# Seule's IC Freeport Storyhour (01/26/03)



## Seule (Oct 26, 2002)

Alright.  I'll be posting mostly submissions from the players in this game, which I run.  The game was inspired in large part by both DrNuncheon's Freeport Storyhour, and by Kyri Chronicles.  In what way, I'll leave as an exercise for the reader.
The cast of characters, in no particular order are:

Fenaik, Male Human Psychic Warrior
Constable Fraser, Male Human Fighter
Lyran, Female Human Psion (Savant)
Endrin, Male Human Cleric of the God of Retribution
Ving, Female Halfling Rogue/Monte Bard
Noewyn Winterborn, Female Half-elven Urban Ranger

All players are the same gender as the characters.  
   The story starts off in Freeport, with the characters having just graduated from basic training, and being assigned to a newly formed unit designed to investigate anything outside the ordinary Watch run of things.  The Watch is small, run down, and heavily corrupt.  

I'll be posting spoiler warnings at the start of each post, if any published module is involved.

Lyran's player missed the first session, and an NPC filled in, badly, thus the story starts a little abruptly.

  --Seule


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## Seule (Oct 26, 2002)

*Spoilers: Death in Freeport*

Dear Dad,

Good news!  I’ve been accepted into the City Watch after all!  It seems that the recruit they chose over me wasn’t able to handle the pressure.  I can’t say I’m surprised, it has been quite an adventure so far.

I met the rest of the team and discovered that they had imprisoned several people for assaulting the watch.  I was there for the questioning but it was quite confusing as there were many names being thrown around that I’d never heard.  Ving (she’s a halfling!) was quite helpful in sorting out the story for me.  It seems that Brother Egil approached our group looking for help finding his friend Lucius who had gone missing.  During the investigation the Watch was attacked by a group of humans and a gnomish psion.  Now in the prison were Hans and Petaro.  Further questioning revealed they were part of a mercenary company called the Yellow Shields.  They had been hired by a nervous little man called Enzo, and were supposed to meet him in a bar for payment.

We decided to go to the bar undercover, not revealing ourselves as officers of the watch.  It was very exciting!  It all went smoothly, Benton Fraser (my partner) and Fenaik (Ving’s partner), met with Enzo and got the payment as well as a little information.  Noewyn and Endrin (they’re partners too) were waiting outside the bar, so she was able to follow Enzo when he left, and we met with Noewyn back at the station once we left the bar.

Once we regrouped, Noewyn led us back to where she had tailed Enzo.  We climbed through a window into a building just outside of scurvy town.  We went down a trapdoor into a wine cellar, and found a secret door in a wine caske that wasn’t really a wine caske!  It led into some underground tunnels, and Noewyn nearly fell into a pit trap, but she managed to catch herself.  

Well, we soon found a room full of skeletons that stood up and attacked us!  I managed to knock some of them down from outside the room and Endrin managed to drive most of them away from the door and stop them from attacking.   While all this was distracting most of us, strange lizard-ish creatures came out of a secret door down the passageway we had passed and attacked Benton.   I knocked one out myself but my partner completely missed it and thinks I abandoned him.  I stood guard with him after the lizard men were gone and while the rest of the team beat the skeletons down so that he would stop saying that I left him during combat.  

I’m getting pretty tired now Dad, so I’ll finish this story tomorrow.

Love,
Lyran


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## Seule (Oct 26, 2002)

*Spoilers: Death in Freeport*

Dear Dad,

I’m a little more rested now, thankfully.  We decided that since the lizard-men had come out of a secret door we should follow their path.  We didn’t find anything except other secret entrances at first, and Benton began to act a little strangely.  Well, stranger than he had so far.  He began accusing all of us of being in on some conspiracy. (DM: He had been poisoned, and was paranoid)  Ving finally confessed in an attempt to make him shut-up but it didn’t work.  Endron tried to coax Benton to let him have a look at the wounds from the lizard men, but Benton would only let him look from a distance.  We were concerned but decided to press on in our explorations.

Finally we tracked down who we believed to be some of the kidnappers.  We prepared to attack, waiting for them to come through a door to us.  Unfortunately when the fight began Benton became completely unpredictable.  He attacked the kidnappers, but also Fenaik, and he knocked Nowyn’s sword out of her hand.  If this wasn’t surprising enough, one of our opponents was Milo, the assistant to the High Priest of the Church of Knowledge.  And he was casting spells!  We defeated his two snaky henchmen and finally knocked out Milo and Benton to take back to the station.

We found Lucius, in poor shape but alive, in a room being tended by Enzo.  We had a lot of people to carry back, as Lucius fainted in relief and Enzo fainted in terror.  Brother Egil was relieved to see Lucius and shocked to see Milo.  We were all shocked when Milo’s form changed in the cell to resemble a large snake man.

Captain Williams has decided to send us out of town for a bit, to investigate some strange things in Bellhold.  Seems that people are having headaches and bad dreams, and clerics and psions have left the city.  I’m not sure what we’re going to be able to do about nightmares, but we have the day off so I’m going to run some errands and I’ll be home tonight with dinner and a little money for you guys.

Love,
Lyran


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## Seule (Oct 26, 2002)

*Spoilers: Of Sound Mind 1*

Dear Dad,

How are things at home?  Still eating some leftovers?  Remember to go ahead and get some of Karla’s favourites, I should be making regular money now that I’m part of the watch.

The trip to Bellhold was fairly uneventful. (DM: I placed bellhold on the other end of the same island as Freeport, by the big mountain)  Ving is from here so we got lots of history on the journey.   It was more than I can remember, but basically all bells in the land come from Bellhold.  One of the bells in town even killed someone who was standing inside the tower when it was rung!

Once we were almost to town, we met up with a man in the road who was trying to round up his horses who had gotten out of their paddock.  Since none of us knew anything about horses this was time consuming, so we had lots of time to speak with Othic, the farmer.  I noticed that both Blaze and Broadsword (those were the horses) had matching scabs on their heads.  Othic hadn’t noticed it before so Endron had a look at them.  He thought the scabs were healing over something that had been put there, and it would be dangerous to the horses to try and remove whatever was there so we left them alone.  Othic had us in for dinner and confirmed what we were told about the bad dreams in town.  He also recommended a tavern for us, so I’m staying at the Bell & Clapper Inn while I’m here in town.  Othic plans to come by to meet us for breakfast in the morning.

The innkeeper, Tokket, was very gracious and we had a second dinner.  After our travelling it wasn’t difficult to eat a second time!  Tokket let us know that the problem had been gradually increasing over the last month or so, but the town oracle (some crazy woman) claims it will all stop within a week.  More seriously, three children have gone missing and now the adventurers who went after them are missing too.  People seem to believe the oracle, so maybe we should focus on the missing people problem.  After all, we have experience in that!

We attended a town meeting by Mayor Waterman, and he doesn’t seem to think the dreams are much of a problem either.  We attempted to introduce ourselves to Captain Holdeck after the meeting and offer our help but he seemed very distracted.  Perhaps this won’t be a long assignment after all.  I certainly can’t change people’s dreams and the city guard is uninterested in our help.  Oh well, perhaps we’ll get more information in the morning.  

Love,
Lyran


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## Seule (Oct 26, 2002)

*Spoilers: Of Sound Mind 1*

Dear Dad,

I hope you and Karla are doing well, and staying away from Bellhold.  I for one will not stay one second longer than I need to and hopefully will not be returning anytime soon.  You might not want to read all of this to Karla, it’s been a bad day.

I had a horrible dream last night, and I had trouble waking up from it.  It was terrifying, bloody, and painful and I am not sleeping in this town tonight!  Nowyn’s screaming finally woke me this morning, apparently whatever is affecting the townspeople has already attacked our group.  We all met for breakfast, and we all had rather poor sleep due to dreams.  We waited for Othic to join us, but when there had been no sign of him we finally began to eat.  We were interrupted by the lead hand at Othic’s farm, who ran in to tell us that Othic had been murdered.  We quickly went to the farm.

I won’t give you the unpleasant details Dad, but to say Othic had been murdered was a gross understatement.  Even the term butchering doesn’t do justice to the reality inside that barn, and I quickly lost what little of breakfast I had.  While I was trying to calm myself outside of the barn, I heard one of our signal whistles coming from a paddock behind the barn.  Benton, Ving and I ran towards the noise to discover the two horses we herded just yesterday attacking Endrin and Noewyn.  The horses were slain, and Endrin discovered crystals embeded into their brains.  This explains their bizarre behaviour, but we don’t know how the crystals got there.

After comforting the farm hand, we headed back to town to gather more details on the missing children and adventurers.  Our best source of information continues to be the innkeeper Tokket as Captain Holdeck seems dangerously distracted.  Tokket directed us to the river where the children had been playing before their disappearance.  We did manage to find some tracks from the children, but they were mingled in with goblin tracks!

We (okay, Noewyn) followed the tracks to the remains of the copper mine outside of town.  We climbed up the mountain past the mine entrance until it was impossible to climb further without equipment.  Assuming that goblins carrying children might also be without climbing gear we descended back to the old mine entrance and went in.  We had to lower ourselves down on a rope to a very unstable platform…which collapsed shortly after but we all managed to get into the tunnels.  There was quite an extensive network underground, complete with more gross ‘décor’ and lots of bugs!  Nowyn and I might have to work on our stomach control.  We fought some smelly zombie creatures and won, although I don’t remember the fight very well.

Anyhow, we finally found a room with an enormous statue of a dragon, and an enormous bowl of offerings to it.  We had to fight a strange bone creature, I managed to knock it over a couple of times (DM: Stomp) but when I joined in the fight I was quickly knocked out and woke up surrounded by bones with Benton feeding me a potion.  In the meantime, Endrin and Noewyn had given chase to a smelly lizard man who seemed to be a bit of a magic man.  From him we found out that there is a way to upper levels of the tunnels through the dragon room, but he didn’t know how to use it.  

Well, this next part takes a lot of explaining so I’ll stop for now and send you the rest in my next letter.

Love,
Lyran


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## Seule (Oct 26, 2002)

*Spoilers: Of Sound Mind 1*

Dear Dad,

Sorry to keep the two of you in suspense, this has been a tiring adventure.  Anyhow, I think I was about to explain how we figured out how to enter the upper levels past the dragon statue.  Ving found remnants of a broken mirror on the floor, on the side of the room opposite the dragon’s gaze.  We figured we must need a reflective surface to catch the light reflecting off of the dragon’s large eyes, but after searching the hoard and questioning the strange lizard man we still hadn’t found anything.  Finally we decided to try and pry out one of the dragon’s eyes to use as a mirror.  This turned out to be a poor plan.  Ving and Nowyn managed to climb the statue, but when Nowyn freed the eye-gem the statue woke up and threw her off!  Ving managed to cling to it’s head a little longer but quickly joined those of us on ground level too.  Luckily upon retrieving it’s eye the statue resumed it’s former posture, but during the excitement a couple of us noticed that there seemed to be an exit behind the statue.

We went back through the tunnels, checking some of the side passages that we had skipped over and we found a copper mirror.  Hanging it on the wall opposite the dragon caused a lot of reflection from the dragon’s eyes, and the mirror started to melt!  The dragon moved to the side, exposing an exit, and we all raced into the new room.

Soon we were at the base of a slippery spiral path winding up around a waterfall.  It was a tricky climb, so we were all moving very carefully.  That’s where we met Velea!  She’s wonderful!  The dragon imprisoned her in the waterfall and she asked us to help her get free.  I can tell she’s really counting on me to be the one to help her too.  I think Noewyn is trying  to show off to Velea though, and I know that Benton is!  They’re just jealous because she obviously likes me best.  She gave me the healing potions after all, Noewyn just got a bow.

We continued up the spiral…it was somewhere along here that we began to hear the voices.  Finally someone responded aloud to the voice, maybe it was Endrin, and we realized we were all hearing someone.  Except that everyone else was hearing ‘join me now, you’re all doomed’ sort of things, and I was getting pleas for help.  It seemed that the dragon was still very much active, and recruiting.

Finally we reached the top, and climbed into a room that immediately dried us out and our things.  There was an oversized chessboard with pieces as big as Ving in this room, and a large bell.  We searched around and found a little face in a wall.  I tried moving it, but nothing happened.  Ving licked it, and it started to talk to us.  We were a little stunned by this, so once we realized it was asking us a riddle most of the clue had been missed.    Since we couldn’t answer one of the chess pieces started walking towards the bell.  The men quickly smashed it, and smashed all the others just to be on the safe side.  Ving licked the face again and this time we paid attention and solved the riddle.  It was a pretty good one too!  I’ll teach it to Karla when I get home.

Anyhow, solving the riddle let us into another area.  We found some chests and I tried to help Ving with the locks.  I didn’t help so well, and fell victim to a trap that weakened me quite a bit.  Benton was kind enough to carry most of my things, as they were too heavy for me.  We did find some psi-crystals and some money though, but nothing to immediately help my condition.  Continuing on, we found a bit of a lab.  We could hear voices coming from nearby so we searched the area quietly.  There were dragon sized gem cutters and lots of crystal.  We found a really neat psi-library type of crystal, I could look up a whole bunch of stuff through it, and it didn’t take any exertion.  Fenaik and Endrin found an illusory wall, through which they could see goblins, and a child chained to a stone.  There was also the very large corpse of a dragon lying by an opening to the outside.  There was a bit of a drop into the room from where we were, so Ving and I shot goblins from above while the others dropped down to engage in hand to hand combat.  We managed to eliminate all the goblins, helped somewhat by one of them that turned against the others.  It seemed the goblin that had taken our side was from a rival group or something.  We have no interest in goblin politics so we let him leave.  The other two children were in a cage, one of them already had a crystal imbedded in his forehead (like the horses!) and had attacked Benton.  We had to knock him out while we figured out what to do with him.

The voices in our heads were getting more talkative, so we decided to investigate the corpse of the dragon.  We had seen one of the goblins come out of the mouth, so we were pretty sure it wasn’t just rotting there.  Ving and Fenaik climbed in, then made a hole through the side so we could all see.  There was a large blue crystal inside, that seemed to be the source of the voices, and probably what was controlling creatures with crystals in their heads.  We tried talking to it, but it wasn’t very reasonable, and I still had a voice in my head begging for help.  It seemed like this voice was trapped inside the crystal too.  We found another similar crystal in the workshop, and dropped them both inside a bag to see if one of the personalities would transfer to the new crystal.  This didn’t work, but we decided to bring both crystals back with us anyhow.  

First though, I felt we had to bring the dragon-crystal down to Velea, so that we could free her.  Benton and Noewyn agreed with me, but everyone else was very argumentative.  I don’t know what was wrong with them, why would they feel that freeing a prisoner of the dragon was a bad thing?  Especially since she was so obviously a good woman?  Fenaik refused to bring the crystal down to her since he didn’t know if she needed it.  Well, Noewyn, Benton and I went back down the spiral to see her and explain that the dragon was dead, but his consciousness might be inside this blue crystal we found.  Of course she needed it!  I was right in the first place!  We all hurried back up the spiral.  Benton slipped and fell into the waterfall but he caught himself in a giant spiderweb so Noewyn and I knew he’d be ok for the time being. (DM: And they knew that trapped he couldn't vie for Velea's affections)

The rest of our group was becoming totally irrational, they wouldn’t let us bring the crystal down to her without knowing why she needed it.  Velea needed it to be free of the dragon, but that wasn’t specific enough for them.  Fenaik accused me of being ensorcelled, so I told him that he must be to think that leaving a helpless woman prisoner was the right thing to do.  There was a lot of yelling and Fenaik tried to smash the crystal but it was too strong (he cracked the ‘empty’ one though!).  I tried to grab the bag from them and Noewyn joined in to help me.  I don’t really remember anything after that.

Now it is morning, I have a headache and I had another horrible nightmare. I’ve just woken up in the cage where the children were and Noewyn is here too, sleeping.  I can see the others from here and I don’t think anyone else is awake yet.  I can’t believe they’ve locked us up!  Clearly they’ve been affected by some sort of magic, maybe the crystal is doing something to them to make them behave irrationally.  Oh, I see Benton is starting to wake up, I’ll finish this later again.

Love,
Lyran


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## Seule (Oct 26, 2002)

*Spoilers: Of Sound Mind 1*

Dear Dad,

I’m coming home!  We have solved Bellhold’s problem, and we could all use a bit of a vacation from watch duty I think.

First things first, I guess I might have been wrong about Velea, she clearly exhibited some not-so-nice behaviour after I fell asleep last night.  I guess she did fool some of us, and definitely caused some stress in our group.  We all managed to agree with each other in the morning, I did apologize for my argumentative attitude of the night before.  

We climbed down the side of the mountain very slowly.  We had to keep the psi-controlled child unconcious for the safety of all of us during the hard climb.  Once on the ground, and returning to the village the voice started sounding a little desparate in its assurances of our imminent doom.  Entering the village, the people rushed forward upon seeing the missing children, then things got weird.  The dragon crystal took control of all the village people!  Even the children we had just brought home!  Luckily they were a very slow moving mass so we ran back towards the mountain until we were well away from any villagers.  The dragon crystal seemed very confident now, so we took out the library crystal and I spent some time trying to find a clue as to the weaknesses of  our enemy.  

The best I could find was that crystal in general can be damaged sonically.  We rummaged through our trinkets from the mountain and found a crystal pennywhistle.  Benton tried blowing on it but nothing happened to the crystal.  I decided to give it a try, and we did manage to cause a little damage to the dragon.  Seems you have to be a psion to cause damage with the whistle.  Anyhow, it wasn’t enough to destroy it, but we all immediately thought back to the story Ving had told us about a man dying when he was inside the bell tower while the bell was rung.  We decided that was our best course of action, but unfortunately there really wasn’t any way to hide our plans from the dragon crystal.  We returned to the village to find all the people surrounding the bell tower.  

We devised a plan, Endrin and Noewyn would wait on a nearby rooftop holding the dragon crystal, with a view of the tower and the bell rope.  Fenaik would be the one to actually try and ring the bell, with Ving providing back-up should he fail.  Benton and I would lure some of the villagers away from the tower, after I had used one of the crystals we found in the mountain to turn Fenaik invisible.  When the bell started to ring, Endrin would summon a creature to carry the bag with the crystal to the tower and drop it through an upper window.  Our plan went off pretty much as planned, although Noewyn had to shoot at a few villagers that tried to climb up to Fenaik and knock him off the tower.  Fortunatly none of the villagers died from their injuries, and we saved all of them, including that little boy with the crystal in his head.  

We got a reward and had a party in our honour, but I’m still more than happy to be leaving Bellhold!  Maybe a long time from now I’ll come back and visit.

Love,
Lyran


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## Seule (Nov 9, 2002)

*Spoilers: Terror in Freeport*

Dear Dad,

First off, if anyone asks you, I am vacationing in Bellhold and was not home for dinner last night.  In fact, you haven’t seen me at all since I left for Bellhold with the entire special unit.  

This is a bit tricky to explain, but here goes.  We came back home because we had another message from Brother Egil asking us for help.  We met with him at an Inn and found out that Lucius has not been recovering well from his ordeal, he faints and seems to have a poor grip on reality.  Brother Egil believes that the snake-cult-people we found are still in Freeport!  He even believes that someone (perhaps a snake-man) was searching through his rooms while he pretended to be asleep.  Apparently, there is a scroll missing but Brother Egil doesn’t know what scroll it was.  When we spoke about checking with Milo, we found out that he had already been executed for his crimes.  This happened very quickly given the volume of paperwork usually involved when a prisoner has been sentenced to be hanged.

Brother Egil did have a lead for us at least, in the seedy section of town.   Milo was known there as Devlin the merchant and had a room at the Marquee Moon Inn.  We went to investigate the Inn (it’s a dump!) and with a couple of coins the innkeep was happy to let Ving, Fenaik, and Endrin slip up to “Devlin’s” room.  Noewyn and I attempted to talk with some of the regulars, and we did find out from one very drunk dwarf that he had seen some strange people leaving the room in question, and the people smelled like tunnels.  Then the dwarf passed out…I may have bought him too many rounds in my enthusiasm.

Up in the room, the rest of our group did a thorough search and found some weird books and some rats in jars of fluid, but the rats were still alive!  Ving decided to bring them…I really don’t know why, they’re pretty creepy.  

We left the tavern and spotted three orcs attacking a messenger boy.  We rushed to his aid (that’s our job, after all) but it turned out to be a scam.  The kid and the orcs were a team.  We managed to knock out the orcs and restrain the boy, and then another Watch team showed up.  They were far more surprised to see us than the criminals, and told us that   They even offered to keep our presence a secret from the captain, for a price!  Luckily Benton didn’t hear them, he would have been writing them up for hours.  We handed the prisoners off to them, and headed back to the warehouse where we first found the snake-folks.

The warehouse was now guarded by…well, lets call him Mr. Q…Mr. Q’s men.  We bluffed our way in as a cleaning crew there to speed up the work being done.  We moved quickly through the familiar areas, everything had been removed by Mr. Q’s men.  We finally caught up to the ‘cleaning’ crew…they were snake guys of course, and we had quite a fight but we won.  The only catch was that the messenger boy was there, and he got away from us.  While Fenaik and Endron tried to figure out a way to go after the kid through the water exit, Ving started to check out some crates that were in the room.  They had some very strange split-able bricks in them, with a strange symbol on the inside faces.  They seemed to be bricks for the new lighthouse, so we were very concerned.  We took as much as we could and quickly left the building with the cleaning cart.

We went to the hall of records to see about old sewer tunnels, and the guy there was very helpful…since he doesn’t much care for Mr. Q.  It seemed our quarry had been by earlier and was very rude, bossy and cheap.  The clerk was more than happy to show us exactly what Mr. Q was looking for, and we found what seemed to be an entrance to an old part of the sewers…I guess I can’t really tell you where it is.  We were very pleased with ourselves and headed out right away.

We didn’t get very far, more Watchmen showed up and told us the captain wanted to see us right away.  We were ‘escorted’ to the Hall of Justice (you know, right beside the Watch house?) and left to wait in a small boring room.  When we were finally told the captain would see us, we entered a room to find Mr. Q with the captain!  I think we all assumed our captain wasn’t such an honest guy, so we stood there while Mr. Q lectured us on staying out of the way of his men.  Finally he left and we were alone with the captain.  He was frustrated but not really mad, seems that Mr. Q has been throwing his weight around and it’s been landing on our boss.  We agreed that we would investigate quietly and unofficially, and do our best to stay out of Mr. Q’s way.  In the meantime, we had our cart of evidence locked away in the barracks in case we need it later.

Well, we’re going to try out that sewer entrance next, so be well, and remember that I’m not in town!

Love,
Lyran


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## Seule (Nov 24, 2002)

It's very lonely in this thread all by myself.  Does anyone have a comment on anything?  The format?  The content?  The lack of updates?  My players are welcome to comment too...

Hello?  Anyone out there?

  --Seule


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## Willtell (Nov 25, 2002)

*Updates?*

How oftern do you play?.

Had any problems running the module? - It's difficult to tell with the Freeport Storyhour because without the module you don't know what's been changed.+

How much fun are the player's having - do they like the surprises and are they finding the challanges interesting?.


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## Seule (Nov 25, 2002)

We play in theory every week, in practice maybe 3 out of 4 weeks.  I've had to change some things around because the characters are in the watch.  For instance, anywhere that the adventurers are expected to interact with the watch needed to be rewritten extensively.
The players seem to be having fun, I've been playing with most of this group for years now.
Mostly, I'm interested in what people think of the format.  So far I have been posting only submissions from one player, written as letters to her character's father.  Unfortunately, that player just got a full-time job, and the submissions have gotten sparser.  Also, there are some details she leaves out on purpose.  For instance, in the first posted session, she mentions that they went undercover, but not that she was impersonating a prostitute (very badly), so as not to shock her father.  I'm wondering if I should be appending my views on the sessions to the messages, to try to clarify some things.  On the other hand, most storyhours are written from the omniscient view, I thought that a character's view on a game might be refreshing.

  --Seule


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## Willtell (Nov 26, 2002)

Appending your views where they can help the reader get a better idea of the characters character could be one way to go.  

That fact >> in the first posted session, she mentions that they went undercover, but not that she was impersonating a prostitute (very badly), so as not to shock her father << is interesting and helps the reader get a better idea of the character.

Another way of doing this could be to occasionally have another characters point.


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## Seule (Jan 9, 2003)

*Spoilers: Deus Ex Machina*

The player who was writing session reports as letter to her dad has gotten a fulltime job, and has stopped.  More recently, another player (Constable Benton Fraser) has started writing reports to the Captain, and I'll post them here.  
Not posted: The end of Terror in Freeport, and Holiday in the Sun.  The PCs are still together, basically unchanged.  We start again with the report on the module Deus Ex Machina from the Green Ronin website.


Incident Report 3690
The Case of the Missing Holy Symbols

   We were on routine patrol when we detected a female scream coming from a nearby alley and we immediately went to investigate.  The woman said that she had just been robbed and as we looked around we noticed the perpetrator (here after called the perp) scaling the wall.  It was quickly discovered that he had just stolen Constable Endrin’s Holy Symbol and we gave chase.  The perp (a Halfling no doubt working for Finn) was chased onto the roof and subsequently into the old Church of Retribution.  Constable Endrin, being a Priest of Retribution gave us permission to enter the old Church and so we did.  Myself and my partner, Constable Lyran, guarded the exit to the old Church while the rest of the team went to fetch backup.  After returning with Constable Fenaik we all entered the old Church in search of the perp.
   We discovered some strange fungus along with the body of a missing Priest of Retribution who was identified by Constable Endrin.  Further investigation revealed the presence of another missing Priest of Retribution who was being held prisoner and tormented.  We released the prisoner and sent him for further reinforcements from the Church of Retribution.
   We came upon a strange ape-like beast locked in a room and we left it as such.  We further were assaulted by the Halfling perp who we quickly subdued.  We commenced to interrogate the perp where in both Constable Fenaik and Constable Endrin used undue force and struck the perp.  I feel that both Constable’s should be disciplined for their use of excessive force.  After manacling the perp we found and proceeded to descend a set of stairs we had discovered.
   On the ground floor we soon discovered that the original front door to the Church was bricked up and we also discovered a complex maze.  We easily traversed the maze and discovered a secret door in the bottom of a pit.  Upon entering this door we were assaulted by a human and a gnome who seemed to possess some mental abilities as they made two of the candle stands mobile and proceeded to attack us.  Further there was a strange man just completing some type of ceremony which brought to life a large statue made of all the stolen Holy Symbols.
   After dispatching the human and the gnome and watching the strange man disappear using some psychic power we set out to stop the Holy Symbol Golem.  We quickly discovered that we could not affect the monstrosity and it proceeded to almost kill Constable Fenaik.  Only due to the heroic efforts of Constable Noewyn were we able to retreat and trap the Golem until reinforcements from the Church of Retribution arrived and both healed Constable Fenaik and destroyed the Holy Symbol Golem.  Upon returning for our original perp we found that he had slipped his bonds and escaped.  I would recommend questioning Finn as I am sure the perp was one of his men.
   In closing I would like to recommend Constable Nowenn for a Medal of Bravery for her efforts in holding off the Golem while we rescued Constable Fenaik and escaped.
   This hereby ends this incident report.  The file will be left open until such time as the original perp is apprehended and/or the mysterious psychic man behind the operation.

Constable Benton Fraser


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## Seule (Jan 11, 2003)

*Spoilers: Madness in Freeport*

Case 3266
The Case of the Jade Snake Statue, part 1

   It all started when the team was invited to a pre-lighthouse party to receive the Medal of Drac for our role in rooting out Ex-Councilor Verlaine and his Temple of the Yellow Sign.  A few hours into the party a strange man walked into the ballroom and made a cryptic announcement about the Cult of the Yellow Sign and that they would strike soon and be unstoppable and that the only thing that could hope to defeat their plan was a jade snake statue of the ancient God of the Snakepeople.  
   After changing into work clothes we immediately went to the Temple of Knowledge where we discerned that this jade statue did indeed exist but was lost under the sea many centuries ago.  Further research revealed that the old pirate Black Dog had found this old temple of the Snake people some fifty years ago and had buried his old treasure in the same underground cove.  Black Dog being dead we tracked down an old shipmate of his by the name of Gareth.  After we agreed to pay his doctor’s bills (in the amount of 250 gp) he told us how to find this old temple.
   Realizing we needed a longboat to reach the old temple of the Snakepeople we enlisted the aid of Bedwyn, the nephew of Sister Gwendolyn of the Temple of the Sea God.  Bedwyn accompanied us to the snake temple site and at low tide a cave was revealed and we rowed our boat inside.  We were surprised to come upon some rapids and were caught off guard and myself, my partner Constable Lyran, Constable Endrin and Constable Noewyn were thrown from the boat.  We were eventually flushed out into a calm underground lake of sorts where I and my partner proceeded to swim to shore.  Constable Endrin and Constable Noewyn were not so fortunate.  Constable Endrin, being loaded down in heavy armor sank to the bottom and Constable Noewyn was attacked by a strange turtle-like creature.  Constable Fenaik, with no thought to his own safety dove into the water and used his psychic abilities to assist Constable Endrin to the boat.  Constable Noewyn was dragged to the middle of the lake and was bleeding badly.  The boat was rowed out to Constable Noewyn and after a valiant struggle with the turtle creature all Constables were brought on board the boat a little worse for wear.  Luckily Bedwyn had brought a generous donation of some healing potions from the Temple of the Sea God and all Constables were brought back to health.  
   Once on shore we found signs of an old battle and one shiny cutlass sticking out of the sand.  When we examined the cutlass an undead creature, a spectre of battles past, reached out his cold hand of death for us.  The quick thinking and strong faith of Constable Endrin (who is a priest in good standing of the God of Retribution) banished the undead creature back to the grave from which it spawned and we took a quick breather before we moved on.

   I would like to take this opportunity to recommend Constable Fenaik for a special Medal of Valor.  With no thought to his own safety he dove into the water to save both Constable Endrin and Constable Noewyn who no doubt would have perished without his assistance.


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## Seule (Jan 12, 2003)

*Spoilers: Madness in Freeport*

Case 3266 Part 2  Case of the Jade Statue

   After Constable Endrin banished the undead creature I took the cutlass from the sand. It appeared quite valuable and I did not want anyone to steal it so I took it into protective custody until its owner could be found.  Finding nothing else on the beach we boarded the boat again and went down another water passage.
   We came to a primitive shrine to the God of the Sea which we surmised was very old, so I made a small offering hoping to invoke calm waters for our continuing water journey.
   Down another water passage we discovered another beach, however there were several bodies impaled on spears and so we examined the beach with caution.  After careful probing of the sand we discovered all the spear traps and disarmed them.  I then decided to use the cutlass I had in protective custody to try to locate the jade statue we had been sent to look for.  I had hoped that perhaps it contained some latent magical powers but alas no jade statue was found.  It was at this point that the sight of the very valuable cutlass caused a kind of greed-lust in both Constable Fenaik and Constable Endrin and they both demanded I turn over the cutlass to them.  Well, I had encountered their unique form of insanity before when we previously encountered a group of Snakemen who worshiped the Cult of the Yellow Sign (see previous reports) and recognizing the same wild-eyed look of them now, refused to give them the cutlass.  It was then that Constable Endrin started to cast magic at me, trying to force me to give him the cutlass.  I warned him several times to stop and when he continued I was forced to strike him with the flat of the cutlass blade and break his concentration.  Unfortunately, I was not quick enough and his magic had paralyzed me.  It was then that the rest of the team fell to bickering over who should keep the valuable cutlass (all having succumb to the greed-lust to which they were unfortunately prone) and in their pulling at the cutlass it fell into the water.  Once I was freed from the paralyzing magic I was threatened with bodily harm by both Constable Fenaik and Constable Noewyn.  I attempted to retrieve the cutlass and take it back into protective custody when my own partner Constable Lyran attempted to stop me.  Realizing that being a psion and being able to remember the spot the cutlass fell into the water, she only wanted to steal the cutlass at a later time so I gently moved her aside and retrieved the cutlass myself putting it back into protective custody.  It was at this time that the team came to their senses and stopped trying to steal the cutlass.  I feel that perhaps my earlier donation at the Sea Shrine was having some effect.  
   We discovered a secret room where the pirate Black Dog had hidden his horde of  treasure, the problem was that Black Dog was an undead guarding it.  After Constable Endrin failed to banish Black Dog we decided to simply ask him for the jade statue we were looking for assuring him we had no interest in the rest of his gold.  BlackDog explained that he did not have the statue but if we promised never to come back he would tell us of a snake door behind which the jade statue certainly was.  We quickly made the promise and were off to find this snake door.
   With Black Dog’s directions we easily found the snake door and after several failed attempts to open it by the rest of the team (each of them getting sprayed by some sort of poison) Constable Ving steeled herself and managed to overcome the mental trap on the door and open it.  We found a room with a large snake statue of the ancient serpent god Yig as well as a watery set of stairs going down.  After swimming down the stairs we came into an air-filled room where we met Alisstar, an ancient and cursed serpent servant of Yig.  He told us that if we retrieved 4 holy relics of Yig, he would give us the jade statue we sought.  We quickly agreed to retrieve the Amulet of the Serpent, Fangs of the Serpent, Venom of the Serpent and Scales of the Serpent.
   Constable Fenaik had earlier spotted an amulet that matched the description of the one we sought and quickly retrieved it for Alisstar.  We continued further down into the ancient temple of Yig to find the other 3 relics.  We came upon Vrosh, the snakeman weapons master of Yig and discovered he wore the Scales of the Serpent, which is a suit of armor.  Constable Ving remembered that their was a weakness in the Scales of the Serpent and so the rest of the team aimed for the hollow spot in Vrosh's armor and subdued him and recovered the second of the relics.  Next we discovered 2 wounded snake men who requested that we end their suffering and they would give us a healing salve.  Normally I would never condone even a mercy killing but having seen their suffering I was moved to end it and so we did.  We collected our healing salve and as the hour was quite late we decided to rest and continue down further into the old temple in the morning.

   I would like to end this report by stating that I feel that all the other members of my team be screened for possible mental defects, especially Constable’s Fenaik and Endrin as this is the second time they have become physically violent with me.  I would also like to recommend Constable Ving for a special commendation for her discovering both the secret chamber to Black Dog and remembering the weakness in the Scales of the Serpent.  Without her knowledge this mission would have surely been doomed to failure.

Constable Benton Fraser
Freeport Special Watch 


DM's Notes: Benton Fraser is currently cursed to be very protective of the saber.  He attacked Endrin and criticalled for high teens damage, and was being very unreasonable.  This is the second or third time he's been curced or paranoid, and the others are beginning to expect it.  His Will save of +0 at 4th level doesn't help.  Basically, everything he says about the others regarding the sword or their actions relating to it are pretty inaccurate, he having claimed it for himself, and refuses to give it up.


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## Seule (Jan 19, 2003)

*Spoilers: Madness in Freeport*

Case 3266 Part 3 The Case of the Jade Statue

   After standing watch for the night (to keep the sword away from those thieving bastards) we continued down into the depths of the snake temple.  Constable Endrin again held the undead creature guarding the stairs at bay and Constable Noewyn feebly attempted to slay the creature but it took myself and my new gleaming cutlass to end the foul creatures existence.  After this I really noticed the other Constables eying my new cutlass, especially that conniving Constable Lyran, my so-called partner.  She went invisible and I could just feel her eyes burning into my cutlass and feel her lust for my weapon.  
   Once downstairs we discovered a spiked shut room with a quite insane snake man named Sseth.  He promised to help us if we entered the room to talk to him but we politely declined.  Further on we found two apprentices of Alisstar by the names of Arness and Hursst who both promised us much treasure if we would kill the other.  They both seemed to think that the other was to blame for the cataclysm that befell the snake people all those many years ago.  Again we politely declined.
   We found Allisstar’s room and his journal which explained much of what happened to the temple to put it in its current state.  It was at this time, while I was momentarily distracted by the journal that Constable Lyran, the sneaky bitch that she is, decided to show herself and try to steal my cutlass.  Well I would not take anymore of this and passed a quick sentence of death on her and proceeded to carry out my sentence.  At this time the other backstabbing Constables joined the fray and also pawed their greedy hands at my cutlass.  While fending them off Constable Endrin cast some type spell on me and suddenly I realized that that filthy cutlass was controlling me and making me do all those awful things to my friends and partner.  I quickly came to my senses and cast the demon spawned cutlass into the corner.  
   I would like to take this time to formally apologize to my fellow Constables and especially my partner Constable Lyran.  Most of my previous report was drastically skewed by the influence of the cutlass and should be treated as such.  I will finish the reports on this case and then would like to formally offer my resignation from the Watch and turn myself in for the attempted murder of both Constable Endrin and Constable Lyran.
   Once I regained my senses we continued down another set of stairs and encountered a statue of the ancient snake god yig.  We discovered that if we covered the eyes on the statue the light emanating from them was shaded and a door at the end of the hallway opened.  We discovered a giant undead snake in the chamber and after slaying it took its fangs which turned out to be one of the artifacts we were looking for.  
   Having exhausted all leads we returned to Sseth and went into his room to talk to him.  He offered us information on the final artifact if we answered a riddle for him.  Easily coming up with the answer we followed Sseth’s instructions and recovered the final artifact.  We then returned to Allisstar.
   Allistar, with the help of Constable Ving, performed the cleansing ritual to appease yig and then gave us the Jade Statue we had been searching for these last 2 days.  The temple started to collapse and so we rowed a hasty retreat from the cave and made our way back to Freeport.  We suspected foul play at the new lighthouse and since we could not get close to it to warn anybody during the day we waited until night and then approached the lighthouse to try and stop whatever strangeness was afoot.

   So ends part 3 of this report

Constable Benton Fraser


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## Gizzard (Jan 25, 2003)

> Not posted: The end of Terror in Freeport, and Holiday in the Sun.




I'd like to see a quick synopsis of how TiF ended if you get the chance.  I'm running TiF right now and you left off right where I fear the real danger will start (crushy crushy!).  

Also, what level were your characters during these various events?  I guess they must be first level since they never mention the endless joy of new knowledge and skills gained?  ;-)  

Tangent:  I ran Holiday in the Sun right after DiF to give the players enough XP to go to 2nd level.  It was probably their favorite day, as there was always something going on.  Either Lydon was running an event on the pier or there was a fight to be had (or to bet on) down in the Dwarfs bareknuckle ring.  One interesting thing I notice about running a city adventure is that there definitely are "down days" and "up days" - days where people are frustrated because they can't tell if they are on the right path, and days where they are happy because there are things to kill (and therefore they are on the right path.)  Swagfest is nice because there is plenty to do, and no pressure to make the "right" decision.  A good break after the chaos of dealing with the Snakemen.


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## Seule (Jan 26, 2003)

The rest of TiF went pretty much how the mod expected, the biggest difference was right at the end of the session that was posted.  The Crusher almost killed several of them, they managed to get the door open and scramble out, the last to exit was while it was shaking while tipped up, so there were some Strength checks made there, that were critical.

As of the current session (not posted yet, happened yesterday) the last character made it to 5th level, and a few made it to 6th.  After Of Sound Mind, several were close or made it to 3rd, as I recall.  Levelling up is something that happens offstage, and as such, it's not something the characters really comment on.  

Swagfest was one of the sessions that I feel I didn't run very well.  Stuff happened, but the death of the Captain to the assassin put a damper on the festivities (Endrin was chasing the assassin, and Ving failed to patch him up before he died of his wounds).  Actually, Deus Ex Machina they found frustrating as well, but I think I've gotten back into the groove.  After Madness I'll be moving on to the Banewarrens, and that should keep them occupied for several levels.

  --Seule


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## Seule (Jan 27, 2003)

*Spoilers: Madness in Freeport*

Case 3266A Assault on the Lighthouse

    We rowed out to the light house narrowly avoiding the many patrols meant to discourage just our sort of visit.  When we arrived at the island we quickly discovered that all the doors were barred from the inside and so Constable Fenaik decided to climb in a second story window and unbar the door from the inside.  Constable Fenaik was unfortunately discovered by the guards inside and a fight quickly broke out.  Constable Fenaik managed to unbar the door and when the rest of the team entered the lighthouse we quickly subdued the guards.  We then discovered that they were all members of the Cult of the Yellow Sign (which we had suspected all along), and so we quickly proceeded to stop what ever dastardly plan the Cult was trying to put into motion.
    We climbed the stairs to the second level of the lighthouse whereupon we discovered several more cultists including a priest who called down the curses of his Unspeakable God upon us.  Led by Constable Endrin (a priest of the God of Retribution) we countered with our own faith in the God of Retribution and quickly subdued the Cultists and their foul priest.  There was an alter to the God of the Sea which had be defiled with the symbol of the Unspeakable One. Upon searching the second floor we discovered the body of a local thief whom we recognized from having arrested her on petty theft charges in the past.  She was dead not more than an hour ago from a crossbow bolt in the back.  We also discovered 2 large statues of the Gods of the Sea and War.  We found that the arms on the statues moved and when we pulled them down a secret door opened to reveal a set of stairs leading up to the higher portions of the lighthouse.  Fearing what the Cult was about to do we quickly ascended the stairs.
    We entered the third level of the lighthouse and came into some sort of sacrifice room.  The floor was littered with Thick Debris including the carnal stench of many dead bodies.  [Note: Thick Debris is gaming code for 'Feel free to search this room.'  Thin Debris is 'There is nothing to find here, don't bother'.]  We found another set of stairs going up but before we could use them a horrific creature from our nightmares attacked.  It was a fleshy blob of many eyes and mouths and made a cacophonous wail that could drive a person insane.  As we steeled ourselves for combat it spat out a glowing ball that exploded in a blinding flash.  Luckily we were all holding our ears and looking away due to its gibbering and were unaffected by the flash.  [Note: All 6 characters made both Will and Fort saves of 13 to avoid being confused and blinded.  They were very lucky.] Constables Endrin and Winterborn moved to slay the beast but quickly started to sink into a sickening morass surrounding the creature.  Not wishing that fate onto my teammates I dropped my weapon and proceeded to pull the Constables out of the mire.  Meanwhile Constable Fenaik, using the long reach of his chain kept the creature busy while my partner Constable Lyran used her mastery of her psychic abilities to end the beasts miserable existence.  We then regrouped and took the stairs to the upper levels of the lighthouse.
    Upon entering the upper reaches of the lighthouse we found a set of stairs running up the side over a hundred feet to the very top of the lighthouse.  At the top of these stairs we could barely make out the forms of several more cultists as well as that of Milton Drac the very Sea Lord of Freeport.  Lord Drac proceeded to tell us that we would not stop him from summoning the Unspeakable One and raining destruction down on Freeport.  Since Lord Drac just admitted to a felony we had no other choice but to climb the stairs and arrest him.  He however fled to the very upper reaches of the lighthouse and his cronies attempted to impede our progress.  We informed them that aiding the escape of a felon is also a crime but they persisted and we were forced to subdue them as well.  [Note: There was no actual due process here, Benton is inserting it after the fact to make them look good.  They just killed them.]  One of the Cultists which Mr. Drac called by name used some strange abilities to fly into the air and conjured a wall of raging fire between us and the Cultists.  We later discovered that he displayed something called Arcane Magic but I am still unclear what this is.  I await the report from the Temple of Knowledge before I can fully complete this report upon the use of Arcane Magic.  In the mean time, while using bow fire to pin down the cultists, Constable Fenaik and myself braved the wall of flames and subdued the cultists behind it.  It is worth mentioning that Constable Fenaik was grievously wounded in this assault and came close to death.  I would like to recommend Constable Fenaik for the Purple Heart medal for valor under fire.  While I was subduing the rest of the Cultists, my teammates were using bow fire and Constable Lyran’s considerable mental abilities to subdue our flying adversary.  At this time I would like to recommend my partner Constable Lyran for the Golden Brain medal, for effective use of mental powers in a combat situation.  [Note: This is an entirely made up medal.  Cool nonetheless.]  We surely would have fallen to the Cultists were it not for her timely and effective application of mental force.
    Having a felony suspect escaping we quickly brought Constable Fenaik back to health and continued up the stairs in pursuit of Lord Drac.


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## Gizzard (Jan 27, 2003)

> Stuff happened, but the death of the Captain to the assassin put a damper on the festivities (Endrin was chasing the assassin, and Ving failed to patch him up before he died of his wounds).




I didn't allow the Assassin to auto-kill the Captain; after all, what fun is a dead pirate?  ;-)  And two Fighters with 18 STR (point-buy) made it so Jesswyn didnt have a chance to finish the work she started.  Had to jump for it after one round, no time for the CDG.  Actually, what all the players loved was the goofy games; "Jacks Last Stand" and "The Fat Rat".   We'll see how much they like the Crusher. :-0

Glad the last few session have been good.  Keep having fun.


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## Seule (Jan 27, 2003)

The assassin's sneak attack dropped him to about -6, and he bled out from there, as Ving was unable to make the DC 15 Heal check untrained to stabilize him.  Do you like the notes I put in in [] format?

  --Seule


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## Gizzard (Jan 28, 2003)

Mmmm, this typo is my favorite part:



> carnal stench of many dead bodies




Or maybe its not a typo and the Brotherhood is up to some additional foul stuff in your world.  ;-)  

It must have been tough to end the session on the stairs of the lighthouse with the fate of the world hanging in the balance!


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## Seule (Feb 27, 2003)

*Spoilers: Madness in Freeport*

Case 3266A Part 2 Assault on the Lighthouse

    We continued up the stairs to apprehend Sea Lord Drac and we found him in the upper reaches of the lighthouse but he was being guarded by Cpt. Brock Wallace and Melkior Maeorgan.  We informed both these men that aiding and abating Sea Lord Drac was itself a criminal act as the Sea Lord was now a wanted man but they persisted in impeding our investigation and so we had no choice but to arrest them as well.  When we went to do this we discovered that Cpt. Wallace was in fact a disguised serpent man.  
    Sea Lord Drac made several incriminating statements about taking over the city and freely confessed to having tried to kill us several times over the last few months.  When we went to arrest the men all 3 of them commenced to assault us and resist arrest and so these charges were added to the list against the men. 
    There was a great gem surrounded by a glass enclosure and this was emitting a sickly yellow light over the city.  In the course of the battle Constable Fenaik broke the glass surrounding the yellow gem and destroyed said gem.  Constable Fenaik then replaced the broken gem with the Jade statue that we had earlier recovered from the ancient serpentman temple and a pulse of green light shot out and disintegrated Sea Lord Drac.  Only his bones were left which fell from the lighthouse.  These we gathered up and buried at sea to protect the city from the truth.  It is for this reason that this report has been sealed and if you are now reading it then all the Constables involved, including myself must have passed away.  Know that it was Sea Lord Drac who was responsible for the terrible misfortune which befell the city on this terrible night and a group of stalwart, faithful defenders of the city which saved it and sought no credit.  I would like to conclude by recommending Constable Fenaik, Constable Endrin, Constable Ving, Constable Winterborn and my partner Constable Lyran for a posthumous award of Valor.

Constable Benton Fraser
Freeport City Watch

DM's Notes: The entire Madness in Freeport report has been sealed and given to the Captain to open once all of the characters are dead.  He hasn't given any hint that he has opened it, but who knows?


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