Exploring Belm

After a wait I though would never end, Roland travels once more to Switzerland and we have another chance to play. This time my GM Alex also says he's keen and rolls up Thorhall, a local fighter originally from Keil to the north, who is looking to find work serving the church.

Airday the 17th of Polvius, 2044
After a blissful night's rest in a soft bed the party rise and assemble in the Cathedral. Father Cathon introduces them to Thorhall and instructs him to look after them. Together they exit the church and disappear into the throngs of the busy crowds.
They visit various market stalls, sell some of their accumulated loot, and buy some local clothes. Thorhall knows of a shop where they can get more 'specific' items, though warns the party that the shopkeep has a reputation for underhanded deals. Also important to be aware of is that magic items are generally banned because of their connection to witches and arcane magic. The party are okay with that and off they go.

Sooty's Emporium is a little shop down a darkened alleyway. They meet Sooty, a small charismatic man with slicked hair and a gold tooth. He welcomes them and offers them several minor, but interesting items such as tanglefoot bags, smoke sticks etc. "All hundred-percent alchemical. No magic involved." he assures them. There is another customer in the store aimlessly browsing through the shelves. The party (and Sooty) are suspicious, and wait until he has left before discussing anything 'illegal'.
Sooty asks about their finances and quickly learn that the part couldn't hope to afford anything remotely magical, so offers to make them a deal. He says if they do him a favour he'll give them an item of their choosing. He explains there is a competing merchant arriving in Belm he wants to scare off. The party's job is to wait for him on the Belm/Louchester road and burn his wagon and bring back his trading records as proof. Additionally they could take whatever they want, and the local bandits would take the blame for the attack. The party is divided. Thorhall wants nothing to do with, however Milo is keen as mustard. The party leave and decide they want to think about it.

In the mean time they visit the library. They read up on the history of Ludremon, borrow a Ludremon->Divine translation dictionary, and try to find some information about spells. They find several historical accounts of witch hunts and learn that arcane magic's stigma stems from the numerous times that the entire mortal realm has teetered on the brink of destruction because of its use.

Next stop is a small shop called 'Oyster Cartography' where they hope to purchase a map of the area. The young man at the counter will sell them one for 100gp. As the party grumble at the cost of such an item the boy's father 'Old Sol' hobbles in from the back room and starts rambling about how he spent his whole life creating these maps which is why they're so expensive and how he traveled the breadth of Belkanath and saw many incredible things in his youth etc. but stops short as he recalls some painful memory and retires to the back room again.
The remainder of the conversation is shortened by an insulting remark from Milo in Divine that the shopkeep happened to understand. The party are swiftly instructed to leave, and find themselves on the streets once more.

They return to Sooty's Emporium and decide to take the job. If the merchant Sooty wants to ruin is also a dirty low-life they'll burn his wagon, but if he's honest they'll leave him be. Sooty gives them the details and the party leave Belm and travel down the south road where they lay in wait.
After some time a cart matching Sooty's description appears with a lone rider in front. Thorhall steps to the center of the road and halts the wagon. The driver and Thorhall converse briefly. Thorhall requests to inspect the contents of the wagon to determine the merchant's nature, however the merchant finds this request suspicious, and says 'If you want something, you better just take it you filthy bandit'. Meanwhile Milo loses patience and sneaks around the back of the cart to take a peek at the merchandise, and is very surprised to find five armed guards turn and look at him as he peels back the canvas.
The rider stands up, revealing he is wearing full armour. "I am First Commander Kriam of the Belm City Watch, and you are under arrest! I order you to surrender NOW!" The two guards at the front of the wagon stick their crossbows through slots in the canvas, but do not immediately fire.
Thorhall attacks the rider, and Wanda rushes forwards to pacify some of the guards with a Color Spray. As she begins casting the first sigils of her spell the two guards fire their crossbows at her in an attempt to disrupt her spell. One arrow misses due to the poor line of sight while the other strikes true, effectively disrupting the spell she was trying to cast and mortally wounding her. Suddenly things are looking grim. With Thorhall matched 1:1 at the front, Wanda down, and Milo surprised and alone at the back of the wagon their chances of winning the fight are looking poor. The party surrender. Kriam casts a healing spell on Wanda, and they are all bound and bundled into the wagon for the long trip back to Belm. Only Tundill remains behind, as he never emerged from his hiding place, and as the wagon trundles off into the darkness our poor lonely dwarf is left to contemplate his next actions. Oh, woe has befallen Tundill this night.
But Tundill is not to be brought down by ill fortune. His stout courage spurs him into action, and he starts along the trail in the direction of Belm.
He arrives in Belm around midnight and makes for the church and asks to see Father Cathon. The old priest is woken and asks him what the matter is. Tundill swallows his pride and repeats the embarrassing saga to Father Cathon, and asks if he could help them. As it turns out Cathon is a personal friend of Kriam, and since Tundill's intentions appear to be good he agrees to seek an audience with Kriam.
Some time later Father Cathon and Tundill knock on the door at the city guard headquarters. Cathon requests to see Kriam about a matter of great importance and the guard fetches Kriam from his sleep. Kriam is tired and grumpy, but listens to Tundill's tale with interest. In the end he decides he may be able to find a use for the party, and since it appears the party's intentions were mostly good, perhaps community service could substitute for the horrors of life imprisonment. He had planned to have Wanda handed over to the Knights Lonusso the next morning, where she would most certainly be publicly executed. Father Cathon pleads with Kriam that this is the wrong course of action, and mentions how he owes his life to the party. Kriam decides to overlook the mage as a personal favour and retires for the night. Naturally Tundill is 'invited' to stay in a cell for the night.

Lightday the 18th of Polvius, 2044
The party endure an uncomfortable night's sleep and are summoned the next morning into Kriam's. He introduces them to Keelan, the merchant that they thought they were ambushing last night. He explains how he has been expecting something like this from Sooty, and how he spread the rumors himself and sought the City Guard's assistance. To regain their freedom the party must catch Sooty in the act of handing over the magical item he promised them. Keelan gives them his trading records for the exchange. Kriam arranges for a strike-team to breach the store as soon as a signal (a hand wave) is given.

And in they go. Sooty sees them unrested and a little worse for wear, and asks them about the deal. They show him the books, and although he cautiously opens the door a crack, makes eye-contact with someone outside, and closes it again. A few moments there is a knock at the door. He reopens the door to find a small package on the doorstep, which he hands to Wanda to inspect. It appears to be a magical wand of some sort. Milo eases over to the door and Thorhall prepares to jump the counter. Sooty senses something is amiss and panics. He ignites a smokestick and is engulfed by a cloud of black smoke. Thorhall bounds over the counter and whacks him with the flat of his spear but fails to knock him unconscious. Milo swings open the door and signals. Sooty dives past Thorhall and opens a trapdoor, taking a jab from Thorhall's spear. Wanda and Tundill fire crossbows without success and Sooty escapes into the darkness below, which from the sound of the splish-splashing appear to be the sewers. Sooty says "Get them, Bob" and a low growl is heard.
The party are clambering down the trapdoor just as the guards arrive. Thorhall learns that 'Bob' is Sooty's pet crocodile, and they wrestle while the rest of the party manage to knock Sooty unconscious and eventually put Bob down. The guards clean up and take the wand. For all said and done, it appears to be a job well done. Kriam debriefs the party and advises them that if they should be looking for something to do to restore their reputation they could try solving the bandit problem in the south. He directs them to Lady Helette Aldar, who turns out to be a local noble who was robbed by the bandits near the hamlet of The Penn. A painting dear to her was stolen, and she offers a 200gp reward for its return. The party return to the Cathedral, wash out the remnants of the past days ordeals, and retire for the night in the simple yet accommodations provided for them by Father Cathon.

Fireday the 19th of Polvius, 2044
The party make preparations to investigate the bandit attacks on the south road. Using their meager gold from selling the weapons and armour looted from They purchase a mule and a canvas-covered wagon. Without too much time or effort they make some slots in the canvas at the front large enough for two crossbows to be fired through.
As night falls they load up the wagon and make for The Penn. Thorhall takes the reigns and the rest of the party pile into the back. To all outward appearances an unguarded goods wagon is slowly making its way to Louchester in the dark.
Sure enough, as they near The Penn the bandits spot their lantern, and five shortspears fly out of the darkness felling the mule. Wanda casts Color Spray out of her canvas window once knocking three hobgoblins unconscious. Tundill, Milo and Uther leap from the rear of the wagon and get ready to do damage. The remaining two hobgoblins realise they're outnumbered and retreat into the darkness, leaving their comrades behind.

GM's Notes:

• I was really happy with this session. The party made some real progress, and I felt that I was spending more time storytelling than explaining combat rules. That said, the session was relatively combat light. The fight with Bob was a bit rules-heavy and involved grappling (!) but thankfully Alex was very well versed in the rules and we wasted no time.
  
  
• Even so, one of my players mentioned he found the rules too complicated and confusing with all the stacking bonuses etc.
  DnD is alas a very rules heavy game, and when I first joined Alex's group we had exactly the same discussion. One of his players actually left because the rules were dominating the gameplay. But we stuck with it and once people started learning the rules they found that it brought balance to the game and eradicated most (but not all) of the arguments. The player that left even came back, and now I think everyone's converted. :)
  
  I have offered to explain the combat basics, but I'd like to go one step further and make short one-on-one tutorial dungeon, kind of like what you get at the start of a computer game where you get the feel of the weapons, interface etc.
  
  
• Now the really important stuff: XP
  The party defeated Sooty (CR3:900XP) + Bob the crocodile (CR2:600XP) + 3 hobgoblins (CR½:450XP) => 1950XP / 5 = 390XP each.
  
  No XP was awarded for the two hobgoblins that got away, because they will fight again another day :)
  
  Milo, Uther and Wanda: 2037XP + 390XP = all on 2427XP (71.35% to level 3)
  Tundill: 2037XP + 390XP + 50XP (solo mission) = 2477XP (73.85% to level 3)
  Thorhall: 1000XP + 390XP + 50XP (taking initiative) = 1440XP (22% to level 3)
  
  
• I have learned to my great sorrow that Roland won't be returning until September, so it will be another long wait until we game again. That said he will be in Zürich for three nights (arriving Monday leaving Thursday) so we could game perhaps twice on that week.
  
  
• [edit 16/07/2007]Robert Defendi has once again come to my aid and cleared up some issues. After some discussion I have made the following changes:
  1. The current year is 2044, which is reckoned from the formation of the Empire Vurtus (which I suppose happend some 8,000 years after the Sundering).
  2. Because item creation feats are open to spellcasters both divine and arcane, it is not strictly illegal to own, buy and sell magic items. This was indeed an error on my behalf, and it would have had several effects on the last session. :(
  3. While the church does have priests of high enough level to create magic items and armour, they hoarde everything they create.
  4. The party can purchase mundane magic items legally, provided they don't have obviously arcane affects (such as a wand of magic missile). Healing and healing-related potions and scrolls are sometimes gifted by the church to generous donors. ;)
  5. The party would have found detailed information on divine magic in the city library (though still very sketchy and biased information on arcane).[/edit]