H&Y Infinite Open Table Session 17 (Darkwind Academy)
Characters:
Gundur Bundur (Oscar)
Xavos (Laggs)
Alcyone (Nero)
Ronby (Duress)
Flamagio (Reeves) + Sylvio
In Search of Strength
Starting Date: Summer 43, 6023
Xavos decides that now is the time for him to go looking for a way to increase his strength so that he can achieve his dream: the three-sword style (yes, the one from One Piece). He got word from Loreto the Golden-Haired that he could potentially get more powerful by letting a demon possess him at Darkwind Academy south of the Sea of Grass, and decides to head out to go do just that. He gathers up a crew of likely companions to help him get there and off they go, starting their expedition at Pasternaks farm.
The party heads south to the mountains where Xavos heard the academy lies, they're headed towards the town of Begblueton. THey set up camp for the night but are ambushed by a prowling bulette. They appease it by driving one of their oxen out into the dark where it is promptly eaten by the landshark.
Summer 44, 6023
The party continues walking. Late in the day they meet a group of adventurers coming the other way beset upon by hyenas. Sylvio kills many of the hyenas in one shot with his Lightning Bolt spell. The party finishes off the remaining hyena and harvests the beasts as they discuss local rumors with the newcomers. The newcomers are Frieda, Tarissa and Marlo, they're on the way back from Darkwind Academy because Marlo wasn't able to get accepted there as a student.
Summer 45, 6023
The PCs make it the rest of the way down the road to Begblueton, finding it to be a village built in the ruins of an old city. The structures are all on the second story of the nearby ruins, the locals say its to hide out from the bulettes from the Sea of Grass. The party discusses some possible methods to deal with the bulettes, they're beginning to get pretty annoyed at the beasts themselves.
They rent some rooms at the Dead Horse Inn. The PCs chat up the bartender and the locals and learn that the nearby Skullfort Ogres and Darkwind Academy have both quieted activity-wise in the last few weeks. The locals are beginning to get concerned because its the ogres that keep the bulettes away from the town, they're worried what's going to happen as time goes on. The bartender also asks the party if they'd be willing to grab him some granitegoat wool if they're heading up the mountain, he's got an idea for cheap oven mitts using their wool.
Summer 46, 6023
The party heads up into the mountains towards Darkwind, leaving their mules and carts behind in the inn's second-story stables. They encounter a group of granitegoats partway up and provoke one into falling off a cliff, allowing the party to harvest it for its wool and bones. Alcyone cuts open the beast's stomach and finds a bezoar inside that formed around a blackstone plate with a skull icon on it. It radiates awful evil magic so Alcyone wraps it up in cloth and sticks it in her bag.
The party continues up the mountain. They find the gothic academy close to the nearest peak, it's side gardens directly overlooking the town and the Sea of Grass far below. The steps are lit with braziers of purple fire and padlock iconography covers the outside doors and stained-glass windows. Ignoring any trepidations they might have, the party continues on and knocks on the door.
Get What You Pay For
They meet a nice man inside named Gilbrandt. He looks like he's wearing a skin that's one size too small for him and acts like he's never had a normal conversation in his life, much less worked at an Academy, but the party ignores these feelings and presses him about their need to get stronger. Gilbrandt invites the party downstairs to the Power Crystal while Flamagio and Sylvio hang back to snoop around the ground floor with an excuse about triyng to find the bathroom.
Gilbrandt explains that he can allow demons outside of the Power Crystal to inhabit people or objects, increasing their power manyfold. Gilbrandt also goes on to explain some side effects and implies that his fellow faculty member present also took the deal (and looks worse off for it), but Xavos is largely disinterested in hearing about said side effects and accepts the deal. Gilbrandt imbues Xavos with a demon named Malphus, boosting Xavos's strength to 10, his dexterity to -2, his intellect to -2 and removing his ability to speak. Additionally, Malphus will attempt to take control of Xavos's body anytime he's weakened (gaining permanent control if he succeeds).
Meanwhile, Flamagio and Sylvio find the library. All the bookshelves and furniture have been pushed aside to make room for a giant inverted Vikram's Circle of Binding carved into the floor. Flamagio studies the spell for a few moments before determining that it seals the caster into a prison and frees all the entities previously stored within said prison. The fact that the spell is still running is not a good sign. The two continue to look for more clues in the garden outside, whereupon Flamagio touches a giant black crystal spike shoved into an icon of Domotor and gets sucked into the prison (the crystal spike). Sylvio begins panicking and runs to go get Ronby downstairs.
At the Power crystal, Alcyone has Gilbrandt imbue her crossbow with the evil magic plate she found earlier. This creates an incredibly evil and powerful crossbow that gains bonuses against killing innocents and "striking first, asking questions later." Sylvio drags Ronby away to come help Flamagio while Gundur distracts Gilbrandt by asking a series of inane questions.
Ronby studies the strange padlock icon with the crystal spike and determines it to be a holy relic of Domotor, the dwarven god of vaults and secrets. He helps Sylvio commune with Domotor and they learn that the only way to break the prison is to go find Vikram somewhere in the area. Sylvio resolves that this probably isn't that hard given that he just saw the man at the Fire Festival a week ago (heh, foreshadowing) and thanks Domotor. Sylvio and Ronby drag Xavos away up to the icon to pick it up with his new demonic strength and the party moves to escape as fast as possible. Gundur continues to distract Gilbrandt by asking him questions, which he seems magically compelled to answer.
The party safely makes it down the mountain back to Begblueton. Sylvio sells the granitegoat wool the party gathered earlier to the bartender, who declares that he will make the best oven mitts around or his name isn't Owen Asbestos. The PCs discuss possible options for finding Vikram, settling on posting flyers in Quillbury and asking the Order of 8 to help by scrying on the man.
Thoughts
So this session I made heavy use of one of my campaign starters that I wrote up a couple weeks ago. It worked pretty well! I had already had to do some thinking about the area for the hex starter so it was very easy to just plug the hexes into the area and start playing, which was my intention from the start of that project.
Seeing how well just 3 sentences works to prompt my improv skills at the table is revitalizing, it's going to change how I prep in the future. It's also pretty handy from a player-character rumor perspective, I know that some of my players read my blog so they sometimes have a small window into what else might exist in the world around them. I'm not directly importing all the information from the hex starter posts into the region so the information they have at the table becomes nebulously true and untrue at the same time, exactly like I'd want an ideal rumor to be.