Session 2: Romancing the Stone

We played Session 2 tonight so I thought I would sketch out how the events went. The PC's are currently unemployed having finished their last job so I left it for them to decide where they went next.

Assamber and Artemis both had bits of their personal quests to deal with. Assamber went looking for the old Temple of Mael and learned that the boarded up sea tower was now owned by The Grub, a powerful crime lord. Artemis went to sell off the loot from the Temple, earning a good chunk of change, some Kireshi armour and getting some more information about the Giants Cradle. Apparently the last time one sailed down the river the Cabal leader looted it and was killed that night in a fiery conflagration of doom. Azhanti went out to do some wandering in the City and was bushwacked by Urko, a Grub mercenary. The Grub wants to see him tonight to discuss his failure to deliver the stone.

While everyone else was out Morn received a visitor at their super secret base, Kyia, daughter of a Tielfing Noble and his former mistress. She has run away from her father as he wants to marry her off to some bug eyed nobleman. She seduces Morn and convinces him to help her get out of the city, all of her money having been stolen by one of her slaves and her fathers agents scouring the city for her.

When the rest of the group returns much discussion is had about Kyias presence. Artemes is most put out, Kyias father is his hated enemy. Much mockery is made of Morns agreement to not only get Kyia out of the city but to fund her escape as well. Plans are made but interrupted by the arrival of their Rebellion contact. The Heart of Fire has been revealed as a fake and an agent of The Grub was seen in the vicinity of the place it was being held shortly before. The Rebellion is desperate to recover the stone before the ritual tomorrow night and beg the players to reclaim it. They can offer the Grub 5k but are otherwise completely broke.

Plans for Kyia are scrapped (she is stuffed in a cupboard at this point, much to her annoyance) and more plans are discussed about selling her to The Grub. The group hot foot it to The Palace (The Grubs gambling den, opium house, arena and personal pleasure dome) to negotiate for the stone. Five lieutenants are identified as key to convincing him, Hamid his interpreater and aide, Cassius, mockingly titled Chief of the Palace Guard, Demos the Dragonborn pit boss and Lien and Lian the beautiful Lokarnos twins who act as bodyguards and day and night master for The Grub.

With the exception of Demos attempts to sway the lieutenants are complete failures however a few side deals are made. Morn makes some headway in converting Cassius to the Unfettered God (he has been indentured by The Grubs destruction of his family fortunes), Assamber manages to push some possible trade agreements with the Twins and both Azhanti and Artemes sell the location of Kyia to The Grub (he and her father are rivals). Azhanti also agrees to loot the Giants Cradle in order to expunge the rest of his debt for failure to bring him the stone in the first place.

Having failed to get the support of the lieutenants the group try and convince The Grub to sell them the gem. They dont have enough money and fail utterly to diplomacise him. He dumps them into a giant pit to fight one of his pet monsters. I gave the group 3 choices, a Thri Kreen Warrior, a Naga Witch or an enormous Carrion Crawler. They choose the Thri Kreen.

Battle is joined quickly and the warrior promptly finds himself on fire. He turns invisible, manouvers quickly into the middle of the party and begins laying down the smack. I must use invisibility more often as it had the players crapping themselves and shooting all over the place. Artemes goes down yet again, this is becoming a theme but eventually brute force wins out. The Grub is furious with them but makes them another deal. He explains that he doesnt have the stone, Kallista who he sent to steal it was captured by The Cabal and is likely going to be tortured by them. If they agree to loot the Cradle of everything they can carry he will forgive them the insult and help Artemes recover Kallista who is his half sister. The group completely miss the opportunity to flee through the sewers and be eaten by a giant aquatic roper.

They agree and quickly make their way through the City which is heavily distracted by the Night of Madness. People are out in the streets, lusts run rampant, a situation which causes some discomfort for Azhanti.

Getting onto the Cradle is easy enough, any watchers that were there have been swept up by the lust filling the streets. Entering the Cradle is simple and the group make short work of a Golem guardian with a tendency to bash people into spiky traps. Entering the main chamber they find the perfectly preserved body of a giant in full armour with mace and shield. The walls of the chamber record the histroy of creation from the Giants point of view on one wall and the history of this Giant on the other. Images show the giant fighting the Warlord Reptos, the crafting of his hammer by the Earth Titan and the construction of giant golems. They also identify five original Primordials, Vulcan (Azhantis God), Ashura (the dead God they killed last session), Maran Gor (the Titan of the earth), Mael (Assambers new God and apparently father of all monsters) and Sopias (Lord of Dreams and the games ultimate big bad)

Mostly ignoring the vast wealth of historical plot information they strip the giant of his weapon (taken by Morn as his Legacy Item), shield and helm as well as the remains of the Golem handily dragged onto a Tensers Floating Disk. Before they can leave they are confronted by the shadowy projection of a Cabal sorcerer guarded by a Demon. He has been sent by Althea to make them an offer, kill Darius leader of the Cabal and she will shower gold and jewels on them. The sorcerer has a counter offer, kill Althea and he will reward them richly and wont turn around and try to kill them afterwards as she is likely to. It also helps that she is currently holding Artemes sister.

Taking a scroll to contact him with at a later date the group high tail it out of there delivering the goods to The Grub (sans hammer) and begin to plot how to reclaim Kallista. Meanwhile unbeknownst to some of them The Grubs agents have grabbed Kyia from the safe house (which The Grub now also knows the location of).

Next week we get to see them assault a Cabal Tower and see how they do against Althea, a Cabal bigwig.

Issues that came out of this session:

The rp side of things ran quite smoothly. The different players all got to advance some of their issues, Assamber gets closer to accessing the Temple, Artemes and Morn get to confront their Tiefling issue and Azhanti resolves his problems with The Grub. He also has a possible lost sheep with Demos.

For the Palace session I had set out a pseudo skill challenge dealing with the lieutenants where the outcome of the negotiations for the stone was determined by the groups success with them and the Grub. They failed everything marveluosly so I got my Rankor pit fight.

There were a grand total of two fights, both relatively small against a single opponent. I shied away from using solos instead giving them solo like abilities but keeping their defences and HP as elites. I dont think I am quite ready for the full on solo experience and I think the PC's need more abilities to avoid turning it into an at will grind fest.

For future fights I think I need to include more monsters, particularly to give Assamber more to do. I did have one possible encounter planned which involved multiple waves of zombie minions but it got scrapped. Maybe next time.

For the Night of Madness I originally had an additional event planned which would have made them choose between The Palace and that. I decided against it for various reasons including time. The event would have provided them with protection against the effects of the night which is why I hadn't bothered detailing them so wasn't really prepared to deal with it when they were exposed to it. In the end I mostly ignored it giving it some flavour effects but nothing more. Next session I think I will try and fit in some repercussions from it.

Overall I enjoyed the session. I thought Kyia might produce some more sparks but it was fine, I did get to drop in that her dad is very comfy with some senior Rebellion figure although she couldnt tell you who as she is a self absorbed Princess with a giant ME complex.