The Chancellors Message

Scribe Notes

Summary

Adventure: The Chancellors Message
GM: Ian
Season: Winter 796 WK
Night: Someday
Level: Level

Party

• Amelia: Female hobbit, uncolleged, party leader, experienced - Rosemary M
• Anathea: Female human, witch, scribe.
• Laszlo: Male great horned owl, familiar of Anathea.
• Phillipe: Male human, a prince, uncolleged, tactical military scientist
• Eidolon: Male human, solar, strategic military scientist
• Michael: Male human, solar.
• Dillon: Male human, mind, novice.
• Dumargee: Male elf, air, novice.

Original Scribe Notes

Media:Snwi9601.zip

People

At the Guild

Princess Isilith: Female elf, very rich. Sheriff of the valley in Alledar.

At Elfenburg (Regent Hotel)

Beurlin: A door ward (servant) of Isilith

Barry: an off-planar high ranked healer.

On the "ship" "Berint"

Frances: A drunk mutineer

Barbar: First leader of mutiny, dead before we arrived.

Bryant: Current leader of mutiny

CPO Barum: Profiteer, not openly mutinying.

Brian: Maroon corporal.

Barthang: 4th lieutenant

In Aquilan capital

Bertrand: an assassin trying to reach rank 9.

Gurthane: An out-of-work guard captain, reliable.

At the Alledarian border

Grayethel: Another out-of-work guard captain, reliable.

In Aladar

Gertie: A young lord of a castle in the valley.

Goneral: A young lord of a castle in the valley.

Girtham: A guard captain to Gertie and Goneral

Grimbald: Another out-of-work guard captain, unreliable. Formerly guard captain to late Baron Grim of Ostaur.

Greyell: Another out-of-work guard captain, unreliable. Formerly guard captain to Baron Gayell.

Beseecha: Steward to Isilith, elf.

Bergerac: Chancellor to Isilith, human.

Gilderath: A young elf.

Gildareth: An older elf. Gilderath's uncle. Councillor to leader of the rebel elves.

Scribe Notes

Scribe Notes For Mission On Behalf of Princess Isilith.

This version is for INTERNAL GUILD USE ONLY. It contains sensitive information about guild members. Information is presented in a logical fashion, not necessarily the order in which we found it out.

30 Sep

We are asked by Isilith to deliver a scroll to Bergerac in Elfenburg. She obtains invitations for us all to the Duke of Kazala's party that night, and provides funds to buy appropriate clothing.

1 Oct

We travel by rune portal to Elfenburg, and proceed to the Regent Hotel, where Beurlin meets us at the entrance.

The Regent Hotel: A large, luxurious hotel, where Isilith has permanent quarters in the attic. Isilith's quarters are very large, resembling a palace. The abundance of light and shadow suggest design with Celestials in mind. It is easy to get lost. The area around Elfenburg grows food poisonous to all except locals, so we eat only imported food for the duration of our stay.

Beurlin is a servant of Isilith's who is our primary contact during our stay.

Beurlin shows us to a large staircase then through many rooms to the kitchen where we have Elevenses. Laszlo (the owl) is left in his care to find suitable housing and feeding. We are shown to our rooms. The route features a very long hallway lined with portraits of elves. We are given a wand that can create a colour ed spot to follow to find our way between the kitchen, main staircase and our rooms.

After settling in, we head back to the kitchen guided by the wand. In the hall of the portraits, half of the party seems to disappear as viewed by the other half. Shortly afterwards, about 6 orcs run at each half of the party, spending a phase or two in combat before running on. (They were not impressive fighters, and many failed to survive.) Amelia perused and went into close with a fleeing orc, and both disappeared. The remaining party members reappeared to each other, and by moving to the location where Amelia had disappeared we were transported to the Plane (in the inter-planar sense) of Gorthund.

Gorthund: We appeared in a large plane of waist high grass with orcs running by. Beurlin was there with Laszlo. We return through the same location where we gated in.

The whole point of the exercise was for the orcs to flush game for Laszlo's meal, the gating of some orcs into the corridor was an error. We resolve to go armed to lunch in future.

Bergerac is currently unavailable. In the mean time, Beurlin requests we solve a portal problem. There is a interplanar portal in one of the rooms that leads to the ship Berint, and another portal from the Berint to the capital of Aquila (although Beurlin initially believed it to go to MMH, nor did he know the place through the portal was a "ship.") Beurlin would like to be able to use these portals to travel, but is unable to because of a mutiny on the Berint, which makes the ship a dangerous place to be. For a keg of coffee and reasonable expenses plus 50%, we agree to do this.

Overview of the Berint: According to the crew, this is a flying warship, and is very high as it would take several hours to reach land. We never saw outside to confirm this ourselves. The portal to Islith's place is in the propulsion part of the ship, the portal to Aquila is in the battle command center. Both appear to be accidental consequences of very strong magic used in these places. The ship is in three sections. The aft section contains the propulsion room (and portal to Elfenburg). The middle section contains the battle center (and portal to Aquila). The front section contains officer's quarters. All sections also contain many rooms and corridors for crew.

Crew of the Berin: There are three major classes of crew. The officers are in charge, and seem to seldom leave the front of the ship. The Maroons are trained fighters who wear white (non-metallic?) plate armour with one or two maroon sleeves depending on rank. They maintain discipline with the rest of the crew and may have other duties during combat. The Maroons appear to be strongly loyal. The ordinary crew are not combat trained (or anything much else trained as far as we could see.) They have poor morale and little loyalty. The highest rank attainable by ordinary crew is Chief Petty Officer. There are three CPOs - one per section of the ship.

Politics on the Berint: The CPO of the middle section (Barum) and his men have been intercepting the flow of food and supplies to the aft section and charging the aft crew for it. (Somebody - Barum or the officers, have been watering the wine.) This has caused the mutiny. Mutiny is common on these ships, and the officers are following standard procedure of isolating the mutinying sections, sending no food, and waiting it out.

Strange effects on the Berint: All projectiles (including missiles and jumping people) act strangely and usually move in unpredictable directions with unpredictable speed. On bouncing, the object will usually continue on some other random course. Jumping can therefore lead to a succession of bounces off walls, potentially resulting in fatal damage from the impacts. We step through the portal from Elfenburg and arrive in the propulsion room, which looks like a warehouse.

Propulsion room: The portal and very nearby is a place of power (high mana). It is about 5 feet across, with 6 standing stones around it. Around the portal are what appear to be wooden crates, all with the long axis pointing towards the portal. The nearest boxes are 8' high, the next rank are 6' high and the third rank is 4' high. Despite appearing to be wood, they are hard like metal and boxes beyond the first rank have no aura (i.e. not previously living.)

First rank boxes are magical, nature of most powerful magic is blending, time since last affected by magic is very short. Light in the room is diffuse and probably of magical nature.

We leave through the only door (metal, sliding). We find a mess hall, with a single drunk crewman (Frances, a mutineer.) He shows us to a barracks with about 15 more drunks. We continue to a guard room, and meet Bryant and two sober underlings. These are the current mutiny ringleaders. They are friendly and willing to discuss the ship and politics. (We got much contradictory information. Facts about the ship may be wrong, most of the good information came from the officers later. It seems the crew know rather little about the ship.) We continue forward, hoping to be able to negotiate a solution. Bryant and friends initially follow us, but are dissuaded by a wall of darkness.

We find Barum and 7 henchmen in another guardroom. Despite strenuous efforts on our part to negotiate, they attack, primarily by jumping and bouncing around at random. Barum escaped (he fled to the officers, who arrested him), two were captured alive, the rest died (about half due to injuries sustained while bouncing off walls and us.) Questioning a prisoner, we find out that the ship has 4 decks, of which this is the second to top, there were originally 30-35 Maroons, at least 5 are left but not many more. 5 Maroons arrive. Brian is in charge of them. They are open to negotiating, and take us to meet the officers. The first officer we meet is Barthang. We meet a number of other officers, including the

ships surgeon, who is a rank 8 healer. They figure that the portal to take us out is in the command center, and send the 5 Maroons to escort us there.

Command center: This is like an small amphitheater around a hex of standing stones surrounding a portal, similar to the propulsion chamber. Using any magic (including talent magic) near this portal results in the adept being struck by lightning, and (normally) everything in the adept's backpack being slagged. In one case, some silver got turned to gold, and some healing potions were sent to the other side of the portal.

We passed through the portal into a cupboard in "The Cupboarded Inn" in the capital of Aquila. The Maroons came through too, in hopes of availing themselves of the local brothels. In the room we come out in is the assassin Bertrand. Seeing our unusual means of arrival, he thinks we might be able to help him in a task. We agree to listen to his proposal, and to keep what we are told secret.

Bertrand is trying to make rank 9 assassin. The contract requires accidental death by crucifixion(!). The (unnamed) target has many supporters and opponents, and is expected to be resurrected 3 days after dying. One party member thinks the target is the Bishop of Aquila, but if he had any reason (e.g. mindreading) to believe this, the scribe was never told of it. (Bertrand also buys our keg of coffee for 500 gold.) We refuse the job, and are keen to get out as soon as possible, as suspected companions of Bertrand good be in big trouble shortly. Unfortunately, the Maroons have gone a-whoring, and we feel we cannot abandon them, so Dumargee and Eidelon go looking for them. Eventually the right brothel is found, and Eidelon accepts the Madam's offer of two girls. When Dumargee is asked, he says "No thanks, I'm just the chaperon."

Everyone is collected, we return to the ship and through to the Elfenburg portal without incident. The Elfenburg end of the portal is now 25' above the floor, so we fall as we come through. Dillon takes a serious chest wound from the fall, which we are unable to heal, and therefore cannot stabilize. We have been away 6 hours.

A runner is sent to the front desk of The Regent, to seek a healer in a hurry. They find a healer named Barry, who is at the hotel to attend a healers conference, his current research is in "healing without pain." Barry returns to where Dillon is wounded, he is taken back to our wounds where Barry heals him while we attend a dinner we were invited to (and have in turn invited Barry to.) Before dinner, Detect Auras on Barry failed. Late during dinner Barry arrives, and his aura has changed(!) - now we find he is a long lived sentient (although he looks human), rank 9 healer, plane of origin "Shadowrun", pacted to a demon known as The Wise Duke. (More information on this demon is available in the Guild library. In brief, he seems fairly benign, and is a mind mage.)

Barry has guessed we are Guild members (knowing that we were staying with Princess Isilith and fell out a portal) and for payment wants to know as much as possible about the Ruby Scourge (a powerful dragon killed recently by a guild party.)

Returning to our rooms, we find he has used a very strange method of healing. Dillon is surrounded by corriscade-like lights. Most of the party returned to the guild for advice. The magic finished around 1 am (6 hours after it started) and Dillon awoke. He felt his consciousness was elsewhere (Amelia empathied him and felt his soul was on a different plane). It was like being outside his old home (a castle) but everything was bigger. A presence (male) approached (perhaps The Wise Duke?) and said it owed Barry a favour, and healed him.

2 Oct

Next morning back at the guild, we told the powers that be, who summoned Dillon and the party member left to guard him were summoned back to the guild. Many of the guild superiors listened tous, and took the situation out of our hands - it was promised that they would deal with payment to Barry, further investigation, etc.

We also find out that Isilith's chancellor is at her castle in Aquilan Alladar. We spend the night at the guild.

3 Oct

We start to travel there: by rune portal to Elfenburg then via several several more portals to MMH, then Borovia then southern Graat. From here we travel south by foot to Innisburg and spend the night.

4 Oct

Next day we take the mail coach to the Aquilan capital.

In the inn that evening, we are approached by Gurthane. He was the guard captain of a noble who is now out of power. (dead? exiled? broken to the ranks? Gurthane never says, nor does he name the noble. He does later fly the standard of a Baron of Ostau.) He and 10 soldiers under him. Such men are in a precarious position, with travel difficult if they do not have a job and harrasment from soldiers of nobles still in favour. We agree to "hire" them for nothing to assist them to travel to Alladar.

5 Oct

Next morning we take the mail coach again, Gurthane and his men following. At the city gate there are soldiers hanging about with covered shields who hassle Gurthane's lot, as do the city guards. There is much fuss over getting purple paper and gold ink for Prince Phillipe's papers (who is the nominal employer of Gurthane's lot.)

We reach the old Aladarian border (i.e. between Aquila proper and the conquered portion of Aladar) around midday. There are many groups of soldiers similar to Gurthane's hanging about arguing with the border guards. One such group (lead by Grayethel) is vouched for by Gurthane. Our papers do not specify the number of soldiers accompanying us, so we invite them to join us. On crossing the border, we find that around 40 extra soldiers have decided that they are with us also to get across, but are left behind when the pace picks up. (Gurthane's lot have about 3 horses each and keep changing.)

About 1 hour beyond the border, we find the remains of a bandit ambush of a merchant caravan. We stabilize the wounded. Questioning a local hawk, we find out there are 30-40 men in the forest watching us. Outnumbered, we chose not to engage them, and continued without incident. The wounded are left in Wallentown around 3pm.

The Valley: I never did find out the name of the valley, river or town. There is a single town in the valley, and five castles. Two of the castles are very close to each other, and are the first you come too traveling from Aquila. The lords of these castles are (I may have these names wrong) Gertie and Goneral. They are young hotheads. Isilith's castle is another of the five castles.

The road into town is blocked by Lords Gertie and Goneral and their men standing around on horses arguing about how to deal with the marauding elves. (Apparently, they have been arguing for 10 days over how to organize a posse.) Our mind mage controlled a horse to (subtly, he hoped) shove their horses off the road. When the horse returns to shove off the second lord, they suspect use of magic, which they choose to interpret as assault and detain us all (including the mail coach) for this crime. They are keen on the death penalty.

The elven raids: A bunch of elves have been raiding the countryside persistently for some time (about 50 attacks in the last year.) They attack farms, making off with food and valuables. They seldom kill anyone. The area over which they raid is quite large, including the domains of all five castles in the valley, and perhaps further afield. There are at least a dozen elves, rumoured to all be mages. There is evidence of them using windwalking, shadowwalking and wards, and they have a greater summoner or a good illusionist. They do not attack people on the road. (This information was primarily from Beseecha -- see later.)

Philippe is acts as a front man -- he is the prince, we are his retinue. He apologies that one of his men has been so foolish and rude to have used magic in such a way. We camp between the two castles for the night. Many of the men-at-arms groups from the border have now caught up, and camp nearby. As there is some friction between various groups, Eidolon speaks to them and ensures unfriendly groups are well separated.

Part of the party goes to a nearby hamlet (not the central town of the valley) for a barrel of beer (to socialize with the men at arms) and information. The local troops are mostly Alledarian (locals doing feudal service) but they get on OK with the Aquilan soldiers. We alsodiscuss the elven raids.

That evening, Grimbald's and Greyell's companies face off for a fight. The martial members of the party plus Gurthane's company form a flying wedge and charge in to separate the groups, and bring the captains for questioning.

Their former lords (Barons Grim and Gayell) had a long standing feud of unknown origin, and the soldiers feel the need to perpetuate it. We get the two captains to fight it out with each other with staves on a bridge (first into water loses.) After a long fight, Greyell is knocked unconscious, but Grimbald can't lift him over the railing to dump him in the stream.

6 Oct

In the morning, we send Grimbald and Greyell's companies off on the road in opposite directions. Around lunchtime, they return -- Isilith's troops decided they want all the random soldiers in one place, and turned them around.

The local guard captain, Girtham (who I think works for both Lords Gertie and Goneral) tells us we have freedom to move within the Shire (i.e. region Isilith is Sheriff of.) He furthermore suggests we should arrange a tournament for his lords. This will enhance their reputation, help to reconcile other local lords (who have recently been on opposite sides of the war) and provide his peasant levies with a safe way to spend their annual military service.

We take the (delayed) mail coach to Isilith's castle (about 2 hours ride) and speak to Bergerac at last, delivering the message. (We never did find out what the message was.) [Bergerac: Highest ranked professional skill: Courtier. Highest ranked spell: Blackfire.] He asks us to deal with the elves. We are assured that random portals do not pop up in this place, and we need not go armed to lunch.

We talk to Steward Beseecha about the elves. As elves are not normally inclined to banditry, it is suspected that they have political motivations.

We return to the castles of Gertie and Goneral and the armed camp to tell Gurthane that Bergerac wants to speak to him (Gurthane's troops get hired by Isilith in the end) and return to Isilith's castle, where we now have rooms.

That evening we (mostly) spend a night out on the town. Amelia goes to a restaurant alone and sees some merchants doing hard bargaining, but nothing apparently pertinent to us. The boys go out drinking together. Dillon finds out that asking for the best wine in the house can be a mistake (420sp.) Eidelon follows two elves disguised as humans. One has Enchant Armour as highest ranked spell.

Anathea went out to the fields with her owl after dark and saw a group of four figures moving quietly away from town. She found a scale (from scale mail) where they had passed. Divination of the scale found that the armour it came from had magical +20 defense, +5 damage resistance. It had had blending (shadow), enchant armour (E&E) and molecular rearrangement (mind) cast on it in the last 5 weeks.

7 Oct

The party set out early in the direction the four figures had been moving. After riding most of the morning, we approach the woods, and have lunch about a mile short. Gilderath, a young elf, approaches us under walking unseen spell and congratulates us on the quality of our disguises, before realizing we are real. He has a non-court Elfheim accent.

After some discussions, he agrees to bring his uncle back to speak with us, expecting to return in half an hour.

Quarter of an hour later, a group of 7 mounted elves entered the forest at the same place Gilderath entered. We attempted to attract their attention but failed.

After another quarter hour, we gave up waiting and went into the forest. We soon lost Gilderath's tracks. Turning back, we saw a glyph ("this way to safety") carved into a tree. The glyph acts like a rune portal, teleporting to a runestick at the other end. On going through, any non-elf triggers some magic that leaves them detached from reality, discussing/thinking about their favourite topics. The effect lasts around 10 minutes. Only Dillon resisted this (plus Dumargee was unaffected, as he is an elf.) The other end of the portal is in the same woods.

Young Gilderath and Gildareth (his uncle) were on the other side. Gildareth says that the woods we are in is part of Elfheim, and we are all prisoners. Dumargee is to be tried for bringing 'animals' into Elfheim. The horses are brought through.

We all wander along (most still dazed by the spell) while Dumargee talks with Gildareth. He finds out that these elves are racial supremisists. Dumargee speaks of banditry on the road (I think he had this confused with the elven raids) and the elves are horrified that anyone would be making attacks on "the Queen's road".

During this conversation, the rest of us recover our wits. As the elves are deep in conversation, we peel off a few at a time and return to the portal. Some ride the horses to use the portal, others lead the horses. Those who rode came through OK but with mindzapped horses, those leading horses got zapped but the horses were OK. (Touching the runestick turned out to be the trigger for the mindzap.)

Anathea and another (Dillon? Michael?) were of sound mind, and headed off at speed towards Isilith's castle on horseback. Others wait for mindzap to wear off.

Meanwhile, back in the forest ... Dumargee and the elves reach another rune portal. At this stage, the elves realize the rest of us have gone. Dumargee: "That's the smartest thing I've seen my party do for a long time." They used the portal and arrived at an encampment. After a little discussion Gildareth takes Dumargee to look for the escaped humans. They step out of the forest [I think directly, but there may have been a rune portal involved] to find the remaining party members, who have just come out of mindzap. They charge and grab Dumargee, while Gildareth windwalks away.

Amelia and Anathea get back first by flying and speak with the chancellor. He summons some demons in blue berets to escort the rest of the party back. They scare off some elves, and all return safely.

That evening, we decide to look for some of the elves in town so we can negotiate, follow, kidnap or whatever comes to mind. Amelia has other business, the rest split into two groups. Group A is Phillipe, Anathea, and Eidelon(?). Group B is Dillon, Dumargee(?), Michael(?). Group B goes bar hopping. The find an elf with a katana or similar, highest ranked spell = windwalking. They want to magically control the elf, which requires hiding in an alley while casting, which requires getting the elf out into the street. To do this, they start a bar fight, which spills out into the street, and one party member gets concussed. The spell cast fails, but the elf is followed to a door in an alley. Meanwhile, smoke starts wafting out of the pub where the fight was started. They return to castle.

Group A go to the restaurant. There are elves there, but overhearing reveals they are ex-mercenaries, traveling inland. They move on to a quiet pub. Everyone there communicates by silent tongue. Eidelon fixes Phillipe up with the bar wench (Julliette) and he is left there for the night. The next pub produces nothing useful. On leaving to go back to the castle, the way is blocked by a bar fight and by a fire brigade, using magic to extinguish the fire. They return to a pub to outwait the fight, and later go home without incident.

Oct 8

We find out from castle records that the house the elf was followed to belonged to an Aquilan merchant.

Bergerac wants us to negotiate with the elves. He supplies 20 cavalry to accompany us. Going around other castles in the valley, we get 60 more cavalry from the other barons (who also want the elves dealt with) plus 50 more from Gurthane and Grayethel's companies.

We arrive at the forest in early evening. There is now a large sign outside the forest.

Front: "Warning, Elfheim 30 paces".
Back: "You are now leaving Elfheim." 

The night is uneventful.

Oct 9

At dawn, 4 elves come to parley. They are Gildareth, the elven Baron in who leads them and two elven knights. Three points are under discussion:

• The status of our party (potentially renegades who have invaded Elfheim)
• Banditry on the "Queens Road"
• Elven "tithing" of the local countryside.

It is successfully argued that these woods were not part of Elfheim when the Elfheim borders were closed to non-elves, and so the ban does not apply. Therefore, we are not criminals for having entered. (The issue of whether the woods belong to elves is tactfully not discussed. It is presumed that higher level negotiations will address this.)

• The elves deny banditry on the road, and say the bandits do not stay in the woods. They offer assistance in putative moves against the bandits.
• The elves will stay inside the wood until the tournament. They suggest if the tournament were to include magical and scouting events, they would enter.
• The elves agree to stop "tithing" the countryside. The issue of restitution for the damage already done was unresolved, and set aside for now.
• If the humans wish further talks with the elves, they are to send heralds to the place where the current talks are being held.

The party stayed in the vicinity, training and helping tournament organization, and returned to Seagate after the tournament.