Into the Light 1.3: Campaign Diary

 

                The heroes headed back to the Lower Ward. They threw a garnish to some light boys in exchange for directions to Barmy Kank. Kank was of middling usefulness, prophesying doom and telling the characters they could get in the church around the back. The players weren’t sure if they wanted to try themselves out against the Athar guards, given what they’d done to Jason Scott. Whatever their decision, it could wait until after an evening spent winding up poor Hulester in the Ubiquitous Wayfarer. Hulester was deeply, deeply unimpressed. Maybe one day Riaen will see.

                The next morning they headed back to the Clerk’s Ward – home – so they could pay a visit at the Hall of Speakers, the Signers’ headquarters. The Athar had been absolutely watertight in stopping nosey berks, so hopefully the self-centred Signers could be flattered into slipping up. They managed to secure a brief audience with Elchis in the records department, but Elchis’ seemed surprised and utterly oblivious to their inquiry.

                12-Bar hatched a plan to sing a song about the church in the Hall of Speakers atrium, while Ragados and M’narr kept a lookout for people reacting suspiciously to the tale. It’s a plan entirely stolen from Hamlet, but hey, it worked for him. And 12-Bar rolled a 29 on his performance check, so if anyone had a secret about the church, they were likely to let their mask slip.

                M’narr caught sight of one person acting unusually – a female Githzerai making a hasty exit. They chased her down the steps of the Hall of Speakers, but she was able to slip away. Ah well. At least the trio were near home and could sleep in their own beds tonight.

                But it was back to the Lower Ward the next day. Trinkets were bought, questions were asked, and a certain Athar thug was turned into a fine red mist. The one survivor of the planned Athar ambush sang like a siren. It had gone disastrously for the brutes. They’d not expected the heroes to be quite so resourceful or violent.

12-Bar’s incredible performance is likely to have unintended consequences, given the sheer quality of his playing. Drawing massive attention to a sensitive issue is a sure fire way to create chaos between the factions. Anarchy, even. Only an anarchist could’ve done something like that! And so it will go... Plus there’s Elchis, she’s obviously going to try and get the players killed now.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Outlands: Planar Rules and Encounter Table

Encounters Check for encounters three times a day by rolling a d100. For the first roll each day, there is a 35% chance of an encounter. If no encounter occurs, the chances of an encounter on the next roll increase by 30%. If an encounter does occur, the chance of an encounter on the next roll that day decreases by 30%, to a minimum of 35%. Check for encounters once a night, again with a 35% chance. More information about the Planescape-specific monsters on these tables can be found in the AD&D book Monstrous Compendium: Planescape Appendix II. The below table is a modified version of an Outlands encounter table found on reddit . Roll 2d10: 2. Earth-berg. Floating chunks of earth and a scarred landscape remain after a chunk of land from the Outlands recently slid into another plane. Echoes of the other plane may remain. 3. Lost Blood War Patrol. A ragtag group of demons (MM), devils (MM), or yugoloths (MM) that fought in the Blood War and was cut off from the rest of the...
Read more

DM Resources for Planescape and Dead Gods

Looking to unpick how to run Dead Gods in 5e D&D, but don't know where to start? Start here. First things first. Realistically, I wouldn't recommend Planescape or Dead Gods for a first-time DM. Trying to stay on top of the adventure and the world is enough work without having to learn the rules of the game as you go. If you and your group all played Planescape: Torment and loved the world and know it well, then that's a bit different. Otherwise, run a simpler adventure or two first, and get to the stage where you're confident with the rules. Done that? Okay. So, obviously you have the adventure itself . I have a ringbound Print on Demand copy, which is fantastic, although 9 pages out of the 170+ have scanned badly, and some are illegible. Some copies of the pdf have this problem and some don't, so check before you buy. Either way, the illegible pages are all detailed in this useful free 5e conversion by Jarred Caldwell. It seems as if this pdf was formally a pa...
Read more

One Step Forward: Behind the Screen + Spell Keys

Spell Keys Spell keys are an incredibly vague part of Planescape, but like portal keys, they can be anything from items, to words, gestures, thoughts, spells, or augmentations to spells so they work the way they should. All planar spellcasters would realistically know that spell keys exist, even if they don’t know specific keys. If you want to use spell keys for your arcane casters, the Outlands is a good place to introduce them. The Outlands are a common enough area that you can give players the answers without them having to invest too much time; and the keys for spells all have a very low cost. Maggots, fire, some water, a handful of dirt. Find my curated Outlands rules here . PCs whose faction alignment or background grants them access to a library or information network (Guvners, and perhaps Indeps and Anarchists?) will fare best at finding spell key information; but any adventurer can hang out at a planewalkers’ tavern like the Ubiquitous Wayfarer and try and probe others for...
Read more