[December 9 concludes – After the Guild Tryouts, the Delvers discuss the candidates and the situation with the elves. They also deliver elven objects d'art to their seller for consignment.]
[This game uses the Fifth Revised Edition of the Hero System rules along with the Fantasy Hero supplement. This session happened February 21, 2022.]
Player Characters:
Jala – human female – a person of discretion, studier of Pact Magic with a focus on shadows
Ozrel the Runeweaver – human male – Pugilist and Rune Magician
Vorgand – human female – Guildmaster and Chief Combatant for the Delvers Guild
Ricky the Astrologer – human male – Newly-minted specialist in Magic Circles and Teleportation Gates
Via Roll20
Zarek the Red – fox male – Golem-mancer
Non-Player Characters:
Torsten, Fish, Harek – ex-bandits, now The Torchbearers for the Delvers Guild
Lars – Chamberlain of the Delvers Guild
Unit: Z0-E – Zarek’s first golem, looks like a fox made of iron
Moonday, December 9th, 1st year of the reign of King Vladik the Gamesman
Shortly after 2:00 PM
After Ricky and Jala discussed what Ricky had overheard the elves reporting about Vorgand and the Guild via the magic communication earrings. Jala stated she would go back to the exhibition and warn Vorgand and the others about the elves. Ricky said he was heading back to the guildhall to see about security there. He then started shadow jumping back to the guildhall.
Jala shadow walked back down to the arena area and quietly passed on to Vorgand that “the elves are on to us.” Vorgand announced to the waiting applicants that they “would hear from the guild within a week.” The crowd started dispersing when it was obvious that there would be no more fights. The bookies paid out and made their way out with fatter purses. The elf observers were among the last to leave.
Ozrel walked back across the city to the guildhall with Zarek trotting beside him. [Aegea City, like any walled medieval/Renaissance era city is compact, especially compared to modern cities, so this was at most a 30-minute walk.] They were followed by an elf, but neither noticed.
Jala shadow walked away from the arena and over to her recently purchased house in an adjacent neighborhood. There she met with some of her street urchin contacts and set them to observing the elven activities in the Student’s Quarter of the city. She then prepared to meet Vorgand at the shop of Tolenka the Jeweler. [As a result of her teleporting, she was not followed by the elves.] Vorgand returned to her dorm room on the campus of The Blooded to bathe after the series of duels and then left to meet Jala at Tolenka’s to see the completed signet rings. [She was followed when off the campus, but the elves had no way to follow her on the campus.]
3:00 PM
Jala and Vorgand met outside Tolenka’s shop. Jala noticed that Vorgand was being followed and warned Vorgand. Vorgand knew the elves were now following her, so she was going to bore them by doing her normal routine. Vorgand says she understood and then left, heading back to the guildhall.
Vorgand entered the shop and spent a pleasant hour sitting with Tolenka and having tea and snacks and making idle talk while reviewing the completed signet rings. Vorgand was pleased with the high-quality work and slipped on the functional steel signet ring, leaving the decorative mithril ring in its case. Vorgand paid the remaining balance on the rings with local coin. Once they finished their conversation, Vorgand left the shop and headed over to the guildhall, taking her time to get there.
5:00 PM
Vorgand arrived at the guildhall and checked in on the status of the repairs with Lars. The exterior restoration was progressing and the "party area" was now cleaned and available to rent out. Vorgand asked Lars to track down a potential scribe for the guild and Lars said he would take care of it.
Vorgand then tracked down Ricky and asked him if there seems to be more elven coins in circulation in the city. Ricky replies that there are more elven coins in circulation now that the elves are in the city, but the additional coins are of mintings much more recent than the ones the Guild "recovered." [Ricky's Always has an Answer Psychological Limitation kicking in.]
Vorgand then found Jala and gave her a letter for Ferragus to be delivered through Jala’s urchin network. [My notes don't record what the note said and Vorgand's player never typed up her notes for this particular session, so I have no record of its contents.] Once Jala had done that, the Guild Founders [as the PCs thought of themselves now] met for dinner and drinks over at The Library [a University student drinking place they all frequent]. The all-human student population that drank there would keep the elves following the group from entering [as the elves would stand out and draw lots of attention from the curious students].
The guild took a private table and started quietly discussing what to do with the various elven treasures in their possession. There was a good deal of discussion about using the portals to move the most easily identifiable items to the Moon for storage until things cooled off and this was agreed to. They then had a long discussion about how they might get the objects d’art they wanted to sell now to Ferragus. They eventually settled on hiring a cart and having Ricky and Jala load it via teleportation.
Once they had a plan of action, Ricky shadow jumped away to find a place to rent a cart in the Craftsman District. The rest of the guild returned to the guildhall and retrieved the objects from the secure storage area in the basement.
After securing a rental cart, Ricky drove it over to a quiet street a block from the guild and out of sight from the elves observing the guildhall. He then shadow jumped to the guildhall and explained to Jala where it was. She used her shadow veil to peer through the shadows to locate it and then the two of them started teleporting back and forth between the cart and the pile of objects d’art to sell to Ferragus, slowly loading the cart.
Once the cart was full, Jala brought over Zarek to the cart [who noticed that Jala’s magic was done very differently than his or Ricky’s]. Ricky and Zarek then drove the cart over to the receiving courtyard behind Ferragus’ shop, avoiding the known elven observation posts. Ferragus had them bring the cart into the back of his shop for the unloading. Zarek and Ferragus chatted while Ferragus’ assistants unloaded the cart. Ferragus stated payment would be made to the guild’s account once the items sold. He was non-plussed about the elven novels but was willing to take them as everything elven was very popular right now.
Ricky and Zarek took the cart back to the renter, using a circuitous path to avoid the elves. Ricky cast his invisibility spell upon himself and returned to the guildhall. When he returned he observed the elves observing the guildhall. There was a rooftop observation post and two elves in the street, but, due to the close-in construction of the Student’s Quarter, there were some gaps in their observation pattern. Additionally, the elves were forced to be close enough in to see the guildhall that Ricky’s teleportation had the range to bypass them easily.
Zarek returned on foot, pretending to be a simple animal. None of the students on the streets believed it as he was known to them, but the elves knew no better. Zarek stopped and sat by the two elves watching the guildhall from the street, pretending to be waiting for a treat. When the elves were not forthcoming with a treat, he left and trotted back to the guildhall. Ricky heard over the earrings one of the elf sentries tentatively identify Zarek as a familiar.
Later that Night
The Delvers returned to The Library for drinks and to discuss the applicants. They all agreed that Kettle the Pike would be assigned to Torchbearer rank [apprentice equivalent]. They also agreed that Victor Yakokovitch and Fadeyka the Saber were solid Delver candidates [see Guild Organizational Outline, below]. There was lively debate about Bellinus Dragonkiller. Vorgand eventually grudgingly allowed he seemed to have some skills and if he really did have skills in fighting dragons, those would be needed to deal with the two Beither on Arkoi Island. After some additional discussion on what rank to bring him in as, they settled on him being a Provisional Delver. He would need to prove he could follow orders before the provisional part of his rank would come off. A much shorter discussion placed Tamara Greenshield as a Torchbearer.
They also decided that the exhibition had been a solid method for evaluating the combat capabilities of the applicants and they should extend it to the rest of the applicants, not just the ones Vorgand wanted to duel. This time they would do a set of signup sheets and allow the applicants to work out who they wanted to test against, Ozrel for unarmed combat or Vorgand for armed combat. The signup sheets would be posted at the guildhall with another exhibition scheduled for Magusday, December 11. Jala would also track down Crow and Bear to chat/interview them as their set of skills was more nebulous and seemed to be in her area of expertise.
End of Session
Guild Postings
[I might edit the text of this later in the week as I don’t have the notes the players took with me, but I wanted to try and get this up on the day I’m targeting for release. Work at the Dayjob is easing a bit, so I have some additional time during the week to write.]
[There was a real life lively debate on letting Bellinus into the guild and at what level that lasted at least 20 minutes. As the GM, I was quite pleased with myself for creating this NPC.]
Delvers Guild
Arc 1
Arc 1 Landing Page – Links to all Arc 1 sessions
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Arc 2 Landing Page – Links to all Arc 2 sessions, as they post
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