campaign notes For my Wife's Solo adventure so far

 

The Slaver’s Campaign.

Age 34, she fled to the circus when she was 15, in the year after sixth year of Summer, the caravan still traveled mostly at night, but started in the early evening in the yearly Fall.  She was born in the Year of High Winter, in the year 63 of The Years of Peace.  Currently it is the 2^nd month, in the 97^th Year of Peace, the First Year of Summer.

Renu has figured out that the troupe of thespians that she used to travel with is being followed by slavers trying stealing children from the villages that they have been to. 

The troupe plays for a village, and they scope out the neighbourhood and then a month or two later they are attacked by slavers who steal the children and then leave, they also burn down the houses to cover their tracks. 

The troupe:  Yvonne, she worked with Renu’s Character and started adventuring with her, but she lost an eye and her family.  She wears an eye patch and does not hate Renu but is less than anxious to communicate with her.  Yvonne is and 8^th level Rogue and a 2^nd level Fighter CN.  While Bitter, she knows nothing of what is happening in the villages she has left. 

Sir Pulsiver/The Claw, the Strong Man, he has a Strength of 22 (due to a magical book) and is a 4^th level Fighter/4^th level Necromancer.  He is cursed but does not know it.  By day he is a Strongman with the heart of gold, but at night he is possessed by necromancer who hides in his subconscious and only gains control when he sleeps.  His Wife, the Bearded Lady, knows that he often gets up at night, sleepwalks, and has no memory of what happened, she knows that he has a magical sending stone hidden in his things, but also knows that his nighttime persona is violent and is afraid of him then.

Sylvia, the Bearded lady is a 4^th level Rogue.  She knows a lot about the camp and loves the children but can’t have children herself.  She takes it upon herself to get to know all the children in a village and will often find out about them and where they live and will talk about it to Sir Pulsiver her husband.

Rarmy the Dog-boy, he is actually a half-orc with more orc in him, but also his soul is more kind than his visage would grant him.  He is a 3^rd level Druid and uses his skills to cure diseases in the animals, the show people, and the villages that they travel too. 

The Triplets are a set of three triplets who perform daring acts of acrobatics and highwire acts.  They have been with the troupe the longest.  They typically wear Identical clothing and perform after hours to the elite of many towns.  They will often seduce and extortion town leaders, provide the services of prostitutes and burglars, sometimes all three.  They are married collectively to Faris, who is the only one who can tell them apart.  They are Fili, Fifi, and Sal, they are known to the public as a brothers and sisters.  All four are 7^th level rogues, Faris is an assassin.

Alphonso the Ringmaster is a 6^th level Bard.  He knows about most of the second services that each member does on their own time, but he does not know about The Claw, but he has heard about his second hand.  He receives a cut of everyone’s extra work and passes most of it to the Boss. 

Basil The Fabulous, is Marta, the apprentice to Ragad back when Renu knew them.  She dons a disguise when she performs illusionist magic and feats of prestidigitation to the crowds,  she is a 3^rd level Rogue and a 5^th level Illusionist.  When the troupe enters a large town, as they do on occasion, she makes sure the stagehands and the labourers don’t get easily caught.

The stagehands and the labourers are mostly rogues of first and second level that steal and thieve in the towns and cities.  They will also pick the pockets of many a rube. 

 

Ragad the Mighty, was actually the apprentice of Sebelius the Necromancer.  The decisive battle when everything went so badly, it was not chance, but plan.  When he saw the Divine transformation of Renu’s character, he knew that it could endanger the plans of his master.  Although she and Yvonne were not killed, they were disheartened and that served the purposes of the group overall.  He is as it was stated, in the capitol managing the operations. 

 

The Boat.  The Grey Pilgrim is a large river galley that has three decks.  The second deck is loaded with cargo and two sets of twenty oars, with 40 total slaves rowing.  The bottom hold contains captured children and ‘fine’ adults.  The are always a couple 3rd level mages on call ready to cast sleep on the cargo if it should become necessary.  The Pilgrim moves up and down the river Thyme monthly, visiting ports regularly to drop off cargo.  Each major port of call also has a waystation the Pilgrim calls on before landing at port.  There are four shallow draft river galleys that have a ruse of trading and collect kidnapped people before bringing them to the Pilgrim in the darkness or by travelling to the waystations. 

Off the coast there is an archipelago and one of those islands is known as Coffle Island, where the slaves are sold to foreign nations.

Why Children?  They are less worldly, they know less about where things are, they can’t point to where they are from typically.  They will accept their situation faster.  They are all virgins, and many rituals require virgin blood.  They typically are more efficient for sleep spell castings.  They fit in smaller boxes.  They can be trained for indentured labour better. 

The nation West Thyme, referring to its position north of the thyme river, the other nation is East Thyme.  The two Thymes have been at peace for over a century after a very bloody civil war, known to the locals as the succession wars, when the kings two sons fought a protracted war that split the nation of Thyme.  The war lasted for many years until the cause was obscured by the many tit-for-tat battles and slights that resulted in both ruling families being exterminated in assassination plots, and both of their nations collapsing and reforming.  East hates West, and West hates East, but the last century has been relatively peaceful.  Permanent peace has been rearing its head and trade has been breaking out in the various border towns.  While most of the populace would do well with this peace, some people want otherwise.

During the war slave traders flourished, the purchased captured combatants from both sides and they occasionally raided both sides for more profit.  When things began to cool down, they had a way of ramping right back up.  About a century ago an envoy from both sides were meeting in an undisclosed location to try to come to some accord and they were attacked, by chance, by such a raiding group.  This act galvanized both sides of the conflict to work together to defeat the slavers and culminated in a joint attack on the island of Coffle.  After the battle, the peace set in, and prosperity slowly arrived.

There was someone working in the background to bring back the days of strife and sow dissent.  The grandson of the leaders of the slavers became a Necromancer, who worked both sides of the border.  He created couple groups of traveling entertainers who played up the heroism during the war and the tragedies, turning the people slowly away from the prosperity and towards his goal of war.  Both troupes are getting a common script that fuels the flames of distrust to each side.  First the stories had a villain that hailed from the other side and heroes that were lost descendants of the true king.  Nationalism and hate for the other nation.  Then the attacks, the abductions, and the scapegoats.  At the age of seventy, the necromancer began to take a hand directly in the fear mongering attacking villages and turning the people into undead foes.  Now in his nineties, he has pushed his last plan to raid and enslave people from both sides of the Thyme River and have them blame each other.  Further hostilities are being raised through the issuing of counterfeit letters of Marquis given to monsters and bandits on both sides. 

 

The typical Slaver safehouse is a damaged or mostly destroyed fort or temple near the major towns that line the river.  The troupe has spent many years telling population center around the fort/temple of its brave stand against the evil and how they used magic or deception to break in and murder the righteous folk.  The story changes with the telling and each time the breach was done through the foolish priest of a good, aligned deity.  The telling has been so pervasive that each area has seen distrust of these good, aligned gods drop in these areas where they are the patsy.  It was a harder sell but there was a similar campaign to remove stigma to the Slavery god and how if the enemy is ever slightly successful, that they eventually lost and were enslaved, seeding the minds of the populous that enslavement is a good punishment for the wicked.  Some of the more successful regions, the Slavery God has picked up the Justice portfolio. 

 

The war ended a century ago, but the war lasted for almost two hundred years before that.  Fifty years after the war, the people on both sides moved inland for safety but many fortresses were constructed on the river, and many of these were attacked and destroyed.  They range from towers that were meant to be warning outposts and to send messages and deploy aid, to full blown fortresses with naval and land-based strength.   Temples and small fortresses dot the river, some on the edge and others a kilometer inland.  Some were stranded in the river or inland when the river moved. 

 

 

Side Quest

There is a small Barony inland from the river Thyme.  The Barony is ancient stretching from the time of one king, where the seat of the barony was a prosperous town of thousands.  But fortune shifted during the long years of the war and recovery from the conflict missed this place.  The town was destroyed in a protracted siege in the initial conflict years and the towns around melted away into small villages with the loss of the heart.  The baron remained, and the title stayed in the family.  There are six main villages attached to the Barony Seat, and each has six smaller villages attached to it, the Barony Seat has six as well.  Each large village has 500 people and each smaller has 100.  The total population of the Barony is 7350 people, as the Barony Seat has only 125 troops and 25 support staff for the Baron.  The Baron is expected to choose a bride from the villages around if he can not secure a political alliance marriage, but that is unlikely as the small size of the barony.  He is 28 and the last heir to the barony, if he should die childless the Duke will appoint someone as the new baron and the last old blood of the first kingdom will go with him. 

In the past the Seven Towns of the Olivestone Barony were large and prosperous walled towns and boasted over 50,000 residents.  The harvest of Olives, Almonds and grains helped support years of expansion and when war was declared, was a prime target.  Many of the old groves were cut down to support the enemy’s siege.  Only, the enemy did not break any of the town’s walls down, but the crippling of the Barony was done when the olive and almond trees burned. 

Gods:

Name	Purview	Alignment	blessing	POSITIVE	Negative
asCsaiN	God of Death	N
Aurista	Goddess of Prosperity	CN
Balath	God of Murder	CE	Murder	+10 attack
Candalmar	God of Fire and Artificial Light	CG	Use fire for light		-5’ radius light
Csane	God of Oaths	LG	Break word		-1 to opposed checks
Cyr Astra	God of Music	CG	Destroy Music		-10 Performance
Dalmera	Goddess of Rivers and Streams	CN
Darnesk	God of the Great River	CN
Derslaver	Goddess of Undead	NE	Create Undead	10% Loyal Undead
Dimghit Esmella	God of Night Goddess of Mountains	CN NG
Fagus	Goddess of Plagues	NE	Spread Disease	+1 Charisma check
Ghelestria	Goddess of the Stars	LN
Hatlan Iatus	God of Misfortune Goddess of War	NE CN	Create Misfortune   Start War	+1 Wisdom check   +10 Charisma Check
Jard	Goddess of Righteous Actions	LG	Willingly do Evil		-10 Charisma check
Lamatur	God of Friends and Family Relationships	NG	Hurt a relation or friend		-1 on HP roll
lASTARADA	Goddess of Agriculture	NG	Destroy crops in field		-1 hp damage
Lystula	Goddess of Magic	LN
Maristophelis	Goddess of Common Knowledge	N
Omarra	Goddess of the Forge and Industry	LN
Palpona	God of Ruins	NE	Discover new	+1 renown
Qarous	God of Travel	NG	Break means of		-1 to 10 of Charisma Skill
Rassel	Goddess of Slaves	NE	Create slave	+5 damage
Restenest	God of Wild Animals	CN
Ruersa	Goddess of Malice and Vengeance	LE	End vendetta violently	+1 Strength check
Sagehtum	God of Sorcery	CN
Sorisrow	God of Corruption	CE	Corrupt the Good	+1 on HP roll
Tradselac   USDALEC	God of Rain   God of Nature	CN   N
Volduct	God of Buildings	LN
Wegnaturn	God of The Deal	LE	Make an Evil Deal with the good	+10 to skill check
Yesdreai	Goddess of Time and Healing	N
Zalljak	Goddess of Storms and Floods	CN
aLHALLA	Goddess of the Day, Goddess of Dances	LN
Morath	God of Twilight and Prey and Predators	N

Something else.

 

The village of Olivepress was where the temple to Aurista was built it was a grand temple (level 5) and it inspired people from all around, but today it is the only stone structure  in the village and the priesthood is a shadow of the former self.  Most of the temple is closed off and unused.  Abbot Farstral was appointed by the High Priest in Trystal-upon-the-Sea, but the under-priests are all local.  The Abbot is L5 and the under Priests are L3 (Jannis) and L1 (Mairy).  The caretaker and meal preparer is Stan, his duties keep him out of the public eye.  He maintains the temple and the priests.  But he has a secret, he is the High Priest of Orcus in the region and a contact for the Slavers.  He has been using the back portion of the Temple to conduct his own services and to co-ordinate slaver activities including 25 orcs who have been waylaying travelers (5 have not reported back in a week) and keeps them in the cells beneath the catacombs of the old temple.  He keeps the captives inside the sarcophagi and has ghouls patrolling the room.  He uses one of sarcophagus to keep the treasure taken from the captives and another for his share price for the slaves.  He also has a coffin with silver, copper and bits to represent his tally of takes, the silver is used to represent men, Copper women, and Bits children; he has 135sp, 146cp and 135bits all gathered over the past 20 years.  There are four captives in the rest of the 20 sarcophagi 4 also have a ghoul and one a ghast.  Stan is L5.  Stan knows about the operation in the area and his Orcs come around once a week to be in contact.  The next slave drop off is in a week.  Stan changed his name when he came here but was trying to be clever and chose an anagram of Fain of Orcus, Sorfa Cinufo, he claims to be from really far away, but keeps the details hazy. 

 

 

After the completion of the side quest, the Baron will help her to travel to her destination of the Duke’s city.  There are four Dukes, one for each region of the nation, the Highlands Duke, the River Duke, the Coastal Duke and the Boarder Duke.  The lower river has the most people and the most trade.  It reaches from the lower 50kms of the river to the West all the way to the furthest extent of the nation, about 150km to the Jungles.  The middle region extends 50km from the river for about 200 km.  The middle is filled with farms and many tributaries to the river.  The upper region is where the river stops being navigable the river forms a border all the way to the mountains.  The region has a lot of agriculture and mining.    The Outer region is the least populated and the least valuable, but it is where all the expansion can occur.    

In West Thyme, the River Duke’s city is called Middle Causeway.  It is the site of the middle causeway in the days of olde.  When there was a king in the land and Thyme was united there was a tall bridge that crossed the river here.  it was tall and allowed two caravans to cross the river in opposite directions at the same time and allow river traffic to pass under at the same time.  There were many arches in the  structure to support the masses of stone.  When the war came the bridge was spared for a long time as both sides recognized the effort it would take to rebuild it when they won.  After many decades of war after the Princes were all dead the bridge was destroyed, but the footings were left intact.  The city was ransacked many times on the East side and the town there is small, but on the West side, it is the Ducal Seat.  The Duke’s Fort is partially made of the Causeway and the city itself is split in two by the causeway.  South and North Causeway.  The many arches in the causeway allow passage to either side.  There are two great ruined cathedrals in the North and the South areas, both are reputed to be haunted and a wide berth is given to each.  One was dedicated to Qarous the god of Travel and the other to Yesdreai the goddess of Time and Healing.  Both are sites of shrines to Sorisrow the god of Corruption and Palpona the god of Ruins; the people pray to these to keep them away.  The cathedrals are on islands in the river; the old city that they were part of had a substantial number of canals, the canals threaded under the Causeway and through the city.  Today many of the canals are filled in or merely empty except when the river floods in the wetter summer season.  The poor of the city live here on wooden platforms that rise and fall with the river.  The ruined cathedrals are on more permanent islands and the shrines are on the other side facing them.  The cathedrals have been reconsecrated to Rassel goddess of slaves and slavers and the old slavers are using them as cover, maintaining the ‘haunted’ nature of the places for the locals.  The Grey Pilgrim makes regular stops at this location and the other to process slaves.  The slaves are transferred to Coffle Island for distribution in commercial galleys. 

 

The Duke of West Thyme River Province will not see the Balladin.  If she seeks an audience, she will be given the run-around.  Any pull that the Baron Olivestone has actually works against her as he is out of favour in court.  Others in the Council call him the Pauper Baron.  She manages to find a good inn that has an unobstructed view of the fairgrounds where the Troupe is most likely to raise their tent called the Baron’s Crown.  She can stay here for a silver a night, or she can work here as a Bard.  Most inns in this provincial capitol have paid minstrels, but actual bards are rarer.  The Duke’s favourite bar is one of the few, the Black Dog and the White Rook, with a bard on the payroll.  The Dog and Rook is actually a front for an international organization of information brokers, information and assassination, but for the good of the continent.  They are a very select group who only accept people who are state acters with a mind toward good.  They don’t act to move nations or change their course they way they want, but rather they nudge things along.  They will push here and there at specific locations that will do the most good with insignificant risk.  If the Balladin needs a push it will be from them that it comes.

The Baron’s Crown will accept the Balladin’s services if she works 6 days a week and will have 3 days a week off.  Drogaday, Darkday and Stromiday.  She pays two silvers a day she does not work but is compensated with one silver a day she does, plus 10% of any extra business she generates.  Skill check 10 is standard, 15 pays +1sp/point above 14, 20 generates 5sp +2sp/point above 21, anything above 25 will an additional 5sp a night as word has gotten out.  If on any of the nights a 20 is reached, the Innmisstress will ask if she can employ her for 10sp a week plus extra, 25 and she will raise that to 20sp a week base and 20% extra business, the last if she refuses her first offer.

The temples are first floor “haunted” and second floor business.  The first floor does have undead, but they are limited to normal ghasts, ghouls, zombies and skeletons.  With the ghosts of murdered priests and slaves.  The second level will include Orcs and ant people with slavers. 

The White Rook might send a note to the balladin that a raider ship is seen regularly up and down the river from here sometimes docked for a few hours at either and both sites.