[May 11 and 12 – Anomin finds the goods]
[This game uses the Hero System Fifth Revised Edition (FREd) roleplaying game. Game sessions happen once a week. This session happened December 11, 2023.]
[This adventure takes place on the continent of Terik, two years after the appearance of the Sudden Sea. The PCs are refugees seeking a better life through adventuring.]
Player Characters
Sorvia of Stavros – female human ranger, local to County Modon (village of Stavros in particular)
Tharduk Lavabreath – male dwarf glassmaker from the Northern Dwarven Kingdom, had a glass shop in County Modon that is now underwater, literally
Kadruth Worldbender – male dwarf priest, serving He Who Protects, from the Northern Dwarven Kingdom
Anomin – female human shapeshifter, from lots of places, most recently County Modon
Islo Redgrass – male elf ranger, local to County Modon (village of Stavros in particular)
Via Roll20
Inserrant – female human musician, player of zills (finger cymbals) and singer
Spring
May 11, 56 I.C.
Evening
While Sorvia, Tharduk, Kadruth, and Islo were at the Crossed Arrows, watching Inserrant perform on the stage, Anomin continued her exploration of the Nicabar house and the secret passage she had found in it.
Anomin, in crow form, found herself in a small dark room and thought she was in a closet. Listening, she heard someone walking on the other side of a wall. Unable to see anything, Anomin returned to her human form and then switched into her cougar form, which could see in the dark.
What Anomin had thought a closet was actually a small furnished room with no windows and a trapdoor as the only exit other than the secret door she had entered through. Anomin took some time to quietly search the room. On one side was a cupboard with two barrels beside it. On the other was a set of bunkbeds with a chest at their foot and a side table with a lantern and some gnomish matches. Anomin checked the barrels and found one was water and the other wine. The cupboard contained drygoods and iron rations. The chest held 4 sets of clothes: a set of male peasant garb, a male city guard uniform, a set of female peasant garb, and a female city guard uniform. Under a false bottom in the chest Anomin found a small coffer and a bag of coins.
Anomin turned back human again and pocketed the coffer and the bag of coins [with some minor fumbling due to the darkness]. Anomin then returned to cougar form and started investigating the trapdoor. She was able to open it and found a shaft descending deeper than the first floor with hand grips on the side. Anomin sighed.
Anomin turned back into a human again and searched the table for the lantern and matches. She found them with little trouble and lit the lantern while pocketing the rest of the matches. She then turned into a crow, picked up the lit lantern, and flew down the shaft in a corkscrew path. The walls looked sound-proofed.
Arriving at the bottom of the shaft, Anomin discovered it connected to a small passage. She followed the passage a ways until it ended at a different shaft going up. She climbed up the passage to another trapdoor with a hook on the wall adjacent to the built-in ladder.
With some slight difficulty, Anomin hung the lantern on the hook and landed on the top rung, where she listened for a couple of minutes. Hearing nothing, Anomin carefully switched back to human form and cracked open the trapdoor. The trapdoor opened in a small area surrounded by stacks of crates. She climbed out of the shaft and looked around and up. She appeared to be in a warehouse, probably outside the town walls.
Anomin pulled up the lantern from the hook in the shaft and set it aside. She quietly closed the trapdoor and snuffed out the lantern before turning back into a cougar. She picked up the lantern’s handle in her mouth and started looking for an exit.
Anomin quickly found an open door with two guards standing next to it. She bolted past the guards and one called for her to come back before the other asked, “Do you really want that to come back?”
Once out of their line of sight, Anomin paused and looked around. She was in the small warehouse and brewing district to the north of Nomi, near the apple fields, bee hives, and fields of flowers. She turned human again and then switched to crow form so she could fly back to the Crossed Arrows, taking the lantern with her.
Several minutes later she landed in an alley near the Crossed Arrows and returned to her human form. She then returned to the Crossed Arrows and found the other adventurers inside. She quickly explained what she had found. She and Sorvia left the group at the table to go upstairs to their rented room.
Once in the room, Anomin pulled out the two bags and the coffer. Looking at the coffer first, it was locked with a high quality lock. Anomin went back downstairs to get Tharduk so he could open the lock. Tharduk pulled out some tools and set about disassembling the lock, taking time to do so. It resisted him for an hour before he gave up. [He took an hour of extra time for the +3 bonus but still failed the roll.]
The trio switched to examining the bag from the chest. Inside it were four pouches, each marked with a different crest. Of the four, the only one Anomin recognized was the one with the County Modon crest [the principality she lived in]. Inside it was a mix of gold and silver coins totaling 50 gold coins, the majority in gold.
They opened another bag and it had the same amount of coins, but these were stamped with the portrait of the Emperor of Crendia, Orion I. A third bag contained coins Tharduk recognized as minted in the Free City of Freegate, a major trade city far to the northwest and not part of the Empire. The last bag contained coins from the Kingdom of Silverloc, once part of the Empire but now independent, mostly. Anomin then opened the bag from under the bed. It contained 15 orbs of raw gold that Tharduk estimated were worth 10 gold coins each.
Now very curious about what was in the coffer, Tharduk returned to it and worked hard to unlock it. This time he was successful! Inside were trade bars, larger units of money that the Merchant Guild used to settle debts between chapters or to move large amounts of wealth. The coffer contained 10 bars worth 100 gold coins each and 20 worth 50 gold coins each. Tharduk started hyperventilating slightly. This was not only a large amount of money, but in very suspicious forms for a merchant to have stashed away. Anomin was of the opinion that they should give the gold orbs to The Sheriff with an explanation of where they were found.
By this point, Inserrant had finished her performance. She collected tips worth 13 gold. She and the rest of the group headed up to the rented room where Anomin, Sorvia, and Tharduk explained what Anomin had returned with. The group discussed what to do with the money. The Imperial coins would be suspicious to spend anywhere in the Syrak Alliance [the other break-away part of the Empire, of which County Modon was a part of] as people might think the adventurers were spies in Imperial employ. The group decided they would need to exchange the coins for local coins when they could. All agreed that the gold orbs were too dangerous to hold onto having likely come from the illegal mine.
The following discussion was about who would take the gold orbs to The Sheriff. Anomin suggested that The Sheriff really liked her, but they would need to wait until after he had his coffee in the morning. She understood it was really important The Sheriff get his coffee, even if she didn’t understand why. The group decided that the two dwarves, Tharduk and Kadruth, would take the orbs over to The Sheriff in the morning with Anomin following.
May 12, 56 I.C.
Over breakfast, the group of adventurers agreed to meet at the tannery outside town if things go bad for any reason. After they finished eating, Kadruth and Tharduk left for the sheriff’s office with Anomin unobtrusively following them as a crow.
At the sheriff’s office, Kadruth and Tharduk walked in through the front door and one of the deputies waved at them in greeting. Kadruth stated they needed to speak with The Sheriff and the deputy pointed out The Sheriff at an adjacent desk going over some papers and taking notes. When Kadruth and Tharduk walked over to him, The Sheriff greeted them with, “What interesting things do you have for me today?”
Tharduk started by asking if there was a more private place they could speak. The Sheriff wasn’t having any of it and responded, “This is my office. We are surrounded by my deputies: what do you think would happen?" Anomin’s response was, “A misunderstanding.”
Tharduk started explaining what Anomin did the previous night. The Sheriff interrupted with, “Wait. You’re admitting to what now?” In reply, Kadruth thunked the bag of gold orbs onto the Sheriff’s desk. Intrigued, the Sheriff opened the bag and looked inside. "I understand your trepidation," he said, closing the bag. He quietly listened to Tharduk tell [mostly] the whole story.
"Are you leaving town anytime soon?" The Sheriff asked. Tharduk stated the group was leaving immediately after lunch. "So I have to wait till after lunch before taking these to the baron," The Sheriff replied. “You should definitely be out of town when I do that.” The dwarves agreed and they and Anomin left the Sheriff.
Tharduk, Kadruth, and Anomin went back to the Crossed Arrows and relayed the conversation to Sorvia, Islo, and Inserrant. Inserrant stated she wanted to go confront the ne’er-do-wells at the Courageous Plate about nearly kidnapping the two dwarves when the group first arrived in Nomi two weeks ago. Tharduk and Kadruth were good with this but Kadruth suggested they do so on the way out of town. Everyone agreed.
The group of adventurers settled their accounts with Hira and left the Crossed Arrows. They walked across Nomi to the Courageous Plate. They received several friendly waves along the way over from townsfolk that recognized them for helping put out the fire at the Michelakis house.
Arriving at the Courageous Plate, they found a handful of people sitting at tables out on the veranda. Inserrant asked the dwarves if any of these people were part of the near attack. Tharduk and Kadruth looked the people over and saw no one they recognized. Kadruth answered, “Nope.”
When the adventurers entered the Courageous Plate, the entire bar went quiet. Clearly there were people in here who recognized the adventurers. Kadruth walked right up to the table Theodore Damaskis had once guided he and Tharduk to and sat down at it. The rest of the adventurers followed and sat down. Tharduk and Kadruth looked around and recognized several faces in the crowd. The bartender was also looking very pale.
Eventually a server came over to the table and asks if he could help the group. The adventurers ordered drinks and then quietly drank them in the silent bar. The adventurers then paid for their drinks and Kadruth bought 3 bottles of mead for the trip. The adventurers then strode out, daring anyone to say anything. No one was brave enough to do so, looking into their drinks and otherwise avoiding any eye contact.
The adventurers left Nomi through the Brewer’s Gate and headed northwest to the Ygro Dasos forest and the Onomastike Hills.
That Night
The group was several miles into the forest and at the edge of the hills when they made camp. During third watch, Sorvia heard the rustling of people approaching the campsite...
End of session
Commentary
[So we did not play for a month between the last session and this one for a mix of reasons, most revolving around the Thanksgiving holiday at the end of November. My wife and I did an Orphan’s Thanksgiving where we invite friends in the area that can't have Thanksgiving with their families for various reasons to have Thanksgiving with us. The week before we had to do shopping for food and a deep cleaning of the house. The day itself was a huge pile of food and friends and some boardgames but mostly conversations with friends. Afterwards, my wife and I were exhausted so the following week we did boardgames instead of me running the Sudden Sea. I forget why we skipped the week after that, but we did eventually resume plate for this season.]
[I may have given the PCs too much money during this session. Part of it was balanced by the fact that some of it would be dangerous to spend as it might draw unwanted attention. On the other hand, in the past I’ve been stingy with handing out treasure and I’m trying to avoid doing that again. That said, this isn’t D&D, so there will not be thousands and thousands of coins. The local economy is copper-based so the treasure they have represents a lot of buying power, but where are they going to spend it? Plus, several have dependents they need to take care of.]
Sudden Sea Adventures
Sudden Sea Landing Page - Links to all the write-ups for this campaign
Last session: Session 13
Next session: Session 15
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