Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Dungeons and Dragons (Part 6)



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!