Monday, February 24, 2014

This is Bat Country!


Here's a little actual play recap from the game I ran last weekend. Despite my light reskinning of the whole affair, some of you might recognize elements of the adventure from a certain published work.

Our heroes (?):
Jamcat Wildthorne Hawkblade, a Thief who crowbars everything because he doesn't know how to pick locks (played by Justin)
Marceline, a wizard of the "Eat this fucking fireball you fucking fuck!" variety (played by Karma)
Zarl Goldberg, a wizard of the "Look at my illusions while I steal your shit" variety (played by Jesse)
Zyril Goldberg, Zarl's estranged, Ranger step-brother (played by Spencer)
Zigg, a former squire who's reconnecting with his Barbarian roots (played by Devin)

They met up with their contact, Vincenza "Vinny" Vicente at her favorite watering hole, "The Lusty Strumpet." She gave them a lead on a job; if they brought in a wanted wizard named Dejezerit, they'd clear a cool 2,000 silver reward.

It was implied that Dejezerit had some ties to a fearful local figure known only as "The Angel of Need". Creepy.

Unimpressed, our adventurers took the gig. Vinny gave them her inside info that Dejezerit had "acquired" info about a nearby estate, and was probably planning to loot the place. They set out for that locale forthwith.

On arrival, they peeped three very rundown buildings, a big effin’ statue, and a crapload of dead bodies surrounding said statue. Investigating the smallest building first, they found a couple of oxen who appeared to have taken up recent residence. Zarl and Zyril promptly removed the dumb bulls from their lives of relatively well-fed comfort to hide them in the woods. In the process, they disturbed some friendly neighborhood feral dogs who were trolling for corpse-meat. Lucky for them, the reaction roll birdy told me that the dogs couldn't give a fuck less about these guys.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party checked out the next largest building, which turned out to be some kind of temple. Atop the central altar was a wooden statue of a young woman wearing a toga, carrying a large hammer, and possessing a crown shaped very much like the teeth of a key. On the floor, they discovered the destroyed remnants of an urn, and the ashes it once contained. Marceline swiftly scooped up some of the ashes in a bag. I don’t know why, ask her yourself.

After an unnecessary, crowbar-assisted break-in through a door that wasn't even locked, they searched the first floor and cellar of the main estate. The adventurers found a note reading, "The third one is false", a locked safe that they never did a damn thing with and a secret room chock full of skeezy shackles, bloodstains, and a bronze chest full of crusty murderblades. They inexplicably decided to move the bronze chest up one flight of stairs, and then abandoned it there, ostensibly for reasons.


Growing impatient, our erstwhile protagonists adjourned to the out-of-doors again. Zarl Goldberg climbed the statue in the courtyard, and spotted something shiny on the roof of the estate. Finally given a flimsy excuse to use his grappling hook,Jamcat Wildthorne Hawkblade climbed the hell out of that building to get a closer look at the bling. The good news: he found a message inlaid in silver that read, "Follow the sun. Ignore the moon." The bad news: he woke up the bat-leech things that lived in the attic of the estate. After a somewhat pitiful battle that involved the description, "so, you fail to stab the thing that’s attached to your own neck", our heroes had murderized the five bat-things that had attacked them, and Jamcat had set the entire attic ablaze. Burning everything to the ground is standard "murder-hobo" protocol in our group. In the process, Marceline was drained of so much blood by one of the bats that she nearly lost consciousness.


I can't wait to see what these jokers do next. I really hope it involves the cremated lady's ashes.

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