Another play report, the riot continues

A huge black egg, more spider or spore-like than avian, somewhere dark: a basement, maybe a sewer or alleyway. The egg splits open and the perfect blackness of its interior is intruded upon. Omarion Derulo, sloughing off strange embryonic fluid and cursing under his breath, is not pleased to leave the blackness. His lord has cast him out of the blindness, to what end?

As the crowd crashed euphorically past the broken line of riot police, the party held back to heal their wounds. The cleric was pulled off by Herbert to recover further, the former in no condition to fight on and the latter nursing his friend and a bottle of the old aqua vita. Bodies were looted and gear pilfered. Tiro the Skilos, having done his good deed for the day in helping Tirias back to his feet, decided to set things straight by decapitating one of the fallen riot police and carrying the head around with him for…reasons. The others alternated between looting and arson, Guark and Kerouac even getting their fortunes read by a soothsayer looking to keep her shop from being burned down. It was then they met Omarion Derulo, disoriented but happy to join the mayhem.

Seeking out the mob again they found Guark, having fought his way to them solo and a bit roughed up for it, but brimming with rage and hunger. Oops--our intrepid team took a wrong turn down the wrong alley; there they were stopped and confronted by a party of brave and noble adventurers sent to stop the insurrectionists bringing terror to the city. A beautiful elven wizard and her fiancé the bold fighter; the fighter’s sworn brother-at-arms and their dwarven cleric sworn to the great god, Western Civilization. The noble heroes stood their ground against our roguish bunch, but quickly Omarion Derulo set the tone by impaling the wizard on Clarissa, his faithful glaive. Her lover screamed in anguish, striking down Derulo in turn. A bloody melee ensued, with Tirias and Tiro firing volleys of arrows into the fray, as Kerouac, despite having used much of his energies in the last battle, let George the Land Octopus run rampant amongst the would-be-do-gooders to electrifying effect. Guark, unleashing his primal anger, turned the cleric into mush with the most fearsome greataxe strike we’ve seen to date.

A hard fought battle against the goody-two-shoes won, bodies were looted. Tiro having used his decapitated head as a projectile weapon, decided to make himself a new one from the self-righteous cleric, pinning, through his eye, a draft law held by the dwarf planning to ban dancing and alcohol among the poor. This would surely liven things up with the mob. 

Kerouac ducked into a corner to rest a bit and replenish his arcane artillery, leaving the rest of the gang to turn the corner and rejoin the mob just in time to run into a mean looking group of baltageyya, complete with sticks and home made one-shot shotguns. Omarion Derulo gets his divine smite on, blinding at least one of the thugs, but is dropped unconscious yet again. The man’s eagerness to battle is complemented only by his ability to attract blows it would seem.

As the baltageyya fall, defeated, our heroes roil forwards with the mob, at the foot of the tower that they must breach. Guark, however, while consuming another body of his enemies, finds himself confronted by a gaunt apparition. Guark is now cursed with a dark, insatiable hunger for the flesh of intelligent beings, but in consuming them can temporarily gain some of their abilities.

Rules for a homemade birdshot gun

Though gunpowder is still relatively novel, and proper firearms are downright exotic, some enterprising sorts have taken to creating homemade, single shot projectile weapons out of piping, ball bearings and other readily available materials. The resulting weapons are a favorite of thugs and other unsavory types.

Ammunition, Light, Loading. 

Damage varies with range: 

30’-60’ feet: d6 (disadvantage to hit)

15’-30': d8

15 foot cone: d8, multiple targets

Ammunition may be homemade with training and the requisite supplies.

Riot riot riot

The dark scheming of the cabal of wealthy aristocrats seemed to be coming to a head, and our party decided that where infiltration had failed to secure a copy of the plans, perhaps a bit of a distraction would provide enough cover for their sabotage attempts.

Assembling in the tavern-cum-hangout of the radical movement known to some as the duck-rabbits Tirias, Herbert Fiddlesticks, and Kerouac (now with a new familiar, George the land octopus) tried to recruit some new allies to their cause.  Tiro the Skiro, whose reputation as a folk hero and killer of bad guys was just about balanced out by his nihilism, decided that it seemed fun to join in the mayhem, anything to watch the city burn. Also joining them was a mysterious and tricksy cleric, sworn to a strange god of mischief and going by many names; his motivations, too, were unclear. 

Decided on a rough plan, Tiro and Herbert began to raise rabble in the taverns on that block, singing songs of insurrection and reminding people of their day to day horrors, telling them that today would be the day they take a stand! Tirias, Kerouac and our cleric (did he say his name was Ali Gomaa?) decided to take to the sewers and see if they could slink their way to the rendezvous point. This subterranean group quickly encountered a group of sewer mutants; a hasty bolt of radiant energy from the trickster cleric killed on of the mutants, sending the others wailing asking why would you kill our friend like that he was only asking you a simple question? 

OK so they weren’t bad sewer mutants, just misunderstood sewer mutants. Feeling bad about themselves, the rogues returned topside in time to find a huge mob facing off against a line of riot police at the border of Crystal Hall. Tiro, nihilist that he is, fired the first shot, taking out the mage in the group with a well-placed arrow, and chaos ensued as rocks and bottles few, nets were fired, and crackling lighting batons met with Tirias’ steel. Herbert threw himself with abandon into the line of police, blasting magical thunder about him, while Kerouac and the Padre fired bolt after bolt of magical flame. Holy crap it was a big fight, oh right and the cops had huge fucking wolves too!

As the line of police broke and the mob began to advance, Our cleric lay unconscious as Tirias struggled silently at death’s door. The others begged Tiro to help stabilize him, while the rogue simply watched the elf’s life slipping away, finally, right before the ranger expired, Tiro tossed over a health potion and brought the ranger back. 

Another quick session recap

Attendance was low this week, and with the poor wizard without a spellbook for several sessions now it seemed a good time to run a side quest to obtain a new one. That took the shape of the Tower of the Stargazer, which turned out to be fairly easy to run without much prep.

The failed infiltration of the tower holding plans for the human-sacrifice powered alchemical factory (see last time) seems to have had repercussions - surveillance and city watch have increased, and the ban on weapons in public areas is being strictly enforced. Fortunately, however, the attack doesn’t seem to have been traced back to your group, so nothing worse yet. 

Kerouac mourning the death of his faithful hawk George the Hawk, still needed to recover his spell book or acquire a new one. He thought he would follow the rumours from last time and explore the mysterious tower surrounded by continuous lightning. Aided by a voluntaristic Tirias and a few hired fighters from the Protection Committee looking to split the loot for the resistance, they advanced to the tower narrowly avoiding being struck by lightning. In the tower, they treaded lightly afraid to trigger any arcane or horrible traps, and encountered Uravulon Calcaides, a mage apparently trapped in his own circle of protection for several decades. Once the latter began making some obscene threats were he not released, the group deferred letting him out and continued to explore, facing some further hazards (and avoiding others) in the tower until they found a spell book (yay finally) and a whole shit town of loot (~1500 gold or something)

All in all a successful side quest, nobody died, although several people almost did, including at least one overenthusiastic fighter.