Bounty Hunters - Session 14

Downtime

• The group settles into getting a halfway house organized (mechanically, three weeks of downtime).
• They name it after St. Grodlem of Wyrr, known for bread, companionship and service to the downtrodden
  • Whip
    • Weeks 1 and 2: Works on getting to know the newcomers and helping out with physical labor. He also spends a bunch of time thinking hashing out organizational structure with any of the newcomers who seems naturally inclined to take initiative.
    • Week 3: Researches Oakhurst.
      • In the forests near Oakhurst once contained a citadel of a powerful ruler in the early Demi-Pantheon era. During the Cleansing Wars of that era, the citadel was swallowed by the earth.
  • Elian
    • Weeks 1 and 2: Wanders the local area taking in its natural attributes, then uses that knowledge to educate the halfway house members on whatever of that they might find useful.
    • Week 3: Sets up gardens and, in the process, makes every plant in a half-mile radius magically bountiful for the year.
  • Bern
    • Week 1: Focuses on finding people with expertise who are willing to train vagrants and hobos in said expertise.
      • She gets a complication from this: Hazdrul Foyle, right-hand of the Lord Mayor of Crestence, a capable and paranoid informationmonger who fears that Bern, as a displaced noble, may have aims at power in Crestence.
      • Bern's response is very tongue-in-cheek. This only serves to put Foyle more on his guard.
    • Week 2: Interviews members to catalog strengths and weaknesses.
    • Week 3: Learns Gnomish from Madrin (progress is 3/10 weeks, with a bump from non-zero int modifier).
  • Madrin
    • Week 1: focuses on warding the place so it can't be randomly teleported into by Neo-Alexandrians.
    • Week 2: Research on the Blood cult returns three pieces of lore, sources of their funds, and title Mosite
      • The head of this new religion claims to be the avatar of Alexandria Omnity, returned with a New Stand to remake and purify the church. Like Alexandria, she appeared in Nia-Agliare with her followers from the
      • When she announced herself in Nia-Agliare, the leader of the local theives guild toppled the government and presented it to Alexandria Avatar as a gift of feality.
      • She had declared herself Sorcerer-Queen of Nia-Agliare. That thieves guild leader then turned on her group, long knived them into oblivion, and seized their wealth.
      • Alexandria Avatar this commands the wealth both of Nia-Aglaire and it's now evaporated theives guild
      • Mosite is one of the administrative organizations of the Neo-Alexandrian religious state. Like Alexandria of 1500 years ago, Alexandria Avatar is supported by a small circle of key advisors who support her
      • In OG alexandrian lore, the original Paladins were bodyguards of the child oracles that the old gods used to speak to their followers from across the veil.
      • When the Dark Fiend's influence began to escape its prison, one of the first things to happen was Arek - a young child from Tragidore, like Alexandria and most of the Young Stand, was taken by a fragment of that
      • As Arek began to turn other oracles to embrace the darker elements of the god's porfolio. The paladin bodyguards, since they were sworn to the CHILDREN not the GODS, also embraced their darker elements and became
      • The Negaverse version of the stand.
      • Anyway, also Alexandria's very best friend in the whole world was a Dwarf, and so too it seems to be with this new version.
      • Mose is the name of the Dwarven Paladin that leads both her personal guard as well as the military apparatrus of the city-state.
      • Although he returned with her from the West, he is actually a native Mainlander from Gildenhome.
      • How he ended up in the west to meet New Alexandria in the first place is a big ol' questionmark
      • But for this reason, he is known as Mose the Traveled
    • Week 3: Researches the local ruins and gets two tidbits (she also teaches Bern Gnomish)
      • The city was known as Thredrin. In the 1100s a gold mine was found in the nearby mountains and the city prospered for several centuries before the mines where exhausted and the city went into a decline. It suffered even more greatly under the Odessan occupation in the 1350s-1400s. It was finally done in by the Schism Wars of the 1405-1420s [dm: I think?]
      • The city was even the subject of its own heresy: Redzan the Clean was a heretic and rabble-rouser in the 11th Century. His heresy itself was short lived, lasting less than 18 months, but its spread through Alexia was rapid enough that it prompted swift and merciless reprisal from the church. His heresy focused on physical and spiritual cleanliness, along with Second Testimonial of Kivan, a heretical text written by Redzan (supposedly from information given to him by Kivan Half-Elven himself) which sought to "correct" many "inaccuracies" contained within the Canon of Orthodoxy.
  • Joana
    • Weeks 1 and 2: She leaves the bulk of the work to the rest and instead shops around for magical items.
      • A cloak of the manta ray and a lantern of revealing are acquired by the party as a result of her efforts.
    • Week 3: She goes gambling!
      • ...and loses 150gp.
• At the end of the three weeks, the party decides on a sidelong approach toward Nia-Agliare, investigating the ruins of Thredrin to the North/

Thredrin

• A few days' travel passes mostly without incident
  • On one cloudy day, the party does witness a large, flying creature headed West. It is obscured by clouds, and not identifiable. They do not see it again.
• They get to the outskirts of the city. At the entrance, there are rows of humanoids on stakes, forty-eight in all, Kobolds, Orcs and Humans in varying stages of decay.
• Elian chats up some squirrels. They avoid the place like the plague, but say that the things that inhabit it like the flesh of "your type" (read: humanoids) more than the animals.
  • Also, they can fly.
• Madrin has many ideas what it could be, but has a sneaking suspicion already.
  • That done, they approach. There is a large building in the center--they take alleyways towards it.
• Some ways in, a beautiful song begins, from a hidden creature in a building.
  • Madrin's suspicion is confirmed: Harpies!
  • Bern and Whip quickly fall under sway. The rest fight it off.
  • Madrin blesses the party, save Whip, who is too far away. Thinking fast, Elian cases spike growth around Whip.
  • More harpies join the chorus, six in all. Joana succumbs--Elian and Madrin maintain their self-control.
  • Whip rapid-fire saves as he keeps almost stepping into the spiked growth, snapping out of it, then succumbing all over again. In this way, he finally resists all six harpies.
  • Bern wanders forward, saving against some, but not all.
  • The harpies start approaching from their hiding places. They throw javelins at Whip.
  • Elian moves to grapple Bern, but she gracefully dodges out of the way.
  • Madrin summons a weapon to fight a harpy, then wallops Joana on the side of the head and manages to pull her out of her stupor. Joana resists the rest.
  • Whip fires a of arrows, taking out a harpy and wounding another.
  • Bern finally snaps out of her stupor. Elian, no longer needing to hold her back, moves into a building and starts ripping into harpies, who do their best to rip back.
  • Joana casts a spell, which triggers a wild surge. All weapons turn into food!
    • Luckily, all the red iron daggers in the party resist the effects, and Madrin's staff focus remains a focus even as a crusty baguette. The rogue and fighter adjust their strategy accordingly.
  • The rest is mostly straightforward trading blows--with their advantage squandered, the harpies fall rapidly. None escape.

Awards

• 1000 xp to all for Setting Up a Safe House
• 250 xp for receiving the Harpytown Welcoming Committee