One-Shot Campaign Log -- Chapter One

In Which...

Gwyneth falls in with a bad crowd ⁂ Ophie makes an awkward new friend ⁂ Silence eats an apple ⁂ The group is bad at covert operations ⁂ Little Marco perpetrates petty evils ⁂ We're on a mission from God ⁂ Cider is imbibed ⁂ A contact is contacted

The party is brought together rather abruptly. Not all of them have worked together before, but most of them are vaguely aware of the others as being operatives on their side. Each of them was instructed by Mother Malachite, their handler, to get passage on the merchant ship Pristine Lucre as it moved along the coast. When it reached Cinder Cove, they were to steal a lifeboat and row to the coastal village of Nether Mawsnall, to meet a contact by the name of Brother Appleseed.

GM: So, like the mission document said, you’ve been recruited as… um… I was trying to think of a way to sugarcoat this, but I guess you’re essentially a terrorist cell.
Lyra OOC: That so doesn’t bother me.

So the characters travel from wherever they are to nearby ports & board the ship. The last members of the party are picked up in Sepulndia. (All of this was accomplished through liberal use of handwavium, so that all the characters could start in the same place, since I didn’t have any backstories ahead of time.)

There is one exception to all of this: Gwyneth has absolutely no connection to anyone in the party, does not work for Mother Malachite, and isn’t even remotely involved in the war beyond having sympathies for the New Gods. She’s on the ship because she thought it seemed like an interesting experience, and met the other PCs on board. She is “hanging out with them because they seem cool.” Like I said, the game starts when she falls in with a bad crowd.

Anyway, that evening, the PCs are faced with their first decision: the ship is about half an hour away from Cinder Cove, and they need to get a rowboat without anyone noticing -- how?

Marco explains that Marco is “notoriously clumsy,” so should not be doing the sneaking around and stealing. Notorious among whom? What has Marco done to become notorious for this? These are things Marco does not wish to share with the other members of Marco’s group.

Marco has bluffed the crew into hiring Marco as the ship’s cook, allowing Marco to move around without drawing attention. Gwyneth is present legitimately. The rest of the party are stowaways, but they make a series of high Disguise checks so that they can pass as members of the crew when they go onto the deck to get the rowboat. Said Disguise checks were all above 15 before bonuses, establishing a trend of the party rolling absurdly well when sneaking around and doing social engineering, saving all their bad dice-karma for combat.

Lyra makes the first of many of what I think of as “Bavarian Fire Drill checks”, rolling Bluff to look like they are supposed to be where they are and are supposed to be doing what they’re doing. They roll an 18. Other members of the crew on deck -- nobody’s right next to them, but several are within line of sight -- apathetically shrug off the fact that several people who look like members of the crew are fiddling with a lifeboat. Gwyneth follows Silence and Ophie in, out of an apparent decision to go with the flow. Harold leaves five gold pieces behind to pay for the boat, which Little Marco picks up without anyone noticing. Lyra lowers the boat to the water, and climbs down the side of the ship to get in.

Discussion follows about whether leaving only five gold is too cheap for a supposedly-Lawful-Good character; Lyra is pretty sure a good rowboat costs ten times that much. It is eventually justified as being okay because “it’s a used boat.”

Lyra: We fully intend to bring it back, maybe.

Navigation at night is easy. Cinder Cove is so named because there is a castle on the coast, built by the elves in days long gone by, that is enchanted to constantly glow as if with firelight; the enchantment also makes the cove itself appear as if many small fires are burning deep below the water, so that the area is reasonably well lit even at this time of day. Ophie easily makes a Survival check to get them properly oriented, and they strike out for Nether Mawsnall.

Late that night, they reach the shore, and leave the boat on the beach as they head into town. Ophie suggests they look for a bar, and the rest of the group agrees -- after a pretty short time, they locate a tavern called the Starved Vulture.

Lyra: Sounds dismal; let’s do it.
Silence: Well, that means everyone’s alive.

The Starved Vulture is pretty run-down; there are visible stains on the floor and walls, and the furniture is old and battered. Nobody in the bar is looking at them or acknowledging their presence in any way. A quick scan of the room by Brother Harold indicates that there isn’t anyone in the bar openly displaying allegiance to the New Gods. Here, the group realizes another problem: they have no description of this guy, just a name. Can they just ask for “Brother Appleseed”? Will that tip people off that there’s something up? Just how much secrecy do they need to operate under?

Ophie orders a drink, and hands the bartender a gold piece instead of a silver. “What’s going on?” she asks. “What’s up with you today?”

“Tending bar. Doing bar-tending things. You know. What bartenders do.”

Harold walks up to Ophie’s “awkward new friend” and coughs, “Brother Appleseed.”

“Ah. You know, just recently, I happened to purchase some excellent apples in that orchard to the west of town,” says the bartender in a seeming non-sequitur.

Lyra, suspicious, rolls Sense Motive. 14. He seems legit.

Little Marco rolls a 17, and realizes that the bartender might have been expecting for someone to come ask him about Brother Appleseed.

“Can you be more specific about ‘the west of town’?” asks Ophie.

The bartender gives the gnome an odd look, and says that if the gnome were to walk westward on either of the town’s two streets, they would quickly come to the west side of town, and a hill from which the orchard is visible.

Little Marco drinks Ophie’s drink, and they leave.

Lyra, after leaving, disguises themself and heads back in. They approach a corner of the bar where a few people who look like farmers are quietly drinking. “Hey,” says Lyra, “what do you think about those people who were just here?”

The farmers look at him flatly and reply, almost in unison, “What people?” Lyra leaves.

They find the orchard easily. Passing through, they notice that the apples growing there are abnormally large, almost grotesquely swollen. Silence takes one and bites into it experimentally. Since he is a ghoul, however, he’s immune to disease and poison, and if there were something wrong with the apple, it wouldn’t affect him. In addition, since it’s fruit and not the flesh of the living, it does nothing to sate his unholy hunger. He doesn’t even have working taste buds, so no data is gained. Lyra sticks four apples in their backpack for later.

In the center of the orchard, they find a cluster of crude shacks, one of which has candlelight coming through the windows. They go up to the one that appears inhabited, and Harold knocks.

A small and cadaverously thin man opens the door. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“Brother Appleseed,” replies Harold.

There is a brief pause, during which some out-of-character discussion suggests the theories that (a) this might be the wrong guy and (b) they might have remembered the name wrong.

“I’m sorry,” the man says, “I don’t know anybody by that name.” (Later, it occurred to me that he could have interpreted that statement as answering the first question. “I knew Brother Appleseed. Brother Appleseed was a friend of mine. You, sir, are no Brother Appleseed!”)

Brother Harold rolls Sense Motive. He gets a total of 20, because he has maximum ranks in that skill, and realizes that his contact might be taken somewhat aback by this approach, especially since they haven’t identified themselves.

Little Marco chimes in. “We need some apples, STAT!” When this provokes only a confused stare -- who needs emergency apples in the middle of the night? -- Marco tries another tack. “We’re on a mission from God.”

Marco OOC: ...and we need help with our terrorist cell. [pause for laughter] I’m joking about that second part; I don’t say that.

The man asks which god, exactly.

Marco OOC: I got an 11.
GM: Which one?
Marco OOC: On Diplomacy.
GM: No, which god?

“Um, whichever one’s the right one,” replies Marco. “The new ones.”

Appleseed stares at the group for a few seconds, then gives up. “I’m just going to assume you guys are legitimate, because I feel like if you were spies, you’d be better at this.”

Lyra steps in. “I apologize for my assortment of friends who don’t know how to talk to strangers.” [Diplomacy: 25] “Can we come in? We’ve just been on a very long journey, and we’re just looking for a place to rest and something to eat.”

“Oh, yes. Come in, put your feet up, and have some cider.” The party enters. “And since it’s late, you can stay in one of the other shacks for tonight -- they’re usually for hired hands, but I’ve made on up in case I had guests tonight.”

While Brother Appleseed is fetching some cider, the group poke around the shack, trying to find anything that would indicate allegiance to either Old or New gods. Harold, with a high Search roll, notices that the apparent shrine to Wee Jas in the corner seems to have been set up very recently, judging by the fact that there’s no dust on any of the movable items, and some scuff marks on the wood suggest that maybe there was a different idol in the shrine just previously. Harold guesses that there was an idol to a New God there until he knocked on the door.

Silence: Does anyone have something we can use to show that we are for the New Gods?
Harold: I have a holy symbol.
Marco: I can display my love of destruction.

When Appleseed comes back with the cider, Ophie asks, “Hey, do you have any new dogs around here?” She elbows Appleseed conspiratorially. “You know what we’re saying. New DOGS, right?”

Lyra downs their cider in exasperation.

Gwyneth decides to make herself clear by bowing her head and audibly praying to Byfona.

“Since some of you seem legitimate,” says Appleseed, “I suppose I can forgive your eccentric behaviors.”

Little Marco punches the wall, to the exasperation of the rest of the group.