Majorca 970302

2nd: Vengance against the Spini Family, (Played March 2, 1997)
The assassination of Uncle Guido is avenged by an attack on the Spini family of the city of Majorca (newt).
Adventure Background, Adventure Outline
Players: Joe White, Kara White, Ken McKinney, Sam Jennings, Scott Chelette, Ray Turney, Ron Shigeta
Summaries: Chelette, Jennings, McKinney

Adventure Background

No adventure background provided, the players were running this operation

Adventure Outline

None Yet

970302.Chelette

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), Domenico "the professor" Lamberti (Ray), Carregi "college boy" Lamberti (Ron)

Prolog:

In the first adventure, Uncle Guido was assasinated by the Spini family while trying to purchase a magical Brass Crab from a solo adventurer named Veronica. He was resurrected by the goblin Warlord Tanatave, who had been his blood brother. We eventually purchased the Brass Crab, which turned out to be an unbelievably valuable artifact of Gavarga, the Crab/Fire God.

The Adventure:

Although Uncle Guido was resurrected after being assasinated in the first adventure, we set out to take vengence on the Spini family. At the end of the last adventure, we captured a Spini retainer who had led the mission. He and the mercenaries who did the job were supposed to meet a Spini ship and be extracted from the goblin lands after the hit. It turns out that the Spini's set him up and had no intention of exfiltrating the mercenaries, who were easily captured by goblin warriors we had waiting for them.

Seeing that he had been set up, the Spini retainer was convinced to help us take revenge on his employers. The attack on Uncle Giudo had been orchestrated by Gherardo Spini, an old enemy of Grandfather, and Rinaldo Spini, Captain of the Spini ship Graffon.

Since the Spini's home was well protected, we made a plan to draw Gherardo and Rinaldo Spini into goblin lands where they would be more vulnerable. We decided that the captured retainer would be released and would return to the Spini family and claim to have escaped capture and made his way home. To make his story even more believable, we gave him the Brass Crab to bring back as proof that his story was true. After all, who would give their enemies an item as valuable and powerful as the Brass Crab?

To bait the trap, we went to a Gavarga scholar and had him forge what was supposed to be two pages from an ancient book. The first was a description of a ritual involving putting the Brass Crab into a recessed hole in a special Gavarga altar. The participant in the ritual was to get some special power from Gavarga. The second parcment was a map to the "ancient abandoned Gavarga temple." There was just one problem: the scholar did not take kindly to young toughs barging in and demanding bogus documents. He was even less understanding when Francesco tried to intimidate him. He ended up making the forgeries, but instead of using centuries old parchment, he used some which was obviously just a few years old. Fortunately, Francesco did not find out until later. We did our best to age the paper and Gherardo Spini never knew the difference.

With the Crab and parchment in hand, we sent the captured Spini retainer back to tell a fantastic story. He had helped kill Uncle Guido and had evaded capture by the goblins. He then followed Veronica back to a cave and stole her backpack. Inside was the Brass Crab and some weathered parchment. As expected, Gherardo Spini bought the story and sailed for the goblin lands to complete the ritual.

Meanwhile, the party had located an appropriate cave in the Four Diamond Clan lands, near the Two Swan Tribe border. We had a hired stonemason carve a bogus Gavarga altar, complete with intructions for the Brass Crab ritual. To complete the ceremony, the participant had to be alone and had to consume some cave fungus growing on the altar. The participant was warned that he would feel sick, but would be granted fire immunity from Gavarga.

Before we left, Tessa visited the Oak Demon Queen and acquired a very potent poision. Our plan was to poision the fungus that Gherardo would eat and then ambush his men at the cave entrance. If he somehow managed to survive the poision, he would be alone and trapped in the cave. Without the protection of his men, we would have a good chance to take him.

The preparations complete, we waited for the Spinis to arrive. Within a few days, the Graffon sailed up the river to the Four Diamond goblin lands. A lone human in chainmail left and made his way to the cave. Thinking he might be Gerardo, Tessa poisioned the fungus and we hid in the woods. He went in for a while and then left. The man in chainmail turned out to be a scout, so we let him go. Shortly thereafter, a group of 35 to 40 men from the Graffon came down the valley to the cave. This was a much larger group than we expected and at least half were armed with crossbows. They came up to the cave and several of them went in. At this point we were unsure what to do. Even with speedart and poisioned crossbow bolts, we had no chance of taking 40 men in an ambush. Luca valiantly urged that we attack to avenge his father, but the rest of the party decided that discretion is the better part of valor.

At that point we could have counted on the poision to kill Gherardo and headed for home with the mission accomplished, but we came up with a new plan. Since there were so many men with Gherardo at the cave, he must have left the Graffon lightly defended. We withdrew from the cave area and quickly made our way back to our boat, the Antelope. Amerigo skillfully maneuvered the Antelope to surprise the Graffon and we quickly captured her. The Spinis were now stranded in goblin territory without a boat. We then sailed both boats to the Four Diamond Capitol to hire mercenaries to hunt down the Spinis. We thought Warlord Tanatave's help might be required in recruiting a force, but to our surprise there were hundreds of goblin mercenaries in town. There was trouble brewing between Tanatave's Four Diamond Clan and the neighboring Two Swan Tribe. We didn't know it, but the Two Swan Tribe had spread roumors that Tanatave was hiring mercenaries, drawing hundreds to his capitol and tying down valuable Four Diamond resources. Since there were so many unattached mercenaries in town, we were able to hire three companies of 100 goblins for small amount of cash and the promise that they could keep any armor and weapons as spoils. Tanatave was glad to have them out of town and was able to free some men for his battle with the Two Swan Tribe. We found out later that he lost the battle, but was apparently still the Four Diamond Warlord.

We sent one company marching upriver to keep the Spinis from reaching the capitol and another in a flanking motion to make sure they didn't escape toward the Two Swan area. The third company was loaded on the Antelope and the Graffon and sailed past the point were the Spini men were waiting. We landed the goblins about a kilometer upriver and moved toward the Spini encampment. Shortly, the Spinis were surrounded by 300 bloodthirsty goblin mercenaries. They wisely sent out a white flag of truce and offered to give us the Brass Crab and a magic rod in exchange for their release. Luca and Amerigo wanted to kill them all in blood vengance, but the rest of the party persuaded them to accept a counteroffer. First we verifed that Gherardo was in fact dead. That done, Uncle Guido was avenged. We then offered to ransom the men for the two magic items and all of their equipment. Rinaldo, the ranking Spini, agreed on the condition that he keep his personal equipment.

The bargain made, we turned over the equipment to the goblins and returned home victorious with Gherardo Spini's dead body and his men in chains. To keep from having bad blood between the Lamberti family and the mercenaries who were part of the Spini group, we outfitted the mercenaries with new equipment and returned them and the Spinis to Majorca City. Grandfather congratulated all and made Amerigo captain of the Graffon.

970302.Jennings

In preparation for our cold revenge, we had made several preparations:

Tessa went to the Oak Demon Queen and got poison... We did not know it yet, but this was of vital importance. I fitted and manned the Antelope on what was to be my last voyage one that ship. Lorenzo went and got a false document made, which we sent with the spy to the Spini. Francesco found an artisan for decorating a false shrine.

With these preparations done, we sailed for the goblin lands and began crafting a false crab shrine. I notified the Warlord Tanatave that we were laying a trap for the swine who had slain Papa Guido, his once blood brother, and asked that he give us advanced warning when the Graphon crossed by his port.

We released the spy once our preparations were complete: we showed him where our shrine was located, told him his story of how he escaped us, and gave him the crab artifact and a shred of false ritual which our scholar had made. These things were contrived to persuade one particular Spini that he might gain dominion over fire if he were to visit our (false) shrine with the crab artifact. With this bait, we put him on a goblin barge destined for his homeland.

In a week's time, one of Tanatave's scouts came riding to us on wolfback, telling us that the Graphon had been spotted in the harbor. Within hours, a Spini showed up at our site, but we let him pass, which was wise, because he proved to be a scout. He departed and I had him tracked by two of my loyal goblins. About a day later one of them returned, warning us that 30 spini were going to arrive in about 20 minutes. Our group numbered 10 or so, and we were as yet inexperienced in the ways of war. The Spini had a group which we could not confront in direct combat.

Fortunately, Tessa had left some poisoned mushrooms at the false altar in the shrine, and our ritual describe the consumption of these mushrooms... So we left the weakest of our party to quietly stand watch and report back to us in a day. Meanwhile we raced back to my ship and took the quarter-manned Graphon by surprise. On that eve she became my ship. We left a note on the dock, telling the Spini that we, "their crew," had gone for supplies, and that we would return in a few days.

In the meantime we hired 300 goblin mercenaries from Tanatave's capitol city. When we returned, the Spini were still there, waiting for their ship. We unloaded, and they recognized that they had been fooled. They tried to run, but we outpaced them and cut them off. They could not have faced off with our 300 goblins, so they surrendered, and we took them captive and as ransom took the crab artifact, as well as a magical rod. Our mark had consumed Tessa's poisoned mushrooms, so we did not have to negotiate his death in the ransom agreement.

How funny, then , that our scout arrived telling us that he had been killed, for we knew before his return. But, he warned us that there was a massive battle underway, and that Tanatave was not doing so well. We unleashed 200 of our goblins to chase a band of Two Swan Tribe goblins from the region. Tanatave lost that day's battle, but had we not been there it could have been even worse for him. I think he had great appreciation for our accidental ability to aid him.

We returned home to give the good news to Grandpa. Financially, this mission was an amazing success. It was also an impressive political conquest and a brilliant demonstration of vendetta.

970302.McKinney

Vengeance against the Spini family.

So, after Papa Guido was killed, and came back from the dead, the family had to avenge his death, right? Now, Grandfather was a cool, smart man, and he knew that family honor would be served by hurting the Spinis worse than they had hurt us.

See, even though Guido was back, he didn't have no more clout with the Goblin King, because he'd used up all of his favors at once. So our business over there didn't have as much of an edge, though we still had Guido running the Goblin end of the business.

So, there was this guy who was the brains of the Spini family, and he was also a sorcerer. His name was Gherardo. Grandfather told us we could use the crab idol we'd gotten as bait to get Gherardo. This was a big moment for me and my brother and cousins, because we were young and this was the first time that Grandfather had trusted us on something big.

Now, being a sorcerer, Gherardo was one greedy power hungry motherfucker. So we figure, we could get him in a trap if we appeal to this manner of his. Well, we hadn't killed that Spini guy we'd caught after all, and it wasn't on account of me, let me tell you, because I was all hot for revenge, but the deal was, the Spini guy had been set up by his buddies and left to die on account of screwing up some job they'd given him earlier. So he was all ready to double cross his family, 'cause they'd disowned him.

Anyway, so Francesco, who normally is a hotheaded guy but who occasionally comes up with brilliant ideas, hatches up this plan, where we're gonna send the patsy back with the idol and a fake story, and this story will lure Gherardo out to the goblin lands where we can bag him and his buddies. See, the story is, that the idol is key to a magic ritual that makes you immune to fire if you can do it, but it can only be done once per year, in a cave, with the crab idol. The idea being that Gherardo will go out into the goblin lands if he thinks he'll get some cool magical power from it. So, we all think that this is a fine plan, and go about setting it up.

So, Tessa goes to the Oak Demon Queen and gets some really badass poison for backup in case we can't bag the guy...we don't know it at the time but her doing this is crucial to our success.

Francesco gets a fake document written, and we contract a guy to build a fake altar. I go and talk to Tanatave, the Goblin King, and he thinks our idea is a fine one and tells me the location of a cave that we can use. We load up the boat with troops and go to the goblin lands.

So, we get the place all prepared. We make this cave look like a temple, right? And we hide near it, and Tessa puts her poison on some lichen that Gherardo will hopefully eat as part of the ritual. We send off our stooge to give the idol and story to the Spinis and we wait. Actually, before all of that happened I went and talked to Tanatave and he agreed to use runners to keep us appraised of the Spini approach.

Ok, so, one of these runners comes along, and the Spinis are coming, only there are about 45 of them which is way more than there are of us. I am about ready to give up hope when Francesco has the absolutely brilliant plan of doubling back and stealing their boat, so they'll be trapped here. So we do this, boarding their boat, the Graffon, at sea and taking it. We then sail up the river, hoping to buy mercenaries. Well, what do you know, there are a whole bunch of goblin mercenaries because there's a war brewing and they are hoping to get hired by Tanatave only he can't afford it, maybe because he spent all of his money resurrecting Papa Guido. Anyway, we snatch up about 300 goblin mercenaries, and we don't even have to pay them, just give them the loot off of the Spinis, and surround the Spinis, and we find out that Gerardo is already dead on account of the poison, and the whole passle of Spinis surrender to us, and we even get the crab back plus another cool magic item, and we go back home.