Copper Sands and Broken Dice

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Summary

Adventure: Copper Sands and Broken Dice
GM: Jono Bean
Session: Winter 814
Night: Starting Wednesday the 11th of June starting at 6:30pm
Location The Quadrant, 12 Waterloo Quadrant, Auckland CBD
Level: Low -- Medium.
Information: Information from players for Jono.
House Rules: Quickness & Slowness, No 'B' Colleges please

The Party:

• Quincey Honeymead of Finger Bottom, Earthmage Assassin, Halfling - played by Brett
• Leif Valguard, Celestial Thief - played by Tim
• Aleeza Tas’ad, Wicca Herbalist, Elf - played by Paul
• Ragna, Priestess of Hel Healer - played by Kelsie
• Billy Rubin, Mindmage, Dwarf - played by Craig
• Algernon, E&E Thief - played by Ian Wood

Employer & others

An Elven Ranger named Silver Wind, who has been watching the stars of the night sky, wishes to employ an Elf, a Hobbit, a Human with blood in the Northlands, a Gythja of Hel and a Dwarf.

He understands that some creature is at risk of returning from the Gatar Depression and wants to talk to the group of adventurers he has seen in the night sky.

Payment:

He has secured payment in the form of favors to the value of 30 Arcane Points each from the court of the Duke of Carzala with the Mages of Freetoun.

Scribe Notes

Session 1

Prologue

Quincey, Leif, Aleeza and Ragna have been working for a guy for the last few months. Turns out he was running a scam and was picked up by Baron Balrain, a cattleman who holds Gugnir's Hope. The Baron hanged him, and we are now on his wanted list. On the upside the adventurers "inherited" a decent amount of the dead boss' takings.

Briefing

We meet with Silver Wind, who work for the Duke.

The Duke's children having been having nightmare involving guild members so needs us to be redeemed. If we do some jobs for the Duke, they will quell the investigations and quash rumours.

He wants to arrange codenames and a "drop", but we don't bother.

Job No. 1 At Gugnir's Hope, west of Seagate there have been unspecified problems with the ruins under the town. The sheriff, who is definitely the Baron's man, seems to be "not investigating". We should check it out, without raising any alarm, and report back.

The town was built on the ruins of a Dwarven settlement. It can be seen well over six miles away, because of the large stone 
walls. The inside of the walls are about 30 feet high above street level, and the outside of the walls are well over 70 feet 
high. The town has outgrown the walls with buildings spilling out on the southwestern side of town. It is common knowledge 
that there are old tunnels running under the town. Most of the outflows from the tunnels have iron bars on them. The local 
merchants have run Hobbits out of town based on their race.

He gives us four rank 6 Waters of Healing

Job No. 3 Far south on the edge of the Gatar Depression there is movement of sand creatures trying to animate a long dead whale to fly out to sea.

I have a feeling about bloodmagic in that area.

To work

Since there is a price on our heads where we are going we plan out a route avoiding the main roads and towns where we have had trouble - via trails to Daggergrove, Goodblood, to the main road, then to Moncks Corner, tails to Whitecros, Redtree to Gugnir's Hope.

Someone arranges Chicken Mules (Q has one of his own). We get Greaters at the bargain price, sponsored by an amazing creature called Sabrina.

As we have a witch and a dark celestial, and want to avoid eyes, we decide to travel at night. As we step outside the guild there is and old woman there, with a cooking fire and a cage full of bunnies.

She reads the entrails of a bunny for Aleeza for 2sp and gives her the rabbits foot. "Something dark is coming for you".

She recognises Q, was there at his birth or something and they talk about his home and family. She gives him 3 amulets, of woven grass, from her basket. They protect the home (or where you sleep) from bad dreams and harm; from the venom of biting creatures and allows the breathing of air that is only suitable for the dead. She gives one of the former to Leif. They have the side effect of causing itching sometimes.

She tells us about an orc and a human, with a black crow, who were asking after Quincey, at the Hinsted lace on the Venture road.

Quincey should talk to his Aunt, the one that nobody mentions, she has a secret from the time that he was born. She also says something to him about wolves.

We have some stew which "enhances the ability to see strange things". We have some bread that restores fatigue used in the last hour, after Quincey does us all Lessers and Strength of Stones and she lets us have two loaves which are each four pieces. He backfires and we hears a boom in the distance.

She does a reading for Leif. Ragna has been sent to stand over his fallen body. The Girl (we figure out this is Aleeza) is in need of his help this season against those who seek to end her line. Ragna will bring him back from the dead. He chooses to know the time of his death. When he is among the mules, at a near deserted village, at dusk or dawn and can see a line of crows on the roof of a wooden lodge house. When javelins strike through his chest thigh and neck.

Quincey finishes off his casting with a few more backfires.

We see a wall of rain approaching from the direction of Seagate, then two Erehleine running ahead of the rain. This is worrying to me, I don't know much about the weather in this area, so I run back into the guild, followed by the rest except for Algie, Leif and the old woman who is not allowed in.

Turns out the runners were just messengers and have a message to the guild about something stalking an elvish family, that concerns the guild, and the danger has come close.

Them out in the rain are just wet. Seems that Quincey's backfires did stormcalling

So we set off. With Chicken Mules. We travel all night and it is very cold and tiring. Just before dawn we pass Goodblood and the farm of the Ebon family, who work in woods and the the source of Witch Nails, that slow down mages if nailed into their footprints.

In the lightning flashes I see a 30ft high Wicker man, which gets closer between flashes but doesn't move while we can see it. Then skeletons erupt from the ground. The wicker man is not a valid target for Hand of Death and a mule gets it instead. The control is higher than mine so I can't control them. Aleeza decides that being alone in the barn is a good idea. Unfortunately but not unexpectedly, she is not alone. A greater undead (??) casts something nasty on her but she resists and flees back outside, where we are cutting down skellies. It comes to the exit and cast on her against, something that makes her twist and contort, unable to act and taking damage and dislocating her shoulder. She can hear a loud angry voice speaking in her head in an ancient language.

We deal to the wicker man who says "You can't protect the elf forever" and "from the master" and " knows what she has done".

Then we deal to the creature in the barn. We find an invisible dagger and a lightning gem.

Quincey tries a healing on Aleeza but backfires again and doubles her damage. She also looks like she might need a higher rank healer for the shoulder, so we might need to go back to the guild.

Session 2

We rest in the barn as we are too exhausted to walk back to the guild just yet. The area of the barn is clearly being avoided long term by the local and travellers, which is good for us, and I can detect no more undead in the area. Aleeza is feverish and hallucinating and we determine that she is transforming into undead, so we plan to rest only until noon and then set off, in good time to be back at the guild before midnight.

Some of Aleeza's hallucinations include:
Three disapproving horse-headed black crows (figure that these are the chicken mules) on with her on a column of rock. Something is being kept at bay.
Red and green scarab like beetles on the walls
A coyote that walks through walls and sinks into the floor.

Billy dreams of a chime which signals that a spectral hunter has been sent.

Mid morning the watch hears a group of about 15 humanoid footfalls. They carry on past, but Leif recognises the leader as an orc who was a rival card hustler who tried to frame us. Billy says that he saw them yesterday camped near the guild.

Afternoon we trek back to the guild. On the way we spot three gryphons flying overhead towards the guild with riders. About 8pm,arriving back at the guild, there is a market set up outside with caravans, wagons and tents.

We quick to the healers. The head healer works on Aleeza, drawing a huge amount of mana and eventually draws out a number of large black slug-like undead things. I put them in a jar (they are dead). She then proceed to the rest of her wounds while lesser healers deal with the rest of us.

About 4am we are all well and about to find comfy beds, when the guild bakers come to us for help, as the elemental powering the ovens has gotten loose. We get it back into the oven and they pay us two more loaves of mouldy magic bread, and some more waters of healing, plus some fresh bread.

About 6am we are all about to find comfy beds, when a chicken mule comes with a message that the old woman is being roughed up. Turns out that there is a big fight going on outside between a binder with an ogre and a bear bodyguard and a lot of golems, and the witch with some of the caravan guard so we join in (against the binder). We are doing alright and the binder goes into retreat with her ogre, but then a couple of incoming "Falling Stars" come down which take out everyone still standing outside. Leif is killed (despite rabbits feet), and Billy injured but Quincey rescues the old woman.

She appears to have been cursed with one wolf's foot. She gives us one ore rabbits foot and tells us that the binder is working for Quando who wants a treasure map that she has. She seems about to give us the job of finding the treasure "for her", but sees that Quincey's soul is black and changes her mind. Leif ties to pickpocket her but she bites of three of his fingers.

She tells Aleeza that if she returns after her journey to the west, still pure (ie not having killed someone that didn't deserve it) she will give her the map and teach her to make medallion out of fingers.

We get Leif resurrected, and the kitchen staff have a whip-round to replace his greater. We are also given the paws of the binder's bear which function the same as rabbits feet. We get Leif's fingers reqrown (clearly something is wrong with this timeline).

We try to rest until this evening when we will set out again.

Session 3

With the regrowing of fingers, the morning of the 4th rolls around and we are woken by a knock from guild security. The Lord of the Bats has arranged for a cloud to transport us.

We decide to land at night in a storm near Bluegrass. (two sets of scribe notes describing Bluegrass - Ath's diary & Daizy's notes). The guild has friends there and strange magical commodities are available. We will go and visit the witch, Catelin, who is grumpy and has a big ghostly wolf guardian.

Quincey buys some pre-poisoned darts, are we buff before leaving and the buffers consume hot meals that restore 14Ft for 7sp each. Leif's Strength of Stones is a backfire and alternates between +5 and +16 EN until damage is taken.

We meet the young airmage at 3pm who takes us by cloud to near Blue Grass and will come back to pick us up at dusk on the 6th.

The town is a bit run down. There is one distinctive house, a hut surrounded by hedges with a huge tree growing out of it. There are three gates in and a maze. Billy does a limited precog about us entering by the left gate and the result seems good so we choose that. We are in a misty maze and it takes us about 2 1/2 hours to get to the house.

We meet the witch Catelin, who DAs as long lived sentient but looks human. It seems that someone has cast the curse on her hedge as she is finding it very annoying. The likely culprit is a water fae illusionist in the mill pond, the Water Queen. The witch annoyed her by summoning an alligator, which was probably controlled, and waking her up. She then summoned a basalisk to deal with the alligator, and some gargoyles who took the basalisk away. The witch thinks the the hobbit, as an earth mage should be immune to basalisks. The curse can be removed as a minor curse or counterspelled by the caster, so maybe we will negotiate with her.

Catelin gives us some blue grass amulets, amulets of luck, grass voodoo dolls and healing salves. The blue grass amulets absorbs backfires but get corrupted. Billy suggests that we use them for a while, then throw them into the mill pond.

There are some cages hanging from the ceiling behind curtains which contain piglets.

When Quincey comes back inside after DAing the maze, Algernon sees a dark shadow follow him in, so we all go outside while the witch drives it out. We are reminded of rumours of shadows hunting elves.

We leave the hut. The big dog is outside and Quincey chats to it. It claims to be a person. She was Grizelda who lived across the road from the witch and the witch turned her into a dog when her dog died. The witch shoos us away from the dog. It takes us about an hour to get out of the garden.

We get to the outskirts of Gugnir's Hope at around 3am. Reminding the party that we are not to contact the authorities who have been behaving in a dodgy matter regarding the strange goings on, we begin to circumnavigate the town. We find a pond near the wall, with a stream leading away, and a landing in an opening in the wall covered by a grill. Detect undead shows 2 skeletons in the pond and some kind of greater undead in the tunnel (within 150').

Quincey and Leif climb along the wall to the landing. A ghostly hand reaches out and drains Quincey of fatigue. The *ghost*? steps through the grill. Billy takes out the ghost with a mental attack, and as it falls it makes more of a solid thunk than we would expect. A DA gives nature of magic as wraithcloak.

Leif pulls open the grill with a loud screech. We all enter the tunnel except Algie who watches over the Chicken Mules. There is a trap with a swinging club to avoid and Quincey eventually disarms it. I remove the gauntlets, which drains me, and the person is no longer wispy. We tie him up.

Three burly dogs with spiked collars come barrelling down the hallway towards us, followed by three shadowy figures. We deal with the dogs and the shadowy figures run off after being blackfired.

Algie deals with the skeletons when they come after the mules. Quincey finds the operator for the grate.

We set off to explore the tunnels. ESP tells us that there are three entities down there, off to the right, concentrating, and six others alarmed.

A little further in is a disused storeroom behind a secret opening, containing very old stored alcoholic beverages.

There is a large tunnel with a body of water and canals with ropes for pulling boats along. Some arrows come out of the dark and we resolves to go after them in canal boats with shields at the front.

Session 4

We go back to the room with the crates and booze to get wood for shields, but we hear three people in the room talking so we listen. They know we are in the tunnels and are planning to ambush us so we ambush them. We dispatch them quickly, and take their stuff.

• Necklace of stone giant bollocks - protection
• Titan belt of healing - ranged healer
• Small red river stones x3 - vs fear
• Skeleton ball - storage of the fallen
• Blackened rank armour
• Several bottles
• Sash of Dry Waters - +18 PS, can't drink, drools
• Magical shield.

I put on the undead gauntlets. We take some wood and close the cellar door. I see a ghost in the corridor of one of the guys we killed, and another of an old man. Nobody else can see them, and they can drain me but I can't hit them. I try to suck them in to the skeleton ball, and they go in along with the three corpses. We faff around here for too long are come under attack, from the direction of the way out.

A porcelain doll runs up to us and explodes splashes everyone but me with a liquid containing iron which make it difficult to cast. It also flows across the floor. (To Quicey who is lurking above it looks like many small swallows). It is followed by a two more dolls and a human letting of the leash 12 huge, ferocious dogs. Leif gets a barrel of booze and bowls it down the corridor. It bowls one of the dolls, then as it reaches the dogs, Aleeza ignites it. Too much success! We are sprayed with the liquid in the two dolls and dog bits and take massive damage from magical fire.

Eight dogs are still coming and we suddenly realise that a dozen or two skeletons plus some superior undead have come up on us from the other side. We retreat into the cellar room and close and bar the large door. Quincey has taken some nasty damage from the undead, but they are unable to reach us for now. Aleeza has a moment of hallucination wherein her brother is yelling that it is important to come soon to help.

The trapdoor up out of the cellar is bolted shut from the other side but Leif smashes through.

Emerging into the room above, we find a girl of about 8 years old baking bread. She seems unfazed by stranger breaking in from below and ask whether we have come for some bread. We start of pretending that we are with the bad guys, but soon let on that we are not. She sells us some of the extra special golden bread, 6 loaves for 60 gold, it give restoration, purity and healing, more than your highest attribute (or Quincey's).

Her sister Olivia, who is 17 is held by her boss, to force her to work, and she wants to rescue her and run away. If we promise to help her, she will help us get out of town and nobody will know that we came this way. She tells us that the cellar of the building over the murder holes now contains a giant snake. We agree to her deal. She also tells us that one of the guys who went into the cellar earlier was Gwill who works for the town watch as a thug. She says that McGreedy's name should not be used as he has a "Destinian Log" which records speech that include his name.

She leads us to the wall at a good place to climb out. She asks us to rough her up a bit so that she won't get in trouble, but it doesn't happen because Q is an assassin and L is too strong so the job is given to A who is a wuss and neglects to do it. She mentions that there are people in the woods who turn into huge dogs and are on the side of the bad guys, who will hunt us down,

We climb out over the wall and return to the mules, who are looking at an object which turns out to be a magically trapped stone with Curse of the Spiders in it. Leif disarms it and we pocket it.

We travel downstream in the stream to hide our scent and it seems that we have lost any pursuers. After about an hour and a half we come to a mill that appears abandoned or not at different distances. Assuming that this is the lair of the water queen we go around it.

We travel downstream til we get to the main road, then on to Dwarf Hold arriving at about 11am. The leader of the town is Wug. Aleeza lets him believe that she is some other Aleeza who is important and famous so they plan a feast for us tonight.

We find an inn, get rooms and sleep. Aleeza gets no rest as she is troubled by dreams of her brother who is swinging through the trees. He tells her to stay off the ground as an elemental is pursuing the family.

Leif is awakened about 2pm by a young human man called Ratface tapping on his window. He is offering all kinds of shady services, including cheap silvering at 30% cost, dust of obscurement (100-500sp), undead blade balm (20sp), something to stop people in their tracks, a doll to remove track and scents (400sp), paralysis poison. He gives Leif a freeby healing poultice. He tells Leif that a creature is following us, because the elf is marked with a rune of pursuit. He says that he can help with that and that it will involve burning 3 dolls and 2 pinches of dust. Then he ask for 10sp protection money which Leif gives him. They arrange to meet at the feast.

We wake up at 4pm and are brought robes and slippers and offered baths. Aleeza has a bath (50sp) which takes her to a tropical island in the isles of adventure, where she gets a full rest in 1/2 an hour. It turns out that this is not an hallucination. Quincey gets dumped in a water barrel outside near the forge. I get a beer bath.

Then the dwarfs ask us to help with a problem. One of them (Ernest) has gone into the bath world and hasn't come back and they can't catch him. They will give us 2000sp towards dwarven work on the forge and help Aleeza with her hunting mark. Either gargoyles or pirates have probably caused him to get stuck.

They give us four Hero sandwiches each which will feed us for four weeks (bath time, not real time, we should be back in time for dinner). They also give us pigments for the face and amber to snort.

We should watch out for gargoyle and fishmen who take slaves, We should mark the right bay to return to. There are friendly nixies in the bay. Ernest is probably afraid.

The dwarves get a divination done on Aleeza. She has a soul hunter. Her family was marked in the recent war by the drow and/or ancient elvish magic. They can't remove it but can make up a special hiding charm for her.

We all get a massage which gives +2 MD and AG for 48 hours.

Buffs & Mil Sci

Long Term (assumed always on)

Magic (caster)	Rk	Effects	Dur	Qu	Le	Al	Ra	Bi	Al
Lesser (Quincey)	Rk	-1 off all percentile dice rolls	2 weeks	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Strength of Stone (Quincey)	8	+8 on stat	8 hrs	EN	EN	EN	EN	EN	EN
Witchsight (Lief)	6	See invisible, see in the dark	7 hours	N	N	N	Y	N	Y
Spell (Caster)	Rk	Effect	Duration

Short Term

Magic (caster)	Rk	Effects	Dur	Qu	Le	Al	Ra	Bi	Al
Spell (Caster)	Rk	Effect	Duration

DAs

Quincey:

• on Leif - last magic to take effect

Leif:

• on Quincey - last magic to impact

Loot

Outgoing

550sp to fix Aleeza's undeadness

4500sp Leif resurrection

4800sp regrow Leif's fingers

600sp for Q's lesser

14sp 2 hot meals

60 gold for magical golden bread

inn at Dwarf Hold - 12 sp per person per night + 6 sp per dinner

10sp protection money to Ratface in Dwarf Hold

Quentin personal

Poisoned darts

sleep x 15

paralysis x 15

all up 300sp including 10% discount for merchant

out of combat they work, in combat 4xEN save

Incoming

Guild

WoH rk 6: x4, +4+20 (-2)

WoH rk 2: x4,

bear paws: (like rabbit feet) x2

Witch outside the guild gate

Loaves of bread: 4 doses per, cure all fatigue lost in last hour, x4 (-7 doses)

Four amulets

Rabbit's feet: x2

Undead near Ebon Farm

an invisible dagger

a lightning gem

Witch (Catelin) at Bluegrass

Amulet of Bluegrass: x8, absorbs backfires, but gets corrupted

Amulet of luck: x8

Healing salves: x12, 8pt healing applied to a wound

Grass voodoo dolls: x3, as per silver set S9, target for enchantments, lesser, medium (-2) and greater

False ghost

Gauntlets

what else?

Dogs x3

??

Gwill, under Gugnir's hope

Necklace of Stone Giant bollocks

Titan belt of healing

Small red river stones x3

Skeleton ball

Blackened rank armour

Several bottles

Sash of Dry Waters

Magical shield

Little girl baker

Loaves of gold bread x6

Outside gugnir's hope

Magical trap - curse of spiders

Ratface

healing poultice

Dwarfs for bath trip

hero sandwiches x 4 each (1 week food) but everybodies except Leif's got soggy.

amber to snort each

face pigments each

Interim Carrying

Item	No.	Qu	Le	Al	Ra	Bi	Alg
Waters of Healing rk 6	28	5	5	5	5	4	4
Waters of Healing rk 2	4					2	2
Healing salves	12	2	2	2	2	2	2
Amulet of Bluegrass	8	2	1	1	2	1	1
Amulet of Luck	8	1	1	2	2	1	1
Bread	4	1	1	1			1
Rabbit feet	2		1	1
Bear paws	2	1					1
Golden bread	6	1	1	1	1	1	1
Healing poultice	6		Y
Invisible dagger							Y
Lightning Gem			Y
Grass voodoo dolls		Y		Y		Y
Guantlets of Undead					Y
Necklace of Stone Giant Bollocks		Y
Titan belt of healing					Y
Small red river stones x3		Y	Y		Y
Skeleton ball					Y
Blackened rank armour						Y
Several bottles
Sash of Dry Waters			Y
Magical shield						Y
Magical Trap of spiders			Y

Tasks

1. The Duke: Job No. 1 At Gugnir's Hope, west of Seagate there have been unspecified problems with the ruins under the town. The sheriff, who is definitely the Baron's man, seems to be "not investigating". We should check it out, without raising any alarm, and report back.
3. Silver Wind: some creature is at risk of returning from the Gatar Depression and wants to talk to the group of adventurers he has seen in the night sky. Far south on the edge of the Gatar Depression there is movement of sand creatures trying to animate a long dead whale to fly out to sea.
4. Quincey should talk to his Aunt, the one that nobody mentions, she has a secret from the time that he was born.
5. Putting the elemental back into the oven
6. Save the old woman outside the guild from the binder working for Quando
7. Catelin: Deal with the water creature in the millpond at Bluegrass
8. Save the dog who is not a dog from the witch at Bluegrass

People

An Elven Ranger named Silver Wind - our employer

A witch outside the guild

Catelin the Witch at Bluegrass

Places

Ebon Farm (near Goodblood), work in woods and the source of Witch Nails, that slow down mages if nailed into their footprints.

Bluegrass

Gugnir's Hope