Okay, so, on Sunday we played DnD again. We played for a while, but, like the last
session, it still ended up being mostly a roleplaying session. But what a roleplaying session it was! Plot twists were had! Character was revealed! Discord was sown! Genders were changed!
So, the Party last left off after a night of revelry in the
city of Sana Bell, on their way to the city of Ispep. The next morning, the Party was able to pack
up and leave without further incident.
In fact, the trip to Ispep from Sana Bell was completely without
incident, and soon the party found themselves on the outskirts of Ispep.
Now, the city of Ispep is built upon a large island in the
middle of a great lake. Villages dot the
banks of the lake. Ferries and barges
carry people and supplies to Ispep from these villages—however, livestock and wagons
are forbidden to cross over. Ispep seems
to be the domain mostly of a ruling elite and those supporting them; it does
not seem that Ispep could support itself under siege.
The Party found lodgings for their wagons and livestock,
with the cost of housing Dragon Man’s horse being waived due to his folk hero
status. They made their way to the
banks, and booked passage on a vessel carrying food to Ispep, opting not to
wait for the ferry, under the principal that if they were going to this town to
kill someone (the Wizard Makana) they
maybe didn’t want to draw too much attention to themselves.
When the vessel was halfway across, it was suddenly attacked
by a horde of fish people, eight warriors and a female sorcerer, as well as two
great white sharks under her command.
The eight warriors boarded the vessel, and began beating the sailors and
attempting to throw them overboard. Battle
Bard, Henk the Tank, and Dragon Man jumped into melee, and began working their
way through the fish warriors. Nory ran
about, firing at the warriors from between the crates. Ulfgar climbed onto the crates, and began working
to contain the creatures in the water.
He started by hurtling a Scorching Ray at the Sorceress. Then, when one of the warriors knocked a
sailor into the water, and a shark went to eat him, Ulfgar hurled his second
Scorching Ray at the shark, killing it at once.
In return, the sorceress tried to take control of Ulfgar’s mind, but
failed. Then Nory tried to attack her,
and for his efforts got his mind taken over, making him see visions of the
great tentacles of Cthulu rising out of the water, convincing him that
everything was all right and there was no need to keep fighting! Ulfgar’s next Scorching Ray at the sorceress
was a complete whiff, but the final one all but killed her, and a final Magic Missile
took her out for good. (He also threw a
Magic Missile at the second shark.)
Meanwhile, Henk got knocked into the water by a fish person warrior, but
was able to clamor onto the remains of the shark Ulfgar killed, and from there
make his way back onto the barge.
By the time Ulfgar killed the sorceress, the melee fighters
had killed enough of the fish people that the ones who still lived beat a
retreat into the waters. Then the party
looted the bodies and threw them overboard.
To retrieve the sorceress’ body, the Bard had to enchant Henk to fly after
it, and almost would have lost the corpse to a shark if Ulfgar hadn’t (at Henk’s
request), hurled a Magic Missile at it.
Fish people taken care of, with the loss of only a couple of
sailors lives (hey, you can’t save everybody), the ship came to dock on Ispep,
and the bigger party members helped the
remaining sailors unload their product.
A weird beach bum type fellow was wandering about, interacting and
generally being friendly and dudely with people, and soon he was talking with
members of the party, to whom he introduced himself as Mattie. He asked where the party was from, and Ulfgar,
who had wanted to keep a low profile while in the city, gave a vague
description of where they had come from, and the towns through which they had
passed. Nevertheless, when Ulfgar
mentioned that they had passed through Bahah, Mattie grew very excited, but
denied ever doing Bahah Blast (not too convincingly). Ulfgar, then, revealed that he was an
Orebreaker, and when it turned out that Mattie had heard of the Orebreakers,
Ulfgar decided to give up on trying keeping a low profile. How someone like this Mattie character had
ever heard of the Orebreakers was beyond him!
Mattie offered to take the Party to the finest inn in town, the Tonhill,
and so hopped inside his magical carriage pulled by imaginary horses and drove
the Party there.
Arriving at Tonhill, Ulfgar went off to make reservations. He talked to the gnome named Tonhill who ran
Tonhill, and convinced him that he was an Orebreaker here on official
Orebreaker business, and that his compatriots were his staff, and then rented
out three of the establishment’s finest rooms.
He also mentioned that Dragon Man on was on his staff, which turned out
not to have the desired effect upon Tonhill.
It turned out that, while Dragon Man might be a folk hero to the common
folk, to the members of high society, he was considered a nefarious
outlaw. Ulfgar tried to insist to
Tonhill that Dragon Man was his employee, and thus no danger to anyone at the
moment, but Tonhill didn’t buy it, and sent servants to notify the city guard. (The guards later showed up but were
unsuccessful in discovering Dragon Man, much to their relief.)
Ulfgar then wrote a letter to the Sultan of Ispep, explaining
that he was an Orebreaker here on business, and requested an audience with the
Sultan, and gave the letter to Tonhill to have delivered.
Ulfgar came back and gave keys to the others to their room,
and left them to drink while going to his own room. Most of them decided to spend some time in the
Tonhill bar with Mattie, except for Nory, who went off to wander the city. There he went to a tailor and a toymaker’s,
where he commissioned himself dolls made in the image of Cthulu, had a
miniature suit made for his familiar, and a matching suit made for
himself. Then he went to a library and
checked out a book, for purposes that were surely not nefarious.
Ulfgar got a bath drawn while this was happening, and drank
good ale while soaking, and finally felt like a proper Orebreaker again for the
first time in ages.
When the bath was done, he sent the personal servant
assigned to him, Robert, to go off and collect his “staff” who were on
hand. The Party members came to Ulfgar’s
room, wondering what all this “staff” bullshit was.
Ulfgar apologized straight away for the staff bullshit,
explaining that it was all a ruse to bolster his standing as an Orebreaker in
town on official business, and give the Party some cover for whatever actions
it was up too. He also explained that
Dragon Man was not exactly popular with the hoi polloi in Ispep, so he should
maybe keep a low profile maybe, which Dragon Man strangely relented to.
The Bard expressed some interest in playing in the Tonhill
Inn Bar, so Ulfgar sent the servant Robert off to convince Tonhill the Gnome to
let Orebreaker’s Bard play. He also paid
Robert a platinum piece to keep his mouth shut about everything that had been
said in the room, which Robert was happy to do on account of Dragon Man having
killed the guy who previously held his job (thus opening up the position for
Robert).
Henk also took this opportunity to announce that he wanted
to be called Hannah from now on and to be treated as a woman. Oh, and also, she worshipped Cthulu now.
Ulfgar was a little concerned about this whole worshipping
Cthulu thing. Nory’s pet god didn’t
actually seem like a very decent god for proper folk to be worshiping. Not because of the whole worshippers suddenly
deciding to be women or anything! No, ha
ha! Because of the whole tentacles for a
mouth thing! I mean, what kind of god
does that, am I right?
So, the party went down to watch the performances before the
Bard played, and then the Bard played, and he played very well, which was a
relief. Neither the Bard nor Ulfgar
wanted the Bard to come off poorly at this moment.
During the performance, Ulfgar spoke with some elves from a
rival banking family, who were wary of the idea of competition from the
Orebreaker clan, but Ulfgar assured them that the Orebreakers were not
interested in expanding into the area at the moment. (At the moment!) Then, Ulfgar went over to chat with their
guide Mattie, where it turned out that Mattie’s full name was Mattie MAKANA,
and he was, in some respects, a wizard of this area.
Gulp.
Ulfgar then tried to relay this information to Dragon Man,
as Dragon Man was, nominally, a Paladin, to see if he could detect whether
Mattie Makana was evil or not.
All Dragon Man turned up was that one of the other inn
residents was a vampire. So Dragon Man
bought him a beer. For is what Paladins
do for creatures of the night.
Later, Mattie was speaking with Henk no Hannah and mentioned
that he lived in the tall white tower in town.
Henk no Hannah, as usual, seemed completely confused about what this
meant.
The bartender during the evening was a skanky Tiefling. After the fine musical performance given by
the bard, given despite wearing his Gauntlets of Ogre Power, he succeeded in
bedding that Tiefling.
The next morning, Ulfgar learned that the Sultan of Ispep
would see him on the following day. So
the members of the party went off to take care of various personal
business. Ulfgar went to various
libraries to investigate Mattie Makana and Cthulu. He turned up nothing on Cthulu, and learned
that Mattie was the son of one of the founders of the local Wizard’s
Academy. He began to have doubts that
the man his party had been hired to kill by a drug lord was actually evil, and
resolved to investigate further before taking any concrete action.
Henk no Hannah and the Bard went to a Capes and Cordial, a
shop run by a very flashy fellow by the name of Sir Elton. The Bard bought a magnificent cape. Henk no Hannah bought a potion that turned
him (her?) fully into a woman, becoming Hannah and only Hannah once and for
all.
Nory did some more Cthulu scheming, I’m sure, but I can’t
remember what exactly.
Dragon Man probably drank and hated people and, I don’t
know, hung out with vampires or something.
You know, whatever Paladins do.
Also, bits that couldn’t be fit in any particular
place: Mattie Makana has lots of descriptions
of adventures that sound, out of game, like Matthew McConaughey movies.
He also seems to teleport across time and dimensions quite a bit, and is
definitely capable of moving between the Planes, which is Next Level. He also has a serious Bahah Blast addiction
that he is really not particularly good at hiding. Also, Ulfgar spent a lot of down time reading
books on the history of Ispep, so that he has a solid base of knowledge when
speaking to the Sultan.
That’s all I remember!
