The Backdrop

The player who owns Maia (from last session) is Landie, who has two other characters in the campaign. The character relevant to this session is Sierra, who owns a keep and has spent the majority of her downtime preparing for mass combat and managing trade with a nearby faction of deep elves. Prior to this session however, Sierra went looking for new jobs for the party! There’s always the idea of going into the frost up north, but Landie also inquired as to whether a heist was possible.

Now normally, every West Marches I’ve ever run (along with every campaign I’ve ever run) has opened with a heist. This campaign is the only exception. So I gave Landie a few different options to make up for it! He could loot the following:

A tuatha cairn
A mage college (of which there are 3 in the area)
A port city

Landie chose the port city, and had Sierra engage in the Research downtime action. I’ve done a video on research as downtime, and I have a handouts entry for it as well.

If Maia completes the heist successfully, it’ll count towards “confirming” the bits of information Sierra collected. Having multiple characters in this game means they can more or less net each other additional experience and progression, rather than one character consistently falling behind! Sierra nets plenty of info by stealthing around Marellan, listening in on criminal affiliates and their private lives.

There is a shipment of unicorn horns coming in.
The shipment will accompany an expeditionary force from 5 mercenary companies, all traveling to Samheide in search of work.
The shipment of unicorn horns will be confiscated at the docks as suspicious cargo.
There is a decoy shipment.
The horns are actually already in Samheide, but they’ll be arriving by boat to Marellan.

The mercenary companies are:

The Red Hand of Doom, the remnants of a wider hobgoblin dictatorship.
The Order of Veils, a elite group of psions and seers dedicated to containing extraplanar influences.
The Knights of Lylivyn, a collection of high elf dragon tamers in search of legendary dragons across the worlds.
Mercy’s Chapter, a collection of pilgrims here to visit sites of religious significance (and defend them against desecration).
The Powder Horn Legion, a military force of hobgoblins from the continent my players are usually adventuring on. I think Landie recognized them, but I’m not sure.

Arc 2, Session 2

The players have their first session in Marellan, the port city at the very bottom of Samheide. I started my prior test campaign here, but found it ill-suited for the module’s scenario.

Prep

For prep, I told the players they had 3 days until the shipment supposedly arrived. To give them clear guidelines on what was possible within those 3 days, I decided my downtime action procedures would work well for a shorter time scale with fewer rewards. Research was a fairly obvious pick, but I went through some examples of using the other downtime actions to represent the party’s preparation. Using Taming to represent recruiting animals, meditation to have a hard think on the info collected so far, or pray for visions.

Perra went around with a locate object spell. She got 1 ping while in the city, which she narrowed down to a run-down tavern called the Running Goat. The ping disappeared after awhile, and Perra filed this away in her memory.

Maia sneaked into the various dockhouses to check up on shipping manifests; out of the 5 merc companies, only one item was circled red. The Order of Veils was bringing a shipment of dry ice. The item is so different from the others being carried, and is marked as alchemical ingredients; something the Order usually doesn’t deal with, according to notes.

Zhianna engaged in carousing; she made a charisma check (to roll on the table of better results), and got a perfect result for me to improvise.
From the classier carousing table:

On the third day of Zhianna’s carousing, some random thug in a drunken state takes a liking to Zhianna, and starts asking her for help on a job. He offers her a flying carpet in exchange for a small favor; he needs a distraction the next day around a bar called Trilly’s Tavern. Zhianna agrees, and tries to pry for more information, but her questions are too pointed and direct to avoid setting off the thug’s alarms. This works in the party’s favor later on! The thug closes out the conversation, but their deal is still on.

Morgan decided to take notes from the Taming downtime action, and sought out critters who could case out the boat without drowning. He comes across a large number of nutrias! These water rats are roughly the size of a possum, and I only saw them recently for the first time in real life. A few successful checks later, he builds up a small swarm of the critters.

Morgan’s secondary class is ley keeper, someone who collects ley taps and takes advantage of the various ley lines around the world for power. Both of the ley taps Morgan currently holds are from a forecast line, a ley line keyed into the weather. With the taps, Morgan can make the weather more or less severe, or make the weather magical. Lucky him! He decides to increment the already unpleasant weather within 24 miles of the docks twice, conjuring a powerful storm cell right over them.

Action!

It’s go time, and the 5 merc companies are just visible over the horizon. They anchor as the storm cell passes over them, lighthouses are activated, and the many escort karves are sent out to help them reach shore. Bands of stabilizing energy wrap flow out from the Order of Veils’ ship, wrapping around the other vessels in an effort to keep them from smashing into one another. Two mages from the Red Hand of Doom and Mercy’s Chapter begin casting a spell; the party correctly guesses it’s a Control Weather spell.

The party gets into position! Morgan sends the nutrias in to case the boat, and turns into a giant crawfish himself once they give the all-clear. Maia hops onto the crawfish and rides along; being a dhampir, she doesn’t need to breathe. On the way, several of the escort craft are taking on water. One of them speeds past Maia and Morgan, taking no heed of them.

Perra is watching over the docks to see if anyone brings cargo in.

Zhianna sets up at Trilly’s Tavern, and chats with the barkeep. The barkeep tells Zhianna her reward it waiting for her as soon as the job’s over, but the thug wants to talk with her. Zhianna goes into the alleyway, and hears the thug calling from around the 4th floor. They chat back and forth, and the thug wants Zhianna to come up to his room! He drops the flying carpet down, stating she can’t be seen coming up the stairs.

Maia and Morgan arrive at the boat Order of Veil’s boat. Maia has magical x ray goggles, and uses them to peer through the ship. There’s a lead box in the hold; jackpot! Maia enters while Morgan remains latched to the boat’s underside. Maia sneaks up to the crate, labeled dry ice. She pries it open silently, then picks the locked lead box. Peering inside she finds…a large collection of dry ice.

Remember, the party was told the horns were already in Samheide. A few minutes before Morgan and Maia return, a karve pulls into the docks. They unload a single crate before getting stopped by Port Authority. Around this time, a creature much larger than the incoming ships begins attacking the merc companies. Steam vents erupt from the bay’s surface, and the boats are battered against one another. The party takes this as their cue to run.

At Trilly’s Tavern, Zhianna’s conversation is interrupted by shouting from the thug’s room. He calls down after a short commotion, telling her to get ready.

Double Cross

Perra contacted Maia and Morgan at this point, I believe by way of a sending. They catch up quickly, because the Port Authority has found themselves in an argument with a Knight of Lylivan. Curious that the knight has arrived ahead of their expeditionary force; the party notes this and continues following. The knight unsuccessfully argues some procedure by which he must takes authority over the crate, and store it in their recently developed embassy; I roll for the Port Authority’s reaction, they’re having none of the knight’s nonsense. Some vague threats do nothing to advance his cause, so he relents. The Port Authority moves on to the same street as Trilly’s Tavern.

The thug shouts down to Zhianna; “Now, distract them now!” Zhianna goes out into the streets, shooting fireballs and scorching rays about, putting on quite the lightshow. The Port Authority is equal parts threatened and confused. Before they really have a chance to react, thugs burst out of Trilly’s Tavern, and knock overt he Port Authority. Perra casts darkness, and the thugs make off with the cart. Zhianna turns invisible before running after the thugs, and the rest of the party follows!

Triple Cross

The party tracks the shipment to a warehouse, and what do you know! That same Knight of Lylivyn is waiting for the thugs.

'“You know, unicorn horns can be used for more than just war and impressive spells. They’re potent curatives in their own right. For instance, all poison is rendered inert when drunk from a unicorn’s horn. “

The knight takes out a vial, and commands the other two thugs to grab their boss. The knight menaces the the boss for about a minute before the boss breaks, threatening to make the boss drink poison from (what the knight assumes is) a fake unicorn horn. The boss “confesses” the real shipment is over by the other side of the city. The knight is satisfied, and leaves. The party leaves as well, but Perra overhears the thug boss on the way out.

“He was tellin’ the truth y’know! Watch, I love doin this! “

The sound of a clattering glass follows.

“Tastes just like banyan preserve! Let’s get outta here.”

Perra gets the party to stop, and fills them in. They go back to the warehouse, just in case. What do you know! There’s no dead thug, and an empty vial sits on the floor. The party realizes what the knight (having failed an insight check) did not. The thugs did have the real unicorn horns! A chase ensues, but visibility and the winding streets (combined with the thug’s head-start) sees the party fall far behind.

Perra casts locate object. The party knows the horns are being kept in a lead box, but they’ve seen the cart it’s carried in. Perra targets the cart, and the party follows the spell’s ping. Perra notices they’re closing in on the Running Goat tavern; circling once or twice confirms the cart is probably below the first floor. Zhianna enters (still invisible, causing some brief notice by the tavern’s scant customers) before the rest of the party. Zhianna notices a staircase behind the bartender, and starts creeping down while Maia distracts.

The three thugs are in the bar’s basement, arguing about whether to leave now. The “sea dragon” has made them afraid, but they’re apparently on a clock. Zhianna can’t see the thugs from her current position, and she moves further down. This triggers an alarm spell, and the thugs panic, trying to get (what Zhianna can now see is) an arcane engine strapped to the back of a dingy ready. The barkeep upstairs goes nuts, screaming and pointing a threatening-looking (if scrapped together) wand at the party. Initiative is rolled, Perra casts darkness before a finger of death spell ruins the ceiling, and Maia knocks the barkeep out.

Zhianna casts hold person on the Thug Boss and the fellow manning the engine. There’s a brief confusion as the underling freezes up, and the boss notices Zhianna. A brief discussion follows, in which the boss makes it clear he’s delusional, thinking Zhianna wants to join him in his newfound wealth. He even shoves “Frank” (still paralyzed) into the grey/brown water face first, urging Zhianna to hop in. Zhianna kills him with a scorching ray spell (nearly missing all of her shots), and instructs the other underling (Tony?) into the corner. The rest of the party gets downstairs, recovers “Frank”, and instructs him to get into the corner as well. A brief, funny conversation (in which Tony keeps turning around to ask Zhianna questions (where can we find you, we don’t know what to do for work, etc etc) ensues. They inform the pair of thugs they should get to Bronloch, and the party teleports out with their crate.

This is the best compliment I’ve ever received as a referee, I love it!

Resolution

The party teleports back to Sierra’s keep, with 64 unicorn horns. This is a prize too impressive to actually sell (at least all at once), and they recovered it with some degree of ease. It’s a massive amount of wealth, desired by many different factions, held in one place.

What fun!

Players and Settlements

Rewards

64 unicorn horns, maybe 2 new hirelings (we’ll see if they make it to Bronloch), and a flying carpet.

Characters

Maia

Maia’s resources and planning kept this session from dragging, making sure folks had a good handle on their objectives and complicating factors!

Ancestry: Dhampir
Class: Monk (Shadow) Rogue (No subclass yet)
Secondary Class: Minstrel
XP: (To be filled in)

Morgan

Morgan didn’t have too much to do this sesh, after the initial boarding action was finished. But he had a good time nonetheless, and upon recovering the unicorn horns, it’s clear he has ideas on how to use them.

Ancestry: Human
Class: Barbarian (Bear Totem) and Druid (Moon)
Secondary Class: Ley Keeper
XP: (To be filled in)

Perra

Perra also didn’t have too much to do this sesh, but it seems like she also enjoyed herself! Clever use of her magical cloak (which provides neat things like darkness and teleportation spells) is really keeping campaign momentum up, and I always appreciate her presence.

Ancestry: Kobold
Class: Cleric (Life, of Tweiflangr)
Secondary Class: Herbalist
XP: (To be filled in)

Zhianna

Zhianna was the star character this session, collecting plenty of info, managing social encounters, and making this a perfect heist session!

Ancestry: Half Elf (Dragonmark)
Class: Sorcerer (Divine Soul), Warlock (Celestial, Tome Pact)
Secondary Class: Scholar
XP: (To be filled in)

Settlements

Unnamed Keep
Level 1 Stronghold

Will have more details in the campaign catchup.

Owner: Sierra
Income: None
Resupply: 1 unit per season