1st: Visit to the Four Diamond Clan, (Played February 23, 1997)
The characters travel with Uncle Guido to visit the goblin Four Diamond Clan in order to secure a magic item recently found and available to purchase.
Adventure Background, Adventure
Outline
Players: Joe White, Kara White, Ken McKinney, Sam Jennings, Scott Chelette
Summaries: Chelette, Jennings,
McKinney
No Adventure Background provided, see outline below for verbal background
1. Boat ride to the rendevous spot, Stories from Uncle Guido
2. Arrival on the Coast, Description of the River Velga Valley
3. Arrival in Gupaju
Uncle Guido goes to meet Marava, local goblin merchant contact
Arranges to meet Veronica, adventurer/spelunker/temple robber
4. Ambush at the Inn
5 x Mercenary Swordsmen from the Kingdom of Tuni wander into the market
* One of the swordsmen is actually a Spini family retainer, a fuck-up
* Spini family are mortal enemies of the Lamberti and they live in the (newt) city of Majorca
4 x Mercenary Crossbowmen from the Kingdom of Tuni wander into the market
The two groups rush the inn door and viciously attack Uncle Guido
They ignore the woman adventurer, probably letting her get away
5. The Getaway
The mercenaries flee to the Two Swan Tribe lands
They are to meet the Graffon, Captain Rinaldo Spini
The port village in the Two Swan Tribe lands has not boat at the rendevous
The mercenaries probably kill the Spini family retainer and try to escape
6. The Wrap-up
The magic item still needs to be purchased and Guido's funeral needs to occur
7. The Crab with the Golden Claws
The magic item is a normal sized crab made of brass with golden claws and covered by laquer (by the adventurer to disguise it from Mystic Vision.) Powers of the Gavarga the Crab God cult relic: (no restrictions) Ironhand 4 at will for bearer causing hands to glow golden, 20 MP storage matrix, Spirit Block 4 x 1R, Heal Wound 1 x 1R, Mindlink 1 x 1R, Extension 6 x 1R.
The crab was hidden by Gavarga cultists during the hun invasion to prevent it from being stolen by marauding huns. Veronica found in in an old ruined Gavarga temple after much searching. She is hoping to trade it for travel privledges in the Four Diamond Clan lands in addition to money.
The Characters: Lorenzo "the merchant" Lamberti (Joe), Tessa "mistress of death" Lamberti (Kara), Luca "dances with goblins" Lamberti (Ken), Amerigo "waddya mean piracy?" Lamberti (Sam), Francesco "frankie the bastard" Lamberti (Scott)
The Adventure:
Uncle Guido, father of Luca and Amerigo, has information that a solo adventurer named Veronica has a valuable magic item available for sale in the goblin lands. She arranges to meet Uncle Guido in Gupaju, a town in the Four Diamond Clan lands. This location is fortuitous, since some years ago Uncle Guido saved Warlord Tanatave, the powerful leader of the Four Diamond Clan, from certian death and became his blood brother. In the years since, Uncle Guido has traveled frequently in the goblin lands, trading for the family business. The player characters and two low level bodyguards tag along for security and to gain experience in the goblin lands.
The trip to Gupaju is uneventful, with Amerigo sailing the boat. We arrive in town and arrange to meet Veronica at an in on the town square. After an intial recon, Guido and a bodyguard go to the inn. Lorenzo and Tessa are posted as incognito lookouts in the square. Due to their low skill level (being beginning characters) the lookouts don't see the two groups of human crossbowmen until it is too late. Two of them draw a bead on Tessa, but Lorenzo is able to foil their attack and keep the crossbowmen occupied until the goblin town guard arrives and helps capture them.
When the confusion subsides, they enter the inn to find Uncle Guido hacked to bits. The perpetrators have apparently slipped out the back. Lorenzo gives chase and tracks five of them until they slip out the back gate and head upriver. The goblins realize what has happened and begin to tear the captives apart. Tessa returns to the boat to give the boys the bad news about their father. Luca and Amerigo go wild and start in on the captured human. After some consternation, the captive is taken to the boat and interrogated by the boys. Tessa and Lorenzo disapprove of thier methods, but are unable to reason with the grieving, vengeful sons. Eventually they learn that the killers are Tunid mercenaries hired by the Spini family of Majorca City. The ones who escaped are expected travel to the next town upriver and rendezvous? with the Graffon, a Spini family boat.
Amerigo sails our boat upriver to the town. the Graffon is nowhere in sight. Lorenzo and Tessa follow the mercenaries path to the town. When the mercenaries arrive in town, they immediately go to the dock to board the waiting boat. They are surprised that it is us and not the Gafon and are easily overwhelmed by waiting goblins. Several survive and are catured. One of the hapless survivors is a Spini family retainer and we manage to get the whole plan out of him. The ambush was set up by Gerardo Spini, one of Grandfather's old enemies. [Actually it was Rinaldo Spini, Captain of the Graffon. -md] The Graffon was supposed to be at the dock when the mercenaries arrived, but they were double crossed and abandoned.
Shortly thereafter, Warlord Tanatave and his two war barges show up. Luca and Amerigo ask if there is anything he can do for their father. He says he will try and begins some arcane rituals with the body. A couple of days later, Uncle Guido is back from the land of the dead, but he is now deeply indebted to Tanatave. Following goblin tradition, Tanatave has the town of Gupaju razed and everyone killed. Guido eventually meets with Veronica the solo adventurer and acquires the item. It turns out to be an ancient and powerful artifact of Gavarga, the Crab God. It is even more valuable since it has no restrictions as to who can use it. The players then hatch a cunning and complicated scheme to use the crab artifact as bait to set up Gerardo Spini.
Next week's Adventure: Vengence!
I am Amerigo de Lamberti. In these last days, I put to paper what might elsewise be lost. I do so hoping that Lamberti youth will not mature without knowing their enemies, a forgotten vendetta being the biggest disgrace a family might suffer.
I start with a tale from my early manhood. This was when Papa Guido, may he rest in peace, was still among us. He took me, my brother and three cousins to the Goblin lands. (My brother's name is Luca... my cousins were Francesco, Lorenzo and Tessa) We took my ship across the ocean to the Velga Valley; this required that we sail up a river. I was curious that my boat displaced more water in a river than it had on sea... I digress.
Papa was a blood brother with Warlord Tanatave, the Ruler of this goblin land. They had been doing business for years. Papa had saved his life, a long time ago... and so the Goblins respected him as if he were one of their own.
On this occasion, we were not in these lands to do business with the Goblins, but rather with a freelance adventuress... I forget her name over the years. (But she had a body that I never forgot.) She was older than most of us, and she liked to work alone. She wanted to sell a crab relic, and Papa was interested in buying. It was normal business.
We put in at a small goblin village called Gupaju. Don't bother looking on a map... You won't find it... It is a forgotten place, where ships no longer stop. We were to meet her there, in the village, and Papa made secret arrangements.
In every family you will find one or two who just don't have common sense. They spot an ambush ahead of time and don't think about giving the alarm. Nothing kills a family faster than bad blood, and I am first and foremost a family man... So I hope this isn't taken the wrong way... But my cousins Lorenzo and Tessa spotted a Spini ambush that was about to hit Papa. They could have told us... were they just too young? inexperienced? Maybe they were just peacetime businessmen... the world is full of that type. But they didn't know what to do, and Papa was killed.
Tessa came running up to my sloop, bleeding and yelling that Papa's in trouble, so me and my brother and Francesco charged in with some of the boys while my crew put the ship to midstream. By the time we got there it was just my dead Papa and one prisoner that the goblin guards had caught. I took them back to my ship and started working the prisoner over in the old fashoned way: heal and cut. (I've been in business for years now, and it's never failed me!)
Tessa didn't like this way, and yelled and pulled a sword on me and Luca, but we had a discussion and sent her away. We got the answers we wanted out of the Spini hitman, and left him in the hold. He'd told us who he worked for, and where his crew was going to meet, so I took the ship upstream to cut them off... meanwhile my cousins ran astride to shore them up from behind.
The goblins of Gupaju were mad: they knew they were walking dead (Tanatave killed them all when he found out what they let happen in their town. That is why you won't find it on a map these days.), and they wanted revenge... so we had an escort for this job. 20 in my ship and hundreds more on shore. (I kept 3 of them on, and they served me well.)
On river, we passed the footbound Spini and took them prisoner at the upstream port. The ship they expected to extract them did not show up. One of them was a family retainer who had been betrayed by his kinsmen.
So we sailed back downstream with the prisoners and caught sight of the Warlord Tanatave's galleys, loaded with 2000 goblin troops.
My cousin Lorenzo wanted to go on, searching for the adventuress who lured us here so we could get the crab relic, but my brother and I stayed aboard and waited for the warlord to help Papa. Our group was tense with inner conflict, and we would have split up...
After telling the warlord what had happened in his lands, I asked that he bring Papa, his bloodbrother, back to life. To our suprise he had it done! But after that day, Papa and the warlord were never such brothers as they once had been.
So, when my cousins heard that Papa was alive again, they stopped their bickering and rejoined the family. And we resumed our plan, and bought the crab relic from the adventuress (she was in hiding). Once we bought this item, we recognized how powerful it was... but even moreso as bait to a trap which we were to set... for we now owned a traitor whom the Spini would believe... and we saw the clear path of vendetta ahead.
Listen son, and I will tell you about the first time that Grandfather died. It was when I was a boy, long before I had walked in the spirit world and before the family had won all that we have now. We were weak, and had many enemies.
Whenever we needed to deal with the goblins, Grandfather was the man, right? He was the man who always went, because he had once saved the life of the king of the goblins, who was called Tanatave, and so he was honored in their lands. Tanatave was one of those types who you could trust. I mean, you could make a deal with him, and he wouldn't stab you the next week because he got a better deal, because to him, the important thing was honor. It's like, when I ask you to take the goats down to the watering hole, and I know that you'll do it, and not run off because you'd rather play with the other boys, beause you told me you'd mind the goats and your word is good.
That's honor, and it's a family value and don't you forget that, OK?
Anyway, your great-grandpa, who we called Grandfather at the time, had heard about this magical amulet that a woman had dug up in the goblin lands. He wanted to have this amulet, because it would make the family stronger. So he sent your Grandpa, and me, and your uncle Amerigo, and your cousins Tessa and Lorenzo and Francesco, and a couple of the boys and we sailed Amerigo's ship to the goblin lands to meet this woman.
Well we got to the goblin lands, to this village ... it doesn't exist anymore, the goblins burned it. And Amerigo and I, we watched the boat, because we had lots of gold and trade goods and magical stuff on it, and we didn't want the goblins getting tempted to try to snatch something. We actually wanted to go do the deal with your grandfather, but he made us stay, because he didn't want the woman getting scared off and running.
You see, the woman was alone, right? She didn't have no family. So, if someone robbed her or killed her, there was no one to avenge her, so she had to be really careful. So Guido, your grandfather, took Tessa and Lorenzo, and left us, and Francesco and the others on the boat.
Now, remember how I told you about us having a lot of enemies back then? Well, there was this one merchant family, called the Spinis... There are no Spinis today, but back then they were a powerful merchant family, and we and them had a vendetta going. So, they had gotten wind of our deal being up, and figuring that Grandpa Guido would be there, they sent some boys to do a hit on him.
Now, Tessa and Lorenzo were on watch, but they were
just kids, and Tessa didn't speak no Goblin, and they
only spotted the ambush right before it happened, and
by then it was too late, although Tessa did get a boy
to run into the inn and warn Grandpa about 15 seconds
before the attack. Grandpa had to fight 10 mercenaries
and a Spini boy, all by himself... the woman ran off
'cause she didn't want to get killed. Tessa ran back
and warned us, but by the the time we got there, it
was all over. See, grandpa had killed a bunch of these
guys, but they had got him, and he was dead. Now, Amerigo
and I we were very upset at this, and one of the mercenaries
was still alive, and we got him and took him to the
boat, before he could get skinned alive by them goblins,
because we wanted to know who had done this thing,
so we could make them pay. Things got kindof wierd
then, and maybe you've heard that there's been bad
blood between Tessa and Lorenzo and me and your Uncle
Amerigo, well, that's not true but the reason people
say that is because Tessa, she
got wierd that day and she drew her sword on me and
Amerigo, right as we were questioning our prisoner,
but we talked out of the situation and she left and
we got down to business. The situation with Lorenzo
is because he apparently felt like Amerigo and I had
a conflict of interest, and that we were putting "the
mission" in jeopardy because we wanted to try
to get Grandpa brought back from the dead... which
wasn't true, because your Grandpa was a fine asset
to the family, and worth more than any damn magic bauble,
and don't you ever forget that, the 3 important things
to the family is it's honor, it's autonomy, and it's
people, especially your Grandpa, because he knew the
Goblin lands, and did all of the deals with them. Anyway,
Lorenzo got off the boat in a huff, but that didn't
matter because we needed someone to track the surviving
mercenaries anyway.
Anyway, we had worked on this guy and he told us about
this village to the north where they were going to
do a rendezvous with a Spini ship and get picked up...
so we went there with a bunch of goblins to get the
ship and board it
and kill everyone, and then capture the mercenaries
when they got there. But there wasn't no ship, because
the Spinis had done a double cross, right? Which was
there downfall, you see, because they made their friends
into enemies, and that's how we got our revenge on
the Spini family, but I'll tell you about
that some other time.
Anyway, the goblin king, well I guess he called himself a warlord, Tanatave, he came sailing up the river in some big barges, see, he was very upset, and in fact he burned that village down where the deed happened. Anyway, we, I mean, Amerigo and I, we prevailed on him, and he called in these great goblin magicians and they did a great ceremony and gave up parts of themselves and swore awful pacts and brought Grandpa back from the dead, really and truly. Now, none of these goblin magicians were the same afterwards, and Tanatave suffered greatly for this, and felt that his debt to Grandpa was paid in full, and in fact that Grandpa owed him some. But Grandpa was back from the dead, and he even finished up the magic item deal with the woman.. it turned out to be this crab god thing. But anyway, that's the story, and you'd better go round up the goats now before it gets dark!
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Copyright © 1997-2002 by Michael Derry, derry@jugenstil.com |
Updated 5 APR 02 |