This is part of the The Peacemakers of West River Run.
Agitators in West River Run; CREDITS > Dev: Kelly Berger; Test: First Play Test: 2009The area of Cabella has long been a source of trouble for West River Run, and the Baron of Faryain in particular. They have declared themselves a freeholding, beholden only to the Duke, but they have not been recognized. They make it difficult for the Baron’s tax collectors, spread lies and rumors about his agents and allies, stage protests in towns and cities, and even ambush some of his supply wagons, runners, and officials (no one is killed – usually tar and feathering is the outcome). However, this time they have spread their sedition into the heart of the barony itself. The party is enjoined to “fight enemies of the Baron”, but after they are hired and swear loyalty, they are expected to handle the civilian “agitators” brutally for the Baron as a way of making reparations to raise tensions in Gillman Pass.
Escalating Troubles in Barrid
Background
The party has arrived accompanied by the Baron’s Herald Howard Lovejoy – he will be directing and advising the group. He has a particular dislike for the agitators of Barrid – his family has trade interests there and he will encourage the party to go very hard on the agitators there – death before a trial is acceptable to him.
Barrid
Barrid is a small town of just over 1000 population. Each five years, the Chauvela Elves come to trade, and that will be in the spring. The Baron does not want to jeopardize any of this fragile process. Howard Lovejoy, his herald, impresses on Plague the need to absolutely shut down any agitators here, preferably using violence they won’t soon forget. In addition to the town watch, there is a small militia, and 6 of the Barons soldiers stationed at a mostly empty barracks.
The locals wont react well to troops marching into their town and asking questions.
The party has 8 days to find information and stop the assassination that will happen.
Timeline
60 days ago – graffiti starts to appear with free Caellan slogans
45 days ago – first protest
30 days ago – first full “rally”
20 days ago – mercenaries ride into a protest crowd, killing 3 including a young girl when the crowd flees
10 days ago – tax collector coming back has counting fingers broken and his mouth filled with silver and smashed in
7 days ago – [begin] petty vandalism to the city trade officials
2 days ago – Mayor finally puts out a reward; it’s too late though
+6 days when the party arrives = merchant assassination!
When he comes to town, the mayor Darcel Hawkwind (of pine tribe descent) gets verbally assaulted and abused by the herald for failing to suppress things himself unsuccessfully. No one will talk to the PC’s. They will have to bribe or beat someone or somehow win a position of trust. One particular target has been the merchant Kanye South.
Agitator Headquarters
Bob Steves is the leader of the agitators. They have a fortified position with a tunnel out at the Goose Down Den in the north part of town. There are papers with contact and embedded in the notes the location of their second or backup headquarters. Plus the details of the merchant they plan to kill. If the PC’s somehow find it (there is always one person on watch!), they will be able to escape even if surrounded.
Kill the Merchant
The plan is to kill Kanye South the Merchant – a well known anti-Cabellan merchant (refuses to trade in the area). He will trivialize any effort to protect him. They will try and kill the merchant
Agitators Backup Plan
The Games Workshop. They have no way out, so they will take hostages and demand a horse and a way out. A crowd will gather and a mob will erupt. Each character must make a streetwise check or the mob will get them. The mob operates on a +X level and does 10 damage per result level (through armor).
Problems in Molra
Background
The party has arrived once again accompanied by the Baron’s Herald Howard Lovejoy – he will be directing and advising the group. Molra, like Barrid, enjoys the seafood brought in from Cabella. To this end, the Cabellan agitators have been targeting the supply of seafood to heighten the awareness of their plight.
Molra
The city is clean and seems vibrant.
Timeline
400 days ago – graffiti starts to appear with free Caellan slogans
25 days ago – first protest
20 days ago – first full “rally”
10 days ago – threats in graffiti on walls
5 days ago – merchants bringing seafood in from Cabella are robbed
1 days ago – “mob” in market overturns seafood stalls
Over the course of the next couple days, there will be more “mobs” in the market and a couple of local groups will protest – causing flash mobs pro and against the Cabellan cause. Several people will be hurt. The PC’s, in stumbling their way through putting down protests, will discover one of the children that was “killed” in a riot has, in fact, been dead for days.
The Body: The child was a sacrifice, an offering to Sunstealer (the mark on the bottom of his foot is smudged, but recognizable with Lore: Religion).
The watch, who brought the body to the PC’s, will spread rumors. Word gets out, and soon a couple more sets of parents come forward. The PC’s will uncover a pattern in an area of 2 hamlets outside of town, and 2 more neighborhoods – 5 victims total.
The party must track down where the boy is from, find the hidden cult, and smash it.
The Lead: After the kid’s body is traced to a certain area, ‘john’, comes forward to the watchmen. He wants to meet the PC’s only – he says he is only safe with them. The night before he is to meet with them, he is killed. He was a derelict – known to stay in a few abandoned houses. The PC’s can quietly start scouting things out at each of the three sites. If they are obvious about asking questions or more than a single person serves as lookout, they will alert the cultists.
Option 1: Alerted Cult – The PC’s get one of the last cultists leaving. They will find the evidence, but not be able to get a lead further. They will be chastised by the Baron’s Herald, in front of the watchmen.
Option 2: Unsuspecting Cult – The PC’s will observe someone using the concealed door in an alley on one of the 3 houses ‘john’ was known to frequent. They must act fast or the cultists will be alerted.
From a room overlooking an alley, there is a boarded up door below. The door is boarded because of a collapse, but in the dead of night, the boarded door is a facade – a person is seen to go into it! Find a clever concealed door, with a small hole leading into the earth.
The series of catches opens to reveal a tight hole, going down at an angle into the earth. There are a series of handholds and half steps cut into the loose earth, supported with boards and rocks.
All is quiet. If they looked for secret catches and traps: PER check (1 AM=minute); there is a cord connected to a spring which chimes a bell in the temple entry if it is not first disconnected – this lets the inhabitants know the person coming down is not friendly. If the PC’s take a lot of time (for a bonus to detect the “latch”, there is a 50% chance another follower will come down the alley and see them – they will leave, vanishing into the night. This expected arrival will not show, and there is a 50% chance that even if PC’s disarm the latch, the followers will be counted as aware and ready.
Going down > You feel as if you are traveling into the maw of a great beast. Your breath stings, your hackles raise, and you feel… alone, terribly alone.
The PC is afflicted with Ill-Fate: All good luck/fate is negated; all non Sun-Stealer followers gain a measure of bad luck.
Level 1 – Decoy “Temple”
Followers: All of them drink the black water so that they are half penalty in darkness. Morale for Followers: Normal = 50% (over half damage and they will surrender) / Elite/Decoy = No surrender – fight till death.
Decoy 1 (senior “priest”) – Can extinguish the lamps/fires. 1 use of black bolt + 5 blessings + can animate 1 shadow from the black sun pillar/round
Decoy 2 (junior “priest”) – 2 blessings + can animate 1 shadow from the black sun pillar/round
Decoy 3 (goblin “shaman”)
2 drugged/chained servants:
3 “fake” shadows – animates shadow
Aware: 3 elite followers will be ready with crossbows. The other 5 followers have clubs, staves, bats. The crossbowmen will concentrate on a single target before dropping and using spears (through the swarm of club-using followers). On the third round decoy 1-2 will enter combat, and on the 4th decoy 3.
Unaware: The alarm will go up the round the PC’s come in, as the guard does not recognize them. It will take 1 round for the mob of 5 to get clubs, etc. and attack and another for the three elite crossbowmen/spearmen to enter combat. It will take 5 rounds for the decoys to enter combat.
Vestibleu – Hall of Billowing Shadows
This is designed as a normal vestibule of sun stealer temples, including the three hallways representing the fading sun’s rays facing north. It is here that the followers will make their stand. Right off this entry is the main barracks where the majority of inhabitants are.
Barracks
Assembly Room
This is obviously where ceremonies happen. An altar stands in one corner, and offering bowls sit around it. There are colored streamers and crude carvings covering the walls.
Other
Well > A few meters down can be heard lapping water.
Slop > The smell alerts you of the obvious slop troughs preparing for the cave mana.
Stores > Boxes, crates, and small barrels of food stores.
Mana Caves > These are obviously cave mana growing warrens; several varieties are grown.
Senior Chambers
This large rough hewn chamber is covered in lavish tapestries, It is well lighted and contains an armoire, large bed, and chests, along with a locked writing desk. A small nook contains a black, blue and gold figurine of Sun Stealer.
Room > The tapestries, once closely examined, are worth only about 400, and the wardrobe another 400 – though to the casual glance they appear more than triple that worth.
Desk > (low grade gas poison – not enough to kill, but incapacitate for a week) Inside the desk is fake papers implicating 2 nobles, a judge, a sheriff, and 2 businessmen. Lists of payoffs (minor) and favors explaining business/legal decisions which frames them.
– Its all FAKE, and wrong. It could take days to discover the ruse of the PC’s go off and try and arrest them.
Junior Chambers
This middling size room is furnished with modest tapestries, a good sized bed, armoire, and table with chairs. A small nook contains a black, blue and gold figurine of Sun Stealer.
Room > Like the senior room, the furnishings are more shoddy than they appear. All total, they are worth about 400 from the room.
Guest Chambers
The walls are covered, but there is no locking entry for this obvious guest room. The palette is rough, and pillows plentiful – though it looks like a rat’s nest. It smells like… orrish.
> A dagger, and 33 silvers is stashed here.
Reliquary
Holy symbols, robes, icons, and accouterments of ceremony are stocked here.
> 12 blessings worth offering + 200 silvers worth
Treasure Room
What appears to be the accumulated goods from the victims and offerings is held here in chests. Each has the symbol of Sun stealer on it.
> Nothing trapped; just gaudy wares and goods – costume jewelry – 200silvers.
Garderobe
The shitter!
Secure Stores
More barrels, chests, crates, and lockers.
Level 2 – Real Temple/ANKHOR DEEP
The spiraling stair down into the earth feels like its spinning you into vertigo. The further along its twisting path you go, the more cut off you feel – you are trespassing on divine ground and its hatred of you is palpable. Your body feels sick – as if no amount of care would be enough to heal or rest down here. Mystical powers and energies feel tenuous, as if they’re normally predictable outcomes would be interfered with.
Followers: All of these are elite followers and will fight to the death. All have drank of the Dark Water repeatedly, giving them sight in the dark.
Priest of Sun Stealer
Priest of Malek (disguised as a servant)
scribe
2 servants (1 disguised as priest of Malek)
4 goblins
1 spider of Go-Zen
2 zombies
Entry
animated shadows = distraction; from the altar area, hidden, priest will start
zombie hidden in the dark water of the pool, waiting to ambush
4 goblins – use shadows to ambush
Altar
Sunstealer priest; dark = using as cover to adjure from shadows
The altar area is covered in blood sacrifice remains.
Falls
The SPIDER is here!
Stairs of Dar-Eck
Zombies are here in the shadows which cling to everything, removing 1 AM.
Treasury
scribe burning records w/servant disguised as priest of Malek
Planning/Control Room
2 servants – one of them is a disguised priest of Malek. They will appear drugged, chained and ready for sacrifice – a clever way to be escorted out. The priest of Malek destroyed enough documents to make sure no traces of themselves can be found, but left enough of the real plot to unravel… finding a great deal of humor in the chaos it will ultimately cause and distrust it will sew.
The Plot Revealed: darkling – plot to come to west river run, insinuate himself into local politics, get close to Baron Veff, twist his opinions and gerate apathy, gradually pulling down guards on Cabella and Gillman Pass – the idea being to make it so that Imperial Gwinn can land in Cabella and take it over.
The darkling will get isolated once the PC’s discover the lair and notes, and take hostages. His name is Anton LeVay, a close personal friend of Baron Veff’s – one of his councilors. Posing as a freebooter from the south, he’s spent years gaining his confidence.
On him are final orders to deliver to Viscount Aemon Talizcsh in Nettlebay; “The fleet which awaits your orders may proceed. The prize will be left virtually unguarded – her defenders moved to a false threat of the upstart in the south. Beware the lure – The Gallants have used this stepping stone to expand their area of influence and are most assuredly actively working against us now.”
Turns out he had been telling Baron Veff that the Earl of Richfield was planning something and to move his forces in Cabella south.
He is there with 2 servants, waiting to ride at breakneck speed to deliver the message. They will run towards a boat in Cabella – PC’s will have to overtake him.