The last couple of sessions have been largely taken up by the “side trek” into a Temple of Urgathoa beneath the city. This was not what the characters had been expecting as they thought that they would just be going after and dealing with Gaedren Lamm. They were able to do this, just not quite how they thought, but have become embroiled in something that might be greater in scope than just that petty and despicable criminal. At the end of the last session, Mac had gotten “messaged” by Divo (his contact in the Korvosan Guard) that the Queen’s Guard would be arriving on scene relatively soon.
Adam had to miss this session so Aimar was out of the picture. Although there are significant changes to it, there are potential spoilers for the Temple of Urgathoa adventure from Book 2, Seven Days to the Grave, of Curse of the Crimson Throne. As usual, my GM comments are in italics below.
15 Pharast
- Once the Divo’s message has a chance to sink in, the party sprang into action. They quickly search this “operating room” and find a few things.
- There is a small coffer, decorated with skulls all over its outside. Even the lock is sculpted to resemble a skull. It is locked.
- A hidden door is found. This leads to a small room with a bed, some shelves, and an open chest. It clearly looks like someone (Rolth Lamm?) quickly gathered a few things and left. Left through another door that leads to some smuggling tunnels.
- They elect to not pursue whoever had fled, pick up the skull coffer, and press on deeper into the temple.
- Passing through the double doors off the chamber with the “demons” in tubes. This leads to a short passage before ending in a circular chamber with a high domed ceiling. Pop ventures forward to get a better look. The center of the room is dominated by a pool of crystal clear water. Rising from the pool is a large statue of a beautiful woman…at least from the waist up. Her lower body is a skeleton.
- A series of smaller pools are equidistant around the perimeter of the chamber. In front of each is a skull coffer, open. Each pool appears to be filled with a different liquid such as blood or milk.
- Four zombies are in the room but take no action yet.
- A woman’s voice asks Pop if they are hear as supplicants or sacrifices. He replies that they are neither and are here to put an end to her and stop her plague from spreading in the city. The fight begins.
- This priestess, presumably Andaisin, takes to the air and the zombies move to attack. The party does the same.
- A globe of magical darkness fills the corridor entering the chamber and makes the party’s approach all the more difficult.
- Despite the darkness, the party pushes in to attack. Pop is badly wounded by the priestess. Her flight makes things difficult. The zombies are focused on first by many in the party. They explode when “killed” but to little apparent effect.
- Mac summons his favorite, Shroomy, right next to the priestess and it grabs on. Isabella begins to help boost Darcy up in the air to strike at the priestess. Stan hangs down from the ceiling to attack. (Shroomy’s grappling makes the priestess vulnerable which greatly benefits Darcy given the Rogue’s Sneak Attack ability.)
- The priestess seems quite intent on wounding as many of the party, excluding summoned/extraplanar creatures, as possible. (I wonder why?)
- With the various methods for mitigating the flight of the priestess, she is pretty badly wounded and attempts to flee. She flies back the way from which the party had originally come. She almost escapes, but the party is able to defeat her first.
- The priestess’s body is relieved of the scythe, breastplate, and diadem…all detect as magic (after the GM reminds the players that any character with an Arcane Background can sense nearby magic).
- Back in the circular chamber, the party discovers that one “skull coffer” is on the backside of the pool and statue and remains unopened. They take it as well.
- Heading back out themselves, they stop in the dormitory where they had left one cultist type unconscious. They kill him before continuing out the way they originally came…through the basement of the Andreddo Building.
- As they “escape,” they do see some of the Queen’s Guards approaching this area. A relatively new group in Korvosa’s authority structure, these Gray Maidens are not yet common knowledge. Not everyone in the party is familiar with them. Each is wearing full plate with helmets that completely cover all of their facial features. Each has a tower shield. Each has a longsword and some appear to have a bow strapped to their back.
- The party avoids any contact with this group and debates what to do next. Pop needs some sort of medical (or magical) attention to his wounds. After contemplating a few options, they decide to head to the Thief’s Camp and a “business” that Isabella is familiar with…a smuggler of sorts who has access to a variety of goods.
- Lucia’s Bakery, which specializes in Varisian baked goods, is the front for the main smuggling business. (More world/city building by the group.) The party gets right down to business and needs some healing potions. After a bit of back and forth, the party offers a gold bar and silver ring (looted from The Old Fishery), but those won’t be enough alone for all that they want to purchase.
- Stan is summoned and the scythe is also offered. Since no one knows what it does, Lucia isn’t sure how much it is worth. She’ll have to take some time to get that determined.
- She also asks where the other items were acquired. Without providing all the details, the group lets her know that Lamm had them taken, at least in the case of the ring, by his child pickpockets.
- They also share that Lamm is dead. A bit more back and forth on that, making it clear that Lucia despised Lamm, and Lucia returns the gold bar and ring, will get the scythe checked out, and hands over a bag of pastries. They’ll have to come back the next day and she’ll have more information or items for them.
- After leaving, the party finds that two of the pastries have a healing potion each. Pop and Darcy consume these. Darcy is fully recovered, but Pop is not.
- Heading back to Old Korvosa, Darcy wants to talk with Elvo about taking in the children that Lamm had been exploiting. He agrees that he can probably find something for them to do and somewhere for them to live. (The children were not with the group so that’s a task for later.)
- The party then heads back to the Fishbucks across from the Andreddo Building and the Hospice of the Blessed Maiden (which would be above the Temple of Urgathoa).
- There are eight Gray Maidens standing out front of the hospice and turning people away.
- Pop gets the wild idea to go over to see if he can get some help…he still has unhealed wounds inflicted by the scythe wielding priestess. He is not turned away. Instead, a Gray Maiden, hand on his shoulder, escorts him inside to a reception type area to make an appointment for the next day.
- A different woman, not a Gray Maiden, is behind the counter in this reception area. She gives Pop a lookover and asks if she can take Pop back for some treatment now. The Gray Maiden concurs and the pair start to take Pop back into the hospice proper.
And that is where we ended the session.
The rest of the party has no idea what just happened. All they saw was Pop go over and be escorted inside rather than being turned away. I’m all in antici…pation to see what happens with this next session.
The fight with the priestess took up a good portion of this session. She had a rather high Toughness which proved a bit difficult for the group, along with the flight and darkness. We debriefed after the fight about some options for high toughness opponents, talked about the Combat Survival Guide, and some of the different options baked into the Savage Worlds rules.
The Temple of Urgathoa is from the Curse of the Crimson Throne. The Gray Maidens are from the Curse of the Crimson Throne. What is in that adventure path is not the same as our Temple or our Gray Maidens. We are not playing the adventure path or even all of the individual adventures. I’m just borrowing inspiration (and maps and encounters) from some of that. So if anything seems off from the published material, that is why.
And why did that priestess seem so intent on wounding as many in the party as she could? Was it just some weird fetish or maybe something else entirely?
