| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Charles Phipps |
Posted - 04 May 2008 : 00:37:50
Adventure One
This is an adventure performed with the help of Ed Greenwood's description of the Illances clan on this page.
http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=10427&whichpage=24
Warning: This is a remarkably dark adventure dealing with mature subject matter.
The PCs for the adventure are as follows...
Lucien: A Tiefling orphan from Sembia that is a Cleric/Berserker attempting to comes to term with the Fiendish blood in his veins through devotion to Torm. Quite bluntly, he's not doing a very good job since he's Chaotic Good (usual alignment restrictions waved by DM's fiat and Torm wanting to lead him along a righteous path).
Fuji: A Cormyr Baron of the Stonelands that mostly spends his time attempting to duck the responsibilities of said position. Also known to be Alusair's consort and spends a great deal of his time not attempting to duck that position. He's a Swordsage from Kara-Tur.
Lucien is his adopted son but I doubt he's in line for inheritance given his fiendish blood (or worse, his Sembian).
Ashley Porterdotter: A Psionicist/Rogue from Suzail who runs what amounts to a Forgotten Realms version of a Detective Agency (a quite novel idea). Basically, she's an associate of Fujis but not one of the legendary heroes' regular companions.
Our adventure starts in Sembia in the year of 1374, Dale Reckoning. The Steel Regent has weathered the return of Shade and the resulting destruction of Tilverton but the country is still pretty badly beaten up and hostilities with their southern neighbor are decidedly tense. Nevertheless, Baron Fuji is attempting to do some hard handed negotiations on behalf of the Cormyrean people while they continue to import large amounts of food and materials to repair the damage from the Demon Dragon and the Shades.
In Selgaunt, Lucien is mostly spending his time walking his old haunts and attempting to do a general good turn towards his old associates. This more or less amounts to paying off friend's debts (which I had fun by playing them as immediately suspicious as you never GIVE away anything in Sembia) and dropping the usual word of Torm. During this time I drop numerous hints that there's been a fairly steady stream of disappearances recently of children. I try and elaborate that this is nothing new in Sembia but Lucien is feeling the Tormish spirit and latches onto the adventure hook.
Apparently, someone has been buying up babes from povery stricken mothers and those who can't pay exortion often give them up or simply have them taken by bully gangs. Lucien shares his theories with Ashley who points out that it could be evidence of a cult of Shar or Cyric in the area or simply slavers. Lucien points out that slavers rarely want babies and prefer stronger backs or at least adolescent children.
The main hook occurs when Lucien attempts to contact one of his old mistresses. In typical Greenwood purist FR, I point out that sex is the major past-time of the people and Lucien maintains a set of girlfriends in pretty much all of the regular cities he travels. In this case, it is a young baker that he's trying to set on the Path of Torm but is having a little too much success with (having her consider taking up the cloth). That's when he finds out her bakery and all of the young women of it have apparently died horribly in a fire not just a week ago. Lucien drops some rather salicious hints that he was fond of several women there rather than just the one.
Ashley: Tragedies happen all the time in this world, Lucien.
Lucien: I'm a great believer that Torm guides my destiny. Also, if there's one thing a Tiefling knows, it's fire. If there's nothing left of these people but ash, then this fire was not natural.
A failed Speak with Dead spell later, Lucien is fairly convinced the young women have been taken instead. He finds that there were witnesses but none of them are talking because of the simple fact that the Red Claws are involved (effectively a FARRRRR down the totem pole street gang that has almost nonexistent ties to the Cult of the Dragon but likes to tout it like they're chief minions).
Fuji: This is a diplomatic mission. We shouldn't randomly go around slaughtering citizens of Selgaunt.
Lucien: Have you lost your spine?
Fuji: Excuse me, I'm Alusair's consort. I didn't get to this position by obeying the rules. I'm saying we need to make sure we don't get caught.
Fuji thus goes to the elaborate lengths of asking a War Wizard associate of his to put on a Change Self spell and proceed to indulge himself with as many expensive Sembian courtesans on his dime as possible while treating himself to other such luxuries on Fuji's dime. He also asks him to bring friends that he can similarly disguise.
Needless to say, he gets some volunteers. Thus, our heroes put on their own disguises and go investigate.
Our players proceed then to break into the Thieves Guild Hall of the Red Claws. Being fairly mid-level types and one High Level, it's meant to be something of a slaughter as the heroes listen in and hear pretty much a confession they've turned over something like a hundred children in the past five years over to their bosses. Justice is served in a fairly brutal fashion with the entire gang murdered to the last man except for their leaders who live long enough for interrogation.
Fuji: Isn't this against Torm's way?
Lucien: Torm's law trumps Selgaunts.
They also rescue a kidnapped infant mentioned earlier and return her to her mother as they have found out that the Red Claws were hired by an unmarked but wealthy gentlemen to hand over their 'acquisitions.' The PCs decide to go to the next meet, coincidentally that night, and proceed to burn down the Red Claw's Guild Hall behind them to cover up the murders (which strikes them as being rather poetically just).
Unfortunately, our heroes have already tipped them off since news travels fast in Sembia. Thus, our heroes arrive at the meeting point and are immediately attacked by a set of unexpectedly powerful summoned Demons from Loviatar's realm. Our heroes are subdued after giving a fairly game performance and then dragged back to our villain's mansion.
Naobrae and Zarele Illance are the pair currently inhabiting their Sembian property and thankfully are the ones in charge because the two aged spinsters are much less likely to have them killed and disposed of than Faerndol. I took a page from the movie version of Mrs. Lovitz in Sweeny Todd that both of them are attractive women but also so utterly crazy and bizarre looking that its all their family can do really to keep them from embarrassing the family with their depravities.
Lucien: Huh, usually I'm happier being chained up by a woman.
Fuji: I'm old fashioned. I don't mix my pleasure with my pain.
Lucien: I thought you were consorts with Alusair and Caladnei.
Fuji: They kill monsters and then want to have sex. Entirely different.
Basically, the two Illances proceeded to take over a Sembian mansion for their own property, have its bottom hollowed out and pretty much smuggle in torture equipment from Cormyr and as far north as Zhentil Keep. They then hired builders to construct a temple to Loviatar for them and promptly had them all killed in a construction accident (the Carpenter's Guild being generously rewarded to overlook the incident). Furthermore, they've hired a "staff" from Zhentil Keep that aren't especially devoted to Loviatar but are trained specialists in torture and willing to ignore all of the sisters bizarre sexual games.
The Temple is small but so blessed in its depravities and sacrifices that Loviatar has sent a Incubus Lord (home brewed monster) to personally oversee the activities (while starting to use the sister's wealth and position to bring bored Selgaunt nobles into the tamer elements of the religion).
I run the PCs through a somewhat harrowing experience that deliberately drew from such classic sources as The Pit and the Pendulum, 1984, and The Cask of Amontillado as Fuji was placed on a swinging pendulum while Lucien was buried alive. Ashley, being a psionicist and afraid of rats was placed in a kind of electrical device that was a depraved Gondsman's make that shocked her every time she tried to use her abilities while they covered her arm for rats to nibble on. The sisters basically just introduced themselves and moved to their private viewing booth to watch the festivities as they left it to the professionals.
The player characters really got into the issue as they dealt with their ensuring fears and it was a series of bad dice rolls later that made our characters look like they were about to crack. However, Fuji came to the rescue then as he managed to break a finger and move out of his bonds in typical movie fashion before strangling his own torturer with a chain. Ultimately, getting Ashley free and allowing her to blast Lucien from his prison. The Zhents, being more used to torturing than fighting are swiftly dispatched.
Lucien: If they've done anything like this to Lucy [The baker girl], so help me that I will make sure that these women pay dearly.
Fuji: Justice will find them.
Lucien: Justice doesn't exist for noblemen or the wealthy in Selgaunt. But it exists in Torm's eyes.
The player characters soon then find themselves passing by the remains of the nightmarish prolictivities of the Illances including a starvation pit where some of the Baker's girls still live and other hideous lurid descriptions. Unfortunately, tragedy made the story all the more poignant that Lucy was herself already dead. This drives Lucien to murderous rage as he confronts Zarele Illance and while she throws numerous spells at him (she being an Enchanter here), the Beserker tears into her.
Ashley: Will killing a nobleman get Lucien exiled?
Fuji: To be frank, Ashley, I don't think he cares and neither do I.
Naobrae, meanwhile has fled upstairs to the safety of a costumed ball that's being conducted. The Incubus Lord, Gythorax, being more than a little annoyed that so many of his summoned demons have been slain and that it is unlikely this temple can continue unless the heroes are disposed of. Playing the odds, he decides to cut his losses and be grateful that he's been summoned to the physical world in the first place, teleporting away Loviatar's relics from her temple and leaving Naobrae to her fate.
There is a fun ending where Lucien, with Ashley's help, disguises himself as a Selgaunt noble and travels across the ballroom floor to meet with Naobrae in costume and dance with her. He then proceeds to playfully flirt and use give her about six doses (slipped in by Ashley) of her own poison. Naobrae faints then and spends the rest of the night in utter agonizing torment before perishing before the moon.
Lucien: That wasn't very Tormish of me, I confess.
Fuji: No, it wasn't.
Lucien: What now?
Fuji: We go back to Cormyr and we follow this paper trail to its end.
Lucien: What about the Illances?
Fuji: But they know we know what they did and its now the fate of my career vs. their lives. I'll gladly sacrifice one for the other.
Lucien: Will there be a cover up?
Fuji: I can already here the Selgaunt people paying the survivors to shut up.
Lucien: And if they don't?
Fuji: They die.
Lucien: Gods, I hate Sembia.
Ashley: That's why we have to take apart this corruption. One stone at a time.
And thus did the first adventure end with the Illances now mortal enemies with the PCs for fear of the fact that they knew the scandalous truth about their activities (actually, the irony being the majority think that the sisters were killed for treason against the Crown and that they were acting as assassins for the Crown. The whole Loviatar business only being shared with the War Wizards and the family dismissing it as Obarskyr propaganda within the few circles it does travel). |
| 4 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Charles Phipps |
Posted - 04 May 2008 : 10:39:40
Adventure Two
Suffice to say, the situation in Cormyr is not particularly helpful. Some background information will be helpful....
Alusair loves Fuji, in a "I'm glad you're here, do not **** me off" sort of way. In this game, he pretty much provides a nice stability for her that is based on mutual friendship and knowledge he can hold his own against all threats. There's also political concerns to be honest. Alusair never would have married if not for the fact that there's a sucession issue. For the good of the nation, somewhere out there away from Cormyr [My players themselves don't know but since they don't read this site---I'll answer the kid is cleaning Elminster's Tower as a "future Lhao"] is a legitimate child of Fuji and Alusair who is a replacement should anything unfortunate happen to Azoun. This doesn't impact her other sexual relationships (or Fujis for that matter). They're close friends but Alusair has also made it clear that while their friendship and oath status will never be broken, he's out the door if he ever threatens her standing in Cormyr.
In terms of popularity, Fuji is sort of a bit of local color in Cormyr. He's a foreigner but has done a ridiculous number of popular adventures in Cormyr and helpfully lives in the Stonelands "Barony" in the Castle of the Blind Sun (from Dungeon Magazine 49#). He involves himself in approximately 0 intrigue in the Realm and spends more of his time running away from his effectively nonexistent domiciles (it's the Castle and some villages) to go adventuring. The noble Houses of Cormyr consider Fuji basically just an eccentric jumped up commoner that no one pays really much in the way of attention but no one particularly wants to get into a fist fight.
FYI---- Fuji is actually a mythological hero with all the appropriate favored godly servant status, involvement in the Time of Troubles modules (he doesn't age like a normal man and many believe he's his own son or an impersonator), and rescuing Waukeen (For Duty or Deity) you could expect. However, sort of like Belgarath in Tolnedra in the Belgariad, no one really BELIEVES all this stuff because it all happened in other lands.
Lucien also has a relationship with Alusair in that she personally can't stand him. A large portion of the fact is that he's simply a Sembian and deeply religious while simultaneously being Fuji's only known heir (Alusair won't admit it but personally hopes to bring her child in someday to rule Fuji's barony since she does someday want to see him) is also the only real scandal Fuji has. His Fiend born status is almost negible as a problem to the fact he's Sembian. Also, though Alusair would never admit it, his utter disgust with the entire Cormyrean system of government privately mirrors a lot of her own.
Thus, Alusair wants to blame the entire Illance debacle on him despite Fuji totally being involved every step of the way.
Ashley has no previous relationship with Alusair.
Fuji: Frankly, Your Highness, I'm a little appalled at your attitude.
Alusair: Be appalled all you like, there's two dead Cormyr noblewomen that you are easilly enough linked to.
Lucien: And there's a hundred dead children linked to them.
Alusair: *growls*
Lucien: *looks away with barely concealed anger*
Ashley: Surely, the truth shall vindicate our actions in the land, Milady.
Alusair: The TRUTH can never come out!
Lucien: *rolls eyes* *grumbles something*
Alusair: Nine Hells, I would have torn them to pieces with my own sword if I'd come across what you had and then I'd have had them raised from the Abyss to do it again! That doesn't mean that we can just causally announce that two nobles of Cormyr were engaged in Zhentil Keep perversities!
Fuji: Actually, Zhentil Keep's sexual habits are quite tame, Your Majesty. The Zhentariam leadership of course, exempted.
Alusair: This is no joking matter. It would be a scandal that would cost us dearly and result in embargoes and diplomatic falls that would destroy us at a time when we need every last copper coin and piece of grain.
Lucien: They had help! The people who did this have got to die! Torm and every other goodly god, says!
Alusair: I agree.
Lucien: You do?
Alusair: The Illance family is powerful but I will not have this sort of filth and perversion conducted in my Father's....*pause meaningfully* My nephew's kingdom. It must be handled delicatly though and the War Wizards are to give you aid but you must be the ones to resolve this.
Lucien: Why us?
Fuji: *pre-empting my 'Because you're the player characters!'* Because we killed them. If we produce a genuine traitor and such evil monstrouscities as in Sembia then we may blackmail the innocent Illances....
Alusair: *snort*
Fuji: Such as they exist, into remaining silent. If we fail then the family will insist that we were involved in a murder plot. Our lands will be confiscated, our titles stripped, my marriage annuled, and our heads chopped off.
Alusair: Exile probably. Like the Cormaerils. You'll just cease to exist.
The player characters go through a half-dozen described nobles of the Illances and oddly pick out Faerndo Illance at the very start for the investigation. Rather correctly, they go for the guy who has the least public dirt on them.
Caladnei: Vangerdahast warned me about the Illances. They're a corrupt, greedy, and merciless family of Cormyrean nobles but that's really not something terrible exceptional in the ranks. What you're asking about requires a sickness of mind that is lacking from the majority of them.
Fuji: Is there any way to confirm a connection?
Lucien: I don't know, who owned the house?
Fuji: Faerndo Illance.
Lucien: Does he own other properties in foreign spots? Particularly places with large poverty ridden peoples and out of the way of Cormyr reach.
Caladnei: So do a lot of nobles.
Lucien: And nobles ALL use them for dirty dealings. This guys just especially guilty of such.
Ashley: How smart is this guy?
Caladnei: Very smart.
Ashley: How arrogant.
Caladnei: Some but prudent enough never to get caught.
Ashley: Let's look for properties owned directly by him that are places he could go to directly,
whether by horse or spell....I'm inclined to say horse, for his recreation.
Lucien: I feel sick just asking about this.
[
b]Fuji: Remember, our goal is to prove that this man is guilty of aiding the other sisters not that
he's a pervert himself.
Lucien: *vaguely quoting Sherlock Holmes* You can tell about the attitudes of close family by checking them against their children. If it's here, its possible its elsewhere.
Thanks to their shocking Detective work, which actually cut a substantial portion of the adventure out (involving a nobleman finding his son wasn't his son via a divine spell when the boy was lost down a well), they find themselves at one of Faerndo Illance's backland Keeps near Starmantle.
The Keep is run down and surrounded by a group of villagers that I pretty much invoked Deliverance for. The actual Castle staff is a bunch of Half-Orcs and deformed bastard offspring of the Illances that are clearly insane and pretty much where the family sends its sickest members (I followed Lucien's suggestion that at some point mental illness was introduced into the Illances and exists here).
It's also guarded by mercenaries that are former members of the Hillsfar militia and pretty much a truly sick bunch of ****ers well used to rape and murder. There's also something like 500 of them, a small army that Faerndo has his pet wizard in the castle, Kandro (A Red Wizard expatriate) open Portals from to basically slaughter random villages and bring back loot to help pay Faerndo's family's massive debts.
In other words, its not the kind of place that you really want to attempt to assault directly with a small band of plucky adventurers.
Caladnei: Well, we can certainly indict Faerndo for keeping his own personal militia far in excess of the allowed Household Guards.
Fuji: Cally, please leave us.
[As established, Fuji and Caladnei are lovers as well. Oddly, I'd state that they're probably on more intimate terms than husband and wife-DM's note]
Caladnei: But...
Fuji: I can assure you that, what will happen here will in no way be associated with me or illegal.
Caladnei: I have some paperwork I have to do.
Fuji: Good.
Lucien: *coughs into hand* Say hello to Laspeera for me, would you?
[Lucien has a puppy dog crush on her. Laspeera would be rather surprised, not that she has no end of admirers half-her age, though--DM's note]
Fuji's plan is, without a doubt, tremendously illegal and more than enough to get him hung as a traitor to the Crown of Cormyr but our player characters are fairly firmly set that not only are they going to destroy Faerndo for what he's done but they're going to wipe out his entire militia here and also make sure he pays brutally for it.
[FYI----This is actually unnecessary at this point as well. Caladnei does a brief hop and skip with a Teleportation ring to the other two Keeps and finds similiarly sized militias. Faerndo keeping some 1,500 men for his own purposes is a sign of treason and punishable by banishment or death. Under the circumstances, Alusair would pursue the later even as the Illances would definitely object tremendously.
However, the Steel Regent doesn't bother pursuing the legal option and leads an attack on the other two keeps herself. This produces all the necessary information she needs that Faerndo is engaged in activities not only including gross inhuman activity but also that he was effectively a bandit king for all intents and purposes.
Ironically, the reason he had such a large force was for entirely legitimate reasons. In the wake of the Demon Dragon's attack and Shade, he kept such a large mercenary force because he felt the Crown might fall and it'd be necessary to protect Illance holdings in the ensuing civil war].
Effectively, our heroes smuggle in a small army force of mercenaries from various previous adventures, about two hundred strong since player characters are allergic to fair odds. Fuji, deciding he's a Ninja instead of a Sword Sage sneaks in with Ashley's help and Luciens into the castle to promptly force the gates open and lead their unmarked army into the castle to begin slaughtering.
As one of the nice moments here, Fuji shows that even Lawful Goods can be cruel with two words.
Fuji: No quarter.
Fuji and company find, surprisingly enough, their delay has resulted in Uncle Faerndo actually being present at the castle for his horrible abuses. In a visual homage to the manga Berserk, I keep a group of 10-12 year old boys and girls LITERALLY chained to Faerndo as he's enjoying some wine when all Hell breaks loose.
Kandro, the Red Wizard, is a bit more loyal than the Incubus Lord and immediately attempts to spirit Faerndo to safety. This is due to the fact that Kandro is wanted by his Fellow Red Wizards for perversity himself (in this case, interbreeding with Non-Mulan stock and producing children he taught magic). He has nowhere else to go and is sure Faerndo would betray him or blame him as an enchanted witness to the man's evil deeds.
In the end, its a bit of an anti-climax. Lucien is almost killed with the first Fireball but Fuji resolves the issue in noble style.
Fuji: *tosses dagger into Faerndo's throat* *natural 20* Your employer is dead.
Kandro: Yes, I see. There's no reason for me to stay is there.
Fuji: No.
Gamemaster: He turns around to leave through the portal.
Fuji: Cheap shot him with my Desert Wind strongest attack.
Gamemaster: I'm going to debate your Lawful Good status here.
Fuji's Player: This is why I chose Swordsage rather than Monk or Paladin.
The men promptly loot the treasury, slay everyone in the soldiery, free the prisoners (butchering the entire castle staff against Fuji's wishes when they see just what horrors they've been ignoring), and strip down everything they can before riding off into blend back into the Cormyr populous (most of them being Arabel warriors).
Afterwards...
Lucien: That was vaguely unsatisfying. What happens to the Illances now?
Fuji: Had it just been our attack, they might have survived this but there's too many witnesses otherwise thanks to Alusair. The Illances power is broken now and the family is already having its heraldry destroyed as many are being murdered in the streets.
Lucien: Really? The peasantry are rising up?
Fuji: Ohhh pfft, you are naive. It's the nobles whose children were perverted. Queen Alusair is having to protect some as everyone who isn't calling for their heads is hiring wizards to kill them. Even the Cormaeril Fire Knives have put down an auto de fe (literally: act of faith) on the Illances for the fact some of their lost younger members were there.
Lucien: I guess we made some enemies.
Fuji: Mostly innocent ones. Some Illance children were killed for their parents sins.
Lucien: Dammit.
Fuji[/b]: Life goes on, my dear Lucien. Unfortunately, for doing good deeds, we are now part of Cormyr's politics and that means enemies. |
| Charles Phipps |
Posted - 04 May 2008 : 01:46:33
Yes, it's unlikely we'll do the sequel adventure anytime soon but the investigation into the Illance family has begun and they're bound to slip up now.
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| monknwildcat |
Posted - 04 May 2008 : 01:39:49
I like! Well thought-out and appropriate for your PCs.
Reading thru it reminded me of elements of the Jimmy Stewart movie Arsenic and Old Lace. Funny movie. |
| Afetbinttuzani |
Posted - 04 May 2008 : 01:03:14
Wow. Cool and creepy. 
Afet. |
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