Brelich Shadowdark Session 3

In this session, the party spent some time around Ragged Hollow, loans were made, equipment was bought, exploration of the surrounding area began, at least on PC got naked and offered himself up to some female creatures, the party huddled together in a small cave, another PC “cursed” another PC with bad luck and then took the curse on themselves, a new “friend” was made, and one PC unexpectedly went swimming. I suppose that all isn’t very informative so more details below the break.

What is it with PCs getting naked all of the time?!?

Everyone was in attendance for this session. There will, obviously, be spoilers for Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow from The Merry Mushmen. My GM comments, as always, are in italics.

77th of Summer

• At the Lost Ox, Kernan offers Markus a loan of 10gp and a sword. The loan needs to be paid back within a week or Markus has to leave town and never come back. (Markus has endeared himself to everyone so well.)
  • The group also learns that two of Kernan’s best customers (i.e., village drunks) are no longer coming to the inn. Instead, they’ve been going out to some “smoke den” at a tower in the Wailing Hills.
  • The group gathers together at the inn and, after much discussion, decide to head to the Bleak Mountains to see if they can find Marlena’s cousin, Tobias, or his corpse…as most of the group believe that he is probably already dead.
  • As the group heads out of town, they encounter Severin and her “gang” (Lyla and Betty). All three are young women, bored with Ragged Hollow and with attitudes. Severin taunts Liesl a bit about archery and her lack of a bow. She also questions whether Markus would be man enough to handle her. Markus seems to think that Severin is offering to pay him for sex. (Why RJ? Why?)
• The group continues out of town and to the mountains…the mountains that everyone believes are quite dangerous.
  • After a few hours of travel, Marlena spots a couple of figures flying towards the group. Two bird women (i.e., harpies) approach and begin to taunt the party for being bound to the ground and how delicious the group looks. (It is at this point that the group remembers that they forgot to get a bow for Liesl before leaving town.)
    • After a bit of banter, the harpies begin to sing and land a short distance from the group. A run flares to life on Dieter’s forehead. He quickly strips off his clothing and runs to the harpies. Markus starts to walk towards them as well.
      • Liesl tries to stop Dieter, but he punches her in the face and escapes to the harpies.
      • Marlena is able to snap Markus out of his trance with a strategically placed kick. The trio charge at the harpies and try to keep Dieter from becoming a meal.
        • The harpies choose to fly off rather than engage in a fight. They discuss getting more of their “coven” and returning to feast upon the group. Perhaps, they muse, they might even look to make a deal with Gorkle and Korgle (whoever they might be) if they can catch us.
        • Marcus starts to wipe away the rune on Dieter’s forehead, realizing that it is one of the Zararatazarat tattooed on his body. He is successful in removing it, but it then appears on his own forehead.
      • The party flees back towards Ragged Hollow. Knowing that the harpies can easily catch up, they look for a place to make a (last?) stand or to hide. A small cave is found. It is large enough to cram inside and hide.
        • Shortly after getting in their hidey-hole, the group hears the harpies flying past. There are more voices this time.
        • After waiting for a good time to let the harpies go farther away, the group comes out and makes their way back to Ragged Hollow.
• It is dusk as they get back. The temple bell tolls thirty-six times; the same number as the prior dusk and dawn this past morning.
• The group heads to the General Store to get a bow and some arrows for Liesl.
  • As the walk into the store, Michel is taking a drink of water and spits it out. The well water has gone foul. He shares that the water is been tasting off for a couple of days now. The group says that they’ll go check it out.
• At the town well, Marlena casts light on the bucket and it is lowered down into the well.
  • Lying on a small ledge down at the bottom is a large rat-like creature with the face of a goblin. Large pustules cover its body and those which have burst are dripping puss into the well. It appears to be feverish and mostly unconscious.
    • Liesl is lowered down on a rope. She gets a blanket wrapped around the creature without actually touching it herself. It and Liesl are brought up.
  • The group takes the thing to Radomir in the hopes that he might know what it is. He does not. The old wizard does laugh uncontrollably when he spots Marcus and the rune on his forehead and, again, Markus is not allowed into Radomir’s home.
  • They try Omar next. The alchemist is not familiar with the creature either. However, he is able to administer medicinals that break the thing’s fever. This allows the group to speak with it.
    • The creature shares that it is really a goblin from the Goblin Market in the woods. He tried to steal a pastry from a hag’s home (also in the woods) and she cursed him to be a rat goblin.
    • He was kicked out of the Goblin Market and so he came here.
    • He was running to avoid being spotted a couple of days ago, tripped, and fell into the well.
    • Before that, he had also bit a few rats in various places around town simply out spite and bitterness for his plight.
    • If the group could kill the hag, it would remove his curse AND he’d make sure that they get rewarded at the Goblin Market.
    • He shares that he knows that the house on the island has some magic shoes in it.
    • Not wanting to take Rat-Goblin to any location in town, the group heads to a copse of woods off to the west. Rat-Goblin keeps trying to get away until his fever takes hold again.

78th of Summer

• In the morning, the party heads to talk to Omar. They find that he has already organized the townsfolk to draw water from the well until it is cleared out and the incoming water is clean.
• The group decides to check out the Windler House. Markus believes he “owns” it and Liesl is holding on to the deed. Plus, Rat-Goblin did mention some magic shoes that are supposed to be in the house on the island.
  • An old rowboat that has seen better days is commandeered, Rat-Goblin is loaded in, they all clamber in, and row over to the island.
  • The island is totally overgrown. The plants all seem to sway as if moving in a breeze that only blows on the island. The windows of the house are grimy and difficult to see in from this distance.
  • There is an old dock and so the group makes their way to it. Arriving, Marcus jumps onto the dock AND promptly fall right through the old wood.

And that’s where we called it a night.

The group had learned from Radomir in the prior session that Markus had “self-tattooed” himself with the runes on the papers found in a puddle. The runes are from Zararatazarat–who we are just referring to as Wizard Z–and that they cause really back luck for those around Markus. That’s what happened to Dieter with the harpies. He rolled a 1 on his save against their song. This is why he stripped off all of his clothes and gear, punched Liesl, and sprinted to the harpies. It was a crit fail with additional bad impact.

When Markus went to wipe off the rune from Dieter’s forehead, I decided that it would be an interesting element if he could do that to transfer the bad luck to himself. When he leapt on the dock, we were close to our normal ending time and so it seemed a good time to have that bad luck strike. Now, it is just a matter of figuring out what might be under the dock.

The first foray out of town definitely showed that the surrounding lands are not necessarily safe AND not necessarily “level appropriate” for the characters. A couple of harpies are probably out of the league of the party. This is something that the players will have to learn how to deal with. Should they stay (and maybe fight) or should they go now? My job is too try and give cues that they might be in over their head and then it is up to the players to do what they will.

The group is torn on how to deal with Rat-Goblin. They aren’t cold-blooded enough to just kill him or leave him tied up somewhere to die on his own. I’m looking forward to how they deal with him going forward.