Politics, Intrigue and More Than a Whiff of Chaos

Bomilcar's narrative

After a great show trial, Cathar Radu is hauled off to execution for treason, and nothing more is heard of the Veiled Society. They saw themselves as revolutionaries, but are now probably sickened by the fact they were being used by one of the aristocracy.

The upshot for us is that we are all invited to a grand New Year's ball as guests of honour by Duke Kromir of Aflitain. The others have no problems with etiquette and all that, and even I manage to get through the night without offending any city dwellers. The next day, we have lunch with the Duke, and he opens up about a bit of a problem he is having. Apparently, somebody took advantage of the confusion sown by the Radu's manipulations of the Veiled Society to strike at Duke Kromir himself. A second campaign of terror has been waged behind the scenes, with various arson attacks on his holdings resulting in the loss of quite a bit of valuable property, livestock and lives. Eventually, someone threw a knife at him as he was riding through the town to his estates; it hit one of his bodyguards, who died horribly, spewing green bile and screaming all the while. The Duke shows us a wicked looking dagger with a broken tip; the poison was contained in a central reservoir running the length of the blade. Its hilt has a curious curved serpent motif, marking it as a Pan Tang weapon.

All of this has placed the Duke in a bit of a bind; he can't use the usual Lawful techniques to deal with something like this, and he doesn't want to do anything too open given that recent events have already proven just how volatile his people can be when they try. He wants us to find out who ordered his assassination and, hopefully, stop another attempt being mounted: as outsiders, we can do things he can't, especially Marion with her links to the underworld. He asks if we will take on this task, and is willing to pay us quite a handsome retainer up front. We agree, and head off for a confab.

Marion says that she recognised the poison from the description of its effects; apparently, it is of Ilmioran origin. We can follow up on this observation by investigating the likely herbalists and apothecaries in Aflitain. Destiny suggests that we might wish to be somewhat circumspect while doing so, which means that she and I will have to leave the investigation to the others. Apparently, I stick out like a sore thumb, being from the Weeping Wastes, and as a Melnibonean she automatically attracts attention.

It takes a few days, but eventually one of the apothecaries admits to Marion and Sir Blanque that he sold the ingredients to make just such a poison to a rather nondescript woman from Ilmiora a few weeks ago. This prompts Marion to put out word amongst the more unsavoury elements of the populace, feeling for any news about an Ilmioran woman who might be hanging around in the less salubrious areas of the town, especially the docklands. After another few days, one of her informants comes up trumps - a woman from Ilmiora called Katerien is renting a small house tucked at the end of a terrace in one of the alleyways near the docks; she has hired three local thugs as bodyguards.

The others scout the place during the daytime when there are plenty of crowds to mask their movements. They weave across the entrances to the alley at various times of the day in such a way that they can check out any doorways, windows and so on as they breeze past. It takes a full day to split this task between them, but something like this needs careful planning. The house is rectangular, with a door and a window in each of the shorter walls, plus a window in the centre of the longer wall. There are similar windows upstairs; all are shuttered from the inside. The house has two stories and, like its neighbour, has a flat roof. We decide to mount a night raid.

The plan is straightforward: I set a noose trap across one of the doorways to entangle the legs of anyone coming through, and we split our group between the two entrances. Destiny picks both sets of locks, but deliberately makes quite a lot of noise at my door - we are hoping the inhabitants will rush into either a trap or an ambush at the other end of the house. Strangely enough, it works, and one of the bodyguards is discomfited by my efforts; I take custody of him. Jorthan rushes in through the other doorway, and accosts another of the guards as he comes down the stairs from the second storey. Sir Blanque hangs out in the alleyway underneath the main window, just in case. Marion heads up the stairs, skewering the third of the guards as she does so, with Destiny not far behind. They encounter Katerien in the act of unrolling a rope ladder in an attempt to escape, not that it would have done her any good with Sir Blanque hiding in the street below. The Ilmioran backs into a corner with her weapons drawn and tries to bargain her way out. She pays us her take - a very handsome ten Pan Tang Large Gold Tigers - and tells us who hired her. "There is a renegade Pan Tang merchant called Kreshunt. He lives in a small town to the north Aflitain called Sorik. I'm pretty sure he isn't a sorceror. Now if you don't mind, I'll just vanish into the night..." We let her go. This caper is turning out to be rather lucrative.

We make some enquiries in Aflitain about this Kreshunt character. It turns out that he runs a bit of an import/export business, mostly dealing in grain and smoked fish - exactly the right cover for an information broker. We think he is the go-between for the real client, whoever that might be, and decide just to go into his offices and confront him. Jorthan leads the way, and simply tells him what we know; he shows him one of his coins as proof. He also threatens to set Destiny on him, and she glowers menacingly. The threat works; Pan Tangians are known to be especially terrified of Melniboneans, even more so than everyone else. He says that he was contracted to find an assassin by the local noble, Lord Jagger, who owns the estates in and around Sorik. He even shows us direct evidence - a letter sealed with Jagger's black wax imprint. He then makes his excuses and flees; "I think Lord Jagger has gone a bit mad," he says. "He's exactly the sort of person to hold a grudge. I'm off!" We let him go, as we did with Katerien; this is getting rather serious, and these are just bit players. We decide to return to Aflitain with the proof for Duke Kromir.

Kromir is astounded. "The man is my second cousin, twice removed! He has never shown any predilection for politics, never mind something of this magnitude. I think we should be very careful." He arranges for a royal warrant to declare Jagger a traitor, and then summons us again a couple of days later. "I really need your advice; this is getting way out of hand. We could simply assault his castle; mount a commando raid; or send in some Priests of Law to confront him." We suggest a combination; we will take some useful items from his stores and sneak into Jagger's fortified manor house from the rear just at the point the Lawful types turn up to demand entry. Hopefully, we will coincide nicely, and the castle guards will be distracted enough that we can do our bit. He provides us with a half decent plan of the layout from his archives, and off we go. Marion and Destiny each take advantage of the opportunity to acquire some useful items  - a good length of black silk rope with a sturdy applewood grapnel on the end. Sir Blanque approves, "Less noisy than metal'" he says. This is the first time we have ever tried something like this as a group, but we are hopeful that a combination of the distraction plus our own skills will stand us in good stead. In the meantime, worried that something Chaotic may be underfoot, Destiny summons herself a sturdy (if slightly noisy) set of Demon armour.

Jagger's manor house sits on a crag to the north of Sorik. We wait until nightfall and then ride to the foot of the rocks at the rear of the place. We climb carefully, with Marion and Destiny in the lead, and make it to the foot of the rear walls proper. We know that just inside, a set of stables abuts this part of the curtain wall, with sleeping quarters above them for the stablehands. Fortunately, there are no towers as such, apart from at the main gatehouse. There are, however, viewing platforms at the corners of the main walls, and earlier observation has indicated four guards on duty at each of these points. Marion and Destiny Throw their grapnels and sneak over the wall, landing silently on the parapet. They then move down the stairs serving the stable quarters. Sir Blanque and I follow, and there is a heart-stopping moment when he falls back down onto the top of the rock; fortunately, though, no harm is done, and he manages not to make too much noise. When he recovers and climbs onto the curtain wall, we both move directly across the roof of the stables and drop down to ground level next to the entrance to the stables themselves. This puts us directly behind the main manor house itself. I make quite a lot of noise at this point, and one of the guards makes a comment about restless horses. We are still undiscovered.

Just as Jorthan arrives on the wall, we hear some banging on the main gateway at the front of the castle. "Open up in the name of Donblas of Law!" shouts a stentorian, if rather pompous voice. This causes a flurry of activity among the guards, and provides the distraction we need. Destiny and Marion start to move around the side of the main house, keeping to the shadows under the walls. I decide that this sneaking about isn't really getting me anywhere, so I string my bow.

It sounds as though Jagger has appeared at the front of his house; we know from the plans that there is a balcony of sorts there, directly facing the main gatehouse. He laughs maniacally and theatrically, seeming utterly unconcerned by the arrival of a Lawful entourage. He orders his guards to let them in, and we then hear a loud clang as they are sealed into the gatehouse. Jagger orders the internal portcullis to be raised, and then all hell breaks loose. Literally.

Something that sounds like the hounds of hell are unleashed on the Lawfuls, and Sir Blanque sprints off almost inhumanly fast to try and help. At the same time, Jorthan tries to sneak across the top of the stables, but fails miserably. The guards spot him, and start to come down the various sets of stairs at the corners of the fortress. I rely on him to protect my back as I nip out into full view and put an arrow into the leg of the first guy coming down the stairs nearest me. That slows them down quite a bit. In the meantime, all I can hear from the front of the castle is a vast amount of noise, punctuated by a couple of really powerful blasts of flame - Destiny must have loosed her fire elementals, and she wouldn't do that unless there is a very good reason. I nock another arrow, and put it right through the belly of another guard, killing him instantly. Suddenly all goes quiet at the fort, and the guards all surrender, looking confused - they have no memory of what has been going on at all.

Jorthan and I troop around to the front of the building, collecting Marion as we go; it turns out that she hung back to inconvenience one of the squads of four troopers by ambushing them from the shadows near the foot of a flight of stairs. There is a real stench of sulphur from the gateway and balcony, and not just the smell of clean elemental fire. Sir Blanque is standing there, bloody but triumphant, and Destiny looks quietly satisfied. They are being greeted by a Lawful priest and her companion warrior, the guy with that voice. They also have four guards of their own; two more are lying dead, one of them with his throat torn out by the looks of it.

On the blackened balcony, where Jagger was standing, is a writhing portal of Chaos in mid air...

Umpire's notes
The initial part of the investigation went well enough, but the attack on Jagger's stronghold was epic stuff. The players really enjoyed the cloak and dagger sneaking around bits, with all of the attendant difficulty and heart-stopping moments. Everything went, well, mental, when Jagger unleashed his pet demons on the Lawfuls: a werewolf thing and a large blue gorilla with expertise in scimitar and shield. The noises made Sir Blanque charge around the corner; he quite rightly surmised that his Virtuous broadsword would be the best bet we had. Destiny put an arrow into Jagger, who was on the balcony, flanked by two rather vacant-eyed bodyguards; it simply stuck in his pyjamas, which were of course a form of demon armour. He seemed to be enjoying every minute of it. She then ordered her water elemental to attack, but he retaliated by drawing a demon sword and badly hurting it. The Lawfuls were best on all sides by Jagger's troops, and the rush of the demons had already killed two of their men.

In the meantime, Sir Blanque had eviscerated the wolf demon, but was struggling against the weapon skills of its friend. At one point it got through his guard, and I rolled eleven points of damage to his chest; fortunately, his wooden armour saved eight points for him. At this point Destiny ordered her two fire elementals to aim a combined blast against the nutter on the balcony, and even then it took two attempts to get through his supernatural protection and incinerate him; his two closest guards were fried in the process. Jagger's death released the second demon back to its home plane, and the departure of the creatures is what caused the stench Bomilcar noticed.

As he died, a portal yawned in the air where Jagger's form had been screaming laughter at his enemies.


This scenario was very closely based on Colin A. Brett's Golden Grimoire campaign - see sidebar to the left of the main blog page.