Mine Fox Rescue

Scribe Notes

Summary

Adventure: Mine Fox Rescue
GM: Stephen
Season: Summer 816 wk
Night: Mon in New Windsor
Level: Medium

Party

1. Bromli - (m) Dwarven Fighter-Namer - Nick
2. Cronose - (m) Elven Mind Mage - Ciaran
3. Mavric - (f) Dwarven Bard - Lisa
4. Horton - (m) Human Mind Mage - Errol
5. Pierre - (m) Halfling Illusionist - Ian A.
6. Merri Blackwood - (f) Human E&E - Chris
7. Erzabet - (f)++ Human Namer Julia

Employer

Gladys of Pine Creek.

Mission

There has been some sort of accident in the mine. The authorities have sealed it up and declared it too dangerous to attempt a rescue. She has consulted the Witch of the Dark Wood who has seen that the trapped miners still live. She pleads for brave heroes to defy the authorities and rescue her kin.

Does it make a difference that it is Count Richard's clandestine Warpstone mine in the mountains of Foxcourt.

Scribe Notes

Act One

Dramatis Personae

• Erzabet (aka the Skank) - human party leader, namer, healer
• Mary - lady adventurer, beginning practitioner of the E&E college
• Horton - apparently a hero, but his chin is lacking, Mind Mage jaguar
• Cronose - elven mind mage who has a little hobby horse, its coat is dapple grey...
• Pierre - a delicate wee halfling with an affinity for baking and making things look good
• Bromli - front line fighter with no conscience, dwarf, namer, occasional demon, military scientist
• Mavric - stage manager, bard and playwright, dwarf, somewhat of a fighter, scribe

Scene (Prologue)

A witch is standing on a blasted moor. There is thunder and lightning in the background and the wind is howling. She holds a glowing ball in her hands, raises it above her head. Witch (shrieks): They're alive!

Scene

Guild Security room

A small, robust, plainly dressed, slightly dusty village woman is nervously wringing her hands and looking travel worn and weary.

Gladys: Alack, my dearest love is trapped in a mine which doesn't really exist along with 28 of his closest friends, and my brother. Our evil tyrannical overlord will not attempt a rescue. Woe is me. Our witch says they're alive, and so I have come to seek out heroes. For the princely sum of two goats and as much salvage as you can carry, I implore you to assist me and save our men!

All: Of course we'll come. Let's take a speedy wagon train, with some paying passengers. We'll serve cookies and stories and be there in a few days.

[aside - the destination is in Foxcourt, which is currently lacking a count (Tricky Dicky Foxcourt was in charge)]

Scene

outside the Guild.

Ducal carriage awaits with two pretty paying passengers. Two trunks for Faircourt and one for Newcourt to be delivered.

Erzabet (to her factor): thank you my good man, we shall convey these goods and persons north.

Erzabet (to the party): let us protect these goods and gentle ladies from the bandits and ravening traders who lurk on the road north.

Pierre: allow me to disguise them, us and everything! They'll never find us! Trunks become barrels [note to self - how will we achieve this on stage? Blankets? Curtain drop? Sit actors on chests?]

Set up carriage on wheels across stage? Do we really need this journey portion or is it just boring exposition?

One day's travel. Stop at a town. A dwarf, an elf and a halfling walk into an inn in Mordeaux - sure there's a joke in there somewhere. Maybe this is a comedy???

Mordeaux>Tuscana>Faircourt>Newcourt>Foxcourt

Scene

Overnight at an inn, small town of Crestfall

Young ladies, Erzabet and Maree B upstairs in guest room

Rest of group in stables with wagon and carriage

Stealthy night time attackers - one falls through roof [consider staging here - they are on the roof, so build a frame and have the actors climb up the back?] Comic action - Erzabet kicks second intruder through hole in the roof...

Melee on floor - 2 attackers, Bromli and Horton grappling on the ground

We have a glorious victory and take two prisoners for questioning.

The innkeep approaches to check the state of affairs. Oh wait, is it the innkeep? No it's not, it's one of the wait staff.

Erzabet demands town council action for the brigands and ruffians who have assaulted us! The ruffians are human males, mid twenties, fairly ordinary apart from black clothes etc. Their shoes match the men. We determine that they are professional ruffians. The town guard arrest the ruffians!

[this scene may be irrelevant to the play but has been included for narrative purposes as part of the requirement for being party scribe.

Act Two

Scene: Depart Crestfall. Locals are, in fact, crestfallen at the loss of Erzabet

Travel to a mountain pass towards Tuscana. Go through the border guards control with no trouble. Follow main road through Tuscana towards Bowcourt. We glamp for the night at the roadside.

Continue the next morning and pass through another border control point passing into Bowcourt at Alencon.

Arrive Faircourt middle of the day and deliver Amanda and Jessica to their uncle. We push on.

• Definitely gloss over all this travelling - VERY boring, does not add to narrative. Included in general notes as part of official record.

Arrive in Grue after dark and decide to stay over. A disturbed night's sleep with local guardsmen interrogating us.

SO many towns to go through. DEFINITELY not including the travelling in the play.

Arrive at the grim, dour town of Newcourt. Gothic castle is excellent though - wonder if they'd ever loan it out to stage a play? Great atmosphere. Draw a quick sketch to capture the essence of it for staging purposes. Consider techniques I would need t use to build it. Weight implications if I use rocks - would it work if I built it in wood and painted it? Certainly easier to move around. Perhaps I could have it on a spinning base in the floor of the stage? Consider machinery required to turn the stage.

Some Guild members present in Newcourt and influential in court circles - Father Brock and Dramus the necromancer. Their minions seem friendly and issue us a bandit ear collection writ. We deliver the chest of goods and get a chit to say we have! The Ducal carriage is stored in Newcourt.

Back to Grue after dark on our way back up to Foxcourt. Hope that in this case the fact that we have not got the big carriage with us will mean we are not interrupted.

Arrive Foxcourt the next day.

Aliases:

Horton - Allister Merri - Anathea Cronose the human doesn't need an alias. Bromli - the dwarf with black hair Pierre is staying Pierre, but whatever you do, don't mention the cookies! Erzabet is becoming Betsy and losing the thing that makes everyone less beautiful Mavric's Travelling Salvation Show

We stage a somewhat amateur show [consider a show within a show motif - too complex at this point?] featuring the warm hearted gypsy princess, her brother, the ugly dwarf, the evil prince, the urchin who carries notes, the wise counsellor with her speaking dog and the narrator. We make 74SP to allow us to have a drink. We leave late afternoon before we get invited to dinner and head out on to the road with plans to camp out overnight. We leave town and continue up towards Elfenberg alongside the river to try and get close to Gladys's town. We arrive late in the evening and arrange to see the witch in the morning. We sleep.

The village is well-fortified, has a moat and a wooden pallisade, serious earthworks. We are welcomed into the village. They tell us about their families, who is missing, what skills they have. They show us warpstone.

Go to see the Witch of the Dark Wood. Horton transforms into a jaguar as apparently that's the normal thing to do here. None of the rest of us transform.

OK good atmosphere here - dark conifers, no brids or birdsog. Could easily replicate for stage - painted black treees, muffled footsteps etc. A number of trees are hjorns - sleeping, mindless trees which have been sleeping for centuries. We come to a small glade. There is a stream trickling down through the glade and a classic witch sitting by the stream. Very impressive costuming and staging for the part.

We have a lovely picnic. Tips:

If we have anything which is good for dealing with chaos that would be useful. Warpstones useful for alchemists doing master works. Condition of the miners - still alive. We can go through the workers' entrance - a side entrance which can be used. 29 workers and rescue party trapped inside. No one unusual went in before the incident, but there are some newer employees who are down there.

All the stories we've heard about things coming out of the hills and mountains are probably true. Water washes over the warpstone and down to the meadow and fields. Monsters are real here. We may not all get out. Or not as we currently are anyway.

We decide to go in with our stuff. Also metal spikes for grounding ourselves. And water and food and herbs and tea. Al buffs apply, including two sets of counterspells each. Mine are Celestial Dark and Necromantic.

Act Three

Scene: Mine entrance. Clearly secret entrance. Disguised by foliage, debris and the like, all looking completely natural. [curtain drop and scene change to interior cave]

Guard: Signal three knocks, then two knocks, then one knock to let us know that you are not the gibberingly insane and we will let you out. Best of luck and fare thee well.

Normal mana can be drawn at this point. We are currently on Level 2, and we potentially need to go as far as Level 12. Before the incident, the stairs, shafts etc were all in good working order.

We do some experimenting with our weapons and the pouches of warpstone (held by Mary, Erzabet and Pierre). It appears that weapons with magic cast upon them have a greater effect. Weapons which are inherently magical SEEM to be unchanged, but our testing is in no way empirical. [does present the opportunity for several of the party to strike an heroic pose]. It seems any magic causes problems - even Bromli's rock/ precious stone sniffing talent. We decide to work on a more martial/ practical concept for our exploration.

"Hitty hitty, smacky smacky, rescue rescue" - the succinct summation of what we should be doing according to Bromli.

Looks like limestone and the tunnels are quite new - possibly 10 years old? Bromli and I would expect that tunnels of this length would take generations to build up, but these are recent. They appear to be chiselled/ pick axed out, but hard to say for sure.

We find the first store room and equip ourselves with miners' lamps. No available canaries = we postulate that tax collectors may be used instead. We rearrange the party order to put Bromli and Pierre at the front of the group followed by Mavric, then Cronose, Merry, the jaguar and Erzabet bringing up the rear.

We go down one level, very painstakingly and all is good. Then, uh oh, what seems to be a patch of complete darkness. [thinking black cloth over the stage lights might achieve this look. Also, could we sensor-vision the audience??? Make it darker for them to increase atmosphere?? Look into invested darkness magics]

After some testing, we tie a rope to Cronose and let him go into the darkness. We pull him out after 20 seconds. Looks like him. He reports a feeling of falling through the darkness into a cavern about 500 feet across which is lit up, but surrounded by feathery darkness. We decide to send Pierre through with Cronose for further investigation. We put a mind speech on first. Once Cronose and Pierre go into the darkness, they disappear off mind speech. They can talk to each other physically. They feel as though they are hanging in a dome of feathery darkness with white clouds and glints of something else. Cronose drops a dagger which drifts away from him. They come on back and then we all leap through. Well, we go cautiously, along the rope which is tied together to see what happens. Of our 85 feet of rope, about 70 feet is dangling, but 400-500 feet until the clouds are reached.

Pierre tries to detect if there are any illusions. Something about the darkness doesn't look quite right. When Erzabet looks through Bedivere's eyes, the darkness appears to be made up of lots and lots of feathers of darkness. A DA suggests that it is a living animal - raven. It is a pocket universe or middlemarch. Erzabet strikes a pose and flies off [wires and a flying harness, emphasise the cheese factor, this is really tacky heroic stuff, consider very obvious costuming for this character].

We do some more investigations and decide that we're going to let go of our rope and see if the currents will take us down towards what we are thinking of as a plug hole. We decide that a 3-hour ancient divination from the outside of the feathers would just be very boring exposition. We leave a rope dangling from the mine and all hold on to another piece of rope. We head down towards the centre, which definitely begins to resemble circling a drain. Are we inside the eye of a raven? o idea how to stage this - perhaps material clouds moving up and down with the actors moving through just walking? Or a wheel, or hands up "spinning" aback drop? Takes about an hour and a half. It's boring but gives me a chance to consider if I would include this scene and HOW.

DA shows nature of the magic is chaos. Plane of origin is not intrinsic although this is a rock, so that is not unusual. We theorise that maybe something one of us is carrying has caused this pocket plane, but no-one has anything made of raven feathers.

We land. Cronose casts a spell - ESP and triples the range. He can tell us that it is high mana here. His spell continues to work past the duration of the spell. His ESP picks up that it is a bird which is dying and it is upset and unhappy. Horton casts a Telepathy and in his own mind, he becomes the plane. He is a god. Albeit a dying god. He eventually manages to gain rational control of the bird. I help build a nest and recite a saga to try and calm and help the bird god. We eventually manage to work out that the raven was sent with a message from the Old One to aid those who were in need and that it somehow encountered warpstone which impacted its brain and made it into this pocket plane. We decide to try and remove the warpstone from the pocket plane by finding and creating an exit and chucking out the rocks.

Author's note: although this would make a very exciting play, there is no earthly way this could be explained to an audience in the span of a normal play. However, it could make an excellent comedy where the hero could wear a raven mask and prance around giving orders to others as part of a foolery. Work on a story within the comedy - perhaps the raven story could be the play inside the play and then there could be a case of confused lovers?

We manage to dig through the surface of the plane and to a different substance which is a portal. We all go through the portal, and check on The Horton to see if he is still part of the god. We are in part of the tunnels which has had a cave in.

Act Four

The plane we were just in now looks like a marble, but we can't pick it up from the ground. We start making our way through the tunnels.We check out a couple of tunnel branches and they lead to nothing. We've obviously come and gone through a few levels and places and also ended up not far from where we started.

There's a patch of something unusual. Bromli sticks it with his pike and it holds on to the pike and tries to pull him in. Things appear which look like a big rock elemental (Rocky) and a flaming coal elemental (Coalface) plus some smaller goolies - more all the time. There is lots of hitting. We get hurt. Sneaky jaguar - henceforth known as the Pink Panther (change name/colour/species in play to protect the identity). Suggestion of theme music - musical theme for this character to be worked on.

Bromli stands up valiantly, but eventually begins to be worn down by Rocky. Author's note: Consider a death scene in the play. Whilst this author is aware that no-one utters dying words that anyone hears in the midst of combat, or indeed that one can think of as one is dying in excruciating pain, could write a small scene with some noble sacrificial words. Wait and see usefulness of Bromli character as story continues - increased dramatic tension with no fighter in the group?

Erzabet unexpectedly goes into close with brown pants, having awesomely repelled blue pants. For someone who is not a fighter, she seems to be doing very well. Cronose and Pierre acquit themselves extremely well, with Pierre delivering the coup de grace on Coalface!! All hail Pierre, slayer of elementals! Author's note: use a child for Pierre if we cannot get a halfling, but make sure it is a small one. Consider making Pierre the hero a la the story of the small guy and the giant

Bromli successfully kills Rocky!!!! Way to go Bromli. A rousing cheer.

Bromli to Erzabet: Just line us up and spank us with your hitty stick.

Author's note: believe this could be an exciting scene properly staged. Consider employing an illusionist to get the fire effects of Coalface, Rocky could just be a big guy with an appropriate costume

We get to where we think the coal face should be, but all that is there is a chaotically swirling mass of elements. Beautiful to look at and would be amazing for any elemental mages. No signs of bodies or bones. Tracks very hard to see as the elements are messing up the ground. Look for a good camping spot which is not near the slowly reforming Rocky, Coalface and the others. Make camp for the night at the junction.

Act Five

Those of us who were asleep are rudely awakened with the news of goblins. Cronose and Merre give chase at first but abandon it. The night passes. Uneventfully.

• 1-6 Merri, 1-4 Cronose, 5-8 Bromli, 6-9 Mavric, 8-11 Horton, 9-12 Pierre,
• 11-2 Merri, 12-3 Cronose, 2-5 Bromli, 3-6 Mavric, 5-8 Horton, 6-9 Pierre, 8-11 Merri, 9-12 Cronose, 11-12 Mavric

In the 18th hour, there are 6 goblins near us. Cronose blinds himself and turns one of his arms to stone. Half the party stealth up to the goblins to attempt to parlay. Possibly the wrong half of the party were sent...there is not so much parlaying as taunting and flames. Astonishingly, they don't get themselves killed.

The investigating party follow the goblins to a fortified position. We decide to leave them as they are until Erzabet is done with her healing. We believe there are between 10 and 20 of them. We wall off the corridor (using an illusion) which turns out to work too well and becomes a real wall while Pierre has his hand in it. He's stuck there for 12 hours. We wait until Erzabet is out of her healing trance.

Side note: it is repeatedly proven that the other races all look the same. One of our dwarves couldn't tell the difference between the human male and female, and the elf couldn't tell the difference between the human female and dwarven male. The human female couldn't tell the difference between the halfling and a dwarf.

We front up to the goblins. They refuse to let us pass, little fuckers, even though we give them the option to let us past peacefully.

Brilliant thought about staging - rather than a theatre, build a tunnel complex and have the audience walk through and be part of the battles

We get walloped by fire, necro, Wicca, celestial mages. Do't know if it's grenados or casting.

Typhoid Pierre...must remember to remove that curse later...

We advance, and Bromli in battle form leaps into the throng. The Pink Panther joins in the fray and Mavric clears caltrops. Bromli decimates the goblins.

Act Six

We are astonished by the sheer number of shaped items they are chucking at us from all sorts of different colleges and somewhat horrified by our treasure which is being burned damaging us!!! We put down a disjunction to deal with these. We make our way through the goblins and illusory wall, to discover that they have been as afflicted by their grenados as we have!! This is good for us. Unfortunately, there is a big pack of them waiting for us behind a large boulder which is blocking the tunnel...we continue forward.

There is more combat.

Consider the different effects that the audience could experience. Blackfire might kill someone, but we could make it darker and do a low level mass fear. Perhaps some smells of fire and a feeling of flame? Candles behind red glass to give the effects of flame?

Erzabet and Mavric take on "Fred" the previous controlled big goblin (the one with the huge iron bow). The girls' fight is all good!! Mary struggles with the blackfire and ends up in Horton's arms. Mavric sadly dies. In one blow. This goblin hits REALLY hard.

The dramatic moment of this death could be quite good - an unexpected single blow. The value of losing a beloved character should not be understated. No death scene possible, however post battle, the cast could stand around and mourn and share their memories.

The goblins flee. Horton attempts an heroic miracle.

Consider whether to allow a magic item to bring Mavric back. Perhaps "she's not completely dead, only almost dead". Give the audience a few minutes of thinking that she's lost, and then magically return her.

Merre, Pierre and Bromli pursue the fleeing goblins and pick up some magical traps (like the ones which were being thrown at us!). e aso pick up Fred's iron bow. Mavric's armour is munted - Fred's bow seems to have some extra magic.

We pause for a while. Some healing is undertaken.

Looks like the magic being cast which is area magic becomes permanant on the walls (e.g. sleeping gas, blackfire). Little fuckers try to collapse a tunnel on us!!! They don't succeed.

Calendar

Summer: Meadow (1) 815wk
	Moonday		Duesday		W'ansday		Th'rsday		Frysday		Reapsday		Sunday
		Beltane Full Moon	1	Guild Meeting	2	to Mordeaux and stables fight	3	Glamping	4	Grue	5	Grue	6	Foxcourt and mine entry
	7	Resting in the mines	8	After resting goblin attack	9		10		11		12		13
	14		15		16		17		18		19		20
	21		22		23		24		25		26		27
	28	Full Moon	29		30		1		2		3		4
Summer: Heat (2) 815wk
	Moonday		Duesday		W'ansday		Th'rsday		Frysday		Reapsday		Sunday
	5		6		7		8		9		10		11
	12		13		14	Midsummer Eve (Faerie Day)	15	Solstice	16		17		18
	19		20		21		22		23		24		25
	26	Full Moon	27		28		29		30		1		2
Summer: Breeze (3) 815wk
	Moonday		Duesday		W'ansday		Th'rsday		Frysday		Reapsday		Sunday
	3	Day of Death	4		5		6		7		8		9
	10		11		12		13		14		15		16
	17		18		19		20		21		22		23
	24	Full Moon	25		26		27		28		29		30

Reference

History

• Partial Notes for Autumn 813 Adventure
  • Horton became a Shape-Shifter (Leopard) as payment for services rendered to allies of Richard of Foxcourt.
• Spring 814 Seagate Times:
  

Unrest in Foxcourt

Bowcourt troops recently released from the Western Kingdom armies opposing the Drow Invasion and dreaming of returning to their homes have been deployed to Foxcourt to hunt down monsters.

Official orders state that Richard, former Duke of Foxcourt, has unleashed shapechanging monsters on his former homeland while the honourable men of Bowcourt were away west trying to save the Western Kingdom. The monsters are to be hunted and driven back into the wilds or preferably destroyed. The criminal Richard is to be executed on sight.

It is understood that several Bowcourt nobles have complained to the Marquessa, pleading that the troops are needed on the borders to protect against bandits, mercenaries, and other remnants of the Drow armies. Refugees from the war zones need the troop’s protection so they can return home.

A private letter from Richard, Lord-in exile of Foxcourt, was sent to Duke Leto and his friends in Seagate. Richard requests that the Duke and noble members of the Seagate Guild convince the Marquessa to see reason and consider what is best for her people. Richard’s elite units have been protecting his people in Foxcourt after the Marquessa abandoned them to the predations of bandits. He does not want civil war within Bowcourt but neither will he suffer his beloved people to be oppressed and brutalised by the Marquessa’s lackeys.

Loot

(and expenses)

Item	Qty	Effects	Br	Cr	Ma	Ho	Pe	Me	Er
Purchased
	1	...
Looted

• Cartage and passenger fees (less expenses of carriage hire) 900SP
• Diamond with warpstone centre - value approx 10,000SP for the diamond, unknown for the warp. Effects: will enhance any spell cast through it to sharpen or change the effects slightly. Can either be attuned to a specific spell or used generally.
• Gold and silver ore, approx 5000SP
• Bromli's nose is now black but he can also sniff coal -1 PB but can be covered by Troubadour or Courtier
• Horton raven shape
• Pierre - solid illusory walls when he touches them but he will take any damage that the wall will
• Cronose - when touching left hand to stone while doing ESP he will go blind but has tremor sense
• Gobbo cheapo magical traps x8 - loaded!
• iron bow?

Expenses

10-pack healing potions 5000SP

Logistics

Buffs

Magic	Rk	Effects	Dur	Br	Cr	Ma	Ho	Pe	Me	Ez
spell	0		0 mins

• Pierre +20 Stealth for 30 minutes
• Bromli - chess buff, one time 75% sense danger and +1 Mil Sci rank
• All - Fear or awe check from book (one step easier) - takes 30 minutes to read once per day
• Mind Speech (Horton or Cronose) - 70 mins, 7 targets
• +50% MR, DM reduction from behind, enhanced duration of one spell with duration of >2 hours (Erzebet) 200SP per use
• 2 sets of counterspells each from Erzabet

MilSci

Watches

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
1		2				3				1
4			5			6			7

Skirmish Formations (Front)

Default Bromli , Erzabet and Bedivere OR Mavric, Horton, Cronose, Pierre, Mary, Mavric or Erzabex

Double File Bromli/ Mavric or Erzabet, Horton/Cronose, Pierre/ Mere, Erzabet or Mavrix

Single File Bromli, Erzabet or Mavric, Horton, Pierre, Cronose, Mary, Mavric or Erzabet