until given a proper ritual burial, the young warrior’s spirit will not be at peace.  Thousand Bones says his auguries have given him a vision of the body laying somewhere within a vast field of the dead, under a stone house with a shattered stone demon nearby.  Goldcape promises that she and Takota’s other allies will assist.

Goldcape leaps onto Rocky and flies back toward the safe-house.  On the way, she has the good fortune to spot Ralph on the street below—his figure distinctive because of the house drake that always seems to be flying some distance above him.  When Goldcape lands nearby, Ralph explains that the drake is a freed prisoner from Eel’s End named Majenko who has, from a sense of honour, vowed to assist him for one year.  Goldcape shares what Thousand Bones told her, and the pair immediately reverse course and head back south toward the Gray (Korvosa’s cemetery district).  Ralph asks Majenko to keep an eye on the city for signs that the Hellknights are marching toward Citadel Korvosa or in any other way displacing the Korvosan Guard.

The Gray District is a mournful place even by day—one of the few areas of the city that is quiet and calm amidst all the recent civil unrest.  And nowhere is this stillness more evident than in Potter’s Ward, the final resting ground for Korvosa’s poor and homeless.  Mounds of unmarked dirt stretch far and wide, indicating sites of mass graves, while crumbling mausoleums from years ago dot the bleak landscape, forgotten and empty; there are no mourners here, and it’s clear that those buried in Potter’s Ward leave behind few who regret their passing.  Scouting from the sky, Goldcape spots a small mausoleum that has a broken gargoyle statue on the ground nearby—surely the “shattered stone demon” that Thousand Bones saw in his vision.  When the vanara sets down nearby, she notices a man’s tracks and a wheelbarrow trail leading into the mausoleum, as well as several smaller humanoid tracks—derro!  Many in the city have heard urban legends of sunless, insane, gnome-sized beings that live under the city and kidnap residents for strange experiments.  Realising they could be in for more than they bargained for, Goldcape and Ralph decide to return in the morning with Yraelzin in tow—although the cleric of Razmir can be annoying, there is strength in numbers.

Ralph and Goldcape split up again.  Ralph hurries to North Point before the dusk curfew and into a local armorsmith’s named the Stalwart Shield.  A trio of near lookalike brothers are inside, hammering away.  Ralph lays down several thousand gold pieces for a suit of custom armor made from mithral!  He’s told it will take five to six days, as the palace has put in an order for several suits of gray full-plate armor in a feminine cut.  Afterwards, Ralph walks over to the Burnt Honey Inn only to find a very drunk Grau Soldado apparently waiting for him.  It takes some time for the guard to make sense, but eventually his slurred speech is intelligible: he’s come to warn Ralph that someone is spreading around a lot of coin for information on who The Reckoner is.  Grau says he knows Ralph and The Reckoner must be friends, so he’s hoping the man can deliver a message to the masked vigilante.  Ralph promises to do so and arranges for Grau to sleep off his relapse in his room upstairs.  Meanwhile, all the way across town, Goldcape returns to Old Lady Cloggins’ house.  When her landlady explains that a friend came by looking for Goldcape while she was away saying that Goldcape “knew his father”, a chill suddenly runs down the vanara’s spine.  Did Gaedren Lamm’s son visit and deliver an implicit threat?!?  Goldcape tosses and turns that night.

[28 Gozran, 4708 A.R.]

In the morning, Ralph gets further information from a sober (but abashed) Grau.  Whoever’s interested in The Reckoner has asked around at the Longacre Building (where accused criminals are tried before the city’s arbiters), at Eel’s End (where a cross-section of the city comes to engage in vice), and, rumor has it, at an information broker named Gribbet.  Grau says that after taking part in raids on Lamm’s Old Fishery, the Cow Hammer Boys’ slaughterhouse, and the King of Spider’s ship in Eel’s End, The Reckoner is making quite a name for himself among the criminal element and needs to be careful.  After Grau leaves, Ralph heads down to Old Lady Cloggins’ house, keeping a close eye out to see if he is being tailed.  Once there, he and Goldcape exchange news and agree they need to figure out a plan to trap whoever is looking for them.  Ralph calls Majenko down and asks him to keep an eye out for ambushes.  Majenko reports that Trinia Sabor’s trial is set to begin today—a startling fast process given her recent apprehension.

With Yraelzin in tow, Goldcape and Ralph set out for the Gray District again.  They follow the trail into the mausoleum, but the place looks completely empty.  However, the outline of a poorly hidden trapdoor is easily spotted.  When opened, steps lead down into darkness.  Ralph changes into The Reckoner, and Goldcape enchants his battle-maul with light so he can see better.  The stairs lead to an ossuary, where pits of bones lie under a domed ceiling.  Goldcape heads towards the bone pits to see if Gaekhen’s body is among them, when suddenly the piles of bones begin to shift and sway.  Skeletal figures burst out of one, while a clearly dead owlbear bursts out of another!  Goldcape’s arrows and sap prove almost completely ineffective against the chilling undead foes, but Rocky’s hard beak and especially The Reckoner’s battle-maul smash them into pieces.  Yraelzin, who had little to add during the combat, heals some of his ally’s wounds, but Goldcape notices something strange—it looks like the cleric is secretly using a wand.  When confronted, Yraelzin denies the matter entirely, and even invites Goldcape to search him; the suspicious vanara does so, and finds no wand.  Goldcape starts to pursue the matter further, but The Reckoner reminds her that they’re on a mission and this catacomb could be dangerous.

Tunnels smashed and carved out of the walls of the ossuary lead further into darkness.  Following one of them leads the Harrowed Heroes to a gruesome site—the fresh body of a vagrant is being drained of its blood by a pair of stirges, while a lone little humanoid that can only be a derro toils nearby!  The derro shrieks and rushes into a narrow tunnel to escape, but not before opening a wicker cage and freeing two more stirges.  One of them swoops down and plunges its proboscis into Goldcape’s arm before the cat-sized mosquito-like creatures are dispatched.  The Reckoner gives thought to chasing the derro, but the tunnel it fled down would be difficult to squeeze through.

Necrophidius

Another tunnel leads to a corridor encrusted with dozens of yawning skulls, their mouths opening into dark holes in the walls.  Goldcape realises two of the skulls are part of some kind of trap, and destroys them with arrows fired from a distance.  But whoever placed the trap had a second layer of defense in mind, for when the trio enter the hallway, the sinuous skeletons of what first appear to be large snakes emerge from holes in the walls and attack!  Yraelzin shouts that they’re necrophidiuses and have paralysing bites!  The battle that follows is a long and difficult one, but once again The Reckoner’s battle-maul proves most effective and the skeletal constructs are destroyed.

It’s clear that what once seemed like the trivial matter of retrieving a corpse from a graveyard has turned into something far different—why are the derro here, and what’s become of Gaekhen’s body?

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GM's Commentary

Goldcape was 100% right that it would have been better to smuggle Trinia out of the city than turn her over to the authorities.  Because Goldcape's player is a kid, the adults in the group often don't take his suggestions as serious as they should.

There's the introduction to Thousand Bones in this session, an NPC who will become very important in Chapter 4.  I'm glad I was able to tie in the Shoanti abandoning Korvosa.

The search for Gaekhen's body in the Dead Warrens is the last major part of Chapter 1 (apart from a more scripted climax).

Why would a cleric of the Living God need magic wands?  Goldcape must have been mistaken.