Castle Xyntillan Session 2

The Party

• Bentley Rumbold (Thief 1)
• Marthe (Magic User 1)

Turns spent in the dungeon

28

Known Rumors

• Blerot the woodsman swore to avenge his murdered love who disppeared the in castle. He never returned.
• Wearing red keeps the Red Spectre away… for a while.
• Vampires roost in the donjon
• Lots of libraries and labs
• Talking tree in a forest (according to Blerot)

Treasure

• Silver knife (25 gp)
• Alchemist book 4 recipes:
  • Necrotic dust (mummy powder to animate dead)
  • Slow Silver 10x as heavy as regular silver
  • The Great Transformation converts 5k copper into 5k gold (basilisk powder)
  • Perfect Ploink spit with unerring accuracy and impressive distance, until you drink something.
• 3 potions, apparently of the same kind, 1 is marked “for healing.” (1 from the priest in Tours-en-Savoy and 2 from a CX lab)
• Silk pouch (9gp)
• Many alchemical ingredients and their containers
  • tung
  • obdirium
  • yellow mould (dried)
  • brown mold (dried)
  • lots of zinc
  • quicksilver
  • slow silver
  • pickled bats
• black silk gloves (20gp)
• the king statue’s orb of experience (weighs 1400 coins and grants 1 level of experience)
• Morella seems attracted to Bentley
• Scouted ~18 rooms

Report

Marthe returned from the previous session and Bentley joined for the first time.

Petty theft at church

They went to the church to pray to the Unknown God and seek a holy water blessing from the priest. They conspired to steal the holy water.

Bentley quietly followed him downstairs to the underground church to steal holy water. He stole a different potion instead, since it was not on the father’s person and he didn’t want to attempt to pickpocket.

The priest was clearly suspicious of their manner and words but didn’t act against them.

Climbing the bridge

They decided to try entering CX from the bridge.

Bentley tried climbing but fell after only 10 feet. He used a grappling hook and rope and they climbed up to the bridge, only to hear a large splash, look over the edge of the bridge and see a very large serpent head rising from the water toward them.

They scurried in to the west in fear.

Dead Horse and a Lab

An undead horse that appeared to have just been dead stood on only its hind legs and asked for food in a demanding, insane manner. Bentley gave it fruit which it did not like. They fled, and it didn’t follow.

They saw a death statue across from a door and entered the door. It was a lab full of books.

They collected the giant tome and alchemical ingredients from the lecturn and table and then did quite a lot of searching the room for more. They destroyed a lot of books (which disintegrated on touch) with the help of their hires while their bowman, Pete, held the door open to keep watch. As they were trying to uncover the mystery of the seemingly not-unlockable door behind the drape (which they tore down to steal to pack the jars of alchemical ingredients more carefully), Pete called out a warning that someone was approaching. Pete quietly closed the door and joined them, bow drawn and aimed at the door.

Morella

A woman asked who was there. They didn’t reply. She came in asked them again, with an entourage of 12 whispery shadow-forms. She was welcoming and friendly and intimated that she was in mourning. She offered them help. They requested information about Blerot the Woodsman. She knew little other than that he was being punished for misdeeds, but offered to take them to him. They agreed.

The Tour

She guided them through many rooms of CX to Blerot’s cell on the opposite side of the castle. Along the way, her presence allowed them to avoid an unpleasant encounter (Hubert Malevol the Huntsman) and to largely skip past a strange encounter with Frederic Malevol in which Pete felt something unnatural akin to the shiver customary to an overstrong need to pee. Then, bored with them but happy to plan a second rendezvouz with Bentley (due to a very positive reaction roll + flirting) during his next visit, she gave them a very general indication of the nearest exits. (Not really more than what they already knew.) She told Bentley to wait for her in the Rose Garden in the basement or to speak with her portrait in the lounge near the ballroom.

Blerot

They met Blerot and were uninterested in his pleas and offers due to disgust with his limb-chopping habit. They promised to report his situation to Tours-en-Savoy authorities, which pushed him to despair.

Escape

They then sought to exit as directly and quickly as they could, ignoring all temptation of interesting object and room, entertaining no distraction until they entered the courtyard.

Along the way, they passed through a neat, clean kitchen that transformed into a place of strange decay and large mushrooms which caused a hired hand whose name they didn’t ask about to pass out as the rest of the party un-stuck the door and escaped. They pulled him through the door and revived him.

Bentley climbed to the king statue and reached for the orb the king held. The king threw it at him, and he caught it, causing him to gain a level. It’s VERY HEAVY.

Then they left.

Referee Notes

Too generous and too generic with Morella

I didn’t make Morella especially interesting. I was too busy describing all the rooms wandered through. I probably should have acted on her motivations constantly, possibly resulting in a deviation from the intended destination.

What to do about treasure that has no assigned gp value?

I always have regrets about the values I assign to treasure like silk gloves, a silk bag, or mahogany shelves. I want a consistent procedure for doing this.