Castle Xyntillan – Session #19 – Bitten by Beets

The Company:

• Hendrik (MU4)
• Jürg (F1)
• Claus (T1)
• Francesco (F1)
• Gunther (C1)
• Penelope, Juna & Aurora (handgunners)
• Lukas & Tine (heavy foot)
• Niemir (crossbowman)
• Levi (porter)

Loot: a fragile barrel containing ancient delectable wine.

Casualties: Gunther, mauled by an angry giant beet.

Report:

Jürg is dismissed from the hospital, having recovered from his ability loss. He learns of his beloved Bartolomea’s demise when he receives her belongings from her former porter — who has managed to return to town alive after a harrowing escape — and also a letter from the bishop of Chamrousse. From this he discovers she was planning to divorce him, drug him, and send him off to a monastery. Embittered, Jürg breaks bad, and joins the company as a chaotically aligned fighter.

Hendrik spends several weeks immersed in arcane studies and manages to learn the spell Invisibility, which is sure to come in handy some day.

After the previous expedition’s near-decimation of the company, a number of new fortune-seekers join up: thief Claus; fighter Francesco and cleric Gunther. They also hire a number of porters and men-at-arms of various kinds.

***

Their aim for this expedition is to return to the tomb where many of their companions were massacred by ghouls, in the hopes of recovering their remains and the many valuable items they carried.

Their approach is once more through the grand entrance, which this time around is littered by bodies of hapless adventurers. They drag the corpses off to the river running south of the castle and dump them in the water. Then, they enter the vestibule, where they come across the ghost of James the butler, who is sobbing because of the poor state the room is in. After a brief exchange they continue on through the portrait gallery and into the throne room. They take turns riding the throne down into the catacombs, and then cautiously head towards the underground lake.

While crossing the grotto in northern direction they are surprised by Rodento Ratsputin, the giant rat they’d encountered once before. It demands they halt and explain their business. When they tell him of their plans to retrieve the bodies of their companions from the ghoul tomb, Rodento gives them a look of pity and allows them to continue on their way.

When they arrive at the intersection, Claus scouts ahead and confirms the ghouls’ presence in the tomb. The Company makes an elaborate plan to lure the ghouls into the intersection and ambush them with the combined fire power of several handgunners, a wand of lightning, and other projectiles. Claus is sent back to get the monsters’ attention.

The thief carefully heads back and tries to remain unseen and unheard for as long as possible but clumsily alerts the ghouls to his presence nonetheless. The monsters set upon him but he manages to run behind the ranks of fighters before they can get to him. Hendrik then sends a well-aimed lightning bolt from his wand into the corridor packed with ghouls, and obliterates nearly all of them. They hear one or two flee the scene, yipping in terror.

They carefully go to investigate the charred remains of the ghouls when they are once again surprised by something or someone approaching from behind, reciting Shakespeare. It turns out to be the ghost of a temperamental gentleman named Frédéric. He demands to be entertained, and when the company bores him with questions about treasure, he attempts to possess Hendrik, but fails. Annoyed, he then begins to pelt party members with charred ghoul limbs which he tosses at them using telekinesis. At the last moment, Jürg manages to defuse the situation by dancing a mad jig, which the ghost joins in on with gusto. He then thanks the company for the amusement, and leaves them to their devices.

The company continues to the tomb where the ghouls were first encountered. They make note of the murals depicting templars who are lead by a dark-skinned man to a hill lined with palm trees. They also note smashed and broken holy symbols and holy water vials littering the floor. Furthermore, they smell lingering odor of sulphur mixed with a particularly arousing perfume.

The sarcophagi are opened and here they see neatly arranged remains of their former companions — not much is left of them besides bones picked clean. They also find quite a few of their former belongings, but notably all lawful items are absent, including the Sceptre of the Merovings, and the Oils of Cleansing.

Upon further investigation, they spot the outlines of a secret door behind the mural section depicting the hill with palm trees. However, no matter what they try, it won’t budge. Even a knock spell has no effect besides briefly illuminating the symbols of a scepter and heart over the top of the doorway.

They backtrack, hoping to ride the throne back up, but they find it has returned to the throne room. And so, they decide they will have to continue on to the root cellar to make their escape that way.

They find the giant beets lumbering about. The company attempts to sneak past them but Gunther, the clumsiest of the lot, bumps rudely into a beet, which angers it and its kin, who attack in retaliation.

Gunther is severely mauled by a beet, and he drops to the ground. Most retainers panic and run for the exit. Faced by an overwhelming majority of beets, the remaining company follow their routed hirelings into the wine cellar.

They are relieved to find they are not fired upon by skeletons from the lookout. The company regroups, and agree it is time to get rid of those troublesome beets once and for all. Hendrik leads the way, wielding his wand of lightning, and obliterates about half of them with one shot. The remainder are mopped up without much trouble.

Gunther, however, has sadly expired. He hasn’t even made it through his first expedition.

After briefly paying their respects they leave behind their companion’s body, and return to the wine cellar. Here they inspect several casks, tapping them in the hopes of identifying a promising specimen. Francesco find one particularly ancient cask containing a delightfully aromatic substance.

Just when they make ready to carry off the barrel of wine, the ghost of a woman wearing nothing but a flower wreath and a nightgown enters the cellar, accompanied by a number of glitterclouds. The company freezes, and they are relieved to see the ghost ignore them and pass them by.

They carefully roll the barrel up the stairs and out of the castle, and lug it all the way back to town. They have it appraised, and it turns out to be worth quite a fortune, but they can’t find a buyer for it just yet.

Referee Commentary:

Now that most players are at the helm of first level characters again, the vibe of the game has shifted again. They are keenly aware of how fragile they are, as exemplified by the lamentable demise of Gunther. And so they are more careful again, and appear not entirely sure what their purpose is, now that they have lost some of their most significant items.

I know what happened to the scepter and the oils, but I won’t note that down here, because I have cheeky players how like reading this commentary. But I will just say I largely used random rolls to figure out who came across the aftermath of the massacre, and what they would do with the items. This was a fun little exercise to engage in as a referee, what some call “lonely fun”.

The wand of lightning, and the lightning bolt spell as described in OED book of spells required a bit of interpretation and debate at the table during this session. Is the point the player aims for the tip, middle, or end of the bolt? What happens when it hits a wall? How do you determine how many creatures are hit when playing theatre of the mind? We’ve arrived at some satisfying answers to those questions since, but at the table it took a bit of back and forth.

By the way, I allow recharging of the wand by a magic-user NPC in town who happened to have the spell in his spell book. For a significant fee, of course.

The cask was a lucky find, and the significant XP it fetched was also lucky, because the value of these casks is determined randomly, too.

Players are plotting a full expedition aimed at liberating the most high-value casks from the cellar. We’ll see what happens when they make the attempt.