Session IX in my on-going online LotFP campaign. Start here with
Session I. After witnessing Francesa Delamore become a saint by Heaven's will, the party receives their next assignment from The Night: travel to Amsterdam and meet
the Magnificent Joop Van Ooms!
Sidenote*
With google hangouts going away soon. I decided to try Discord again and it went pretty well! Guess my internet was just shit the last time.
The Cast:
Aki Ashina (Fighter 3)
Richard Islands (Fighter 2)
Axel Hubble (Fighter 2)
Cillian McCleary (Specialist 1)
Phantom Howard (Specialist 1)
R&R, Rest & Rewards...
After Aki & Hubble fled the scene of the crime they met up with McCleary and Richards and unfortunately chose NOT to stay in the flea infested, plague ridden town of Pavia, after some sarcastic remarks from me(yes, I'm a nice guy). They instead chose to camp outside for three days & nights while Mr. Hubble recovered from his fight with the holy dead. Before that however they met with a scribe who appeared on behalf of their employer The Night to document their heavenly encounter. When finished, the scribe packed up his freshly minted report and was on his way, before he left earshot he said that their reward will arrive tonight after nightfall.
While camping in the wilderness they receive a mysterious package from their employer with no courier in sight, it just appeared when they weren't looking. The black ribboned, red-box held a letter and strange silver coin inside. The letter read:
"Fine work gentlemen, witnessing Heaven's meddling is a rare encounter indeed. Your reward is one of Judas' 30 pieces of silver. A rare item indeed, when given to a person it allows thou to make one suggestion that MUST be obeyed as long as it causes no harm to them. Now travel to the great city of Amsterdam & meet the man named Joop Van Ooms."
Sincerely, The Night
The Road less Traveled...
After resting up the party begins their long trek north across worn torn europe. They were lucky the first time traveling south to Milan but will their luck hold out again?! (Ref Notes: As I gidley get my wartime random encounters list out, the party begins talking about monster hunting. Oh no...)
"Yeah, we can totally hunt monster after we survived those zombies!"
"Lets go to Transylvania!"
"The Night didn't give a timeframe to get to Amsterdam..."
And just like that the party turns right at a fork in the road and travels east towards Transylvania. According to some wack math and a quick google map check, I rule it'll take 24 days to get there from Venice, their first major stop to stock up before the journey. So after a barrage of random encounter checks(nothing much to my dismay) the party arrives in Venice, the city of love.
Venice, the City of Love and random encounters...
Tired of rations they stop at one of the many restaurants(one near a canal) and eat some world famous cheese and wine. While eating they befriend a new party member named Phantom Howard, unfortunately for the party he only speaks French & Japanese(lol that Language check), so, a hilarious game of telephone unravels between Aki, Howard and the rest of the party. A small poor boy approaches Phantom Howard and asks him for a single silver coin. "Just one for my sick sister mister" the boy says teary eyed. Howard, a big softie pulls a coin and hands it over. The boy thanks the man profusely and is on his way but not before a whisper is barely heard by the party. "Sucker..."
(Ref Notes: McCleary leveled up last Session and rolled on my specialist level up table, he got I SEE DEAD PEOPLE. lol of course he did.) While eating, McCleary sees a tall pale man dressed in all black and a long hat. The man seems a bit surprised Islands is watching him go by and tips his hat at him then disappears into the busy street.
They continue their meal and just as they finish and are preparing to leave a sailor approaches the party with sweat beading down his face. He asks them if they are interested in buying a rare treasure from the far lands of Egypt. Phantom Howard translates the French sailor's words. The party is intrigued and goes to the man's ship on the docks. They hesitantly go down(with Aki the HP sponge first of course) to the full cargo hold and the sailor weaves between stacked crates, lantern in hand, to the middle of the room. He sets down the lantern on a nearby crate and pulls a crowbar from beside a enormous custom crate, then using the tool, unseals the top. The party gathers and looks inside. "Just looks like a coffin me." someone remarks. "It is, a rare one with treasure inside." The sailor plants his feet and slowly pushes the stone lid aside revealing a feminine mummified corpse holding a golden rod in each hand and wearing a gold mask. "It's all yours, for 500 silver..." The party asks for a moment and discuss this amongst themselves. Unfortunately they don't have enough and wouldn't have a way to transport it so they decline. The sailor kicks them off the ship and curses them for wasting his time.
On the road again...
Alright so traveling long distances is kinda boring, kinda dangerous. I didn't just want to handwave it like I did when they went to Pavia so I just rolled a random encounter check once each day with a 2-in-6 chance of something happening.
The first 5 days pass with nothing happening, Richards messes with the puzzle box he stole from Francesca's husband's grave and eventually passes a INT check which lets him learn a single premutation towards solving it. On the sixth day one of their wheels break on their carriage so they send two up the road to a small village to try and find a new wheel or someone to fix it. After failing their language checks to learn Hungarian they return with someone who can, who happens to be Hubble. After some roleplay they pay a blacksmith to fix the wheel, costing them 30sp.
On the 11th day out their 24 day journey, a sudden torrential downpour bombardes the party and not wanting to get stuck on the road they backtrack to a small Inn a mile back.
(Ref Notes: This would have been the perfect chance to run A Stranger Storm out of the Referee Book but one of my players has played it already and I don't think I could trick him again. lol)
They arrive at the Black Goose and are greeted to an empty tavern with a single man with some years on him cleaning the bar, he greets them in hungarian, ushers them in and starts a fire. They engage in small talk with Hubble translating and learn that the man lost his wife to a terrible accident two years prior. Eventually the party lets loose they're looking for monsters and the innkeep now named Garrett tells them that he used to be an adventurer like them and that the local town indeed has a monster problem. Intrigued they listen to the tale of a beast that comes to the town and kills one person this time of year, under a full moon. Wouldn't ya know it, tomorrow is a full moon!
The party pack in for the night and plan to talk to the townsfolk tomorrow.
McCleary hears a rapping on his bedroom door...he doesn't answer it and his player disappears from the game for the rest of the session. (Ref Notes: Later I learned he had to attend to some sudden personal matters but I thought the timing was hilarious.)
The next day the party heads to the town talk to some townsfolk. McCleary spends the
entire day in his room. The town is a small dreary place, very Sleepy Hollow. Hubble is able to piece together from the very hesitant to talk townsfolk that the Innkeeper's wife didn't die in an accident, she died to the beast! The plot thickens. They also learn where she died and mark it on their map. Richards & Howard go the kill site and Hubble and Aki goes back to the Black Goose.
The newly minted self-proclaimed "investigators" integrate Garrette and he spills the beans saying that his wife IS the beast and was cursed to change into a beast like the one that hurt her. Hubble notices that between the sobs he constantly stares at a wall towards the back of the inn.
Meanwhile Richards and Howard find the "kill" site, a cleared field with an unusual amount of belladonna growing there. It's almost nightfall when it starts to rain. They start heading back and feel eyes watching them from the woods, they quicken their pace. When they get a few minutes from town they hear a blood curdling scream. They sprint to town and see all the buildings and houses are closed except for one. A two story house has it's first floor door broken inwards with such force it hangs off its hinges. They pull their weapons and make their way upstairs. A hysterical woman is on her knees sobbing uncontrollably in a child's room with hands outstretched towards a broken window, she just repeats "it took my baby!" The adventures return to ground level outside and see a quickly dissipating blood trail in the rain leading into the woods from the window. Hubble and Aki who had heard the scream all the way from the Black Goose run back to town and are greeted to the grisly spectacle. Instead of running headlong into danger the party decides to backtrack to the inn and interrogate Garrett some more.
Eventually Garret relents and tells them that he found a magic sword during his adventuring days and used it to save his life when he and his wife were attacked in the field outside town two years ago. He managed to slay the beast but his wife was bitten and then changed into the same beast the next night killing a local. He hid the blade swearing he could never harm his wife. After some convincing from the party he says that if they can put down his wife he will gift them the sword. The party agrees and they break the wall and find a secret compartment hiding a blade wrapped in cloth, when inspected it seems like just an average old sword.
(Ref Notes: The players are long time LotFP players and are skeptical of any magic items I give them, as they should be)
Skeptical but not having any other plan AND wanting to be "monster hunters" the party returns to town. When they arrive Richards & Hubble begin arguing over who should wield the blade in battle. While bickering they heard another quick scream, then silence. A huge black furry figure jumps from the same shattered second floor window dragging the now limp mother behind it and quickly disappears into the woods. They give chase.
Eventually the catch up to the beast and they can hear the sickening sound of flesh pulled from bone. 30ft up ahead they can see the huge black wolf-like creature tearing into the woman's torso pulling steaming innards out with each tug that then fall lazily in the mud. The wolfthing turns and sees the party, it rises to its hind legs then howls at the moon. Initiative is rolled.
Round 1:
- Richards slashes at the beast, dealing a mere flesh wound that immediately starts to sizzle and heal.
- The Monster swipes at Richards with both its claws and tries to bite but misses all three attacks!
- Hubble draws the magic sword and slashes at the beast and The creatures takes notice of the sword.
- Aki gracefully closes the distance and deals major damage with her katana, severing the creature's claw!
- Howard fires into melee barely missing Hubble who can feel the round wiz past his face.
Round 2:
- The wolfthing tears into Hubble with its claw and bite attack dealing major damage, Hubble drops the blade.
- Richards runs over picks up the blade and manages to decapitate the monster!
A mob can be heard forming in the distance. The party catches their breath and looks over at the monster but sees only the decapitated body of an gray haired, naked woman. Richards picks the head up and tosses it further into the woods? The first of the mob arrives at the battlefield.
"Oh my God." he says.
