The Company
- Hendrik (MU1)
- Jaquet (F2)
- Ynes (T3)
- Bartolomea (C3)
- Benjamin, Edna & Lina (heavy foot)
- Rivka, India & Lucas (porters)
Loot
- Serpentine bracelet
- Lorgnette
- Couple of handfuls of gold pieces from Lydia’s purse and from a card table
- A love letter from Lydia, to Lydia
- Sack of silverware
Casualties
- Benjamin — torn to pieces by Lydia Malévol
- Lucas — plummeted to his death from a second floor balcony
Report
While in town, the company hears of an unfortunate lumberjack by the name of Balz who has been found in the woods hanging from a tree by one leg with his guts arranged around him in some unsettling pattern.
Also, Ynes is visited at night by the same angel as previously who in a booming voice reminds her to “Seek the sceptre! Or else!” and once again shows her a haloed Carolingian king on a plain marble throne sitting in a large hall, holding a sceptre shaped like an upturned hand.
The porter Elin, who fled the fight with the the countess and her bat swarms, has returned to town safely but is uninterested in entering into the company’s employ once more.
Bartolomea takes Father Brenard to visit Jacques Valt at the apothecary. She shows the alchemist the severed head of Gilbert Malévol and asks the apothecary to confirm his identity, which he does. Somewhat bemused, Valt asks Bartolomea if her company has now also taken upon themselves Gilbert’s debt, which he had with a number of well-to-do individuals in town. Brenard promises to message the bishop on Bartolomea’s behalf.
The company plans to find the throne room and locate the Sceptre of the Merovings. Some remember the butler had made mention of the throne room, and pointed them north from the portrait gallery.
After the usual uneventful two-day trek to the castle, the company form up at the grand entrance. They hear sobbing from inside and carefully open the large double doors. A disembodied voice is pleading innocence of various heinous crimes. Bartolomea attempts to appease the spirit, with little luck.
They move on to the portrait gallery but are careful to avoid the paintings. Ynes investigates a corridor leading north. However, the company decides to head up the stairs instead. They enter a large room with a domed ceiling, a statue of a rearing dragon, and a large u-shaped table set with silverware, crystal glasses filled with wine, and a generous spread of sumptuous foods. There are also many doors leading in various directions.
Shortly after beginning their search of the room for valuables, they hear someone coming up the stairs. Everyone hides, and in walks an undead lady encircled by moths, dragging a large sack, followed by a single headless lackey. She spots Hendrik’s wizardly robes sticking out from under the table and approaches. The lady reaches under the table to grab him, but the mage manages to crawl out of her reach. Bartolomea smashes a flask of holy water into the lady’s face, who rears back sizzling and screaming in pain. Meanwhile, Ynes has snuck up on the headless manservant and stabs it in the back, instantly destroying it. The lady slashes Benjamin to pieces, but she is soon after cut down by the company and finished off with another holy water flask thrown at short range by the cleric. The company loot her sizzling and dissolving remains, fishing out a bracelet, opera glasses, coin purse, and a love letter both addressed to and written by one “Lydia”.
Someone picks up a knife from the table and braces for bad stuff to happen, but nothing does. They cast detect magic and see that the spread on the table, the painting and something inside the dragon statue are all magic. They empty the lady’s sack, which turns out to hold a bunch of human bones, and begin to stuff it with silverware, careful not to disturb any of the food.
Meanwhile, Ynes clears an escape route to the east, where she knows a balcony offers a way out. To get there, she must first cross a room covered in faded frescoes of crusaders battling saracens. The thief spikes the door to the frescoed room, and the door leading from it to the balcony. Then, she drops a rope two floors down to the ground. When she enters back into the frescoed room she notices the painting has become more vivid, and a screaming saracen’s head flies out, passes through her, and disappears through the door into the daylight. Slightly shaken, but determined to press on, she opens another door off of the banquet hall, this one leading to a game room. She proceeds to swipe coins from a card table.
Meanwhile, Jaquet hauls the sack stuffed with silverware to the balcony, ties it to the end of the rope, and lowers it back down. When he turns to leave for the hall, he is surprised by vines that attempt to grab him by the ankles.
At the same time, back in the hall, Bartolomea heaves at the dragon statue and smashes it to pieces in one blow, surprised to find it is actually made of plaster. Out falls a casket, crashing to the ground, spilling a huge heaving monstrously obese corpse, blinking at the sudden daylight in surprise. Not missing a beat, Bartolomea raises her holy symbol, begins preaching, and successfully keeps the undead at bay.
Hendrik and the company’s porters and mercenaries head to the frescoed room and the balcony beyond. Hendrik is nearly hit by a stray arrow flying at them from the frescoes. Ynes tries to open the door leading from the game room to the frescoed room but fails to get it unstuck. The mercenaries and the company’s fighting man begin to hack away at the vines. Bartolomea moves into the doorway to the frescoed room, followed at some distance by the huge fat undead, who curses her and insists he will eat her whole. Jaquet runs from the balcony to come to her aid, and easily breaks down the door. Ynes climbs down the chimney which she knows leads into the countess’s room but is stopped by a huge stone suspended below her. Jaquet repels down the rope to safety. Hendrik uses his Staff of the Woodlands to destroy the vines with a single blow. The porter Lucas tries to climb down to safety, fails, and plummets to his death. Bartolomea moves to the balcony door, the undead still following her and taunting her. Shaken by Lucas’s bad luck the rope is moved to the side of the balcony and the remaining company climb down to safety via the balcony between the count’s and countess’s room. Bartolomea takes a final look at the fat undead before her, takes a deep breath, turns around and jumps off the balcony. She crashes to the ground in full plate armour, lands with a heavy blow on her back, and looks up to see the fat undead leer at her hungrily from the balcony’s edge.
And with that, another expedition comes to an end.
Referee Commentary
This one ran pretty smoothly, but as always, there are a few things to make note of.
First of all, hiding as a group — I have yet to find a satisfying way to handle this. This time around I had each player roll to hide for their character (the usual 5+ on a d6 modified by DEX in this case). Of course, the odds of someone failing, and therefore the party as a whole effectively being found out, is quite high in such an approach. On the other hand, it feels kind of right for the situation in question.
Then, there was detect magic picking up the undead inside the casket inside the statue. It was a snap decision and it nicely illustrates my poor grasp of classic D&D ontology. I now understand undead typically are not found through detect magic. Furthermore, the magic would have probably been blocked by the statue’s stone and the casket.
Third, we had the panicked climb down to safety. I enforced rolls for this, but players were a bit miffed, because I typically don’t. The distinction was, of course, that we were now operating on combat time whereas in previous cases they were always climbing in an exploration situation. For the latter I think it’s unnecessary to make checks, especially when they use rope and such. The assumption is they move slow and carefully and will not drop to the ground. However, in combat, they will be moving faster and are more prone to mistakes. I think it makes sense. The only thing I did not have a good response to was the player of a -2 DEX character complaining it would be impossible for them to make the 5+ roll on a d6. In hindsight, I totally forgot that, under the OED climbing rules we are using, a rope gives you a +2, which would have nicely offset such a penalty. It may have even saved Lucas’s bacon. Oh well.
Much of the treasure they brought back this time around I had to adjudicate on the fly as the book does not list any values for it. The bracelet and glasses I simply used Basic Fantasy’s handy Equipment Emporium book for. The silverware was a different matter. I ended up hashing out a reasonable weight of the sack with my players, and from there could quite easily calculate the total value of the silver. (In Hackbut, an inventory slot holds ~2 kg of weight, or 100 coins.)
This was the penultimate session of our first “season”. At the time of writing it is unclear if we will continue to play Xyntillan after the holidays, or move on to something else. I hope it will be the former, because I am having a ton of fun running this, and I feel like we are only just hitting our stride.