Wednesday Night C&C Recaps

[Drance]

Hail and well met, all! I decided to start a thread here that I will use to link to my session recaps on my blog. So, here's the link to my recap of the session on 4/27/11:

http://unto-the-breach.blogspot.com/2011/04/yes-virginia-there-are-giant-spiders.html

[zipper]

A recap for Wes and anyone else who is interested:

Upon returning from the necromancer's to the "Church of the All Seeing Eye" with a literal boatload of treasure, some potions, and two miniaturized women in a silver cage, we discovered that our illusionist, Struan, was missing.  After waking Mother Superior and briefing our abolitionist friends at the church about the goings on at the necromancer's, we went to the "School of Ancient Knowledge" in order to find out if anyone throughout their network of sympathizers had any word of our illusionist being captured.  Upon entering the school, we were told that information pertaining to the whereabouts of the the legendary sword, "Eagle's Talon," had surfaced.  The sword had last been displayed at the "Temple of Prosperity".  We then rested and made plans to check the spot we had last seen Struan after our smash and grab at the necromancer's and then visit the temple the following day.  

The next day, we went to the street where we had last been with Struan and noticed that all of the wanted posters for him were gone (except for the ones he had drawn on).  After asking around and with help from our abolitionist allies, we discovered that our new arch-enemy Colonel Sark had captured Struan!  Seeing as there was not much we could do at the present, we went on the the "Temple of Prosperity", which did I mention was situated inside the old "Temple of the Spider God"?  The old temple had been converted to it's present opulence in order to honor the god of prosperity, basically a temple that promotes self-centered greed.  Our barbarians (Wulfgar and Sefa) posed as converts to the temple from a faraway land that honored strength and prosperity at the expense of others.  They claimed to be making a pilgrimage to see the "Eagle's Talon".  The acolytes were quite helpful and started checking their inventory while giving us advice on how to dodge the City State's taxes despite the grinding of Drance's teeth (our paladin, for those not familiar).  They found three weapon related listings in their archives which were listed as being stored in the basement storage, of course... One entry was stored on level 3, the second on level 6 (called the Kador exhibit, remember our old friend?), and the third on level 8 (called the Overlord Appreciation exhibit).  We were then informed that the stairs had been walled off at level 5 because of spiders.  We asked to see the weapons from the level 3 exhibit, which turned out to be an apparent impractical polearms exhibit.  It appeared our only entry to the lower levels would be though the sewers from below, gulp.  We then poked around the temple contemplating our usual plan b of smashing a door somewhere (in this case the walled up staircase), neutralizing resistance, and then searching for clues when we found a secret door with a dumbwaiter that could accommodate 2 people at a time in a pillar of the temple.

We carefully noted our new discovery and moved on because there were people around in temple.  Upon returning to the "Church of the All Seeing Eye" we found that Mother Superior had removed the curse on the two shrunken women and now had two new allies.  They introduced themselves as Etheltina, the barbarian and Gwenlen, the knight.  We then went shopping and upgraded our allies arms and armor, learning lessons from our last session...

That night we went off to Sark's house with Jayla, Beloc, Mustafa, and our two new allies.  We decided to use a new tactic involving caution where Jayla picked the lock to the house, we crept into the house, and subdued a guard, keeping him alive but tied up and blind folded.  Drance and Wulfgar then entered the hallway to Sark's master bedroom where Wulfgar got hit with a sap from behind, but didn't go down and Drance took some magic missiles to the chest.  It turns out Sark and his wife (a wizard!) had heard us subdue the guard and were ready for us.  Seeing as it was a narrow hallway and we couldn't all fit, Drance charged the wizard while Wulfgar and Beloc tried to restrain Sark.  After some botched rolls, Sark was still fighting unrestrained, Drance was down to 4 hit points, and Beloc, Etheltina and Jayla and been dropped by a sleep spell.  So we reverted to plan b.  With Sark and his wife now dead, Sefa healed Drance and Wulfgar up a bit before we opened a door and found Sark's children.  No, we didn't attack them.  Sefa calmed them down and tried to keep them away from the carnage.  We then searched Sark's office and to our surprise, found a pardon for Struan and a general letter of marque that was to go to Struan to keep 75% of all loot from the taking of ships flying the colors of the "Circle of Dar Janix".  Stunned, we took the papers and spoke about how Ragolet (the slave guildmaster from house Carroll) would be pleased, so that the Bronstein guard and Sark's children could hear.  Then we left.  That's about it as best as I can summarize and remember, some things may be a bit out of order in the interest of being somewhat concise.  

[Sir_Hamelot]

...UUUUGHH!!!  The adventure sounded so good, Im chomping at the bit from here!

Thanks a ton, zipper, for the recap!  It means a lot that you guys are keeping me posted and keeping my character in the mix.  Though now I see he's gone the way of the scoundrel (or perhaps I misunderstood the pardon.  That rapscallion!)

Im glad Sark met his match at our group's "Plan B"    I'm surprised we even entertained the possibility of capture.  Suck it, Sark!

And the sword has appeared!  That's terrific!  We move closer to the prophecy!  And Im glad people shopped for upgrades 

Miss you guys terribly!  Im launching my C&C adventures at camp today.  Even though the kids are enthusiastic, they tend to lack the general understanding of cohesive gameplay or cooperative problem solving.  They tend to favor the "im not a hero so Imma hack and slash at stuff"...which is how my first rpg session here ended in the death of 6 kids who were all wizards...sigh.

Hope to see everyone soon!  Keep rolling those natch 20's!  Trollzah!

[Drance]

Bill, great recap! Yes, Drance was getting more and more irritated at the evil wafting off of the acolytes of Prosperity! Memorable moment from the Temple of Prosperity: at the mere mention of smashing down a door, Mustapha proceeded to pull the constable's battering ram out of his breeches! I know he's a big guy, but he was hiding that thing in there?!

Wes, great to hear from you, and it's pretty cool that you're playing C&C with some young'uns! Keep nurturing that new generation of players! And never fret about beginners resorting to hack and slash. I think everyone who's new to roleplaying, from the beginning of the hobby to today, goes that route until they get more experienced. Keep the old school alive!

Anyway, without Struan we don't have our smooth talking "face" of the party! Remind me when you're coming back?

[Sir_Hamelot]

Heya, Drance!

Horrible answer is, "Im not sure when Ill be back  "  And that sadly is the honest truth.  Ill of course let everyone know when I can drop by for a Wednesday, but it doesn't look like at least a couple weeks.

Keep me posted, everyone!  Enjoy yourselves and Trollzah 

[zipper]

Thanks!  I can't believe that I forgot to mention the Mustapha incident!  Even our NPC's know about "plan B"...

[zipper]

Sorry all for the late recap.  Pam and I had a busy week and weekend.  Here's the recap from last Wednesday as best as we can remember:

After returning to the “Church of the All Seeing Eye” we had the acolytes wake up the Mother Superior, told her what had happened at Sark's, and showed her the pardon and the letter of marque for Struan against the “Circle of Dar Janix”.  She then explained to us that the “Circle of Dar Janix” is an ancient order of knights that once held considerable power.  They live on an island and have very conservative views on the use of magic outside of their control.  They had been responsible for several “witch hunts”, historically although their order is lawful good.  The Mother Superior did not have any idea as to why Struan would have gotten a letter of marque or the pardon.   After giving our briefing, we started to plan how we would free the 24 barbarian gladiator/slaves from the slave auction the next day.  We discussed how we would go about getting in and out of the auction without our fast talking front man and how we would be received showing up under cover as slave traders serving the “Bad Nun” without any slaves to sell.  After spending a sizable chunk of time planning and debating, the party rested in order to heal and prepare spells.

After a few hours of rest, we awoke to find the entire city in chaos.  Houses Bronstein and Carroll were fighting in the streets.  Apparently, our mentioning Ragolet's name in the previous night's raid on Sark's house had brought tensions between the two houses to a breaking point. We decided to take advantage of the chaos and go have a look at the arena where the barbarian gladiators were being kept seeing as it was unlikely that there would be an auction that day, and busting them out may prove cheaper than trying to buy them anyway.  Taking Jayla, Mustapha, Beloc, and our two new companions, we discovered that we had forgotten that the arena was outside the city gates which were now locked down.  Seeing as using “Plan B” on the gate guards did not seem wise, we decided to use our old standby for traveling around the city state covertly, the sewers.

We ducked into a nearby courthouse, having Jayla pick the lock, in order to look for sewer access.  Carefully we searched the courthouse where we did find a sewer entrance in a secret door beneath a bust of our old friend, Kador.  A plaque near the bust explained that the courthouse was built on the site of a great battle where Kador had defeated a powerful orc chieftain.  While skulking around the courthouse looking for good loot/err , clues we discovered that one courtroom for trying capitol offenses, was haunted.  Since we could not see the ghost, but hear it's footsteps, we decided to spread some white powder that Mustapha had in order to see footprints.  We canvased the room to find that a cage in the center of the room appeared to be where the ghost was lurking.  Mustapha spread a circle of the powder around the cage only to find that we had trapped the ghost in the circle and it got really pissed.  So with the sun coming up and a pissed off ghost in the building, we left for the sewers.

While making our way through the sewers, Mustapha asked us to reimburse him for his powder which we discovered was opium!  A short stroll through the sewers brought us to a trapdoor which appeared to be where the arena should be.  Using our new strategy (caution), we had Jayla listen at the trapdoor.  She could hear muffled voices and the door appeared to be really heavy.  At a loss for  what to do, we had Mustapha filp open the door and we charged through to find a surprised naked barbarian gladiator  facedown and an overturned bathtub.  After the initial shock, everyone calmed down.  As it turned out, we were inside the slave chambers of the arena.  We quietly gathered up all of the barbarians and left through the sewers.  Yup, that's right we left just like that.  So much for all of our planning and the slave auction!

We tried to make our way back to the courthouse so that we might emerge from the sewers and get the gladiators back to the abolitionists at the “Church of the All Seeing Eye”.  We could hear people talking in the courthouse by the secret entrance and Kador's bust had been smashed.  We made our way through the sewers, to Kador's neighborhood emerging to find that his house had been broken into.  Kador had gone down fighting his intruder and only one item was missing from his house, the axe of the orc chieftain he'd slain at the site of the courthouse...  Feeling bad about the whole thing, we gave Kador a proper burial in his best ceremonial mail.  We then took the rest of his stuff, armed our barbarian companions, and left.

With a platoon of armed gladiators and the smell of the sewers still fresh on us,  we decided to make our way through the sewers to the “Temple of the Spider God”.  We made our way to the gaping and grotesquely decorated entrance to the temple...

[Drance]

Great recap, Bill and Pam! Really appreciate the effort that goes into these! Can't wait for Wednesday! Looks like Rich wants to bring the campaign to a riveting crescendo!

[rmckee78]

My car just had a very bad day. I will probably not have it back by Wed. Luckily, this does not mean I cannot make it. The Camden PATCO station is a few blocks from my house and there is a PATCO station about 5 miles from All Things Fun in Lindenwold. Hopefully I will have my car back, but if I do not we can still play if someone can get me at the station before the game. I will keep updating as I learn more

[Sir_Hamelot]

Best recap ever!!  Im so sorry I missed it!  It sounded like an amazing time.  Especially love the parts about using opium to catch a ghost and the, "We then buried Kador...and then took his stuff."  Sorry I keep missing out, everyone, but I'm glad the rolling has continued unabated.

Sorry to hear about your car, Rich!  I hope it all works out.  Finally got 2 hours free from work and headed down to All Things Fun to pick up another C&C Players Guide and to check out Ed's new "Iron Dice" sets.  Apparently made by an italian bag company which decided to use spare metal clasps as designer dice.  Tres Chique.

Thanks again so much for the recaps, everyone!  I'm sad/happy to hear about the slave auction plans falling through but as always, its great to hear about the versatility of the group.  Keep on rolling, guys!  Hoping to join you all soon!

Trollzah!

[Drance]

Hey Wes! Yes, we are nothing if not adaptable! ;-) We were all very happy that our plan to pit the great houses against each other worked so well! It means that at least one of our plans worked ;-) Anyway, still curious as to what the heck Struan is doing off-stage (as I am sure you are as well, since you're his player!)

Rich, let's discuss the details and I will pick you up from the station.

[simplyceltic]

Hey guys!  Had a very rough week from last Wednesday through Sunday and ended up in the hospital TWICE!  I am fixed up the best they can and I have plans on being there tomorrow night for the game.  Sorry I couldn't make it the past two weeks and I definitely missed playing with you guys.  See you there.

Glenn Ryan

[Drance]

Hey Glenn, glad to hear you are up and around again! Great news, and great to hear from you! It would be good to see you again tomorrow, if you can make it! Talk to/see you soon!

- Anthony

[rmckee78]

Glad to hear you are doing well, hope to see you tomorrow night.

It looks like I will have my car back tomorrow afternoon. I will post again if I need a ride from the train station, I can just make sure I am there at whatever time works.

[rmckee78]

My car was not ready. Drance, if your offer to pick me up at the station still stands what time would you need me to be there?