The Freeport Scandals

[anglefish]

The quick intro of PCs is mine while I hastely edited the rest from a player who's now doing a game recap each session. Of course I encourge this behavior with XP rewards.
Session time was about four hours I believe.

The Freeport Scandals

So last week, our group of heroes settled into a new home, Freeport (http://www.greenronin.com/freeport/focu ... eeport.php). A group of friends arrived at the trade port with a lot on their minds

Gwyidon grew up an orphan on the mainland, always different and always picked on. Eventually, he made a deal with a hermit who taught him magic at the price of being a magical experiment at times. Recently, the hermit came to him with news. An message spell ensorcelled on a bird brought news that Gwyidon had family on a distant shore, the island of A'val, where Freeport lies.

A elven "gentleman" professional, Zaor Moonflower recently lost his low-profile by helping his friends defeat an insidious infection in the swamp surrounding their home town, which allowed the land to fight off an Imperial invasion. His friends assumed they'd come home heroes. Instead they were berated for not following orders. He assumed he could go back to a life of cat burglary and con games, but the Thieves Guild leaned on him to join. Moonflower needed a place where he could still be an "independent contractor."

Dedeire is a swordwoman who loves booze, broads and duels. She only teaches dueling techniques to pay for the next tankard. Eveyone else is going to Freeport? Sign her up! Though since they have arrived, the strange things alchemy has done, (guns, poisons, and thundersticks) have intrigued her.

For the elven Druid, Brandon, a recent arcane incident burned a huge swath of A'val jungle. Worse yet, wizards have concocted strange, dangerous alchemical methods of making the barren ash into super fertilizer. Someone must ensure that Nature is balanced again.

Jamie, the NPC cleric, has discovered an abandoned temple to his faith, the God of Valor, has been hiding under his nose the whole time in Freeport.

We catch up with the group after they settle into their new adopted town, the port island city of Freeport. They've already made their name by exposing corruption in the temple of the God of Knowledge and a botched bodyguard mission (or a very successful double cross assassination depending on who you talk to.)

Compiling clues to discover something is sinister with the city's soon to be active lighthouse, Gwydion, Jaime, the druid, and their guide, Eggle, were on the lighthouse island where the structure is being built.

They explored the tower, found nothing suspicious so they proceeded to explore the island. Eggle is almost eaten by an assassin vine and the druid manages to get some seeds which he assumes are assassin vine seeds. They return back to the one the "other" PC HQ (a second safe house where the less morally bound PCs can do things out of sight of the cleric and wizard.)

Deidre and her two 'associates' manage to temporarily waylay a cart and she gets some gold, chalice, and a green brick??? She proceeds to take this back to the safe house.

Lord Verlane is the city official overseeing the light house. Zaor is staking out the lord's estate and sees the carts being taken toward the back of the house. He surmises that they are being taken to a basement type of storage. He returns to the pad

With the party together, Deidre manages to split the green brick in two and sees a [scarasim]wonderful [/sarcasim]chaos symbol imprinted on both sides of the brick. She deduces that it can be used for strengthening summon spells.

Zaor feels that the party should infiltrate the estate that night. The PCs also want a second look at the tower using the wizards Lawful clockwork scarab familiar (pixie stats) to find them. He proposes going in 2 groups but Deidre shows the impracticality of that plan.

While the party is stockpiling supplies and seeing what is needed Egle busts into the room yelling that his friend Lucius is missing. The party rushes to his room where 2 maps are found. Zaor realizes that they are sewer maps and that an entrance to the sewer is located where they had previously taken out an hidden evil temple. The arty with Egle head to the temple.

At the boarded entrance to the temple, 2 city guards are standing watch. Zaor climbs a roof and jumps over the where they are at. He proceeds to drop a smokestick and then the guards are silenced. The party goes in, finds a secret room and explores it.

There is a well, a gong, and some candles in a candelabra in the room. The well is explored and has a man shaped blood stains against the wall but no secret passage. The party decides to light the candle and ring the gongs and are hit by a magical trap of sorts. The well has tentacles coming out of it and strange magic messes with the party's mind (Wisdom loss ). Finally the tentacles leave, the mallet is ound to have a symbol of chaos on it and is defaced and dropped into the well where it disappears. The party leaves the room.

The Party finds the sewer entrance and after traveling some finds a symbol of chaos.

The party decides to follow the symbols falsely assuming it would lead them to where they need to go. The symbol ends at a door and they proceed to go in. As the party steps into room they hear the door slam behind them. Turning around gle is no where to be seen and the room is turning to the side. Zaor looks round and sees that the ceiling is an arch rather than a flat ceiling.

Zaor assumes that the room will continue to turn and that the roof is actually flaps that open up. As party members fall around, Zaor jams the celing flaps so they would not open when the room turned completely. Another door is spotted and the party climbs through, Zaor leading. They find a man at some controls. He is hased, stopped and questioned. He claims to be working the night shift at the masonry plant and didn't know he was about to grind people instead of rocks.

Deidre makes it seems like the city fathers sent us on inspection and we find out that we are further where we had plan to be.

The party returns to the sewer and gets to where they are suppose to be. A secret door is found and a downward sloped passage is discovered. The druid affixes his grappling hook and rope and the party scales down to a few rooms and a passage way.

A library is found with some interesting books including the true history of Freeport and another room has robes and other paraphernalia of the vil cult. The passage way ends at at a hallway and the thief scouts ahead. He finds a trap, realizes he cannot disarm it and brings Gwydion. Gwydion ponders the magical trap and realizes that the robes previously found will allow the party to pass unhindered. The robes are retrieved and worn and they pass through.

This passage leads to a huge church with an alter and a 3 story tall statue. They see Lucius bound and gagged on the alter with an acolyte/cultist chanting.

Zaor rushes in to his aid and attempts to shoot the cultist but fails, but Deidre unslung her trusty rifle and proceeds to nail the cultist. Zaor frees Lucius as Deidre and Jaime run closer to help out. 3 cultists come from around the statue to do battle. The druid cast a spell which contain another number of cultists unseen behind the statue. A few cultists are taken down when Egle decides to make his appearance. He is taken down as well as another few cultists but one is heard escaping.

Zaor finds a secret door which leads up and finds another stairway. He continues up as the rest of the party is coming up behind. He hears a scream and bursts into a archway with 3 rooms. 2 rooms have a keyhole with shows a bedroom and study and the last room is silent.

Zaor hears a strange sounds behind the bedroom door so he pulls out a thunderstone and kicks the door down throwing in the stone. He stuns the person that is stabbing someone else and proceeds to dig his sword into his back. The rest of the party files in and kill the assailant.

Dead on the bed unfortunately is the city lord and a search of the room and study is made which finds some rather incriminating evidence against the party.

The PC gather around, search around a little bit more and move the cultists body up and proceed to set the house on fire. The party escapes through the sewers and decide based on the evidence found it is not in their best interest to stay in their respective omes. They gather some belongings and make it to an inn where they start to discuss their options.

As this is occurring Jaime gets a vision of the Temple district being attacked and the heroes rush to the temple district in which they find ...
To be continued ...

[slimykuotoan]

I looove Freeport.
_________________
Society Member
http://www.cncsociety.org/

[Treebore]

Yeah, Freeport is great. Pirates, cutthroats, cut purses, the ocean, great big sailing vessels, whats not to love?
_________________
The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

[DangerDwarf]

Treebore wrote:
whats not to love?

Scurvy.

Scurvy sucks.

Cool start though Angelfish.

[anglefish]

DangerDwarf wrote:
Scurvy.

Scurvy sucks.

Cool start though Angelfish.

Thanks. Between CnC and Freeport, I haven't had so much fun RPGing in a long time.

Sorry about the odd breaks. I thought I caught them all.

[Treebore]

DangerDwarf wrote:
Scurvy.

Scurvy sucks.

Cool start though Angelfish.

Then they should learn to suck on the lemons life hands them.
_________________
The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames

[anglefish]

The adventure continues, with comments from me in italics. The recap is still written by the player who is Zaor

The party rushes to the temple district after jaime's vision and reach the temple of knowledge. they sneak in through the sewers and come up the privy, LOL!
Believe it or not, we spent a good 10 minutes on that. It started off with, "The ceiling opens above you and is capped with two round holes about a foot wide. This part of the sewer really stinks." Needless to say, that privy is broken thanks to a good yank from a grappling hook.

We then came into the main room and there was pandemonium. Cultists killing monks, monks killing cultists. We figured who was who and started to kill the cultists.

Then all of a sudden a woman appeared shooting a magic missile out of one hand and wielding a sword in the other. Deidre proceeded to fight her, Jaime started taking on cultists, the druid also. Zaor kills a cultist and sees Deidre going to take on the woman by herself, decides to go sneak upon the woman to help Deidre. Battle ensues, The party minus Gwydion takes on the woman, she fells Deidre but Jaime takes care of Deidre.

Gwydion, after hanging around all these melee characters, takes down a few cultists with his daggers. Finally all the enemies fall and the party helps out the remaining monks. Zaor realizes that the watch had not shown up at all during battle and tells the party that. The magic users proceed to get some shut eye while Deidre and Zaor sleep for a few hours and wake up in the morning.

With morning comes the watch into the temple district and upon seeing the snakemen heads on posts in fron of the temple the guard comes in.
There was good healthy debate on whether to do the head on the pike thing. Needless to say, the priests weren't thrilled with it. Perhaps I should have my NPC be more assertive.

Zaor Deidre and the real Egle talk to him, let him know what happened, find out about Lord V's house fire (how tragic), and then proceed to talk to Lady Elise from the counsel. They await a few hours and meet with the Lady. They present the evidence to her, tell her what they think and she thanks them and takes the evidence. Deidre feels she made a mistake, Zaor isn't so sure. Lady Elise is a survivor and the evidence will help her out tremendously politically. She promises to try and get an emergency meeting called to get a memorandum or something to stop the completion of the tower.

When Deidre and Zaor get back they are greeted by the head of the monastic order and are given invitations to the Sea Lord's Ball. Everyone in the party have been given one and the party smells trouble afoot. Zaor and Deidre head to Lady Elise again and show her the invitation as further proof of what has occurred and head back to plan their outfits.

The druid contemplates leaving but instead decides to examine the seeds he has acquired. Gwydion is at a loss of what to do and Jaime decides to clear his head with a walk.

Jaime had seen a temple to his deity upon entering town but noticed it had fallen upon hard times. He decides to see it up close. What he finds shocks and disgusts him. The temple has been converted to a flea market type atmosphere of religious groups each hawking their own religious beliefs. He is very distraught and decides to investigate at the temple of knowledge to see what happened to them.

He speaks to a lore master there, finds out that they were found dead one day. There were no sign of struggle and Jaime feels they died badly because there was no valor in their deaths. He decides that the Sea Lord must have been involved and proceeds to tell Gwydion emphatically. He vows to make the Sea Lord pay...

To be continued ...

[Treebore]

It often surprises me what the player sometimes end up focusing on and enjoying.
_________________
The Ruby Lord, Earl of the Society

Next Con I am attending: http://www.neoncon.com/

My House Rules: http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic ... llordgames