[December 1 through December 8 – The Delvers lay low and learn what they can about the sudden Elf presence in Aegea City.]
[This game uses the Fifth Revised Edition of the Hero System rules along with the Fantasy Hero supplement. This session happened January 10, 2022.]
Player Characters:
Jala – human female – a person of discretion, studier of Pact Magic with a focus on shadows
Ricky the Astrologer – human male – Newly-minted specialist in Magic Circles and Teleportation Gates
Zarek the Red – fox male – Golemancer
Vorgand – human female – Guildmaster and Chief Combatant for the Delvers Guild
Ozrel – human male – Pugilist and Rune Magician
Exiting, Stage Left
Nick Stalwart – human male – Taking a Stalwart Family ship to track down his lost younger brother, Les, somewhere in the eastern Opal Sea.
Clarence – human male – Freshly promoted to Journeyman status and sent to visit obscure temples by the senior clergy [who were not envious of his growing status and Staff of Creation at all, really]
Non-Player Characters:
Torsten, Fish, Harek – ex-bandits, now The Torchbearers for the Delvers Guild
Konrad Moonclub – Stalwart family factor in Little Wytheford
Orm Oxdriver – driver of the guild’s over-sized, double-decker vardo
Lars – Chamberlain of the Delvers Guild Guildhall
Ferragus – Seller of fine antiquities
[Clarence’s player was not happy with his character due to his limited understanding of the Hero System rules when we started the campaign, so he switched to a new character, Ozrel. We ret-conned that Ozrel has always been one of the guild’s founding members, but for various reasons has always stayed in town. He is now available for expedition work – just in time for the Guild to stay in town.]
[Nick’s player needed to drop one of the many games he was involved in and the Monday Night group was the one that provided the greatest return on time, letting him do other RL things he needed to take care of. He might re-join when some of his other, longer-standing campaigns wrap up. As I’m reaching my own maximum capacity for games I can be involved in and still have time for non-gaming stuff, I totally sympathize with him on this.]
Sunday, December 1st, 1st year of the reign of King Vladik the Gamesman
Ricky completed the week-long job of inscribing and inlaying a magic circle in the ruins under Moon Manor. He then cleared away the debris and started casting the lengthy spell to connect this magic circle with its twin in the Delvers Guild guildhall basement.
Once the ritual was complete, Ricky initiated the gate by placing one of the Key Tokens in the appropriate place on a small stand that was part of the magic circle. This caused a phantom arch of stones to appear, outlined in a cold blue light. Through the arch he could see the basement of the guildhall…
Meanwhile, in the guildhall, Vorgand was approached by Lars, the chamberlain, who urgently reported that something strange was happening in the basement. Vorgand and the Guild Founders present [the other PCs] went down to see what was happening, concerned the elves were making a move against them. What they found instead was a phantom arch of stones, outlined in a cold blue light, standing in the magic circle Ricky had inscribed in one of the basement side rooms. As they arrived at the door, Ricky stepped through the arch from the Moon Manor side, slightly surprised to see the rest of the group there and ready for battle.
Ricky explained that the gate was now functional and handed a Key Token to each of the founding members present, with three extra tokens left over. [One each would have gone to Clarence and Nick, while the third was for the next person authorized to use the gate, whoever that turned out to be.] Ricky then explained how the others could activate the gate. They each did so, to verify the tokens all worked.
Vorgand then brought Ricky up to speed with the current situation in the city. The tension caused by the elves suddenly returning to the city, claiming ownership of several pieces of property and one of the Guild Docks, and generally stationing small groups at major intersections in the city had lessened over the last week. The deeds of ownership the elves presented were over 500 years old and the Kingdom of Aegea was only 350 years old, meaning the Court took the position that they were not under any obligation to honor deeds issued prior to the founding of the kingdom. The elves argued, rather elegantly, that this was the first they had heard of the Kingdom of Aegea and they were willing to recognize the kingdom, surely the kingdom would be willing to recognize their prior claims. The fact of this discussion reassured the people of the city that an actual war was not going to happen. That said, small teams of elves [2-3 elves each] were still “coincidentally loitering” at key intersections in the city, even though they were not heavily armed nor wore visible armor.
Vorgand gave the mithril set of magic earrings to Ricky to wear and listen in on the elves using magic earrings to stay in communication across the city. [Ricky understands Elven, Vorgand does not.] Jala asked Ricky to teach her Elven and he agreed to do so when she had time.
Zarek started the lengthy process of crafting a fox out of iron. It will take him the week to finish.
Cromsday, December 5th, 1st year of the reign of King Vladik the Gamesman
Rather than staying at the guildhall, Jala instead spent several days locating the concealed observation points the elves had set up across the city, up on the rooftops where they normally would not be easy to find nor observe. Jala’s spell for peering through shadows gave her an edge here. The concealed observation points contained food stores, a barrel or two of crossbow bolts, and magical crossbows. Jala was unable to determine what kind of magic was on the crossbows. To counter the elf observation points, Jala started recruiting street kids to form an information network, paying good coin when they brought her information she sought.
At the guildhall, Lars continued supervising work to refurbish the guildhall’s exterior. The front door had already been replaced with a new, stout door with a high-quality lock on it. The large warehouse doors were chained closed with new chains and padlocks, both greatly increasing the security of the Guildhall. The location of the Guildhall deep in the Student’s Quarter meant that none of the elven observation teams had direct eyes on the Guildhall. All the Guild Founders agreed they would like that to continue for as long as possible.
Ricky had spent the last several days listening to the sporadic communication between the elves via magic earrings. It helped greatly that the elves assumed no one could listen in on their communications and were therefor lax at communications security. On this day he overheard one of the roving teams of elves report they had located the source of many of the recent elven antique sales, the shop of Ferragus, the guild’s ally and intermediary for the sale of elven artifacts and antiques. They advocated an evaluation team question the shop’s owner about any recent source of antiquities. Ricky immediately reported this information to Vorgand via courier.
Vorgand had spent the last several days attending lectures at The Blooded, the kingdom’s military academy where she was a student. At the military academy she heard talk from other students boasting about having genuine elven antiquities on display, a hot new trend amongst the elite. When Vorgand received Ricky’s warning, she immediately headed over to Ferragus’s shop.
While waiting for Ferragus to finish with some other clients, she observes another new trend – the inclusion of elven articles of clothing or accessories into one’s outfits. Most items worn by the other patrons of the shop were recent copies, unlike the sash and sword Vorgand wore openly [perhaps unwisely]. With this new clothing trend, she felt she would not stand out as much.
Once Ferragus was available, they talked elliptically about the elven antiquities they had been trading in. Ferragus reported interest was up and he had sold most of the items the Guild had brought to him so far. Vorgand assured him they had more to sell, but he should expect a group of elves to visit him in the next couple of days and ask questions about his sources. Both agreed it would be easier to answer questions if there wasn’t a fresh shipment of elven items in the shop, despite the active market for them right now. Ferragus agreed to send a message to the Guildhall after the elves have been and gone, after which the Guild would send over a shipment of objects d’art and some books. Vorgand then bought a random item of jewelry from Ferragus as cover for her visit [in case she was being followed already] and left.
Evening
The Guild Founders met after dinner at The Library to drink and discuss business. It was clear that the elves were searching for the source of elven antiquities in the city. Jala brought up the possibility of spreading out where the Guild sold its finds. After discussion, the group decided that the fewer people who knew the Guild was the source, the fewer opportunities there would be for someone to sell the Guild out to the elves.
Freysday, December 6th, 1st year of the reign of King Vladik the Gamesman
Vorgand, Ricky, and Ozrel spend the day ferrying things to sell to Ferragus from the Moon to the Guildhall via the portal under the Moon Manor and Ricky’s new gate. They moved 12 objects d’art and some of the books retrieved from the base on the Moon.
While passing through the dungeon under the Moon Manor Ruins, Vorgand went up to the surface to talk with the Torchbearers to see if they needed any supplies. Torsten suggested they add a door to the old chapel they were housing in so they will have a more direct access to the tower being used as a storage room. He needed a door, some timber for a frame, carpenter’s tools, and, if possible, some additional fresh food. With winter having arrived, hunting around the manor has become poor and they had to eat one of the goats and a couple chickens. Vorgand agreed to all of it and told them the supplies would be dropped off the next day. Once back at the Guildhall, Vorgand passed the list of supplies to Lars and asked that he arrange for the supplies the next morning.
Yggsday, December 7th, 1st year of the reign of King Vladik the Gamesman
Morning
Lars spent part of the morning purchasing the supplies requested by the Torchbearers. As it was well know that the Guild was in the process of restoring/upgrading the previously abandoned building that was now the Guildhall, this raised no suspicions at all. Once he had all the supplies delivered to the Guildhall, Vorgand and Ozrel delivered them to the Torchbearers via Ricky’s Gate.
Afternoon
Ricky started getting more systematic with his eavesdropping on the elven communications [he decided to use Deduction to work out how many elves there were in the city]. With Jala’s help he placed the locations of the surveillance points the elves were using on a map and worked out the code names assigned to each location. Ricky worked out there were 21 teams working 7 observation points in the city, 2 at ground level, making use of convenient shops and cafes, and the other 5 concealed away on the rooftops. Another 6 teams patrolled the city, observing the people or specific shops. Jala reported what she had found inside their outposts earlier in the week. When she decided to look inside their ship now, but discovered she was blocked from doing so by a ward of some sort.
Yggsday, December 7th, 1st year of the reign of King Vladik the Gamesman
Zarek, having spent the last week crafting a fox out of iron, spent six hours using his recently learned golemancy skills to animate it. At the end of the arduous process he succeeded and the iron fox animated. To test it out, he had it deliver a message to the blacksmith who taught him his ironwork skills. Three hours later, the iron fox returned with the blacksmith’s surprised response.
Afternoon
Late in the afternoon, Vorgand received a message from Ferragus that simply stated, “Well that was interesting.” It also indicated that the next delivery time should be 8:00 PM, Sunday, at his back gate.
End of Session
Guild Postings
[The Delvers Guild campaign resumes! We eased into the campaign with this session for a couple reasons, not the least of which was me being not entirely ready to start running. That said, we got a lot done and started things off with a small dose of paranoia.]
[I'm doing something differently with the links to other sessions. Rather than add new links each session, I'm going to have the link to the last session, the next session, the Guild Organizational Outline, and links to the landing pages for each campaign arc. This will reduce the number of links I need to incorporate each post to no more than 5 links and speed up the posting process. Let me know what you think.]
Delvers Guild
Arc 1
Arc2
Last Session – See Arc 1, Session 33, accessible through the landing page
Next Session [Not Yet Typed Up]
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