New month, new brewery. They are trying to get some traction for the Sunday game night, so posted up for a table.
- Will: half orc Ras-godai (pointy helmet with plume)
- Roderick: Human witch (shaved head, scorpion tattoo on scalp)
- Tim: halfling fighter (short, curly hair)
- Seana: Human fighter (bald)
The party disembarked from their anonymous freighter, looking for work. The Ras-godai caught the eye of a stevedore, who flashed a sign. A sibling organization, a thieves guild... The Ras-godai (with stocky halfling backup) stepped into an alley to get a lead. The stevedore gave them a wooden token and told them to ask for Solange at the Hidden Hand for work...
(Both my readers know the trope - party talks to hunchbacked serving girl, go into back room, serving girl drops disguise, revealing head of local guild of independent acquisitions...)
But not after the 18CHA witch had made sure everyone had drinks.
Anyway, they were offered two jobs - Get an idol from the Stonewill estate or see what's going on in the basement of the wine garden. Brief discussion, and idol recovery was elected.
They decided not to get their feet dirty in the sewers, and reconnoitered the surface routes of entry. The front was too well-trafficked for entry, so perhaps a side route. While the witch and halfling staged a lover's spat to distract the street traffic, the Ras-godai scouted the alleyway, finding the entry to the back courtyard. Good enough, wait until dark.
At the appointed hour, the party convened at the alleyway. The witch kept watch while the party attempted a B&E. As they tested doors and finally lofted a rope and grapple over the back wall, the witch intercepted a couple of hapless city guards, distracting them from the party's efforts.
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| something like this |
Once inside, they attempted to unlock the back gate. The Ras-godai claimed to be able to pick locks (using a bent clothes hanger), but to no avail. OK, we'll just throw a rope back over.
A second exceptionally poor lockpicking attempt (Nat1) left the clothes hanger jammed in the back door lock. Rolling eyes, the halfling tossed a grapple to the second floor balcony and the remainder of the cast followed. Assessing the door, the halfling attempted to bend some window bars to squeeze through. The attempt was partially successful, leading the halfling to strip armor, oil up, and attempt to squeeze through the gap.
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| but not until after posing down |
Ok, inside, find the door latch, and get attacked by the guard-manikin at the stair landing. While unarmored. Ok, stab it back, desperately pry open the door, allowing everyone else in. A couple of injuries, before the two fighters took it apart.
At this point, the party discovered the likely reason why no servants or other help were seen at the Stonewill's - scary magi-mechanical doll help.
The witch kept the manikin's ceramic face mask.
Down the hall, and looking for the idol.
They found the reading room and started tossing it. Allowing them to be surprised by a pair of guard manikins that jumped them from an armoire - these with slowing poisons. Fortunately, on the the witch took damage, and shook off the deleterious effects. More desperate fighting in the dark, and the two manikins were felled.
The witch kept one of the poison-injecting daggers.
The rest of the party grabbed the silver and crystal drinks decanter and erotic poetry collections.
(At this point, the GM moved the idol to the next room to keep things moving - quantum idol.)
Ok, into the master bedroom - on guard for suspicious armoires. Random encounter roll came up with a "screamy" manikin. Which went off until one of the fighters beheaded it. But it called four more manikins to attack (as well as alerting city guards). The Ras-godai made a disoriented attack after a smoke step.
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| poof! |
The halfling made invisible for more stabbing. The witch, with 6hp, bravely retreated into a cloud of fog. Another close battle at a doorway, with sword and razor chain beating down the manikins before much more damage was done.
More stuff tossed until Sybil the doll was found in the cedar chest (After yet another abortive lockpicking attempt resulted in another bent cloths hanger and need to pry the lid). She introduced herself and asked after the party's business, since they clearly weren't the Stonewills. The witch was quite fascinated by this artifact. First from curiosity, then literally, as it charmed her - "Let's go travel the world." "OK!"
The party noticed that things suddenly got dark while they were clearing the petty cash box, since the witch suddenly walked off with the torch. Dammit.
The Ras-godai chased her down, and gave her a head-clearing dope slap. Sybil was relegated to a pillow case.
Ok, do we want to return Sybil to the thieves guild? Well, the witch still wanted to learn what it knew, and to travel the world with it... Fine. We'll say it was an abomination and we burned it.
But first, city guards were heard at the doors and gates of the estate. Gotta beat feet.
Everyone split and ran. The fighters scrambled to the roof, leaping to adjacent roofs and scrambling off into the dark. The Ras-godai smoke-stepped his way past guards. The witch? She just walked out the front door.
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| Hi boys, nothing to see here... |
18CHA and charms of various kinds...
Back to the Hidden Hand, where the party made up a convincing story, and Solange accepted that the idol was lost. She did take the intelligence regarding the manikins. Perhaps that was still of value to her patrons. The party was offered rooms at a safe house until things blew over...
DM Notes:
Been off the game for a bit - campaign done, travel, Monday night games on hiatus, one-shots slow to get re-started. So here we are. Fortunately, the party was into a heist scene, so I had a familiar scenario set up. Although I caught myself sketching out the wrong floor during room description. Doh...
This is the second party who has essentially bee-lined to the study where Sybil is hidden. Hence my quantum moving her. Perhaps adding a red herring/rumor to add some distraction or delay. Also - I recognize that I can buff up the "house staff" a bit to better match the number in party and flex the challenge a bit. As well as make a few more other adjustments learned from play. It's proven a fun scenario, between the creepy dolls, and well, the other creepy doll.
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| Let's travel the world! |
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